The Night Ji-ho Played

Dear Ji-soo,

I wish you had been there.

It wasn’t just any night—it was the night. A place that doesn’t officially exist, a party that no one talks about in daylight. Somewhere behind a nameless door, past a hallway where the music grows louder with every step, I stepped into another world.

And there he was. Ji-ho.

They played his tracks. Our Ji-ho—the boy with cables for veins and beats in his blood. The bass rolled like a wave, and the whole room moved with it. For a moment, Pyongyang wasn’t Pyongyang. The flickering neon, the sound, the bodies lost in the rhythm—it felt like we had stolen something. A sliver of freedom, hidden in the four-four beat.

I wanted to talk to him. I almost did. But how do you walk up to someone who creates the world you’ve been dreaming of? I stood there, watching him nod along to his own music, surrounded by people who whispered his name like a secret. The underground has a rising star. And I danced to his music.

Next time, come with me. Next time, maybe I’ll say something. Maybe I won’t. Maybe it’s enough that, for a few hours, we were free.

Yours,
Soo-min