The Joy of Spectating
“...Yes! We’ve just taken a look at all the candidates for first place. Who will take home the trophy today?”
“Oh, I’m dying to find out myself! I can’t wait for the announcement!”
It was a Sunday afternoon in the first week of October. On the stage of a music show broadcasting live, Harin stood behind the three MCs, waiting for the rankings to be announced, just as she always did. She kept a bright, cheerful smile on her face to hide her nerves.
“Unni, your face is so stiff.”
“Really? Can you tell I’m nervous?”
“It’s good to smile. Doesn’t smiling bring... drums? Or something like that?”
“Fortune.”
“Seriously, Lee Yunsieo, when are you going to fully learn Korean?”
“Then teach me yourself.”
“Niga? You might not know, but that’s a very dangerous word in America, you know?”
While her bandmates chattered, Harin looked around, her eyes eventually landing on the members of Various.
Various...
Although they were hailed as the leaders of the fifth-generation idols, Various had only been active for about three years. Compared to Aurora, who were about to wrap up their fourth year, there was a gap of over a year in their careers.
Yet, despite that, Various had dominated the Korean female idol market from the very beginning, as if the throne had always belonged to them.
And Harin didn’t like that.
It wasn’t that she disliked the members of Various personally. She hadn’t spoken to them much, but they seemed polite enough. What Harin hated was the public perception that they were the undisputed ‘one-top.’
She wanted to overturn it. She wanted to shatter the existing order.
Just like her idol, Ha Suyun, who was currently shaking the entire Korean music industry to its core.
“Now, for the first week of October! Who will be this week’s number one? Let’s see the results!”
“Yes! With all the points tallied up, who will claim the crown today?”
As always, the suspenseful, tension-building music began to play.
Unlike usual, Harin’s body went rigid with anxiety. Normally, she would think, ‘It’d be nice to win, but if not, whatever.’ But this time, they absolutely had to win.
As the surrounding idols, who knew what was at stake, began to shift their gazes between Various and Aurora, the rookie idol trio acting as MCs looked down at their cue cards and announced the results.
“Yes, this week’s number one is... Congratulations! Aurora, with Lean on You!”
“Whoa! Awesome!”
Paper confetti exploded into the air, accompanied by an excited shout from someone behind them. Harin clenched her fists in joy, fighting the instinct to look over at Various. If she looked at them and smiled in this situation, it would instantly spark a controversy about her attitude.
With this, we’re 3 and 0.
Friday, win. Saturday, win. And Sunday, win.
A clean 3:0 sweep. A decisive victory.
Of course, Various had their excuses. It was only their second week of promotions, and Aurora had thrown everything they had into a relentless onslaught. It was a natural outcome, especially since Aurora had mobilized Group Sound. Besides, the scores were incredibly close, so it was practically a tie.
“Please share a few words!”
“Unni, hurry, hurry.”
“Ah, me?”
Before Harin took the microphone and spoke, she paused to think. Various could make all the excuses they wanted. But now, whether consciously or unconsciously, everyone would have to realize the truth.
“Ah, thank you so much for showing so much love to Aurora’s Lean on You! We want to thank our staff, but most of all, we are truly, deeply grateful to Group Sound for helping us! And...”
Whether people called it the first tier, the big four, or the sole emperor... whatever the label was, that established order was now beginning to crumble.
The sudden clash between the two idol groups ended in a 3:0 victory for Aurora. The battle could have dragged on, but not in a way that would allow for a clear ranking, because a chart-monster boy group was scheduled to make their comeback in the second week of October.
Naturally, gossip-mongers across the internet had plenty to say about the showdown.
Theoretically, the chances of Aurora beating Various were extremely low. The gap in fandom size, passion, promotional strategy, and general public recognition was simply too wide.
Cream Entertainment knew this, which was why they tried to settle it purely with the music. But with Lean on You and Blind Sight being of similar quality, Aurora’s chances of winning remained slim. Even if they narrowed the gap to the absolute limit, they had no way to turn the tables.
But as everyone now knew, the tables had been turned. They did it by utilizing a sort of ‘cheat item’ that only Cream Entertainment and Aurora could deploy.
While the criteria varied slightly, most music shows calculated rankings based on digital streaming, physical sales, viewer voting, and broadcast appearances. No matter how much Various paced themselves during promotions, their sheer size meant they naturally dominated Aurora in almost every category.
Yet, while Various crushed Aurora in every other area... Aurora managed to edge them out in the single most important category: digital streaming.
Under normal circumstances, this would have been impossible. Even the sheer number of fans dedicated to streaming was far higher for Various.
But the variable that disrupted everything was Group Sound.
— My brother-in-law never listens to idol music, but I saw him listening to Lean on You. When I asked how he knew the song, he said he heard about Group Sound and decided to check it out lol
— Hahaha, that’s insane.
— I don’t listen to idol music either, but when I heard they did a collab, I watched their live performance. I liked it, so now I’m streaming it. The influx of fans from Group Sound is massive.
— Honestly, who wouldn’t watch when the top band in Korea is standing on stage with them? No one, lol
— 11111111
— 2222222 Exactly, exactly.
The general public pick, the national pride pick, the local pick—whatever you wanted to call it.
Starting from the barren wasteland of the Korean band scene and exploding in Japan, the land of bands, with Kingdom, Group Sound’s prestige was soaring to limitless heights. And with Group Sound involved—and the song composed by none other than Ha Suyun—Aurora’s hype exploded exponentially.
In the end, it resulted in a classic ‘giant killing’ that defied their physical size.
Everyone was happy, except for Square Entertainment and Various. Cream Entertainment was thrilled to beat Square, and Aurora was ecstatic to beat Various.
“Where did you get that?”
“Bought it the moment I got paid for the music show appearance. Pretty, right? It’s the Kazuki Arai signature.”
“Our music doesn’t even need a five-string.”
“Do you only buy things you absolutely need?”
Group Sound was happy because they got paid a lot of money. With the sudden windfall, everyone had upgraded or bought something new. Suyun, very leisurely, had ordered a guitar with a one-piece Cuban mahogany body—heaven knows where she found it—and another cheap guitar to abuse for sound experiments.
And Suyun thought that would be the end of it.
“When is your guitar coming?”
“Don’t know. Soon, probably.”
Wearing a loupe, Suyun gave a half-hearted reply to Iseor’s question as she compared a circuit diagram with the guitar’s wiring. Well, it would arrive eventually. Until then, she planned to keep experimenting with the sound like this.
I should do a proper experiment during our next live show. See what kind of reaction we get...
To Suyun, it was just a minor project. It was a bit of a hassle because it took up her time, but she got paid well, so she was content. However, this event was slowly spreading its roots in an unexpected direction that Suyun had never anticipated.
People from a completely different realm, who previously had nothing to do with Group Sound, were beginning to take notice of them.
But that was a story for later. At this stage, it was nothing more than the faint flutter of a butterfly’s wings.
Completely oblivious to all of this, the members of Group Sound were pouring their hearts into practice. Earning money was great, but it also meant they had lost valuable practice time. They focused on their ensemble practice with even greater intensity and precision, striving for the absolute highest quality.
“Let’s take a break. Twenty minutes.”
“Okay~”
Perhaps because years of practice had become second nature, the members, who used to collapse like limp scarecrows whenever a break was announced, now calmly stretched and went about their business.
Meanwhile, Suyun sat in front of the computer in the corner of the practice room, staring at the monitor. She wanted to flesh out some ideas that had occurred to her during their recent live tour.
“What are you doing?”
“Research.”
As Suyun stared at the monitor, a heavy weight suddenly slumped over her head. Suyun gave a dry response, then snapped her head back, planting her skull directly into Iseor’s solar plexus.
“Gack!”
Ignoring the choked gasp behind her, Suyun turned her attention back to the monitor.
“What, are you writing a new song?”
“No. For this live show...”
The monitor displayed various album covers and titles. Seoha, who had quietly wandered over, noticed that despite being by different bands, the albums shared a common thread. Before she could point it out, Suyun spoke first.
“We don’t have a live album. I’m thinking of making one.”
“A live album?”
Iseor, rubbing her sore chest, slowly sat up and questioned her.
“You know, we have that acoustic one.”
“That’s technically live, but... it feels less like a live album and more like a, well, a concept album.”
Suyun muttered in response to Seoha. To Suyun, an acoustic album was just an acoustic album, not a true live album. Of course, strictly speaking, it was recorded live, but still.
“What I mean is something like this.”
Suyun clicked around and pulled up several album covers.
The Allman Brothers Band’s At Fillmore East. James Brown’s Live at the Apollo. The Grateful Dead’s Cornell 5/8/77. Fishmans’ 98.12.28 Otokotachi no Wakare.
All of them were legendary live albums that had carved their names into music history.
“Whoa, isn’t that aiming a bit too high?”
“You have to dream big... No, I don’t mean we should literally make it at that level.”
As Suyun spoke, she recalled their performance at Summer Sonic 2027. It was a show that had taught her many things, but aside from her own musical shortcomings, the biggest thing she realized was the audience’s thirst for live music.
To be honest, Suyun hadn’t expected the fancam filmed by that foreigner to get so many views. She had just thought of it as a neat little video.
But seeing how it not only racked up views but also drove a wave of new members to join their fan club, Suyun couldn’t help but realize how deeply people craved the raw energy of a live performance.
“We don’t have to make it a massive production. Let’s just record every show, see which performance turns out the best, and release that one.”
“That... sounds like a great idea...”
“Sounds fun.”
Hearing the two agree, Suyun nodded. They get it.
However, from Iseor, who usually gave the most enthusiastic responses, came a voice of a completely different nature.
“Wait, if we do that, doesn’t that mean we have to play differently for every single show?”
“We always do that anyway.”
“No, if it were just our usual level of variation, you wouldn’t be bringing this up, Suyun. You would’ve just recorded a random show and released it.”
Instead of answering, Suyun just grinned, looking like she had been caught red-handed.
“I’m out.”
“You can’t. Everyone else already agreed.”
“Hey! Democracy means respecting the minority opinion! South Korea is a country of freedom, and I have the right to—!”
“Just... give up... It’s not like... this is the first time...”