Run the Circuit

Seoul was never going to be enough. Not for Minjun. Not for Jiwoo. Not for Miri and her cracked-laptop magic. Not for the kids who tuned in every weekend from other cities, eyes bright behind flickering phone screens, waiting for a signal that told them someone out there was just as restless as they were.

The morning after the rooftop summit, Minjun woke up on the same ledge he'd fallen asleep on. His neck hurt. His knees were numb from cold concrete. But his mind buzzed louder than the traffic far below.

Jiwoo was already up, tapping out beats on a half-empty energy drink can like it was a snare drum. Miri had her laptop open again, squinting at lines of code through swollen eyes that hadn't seen sleep in twenty-four hours.

"You're still here," Minjun rasped, voice hoarse from the night wind and half-sung promises.

"Where else would we be?" Miri shot back without looking up. The glow of her screen painted dark circles under her eyes like war paint.

Jiwoo looked over, grin splitting his face. "You said it yourself — the rooftop's not enough anymore. So…" He drummed a tiny roll on the can and tossed it into the dark stairwell. "We run it."

They didn't have a blueprint. They had rumors, old contacts, and the raw guts to build something no one had tried before. By noon they were squatting in a dingy basement internet café, surrounded by stale ramen cups and sleeping bags they'd grabbed from Minjun's grandmother's closet.

Miri's fingers danced over her keyboard. A dozen tabs were open: street maps, Wi-Fi relay diagrams, bus timetables, Discord threads full of kids whispering rooftop coordinates in Busan, Daegu, Incheon.

"Busan's first," she said without looking up. "We've got three confirmed rooftops, two near Seomyeon. College kids. They're in."

Minjun leaned over her shoulder. The maps blurred together — city grids pulsing with neon pinpoints. Each rooftop a heartbeat waiting to be synced.

"Can they handle the relay?" he asked.

Miri snorted. "They built half the pirate feeds we used last month. Better than Seoul's signal rats."

Jiwoo, sprawled on a beanbag by the cracked window, tossed a half-empty bag of chips onto Minjun's lap. "Don't overthink it. We show up. We sing. They scream. The rooftop lives."

Minjun let the bag slide to the floor, his pulse drumming harder than Jiwoo's beat. He pictured it: a rooftop near the ocean, salt wind tangling his hair, his voice cutting through the noise of waves and traffic, carried by kids who'd never bought a concert ticket in their life.

The first jump was messy. They left Seoul at midnight on the cheapest bus south, gear packed in battered backpacks — the old mic, three sets of tangled cables, a speaker held together with duct tape, Jiwoo's drumsticks peeking out like antennae.

They dozed against the fogged windows as neon signs gave way to dark highways. Minjun barely slept. He dreamt of rooftops. Or maybe he didn't dream at all — maybe he just replayed verses in his head, a constant loop of half-finished lines that would never fit into a studio track but belonged here, raw and live.

When they stepped off the bus in Busan, the sun was barely up, the ocean hidden behind rows of crumbling apartments and bright street stalls prepping for the morning rush.

They made their way to a crumbling ten-story building, its stairwell a maze of rusted bikes and discarded mattresses. The kids waiting at the top weren't older than Minjun — two college students, a girl with purple hair and a heavy camera, and her boyfriend who carried a battered guitar missing two strings.

"You're Minjun?" the girl asked, voice hushed but eyes blazing.

He nodded, surprised at how small he felt in that moment. He'd always pictured himself as the leader, the voice. But here — so far from the first rooftop — he was just another kid with a dream and a mic held together by stubbornness.

The purple-haired girl laughed and pulled him into a hug that smelled like instant coffee and cheap perfume. "I've got the relay link ready. Don't worry — they can't block this one."

Jiwoo tapped her boyfriend's guitar, raising an eyebrow at the missing strings. The boy just grinned and shrugged. Imperfect was perfect here. They'd play anyway.

When the sun dipped below the skyline, they plugged in the single speaker, tied down with bungee cords to a rusty vent pipe. Miri perched beside the makeshift amp, double-checking the feed on her cracked laptop.

Below, Busan's night market flickered awake — voices, sizzling oil, laughter. Just like Seoul. Different, but the same pulse.

Jiwoo did a quick drum roll on an overturned paint bucket. The purple-haired girl strummed two rough chords. Minjun gripped his mic, feeling the tape sticky under his thumb.

He looked at Jiwoo. Then Miri. Then at the two strangers who felt like family in this thin sliver of sky.

"Ready?" Miri asked, one finger hovering over the 'Go Live' key.

Minjun's voice came out steady, louder than the wind. "Run it."

The first verse cracked through the salty air, raw and jagged. Minjun's voice carried over the rooftops, bouncing between crumbling billboards and flickering neon signs. The guitar fought to stay in tune. Jiwoo's beat rattled the old paint bucket until it nearly split.

Kids below heard something — they paused at food stalls, heads tilted up, eyes searching for the source. Someone pulled out a phone. Then another. A soft ripple of light — the city listening.

Miri's feed spiked. Pings from Daegu. Someone in Manila messaged the relay link to ten more kids. A ping from Tokyo. Bangkok. Taipei.

Minjun's lungs burned. The salt air made his eyes water. He didn't care.

He sang every line like a confession he refused to keep buried: "We don't sell out. We don't shut up. This is our rooftop, our riot, our sky."

Beside him, Jiwoo laughed mid-beat, hair whipping around his face like a stray halo. Miri looked up from her screen long enough to grin — wild, fearless.

Below them, the kids cheered back — not a stadium roar, but a raw, patchwork anthem, half the words caught in the wind.

The rooftop never sleeps. Not here. Not in Seoul. Not in Busan. Not in any city that still has concrete for kids to climb.

When the last note died, Minjun let the mic drop to his side, chest heaving.

Jiwoo tapped the cracked paint bucket once more. Miri closed her laptop with a decisive snap.

Minjun looked at the strangers who'd opened their rooftop for him. He didn't know their names an hour ago. Now he did: rebels, like him.

He met Jiwoo's eyes. Jiwoo's grin said it all: Next city.

They packed the mic, the cables, the broken guitar.

One rooftop down. The whole Circuit to run.