Going against the flow for you
--
[Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha]
[In fact, the meaning of the TingJue CP is that you lost your hearing and became a fool CP]
[How is Juexia so cute ah xswl]
[Guys look at Pinot Tree Supreme's old man looking at a cellphone on the subway expression hahahahahahaha]
[I can't stand this silly group! Newly arrived friends, these people are actually the runner-up (not first due to insider plots) of a singing contest, a hip-hop dance champion, a real DJ, an excellent student of folk music, a student of P University, and a student of Beijing Normal University. Everyone, please believe me]
[Don't believe it, upstairs is a liar]
[Don't believe it, liar, liar, these are six crosstalk actors, and we're in talks with the Happy Comedian show]
[It's over, that theme song is already rolling around in my head]
In the end, they finally failed at this game. Pei Tingsong, who had pinned all his hopes of a comeback on this one game, failed to get rid of his title of being a gaming black hole. Instead, he also managed to drag Fang Juexia into this black hole.
Over the next few days, Kaleido had activity after activity and was so busy that their feet hardly touched the ground. They filmed two commercials, then flew to their senior brother group High Five's concert in Nanjing as VIP guests, which was followed by a charity fashion show and party.
Apart from the true and false numbers online, the most direct manifestation of a group's popularity was the wave of people present for an airport meetup. Previously, Kaleido also naturally had fans organising airport meetups, but there weren't many people participating in them, so they had never walked through the VIP aisle before. To their surprise, when they caught their flight to Nanjing, the number of people who sent them off at the Beijing airport was really large—the group members were crowded in by the fans so tightly that they nearly couldn't even move their legs to step forward.
After great effort, when they finally got on the plane, Pei Tingsong went to sit by the window. Having worked hard for several days, the other members were very tired and went to sleep soon, but only he was left feeling sleepless.
Glancing at Ling Yi, who was sleeping with his neck askew, Pei Tingsong opened his laptop and clicked on the FJX folder on his desktop. Inside it was Fang Juexia's demo, and he hadn't gotten the chance to properly listen to it until now.
However, this demo was named in a very Fang Juexia style. It was just a string of dates and numbers, which was probably the time when the song had been completed.
Putting on his earphones, Pei Tingsong clicked play.
Surprisingly, there was no prelude in the beginning. The first second was just a short breath, quickly followed by Fang Juexia's voice. He didn't have any lyrics and was just humming. Ten seconds later, a soothing piano sound appeared. It didn't sound anything like a played sample or a synthesized sound, but sounded as if the person had recorded himself playing it.
Fang Juexia's voice was very special— it was cold, and contained within it a real sense of space. Pei Tingsong closed his eyes, and it was as if he could see the person himself sitting in front of the piano, humming out this tune.
The melody of the chorus part was very good, very catchy, and you only had to listen to it once to remember it. Although it was a flawed piece of work, Fang Juexia's aura was vividly displayed in this piece of music. Most ballads were connected to the subject of love, with most of them being associated with the sad themes of being frustrated and lovelorn, and it was rather easy to fall into a conventional pattern with such music.
But Fang Juexia hadn't done so. He was an excellent singer, and the alienation and calmness in his voice were obvious from the start of the song, making it clear that his emotions were very restrained. Then, from the second time the chorus played, he deliberately increased his breath, and the ending notes lasted slightly longer than the previous times. In the end, even the sound of the piano exploded before finally stopping abruptly, and the song ended with his deep trembling breath.
Pei Tingsong couldn't help but think of a common and sad opening line— "I have a friend who has not had a good time lately."
Every single line of his, and every single pronunciation of a note, all of it seemed to be showing off some false bravado. He was telling you repeatedly that this was someone else's story and had nothing to do with him; he was just a poor narrator, who was unable to maintain his own state or disguise his own vulnerability. It wasn't until the end of the song that his emotions were on the verge of collapse and defeat.
Pei Tingsong was really impressed.
There were countless singers who possessed good singing skills, but what was rarer were those who could wield their skills almost invisibly, those excellent singers who could accomplish great tasks with subtle maneuvers.
Being able to create a sense of narrative in a song without having any lyrics and just by humming along—he finally understood why the company had to let Fang Juexia be a lead singer; even if he had many burdens and may cause doubts, they had insisted on it.
But that was because Fang Juexia fully deserved this position.
Pei Tingsong turned his head and looked at Fang Juexia, who was sitting in the back row. He was sleeping while resting his head against the back of the seat. He was also wearing a blue eye mask that he had received from his fans, and his skin looked so pale against it that it nearly shone.
The demo continued to play through his headphones.
Suddenly, Pei Tingsong had the urge to write some lyrics for him.
When the plane landed, they were greeted by an even more exaggerated number of people than they had seen at the Beijing airport. Five out of the six members had fallen asleep on the plane, just leaving the somewhat calm youngest member. The company hadn't expected this many people and thus hadn't prepared enough bodyguards in advance, so both Cheng Qiang and Xiao Wen had to also come up to protect the group members after they disembarked.
"Excuse us, let us pass. Please let us get out first ba."
"Excuse me, move a little."
Whenever Fang Juexia had some spare time, he would use it to practice some more, so he was very short on sleep. However, he didn't get better after sleeping on the plane, instead, he was suffering from a headache now. Many of the non-fan proxy-photographers in the crowd were squeezed together with big cameras in their hands, and their flashes were so strong that he was unable to open his eyes.
Soon, fans started yelling, "Don't turn on the flash!"
"Don't fight okay? Don't crowd them!"
Since everyone was squeezed together, a girl was accidentally pushed down by the people behind her and she fell against Fang Juexia. Fang Juexia immediately bent down to help her.
"You okay?"
There was chaos everywhere around them, so the little girl grabbed Fang Juexia's arm before coming to a firm stand. She nearly had tears coming out as she said, "Th-Thank you, Juexia Gege." Unfortunately, other people were still crowding in, and before he knew it, the crowd had separated him from the rest of his group.
With his name being shouted from every direction, and white light continuously flashing in front of his eyes, Fang Juexia's headache grew even more excruciating.
"Juexia Gege!"
"Fang Juexia, look here!"
"Don't push forward any more!"
"Juexia Gege, how many days are you guys staying in Nanjing for?!"
Suddenly, his arm was caught. There was a figure in the crowd moving in the wrong direction, pushing aside the noisy waves of people, and coming towards him.
"Ahhhhhh it's Pei Tingsong!"
Before Fang Juexia could react, Pei Tingsong had already taken off his baseball cap and stuck it firmly on Fang Juexia's head. The brim of the hat was first lowered to cover the upper half of his face, after which Pei Tingsong pulled Fang Juexia to stand in front of him. Then, with one of Pei Tingsong's arms separating him from everyone else and the other supporting his shoulder, they both started walking forward.
The drowning man, who had been caught in a huge wave, was suddenly rescued and dragged onto a boat.
Pei Tingsong didn't say a word, his expressionless, sunglass-wearing face kept looking straight ahead, and he didn't release his grip on Fang Juexia's shoulder the whole while.
These two people, who had been left behind from the rest of the group, managed to escape after going through untold hardships and finally got into the van.
As soon as the car door was opened, Cheng Qiang asked, "Is Juexia okay? He isn't hurt ba?"
"I'm fine, it was a fan who had fallen down." Fang Juexia sat down, and Pei Tingsong followed him closely after. Only when he saw this person sitting down beside him did Fang Juexia take off his hat and hand it back to him.
Pei Tingsong pushed his sunglasses up to the top of his head and said lightly, "Wear it ba, you look pretty good in it."
Fang Juexia was a little confused. He was about to speak when Pei Tingsong opened his mouth again, and he heard—
"Anyway, I still have some of your clothes."
The other group members all kicked up a fuss upon hearing this, which Pei Tingsong thought was just funny. It was like being back in middle school, when the class would kick up a fuss about the two people who had an ambiguous relationship.
No, why did he even think of something like that?
In order to ensure that that there would be no problems, Kaleido made it to their destination by noon and participated in the rehearsal with their senior brother group. While their senior brothers performed on the stage, these six people watched from below.
It would be a lie to say that they weren't envious. Fang Juexia looked up at the huge stage, and when he saw his senior brothers performing with perfect tacit understanding between themselves, certain emotions surged up in his heart.
"When will we ever be able to have our very own concert ah?" Ling Yi sighed.
Jiang Miao put his index finger against his lips and said, "Shh…" He Ziyan saw this, smiled, and took hold of Ling Yi's small shoulder. "Soon, as long as we work hard enough."
Lu Yuan said with a smile, "What are you worried about ah, Xiao Ling'er, didn't you just have a solo at the T.V. station's end of the year party?" With that, he winked at Pei Tingsong. The youngest member, who always liked to muddy the waters, quickly added, "Yeah, just now, the milk tea shop next to the stadium was playing the songs you sang for the TV series. Ling Ge is really popular. "
"That's all because of the T.V. show's popularity." Ling Yi grabbed Fang Juexia's arm like he was grabbing a life-saving straw, and shook it back and forth while complaining, "Juexia, they're all bullying me."
Ling Yi was making so much noise that it was hard for Juexia to hide his smile, but he didn't know how to help him. After thinking for a long time, he ended up asking, "Then what should I do?"
All of a sudden, everyone started laughing even harder, and only Ling Yi was left feeling angry, to the extent that he even wanted to stamp his feet.
They laughed, but when they really started working, out of the six of them, none of them acted perfunctorily. Although they didn't have many performances, they rehearsed even more seriously than HighFive, whose concert it actually was. After going through their two songs over and over again, they were completely familiar with the choreography and positions which had been rearranged just 24 hours ago, and all the staff on the scene were full of praise.
Once the concert officially started, the six members of Kaleido waited in the lounge backstage. Their senior brothers' performances were being shown on the broadcast screen, and everyone watched it seriously. Pei Tingsong had always been rather uninterested in the kind of singing and dancing done by idols, even if he was in this line of business now. However, when he looked at Fang Juexia, who was sitting at the other end, he found this person fully absorbed in the performance. The gorgeous visual effects being displayed on the screen were projected into his eyes, flashing across them. His pupils looked like beautiful glass beads that had a fire burning within them.
He liked it that much?
Fang Juexia was sitting on the sofa, but he couldn't help but follow along with the dance beats of the song. He was making very small movements, and he actually looked kind of cute while doing so.
Right before they went on stage, they rehearsed once again just to be on the safe side.
In their previous performances, Pei Tingsong would pretty much have no interaction with Fang Juexia on-stage. Even more so, as soon as they got off-stage, they would place themselves at opposite ends of the group; every time they went out, all the other Kaleido members would be inserted between them. Nowadays, as long as they appeared at a place at the same time, Cheng Qiang would start crazily dropping hints, reminding them even if they were just a little bit far away from one another, worrying that if they didn't conform to the rumors, trouble would get stirred up again.
But right now, Pei Tingsong couldn't help himself from looking over at Fang Juexia, especially at a time like this, when they were just practicing.
Everyone gave off a different feel when they were dancing.
Fang Juexia was 1.8 meters tall, with long hands and long feet, and was very eye-catching when dancing. His temperament on-stage was also cold, but was more freely aggressive than in private. "The Fang Juexia on-stage is the most alpha" was a sentence most often said by fans.
The company's dance teacher had said more than once that both Lu Yuan and Fang Juexia could dance, but they were different. Lu Yuan had hustled for his street-dancing skills, and on a technical level, even this teacher felt a bit guilty that he wasn't at his level, and the two of them asked each other for advice.
In contrast, Fang Juexia was a born dancer. The true ability of a dancer was to be able to seize the audience's heart when on the stage. Juexia was able to pretty much completely crush this point. He possessed the best inborn qualities, a stage temperament that couldn't be copied, and an excellent appearance— all the talents that others couldn't achieve even after going through thousands of hours of training sessions. His limbs, his muscles, and even his shoulder blades, hidden and secretly rippling through the flesh of his back, all of it could dance.
Pei Tingsong had regarded this kind of description as beneath contempt before, finding it to be too mysterious. However, now, only when he really put down his prejudice and looked properly, did he discover that he was really fascinated by him dancing. It held an uncontrollable gravitational pull on him.
"Hey, hello!"
Ling Yi's loud voice suddenly awakened the distracted Pei Tingsong. He followed the direction of Pei Tingsong's gaze and saw Fang Juexia, who was adjusting his microphone.
"Oh! You were looking at Juexia!"
Ling Yi's voice was so frighteningly piercing that as soon as he cried out, everyone turned around to look at them, including a blank-looking Fang Juexia himself.
Pei Tingsong quickly disassociated himself from the situation. "What nonsense are you talking about?!"
"I'm not talking nonsense!" Ling Yi really didn't let it go. "You were staring so hard just now that your eyes nearly froze, and when I was talking to you, you didn't even notice me!"
"I…" Pei Tingsong glanced at Fang Juexia again and found that he had already turned his head away and wasn't looking over in their direction anymore. So, the words in his mouth changed, and he said, "Okay, okay, okay, you are Yi Ge. Whatever you say is right."
Fang Juexia watched Pei Tingsong through the mirror and just saw him shrug and stop entangling with Ling Yi. He also didn't look at him again.
Jiang Miao confirmed the time, "It should be our turn soon."
"Ten minutes! Kaleido stand by!"
"Okay!"
The staff took them to the lift platform. Fang Juexia was walking at the very front, and he wasn't very fast, but pretty much kept sticking close to the staff around him. The lighting in the lift walkway couldn't be called bright, and there were ground pipelines crisscrossing the walkway as well, so it wasn't easy to traverse. The six of them arrived at their designated spot and stood according to their positions. Kaleido had an even number of members, so the choreography mostly adopted a double C position design— which usually meant there were two main dancers or the two aces in turn.
There were two main dancers who would be starting off the performance this time, so Fang Juexia, and Lu Yuan, who was standing beside him, looked at each other and took a deep breath.
"Don't forget that you will return from here. The lights will flash on the stage floor." Under the cover of the chaos reigning underground, the staff member yelled into the walkie talkie, "Kaleido in place!"
Their time on the stage was very short.
From the moment the lift rose slowly to when Pei Tingsong stood shoulder to shoulder with him at the end of the performance, Fang Juexia felt that only one second, or even less, had passed. At this time, the little clock in his heart had been smashed by the infatuation he had for the stage, and had thus stopped functioning, all because he loved this place so much.
All the things he liked possessed a very short shelf life.
Looking at the vast array of light boards in the inky darkness spread out below the stage, which, in the blink of an eye, seemed to turn from the dazzling orange HighFive support light colour into the brilliant Klein Blue Kaleido support light colour. The people under the stage twirled the lights around in their hands, projecting magnificent and colorful shadows that belonged only to them.
"Hello, everyone." Jiang Miao raised his head, and all the six people raised their left hands to make a sign, as he greeted, "We are Kaleido!"
Every time he stood on the stage and said this sentence out loud with everyone, Fang Juexia felt that his flimsy life had gained some weight, along with feeling a sense of belonging.
He loved the stage, and loved this group that had gone through all the highs and lows together with him.
With their mission fulfilled, the six big boys of K rushed back to the initial lift platform located at the very back of the stage, where they stood and bowed to the stage hand-in-hand. The flashing light on the platform was akin to the second hand on a clock approaching 12 o'clock in fairy tales, reminding everyone that time was up.
As the lift slowly sank downwards, so did his nervously palpitating heart. Fang Juexia, who was completely spellbound, forgot to let go of the hand he was holding. He even forgot the identity of the person who was closest to him as one of the double C positions at the ending of the song, and whose hand he was tightly pulling at.
His vision was getting dimmer and dimmer, while the staff members in the walkway below were still hastily shouting and coordinating things.
"Hey."
Suddenly, he heard a low voice. The next second, the hand that he was tightly holding onto lifted his own up high, and with his voice seemingly carrying a smile, he asked, "How long do you want to hold onto it?"
—