The Underground - 3RACHA

1

1992

The crowd before Jisung was screaming his name, or rather, his stage name. "J. One! J. One! J. One!" It was the same at every cypher, but this was the first one Jisung was participating in. The bulky man before him had rapped first and now it was his turn. He was supposed to tear the man to shreds with his words, but the microphone felt slippy in his grasp and his hands were noticeably trembling. What was his opponent's name? Jisung couldn't remember. He couldn't remember anything. His mind had been taken over by a foggy cloud and all he knew was that the crowd's shouts of "J. One!" had turned into hollers of 'choke, choke, choke!' And that's what he did. He choked on his debut cypher and that was it. His opportunity to make a good first impression was gone.

At the back of the room, lost in the crowd, Changbin scoffed at the boy on stage. "Talentless kids thinking they can do anything these days," he mumbled to his friend beside him, "have you got any cigarettes?"

"He probably got stage fright or something," Felix said, taking a spare cigarette out of his packet and passing it to Changbin who rolled his eyes.

"He could have at least tried."

Felix laughed, "oh, sorry. I forgot you are perfect!"

Changbin's head snapped up at Felix who kept laughing at him. He didn't retaliate. He took his lighter out of his pocket and lit a cigarette which made Felix nudge his arm and nod in the direction of the doorway. A security guard was stood there, staring at them. Changbin knew the rules, no smoking indoors, but he figured with at least 100 people squeezed into one tiny room he could have gotten away with it. He was wrong. He sighed and stuck the cigarette between his lips and started walking towards the exit of the room, making sure he blew out a puff of smoke in the guards face on his way past.

"Hey, what the fuck?" The guard shouted at him and Felix who followed close behind.

Changbin let out a loud laugh, "sorry, mate. It was a mistake!" He lied, running out the door and into the darkness of the street. Cars were speeding down the road as Changbin stepped into it, not looking where he was going. Luckily, Felix managed to pull him back before a car splattered him against the cement. "Thanks, Lix," he chuckled, only half sincere.

Felix had given up trying to remind Changbin of his safety long ago. He often wondered how he wasn't dead already as he wasn't with him to keep him safe all the time. "You're so fucking stupid," Felix mumbled.

"Reckless, Felix. The word is reckless."

-

Chan dug his teeth into his bottom lip, feeling second-hand embarrassment for the boy on stage who was choking. The crowd was yelling at him now and as Chan wasn't too far away from the stage, he could see the beads of sweat rolling down the nervous boy's forehead as he used his palm to wipe them away. Chan realised this must be his first performance. Chan couldn't remember his first cypher, it was nine years ago when he was sixteen, but even back then the whole thing was a blur. What he did remember was that he won though.

J. One ran off the stage, disappearing out of everyone's view. The crowd started to cheer for the winner who, in Chan's opinion, wasn't great, but a potentially good rapper didn't stand a chance against a bad rapper if they didn't say anything.

Chan sighed. He felt no strong emotion from the rap battle he had witnessed. He wasn't there to rap himself, this was an amateur battle, but it was often interesting to see some of the new faces at The Underground. Not tonight though. Deciding his evening would be better if he went elsewhere, he made his way out of the crowd and towards the doors. He didn't think any of the rappers that evening would have been of any significance to him.

-

"That was the worst cypher I've ever fucking seen!"

"Please don't, Hyunjin," Jisung mumbled, pushing past the elder as he made his way off the stage.

Hyunjin started laughing at him as he followed him to the bathroom. "I'm sorry but that was just sad," he continued, ignorant to Jisung's annoyance as he thrust the door open. It hit the wall with a bang and swung backwards, almost catching Hyunjin's shoulder but he managed to squeeze in just in time. "People are going to bring this up if you try and cypher again, you know?"

"Please shut up," Jisung snapped, making eye contact with him through the dirty mirror he was standing in front of. Hyunjin didn't seem phased by his words as he watched Jisung turn on the tap.

"Should have said that in your cypher. Would have been better than nothing."

Jisung ignored what he said, splashing the water over his face to cool himself down and wash away the sweat that had soaked the ends of his fringe. His nerves still hadn't calmed from when he was on the stage and his hands were shaking more than he ever thought they could. He had to fumble around three times to turn off the tap before the water finally stopped. When he turned back to look at Hyunjin he noticed him smirking. "What?" He asked.

"Nothing, you just look like a drowned rat." Jisung wasn't phased until he opened his mouth again. "Oh, maybe you could have put that in your...nonexistent rap."

"I thought you came here to support me?" Jisung spat. As his anxiety started to calm, his anger was brought down with it, but the sadness and disappointment he felt remained, which was only growing worse as Hyunjin continued to tear him down.

"Yeah, because you're usually ok but that was just stupid!" Hyunjin continued to laugh. Jisung couldn't believe him as he shoved past him for a second time, leaving the bathroom and pulling his hood over his head. If anyone recognised him and said something like Hyunjin did, he would explode, but he didn't think it would be a violent outburst. If anything, he would have broken down into tears.