Ares Music Concert (2)
The barren seats filled so quickly it was as if their emptiness had been a lie. A sea of people packed the hall — men and women, young and old — a crowd that, at a glance, looked no different from any other concert.
Save for one thing.
The proportion of middle-aged men was overwhelmingly higher than at a typical show. It made for a rather unusual landscape.
"There are a lot of people our age here, too."
"Hmm. I always thought folks our age didn't go in for this sort of thing."
Kim Chang-yong and Park Jin-sook, attending on Kim Se-jun's invitation, looked around and spoke in voices thick with surprise. It was the first concert either of them had ever attended. Everything they knew of such events had come through the media, and they had carried a small prejudice because of it. Without their son, they would likely have spent their entire lives keeping concerts at a polite distance. The idea that people their own age would come to a place like this and actually enjoy themselves had never crossed their minds.
"That makes it a little less embarrassing, at least."
Park Jin-sook let out a breath of relief as she took in the gray-streaked heads around her. Her son's first performance. Of course she had to be here — she had been prepared to endure a little awkwardness. Looking around now, that worry seemed unnecessary.
"This is actually fresh. Fun, even. We should come more often. I think we could get used to this more easily than I expected."
Park Jin-sook had discovered a taste for popular music through Kim Se-jun, and her words drew a pleased smile from Kim Chang-yong.
"Then we'll come often."
It was a suggestion that sat very well with him.
While Kim Chang-yong and Park Jin-sook waited for their son's stage with fluttering hearts, Kim Se-jun stood backstage beside Ha Dong-jun, watching the incoming crowd, and let out a sound of pure wonder.
"That's... a lot of people."
Seeing four thousand bodies in the flesh left him genuinely speechless. Ha Dong-jun needled him with an easy grin.
"Looks like you've got the most fans in here."
"My fans?"
Ha Dong-jun swept a finger across the seats.
"Look. Plenty of all kinds of people, sure — but you see all those middle-aged men? Those are your fans."
There were, indeed, a fair number of middle-aged men in the crowd. But claiming every last one of them as his fan was a stretch.
"They can't all be here for me."
Se-jun demurred, but Ha Dong-jun was certain.
"How many musicians at our company do you think men like that actually like? I'm not saying every single one of them is yours, but more than half? Definitely. You know how hard Simcheongga hit those fathers. I've got a ton of people around me who became your fans because of it."
Hmm...
It was a fair point. Se-jun couldn't quite bring himself to argue further. He turned toward the seats, and for a moment he could make out their faces — flushed, alight. Something warm settled in his chest. These people had come all this way to see him.
"Do well out there. Show them a stage worthy of the trip."
Ha Dong-jun's encouragement. Kim Se-jun nodded hard. He had not the slightest intention of wasting a single one of those footsteps.
Once every last member of the audience was inside, the concert began. Lee Hae-jin walked onto the stage alone and greeted them.
"Good evening! I'm Lee Hae-jin — CEO of Ares Music, and a singer!"
The moment he appeared beneath the brilliant lights, the hall erupted as if an earthquake had torn through the seats. Lee Hae-jin answered their roar with a smile and warmed the room with a few easy exchanges. The atmosphere stayed bright and companionable as he introduced the artists who would take the stage that night. Each time a name was called, the singer climbed up to greet the crowd, and the audience welcomed them with applause.
Waiting in the wings, Kim Se-jun let out a long breath when his own name was spoken, and climbed onto the stage on unsteady legs.
The roar that met him the instant he appeared was staggering. Four thousand faces looked up at him from below, their eyes bright with admiration and excitement. He hadn't even performed yet, and already something in his chest was stirring. The cheer that had greeted his entrance was, even by an honest measure, overwhelmingly louder than those for the other singers. He did not think of himself as better than anyone — and still a deep wave of emotion rolled through him.
That it was no illusion was confirmed by the other artists, who watched him with looks that were equal parts fond and envious. A few more singers followed him onto the stage, but none of them drew a cheer to match his.
When every artist scheduled to perform that night had been introduced, they left the stage, leaving only Lee Hae-jin behind. Him opening the concert had been tradition since the very first one. He dressed the night's first stage in that honeyed voice of his, and the audience, still riding their earlier frenzy, found themselves falling under his spell. They tucked their excitement away and swayed along, hands in the air, sinking into his song.
While Lee Hae-jin shared the moment with the crowd, the other singers bustled through their preparations backstage, waiting for their turns. Kim Se-jun, too, refused to let a single last check slip, determined to make his stage flawless. He confirmed his costume, inspected the gayageum one more time, paced to loosen his throat, and exhaled again and again to bleed off the tension. These were performances by singers he had long admired — but there was no room to stand and watch them.
"You're next, Se-jun!"
A stagehand ducked into his waiting room to call the order.
So Jin-ah noona's on now.
That had been Ares Music's planned sequence: Lee Jin-ah would close her set with Lotus, and he would follow with his own Lotus before moving into Simcheongga. Given the response-song concept, having him appear on her heels made for a clean picture. At the stagehand's word he hurried toward the wings, and from the seats he could already hear the crowd chanting Lee Jin-ah's name. Then came the familiar melody of her Lotus, and that clear, crystalline voice. Perhaps it was simply hearing a song he knew so well — the tension he had been holding began, just a little, to drain away.
Hoo...
One more deep breath. Lee Hae-jin passed him on his way back up to the stage. Lee Jin-ah's song had ended, and it was his turn.
At Lee Hae-jin's introduction, the audience's eyes lit with a peculiar gleam. No small number of the people in that hall had come for Kim Se-jun alone. The desire to hear live the Simcheongga that had struck them so deeply had drawn them here, and now that the moment was upon them, they loosed a cheer packed with genuine feeling. The roar filled Olympic Hall.
But Kim Se-jun did not appear. Instead, the lights that had been flooding the stage in brilliance went out all at once. Pitch darkness swallowed the hall. The crowd stirred, staring at a stage they could no longer see. Even those least familiar with concerts could tell that something special was coming. For a breathless stretch they watched the black stage with eyes full of anticipation — and then a single soft light bloomed, falling on Kim Se-jun standing alone.
A collective gasp tore through the seats. The man on that empty stage was dressed unlike anything they had seen from him before: a pale sky-blue hanbok, a phoenix embroidered across it in gold. He sat before a gayageum in that attire, and the audience exhaled in wonder at the figure he cut — like a scholar-gentleman stepped out of the Joseon era.
He had worn hanbok for the Simcheongga teaser. But performing in one on a broadcast stage was a first, and it held a great many eyes in thoroughly pleasant thrall.
"It suits him."
"Yeah. He's got a presence."
"This is the first time I've ever thought a man's hanbok looked beautiful."
A few exchanges drifted through the seats, and those who overheard them found themselves nodding along.
"Wait. What's that, though?"
"Huh? What?"
"There are two gayageums."
"What? Oh. You're right."
Every gaze had been locked on Kim Se-jun in his hanbok, so it took a moment for anyone to notice the two instruments arranged in an L before him.
"Maybe he just brought two because he's doing two songs?"
"You think that's it?"
They could only guess at the intent they didn't understand — and then a familiar accompaniment unfurled through Olympic Hall. Kim Se-jun's Lotus, answering Lee Jin-ah's. Seated before the instruments, he began to pluck the strings with practiced ease.
More precisely: both of them. The gayageum in front of him and the one beside him, at the same time. Left hand and right. Kim Se-jun, tearing sound from two gayageums at once.
A mad cheer and a spray of screams exploded from the seats. A small smile crept onto Kim Se-jun's mouth.
That's it.
The event he had prepared especially for this performance: playing two gayageums simultaneously. The moment he heard the crowd's roar, he knew it had landed. Playing two at once was no easy thing — but it was not impossible, either. A performance that delivered enormous visual impact without any great change in tone. When a cameraman closed in on his hands, the cheers swelled exactly as he had expected.
Those two hands moved with dazzling speed. And then Kim Se-jun's mouth joined them, releasing that distinctive voice.
When the lotus bloomed, I looked at no one but you.
More than the lotus itself, I carried only you in my eyes.
Three things at once. The people watching him widened their eyes as if they could not believe what they were seeing.
"Whoa... is that even possible?"
"I don't know... wouldn't your head explode?"
They were still gasping at the sight of him — and then, from one moment to the next, the murmuring stopped. Kim Se-jun's stage had, in an instant, put a spell on every person in the hall. That dazzling playing. That richly pleading voice, filling Olympic Hall to the rafters. This was no time for idle chatter.
Barely five minutes passed before his voice fell still, and a short, aching sigh ran through the crowd. His first stage of the night was already over. The regret lasted only a breath before thunderous applause poured down on the man who had given them something so fine.
"Ahem. Thank you."
Kim Se-jun rose from his seat and bowed toward the audience. In that brief window, the stagehands brought out a fresh pair of gayageums.
"Did you like the performance I prepared for you tonight?"
The crowd answered him in a single voice. There was not a no among them. A pleased smile touched Kim Se-jun's face, and he went on.
"The next song is, as I'm sure you know, Simcheongga. It was originally a duet, but I'll be singing it all myself tonight. And..."
He swept his gaze across the hall before he spoke again.
With those words he bowed deeply once more, then crossed to the new gayageums and sat.
The fathers who had come to the Ares Music concert held their breath as the stage they had been waiting for most began. And then Kim Se-jun's rough, weathered voice rang through Olympic Hall with a piercing ache.
It was a voice that reached down and stirred a listener from the very floor of their feelings.
"God... you really do have to hear this live..."
A man muttered it under his breath. There had been talk that Kim Se-jun's performances only revealed their true face in a live setting. He had expected something — but he had also assumed the usual internet exaggeration was baked into the rumor.
It was more than he had expected. The voice and melody pouring from those enormous speakers left a deep, lingering aftertaste.
"Unbelievable."
Backstage, waiting for his own cue after Kim Se-jun's set, Lee Hae-jin murmured it as he looked out over the seats. Even he, a man with no children of his own, felt a shiver run through his whole body. How much more, then, for the people who had come tonight specifically to see this stage? What were they feeling?
His gaze found a few of them — people weeping openly, heedless of anyone watching. Lee Hae-jin looked at them with a quiet, aching sympathy, then turned his head toward Kim Se-jun, still pouring himself out on that stage.
And in that moment, Lee Hae-jin was certain. There was no singer in the country who commanded the support of fathers the way he did.