Disbandment Day
Chapter 1 – Disbandment Day
Joonseo never bought the penthouse.
He could have–ten times over–without blinking, without checking the price tag, without hearing his bank balance complain. But he’d always believed that the louder your life looked, the easier it was for the world to find you. And Kang Joonseo didn’t want the world to find him.
Not the reporters who wrote profiles like they were carving tombstones.
Not the investors who smiled like friends and spoke like owners.
Not the strangers who thought a man was only as good as the numbers attached to his name.
So he lived in a clean, ordinary apartment on a quiet street, in a building that looked like it belonged to anyone. The hallway smelled faintly of detergent and instant noodles. The elevator sighed when it climbed. The neighbors didn’t know his face. The delivery riders didn’t hesitate when they knocked. Nobody took secret photos.
His living room was tidy in the way tidy things are when nobody is allowed to stay long. A grey couch. A small dining table. A cheap plant that was somehow still alive. A bookshelf filled with titles that looked respectable–econometrics, machine learning, behavioral finance–arranged with a precision that suggested he didn’t trust accidents.
He owned one watch that looked like it came from a department store. His sneakers were always the same brand. His hoodies were plain, his jeans unremarkable, his hair always slightly too neat–like someone who didn’t believe the world should see him disheveled.
He was the kind of man who could disappear in a crowd.
And in a city full of people trying to be seen, disappearing was a superpower.
In his closet, behind a row of identical black jackets, there was a plastic storage box full of secrets.
Lightsticks. Photo cards. Concert slogans. A folded banner with the words LUMINA 1st FAN MEETING printed in glittery pink that had shed onto everything it touched. Three copies of the same album–two unopened, still sealed, because he’d bought them on different days to make the chart numbers move even a little.
There were handwritten notes too, tucked into the box like contraband.
Stream at 6 PM.
Vote on Mubeat.
Buy from verified stores.
Rules of devotion. Rituals of staying.
A life he didn’t show anyone.
A life where he wasn’t CEO Kang.
Not “the guy who built KJ Neural in a garage and turned it into a global AI empire.”
Not the anonymous market ghost who moved money like weather, the invisible hand behind sudden green candles that made analysts whisper and pundits guess.
In that life, he was simply–
A fan.
He didn’t have a fancy fan handle. No neon username. No public account with curated edits.
He was private, even in love.
Because the thing about loving something purely was that it didn’t survive audiences well.
On the night it happened, the apartment lights were off.
Only the glow of his laptop lit the room.
Joonseo sat on his couch with his knees pulled close, like the posture could keep something from spilling out of him. The laptop rested on his thighs, warm through his sweatpants. His phone lay facedown on the table beside him. The market was closed. His models were running in the background on a silent server. His emails could wait.
Tonight wasn’t for money.
Tonight was for them.
The livestream was open.
A company backdrop. Too glossy. Too big.
Five girls in a line, hands folded neatly in front of them like they’d been trained to hold themselves small. Their makeup was lighter than usual. Their eyes were heavier.
A subtle crack ran down the middle of Joonseo’s chest.
He reached into the storage box without turning on any lights, as if the dark could protect him, and pulled out his lightstick.
It was a ridiculous thing to hold in his living room, alone. Too bright. Too childish. Too honest.
But he’d always done it.
Every comeback. Every showcase. Every award show where LUMINA was nominated in categories with names that sounded like apologies.
He turned it on.
The plastic warmed under his palm.
A pale, stubborn glow bloomed in the dark.
On the screen, the leader drew in a breath.
“We… have an announcement,” she said.
Joonseo’s fingers tightened around the lightstick.
His brain tried to do what it always did: calculate.
He was a man who believed everything could be solved if you understood the system well enough.
If you mapped the variables.
If you predicted the flows.
If you made the right trades in the right moments.
He’d built an empire on that belief.
But some systems were built to grind people down.
And idols lived inside one.
The camera shifted slightly and caught Yuna–second from the left.
Han Yuna.
Her hair was tied back simply. No dramatic styling, no stage glitter, no perfect curl. Just the line of her cheek, the quiet slope of her nose, the way her lashes trembled when she looked down.
He didn’t know her.
Not truly.
But he knew her voice the way you know the sound of rain against your window on nights you can’t sleep. He knew which expressions she made before she hit a difficult note. He knew the tiny habit she had of pressing her thumb to the side of her index finger when she was nervous.
He knew her like a person knows a song they’ve replayed too many times, until it becomes memory.
The leader’s words finally landed.
“…LUMINA will be disbanding.”
Joonseo didn’t blink.
For a moment, the sentence didn’t enter him.
Disbanding?
But they were only five years old.
They hadn’t even gotten their first music show win.
They hadn’t even gotten the big stage.
They hadn’t even gotten–
His thoughts snapped mid-spiral as the camera caught one member covering her face. Another’s shoulders shook. Someone off-screen sniffled.
Yuna didn’t cry.
Not yet.
She stared straight ahead like she was holding herself together with sheer force.
Joonseo felt something go hollow in his stomach, like the floor had quietly disappeared.
He watched their bows. Their apologies. Their gratitude that sounded like grief in disguise.
Watched them say, Thank you for loving us.
Watched them say, We’re sorry.
Watched them say, Please remember us.
The livestream ended.
The screen went dark.
The room stayed lit only by the lightstick in his hand.
Joonseo stared at it like it was a dying star.
Then, slowly, he turned it off.
The click was quiet.
Final.
The dark rushed in.
And in that dark, he realized something that had nothing to do with business or models or money.
He had always thought his devotion was safe because it asked for nothing.
He never demanded a reply.
Never believed he deserved a glance.
Never tried to be important.
He simply stayed.
But staying didn’t guarantee anything.
Not in love.
Not in life.
The next morning, the market opened like nothing had happened.
Stocks rose. Stocks fell. Headlines screamed. Analysts talked. Money moved.
Joonseo took a shower. Put on his plain hoodie. Brewed his coffee.
Black.
Always black.
Bitter enough to keep him awake.
He sat at his desk, two monitors on, keyboard aligned perfectly, the world reduced to numbers and arrows and charts.
The green and red flickered like heartbeat monitors.
His AI forecasts scrolled across the screen. Probability distributions. Risk bands. Correlation matrices.
A green line cut through noise.
Numbers behaved.
They always did.
He made a trade that morning that netted him eight figures in a single swing.
He didn’t feel anything.
His phone buzzed–one notification after another.
A journalist trying to guess the identity behind a market move.
A venture partner wanting lunch.
A message from his legal counsel about some compliance issue.
He ignored them all.
Because his second monitor–hidden behind a neat arrangement of tabs–was open to LUMINA’s page.
Their group photo looked brighter than it had any right to.
Five girls smiling like the world wasn’t sharp.
Joonseo stared at Yuna’s smile and thought:
So this is it.
He’d spent years supporting from the sidelines, quietly, faithfully, believing that if he stayed long enough, the world would eventually notice them.
But the world hadn’t.
And now, they were gone.
He took a sip of his coffee.
It was bitter.
He didn’t add sugar.
He told himself bitterness was fine.
He was used to it.
Months passed.
Life became a loop.
Work. Coffee. Charts. Silence.
Joonseo still went outside. Still met people. Still attended meetings. Still smiled when he needed to. Still acted like a man whose life was intact.
But something in him had gone quiet.
Not dramatic.
Not loud.
Just… muted.
He didn’t go to concerts anymore. There weren’t any. He didn’t line up for fan events. There weren’t any.
He stopped refreshing social media the way he used to.
Because every refresh felt like touching a bruise.
Sometimes, late at night, he’d open the storage box.
The smell of plastic and paper would hit him–a scent that didn’t belong to his clean apartment.
He’d take out a photo card and stare.
Yuna holding a mic with both hands, smiling shyly.
Yuna in a practice room hoodie, hair messy, giving a peace sign.
Yuna on stage under pink lights, eyes shining like she believed in tomorrow.
He never posted them.
Never bragged.
Never even told anyone he owned them.
Because this wasn’t about showing the world.
It was about having one thing that made him feel less alone.
And losing it had changed the shape of his days.
On an ordinary afternoon–too bright, too loud, too alive–Joonseo walked through an older neighborhood with his phone in hand.
He wasn’t “looking for stock tips.”
He didn’t do that.
He collected signals.
Human behavior. Local sentiment. Small ripples that became waves.
A rumor about a supply chain shift.
A new franchise opening.
A sudden shortage of something that shouldn’t be scarce.
Noise, until it wasn’t.
He turned a corner and saw a café that looked like it had forgotten to die.
The sign above the door was chipped.
SECOND VERSE.
The windows were dusty. The menu board was handwritten but faded. Inside, the lights were warm in a way that felt almost stubborn.
There were no customers.
Not even one.
Joonseo paused, not because he wanted coffee–
but because the quiet inside called to him.
He pushed the door open.
A bell rang overhead, soft and tired.
The air smelled like espresso and something slightly burnt.
And then he saw her.
Behind the counter, wearing an apron that looked too big on her, hair tied back simply, was a girl with tired eyes and familiar hands.
She was wiping down the same spot over and over, like she was trying to erase a feeling.
Joonseo’s breath caught.
It took him half a second to recognize the face without stage makeup.
Without lights.
Without the polished distance of a screen.
But he knew.
Of course he knew.
Han Yuna.
His idol.
His favorite voice.
Standing in a café that looked one bad week away from closing forever.
For a moment, he forgot how to move.
Yuna glanced up at the sound of the bell.
Their eyes met.
Her expression flickered–confusion, polite fatigue, the automatic customer-service smile forming–
and then, for the smallest moment, something else.
Like she felt a strange familiarity in a stranger.
Joonseo lowered his gaze first.
Because if he didn’t, he might break.
He walked to the counter like an ordinary man.
Like someone who hadn’t spent years loving her from far away.
“Hi,” he said, voice steady through sheer discipline. “Can I get… an Americano?”
Yuna blinked, then nodded.
“Hot or iced?”
“Hot,” he answered.
Her hands moved, practiced even in exhaustion. The espresso machine hissed like a quiet sigh.
Joonseo watched her fingers. The way she held the cup. The way her shoulders dipped slightly as if the weight of the day never left.
When she placed the drink on the counter, her smile was gentle but strained.
“That’ll be… five thousand won,” she said.
Joonseo paid.
He added a tip–small enough to not be insulting, but enough to be kind.
Yuna’s eyes flicked to the bill. Her brows tightened.
“Oh–” she began, startled. “You don’t have to–”
“It’s fine,” he said quickly. Too quickly. Then he softened his voice, as if gentleness could hide how hard his heart was pounding. “Your coffee smells… really good.”
Yuna looked at him again, like she was trying to decide if he was sincere.
Then her expression eased. Just a little.
“…Thank you,” she said quietly.
Joonseo nodded, cup warm in his hands, and turned to find a seat.
He chose the corner.
Not the center.
Not the spotlight.
Because that was always how he loved her.
From the sidelines.
He sat down and took a slow sip.
The coffee was slightly bitter.
Not terrible.
Just honest.
He let the bitterness sit on his tongue and thought, absurdly, of his own mornings.
Black coffee.
No sugar.
A habit that had become a personality.
Across the café, Yuna wiped the counter again.
Same spot.
Same motion.
Like she was keeping herself moving so she wouldn’t feel how empty the chairs were.
Joonseo watched her quietly.
The world didn’t know this girl.
Not anymore.
There would be no encore.
No staff to protect her.
No fans to fill the seats.
Just her.
Alone.
Trying to survive.
Something in Joonseo’s chest stirred awake.
Not excitement.
Not heroism.
Just a quiet, stubborn decision.
He didn’t know what it would become.
He didn’t know what he was allowed to hope for.
But as he sat in the corner of Second Verse with a bitter coffee in his hands, he realized one thing with clarity that shocked him.
This wasn’t the end of her song.
Maybe this–
was the beginning of the second verse.