Chapter 44 #2
“As you’ve said, the world has changed over the last few years, including the face of music. If you could meet yourselves in the past – before your enlistment, before Covid – what piece of advice would you have given yourselves?”
The question was intended for all of them, and as they conversed among themselves, I took a moment to enjoy observing their dynamic. Even if I did purposefully avoid looking at the far corner of the sofa.
As if in silent agreement, they answered me, one by one.
Minjae went first. “I would tell myself not to worry so much about perfection. We spent so much time trying to be perfect, when our fans just wanted us to be authentic.”
Woojin nodded, before saying. “I would tell myself to take a vacation. We thought we could rest in the military. We were idiots.” This earned a laugh from all the members and assembled crew.
Sungmin said something to the interpreter, making the members laugh, and Seokmin affectionately ruffled his hair. I turned to the interpreter, and she said, “Lee Sungmin says he would tell his younger self not to dye his shaved head green, because people called him a tennis ball.”
I laughed, holding a hand in front of my mouth. I shared a quick look with Lee, and he shrugged helplessly.
“Ace?” I prompted, not realising I had been so informal until the word was out of my mouth, and I immediately clamped it shut. But he seemed pleased, smiling broadly before saying, “I would tell young Seokmin to eat more tteokbokki and enjoy his life.”
I grinned, even as I shook my head. I missed you on the tip of my tongue. I bit it to keep the words inside.
I waited a beat longer, but Jihoon said nothing. He was looking down at his clenched fists.
I nodded to myself and said, “Thank you very much for your time, GVibes. I really enjoyed your concert, and I’m sure you’ll do well tonight.”
I was just reaching for my recorder, when a voice halted me. A voice I hadn’t heard in real-time for so long.
“You were there?”
The question was quiet, but it cut through the chatter like thunder, resonant in its impact. The members seemed to freeze. All but one, and that one called to me like an inexplicable force, bringing my eyes up to meet his for the first time in years.
He didn’t move, but still he seemed like a live wire in the intensity, the set of his shoulders, the hard line of his jaw. All this I observed in the split second it took me to take inventory before my eyes collided with his.
The impact was visceral. Lightning shot down my spine, heat amassing in my belly and pressure building behind my ribs until it felt like my heart might explode.
“Yes,” barely a word, more an exhalation.
He said nothing, but he shoved a hand in his pocket, the other resting on the arm of the sofa, opening and closing reflexively, as if he had a cramp.
I willed myself to move, to unfreeze, to not be there any longer.
I leaned forward, picked up my recorder, turned it off and slipped it back into my bag.
I stood up, hesitating slightly over how to say goodbye, or if I even should.
Minjae, surprised me again by getting up off the sofa and moving around the coffee table to reach for my hand.
My mouth fell open for a second before I recovered myself, reached out and gently took his warm hand in mine.
He squeezed my hand, ever so slightly as he smiled down at me.
“Good to see you, Kaiya,” he said quietly enough that the camera wouldn’t pick it up.
I smiled up at him, proud that my chin didn’t tremble under the weight of his gaze. He was someone whose approval I had once wanted so desperately.
Once upon a time.
I walked out of the room and back into the cooler corridor.
As soon the door closed behind me, I gasped, bending over to put my hands on my knees, gulping in great lungfuls of air as though emerging from beneath the surface of the ocean.
Professional. I was a professional. This was a job.
I quickly straightened up as the organiser walked out a moment later. She frowned at me, but said nothing, and together we walked back to the main hall, where I reclaimed my seat, and watched as she called another publication to go in for their turn.
I’d been middle of the pack, so it was another hour or so, before the interview part of the junket was complete.
I’d needed that long just to slow my heart rate to a more manageable pace, and I’d had to grab several paper napkins from the buffet table just to dry my palms and neck.
Nervous energy made me jittery, like too much coffee on an empty stomach.
It wasn’t too long after the last interviewer came back out that the organiser walked over to the temporary staging platform, and just as she had done earlier that morning, claimed everyone’s attention by simply standing there.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming this morning. All interviews have been concluded. We will now move onto to the photography portion of the event. Please be aware this will be a group session only. You will be invited to come forward in groups of five. We will not be prolonging this due to the strict timeline the group has today.”
As she spoke, the group members filed through the door, guided by Youngsoo and another person I didn’t know. They each stepped onto the stage and stood behind the organiser.
She went on to provide further instructions, which I only half listened to while I went back and forth with myself about whether I actually had the gall to go up to the podium and use my phone to take photographs of the group.
Frequency hadn’t deemed it necessary to assign me a professional photographer for this one part. My editor had said photos at the event were a bonus, but not necessary, since they were expecting to mostly use the footage and images from the concert and awards show.
With this information, I’d just made up my mind to spare myself the embarrassment, when my group was called, and like a bloody Lemming, my legs propelled me towards the stage, seemingly on their own accord.
I couldn’t stop. I was committed to the action now, made worse by the fact the members had clearly spotted me, and while they mostly made the effort not to look in my direction for too long, it would look even worse if I ducked out now.
My face was flaming by the time I made my way to the stage, and I tried to conceal myself with the group of people in front, each setting up tripods, or getting into various positions while holding cameras.
All, except me. I pulled out my phone from my pocket and tried to look like I knew what I was doing by fiddling with the settings.
I knew I looked slightly ridiculous standing there on my own, phone in hand next to people clearly more proficient.
For one wild moment, this felt like the time I’d first met Jihoon.
When I’d first seen him in the lobby of Pisces, and I’d been so distracted that I’d crashed into a bollard and decked it.
The level of humiliation was about on par, and in that brief second, it struck me as objectively funny. I had to wrestle the smile off my lips.
It was in that second that I caught Ace’s eye and he grinned at me before turning back to the front and shifting into a more camera ready expression.
I gamely took some shots, framing them as best as I could. I zoomed in on each member individually. Even Jihoon.
It was like he felt my attention. His eyes shifted in my direction, and like before, his gaze felt like a physical sensation, and though I was focusing on my phone screen, my eyes were locked with his through it, unable to look away.
I shivered under his penetrating stare, too scared to look up from my phone screen.
I’d gone from feeling foolish to feeling something very different.
A feeling that was less easy to define. I wanted to pull it apart, to inspect it and define it, but all I could do was feel.
Feel the way my body was somehow hot and cold.
Feel the sudden sting in my lip from where I’d bitten it without realising.
Feel the way my stomach didn’t twist; it clenched.
With the barrier of the phone screen between us, we had a staring match where I felt safe enough to hold his gaze, to really look at him, when for three years, I’d avoided every image of him.
“Excuse me,” came a gruff voice to my left as someone bumped into my elbow, breaking whatever spell I’d been trapped in. The people around me were packing up their cameras, and deconstructing tripods. I hadn’t even noticed our time was up.
Instinctively I glanced back up. He was looking away. As if it hadn’t happened.
And I might have believed that, if I didn’t catch the way his hand shook before he shoved it into his pocket.
My press pass to the MCAs was limited to the red carpet barrier, and no further.
While that sounded good on paper, for a smaller publication and a junior reporter it meant I was also relegated to the very end of the carpet, closer to the venue doors.
Again, that sounded excellent on paper, but in reality, it was the worst place to be.
It soon became apparent to me that the big name celebrities who walked down the carpet to the Mayan Theatre tended to get out of their cars and linger at the top of the carpet, closer to where the general public were being held back by metal barriers and burly people in well-cut black suits.
They then stopped further down to do interviews with the bigger, more established publications who had earned their spot in the prime locations.
Where I stood was the red carpet equivalent to the nosebleeds.
I’d managed to get the attention of one or two notable performers, but most people were just waving and smiling by the time they got close to the end.