Chapter 1: Birthday Betrayal Backstage
The air backstage tasted like burnt wires and cheap beer. A damp heat clung to everything, rising from the pulsing crowd still chanting the band’s name beyond the thick black curtain. Dunk shifted the small, stupid cake box from one hand to the other, feeling the cardboard grow soft with sweat from his palm. He’d written “Happy Birthday Joong” himself, in blue icing that was now starting to bleed at the edges.
A roadie shoved past, a coil of cables snaking over his shoulder. “He’s almost off,” the guy grunted, not breaking stride.
Dunk nodded, his throat tight. He could hear the final, feedback-scorched chords of the encore ringing through the floor, feeling the vibration in his molars. Then the roar hit, a physical wave of sound that shook the dust from the rafters. The curtain jerked aside.
They poured offstage first—Force and Aun, the drummer and bassist, their shirts soaked through, faces split with exhausted, electric grins. They high-fived a waiting tech, laughing, breathless. Then came Book, the lead guitarist, his instrument already slung over his back. And then Joong.
Joong emerged like something forged in the furnace of those lights. His black hair was plastered to his temples, his stage makeup smudged under eyes that glittered with a fierce, post-performance high. He radiated a heat that had nothing to do with temperature. He was pulling in deep, ragged breaths, a mic still clutched loosely in his hand.
This was the moment. Dunk took a half-step forward, the cake held out in front of him like an offering. “Joong,” he started, his voice lost in the residual hum.
Joong’s gaze swept past him. It didn’t linger, didn’t register. It was like scanning an empty chair. He walked straight toward Dunk, and for a heart-lifting second, Dunk thought he’d seen him. But Joong didn’t stop. He turned his shoulder, a sharp, deliberate move, and brushed past him. The contact was a dismissive nudge, enough to make Dunk stumble back a step.
The air where Joong had been felt suddenly cold.
“You were insane tonight,” Joong said, his voice a low, intimate rasp. He wasn’t talking to Dunk. He’d slung an arm around Book’s neck, pulling him close. His lips were almost touching Book’s ear. “That solo? I felt it in my spine.” He laughed, a private sound, and Book grinned, shoving him playfully.
Dunk stood frozen, the cake box a lead weight in his hands. The blue icing now looked garish, childish. The muffled laughter of the band faded down the grimy hallway toward the dressing rooms, leaving him alone in the sudden, hollow silence. A hot spike of humiliation drove straight up from his gut into his throat. He’d dressed carefully, he’d waited, he’d baked the damn cake himself because he knew Joong hated the oversweet fondant from professional shops.
A door down the hall banged open, spilling louder laughter and the thump of a bassline from a phone speaker. Dunk flinched, turning blindly away from the noise. He walked fast, not knowing where he was going, just needing to be anywhere else. The labyrinth of passageways led him past stacked flight cases and forgotten water bottles to a dimmer corridor lit by a single flickering fluorescent tube.
He leaned against the cool cinderblock wall, squeezing his eyes shut. Breathe. Just breathe. It was always like this. The public smiles for the cameras, the practiced ease during interviews, and then this—the glacial indifference the second the lights were off. Maybe that’s all it was. A business arrangement. A contract he was too stupid to read the fine print of.
“Look what the cat dragged in.”
Dunk’s eyes snapped open. Benz leaned against the doorway of a storage closet, his arms crossed over his chest. His sharp, handsome face was lit with a familiar, mocking amusement. He was still in his stage clothes, the sequins catching the bad light in cynical winks.
“Not now, Benz,” Dunk muttered, pushing off the wall.
“Aw, come on. Let me see.” Benz pushed forward and flipped open the cake box lid with a finger. He let out a low whistle. “Homemade. That’s pathetic.” He looked up, his eyes scanning Dunk’s face. “Let me guess. He didn’t want it.”
“He was busy,” Dunk said, the defense sounding weak even to him.
“He’s always busy,” Benz corrected, his voice dropping, losing its theatrical edge for a second. It was almost sympathetic. Almost. “Especially when it comes to you.” He leaned back against the doorframe, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket. He tapped one out but didn’t light it. “You know what they’re calling you two in the fan forums? ‘Sunshine and Silent Treatment.’ They think it’s cute. They think his ‘brooding mystery’ complements your ‘golden retriever energy.’” He gave a short, humorless laugh. “They don’t have to stand here holding the cake.”
Each word was a precise, tiny cut. Dunk looked down at the box. The bleeding blue letters seemed to mock him. Sunshine. He felt anything but.
“Why do you even bother?” Benz asked, the question hanging in the dank air between them.
Dunk didn’t have an answer. Or he had too many, all of them embarrassing. Because when Joong did smile, really smile, it felt like a secret victory. Because his voice, when he rarely said Dunk’s name, did something funny to Dunk’s stomach. Because maybe, under all the ice, there was something.
It was the maybe that killed him.
From down the hall, the door to the main dressing room opened again, and Joong’s laugh echoed—clear, unfettered, real. It was followed by Book’s, and then Force’s. A unit. A band. A family.
Dunk looked from the cake in his hands to Benz’s pitying smirk, and then down the long, empty corridor leading back toward the world. The chants had died. The only sound was the low, industrial hum of the venue’s cooling system.
He walked to a large, industrial trash bin pushed against the wall. He lifted the heavy lid. The smell of stale beer and old food wafted out. Without ceremony, without drama, he dropped the cake box inside. It landed with a soft, final thud.
He didn’t look at Benz. He just started walking, leaving the sweet, ruined thing behind him, the taste of burnt wires and shame still sharp on his tongue. His footsteps were the only sound, echoing off the concrete, carrying him away from the light and the laughter, into the ordinary dark.
His footsteps were the only sound, echoing off the concrete, carrying him away from the light and the laughter, into the ordinary dark.
The service corridor fed into a wider hallway where the noise from the crowd, now funneling out of the venue, became a dull, oceanic roar. The smell changed too—less sweat and electricity, more concrete dust and the greasy aroma of stale frying oil from the concession stands now shutting down. A stagehand pushing a case on a dolly gave him a nod. Dunk forced his public smile onto his face, the one that felt like tightening a screw behind each cheekbone.
“Dunk! There you are.”
He turned. P’Kwan, JASPER’s manager, a woman whose sharp eyes missed nothing, clicked toward him in sensible heels. Her tablet was clutched to her chest like a shield. “We need you for the after-party photos at Vertex. Ten minutes. The car’s out back.”
“Photos?” The word tasted flat.
“Of course, photos.” She looked him up and down, her gaze pausing on his empty hands. “Where’s the cake? The fan sites are expecting ‘birthday boy celebrations with special friend Dunk.’ It was on the rundown.” She said ‘special friend’ like it was a technical job title.
“Joong was… busy after the set. I didn’t get a chance.” Dunk heard his own voice, too quiet, apologizing for the wrong thing.
P’Kwan’s mouth pressed into a thin line. She didn’t ask for details. The dynamics were part of the scenery to her, like a problematic lamp that just had to be worked around. “Fine. We’ll do shots of you both with the birthday cake there. The bakery at Vertex is preparing one. Just be… be you. Smile. Put your arm around him. You know the drill.”
The drill. He felt a sudden, violent urge to peel his own skin off.
He just nodded. “Ten minutes.”
He pushed open a heavy fire door, stepping into the cool night air of the loading dock. The chaos was orderly here—black vids idling, road crew loading gear, a few dedicated fans held back behind a barricade, their phone screens glowing like a constellation of desperate stars. Their screams peaked when they saw him.
“Dunk! Over here!”
“Where’s Joong? Is he coming?”
He walked over, the smile automatic now. He signed a few album sleeves, posed for selfies, the flashes bleaching his vision. His hands worked on their own. His mind was back in the damp corridor, watching the cake box fall.
“You look sad, Dunk!” a girl yelled, her voice shrill with concern. “Are you okay?”
He cranked the smile wider. “Just tired! It was an amazing show, right?”
He extracted himself, promising to see them at the fan meet next month, and made for the furthest idling car. As he reached for the door handle, a shadow detached itself from the side of the building.
Benz leaned against the car’s fender, smoking now, the ember glowing in the dim light. “So you’re going to the party,” he said, not a question.
“It’s my job.”
“Right.” Benz took a long drag, exhaling the smoke slowly. “The job where you get paid in crumbs of his attention. Must be a starving gig.” He pushed off the fender and stepped closer, his voice dropping. “You don’t have to go, you know. Vertex is a snooze. Full of producers trying to feel up the backup dancers. Come with me instead. A few of us are going to that new place, Vault. No cameras. No ‘rundowns.’” He flicked his cigarette toward a puddle. “Just people who actually want to talk to you.”
The offer hung there, slick and tempting. An escape hatch. A night where he wouldn’t have to watch Joong hold court, wouldn’t have to perform gratitude for scraps.
From inside the venue, a new cheer erupted—deeper, more unified. It was the sound of the band making their final, staged exit through the main lobby, a hero’s procession. Joong would be at the center of it, waving, that detached, beautiful smile on his face. The smile that never quite reached his eyes, especially not for Dunk.
Dunk looked at Benz, at his challenging, knowing smirk. He looked back at the door, where the sound of adulation was already fading into the night.
He pulled the car door open. The interior light was a sterile yellow.
“Another time,” Dunk said, his voice hollow. “I have a cake to slice.”
Benz laughed, a short, sharp sound. “Enjoy the crumbs, sunshine.” He turned and melted back into the shadows.
Dunk slid into the car, the plush seat feeling like a trap. The driver nodded, pulling away from the curb, leaving the gritty reality of the loading dock for the slick, mirrored world of the city. He stared out the window at the passing lights, his own reflection a ghost over the dark streets. He practiced the smile again in the glass. He rehearsed the casual way he would sling his arm around Joong’s shoulders for the camera, the playful finger he’d swipe through the icing.
The performance was just getting started.
The black town car slid through the neon-soaked arteries of the city, putting distance between Dunk and the raw cement of the loading dock. The cake box in the trash felt like a secret tattoo, a humiliation branded onto his ribs. He rolled down the window, let the city’s roar flood in—honking taxis, the thump of bass from passing cars, the faint wail of a siren. It was better than the silence in his head.
Vertex was all polished chrome and deep, upholstered sighs. The elevator opened directly into the penthouse suite, a curated chaos of Important People. Industry men in expensive jackets held glasses of brown liquor, their laughter a low, predatory rumble. Women in glittering dresses moved like schools of fish, drawn to the hotspots of power—the producers by the windows, the band by the grand piano.
And there was Joong.
He’d changed into a simple black shirt, the top buttons undone. He held a bottle of beer loosely by the neck, holding court from a deep sofa. Force and Aun were with him, along with a couple of radio DJs Dunk recognized. Book was sitting on the arm of the sofa, close to Joong, telling a story that made Joong throw his head back and laugh. A real laugh, teeth flashing, eyes crinkling at the corners. Dunk’s stomach twisted.
P’Kwan materialized at his elbow. “Perfect. He’s in a good mood. Go. Mingle. The cake is in the kitchen. We’ll do the photos in twenty.” She gave him a little push.
Dunk took a breath, pulled the public smile over his face like a mask, and walked into the room. He navigated the crowd, accepting backslaps and half-hugs, his eyes always tracking back to the sofa. When he was close enough, Joong’s gaze flicked up and met his. For a second, nothing. No recognition, no warmth. Just a flat, oceanic blue.
Then, a slow, deliberate blink. A slight, almost imperceptible tilt of the chin. That was his summons.
Dunk moved forward, the crowd parting slightly. “Hey,” he said, standing awkwardly in front of the sofa.
“Dunk,” Joong said, his voice neutral. He patted the empty space beside him. It was a command, not an invitation. Dunk sat, the cushions swallowing him. He was close enough to smell Joong’s cologne, something sharp and clean cutting through the smoke and sweat still on him. It was intoxicating and repulsive at the same time.
Book’s story died. An awkward quiet settled over their little group. Force took a long drink. Aun studied his phone.
“You disappeared after the set,” Joong said, not looking at him. He was tracing the label on his beer bottle with a thumb.
“Yeah. I… had the cake. I waited.” Dunk hated the way it sounded, plaintive and petty.
“Ah. The cake.” Joong finally turned his head. His eyes were like chips of glass. “You know I don’t like sweet things.” He said it softly, almost kindly, which made it worse. It was a private dismissal, delivered in public.
Book snickered, covering it with a cough.
The burning feeling returned to Dunk’s throat. He wanted to vanish. He wanted to grab Joong’s bottle and smash it. He did neither. He just sat there, the smile frozen on his face.
P’Kwan swooped in, her timing surgical. “Cake time! Dunk, Joong, kitchen. Now.” Her voice brooked no argument.
The kitchen was a stark, stainless steel universe away from the party’s murmur. A ridiculous three-tiered cake sat on the central island, white frosting and perfect fondant swirls. A single candle was stuck in the top. A photographer, a guy with a lens as long as his arm, was already setting up a portable light.
“Stand behind the cake. Dunk, put your arm around Joong’s shoulders. Look happy. Look like best friends.” P’Kwan directed, her phone held up to capture B-roll.
Joong moved first, positioning himself with the practiced ease of a man who lived in frames. Dunk shuffled next to him, the space between them charged with a frigid energy. He lifted his arm, let it fall across Joong’s shoulders. The muscle beneath the black shirt was taut, unyielding. He smelled like the party, like other people.
“Closer,” the photographer grunted.
Dunk inched in. His cheek was almost touching Joong’s hair.
“Joong, look at the cake. Dunk, look at Joong. Give us ‘admiring friend.’” The photographer’s voice was bored.
Dunk turned his head. Joong was staring at the cake, a faint, plastic smile on his lips. In the harsh light of the flash setup, Dunk could see the tired lines under his eyes, the slight paleness beneath his tan. For a fraction of a second, he wasn’t the aloof idol. He was just a guy, exhausted and performing.
“Happy birthday,” Dunk whispered, the words escaping before he could stop them. They weren’t for the camera.
Joong’s eyes flicked sideways, meeting Dunk’s. The distance between their faces was inches. Something shifted in Joong’s gaze. A flicker, a crack in the ice. It wasn’t warmth, but it was a recognition, a momentary spark of shared existence in this absurd pantomime. His lips parted slightly.
The flash exploded, once, twice, blinding white.
Joong blinked, and the moment shattered. He pulled back, dislodging Dunk’s arm. The mask was back, smoother and harder than before. “Let’s just cut the cake,” he said, his voice loud enough for P’Kwan and the photographer. He picked up the knife, his knuckles white around the handle.
He drove the blade into the fondant with more force than necessary, carving a brutal, off-center slice. He shoved it onto a plate and handed it, not to Dunk, but to P’Kwan. “There. Happy?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He dropped the knife with a clatter that echoed in the steel room and walked out, leaving Dunk standing alone in the spotlight’s afterglow, the ghost of that almost-connection lingering in the air like smoke. The cake, with its gaping wound, looked grotesque.
Dunk stared at the empty doorway. The roar of the party seeped back in. He heard Joong’s laugh again, easy and full, already rejoining his real world.
He looked down at his hands, clean and useless. Then he turned and walked out of the kitchen, past P’Kwan’s concerned frown, past the photographer already packing his gear. He moved through the party, a ghost in plain sight. He found the elevator and pressed the button for the lobby.
The doors opened to the quiet, carpeted hallway of the hotel. He walked, his dress shoes silent on the pattern. He had no plan. He just needed to move.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out. A message from Benz. A location pin. Vault. Door’s open if you are.
Below it, another message, sent a few minutes later: They’re talking about the after-party. Fan cams are already up. You look like someone kicked your puppy in the photos. Just FYI.
Dunk stopped walking. He leaned his forehead against the cool, floral-patterned wallpaper. He could go back upstairs, where he was Sunshine, where his job was to absorb the Silent Treatment with a smile. Or he could step into the dark.
He straightened up, turned, and headed for the hotel’s back exit. The night air was colder now. He hailed a cab, gave the address Benz had sent. As the city blurred past the window, he felt the performance finally, mercifully, crack. The smile was gone. What was left underneath felt raw, and real, and dangerously quiet.
The taxi dropped him in a side alley that smelled of wet asphalt and discarded lemons from a nearby bar. Vault wasn’t on the door. It was just a heavy, unmarked slab of black steel with a camera lens gleaming like a dead eye above the handle. He gave his name to the intercom, a static crackle, and the door clicked open.
Inside was all shadow and deep bass. The music was a physical thing here, a thrum in the teeth. It wasn't the anthemic roar of an arena; it was something slower, darker, a syncopated heartbeat. The air was thick with clove cigarettes and the sweet, acrid tang of spilt gin. Benz was at a low booth in the back, half-hidden by a pillar. Two other people were with him—a woman with a light brown hair and a guy who looked like the next runner up on the bachelor. They looked up as Dunk approached, their assessing glances stripping away the actor, leaving just the man.
“The birthday boy’s other half arrives,” Benz said, sliding over to make space. The vinyl seat was sticky. “Whiskey?”
Dunk nodded, dropping into the booth. The energy here was different. There were no phones out, no performative laughs. The woman, June, was a lighting director. The guy, Ohm, played in a post-punk band nobody had heard of yet. They talked about film grain and analog synthesizers and a director who’d stolen a screenplay. Nobody asked him about Joong. Nobody asked for a selfie.
The whiskey arrived, a single glass of something amber and smoky. He drank it in one go, the heat a welcome scourge.
“Rough night?” June asked, not unkindly.
“You could say that.” Dunk’s voice sounded rough to his own ears.
“Benz said you were playing cake carrier for the prince of ice.” Ohm took a drag of his cigarette, the ember flaring. “Soul-destroying work.”
“He’s not…” Dunk started, then stopped. The defense was automatic, hollow. He stared into the empty glass. “I don’t know what he is.”
Benz signaled for another round. “He’s a product. A very beautiful, very marketable product. You’re part of the packaging. The friendly, humanizing sticker on the box.” He leaned in, his voice cutting through the music. “The problem is, you forgot you’re a sticker. You started thinking you were part of the product itself.”
The words landed with the precision of a scalpel. Dunk felt flayed. He’d never heard it said so plainly, this thing that curdled in his gut at three in the morning.
“Why do you do it?” June asked, genuine curiosity in her eyes. “You’re good. I saw you in that short series , Summer Night the one about the ofriendships and secret love. You have truth in you. This… this pairing. It’s plastic.”
“The money’s not plastic,” Ohm grunted.
“It’s not the money,” Dunk said, too quickly. He wasn’t poor; his family’s wealth was a background fact, like the color of his eyes. He fumbled for the reason, the real one. “It was… at the start, it was fun. The attention. The projects. He’s… he can be different. Sometimes.”
“Sometimes,” Benz echoed, his smirk devoid of humor. “When the cameras are on. When the narrative requires a moment of ‘connection.’ Tell me, has he ever asked you a single question about yourself? About what you want? Not the character you play for the public. You.”
Dunk searched his memory. Drinks after filming, but talk of scenes, of line deliveries. Silences in cars filled with his own chatter about his day, met with nods or closed-eye rests. Birthday presents he’d given Joong—a rare vinyl, a book of poetry—received with a polite, puzzled thank you, then never mentioned again.
His silence was the answer.
Benz sat back, a point proven. “You’re in love with a ghost, Dunk. You’re in love with the idea of thawing something frozen. It’s a story you’re telling yourself. He’s not participating in the narrative.”
The second whiskey arrived. Dunk drank this one slower, the burn a focused pain. The noise of the club, the murmured conversations around them, the thudding bass—it all formed a cocoon. Here, in this grimy honesty, the performance finally ended. He was just a guy nursing a wound.
“What do I do?” The question was a whisper, pulled from a place he rarely showed.
Ohm stubbed out his cigarette. “You get the fuck out. Make your own name.”
June swirled her drink. “Or you stay, and you build a shell so thick none of it can touch you. You do the job, you collect the check, you find your life somewhere else.”
Benz just watched him, his eyes glittering in the low light. “Or,” he said softly, “you force a real moment. You look that ghost right in its fucking eyes and you demand it become real. And when it doesn’t…” He shrugged. “At least you’ll know. The wondering is what’s killing you.”
The wondering. The maybe. The endless dissection of a five-second glance, a half-smile, a brush of a shoulder. It was an infection.
Dunk’s phone vibrated on the table. A notification lit up the screen: a tagged photo from the official JASPER fan club. He didn’t need to open it. It was the cake-cutting photo. He imagined the caption: “The birthday boy and his bestie! #JoongDunk #SunshineAndSilentTreatment.”
He flipped the phone over, screen down.
He stayed for another hour. The talk moved on to other things. He laughed at one of Ohm’s stories, a real laugh that felt strange in his chest. He didn’t look at his phone again.
When he left, the cool night air was a shock. The city’s glitter seemed cheaper now, a facade. His driver was waiting where he’d said he’d be. The silence in the car was his own.
As they neared his building, his phone rang. A number he knew by heart. The manager, P’Kwan.
He answered, bracing for a reprimand for leaving the party.
“Dunk.” Her voice was tense, clipped. “Where are you?”
“Almost home.”
“Joong’s been in an accident.”