Chapter 008
Chapter 008
…What the hell is happening right now?
Dustin was shoving people aside in front, Jamal was flicking his gun at my side, and I was walking between them.
Why is everyone making such a huge fuss?
My face muscles had been paralyzed with fear for a while now.
“DAMN!”
“No way, that’s Shotgun?!”
“SHEEEESH!”
Not that long ago, I had been a dutiful son faithfully serving at Gohyangmi.
I had been a second-year law student dreaming of becoming a lawyer.
…All this from bending my finger that one day? The butterfly effect really goes this far?
Dustin opened the backstage door for me.
The moment I stepped inside, the noise of the club came through as though muffled by a layer.
This is supposed to be… a waiting room?
A room in the club backstage.
A few folding chairs, a cracked mirror, and a table with liquor bottles rolling around on it.
“You can wait here.”
Lil D dropped into a seat like he was used to it.
I quietly pulled out my phone.
Because I needed to keep studying right up until I stepped onstage.
I just couldn’t let Lil D catch me, so I kept the volume at zero.
I was skimming through the subtitles only, at double speed.
[Set your cue points in advance, then gradually cut the low EQ right before the drop—]
At this point, I understood the theory more or less.
Thanks to my survival instinct, my efficiency had shot up several times over, and I had practically memorized everything by brute force.
…But I’ve never touched an actual machine before.
This was like grabbing the steering wheel after passing only the written driver’s test.
I raised my head slightly.
Lil D was sitting there with his arms folded, staring only at the floor, and he hadn’t said a word for a while now.
Through the wall, I could hear music pounding.
Other rappers were performing onstage right now.
Every time cheers erupted between songs, the muscles in Lil D’s jaw twitched.
Is he thinking about J-Rackz?
Maybe.
The closer it got to his turn, the stiffer his expression became.
“Shit, there’s something missing.”
“…What?”
“The track itself is good. It came out solid enough that I’d be confident dropping it right now. But this is a club running live, so I feel like it needs something with more impact…”
Lil D tapped the table with his fingers.
I couldn’t tell whether he was counting the beat or trying to calm himself down.
“Especially since this is my first stage back in a year. I need to land a blow on those niggas.”
Lil D closed his eyes.
It looked like he was running through the structure of the track in his head.
Verse, hook, drop.
Where to hit, how to make it explode.
He stayed like that for a while, then opened his eyes.
“Fuck!”
Apparently, he hadn’t found it.
His fist clenched tight.
…Why the hell am I worrying about someone else right now?!
I dropped my eyes back to my phone screen.
Part of it was because I was scared some of his anger might splash onto me.
The subtitles were still scrolling when—
The waiting-room door slammed open.
It was Dustin.
“Yo! J-Rackz’s set started!”
The roar from beyond the wall swelled even louder.
The stage flooded with light.
Smoke rose up around his feet as J-Rackz walked to the center of the stage.
J-Rackz wasn’t Crips.
Different territory, different set.
But J-Rackz’s skill was his pass into this place.
“The Vault.”
That low voice coming through the mic shook the speakers.
“You been waitin’?”
Ayyyyy!
The crowd screamed.
“Yo, DJ! Drop the fuckin’ beat right now!”
At the same time, the DJ dropped the beat.
A trap beat burst through the speakers.
J-Rackz opened his mouth.
“Mama worked the graveyard, I was home alone.”
My mom worked the graveyard shift, and I stayed home alone.
“Now I pull up foreign whips to the same damn zone.”
Now I pull up in foreign cars to that same damn neighborhood.
From the very first verse, the floor started rolling.
Heads in the front row began bobbing up and down, and the wave spread all the way to the back.
He was pouring out a mid-low register dragged up from deep in his chest, and every single line felt like a nail being hammered into a concrete wall.
“Nah, nah!”
“Goes hard!”
Admiring shouts burst from all over.
“Benz on the curb, engine hummin’ like a hymn.”
The Benz is on the curb, engine humming like a hymn.
“I don’t move loud, I let the paper make the noise.”
I move quiet. I let the money make the noise for me.
The hook came in.
J-Rackz thrust the mic toward the crowd.
The entire floor started singing along.
The moment hundreds of voices merged into one, the club ceiling seemed to shake.
“OH SHIT!”
“On God, this man is DIFFERENT!”
“Go crazy!”
VIP section.
Big Joe was watching the stage from the back of the sofa.
He wasn’t smoking his cigar.
He’s good.
J-Rackz wasn’t Crips, but credit had to be given where it was due.
The density of his delivery, the precision of the way he split the beat, and above all, his presence onstage.
Lil D is watching this right now too, probably.
The moment Big Joe muttered that to himself, J-Rackz started replacing the original lyrics with freestyle lines.
“They talk about crowns like it’s somethin’ you inherit.”
They act like a crown is something you inherit.
“Three-sixty-five I held it down, where was you?”
I held it down here three hundred sixty-five days a year. Where were you?
“You left the block, I held it down.”
You left the block, and I stayed.
A near-scream of reaction tore out of the floor.
“OHHHHH!”
J-Rackz never said Lil D’s name directly.
But everyone knew who he was aiming at.
Big Joe lit his cigar.
…Sly bastard.
J-Rackz’s eyes shifted somewhere toward the back of the stage.
Toward the waiting-room side.
“The crown right here — come and take it if you want it.”
The crown is right here—come take it if you want it.
“But don’t act like you the king when you the one who left it.”
But don’t act like you’re the king when you’re the one who left it behind.
The instant the last syllable snapped off, the beat dropped.
J-Rackz slammed the mic to the floor.
Screeeee—
The floor exploded.
“YOOOOO!”
“J-RACKZ! J-RACKZ! J-RACKZ!”
“King of The Vault, on God!”
The chant echoed.
Then J-Rackz stepped off the stage.
Backstage corridor.
He came face-to-face with Lil D coming the other way.
A beat of silence.
J-Rackz spoke first.
“Yo, Lil Dunk.”
He held out his fist.
“Been a minute. Tear the stage up.”
Lil D bumped fists with him.
“You were pretty good, J-Rackz.”
J-Rackz grinned.
Lil D added one more line.
“That freestyle earlier. The one about the crown.”
“Ah, that? It just came out while I was riding the vibe. Don’t take it too personally.”
J-Rackz tapped Lil D lightly on the shoulder as he walked past.
“I always respect you. I mean that.”
His footsteps receded.
Lil D stood in the corridor, watching J-Rackz’s back.
Then Dustin’s voice came flying over.
“Yo, Lil D! Get ready!”
Behind the stage.
The noise of the crowd swelled in through the curtain.
“Lil D is really coming out, right?”
“And Shotgun too?”
“Ayyy, finally!”
Dustin pulled the curtain back a little.
“This is crazy. The floor’s packed wall to wall! I’ve never seen this many people!”
Jamal shoved the gun deeper inside his jacket and jerked his chin.
“Go.”
The curtain opened.
Lil D walked out first.
The lights poured down on him.
The instant he stepped onto the stage, cheers exploded.
“LIL D!”
“AYYYY! He really came!”
After him, Park Geon walked toward the DJ booth.
The view through his sunglasses didn’t feel like the world of the living.
Every face was Black and—ah.
Anyway, hundreds of eyes were all pointed this way.
“That Shotgun?”
“Oh shit, he really is Asian!”
“His style goes hard.”
I reached the DJ booth.
An assistant DJ was standing next to it.
He pointed at the setup and whispered,
“I already set the channels. Cue points are all marked too.”
Park Geon’s eyes swept over the controller.
He had seen it hundreds of times in videos, but this was the first time he had ever seen a real one.
“You wanted to see me that bad?!”
Lil D shouted toward the floor.
“YEAHHH!”
The answer came crashing back.
Lil D grinned, pressed the mic close to his mouth, and then looked toward the DJ booth.
Our eyes met.
“Aight then, drop that shit, cuz!”
At that moment,
Park Geon triggered the cue point.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
The beat dropped square on the count.
The vibration rose from the soles of his feet, climbed his knees, passed his waist, and struck his chest.
The crowd began throwing their arms up and down in rhythm.
Seen from the stage…
it looked exactly like waves.
Lil D opened his mouth.
“Shorty next to me ask what I do for a living.”
The girl next to me asks what I do for a living.
“I just smile and say baby I run these streets.”
I just smile and say, baby, I run these streets.
Lil D’s flow slid across the beat.
It was a different style from J-Rackz.
It had the texture of something spilling over.
Emotion leaked through between the syllables.
“Lil D, this new track is insane!”
“Oh, SHIT!”
“This is the one he did with Shotgun, right?!”
“Yo, Shotgun!”
The floor went absolutely wild.
People in the front row were already mumbling along with the lyrics.
It was a brand-new song, but their bodies were reacting before their heads could catch up.
Park Geon was staring only at the machine.
No one could see his eyes behind the sunglasses.
He’s not bad.
The assistant DJ cast a sideways glance at Park Geon.
His expression was hard to read because of the sunglasses, but his hand movements were steady.
“Yo, Shotgun. You good?”
“…Good.”
There was no way he was good.
His back was soaked with sweat.
Still, up to here, it was fine.
Just like he had prepared.
Now all he had to do was hit the knob on the next beat and—
“!”
His hand slipped.
A different button got pressed.
The beat started fading down.
Whi-whi-whi—
And then it cut out completely.
…Silence.
Park Geon’s mind went blank.
One second.
Two seconds.
He had to move his fingers.
He had to restart the beat.
He had to press some button.
But his hand had frozen.
Which button was it?
Was it this one?
Was it the one next to it?
Several similar-looking knobs were lined up side by side.
The assistant DJ turned his head.
Looked at the controller, then at Park Geon, then back at the controller.
A crease formed between his brows.
What is he doing all of a sudden?
Was it a mistake?
Shotgun didn’t move.
His finger was frozen above the button.
Three seconds.
Four seconds.
The empty space was widening.
The hole was getting bigger and bigger.
People in the audience were starting to tilt their heads in confusion.
It’s over.
Everything’s over now.
Just as Park Geon started searching for an escape route—
“My dawg took three to the chest on Hoover.”
Into that empty space where the beat had vanished, a single voice entered.
No instruments at all.
Only a human voice.
“Sixteen years old, Mama couldn’t even choose a casket that was right, had to use a GoFundMe.”
(GoFundMe - A real crowdfunding platform often used in the United States for emergencies, funerals, and medical needs.)
He was sixteen. His mama didn’t even have enough money to choose the right casket, had to start an online fundraiser.
The movement on the floor began to stop.
One by one, people’s mouths started falling open.
“I was standing on that block when the shots rang.”
I was standing on that block when the gunshots rang out.
“Watched my nigga fall and I ain’t feel a damn thing.”
I watched my brother fall and couldn’t feel a damn thing.
With no melody under it, the lyrics came through naked.
The music wasn’t there to wrap around them, so the words hit exactly as they were.
“Numb to it now, that’s just how we survive.”
I’ve gone numb to it now. That’s just how we survive.
“Pour a little Henny, keep his memory alive.”
Pour a little Hennessy. Keep his memory alive.
(Translator’s Note:Hennessy - A real cognac brand frequently referenced in hip-hop and hood culture.)
“……”
Big Joe’s cigar fell out of his mouth.
That verse hadn’t been there the last time he heard the track.
Which meant Lil D was now riding Shotgun’s timing and spitting freestyle on the fly.
A verse soaked in the grief of losing a brother.
As he listened to it, his own brother’s face flashed across his mind.
Lil K.
The brother who died in a drive-by at twenty-two.
That day when tribute tracks came out before the blood had even dried on the asphalt.
And then—
Lil D’s voice dropped another notch.
“But when my dawg got hit, where was you? You was gone.”
But when my brother got shot, where were you? You weren’t even in the neighborhood.
The instant that freestyle verse, sounding like it was aimed straight at J-Rackz, came to an end—
Fuck!
Park Geon smashed down on a random button.
The electronic sound of a piano came in.
Lil D’s last syllable overlapped with the first piano note.
“SHEEEESH!”
…The club exploded.
“Bruh, goosebumps! Goosebumps! On God!”
“What the hell did I just witness?!”
“The beat comes back in at exactly that timing? At that timing?!”
“What is this?! What the hell is this?!”
“Nigga! This is all-time shit! All-time!”
The assistant DJ ripped his headphones off and threw them aside.
“YO! SHOTGUN! You calculated that?!”
The entire floor was shaking.
People were grabbing the shoulders of the person next to them and shaking them.
Strangers were throwing their arms around each other.
The hands that had been filming on phones were now waving wildly in the air because they were too hyped to stay still.
And in the VIP section—
“……”
Big Joe shot to his feet.