Government-Supported Program (1)

A story written on some wiki. [The number of visitors can hardly be called small, but it would also be inappropriate to call it large]. It was the most fitting sentence for summarizing Club Paradox.

In the Hongdae indie band scene, Paradox served as something like an entrance. As long as someone was in a band, the club accepted them for its open mics, encompassing a wide range of genres and drawing people into the scene.

Next, it divided the people who had been fairly well trained at Paradox into their respective fields and sent them to other clubs. Metal went to MM, for instance, and jazz to River Hall. It sorted people and sent them elsewhere, but if anyone grew tired of the hardcore atmosphere, it held on to them and directed them toward a new genre.

That was how Club Paradox came to serve as a “hometown for everyone.” Even so, there were very few regulars who belonged specifically to “Paradox.” That was because everyone merely stopped by for a while before moving on.

But even Paradox was gradually changing its atmosphere. The biggest change was a sort of rumor that had begun circulating among people at some point.

‘If you go to Paradox at 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, you can see something interesting.’

Most people who heard that dismissed it as nonsense. They said things like, “But Paradox doesn’t even open until 6:00 p.m., so why would you go there at 4:00?”, and, “Is this that Neapolitan horror-story thing?”

But after a few people who had gone began leaving comments like, “Hey, it’s really good. And fun,” and continued visiting Paradox at 4:00 p.m. on Saturdays... people’s curiosity only grew.

And, like lemmings, the number of people visiting Paradox at 4:00 p.m. on Saturdays gradually began to increase. They did not really know what lay at the front; they simply followed whoever was leading.

Still, there was certainly a difference between lemmings and Paradox at 4:00 p.m...