48. Everything for You
EVERYTHING FOR YOU
AIDAN — SEOUL
The final song was starting. Jin took center position, the lights found him, and fifty thousand people roared. The sound was enormous and joyful and completely safe, and for the first time since Liam and I were hired in Cannes I actually believed things were going to be all right.
The formation shifted. Tae and Woo split left, Haneul and Min-kyu right, leaving Jin alone in the spotlight for his solo verse. The moment every fan had been waiting for.
That’s when I saw her.
A woman, maybe mid-thirties, moving through the backstage area with the confident purpose of someone who belonged. She wore crew blacks, had a laminated credential clipped to her belt, and was heading toward the rigging control station twenty meters from where I stood.
Nothing unusual about that. Crew accessed rigging controls all the time during shows: adjusting lights, managing the LED screens, coordinating the massive aerial displays that were part of K-pop’s spectacle.
She had most of her hair piled up under a black ball cap, but strands of it had slipped out, and I noticed that they were black with blonde tips. That was a detail that resonated with me, and I ran through everything I’d heard about hair.
Liam had heard Sara Yoon had dyed hers in that way. If that was indeed Sara, and she’d smuggled herself in, keeping that ball cap on kept her from being recognized. Until at the last minute she was focused only on her mission.
“Potential sighting of Sara Yoon,” I said, into the comm system. “Heading toward the overhead light panel.”
I started moving closer, weaving between equipment racks and cables, keeping her in sight.
She reached the rigging station, a control panel managing the massive overhead LED panels that were currently displaying graphics coordinated with the music.
The technician who should have been there was gone.
There was no reason for him to take a bathroom break in the middle of a performance, no reason for such an important piece of equipment to be left alone.
The woman’s hands went to the panel, moving with purpose.
My pulse spiked.
“Liam,” I said into the comm, voice low. “Rigging station, stage left. Woman in crew blacks, no technician present, she’s accessing the controls.”
A pause. Then my husband’s voice, sharp: “That’s Sara Yoon. We have photos. Security is moving.”
But she was already typing on the control panel, her fingers moving too fast, too deliberately. And above the stage, I saw the massive LED panel array starting to shift.
Not the smooth, controlled movement of choreographed staging. Something jerky. Wrong.
Tilting forward.
Directly over where Jin stood in his solo spotlight. The rest of the group stood behind him and to the right, giving him his moment to shine.
“She’s dropping the rigging!” I shouted. “She’s going to drop it on Jin!”
I was running before I finished the sentence.
Twenty meters from the rigging station to the stage entrance. Fifteen to where Jin stood, oblivious, singing his heart out while ten thousand kilograms of LED panels and steel rigging tilted slowly forward above him. He was too caught up in the song, and the fan response, to notice.
The panel’s safety systems should have caught it. Should have locked everything in place the moment the tilt exceeded safe parameters.
But Sara Yoon had been planning this for months. Had access to technical specifications. Had probably disabled the safeties remotely.
Ten meters. The panels were falling faster now, gravity taking over, the crowd starting to notice something was wrong—screams mixing with the music, a collective gasp as the crowd realized what was happening.
As I ran, I saw Liam heading in the same direction.
Five meters. Jin looked up, saw the rigging falling, froze for a split second—the human instinct to process rather than react.
A split second he didn’t have.
Liam hit him at full speed, wrapped his arms around him, and used his momentum to drive them both sideways. They went down hard, my husband’s body taking most of the impact, sliding across the stage floor as—
The rigging hit.
The sound was catastrophic. Metal screaming, LED panels shattering, the stage floor cracking under ten thousand kilograms of force hitting exactly where Jin had been standing two seconds earlier.
Debris exploded outward and I skidded to a halt at the edge of the stage. The music stopped. The lights went dark. And the crowd started screaming for real. I dodged the biggest pieces of metal and reached Liam and Jin. Sang-hoon was only a moment behind me.
I leaned down to Jin, who was squirming out of my husband’s grasp. That movement meant he was alive.
Meanwhile, Sang-hoon was crying over Jin, taking his hand and leaning down to kiss him.
Suddenly people were all around us. Hands were pulling me back.
Security, medical team, voices shouting in Korean and English.
Emergency lights coming up, revealing the destruction—the center stage destroyed, rigging scattered across fifty square meters, fans pressed against the regular barriers around the pit trying to see what happened.
I helped Liam up. “Are you all right?” I asked.
“Hit my head,” he said. “Good thing it’s hard. My ribs ache but I’ll survive. Where are all the idols?”
“Jin’s right there, with the paramedics. Sang-hoon is with him. Looks like none of the other singers were hurt.”
Jason’s voice came through on my headset. “Security grabbed Sara Yoon trying to get out an emergency exit.”
Around me, I saw patrons from the front rows being treated for injuries from the falling rigging.
None looked too serious, just some blood and what might have been arm fracture.
I remembered that Jin’s parents had been out there, and when I scanned the area I saw Eun-ji escorting two people from the stands toward Jin and Sang-hoon.
When the woman embraced Jin, crying, I realized they must be his parents.
I was glad they’d escaped being hurt when the rigging fell.
Liam put his hand up against his head. “Is it all over?” he asked.
I tugged him down and kissed him, the way Sang-hoon had done with Jin. “It’s over, sweetheart,” I said.