A fan of Destroy Six, whose stage would be in Part Three.
Go Yewon was holding her breath as she watched the stage.
‘Is she coming out…?’
Online, the fandoms of Destroy Six and Debonair were fairly icy toward each other, but Go Yewon actually knew.
She knew that, in the incident where Destroy Six had sniped at them a few months ago, Lee Dohee had naturally been innocent.
‘Chae Seonwoo was the one who acted rashly in the first place, so how is that Lee Dohee’s fault? It was his fault for making a broad snipe.’
Of course, Chae Seonwoo and Ian, who had been beside him, weren’t her biases.
So it was an issue she could view objectively.
‘But putting that aside, most of the kids who go all the way to Dohee’s SNS or Debonair’s YouTube to terrorize them are foreign pests, so what can I even do? Domestic fans know how dangerous the backlash can be, so why would they pile up bad karma like that…?’
Truly, these were days when she was growing sick to death of the malicious overseas fans who were still committing cyberterrorism even months later.
Of course she knew. Some thoughtless domestic fans who had stood by or fanned the flames were also greatly at fault.
‘Sigh…’
That was why Go Yewon planned to cheer for Lee Dohee’s stage as much as she could today.
‘Lee Dohee’s first solo song stage!’
In truth, part of it was also that she personally had a favorable impression of Dohee.
‘Debonair’s stage today was cool too, the stories fans usually share about her are really nice, and she’s really fun in their self-produced content.’
She wasn’t a fan, but there were reasons she liked her. As she was lost in those thoughts—
In an instant, the spotlight flared on.
An old piano appeared, illuminated by dreamlike light.
Go Yewon was baffled by that old piano, with microphones messily attached to it.
‘What… what is that?’
But such thoughts were bound to disappear once Dohee appeared and calmly walked across the stage.
‘…Wow.’
Because even though it had only been about an hour since she’d performed in Part One, Dohee’s aura had changed one hundred and eighty degrees.
How to put it? The image of Dohee that Go Yewon was familiar with, and that was famous among K-pop fans, was this:
The feeling of a sunny pretty girl who always gazed into the camera and stepped onto the stage with a bright atmosphere.
That had definitely still been true until just earlier.
But now…
‘She’s a total cold beauty with dark yin energy…’
Yes. With her long ebony-black hair let down and one side tucked behind her ear, she wasn’t a cold pretty girl but a cold beauty!
That was an enormous difference.
‘Somehow, she even seems handsome…’
It was a difference big enough to make her think such an illusion.
‘Her face itself is a face that only has female hormones coming out of it… Is it her atmosphere that’s handsome…?’
Go Yewon asked herself that, then quickly answered that it was true and reached her conclusion.
Certainly, Dohee today, not looking at the camera and trudging along with a somehow pale face…
Really did give off a lonely masculinity.
On top of that, her outfit, as if expressing achromatic colors, was truly good as well.
‘Yeah, clothes with this kind of feel are really… nice. The stylist… really did well. They need to be praised.’
A look that seemed to make coexist
the courteous image of classical music,
and the rebellious image of modernity.
On top, a beautifully reformed suit jacket and a loosened tie.
On bottom, black stockings and black hot pants.
Go Yewon naturally marveled.
As expected, Lee Dohee looked insanely pretty in person, even more than in photos.
It was no wonder even the people beside her who looked like fansite masters were pressing their shutters.
Even though, at a glance, they were fansite masters for other idols, not Lee Dohee.
‘But honestly, it isn’t that surprising…’
Dohee was already famous.
As a subject for other fansite masters’ cameras.
Probably… next April Fools’ Day, it felt like their feeds would be plastered with Dohee’s photos.
Because on April Fools’ Day, fansite masters had a culture of choosing idols they themselves had admired and acting as a one-day fansite master for them on their own SNS.
In the meantime, Dohee sat down in front of the piano.
—You’re pretty!!
—Fighting!
A few tactless voices rang out loudly, but…
[Ah…]
Dohee merely stood before the piano, staring blankly at the keys.
‡‡‡
Then she simply collapsed over the piano.
Letting out a mess of notes as she did.
A somewhat eccentric act.
But… precisely because of that, attention focused on her in an instant.
“……”
Even the tactless voices that had occasionally been heard until moments ago vanished.
Had nine, maybe ten seconds passed like that, with tens of thousands of people holding their breath?
Dohee, who had been lying there without a trace of vitality, finally seemed to regain her breath. With a sharp gasp, she violently raised her body, leaning on both hands pressed hard against the keys.
For a moment, it felt as though she had been on the verge of drowning.
Then, after Dohee drew in one fierce breath, her fingers immediately swept over the keys.
The stage, the performance, had begun.
An arpeggio. In an instant, her hands and fingers moved over the keys.
High.
Her hands were high at every busy moment as they struck the keys rapidly.
It felt as though the hands striking the keys began from near her head.
As already mentioned, Go Yewon had a favorable impression of Dohee, so of course she had watched videos of Dohee playing several times.
In the first place, there was probably no K-pop fan who hadn’t.
Dohee’s grand-prize performance at last year’s concours had over twenty million views.
What Go Yewon had felt then was that, just like her image, she played gently and beautifully.
‘But now…’
It was intense. And fierce. She was deliberately raising her hands up to her head and bringing them down for an arpeggio that must already have kept her hands busy. It wasn’t merely a succession of notes, but an outpouring of emotion. A physical form of emotion.
The fast, precise movement of her right hand and the powerful bass line of her left hand, striking down from above her head, blended together, moving up and down the keys about three times in a mad ascending arpeggio.
Each note chased the next like ripples, flashing in her ears.
‘This is kind of…’
And when, from Dohee’s hands, instead of an arpeggio, a smooth, flowing descending glissando brought one theme to a close—
‘It feels like something I’ve heard a lot.’
A musical idea surfaced in most ears.
And when Dohee once again played the ascending arpeggio three times with her whole body—
‘That rising feeling… madness.’
In that place filled with the sound of piano, the sound of a kick drum came in from the background.
Dohee, who had been spewing madness and rage, smiled beautifully as her right hand presented a beautiful descending arpeggio.
‘Wow…’
As Go Yewon’s mouth fell open on its own at the introduction, while she was still marveling—
Without a moment’s rest, Dohee grabbed one of the many microphones in front of her, the one aimed at her head, and sang beautifully in time with the kick drum.
[Un known]
And yet her voice was extremely calm.
No—something was boiling inside it.
Her voice was rasping.
[A story only I know.]
Then, as if she could no longer hold back,
the smile vanished, and she slammed down on the piano.
[Bang! Bang! Bang!]
At the act, some white fragments flew up.
‘Huh…? The keys?’
The ivory coating had fallen off one key, leaving only a piece of wood.
Even so, Dohee’s two hands went back onto the keys.
[I can’t say it]
And then the Alberti bass technique that Dohee had envisioned
unfolded the same way in her right hand, not only in the bass.
Interlocking, creating an even stronger and more powerful thematic melody.
Only now did Go Yewon realize in her head what this song was.
‘Beethoven! It’s Moonlight Sonata!’
Was that why?
[Because that’s a secret]
As if asking whether she had only realized it now, Dohee finished the lyric and once again struck only the low register with one hand.
[Bang! Bang! Bang!]
Then Dohee’s playing became free.
[Sometimes it torments me, begging me not to forget, the dead ghost of myself]
The Alberti bass theme she had been playing with both hands at once—
now, as if she intended to combine both hands into the playing of one hand,
though it wasn’t “Chopsticks,” she lifted only one finger at a time and offered a jaunty melody even amid the eerie atmosphere.
[Whether there are two of me, or I stole the place, even I cannot know]
At a glance… it was improvisational jazz. It even gave off a distinctly improvisational, jazzy feeling.
But only up to there. Dohee’s performance stopped, and from somewhere, the sound of an electric guitar entered.
[I elegised]
Dohee’s voice changed sharply.
[An elegy for another me]
The calm had completely vanished, and it was a vocalization that seemed to say she was unbearably sorrowful and full of grief.
But then, along with the piano playing again, it changed once more into a voice that seemed to swallow that sorrow.
[But still the pain is underneath, so listen me.]
For a child born and raised in Korea, she also spoke English lyrics with pronunciation that was distinct enough to show how hard she had worked on it.
Saying that, in truth, that pain was merely being swallowed down.
[This elegy, to be a man's eulogy]
And asking them to listen so that this elegy could become a eulogy for the man Dohee would now forget.
[I'll do on my best, up your rest
so rest in peace, my fragment]
I’ll do my best for you, so find your rest. So rest in peace, my fragment, my piece.
Those lyrics were not being translated literally in Go Yewon’s head, but she was already receiving them intuitively, and countless thoughts passed through her.
One of them was this.
‘…Was Dohee always this good at singing?’
In absolute terms, the tone of her voice itself was not something innately gifted.
Nor was there any especially technical method.
Instead, her musical understanding was outstanding. There was no wavering.
The emotion was deep. The appeal was high.
She knew how to make use of her own tone. Somehow, her usual tone was even clear. And yet the rasp in her lower register, the thing she had been criticized for, was now even charming.
Why was that? Contrary to what was known, it was so… so pleasant to listen to.
So she made no sound.
Was everyone thinking the same thing?
Everyone held their breath.
But as soon as she finished the lyrics, the singing, Dohee was once again speaking only with the keys, lonely.
As if facing a repeat sign. Because she was focusing on the first thematic melody, the arpeggio resembling the third movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.
But it was so good.
The way she played the arpeggio clearly and powerfully.
[Sor row]
[For reasons only I know]
And the way she spat out the lyrics of the second verse.
[I elegised
An elegy for another me]
And from the sad chorus that began—
[So rest in peace, my fragment…]
until the end of the second verse.
“……”
It was so good.
But when it seemed she had drawn out every last note,
no one could clap.
Because Dohee was still pressing the sustain pedal to the very end, and the final note she had struck continued to circle through the hall.
And because Dohee was slowly rolling up the sleeves of her suit jacket.
Then, around the time the limit of that sustain pedal was reached and the sound naturally faded away,
Dohee, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, began a free performance that clung to no form, as if she had rearranged the earlier section.
First, in the MR Dohee had written herself, the sound of drums with the same beat laid the foundation, and an arpeggio was placed atop that beat.
But there was no rule like the first time, of three ascents and one descent.
Only the scale in the left-hand part rose as she repeated both ascending and descending patterns three times.
The Alberti bass technique. She showed it only briefly.
Then this time, she changed the arpeggio into something jazzy. After all, jazz was ultimately improvisation.
Then, just as the theme of the third movement of Moonlight Sonata seemed to show itself slightly, an electric bass was suddenly layered violently into the MR.
A glissando that simply kept sliding under emotions grown more intense.
She mixed in strikes from a slightly higher position.
Improvisation was no longer necessary.
A melody racing toward the end.
At some point, even the broadcast camera was no longer focused on Dohee’s face, nor her whole body, but only on those beautiful hand movements.
And then, exactly as in the first melody, back to the theme.
Only this time, the arpeggio was stronger, stronger, stronger.
Every descent had to be a glissando.
Her whole body bounced with the recoil, bang, bang.
It was so forceful that several more white fragments flew off.
Some of the keys sank in and did not come back up.
And when she finished those three ascending arpeggios like that—
she simply entrusted every note to the electric bass,
and Dohee merely kept the beat with clusters.
She slammed down on the piano.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
More powerfully than ever before.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
So hard that one key jutted out as if its fastening had come loose.
Bang—! Bang—! Bang—!
[……]
Just like that, it ended.
With roughly seven or eight ivory fragments fallen on the floor,
and, after a brief moment of silence, an explosion of shouts.
But Dohee… as if she heard nothing at all, did not smile for even a moment and simply rose from her seat.
With eyes that, at a glance, seemed bloodshot.
That Dohee merely picked up two white ivory fragments that had fallen below.
Even so, the cheers still did not end.
The broadcast screen kept its attention on Dohee until the very end.
On Dohee as she placed the two ivory fragments on the black piano that was all but broken apart.
Two straight pieces of ivory meeting at the upper third and crossing horizontally.
A cross, bearing symbolic meaning within its simplicity.
And so, unusually, from the moment Dohee stepped onto the stage until she finished the song and left, she never once turned her gaze toward the audience, and simply descended below the stage.