Friday came faster than Minjun expected — and yet, every hour until it arrived felt like chewing glass. He double-checked his bag so many times that the zipper caught on the fabric and tore it slightly. He barely noticed. He couldn't afford new bags anyway.
At the bus stop, he stood alone, earbuds in but no music playing — just the hum of the city under his ribs while he mouthed the lyrics to his newest chorus over and over. The bus rolled up twenty minutes late, but today, for once, Minjun didn't curse it. He boarded, slid into a sticky seat, and stared at the plastic Starline building address on his phone like it was a secret code that might disappear if he blinked.
He'd passed the Starline Entertainment building a hundred times before — on the way to the cheap music store that let him browse guitars he'd never buy, or the corner fried chicken stall with the only Wi-Fi signal strong enough to upload his demos. He used to stop at the crosswalk, look up at the glittering logo halfway up the tower's glass face, and whisper: Someday.
Standing in front of it now, he felt stupid for all those whispered prayers — but he felt something else, too. Something like his chest cracking open.
Inside, the lobby was so white and bright it made his café's sticky floor feel like another planet. Everything gleamed — the floor tiles, the wide reception desk, the enormous screen looping music videos of Starline's biggest groups. He saw the same boy band he'd covered in his high school festival once — their perfect hair, their perfect smiles, their names in neon font above their perfect faces. He tried to imagine his face there too. It made him dizzy.
"Name?" the receptionist asked without looking up."Yoon Minjun," he said, voice dry. He cleared his throat and repeated it. "Yoon Minjun. I have a meeting with Jang PD-nim. Three PM."
The woman finally looked at him — her expression carefully neutral. She typed something, nodded once, handed him a visitor badge."Seventh floor. End of the hall. Meeting room B."
He muttered a thank you and bowed so awkwardly he nearly knocked the badge from her hand. He pressed the elevator button with a shaking finger. He could feel eyes on him — other trainees waiting in the lobby, girls in pristine school uniforms with makeup too perfect for their age, boys wearing designer hoodies that probably cost more than his family's grocery bill for a month.
Don't look at them, he told himself. Look up. Keep going.
The seventh floor was quieter. The lights felt softer, the air colder. Posters lined the hallway — practice room schedules, strict signs in bold Hangul: NO PHONES. NO RECORDING. NO LOITERING.
At the far end, a single glass door sat half-open under a flickering fluorescent light. A young woman in jeans and a crisp blazer leaned against the wall, flipping through a tablet. She looked up when she saw him.
"Yoon Minjun?""Yes!" He bowed again, nearly bumping his forehead against the door frame.She raised an eyebrow but didn't smile. "You're early. Good. Wait here."
She vanished inside, leaving him staring at his reflection in the glass door — hair slightly messy, collar askew, hands trembling at his sides. He forced them into his pockets. He tried to slow his breathing.
A few minutes later, she poked her head back out. "Come in."
The meeting room looked nothing like the lobby's marble shine — just a plain rectangular space with mismatched chairs, a whiteboard scribbled with song titles and dates, a single speaker on the corner table, and three men hunched over a laptop.
The one in the middle — Jang PD-nim, Minjun assumed — barely looked older than thirty, but his expression was stone-cold serious. The other two wore all black, their hair styled sharp and stiff, as if they'd been plucked from a styling shoot ten minutes ago.
Minjun stepped inside, bowed low enough to feel his spine creak."Annyeonghaseyo. Yoon Minjun imnida. Nice to meet you."
"Sit." Jang PD-nim didn't look up. He clicked something on his laptop, and suddenly, the room filled with Minjun's voice — rough, unpolished, but undeniably his. The demo he'd recorded at two in the morning, mumbling into a cheap mic while his mother slept in the next room.
Hearing it now, echoing off these cold walls, made his stomach knot. Every flat note sounded twice as flat. Every shaky line felt like a mistake screaming at him. He forced himself not to fidget.
When the song ended, the silence crawled under his skin. Jang PD-nim finally leaned back, fixing Minjun with an unreadable look."You wrote this?""Yes, sir. Lyrics, melody, arrangement.""You produce too?""A little. On my laptop. I'm still learning.""You dance?"
Minjun hesitated. "I… I can learn. I have rhythm. I've never had lessons, but I —"One of the men in black snorted. Jang PD-nim didn't react."Stand up." He flicked his hand toward the empty floor. "Show me. Thirty seconds. Anything."
Minjun's mouth went dry. He hadn't planned for this. He'd prepared a pitch for his songs, a polite thank you speech, but not a dance. Not here. Not cold like this.
But he moved. He had to. He shed his backpack, stepped into the middle of the room, shut his eyes for a split second, and pulled up the only choreography he really knew — the festival cover he'd done two years ago. It wasn't perfect, but he let his body remember the beat, his feet hitting the tile with soft, determined thuds.
When he finished, panting, he heard the woman in the blazer scribble something on her tablet. Jang PD-nim's expression hadn't changed.
"You have potential," he said flatly. "Rough. Very rough. But there's something. We're planning a new boy group project. We need self-producing members. Kids who can write, arrange — real identity, not just faces. If you make it through the first training cut, you might fit."
Minjun swallowed. "Thank you. I'll work hard. I —""Don't thank me yet," Jang PD-nim cut him off. "Training means you live here. Minimum six months. No distractions. No excuses. If you can't keep up, you're out. If you can't adapt, you're out. If you can't dance, you're out."
Minjun's pulse hammered so hard he thought it might echo in the room. "Yes, sir. I understand."
"You start tomorrow. Seven AM. Practice room C. Be early."
And just like that, the meeting was over. One of the men in black handed him a trainee contract — thin paper, heavy words. The woman in the blazer gave him a polite, distant nod.
Outside the room, Minjun pressed his back to the cool hallway wall, the contract clutched to his chest like a lifeline. He read the first page, hands trembling. No distractions.No excuses.Out if you fail.
He smiled anyway — a raw, crooked grin that felt too big for his face.This is it, he thought. This is how it begins for real.