Chapter 98
Myeongjeon sat down and squinted at the audience as they filed in. Unlike at the beginning, the audience now consisted of slightly more young women.
‘Is it because of the boy band kids?’
Seeing the two former boy band members beside him spouting nonsense like, “Ah, I’m nervous~,” Myeongjeon thought so. He understood that visuals were important in a band, but from what he had heard, this seemed like too much. What kind of idea was it to turn some idol trainees into a band?
“Everyone, let’s relax.”
After an internal sigh, Myeongjeon said that. The bass player had managed to follow along somehow, though he had ultimately failed to instill the jazz-based rhythmic playing Myeongjeon wanted. The drummer was quite good. And there was the vocalist, who kept using an idol-style vocal technique and made Myeongjeon snap, “No, that’s not what I mean!”
Then there was the guitarist, who followed along well enough but still left him uneasy. To make the arrangement more powerful—and to motivate him—Myeongjeon had created a rhythm-guitar part that did not exist in the original and deliberately added it. He had even given the guitarist a role in the solo section for a more intense performance.
‘I have a feeling this guy’s going to pull something… But if this bastard does, what can I even do?’
In truth, if he deliberately made a mess, there was nothing Myeongjeon could do. But if he set out to cause trouble, wouldn’t it be invalidated as trolling in the first place? So perhaps he would not actually pull anything…
Myeongjeon was the kind of person who believed it was better to be safe than sorry. That was why he had deliberately packed a Boss RC-2 loop-station effects pedal and a loop-switcher box.
Just in case.
* * *
“I’ll now explain the rules for this round! Based on the procedures conducted beforehand, this round will be a competition in which the bands are ‘temporarily disbanded and then appropriately reassembled’! You can check the details in the episode that will be broadcast later!”
At the MC’s words, cries of “What?!” burst from the audience. They were outraged by this method, which they had never heard of before. The indignation, mostly coming from the boy band fans, soon died down. The bands must have agreed to it, after all.
“Does this make any sense? Then why are we even having a band audition?”
“Exactly.”
The two people who had been grumbling eventually fell silent. What could they do? All they could do was watch the performances.
“And the theme of this competition is… ‘Free Song Selection’! Original songs are allowed, and covers are okay too! The bands have chosen whatever songs they wanted without restrictions! They may have arranged them, or they may have preserved the originals exactly as they were! So if you simply feel that a stage is ‘good!’ while watching it, vote for it. Don’t think about anything else! You must not give bonus points based on how pretty or handsome the singers are!”
The MC’s words drew a burst of laughter. Even as the two women laughed, they thought they would give a hundred points without fail to whichever band had the WEKIDS members in it. What else could they do?
“Then we’ll begin the competition! The order will proceed according to the draw conducted beforehand, so please refer to the broadcast for that as well…!”
After shouting that, the MC shuffled off. A video began playing on the screen above the stage. It showed what procedures had taken place to bring things to this point, who the first band was, and the process of that band’s rehearsals, along with their arguments and exchanges of opinions. Bits and pieces of it flowed by.
“How are you supposed to form a band in a few days and play rock? You crazy broadcasting-station bastards. Do you think rock is a fucking joke?”
A man muttered bitterly. He was not someone she wanted to get close to, but she agreed with him.
Still, this had nothing to do with her. She just wanted them to hurry up and get everything over with so the WEKIDS members would come out sooner.
Early in the competition, after several bands that were not particularly interesting had passed by.
“Next up is the ‘Temporary Band,’ led by Ha Suyeon, a member of Group Sound! The band’s name is ‘Temporary Band,’ which shows a remarkably unique sense of naming.”
“What kind of name is Temporary Band?”
At the slightly ridiculous name, the masked woman let out a hollow laugh. Even if this band was only going to perform together once, shouldn’t they at least have been given a proper name? Temporary Band, of all things.
“The members are… Ha Suyeon of ‘Group Sound’! Yoon Jihoon of ‘2MAJOR’! Hwang Seongmin of ‘Mystica’! Taeyoung of ‘WEKIDS’! And Jung Jaehun of ‘Muzaku’! Please welcome them with a big round of applause!”
“Taeyoung! Taeyoung’s the vocalist here!”
Her friend shouted after hearing the MC. It was an unexpected lineup. Their favorite member had joined the band led by the girl who was supposedly a ‘favorite to win.’ Thinking, ‘Of course she’s a girl. She knows a handsome face when she sees one…,’ they quietly pulled out their phones and prepared to record the stage.
“Hello. I’m Taeyoung, the vocalist of ‘Temporary Band.’ We prepared a great deal during the training camp. Our vocal styles are also somewhat different, so we had quite a difficult time reproducing the original.”
While the stage was being prepared, Taeyoung gave that greeting. He then engaged in a little small talk. He said things like, “We prepared really hard,” “Our leader is such a tiger that it reminded me of how fiercely we used to practice back when we were trainees, before debut,” and, “Our arrangement is intended to respect the original. We decided to recreate it while producing the most powerful sound possible.”
‘They worked our Taeyoung that hard?’
At that part, she glared toward the guitars. What were they doing to a kid who already had such a busy schedule? Yet the girl was checking her guitar this way and that without a trace of apology—or even looking at Taeyoung.
Behind her stood the second guitarist, quietly playing his guitar without making his presence felt. He seemed to be doing something too… but what he was doing was strange. What was he doing?
“And now, we’ll perform Cream’s ‘White Room’!!”
It was a singer and a song she had never heard before. Just as she was wondering what they were, the lights onstage went out.
Then, from within the darkness, came the sound of drumsticks.
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
After a beat, the guitar’s strumming rang out.
Each time, the stage trapped in darkness lit up, then sank back into darkness.
The drums and bass throbbed, gradually building the tension. Just as her head began to grow hazy from watching the band gleam beneath the flashing stage lights,
the vocals emerged in a rough voice completely different from Taeyoung’s usual one. The bass was simple but perfectly placed. A thick distortion scraped mercilessly, hard enough to evoke a metal sound, while a clear, clean tone rang out over it at the same time.
There was none of the ‘clean rock’ the previous band had shown.
The truly powerful performance meshed perfectly with Taeyoung’s almost growling voice, something she had never heard from him before.
“Uhhh…”
The low-pitched bass and drums that shook her heart.
The sounds of two guitars approached like fog.
Without realizing it, she noticed that she had begun tapping her foot little by little.
Then, with a drum fill, Taeyoung stepped back from the microphone. What came through the speakers next was a transparent, clear voice.
“What?”
Her friend poked her with an elbow. She felt the same way. Judging from the performances she had checked out, both that boy and the other member of the band had sung in low, quiet voices.
But the voice she heard now was crystalline—or at least that was the best way to describe it. The high notes climbed mercilessly without restraint. Even so, the guitarist’s hands did not stop playing. They moved violently, making the strings tremble, while the guitarist yanked at something like a lever to produce beautiful sounds.
Then Taeyoung’s vocals began again.
‘The second verse?’
Now that she heard it, she thought she understood the reason Taeyoung’s thick voice had faintly bothered her. It was meant to contrast with this, wasn’t it? In the meantime, the bass rhythm had changed slightly, and Taeyoung’s singing style had changed along with it. The two guitars and drums supported his voice as it climbed higher and higher.
As the strumming progression from the beginning repeated once more, she wondered why this song was so good.
‘Is it because Taeyoung is singing it?’
Taeyoung, her favorite member of WEKIDS, the band she loved, was standing at the microphone.
But she knew. Liking Taeyoung, liking Taeyoung’s voice, and finding the song itself good were different things.
Even just looking at WEKIDS’s albums, there were plenty of terrible songs. If the theory that ‘it’s good because Taeyoung sings it’ were true, then WEKIDS’s albums should have been perfect. But they were not. There were bad songs among them.
Then what was the reason?
She had only become a fan of a boy band because she happened to see their faces, and she did not like rock-band music at all. If anything, she tended to avoid it because it was too noisy.
Yet the music she was hearing now was the very definition of noisy… and somehow, it was easy to listen to.
Especially the guitar played by that girl.
The clear, clean tone was something she could not identify, but she liked it. Layered with the rhythmic, if not flashy, bass, it had first made her tap her foot unconsciously and then clap without her realizing it.
But her applause was nothing special. Applause was gradually spreading through the audience. It was not that everyone was joining in because of her; if anything, she was the one joining in with them.
The strange rock-nerd-looking man who had been complaining beside her, the middle-aged man cheering, “WHITE ROOM!” and even the 2MAJOR fan in front who had been repeatedly photographing the bass player had lowered his camera and was clapping.
As Taeyoung grinned broadly and answered the audience’s applause with applause of his own, a crystalline voice flowed through the speakers. It was like a clear, beautiful stream running quietly somewhere in the forest. Following it downstream, it became a roaring, turbulent river, then a guitar like a waterfall plunging thunderously from a cliff…
Then the strumming progression from the beginning appeared once more. But it was different from before. It felt as though something serious was about to begin.
Taeyoung slipped toward the back while taking out a cute tambourine, while the girl gradually came toward the front of the stage, nudging something around with her foot.
Something began to build beneath the strumming. It was a technique she found difficult to understand. But she could at least tell that the low sounds were steadily heightening the atmosphere.
Then the drums and bass, which had been ringing out in complex patterns, soon fell silent. The two guitars fell silent as well. For several seconds, only silence hung over the stage, in an atmosphere on the verge of exploding.
As at the very beginning of the performance, the drumsticks crossed. Her eyes had grown slightly accustomed to the darkness, and now she could see.
The first crossing—tap.
The second crossing—tap.
At that moment, she sensed something moving within her field of vision. She instinctively looked toward the second guitarist. He was a man who had silently played his guitar without making his presence felt.
And something glinted in the man’s hand. His movement looked as though he were violently plucking the strings.
The third crossing—tap.
She heard it: the sound of the guitar strings whirling. She also saw the girl at the front whip her head around so quickly it looked as though her neck might snap.
The fourth crossing—tap.
The lights suddenly flared brightly. She saw it clearly.
The second guitar’s string was broken.
Every member of the band had witnessed it.
The genuinely flustered expressions on their faces.
And the girl holding the guitar mouthed, “Fuck!” before roughly stomping on a pedal she had not touched until then.