"Hwang Taejun," Avery echoed, feigning ignorance.
Seo-ah sighed dramatically. "It's alright. It's common for people to not know his real name because they don't care enough. He also goes by Zade."
Micah kept his eyes closed. Then he rolled them, reasoning that Seo-ah couldn't be triggered by what she couldn't see.
"Ahhhh. Forgive my ignorance. I know him by another name. Zade is… too iconic a stage name that his legal name slipped from my memory."
Micah heard a condescending huff, but from the sound alone he could detect traces of gratification. Seo-ah was actually pleased that someone recognized the genius (whatever the hell that meant) of the name Zade.
Avery was really playing this girl like a fiddle. Micah complained to God that the human eye socket was not made to accommodate harder eye-rolls.
This wouldn't be the last time Avery's shenanigans made Micah reconsider his atheism.
"You're forgiven," Seo-ah declared magnanimously.
'Fuck Avery,' Micah cursed mentally, 'but fuck you too, lady.'
"Thank you for forgiving me. Truly, I must have been specially blessed in this life to receive the forgiveness of Zade's soon-to-be wife," Avery replied with all the humility and sincerity of a fairytale protagonist who did everything that she was told—no matter how stupid, archaic, unfair, and illogical—and ended up with a handsome prince who loved her and her feet while her sisters or step-sisters got punished for daring to have minds of their own.
"You're welcome," said the stupid girl. "So how long have you been a fan of Zade's?"
"Hmm, I overlooked him during his debut—silly me, I know—but FareWell, StranGer converted me."
Seo-ah giggled with unhinged happiness. "I see you're quite the connoisseur yourself! A real fan!"
"You flatter me."
Micah hated that he could make sense of their conversation, but he had never been one who could walk away from online drama that had nothing to do with him.
Zade's first album after breaking away from the moderately successful band QWERTY was, to put it mildly, underwhelming.
To put it harshly, FareWell, StranGer was a flop only delusional fans could bring themselves to defend. Luckily for Zade, the number of delusional fans he had was inversely proportional to his musical talent and creativity.
From the questionable title to the clip art cover to the choppy audio mixing to the accusations of plagiarism, FareWell, StranGer was a disaster on all fronts.
Every aspect of the album painted Zade as a pretty boy who had survived so long in the entertainment industry only because of his looks, band mates, and wealthy parents.
All that was damning, but not unforgivable. The final nail on the coffin was Zade's behavior during the album's release. He bleached his hair platinum blond, was photographed with no fewer than six starlets and influencers, and ended up implicated in a police investigation over a group chat.
Till now, FareWell StranGer era Zade remained the stuff of memes and moral panics.
But to his anti-social diehard fans, FareWell StranGer was irrefutable proof of not just his revolutionary brilliance, but how it threatened to uproot the musical establishment.
The bigshots were reportedly so unnerved by Zade's refusal to be their puppet that they suppressed his efforts to strike out on his own by inventing scandals.
There was not a single shred of proof to substantiate any of these claims.
After all, they were the idle ramblings of diseased minds.
"He's just so innovative, isn't he! It's a pity the world wasn't ready yet," exclaimed the diseased mind Avery was playing with. "He's really too ahead of his time!"
"Yes. His next album was more of a… compromise. But he executed it beautifully all the same. Which just shows that he could have made FareWell StranGer more in line with mainstream tastes if he wanted to, but he did not. He chose to be true to himself."
"It's not, as those horrible reviewers said, because of a lack of ability." Seo-ah's eyes were suddenly red and puffy, as if she was reliving the indignities and insults Zade had suffered. "How dare they! Reviewers don't have to love FareWell StranGer, but they shouldn't deny its right to exist!"
'Woman,' thought Micah, 'no one is seriously claiming that the album is so bad it shouldn't be allowed to exist.'
"Yes," Avery agreed wholeheartedly. "Those critics have made it a competition to see how viciously they can rip a song or album to shreds. It is a game to them. They do not know, or do not care, about the impact of their words on performers. Besides, we all know that reviewers are just failed musicians."
"They're just bitter clowns who can't stand it when other people are thriving."
"It is best to ignore them. Deprive them of the attention they use to distract themselves from their miserable lives."
"But it's so difficult! They're so influential. They control what sort of music becomes popular."
"I know. Power is concentrated in the hands of the undeserving few." Avery reached across the aisle to give Seo-ah a sympathetic pat on her arm.
She took that as an invitation to continue. Leaning towards him with a conspiratorial glint in her hazel eyes, she asked in an exaggerated whisper, "Do you know that they're in cahoots with Zade's former agency and ex band mates?"
He widened his eyes in surprise. "I did not know that! But," his face fell, "now that you have pointed it out, I cannot believe I never suspected it."
"That's their strategy," Seo-ah nodded sagely. "They do outrageous things right under our noses because they know that reasonable people won't consider such a possibility."
"They are ruining music but c'est la vie, I suppose. There is not much powerless fans like us can do."
'Powerless my ass. Your mother is literally a duchess.' Micah was *this* close to joining the conversation.
"Oh, but there is!" exclaimed Seo-ah. "There is," she repeated, more quietly this time. "We're going to abandon this corrupt and complicit society and create a new one where music can be enjoyed for music's sake."