Chapter 42
Thousands of people stopped breathing at the same time.
An Asian man wearing sunglasses beneath the stage lights.
And a single piano.
“...Shotgun?”
“H-holy shit! It really is Shotgun!”
“What the hell is going on?”
The murmuring surged upward, only to be pressed back down by the piano melody.
“Wow...”
These were people who had come expecting Cabin.
They had expected the legendary DJing, explosive bass, and drops that would make them stomp their feet.
Instead, the person onstage was Shotgun, someone no one had expected at all.
It would not have been surprising if boos had broken out, but everyone kept their mouths shut.
Within the first four bars, even the thought of booing had disappeared.
“...What is this?”
“Shut up. Just listen.”
A voice walked out of the darkness beside the stage.
“Used to count the streetlights just to fall asleep.”
It was Nova.
“This is insane! Nova’s doing this song?!”
“Did you see that entrance just now?!”
“I’ve got goosebumps!”
“Mama said wake up baby, mornin’ on its way.”
“But mornin’ took my brother, so I told her I’d stay.”
Something like a groan escaped from the audience.
A Black man covered his face with both hands.
The friend beside him grabbed his shoulders and shook him.
“Bro, get a grip. It’s not over yet.”
“I can’t take this, man. I can’t.”
There were plenty of people who had lost brothers in the hood.
Those reacting especially strongly had reasons of their own.
“...”
A gray-haired man stood frozen, unable even to speak.
He belonged to the generation that had breathed the same air on the same streets back when Little K was alive.
His chest ached with the feeling that an old friend had returned after twenty years.
“Wow...”
There were also plenty of younger audience members who had originally come to see Cabin.
Some of them had mocked Shotgun in the comments, calling him an Asian rookie who had briefly blown up during a diss battle and would soon fade away.
But now, none of them could say a word.
“...Man, I think I left a comment trashing that guy yesterday.”
“Shut your mouth and repent.”
“Yeah... I probably should.”
“Then just listen to the song.”
In the wing beside the stage, beyond the reach of the lights—
That crazy bastard...
Lil D, who had just turned the floor upside down with Drive, stood there with his arms crossed.
Lil D knew.
He knew the weight carried by the song being performed on that stage.
He also knew that his own debut album was being made by those same expressionless hands.
Suddenly, he remembered the first day that guy had played him a beat.
He had put on the headphones and found himself unable to speak for a long time.
That one song had become Drive, and it had dragged him all the way from rotting away in the underground scene to Billboard.
I’m glad you’re my producer.
Lil D swallowed the words he could never bring himself to say aloud.
Then it happened.
The verse raced toward its final line, and the piano began to descend.
One note.
Then another.
Like stepping down a staircase.
From D to C-sharp.
The audience did not notice the key change.
They only felt the sensation of the ground dropping away beneath their feet, and the feeling of darkness slowly deepening below them.
One step at a time, into the fog.
“...Why did I suddenly get goosebumps?”
“Me too. Something just changed.”
“I don’t know what. But I’ve got chills down my spine...”
No one in the audience could explain why.
Only the person who had designed it sat onstage, expressionless, pressing the keys.
“...”
Except for one person.
In the middle of the audience, a producer who made beats himself half rose from his seat.
He just dropped the whole thing by a semitone.
Before the verse had even ended, he had subtly pulled the entire tonal center of the song down one step.
And he had done it without anyone in the audience noticing, disguising it as an emotional descent.
He’s doing this live? Is he insane?
Whoosh—
Blue light spread across the left side of the stage.
It fell over the silhouette that had been standing in darkness all along.
“AELLA?!”
“Holy shit, that’s Aella!”
“SHEEEESH! Why is a Billboard pop star here?!”
“What kind of lineup is this?!”
A stage like this could not be made with money alone.
The same realization spread through the floor.
What they were seeing right now would be talked about for years.
This was one of those nights when, someday, they would say, I was there.
“...”
“...”
Jamal and Dustin were also standing side by side, watching the stage.
Dustin was already a complete mess.
Tears the size of fists streamed down his cheeks, and he was sniffling too.
“Bro... if you really think about it, I basically discovered Shotgun.”
“Don’t make me laugh.”
“What do you mean? I’m the one who took Shotgun from outside the laundromat to Big Joe.”
“...That’s not entirely wrong.”
Dustin blew his nose hard and continued.
“But look at that stage. I’m so damn moved I could die, Jamal!”
“...Yeah.”
The moment Jamal nodded, Aella opened her mouth.
“If I never wake up, would you stay?”
Her sorrowful tone settled lightly over the piano melody.
“I think I’m going to cry. Do you have any idea how big an Aella fan I am?”
A woman in the audience lost strength in her legs and sank to the floor.
The people beside her helped her up.
“Every night I’m running from the dawn.”
“Cause when the morning comes, you’ll be gone.”
When Aella had first received the song, she had thought only that it was a good song.
But standing on this stage now, every line of the lyrics struck her differently.
Because somewhere in that audience, there was surely someone who had truly lost a brother.
So Aella slowly closed her eyes.
As though in mourning.
“So let me sleep a little longer, longer.”
There were three people.
Nova, Aella, and Shotgun seated at the piano.
The piano supported Aella, Aella carried forward the lingering emotion left by Nova, and all of it overlapped with the shadow of Little K.
It was a balance that would collapse if even one person slipped.
At the center of it all, the Asian man in sunglasses silently held that balance together.
“One Asian producer... put all of this together?”
“I can’t believe the person who got that lineup onto one stage is a producer who only just stepped into this scene...”
And in the VIP section—
“...Little K.”
Big Joe murmured the name quietly.
The last time he had heard his brother’s voice had been twenty years ago.
That voice had just played during the intro, and now flesh had been added around it until it flowed as a complete song.
Shotgun turned the dream my brother never woke from into a song.
His brother should have been up there on that stage.
The piano was filling the empty space where he should have been.
Shit.
Just this once, Big Joe decided to admit it.
His chest was damn near burning.
He was overwhelmed.
Beside him—
“...”
Mama Rose had her hands clasped together.
Oh, Kiki.
Her son, who had left this world at twenty-two.
His final joke had become the beginning of a song and was now making thousands of people cry.
Mama Rose understood.
She knew that Kiki was joking inside that song.
That little joke about dreaming that he had woken up had ultimately become the saddest truth of all.
I hope you’re having a peaceful dream, my Kiki.
Tears gathered in her eyes.
But the corners of her lips were lifted.
Because her son’s final song had returned to life so brightly.
“Hold me in this dream, don’t let me breathe.”
The final note of the first verse slowly faded away.
The entire venue held its breath and waited for the second verse.
It had been two weeks earlier.
Park Seung-ho remembered that evening.
Geon had sat at the dining table, barely touching his food with his chopsticks, unable to get to the point.
“I’m going to be performing onstage next month. So... I was wondering if you might be able to come watch.”
Park Seung-ho had been happy.
His son was going to perform on a big stage.
But Geon’s face had held something stronger than happiness.
Worry.
He had looked that way throughout the meal.
That night—
“Honey, I think Geon believes we want him to become a lawyer. That he has to.”
“...Yeah.”
Thinking back, Geon had always been like that.
Whenever they asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he always answered clearly, “A lawyer.”
So Park Seung-ho had simply assumed it was his son’s dream.
That was why he had supported him.
Paid the expensive tuition and sent him all the way to law school.
But lately, something had been bothering him.
Was that really Geon’s dream? Or did he say it because he thought we would like it?
Park Seung-ho and Kim Mi-young had opened their restaurant after coming to Los Angeles in 1998.
They had started with nothing and worked their way up from kitchen assistant jobs.
Young Geon had watched all of it as he grew up.
Back when the restaurant was struggling, whenever he saw his father sigh, Geon would quietly come over that night and ask,
“Dad, if I become a lawyer, will we be rich?”
“Of course. If our son becomes a lawyer, Dad will live comfortably.”
At the time, he had only laughed it off.
But looking back now—
What if he took those words seriously?
Park Seung-ho’s chest grew heavy.
The day his son had carried out his beloved music equipment to sell it secondhand.
And what Yul had told them Geon once said:
“Liking something and doing what you have to do are different things.”
...Only now did all the puzzle pieces fit together.
“Honey, Yul. Come here for a minute.”
And so, the three family members had made a plan.
Over several days.
And today—
The three of them were sitting side by side in the middle of the venue.
Onstage, Geon was playing the piano.
...That’s our son?
The people beside them were crying.
A Black man they had never seen before was trembling with his fists clenched, while a woman covered her mouth with both hands.
At the center of it all, Geon’s fingers moved gently over the keys.
“...”
Park Yul kept her mouth tightly shut and stared only at the stage.
She hated hip-hop.
Bragging about money, talking about women, showing off... she hated all of it.
And yet, right now, she was holding her breath so she would not miss a single line of the song her brother had made.
“...Did Oppa really make that? That song on this huge stage?”
“He did.”
“He can play the piano that well too? When did he learn?”
“Dad doesn’t know either...”
Park Seung-ho answered honestly.
There was too much he did not know.
So much that he wondered whether he had really known so little about his own son.
Park Seung-ho gently touched the thing resting on his knees.
He turned his head to the left.
His wife was wiping at the corners of her eyes.
He turned to the right.
His daughter kept swallowing hard.
“Ready?”
The second verse was halfway through.
Thanks to the study method powered by fear of death, my fingers moved on their own.
I could find the keys even with my eyes closed, and the color of the next chord appeared in my mind before I played it.
So for a moment, just for a moment—
I glanced sideways.
...Oh.
People wiping their tears.
People with their hands clasped.
People covering their mouths.
People resting their heads on someone else’s shoulder.
...This is strange.
I only made this because I was scared.
Because I didn’t want Big Joe to kill me, because I would be finished if I ruined his brother’s final work, because fear chased me into making these notes.
The inside of my throat grew hot.
Was I really... just lucky?
Could luck shake this many hearts at the same time?
If it was only luck, the way they were trembling felt too real.
“...”
It was strange.
This feeling was really strange.
Those sounds I had messed around with alone at dawn, wearing headphones.
The sounds I had never thought were good enough for anyone else to hear.
Now they were touching something inside the hearts of thousands of people.
So music...
Was this what it was?
That tiny sound I used to nod along to alone in my room could reach somewhere this deep inside another person.
Something surged up inside me.
I tried to lower my eyes back to the keys.
Then—
...?
In the middle of the audience, I saw three large signs.
It was my family.
Each of them was holding one above their head.
From left to right, I read them one by one.
[Whether you’re a lawyer or a producer]
[Whether you’re Shotgun or Park Geon]
[We’ll always be on your side]
“...”
My mind went blank.
I had always believed my parents wanted me to become a lawyer.
I thought doing music meant betraying that dream.
That was why I hid it, why I made excuses, and why I had trailed off even while inviting them to the performance.
But—
...Maybe that was never true.
My throat tightened.
Slowly, I lowered my gaze and looked at the keys again.
White keys and black keys.
They suddenly began to blur.
My eyes burned.
A single drop of water slid out from beneath the sunglasses.
It ran down his cheek, hung from the tip of his chin—
Drip.
And fell onto the keys.
“...Is he crying?”
The audience covered their mouths.
“Shotgun is crying.”
“That expressionless guy? No way.”
“It’s Little K’s song. Finishing something like that... imagine how heavy it must’ve been.”
“...Damn, that cold bastard broke down in the middle of performing?”
“He must’ve thought of K while he was playing.”
...The audience began to stir.