Broken Wings and a Single DM

The stage under the pouring spotlight had always been stiflingly hot, and cruelly, blindingly bright.

In the pounding beat that shook her heart, nineteen-year-old Yoon Dohee chased her own reflection in the mirror. Razor-sharp group choreography, every strand of hair calculated to the perfect angle, the alluring smile she wore with her lips parted just so. This was the final-round survival stage for the next girl group debut team at a major entertainment company. Four long years of sleeping only three or four hours a night, sweeping the practice-room floor until her ankles were purple with bruises—all of it hung on these few minutes of performance. Even as her breath tore at her lungs and her chest felt ready to split, Dohee never lost her smile. This was the stage she had prayed for every night, the one place she believed she could shine brightest.

But after the last sound cut out and the cheers faded, the names that rose from the cool silence did not include the three syllables “Yoon Dohee.”

“Dohee, can you stay a moment?”

In the empty waiting room, after everyone else had gone, the development-team manager stood before her. The dazzling stage costume only made her look more pitiful. He flipped through a dry folder of documents and spoke in a thoroughly businesslike tone.

“As you know, this group’s concept is hip and fierce girl-crush. You’re very pretty and hardworking, Dohee… but you don’t quite match our color. Too pure, too classical—like a cat of the elegant variety. The company thought long and hard about it, but this is as far as it goes. You’re turning twenty soon, so looking into another path would be better for both of us. You’ve worked hard.”

She could not even take the hand he offered. Dohee simply bowed her head, dazed. With those few words of “you’ve worked hard,” four years of sleepless nights and tears, the flesh-carving diets and the entire record of her youth, crumpled into worthless trash. That night, sitting on the basement stairs of the agency building, clutching her bruised ankles and weeping, the naïve trust in the world that had lived in a corner of her chest shattered along with everything else.

But the world did not even grant her time to sit and cry. Before she could gather the ruins of her dream, the reality of twenty came striding toward her. Dohee gritted her teeth and turned her eyes to the real world. Using her naturally slender lines, her pale translucent beauty, and the upright posture drilled into her as a trainee, she enrolled in the aviation department of a specialized junior college. Even if she had not become an idol, if she could become a neat, sky-flying flight attendant, she thought she could support her single mother and live an ordinary, happy life.

The moment she entered university, Dohee became famous overnight. Whenever she walked the campus in her crisp navy gwajam—the aviation department’s varsity jacket—the gazes of passing male students locked onto her as if by prearranged signal. On the anonymous campus community Everytime, posts shot up almost daily and became recommended: “Who’s the aviation freshman in the white shirt with the bag in front of the student center today,” “I genuinely thought she was a celebrity.” Her classmates called her the “campus goddess,” their voices a mixture of envy and jealousy.

Yet behind that glittering nickname, Dohee’s real daily life was a merciless shade of ash.

Living alone with her mother in a cramped, damp basement room on the outskirts of Seoul, university tuition and Seoul’s brutal living costs felt like boulders she could not lift. Even with national scholarships and loans, the monthly rent, transportation, and food still strangled her. By day she raced through major lectures and language classes; the moment the sun set she ran to a convenience store near the cram-school district and began her part-time shift. Even that was not enough—on weekends she worked ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as a wedding-guest stand-in, buffet kitchen help, short-term flyer distributor, never sparing her body. After standing all day her calves swelled rock-hard like elephant legs, and at night she had to lie on the dusty floor and groan.

“Dohee, you work so hard because of Mom… I’m sorry, my daughter.”

Whenever her mother pressed a cheap pain patch onto Dohee’s legs after work and wiped away tears with her dry hands, Dohee forced a smile onto her body that felt ready to break.

“I’m not tired, Mom. You know I’ve got good stamina. Just hang on a little longer. When I graduate and start flying, I’ll put you in business class and take you around the whole world.”

That firm, transparent vow was trampled into ruin on a cruelly blue day in May.

It had been an ordinary evening; she was about to make dinner out of a triangle kimbap nearing its expiration date at the convenience-store counter. Suddenly her phone rang with an unfamiliar number. Her heart began to pound with ominous force.

The moment the doctor’s hard, urgent voice poured through the receiver, the triangle kimbap slipped from Dohee’s hand and hit the floor. White-faced, she bolted outside without even time to explain to the store manager. Breath tearing at her throat, legs giving out so that she fell more than once, she ran all the way to the hospital.

The corridor outside the emergency room was thick with the sharp smell of disinfectant and cold air. The red “Surgery in Progress” light above the operating-room door felt like a brand searing into her heart. Alone on the long hallway bench she clenched her fists until her nails dug into her flesh and prayed. Please, please save Mom. I’ll give up my dreams and live this hard for the rest of my life, just don’t take Mom away—she screamed the words inside herself a thousand times.

After more than six hours of major surgery, the doctor walked out looking exhausted.

“We got her through the critical stage of the operation, but when the aorta ruptured, blood flow to the brain was temporarily cut off. I can’t guarantee when she will regain consciousness. She’ll need intensive care in the ICU while we monitor her condition. Brace yourself.”

Before the doctor had even finished speaking, an administrative staff member approached Dohee and held out a thick sheaf of papers—the interim settlement listing emergency surgery fees, initial consultation costs, and the projected ICU maintenance charges. The moment she saw the number printed at the bottom, Dohee felt the world go white and recede from her eyes.

Twelve million five hundred thousand won.

That was only the beginning. Every day an unconscious patient remained in the ICU, non-covered costs and hospitalization fees beyond imagination would accumulate. Dohee collapsed into a corner of the hospital emergency-exit stairwell, clutching the soiled receipt until her hands cracked. Even if she worked twenty-four hours a day for a month at the convenience-store wage of ten thousand won an hour and spent not a single coin, she could never touch that sum. Adding a few more part-time jobs would not solve a number of this magnitude. She called every relative she could think of and begged through tears, but people she barely saw in ordinary times hung up claiming they were busy the moment they heard the tens of millions, or coldly turned away saying they had their own hardships.

The world gave the penniless no time even to grieve. In two days the first hospital bill had to be paid, and the administrative office’s pressure that they might not be able to keep her mother in the ICU if the deposit was not filled tightened around Dohee’s throat.

She returned to the convenience store. By day she sat in lecture halls like a soul that had left its body; by night she leaned on the counter with hollow eyes and opened her wallet. The balance remaining in her account was exactly forty-seven thousand two hundred won. With that money she could not even buy a single bottle of the medicine that went into ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her mother’s oxygen respirator. The vast monster called reality seemed to be strangling her and snapping her bones.

Two-thirty in the morning. Inside the quiet convenience store where even drunks had grown scarce, Dohee opened her smartphone with trembling hands. Scrolling the screen with the desperation of someone at the bottom of despair clutching at straws, a notification popup appeared at the top of the display.

An Instagram DM—direct message—alert.

Because of her outstanding looks, model offers and thinly veiled sponsorship messages often appeared in her feed, so she almost dismissed it. But the first sentences visible on the screen seized her gaze completely.

Dohee swallowed hard and, as if possessed, tapped open the message box. The sender’s profile photo showed a man’s hand gripping the wheel of a foreign car worth hundreds of millions of won. Beyond the wheel a luxury watch glittered. The bio simply read: “Gangnam Business Agency Recruitment Manager, Han Siljang.”

One million won a day.

And same-day cash settlement.

Those sweet, fatal words lodged in Dohee’s pupils and would not leave. Her rational brain was screaming the emergency alarm. Twenty-year-old Dohee was not so foolish that she failed to understand what the polished terms “high-end lounge,” “conversation partner,” and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠“same-day settlement” truly meant. They pointed to the threshold of the nightlife industry—the kind of place that appeared only in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠news stories or shady internet rags. The pure, prideful Yoon Dohee of ordinary days would have shuddered with disgust the moment she read the message, blocked him at once, and reported him.

But the Dohee of now was in no condition for normal thought. She hung dangling from the edge of a cliff, staring down into the abyss of ruin that yawned beneath her feet. If she could not find the money by the day after tomorrow, the hospital would discharge her mother or stop treatment, and that would mean her mother’s death.

If Mom dies while I’m busy protecting my pride just so I can keep my own body comfortable… can I even call myself human?

Twisted self-justification raised its head from the depths of Dohee’s heart. She had endured being unfairly cut from the debut team because she had no money. She had swallowed the humiliation of carrying a worn-out eco-bag to the convenience store while her friends went to meetings with luxury handbags. But the fact that she would have to lose her only family because she had no money—that, she simply could not accept. Morality, chastity, a pure soul: those were luxuries enjoyed only by people who were full and warm right now.

Even while her instincts screamed that this place was a black swamp reeking of rot, and that once she stepped in she might never return to being an ordinary college girl, the glittering wad of cash shining inside that swamp felt like the only lifeline that could save her.

Beyond the convenience-store window where the bluish mist of dawn had settled, the night sky of Gangnam burned with distant, gorgeous neon. Dohee gasped for breath and began to type with fingers that trembled violently. This was the moment the pure white wings of the campus goddess were cut away by the scissors of reality.

The moment she sent the message, the little “1” beside the chat window vanished like a mirage in less than five seconds. Then replies began to clatter up one after another. It was the moment the vast darkness of Gangnam roughly opened its jaws toward its pure twenty-year-old sacrifice.