Chapter Text
The floors of the Vacay Island concert hall thrummed with a low, relentless bass, a rhythmic, vibrating thunder from thousands of chanting voices outside that rattled the frame of the dressing room door. Through the thin partition walls, the booming laugh of Bruce echoed, followed by the steady, repetitive thud of Clay's heels practicing choreography. Even Floyd's voice rose and fell in a gentle vocal warm-up, clear and steady, though the ghost of Mount Rageous still seemed to linger in the slightly too-sharp corners of his high notes.
Inside John Dory's dressing room, however, the quiet was thick, heavy with the scent of cheap hairspray, old sweat, and stagnant air.
He didn't look at the door. Instead, he kept his palms pressed flat against the cool, unfinished wood of the vanity, using the hard edge to anchor the traitorous trembling in his fingers. His mind shifted, unbidden, to the old king. Every steady, unblinking look Peppy had given him over the past few weeks felt like a cold blade sliding between his ribs. It wasn't the threat of violence that made his chest seize up; it was the warmth. The heavy, paternal weight of an old man looking at him as if he were something worth protecting. As if he were already woven into the fabric of a family he had spent half his life ruining. If the king ever saw the dark, feral rot beneath the loud smiles, if he realized just how shattered the eldest brother truly was, the illusion would break. He would look at John, see the failure Pine had always seen, and realize John wasn't fit to be anywhere near Branch.
You're being ridiculous, he thought, his jaw aching from how hard he ground his teeth together. The old man isn't like that.
But the phantom echoes in his head never belonged to him anymore; they carried the sharp, mocking tones of Bruce, the blunt disappointment of Clay, every bitter argument from a year spent starving in the woods or screaming into the silence of the Neverglade. You ruin everything, Johnny.
John closed his eyes, the darkness behind his lids offering no reprieve. The air in his throat felt tight, restricted, as if a fist were squeezing his windpipe. Slowly, his fingers crept up to the faded strap of his goggles, pulling them down until the heavy plastic rested against his collarbone. The familiar weight was an anchor, a small shield against the reflection waiting for him.
When he leaned closer, the face in the glass remained unchanged. Ash and stone. A washed-out gray that seemed to absorb the bright backstage lights rather than reflect them. He had genuinely believed that pulling Floyd from that diamond prison, that patching up the old harmony, that looking into Branch's piercing blue eyes would wash the color back into his skin. But the mirror didn't lie. He was still the same hollow shell that had stared back at him from the murky mountain streams of his youth.
"Nothing left to lose now," he whispered, the syllables dry, tasting of smoke and old ash. "Nothing but the truth of what I am."
The four walls of the dressing room seemed to lean inward, pressing the breath out of him. The thumping from the stadium outside became a dull, underwater roar, drowning out the world until his own heartbeat was a deafening, erratic hammer against his ribs.
The worst of what I came from. Patterns I'm ashamed of. Things that even I don't understand.
His grip tightened on the vanity until his knuckles turned a bloodless white, the wood groaning beneath his weight.
I tried to fix it. I tried to fight it. My heart was twisted, my heart divided. My lies all collided...
A faint, pale mist fogged the mirror from his breath. As it cleared, his own eyes stared back, wide, frantic, looking far too much like the terrified seventeen-year-old who had slammed a pod door and walked into the dark.
I don't know why I didn't trust you to be on my side.
A sharp click-clack of boots in the hallway made his ears pin instantly back against his head, every muscle tensing into a rigid, defensive coil, ready to bolt through the window. But the steps faded, moving past the door. He forced a ragged breath past his teeth, desperately counting the rhythm he had once whispered to Branch when the little trolling woke up screaming from nightmares in the Neverglade. In for four. Hold for four. Out for four.
Smiling on the surface... Wishing I was perfect, just like you.
The words left his mouth as a fragile, threadbare melody, his voice cracking on the final note. It wasn't a performance. It wasn't the polished, booming sound he forced onto the stage. It was small, fractured, stripped of all bravado. Yet, the longer he stared into the ashen eyes of his reflection, the less he could remember why he had spent twenty years running from it.
Fighting to be flawless. Anything but honest... Thinking you'd hate me if you knew.
His left hand moved instinctively, fingers creeping up to trace the jagged, uneven ridge of the scar on his shoulder. The phantom weight of the Growlbeast seemed to press down on his chest all over again, the memory of blue blood dripping onto gray mud making his stomach lurch with a sudden wave of old, familiar nausea.
I let the fear in. I tried to mask it. Scared of the mirror, I should've smashed it...
The words were coming faster now, a dam breaking behind his teeth, each syllable tearing away another layer of the exhausting, glittering lie he had worn like armor. Perfect John Dory. The responsible leader. The brother who had it all figured out.
And shown you the madness. The dreams and the damage.
His voice rose, echoing sharply against the small room's constraints, raw and jagged. "And dammit, I hate this disguise!"
With a choked sound that was half a sob, he tore his vest from his shoulders, hurling it to the floor where it landed in a crumpled, discarded heap. He stood shivering before the glass, his chest heaving as he stared at his bare arms, at the pale white lines of survival, at the unyielding gray of his skin. The total, unvarnished truth of him.
And then, a profound, deep shift. Not from the stadium. From the very center of his chest.
It began as a low, resonant vibration, a heavy pulse that felt like a second heartbeat waking up from a twenty-year sleep. It was warm. Growing hotter by the second, a brilliant, terrifying gold that pulsed beneath his palm as he pressed his hand hard over his sternum.
"I broke into a million pieces," he sang, the sheer power of the melody steadying the tremor in his throat as the golden vibration surged into his veins, "and I can't go back. But now I'm seeing all the beauty in the broken glass."
The glass of the mirror didn't just reflect the light anymore, it bled it. A soft, brilliant golden aura spilled from the edges of the vanity, pooling around his feet and illuminating the tiny room.
"The scars are part of me, darkness and harmony," he continued, his voice expanding, layered with a strange, resonant strength that filled the empty spaces around him. "My voice without the lies, this is what it sounds like."
A sharp, metallic click from the door handle cut through the air.
John didn't turn around. His body was locked in place, suspended within the swelling current of gold, watching his own reflection change. The gray skin remained, but it no longer looked hollow or dead; it looked like weathered stone, hardened by a blizzard, standing tall after the storm.
"Why did I cover up the colors stuck inside my head?" the words poured from him, a desperate, beautiful release that had been choked down for decades. "I should've let the jagged edges meet the light instead. Show me what's underneath, I'll find your harmony. The song we couldn't write—"
The heavy wood of the door swung inward. King Peppy stood frozen on the threshold, his wide, old eyes reflecting the sudden sunrise filling the room. Just behind him, Branch stood with one hand still raised to knock, his entire frame going rigid as the melody shifted from a cry of sorrow into something soaring, transcendent, and blindingly bright.
"This is what it sounds like."
The golden light exploded outward.
John didn't register the exact moment his feet lost their purchase on the floorboards. There was no sudden jolt, no violent lift, only a terrifying, seamless drift as the ground dropped away into the golden haze. The low ceiling of the dressing room pressed dangerously close, the stagnant air near the light fixtures thick and stifling against his face. When he forced his eyes downward, the vertigo hit him like a physical blow. Below, framed by the cramped walls, Branch and King Peppy stared up into the glare, their features washed out and completely illuminated by the unearthly radiance bleeding directly through his skin.
"JD?" Branch's voice was thin, a fragile thing that managed to slice cleanly through the swell of a thousand internal harmonies. It was small. Stripped of the mechanic's usual gruffness, it sounded entirely too much like the frightened child who had once clung to his tail in the deep winter storms of the Neverglade.
Don't panic, John chanted to himself, his fingers curling into tight, useless claws against the empty air. Don't you dare panic.
But the panic was already a wildfire in his blood. The gold wasn't just illumination; it was a scalding, living current roaring through his circulatory system, a heavy pressure behind his ribs that threatened to crack his sternum wide open. He didn't know how to suppress it. Worse, as the heat reached his throat, he didn't know if he wanted to. Twenty years of heavy silence, twenty years of feral survival, twenty years of hiding behind an unyielding mask of gray. And now this. This deafening noise. This blinding, suffocating light.
"Waited so long to break these walls down," he heard himself sing, the melody layered with deep, involuntary harmonies that vibrated straight through his teeth without his permission. "To wake up and feel like me."
With a sound like a drawing furnace, his hair ignited.
It wasn't fire that consumed, but pure, liquid light. A heavy, streaming curtain of gold cascaded down his back, the sheer force of the magic anchoring him higher against the ceiling. His head fell back, his eyelids squeezing shut as the absolute enormity of the sensation washed over him. There was no pain, not yet. Instead, it felt like a heavy blanket wrapped around his shivering shoulders, like finally, finally being warm after two decades of relentless winter.
"Put these patterns all in the past now," he sang, his voice fracturing, a raw, human break tearing through the magic. "And finally live like the boy they all dreamed of."
He forced his eyes open, looking down at his own bare arms. The old, silvered scars from his years in the wilderness, the jagged lines from the Growlbeast attack, the uneven marks of ancient fires and survival, were no longer dull. They were shining, pulsing like brands of white-hot light that refused to be hidden any longer.
"No more hiding, I'll be shining," he whispered, the sound carrying an impossible weight before his voice rose into a fierce, echoing shout. "Like I'm born to be!"
The light surged, a violent wave of heat that expanded to the very corners of the room. For a fraction of a second, the persistent fuzziness in his head cleared entirely, replaced by an absolute, terrifying clarity. He finally understood why he had survived the Neverglade. Why he had kept his boots moving through the mud when his feet were numb and his heart was empty. It hadn't been for the glory of the old band, or the perfection of the music, or even the approval of his brothers.
It was for this. This single, unvarnished second. This truth.
"'Cause we are hunters, voices strong," he sang, the raw power of his voice rattling the light fixtures, carrying through the heavy wood of the walls and out into the entire concert hall, and he couldn't bring himself to care if the whole world heard him shatter. "And I know I believe!"
He spread his arms wide, baring his chest to the glare, completely embracing the noise, the heat, and the self he had denied since he was seventeen.
"We're goin' up, up, up, it's our moment! You know together we're glowing, gonna be, gonna be golden!"
The aura pulsed, responding to the cadence of his voice as if the magic itself were an extension of his lungs, alive and hungry.
"Oh, up, up, up with our voices," he continued, the chords multiplying, growing richer, more complex until the small room was a cathedral of sound. "영원히 깨질 수 없는 gonna be, gonna be golden!"
His voice soared, the old cracks disappearing, the ancient fear melting away into the golden current. The syllables felt natural, inevitable, as if the music had always been there, simply waiting for him to drop his defenses and speak without shame.
"Oh, I'm done hidin', now I'm shining, like I'm born to be!"
And then, the snap.
Pain.
It wasn't a physical wound, but something infinitely worse, a deep, structural fracture in the magic. The light stuttered, flickering like a dying bulb, and John felt his mind split cleanly down the middle. One moment he was transcendent, soaring above the wreckage of his past; the next, gravity yanked him backward, tumbling him headfirst into the gray, into the suffocating paranoia, into the old, familiar madness he had tried to outrun.
His eyes snapped open, his pupils blown wide with terror.
The world had gone wrong. The golden light remained, but the warmth had soured, turning sharp, aggressive, and predatory. He could see it curling around his fingers like liquid electricity, an unstable, destructive force begging to be unleashed. To tear. To destroy. To burn everything down to the soil.
"Oh, our time, no fears, no lies," he heard himself mutter, but the voice was no longer his own. It was layered, distorted, a thousand echoing harmonies speaking in perfect, terrifying unison. "That's who we're born to be."
"Don't," the thousand-voices hissed through his teeth, his ears pinning flat against his skull as the dressing room walls began to groan under the sheer displacement of energy. "I'll hurt you. I'm... I'm too much."
He lifted a shaking hand, watching the air ripple with a concussive force that could have leveled the entire block with a single beat of—
Wings.
They erupted from his shoulder blades with a sound like a localized explosion, a pair of massive, magnificent fixtures composed entirely of liquid golden fire. They billowed and swirled against the low ceiling, filling the small room to absolute bursting with a heat that tasted of summer storms and ozone. And John hung there, suspended within the center of his own volatile light, his fingers twitching as the feral instinct took complete control of his muscles.
The lyrics were still pouring out of him, a relentless torrent forced past his lips by a melody that demanded to be finished, no matter the cost:
"You know we're gonna be, gonna be golden, we're gonna be, gonna be—"
"JD!"
Branch's shout cut through the roar of the fire like a blade.
John turned his head, the movement slow, heavy, as if he were fighting his way through a river of thick honey. Through the shimmering heat haze, he saw his little brother take a deliberate step forward. Directly into the updraft. Directly into the blinding, predatory glare of the danger.
"Born to be, born to be glowin', 밝게 빛나는 우리—"
"No," the thousand-voices rasped back, the white-hot energy crackling around his bare arms. "Stay back."
But Branch didn't retreat. He walked right to the absolute edge of the golden perimeter, the wind from the wings lifting his dark mane, his jaw set as he looked straight up into the light with those wide, piercing blue eyes. Not gray. Never gray again. Hopeful.
"You know that it's our time, no fears, no lies—"
"JD, look at me," Branch said, his voice quiet, steady, and completely unyielding against the storm. "I'm right here. Just come down."
The feral glare in John's eyes flickered, the gold faltering.
Just come down.
The words echoed through the hollow spaces of his memory. The Neverglade. The cave. The blizzard. Every single time his little brother had reached through the paranoia and the silence, not with a weapon or a demand, but with mere presence. By being there. By refusing to walk away.
"That's who we're born to be."
The wings dissolved. They didn't fade; they shattered all at once, bursting into a heavy, silent cloud of golden glitter that rained down through the dressing room like warm snow. Without the magic to support his weight, the strength vanished from John's limbs in an instant, and he fell.
Branch lunged, his short, sturdy frame catching John's chest, while Peppy moved with an old scout's silent speed, his large hands stabilizing John's shoulders. Together, they lowered him gently to the floorboards, the glittering snow settling around them like an ancient benediction.
John collapsed forward, his forehead burying itself into the crook of Branch's neck, his fingers clawing desperately into the fabric of his brother's vest as the first dry, racking sob tore itself from his chest.
"I'm sorry," he choked out, his throat raw, the words barely intelligible against his brother's skin. "I was so scared... I was so scared you'd leave."
"Never," Branch whispered, his own hands shaking as he wrapped his arms tightly around John's torso, refusing to give an inch of space. "Never again, JD."
Peppy shifted, his massive, heavy cloak sweeping forward to shield both boys from the drafty hallway. He lowered his head, pressing his forehead firmly against the back of John's skull, an silent, paternal promise that held the weight of a mountain.
"I've got you, son," Peppy whispered, his rough voice thick with an unmistakable pride. "You're finally home."
Even with the wings gone, the residue of the current remained. As the old king held him, John could feel the magic settling, turning warm, quiet, and steady, coiled around his frantic heart like a fist slowly unclenching. When he finally opened his eyes, he looked down at his bare arms. The old, white lines of his survival were no longer dull; they pulsed with a faint, permanent golden light from within. A quiet, skin-deep record of the harmony he had finally found.
The door burst open with a loud bang.
"Guys! The show starts in ten—" Poppy's voice cut off instantly. Viva was right behind her, her jaw dropping as she froze on the threshold.
The sight before them held no noise. Just three trolls huddled on the floor, the two gray brothers clinging to each other while the old king held them both beneath his cloak. Without needing an explanation, sensing the profound, heavy grief and relief that hung in the air, Poppy and Viva stepped softly into the room. The remaining golden embers and the faint light from John's scars reflected in their wide, glistening eyes.
Poppy's eyes filled with tears, the bright glare of her usual energy softening. Viva's did too, her exuberance completely subdued by the quiet sacredness of the moment.
They didn't speak. They simply dropped to their knees on the wood, wrapping their arms around John, Branch, and Peppy, weaving themselves into the huddle.
John felt the collective weight of them all against his skin. The brother who had never stopped looking for him, the king who had stepped into the empty shoes of a father, and the sisters who accepted his fractured pieces without a single question. The golden warmth inside his chest pulsed one last time, not with power, but with a quiet, shimmering tenderness that enfolded all five of them in a warm embrace.
The stadium could wait.
BroZone wasn't just a boyband anymore. They were a family, and for the first time in his entire life, John Dory knew, with absolute certainty, that he belonged.
The true harmony was already here.