Chapter 18
Today was the day of the virtual concert, and I’d wanted to make sure I was up in plenty of time for it. GVibes were going on stage in a couple of hours.
I checked my phone for what felt like the tenth time, but Jihoon hadn’t responded to my earlier message.
I chewed my thumbnail as I read the message again.
Joon
Today might be our last concert, and that scares me so much. What if our fans forget about us?
[Sent 0608]
I’d responded immediately.
Me
That won’t happen. Are you okay?
He hadn’t gotten back to me since then, even though I’d tried calling him.
For Jihoon, the idea that the fans might move on from them to other groups was like a scab he couldn’t stop picking at.
For a group like theirs, fan engagement was the essence of them, how they’d gotten to where they were, but it was also a real thing to the members.
Because while they’d been trained to know their status depended on the fans, for them it was a reciprocal kind of relationship.
For them, it was never bullshit when they called “we love you!” into a packed auditorium.
To leave all that behind, especially prematurely… I couldn’t imagine. All the public speculation about their enlistment made it worse, because they hadn’t even announced anything yet, and as far as I knew, no plans had actually been drafted up.
Despite this, there was speculation that this would be the group’s last, official performance together.
Contrary to how easy the organisers and companies had made it look, one does not simply shoehorn an event of that scale into a random calendar event.
Performances, stages, are booked many months in advance.
To say nothing of existing dates. The biggest stadiums were booked a year or more in advance, even if it was just as a placeholder.
Sometimes, a big company like ENT would book out venues years in advance, aiming to fill them with whatever group was most popular, or in anticipation of a tour at that time. Logistically, it was mind-boggling.
To have lost their tour meant so much more than postponing some venues.
Alongside my concern at not receiving a response from Jihoon, I also wasn’t surprised. I knew that Minjae had a no-phones policy just before a performance. They also had a soundcheck, and probably a million other things I couldn’t even conceive of.
Knowing that he was probably too busy to even look at his phone didn’t make me any less anxious though.
To take my mind of it, I went through the motions of my morning.
Coffee and a bowl of cereal, shower and hair wash.
Just enough time left over to make myself look presentable as I logged into the virtual waiting room.
The additional self-preening was because Jihoon had asked me to be one of the fans who would be up on the massive screen.
My webcam would be live during a segment, along with hundreds of other Vibers, allowing us all to sing along with the group for one of their biggest hits at the end of the concert.
I’d weakly protested when he’d asked me, putting forth all sorts of arguments.
“Is it a good idea to have your girlfriend in one of your concerts?”
“You’ll be one person in a crowd of hundreds, Ky,” he’d said patiently.
“I don’t look good on camera,” I’d whined.
“You’ll look perfect to me.” He had winked.
“Joon…”
“Kaiya, it would bring me peace to know you’re there with me.”
What could I have said to that? In the end, I’d agreed.
Although I had drawn the line at singing. I would mouth the lyrics, because I was a terrible singer.
Jihoon hadn’t tried to argue that point. He’d heard me sing.
Eventually, the clock ticked over onto the hour, the loading screen faded, and I was front row in the crowd of a GVibes concert.
Even though there were no actual people in the stadium, GVibes performed with all the hype and intensity of any other concert. If anything, they seemed more joyful, more energetic; bounding around the expansive stage with seemingly limitless energy.
If the lack of audience bothered them, they didn’t let on.
They performed a similar arrangement as they would have done for their world tour, amended slightly to include more of their older songs, as chosen by Vibers in a poll they’d done some weeks ago.
As an invested observer, I remained in awe of the technical set up.
When the camera feed switched around the stage, it was possible to see some of the rigging where cameras zoomed to and fro; an elegant choreography as complicated as any the group were doing on stage.
I was blown away by the production that had changed so completely to accommodate a live audience, to accommodating an industrial-sized technological set-up.
It was towards the end of the concert when a message popped up on my browser to say that my webcam would automatically activate.
I used the onscreen countdown to make sure I looked okay as nerves roiled in my stomach.
Before I had time to get really freaked out, my webcam lit up, and a little box in the top of my screen reflected my image back at me, while the rest of my screen was filled with a front-on view of the stage.
The massive screen on the back wall was now covered in hundreds of individual screens.
Vibers all silently waving, smiling, cheering with light sticks, or jostling their Viblet plushies.
All so completely unique, yet all uniquely part of the same experience.
“Vibers!” Minjae loudly called. All the cameras focused on him while the stage lighting threw him into sharp, sudden relief.
He was breathing heavily, sweat shining on his skin. Behind him, the other members had taken the opportunity to rest briefly, kneeling, or sitting down, each looking exhausted, but happy.
Minjae spoke in Korean, but a secondary voice provided the English translation a moment later.
“We know this was not how we were supposed to meet. We hoped to see you all in person, but it’s more important that you all stay safe.
We miss you. We miss performing for you, but we are happy to be able to have this, and to be with you, today.
We dedicate this concert to you, to all Vibers, all over the world.
Until we can meet again, please let us give you one more song. We love you.”
At this last, the group stood up and came together, joining hands or throwing their arms around each other, bowing low to what I imagined must have been an assembly of cameras.
It must feel strange, to look out into an empty stadium, and see only the round, glass eyes of camera equipment, instead of people.
And maybe it was, because as the first strains of Broken Promise cued through the silent stadium, the group turned away from the crowd of cameras to face the back wall. To the crowd of fans on screen.
GVibes sang to the screens, to the fans, and even though the only feed was from behind, and the sides, it was in a way as though they held the collective gaze of the hundreds of Vibers.
I saw Jihoon scanning the back wall, and I thought I saw him pause, grinning. But I couldn’t be sure.
When the chorus came, despite my insistence that I wouldn’t sing, I did.
I was as carried away as any other fan up there.
Carried away in the moment, in the song, in the story of how Jihoon thought his life would turn out; because that’s what this song was.
It was a memory of his life in Busan, in the days where no one knew who he was, where walking down the street was just that.
It was a hope for the days to come, and it was a promise to be better tomorrow than we were today.
The song was an acknowledgement that today may be hard, but we still hope for the days to come.
By the time the song had reached its conclusion, I doubted there was a dry eye in the place.
Ace and Lee were standing off to the side, arms slung around each other.
Even Woojin looked reflective as his eyes roamed over the screens.
They all seemed to be taking it in, and I couldn’t help but wonder what they were thinking.
Whether they were wondering when they’d see this again.
I couldn’t conceive of a future where it didn’t happen.
Not long after, my webcam was disconnected, and my screen went back to displaying the full view of the venue.
The guys were supposed to be finished after Broken Promise, but being the sometimes-chaotic group they were, they stayed on stage a bit longer, providing an impromptu a capella performance of seemingly whatever song came to mind for a few minutes.
Some of the songs weren’t even theirs, and I laughed.
This was as much for them as it was for us.
Eventually though, they filtered off-stage amidst an explosion of confetti and loud outro music that I couldn’t help but suspect was dialled up to encourage them to leave the stage – something they seemed in no hurry to do.
The camera feed ended after a few moments, automatically closing the window, and leaving me staring at my desktop background – a selfie I’d taken with Joon on New Years Eve, where we had snuck up to the top deck of some Seoul millionaire’s mega yacht, and watched the fireworks together.
I closed my laptop and went to sit on the window seat.
For a while, I just watched the fluffy, white clouds skim across the blue expanse of sky as the concert echoed through me.
For some reason I felt… I wasn’t sure how I felt.
Seeing them on stage, doing the only thing they’ve ever wanted to do made me remember that they lived with a countdown hanging over their heads.
I’d seen glimpses of it, from time-to-time.
It surfaced in the way the members spoke about the future.
They all wanted to keep going for as long as possible, but in every conversation where I’d heard them discuss the ‘what next’ period after enlistment, there was always a thinly veiled joke about whether the fans would still care.