‘Huh? Why is it so quiet up here?’
Da-on looked round in bewilderment at the completely different atmosphere.
‘Wow, this view is way better!’
From here, the whole gigantic club lay spread out beneath her and, bathed in heat, the legendary Chris Jerry was on the decks.
The truth was, Da-on did love EDM.
She wanted to be good, to learn in earnest.
But what her crew wanted from her was never “skill.” They wanted only her looks.
She hadn’t even worn heavy make-up before, yet now thick foundation was mandatory.
Revealing clothes made her uncomfortable, but to get on stage she had to squeeze into tops cut to the navel and shorts no different from underwear.
She was, in fact, a die-hard fan of Chris Jerry.
She just hated the “What would you know?” tone her seniors took whenever she tried to talk music.
Of them all, only one “oppa” occasionally explained mixing techniques; the rest cared more about her appearance.
Still, it stung to be treated like a frivolous doll who relied solely on her face.
I’ve studied pretty hard, actually… She bit her lip.
Sure, you could learn the mechanics from YouTube nowadays, but the sheer heat and ad-libs pros poured out were hard to imitate.
Maybe she simply lacked talent.
She shook her head. Standing here in clothes and make-up that didn’t suit her, no wonder the stage felt so foreign.
The crew wanted a marionette… someone to perform the preset routine inside a fixed frame.
She’d never even had a chance to experiment; always just loaded the set list the seniors handed her, mimed the moves, pouted for the cameras.
All of it was fake.
“Phew…” She opened her eyes wide.
Jerry’s electric sound pounded against her heart.
First things first—enjoy!
Pushing down the gloom, she beamed and edged toward the center for a better view.
‘Eh?’
Half-way along the balcony she spotted another DJ booth facing the main stage—and two men in completely un-club-like clothes standing behind the mixer.
Oh! The S-Class ajusshis.
They wore animal masks, but she recognized the outfits at once.
That booth is perfect… She smiled and trotted over.
Jin-hyeok squinted hard at the unfamiliar machine in front of him.
With the rabbit mask Jang-ha had handed him, his vision was fine, eye-holes were wide enough.
The moment he’d followed Jang-ha into this space, his whole body lit up.
Such pure frenzy gathered in one place! And this music was astounding.
He hadn’t experienced twenty-plus years of musical evolution.
All the deep, older music he knew was still lodged in memory, yet here were sounds born after two and a half decades of change.
Wow. Really exhilarating.
Rhythms that squeezed people’s hearts, sounds that whipped heads back and forth.
The foreigner on the main stage was manipulating a well-made track at will.
To Jin-hyeok, the same model mixer sat dark and silent.
Ah… I want to jump in so badly.
He poked a few buttons on the un-powered DJX-900NXS2.
“Hey, if you don’t know how to use it, quit fiddling and let’s focus,” the lion (Jang-ha) scolded the rabbit.
He’d sprinted over in panic when he saw Jin-hyeok at the controls, then sighed with relief. The unit was off.
Jin-hyeok might charge blind into music, but he wasn’t crazy enough to wreck someone else’s show.
Except for the red power knob, he understood none of the buttons and faders; this wasn’t a stage to barge onto with guesses.
“I dunno… If I tried pressing things I might figure it out,” Jin-hyeok muttered.
“Forget it. Nothing to be gained.”
Just then—
“Um… excuse me?”
Both rabbit and lion turned.
“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but… I know how to work that.”
“Really?” Jang-ha yelped, then looked at the rabbit in alarm.
Beneath the rabbit mask, Jin-hyeok’s mouth split in a mischievous grin.
Too late to stop him.
Ah… we’re doomed, thought the lion.
The dazzling young woman stepped closer. “I’d like to watch the floor from here in exchange…”
“Of course!” the rabbit cried, shoving the lion aside and offering his hand.
“So, what do you want to do exactly?”
“Just tell me whatever controls the rhythm parts.”
“Well, that’s simple. This is the bass, and if you tap here, you get effects…”
A crash-course began.
Chris Jerry, the Australian DJ who’d taken EDM worldwide, was visiting Korea for the fourth time. He loved this country. People here knew how to party.
Tonight, he planned to drop a routine no one had ever heard. After this track ended, he’d blow their minds.
While bobbing to the beat he suddenly felt a tiny hitch, an off-rhythm overlay.
The BPM on the monitor hadn’t changed. He adjusted the tempo fader. Good; the floor hadn’t noticed.
Is the file corrupted? It happened rarely, he prayed not now.
Again, the subtle tug. Something… someone?…was teasing him.
He had to keep the floor intact; fingers on the fader, he matched every twitch.
For just thirty seconds, about eighty pulses at 165 BPM, he wrestled the beat.
Then a strange sensation washed over him. The crowd soared. Following the rogue rhythm blindly, he surrendered and the sound swelled.
Everything he’d ever known about music flipped upside-down.
This is insane!
Not a damaged file. Someone was leading him.
Scanning the venue, he spotted another booth on the second-floor balcony; LEDs glimmered in the darkness.
Two figures, one in a rabbit mask, the other a radiant goddess, were at the controls.
Jerry raised his arm so crew could see; main-stage lights split, a fresh beam illuminating the balcony booth.
Bathed in white, the goddess shook her hair and laughed.
“Kyah! Chris just pointed at me!” Da-on squealed, shaking Jin-hyeok by the neck.
“Focus—the track’s changing.”
“Ah, right…”
Without realizing, teacher and student had swapped places.
She’d only shown the basics, but the ajusshi had powered up the unit, never guessing it was linked to the main sound system.
When the floor reacted to every button the rabbit pressed, she finally understood.
So real it must be a dream. Last night she’d drunk too much while listening to Jerry, then dozed off. This was surely the dream.
‘See how long before that foreign kid notices,’ the rabbit had joked.
Now she was steering Chris Jerry’s mix.
If this is a dream, who cares? She threw up her hands and waved; lights blazed, blinding her—
Too dazzling for a dream.
The track shifted again; Jin-hyeok’s lips twitched.
Leaning on the rail, the lion’s jaw hung open.
Yes, this is what you call fate.
Jin-hyeok’s fingers hovered over the rhythm pads.
Time to make them jump.
Down on the VIP floor, Kim Chung-gi realised his leg was shaking.
When are they coming?
He’d always wanted to climb that wall, yet beyond it lay nothing, and he feared being erased from the public eye.
“The genius is back.” Woo-hui’s words echoed.“Tonight’s the last chance.”
Fifteen years ago, he’d driven that friend to attempt suicide. Guilt had silenced him ever since.
Master of Puppets, could he still play it on that tiny drum?
He tossed back whisky; the pretty fruit looked pathetic.
Suddenly an old familiar rhythm boomed—an EDM-twisted version of that song.
His heart, dormant like a placid lake, rose in crashing waves.
Lights swung to the balcony; bass pounded.
People, unsure which way to face, flailed until they felt true freedom in the off-kilter groove.
Up front stood world-class DJ Chris Jerry; behind, on the second floor, the rabbit and the shining goddess leapt, leading the frenzy.
Computer-made sounds, yet the rhythm was alive, kicking.
Everyone was having a brand-new experience.
Though underground, it felt as if they must leap over something…
A wall.
So this is destiny, Jang-ha thought, staring at the door guarded by bodyguards.
Big bro’s here. Come on out.
As if responding, the door opened.
Beneath the lion mask, white teeth flashed in a feral grin.
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