Light blinded Sol Mae as laughter filled her ears. The noise had barely receded when the man on the stage before her began speaking again. This time though, he didn't begin with a witticism to entertain the crowd, but instead with an introduction that had the audience erupting into applause.
"Now, please welcome the hit group, Immortal Blossoms!"
Sol Mae and the other girls were suddenly prodded toward the stage. They rushed forward with beaming expressions that only made the crowd cheer harder. They were the group everyone adored. They were symbolic of everything that was innocent and good, everyone of them as sweet as sugar. At least, that's what everyone who was blind to the truth believed.
They waved to the crowd in improvised enthusiasm as they moved to their preassigned seats.
"Welcome, ladies!" the man said to them once they were seated. "Considering greeting you have just received, I think it's fair to say you have fans all over Korea! What do you think of that?"
Rin, the "leader" of their group, smiled sweetly toward the crowd. "It's incredible! We are truly grateful for each and every one of our fans!"
The crowd burst into applause again at her words, just as Rin as well as the other three girls had known they would. Every word, every smile was carefully calculated. They carried the desired effect on their fans, but had Sol Mae choking down a laugh. She had heard Rin reciting these very words before a mirror too many times before to register the lack of anything genuine.
Sol Mae divided her attention between the man's questions followed by the answers she had heard countless times before, and flashing small smiles toward the cameras like the other girls. They all waved and blew kisses to their fans, winking and being the sweet girls they were supposed to be.
Suddenly Sol Mae jerked to attention as she heard her name on the man's lips. He was smiling at her, while Rin carefully concealed her disdain at the conversation being drawn away from her.
"What a rare sight!" the man exclaimed. "I think this is the most anyone has seen Sol Mae smile since she was a solo performer!"
Sol Mae let a short laugh escape her. "I smile!" she defended herself. "What is there in my life that I can't smile about?" The crowd laughed, but the girls beside her could easily detect the thinly layered sarcasm in her voice.
"That's what I'd like to know!" the man said with a bright grin.
Sol Mae simply shrugged with a overly-saturated smile. "I'm as happy as any other girl in my profession." The man's smile seemed to falter the slightest bit at the look in her eyes and the edge in her voice, but she laughed to cover her honesty. Regardless, the man chose to ease the conversation away from her and toward the other girls.
The interview went on for a while in the same way until the man finally said the words Sol Mae had been waiting to hear. "After a short break, Immortal Blossoms will perform for us! We are all very excited!"
The girls left the stage in much the same way they had entered until they passed the curtain dividing the stage from reality, then the smiles fell and eyes began to roll.
"Can you believe his questions?" Rin asked with annoyance. "It was the same as every other interview we've done! I was expecting at least a little bit of variety." She fell into a chair in front of the large mirror, letting her assistants touch up her makeup.
"Imagine that," Lee Jin, the soprano of their group, said, picking a piece of lint from her skirt. "Someone else failed to meet Rin's expectations."
Rin simply rolled her eyes from her seat while the assistant ran a powder brush across her cheek.
An assistant ran up to Sol Mae, but she brushed her off, instead grabbing a bottle of water and sinking into the plush cushions of a nearby couch. She still didn't understand how these girls let themselves turn into this. They were so concerned with being the cool, pop idols they were supposed to be that they forgot how they had gotten to where they were in the first place. Their fans were just another number to them, and when the cameras weren't rolling that particular fact was glaringly clear. They had forgotten how to live, how to be decent human beings away from the public eye.
Sol Mae rolled her head back, letting her eyes fall shut against this world full of fake personalities that she was in. She could hardly remember a time when it wasn't bad to be herself.
"Alright, girls!" their manager called. "Time to go back on!"
Sol Mae got to her feet, her heels clicking against the floor as she went to stand beside the heavy curtain that concealed them from view. The other girls grouped around her, peering out onto the stage. Their name was called, and beaming smiles once again took the place of scowls as they strolled forward.
Sol Mae looked for the taped X that marked her position on the floor, but found Tae Lu already in her spot. Sol Mae nudged her arm, pushing her toward her actual starting position. "You're over there," she said under her breath. Tae Lu gave a brief nod in thanks, and hurried to her spot just as the music began.
They sang just as they had practiced, their amplified voices echoing around the room. They moved in unison, following the carefully planned dance choreography. Finally the music drew to an end, and the girls stood with rapid breaths and smiling faces as the crowd cheered.
The man approached them, clapping. "That was amazing, girls! Truly fantastic!" The crowd cheered louder. He turned toward the crowd. "These girls have some fire in them, don't they? Especially Sol Mae!" he exclaimed. "Can we see that cut again?" the question caught Sol Mae off guard until she realized he was speaking to whoever was controlling the cameras. Suddenly a clip of her pushing Tae Lu appeared above their heads. Laughter filled the room, and rung in through her ears, finally pushing her that last little bit.
Sol Mae took a long breath in as the girls looked at her in shock and...was that fear? Fear of what this man was provoking within her.
"You know," Sol Mae finally said with a smile, "I've been working on a song for a while now, and I really think you're show would be the perfect place for it to make it's debut. Would you mind if I performed it?" Her eyes never left the man's but she could feel the girls confused gazes burning a whole in her back. The interviewer himself looked slightly startled, but a burning light of realization was slowly rising to the surface. He had the popular idol, Sol Mae offering to debut her newest song on his show. How could he possibly refuse?
His head started bobbing in affirmation before the words left his lips.
"Just give me a moment," Sol Mae said, leaving the stage to grab her phone. She pulled up the track she had been working on and gave it to the people running the audio track. "Play this."
They nodded, and plugged the phone into the speakers.
"Ladies and gentleman," the interviewer started, still visibly shaken. "Sol Mae," he said, holding gesturing in her direction.
Sol Mae stood alone on the stage for the first time in what felt like a century, and it filled her with the sensation of pure adrenaline that she had worried she might never feel again. She inhaled...and began.
She let herself say everything she had been thinking over the past few years. She let herself recite the words that had been burning a fire in her heart before those who had never thought her capable of such emotion. She was laying herself bare and destroying her reputation in the process. And yet...she had never felt freer.
When the music droned to a stop, she thrust her microphone into the hands of the dumbstruck man, walked off the stage, and onward past her utterly shocked partners. The cheers following her out the door were not what she had been expecting, and although the response was ultimately positive, she really couldn't bring herself to care too much. In that moment, the feeling of being honest with herself and everyone around her was enough.
I should really be writing a speech right now, but I couldn't miss this contest! I'm really sorry if the song has any cursing (which I'm guessing it probably does because it's Yezi). I don't speak Korean, and it didn't occur to me that the English subtitles probably aren't super accurate until I had already written this.
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