The rooftop was a warzone by dawn's full light.The barricade fire burned itself out to charred splinters and scorched pavement. The kids who'd built it were scattered like embers down side streets and subway entrances — some limping, some bleeding, all carrying the spark in their throats like a vow.
The riot police moved in waves. They pushed through clouds of tear gas, sweeping the narrow alleys with plastic shields and barking orders that bounced off the brick walls and rusted staircases.
From his perch on the old water tank, Minjun watched the street disappear beneath a tide of black helmets and white vests marked POLICE. His fingers were raw, blood still fresh on the fretboard where he'd played until the last amp blew out. Jiwoo crouched beside him, guitar abandoned, eyes darting for an exit that didn't exist anymore.
Below, Miri was yelling into her tablet, her livestream finally cut by signal jammers but still recording, her voice hoarse as she spat curses at the armored wall closing in on their building.
"This is it, huh?" Jiwoo muttered, half to himself, half to the dawn sky. "They're gonna drag us down and say we started a riot for fame."
Minjun didn't answer. He was watching a kid — no older than his brother — get slammed to the asphalt, a baton pressing into his spine while two officers zip-tied his wrists. The kid was still singing — just a hoarse rasp now, but his lips moved through the tear gas like a prayer: We are the chorus.
Minjun slid down from the tank, boots scraping the rust. He grabbed Jiwoo by the shoulder. "If they grab us, don't give them your real name," he said, voice calm like he was reminding him to lock the front door. "No address. Nothing they can use."
Jiwoo snorted. "Little late for that, don't you think?" He jabbed a thumb at the skyline, where the Starline building still gleamed like an accusation. "Pretty sure they know who the hell we are now."
Miri stumbled over, eyes red and streaming from gas and exhaustion. She shoved her tablet into Minjun's chest. "I've got backups," she panted. "Three copies, offshore servers. They can't bury it now. Even if they shut us up, the feeds stay up."
Minjun looked at her — this scrappy hacker who'd turned a rooftop singalong into a digital insurrection — and he felt a laugh bubble up through the terror tightening his chest. He hugged her so tight she squeaked in protest.
"Thank you," he whispered. She just smacked his shoulder and called him an idiot.
Below them, the stairwell door crashed open. Boots thundered up rusted steps. Jiwoo spit over the railing and flipped the oncoming helmets the bird. "Alright, general. One last play?"
Minjun's mind flashed back to that first rooftop — his mother's borrowed guitar, the cracked tiles, the open sky that made him believe a chorus could echo far enough to break glass ceilings.
He squared his shoulders. "One last chorus," he said.
They dragged an old speaker to the roof's edge. Jiwoo rigged the busted guitar to the amp's dying battery, coaxing out a final distorted chord that snarled like a wounded animal. Miri opened her tablet one last time — not for a live feed, but to blast the rooftop's location out to every follower still awake, telling them exactly where their voices were needed most.
The stairwell door slammed open behind them.
Riot shields poured through like a flood. Shouted orders. Zip ties snapping tight.
Jiwoo kept strumming. Miri kept yelling. Minjun stepped to the edge of the roof, wind tearing at his sweat-soaked hair, tear gas drifting up in ghostly curls. He raised both arms like a conductor summoning an orchestra from the city itself.
Below, through the haze, he saw them: more kids pouring back into the street. Neighbors leaning from windows. Delivery boys banging helmets on their handlebars. Shopkeepers blasting Rooftop Anthem from tiny radios balanced on fruit crates.
A baton slammed into Jiwoo's back. He went down with a grunt but kept strumming, strings screeching under his pinned fingers.
Miri's tablet clattered to the rooftop as she was yanked backward by two cops, shouting curses that made the nearest officer flinch.
Minjun stood his ground at the edge — so close he could feel the dizzy drop behind him, thirty feet to cracked concrete. He could jump. For one mad second, the idea flickered through him like static. Maybe he could vanish into an alley, slip past barricades.
But that wasn't the point anymore.
A gloved hand grabbed his arm. He didn't resist. He just leaned closer to the rooftop's edge, eyes locked on the chaos below. Kids waving signs. Phones pointed up at him like hundreds of tiny stars. Some were crying. Some were laughing. Some were just singing.
He pitched his voice into the wind — raw, cracking, barely human now. No lyrics. Just a howl. A rooftop animal song. The city's answer came in a roar that drowned out sirens and riot orders: We hear you.
The cop jerked him back from the edge, twisted his wrists into the plastic cuffs. He barely felt it. His throat burned. His vision blurred. But in his ears — louder than the snap of zip ties — he heard the city echo back:
We are the chorus. We are the rooftop. We are the fire.
As they dragged him down the stairwell, Minjun tilted his head back, catching the dawn breaking wide open across the dirty sky. Somewhere behind the clouds, he swore he could hear every rooftop that had ever held his voice, carrying it forward while he gave up his freedom for it.
Smoke and sirens. Fire and song.
They could arrest him. They could cut the feed. They could black out the rooftops for a night, maybe a week, maybe longer.
But the echo? The echo would never die.