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 ofBroken Promisecued 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 afterBroken 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 YearsEve, 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.
At first, I was shocked that this was something they could believe, given how vocal and dedicated Vibers were, but more-and-more I had started to think this was an attitude that was baked into their training. Either make it big by enlistment or disband.
I drew my knees up and rested my cheek against them, eyes on the clouds.
