Meanwhile, after finishing the IV, Daniel hurried Hyunseung along because the concert’s start time had already passed.
“I already prepared transportation.”
But while Daniel was the only one in a rush, Hyunseung, with an easy and relaxed expression, slowly headed toward the hospital’s back door.
Once they got out of the hospital, there was a motorcycle parked there, flashy enough to feel excessive.
“Don’t tell me this is the transportation you were talking about earlier?”
Daniel asked in surprise, and Hyunseung nodded as if asking what the problem was.
“Wait, but do you even know how to ride a motorcycle?”
“I haven’t done it many times.”
“You’re not trying to kill someone who barely survived, are you?”
“You said there’s no time, right? Just get on already.”
With that, Hyunseung got on the motorcycle first and handed Daniel a helmet.
Daniel felt uneasy, but since he knew that, for now, the motorcycle really was the best method, there was nothing he could add.
“But…”
Still, this was absolutely unbearable.
“I can accept the motorcycle, but this is the only helmet you have?”
“If you hate wearing it that much, then make your way through the completely jammed roads yourself.”
But he couldn’t ride without a helmet.
And there was no way to go buy a new helmet right now.
“Ugh.”
In the end, Daniel had no choice but to pull the helmet on.
At the same time, he resolved that once the concert was over, he would teach Hyunseung something about aesthetics.
No, really.
He made songs well, and he even had a good sense for stage consulting….
So how could his sense for his own aesthetics alone be this terrible?
Hyunseung was truly a mysterious person.
Vroooom!
As soon as the engine started, the motorcycle let out a loud roar.
“If you don’t want to fall off, hold on tight.”
With a miserable expression, Daniel unwillingly grabbed Hyunseung around the waist, then he lowered his head deeply so no one would recognize him.
Not because the way he looked right now was embarrassing…
But because the helmet design on his head was just too awful.
After a while, the giant dome-shaped concert hall came into view.
The two quickly parked the motorcycle, then headed toward the staff entrance.
At that moment, walking behind Hyunseung, Daniel asked,
“But everyone’s been informed already, right?”
“No.”
“What? Then they’re just sitting there waiting right now?”
Horrified by the calm answer, Daniel grabbed Hyunseung by the shoulder like he was yanking him back and demanded an explanation.
But Hyunseung only brushed his hand off, still looking relaxed.
“I didn’t leave them just waiting.”
“Then?”
“They’re probably waiting excitedly.”
Then, after soothing Daniel with that meaningful answer, he turned the handle on the entrance door.
♫ ♬ ♬
As soon as they stepped inside, Daniel stopped walking at the faint sound of music.
No.
It wasn’t the sound of music. It was the sound of someone singing.
A voice that sounded strangely familiar…
“What is that?”
“What do you mean ‘what’?”
At last Hyunseung turned his head alone, grinned, and added,
“It’s the sound of your fans waiting all excited.”
Apparently, there had been a reason he had been acting so relaxed.
Daniel hurriedly finished getting ready backstage.
In truth, even that much leisure was only possible because Hyunseung had bought him time.
Yes.
It was thanks to Hyunseung putting Vincent Mah and Sarah Stewart on stage at his concert as guest singers.
And because of that….
Daniel had been able to finish the painkillers and IV and recover his condition.
It was a situation where he should have been deeply grateful….
But he had no room for that, so instead of thanking him, he warmed up his throat.
“Ah, ah, ah!”
Because he had promised Hyunseung he would show him a historic stage.
Even though his condition had briefly returned…
There was no way to restore a weakened body in an instant.
So today, he intended to squeeze out everything he had and show it.
To the audience, to Hyunseung,
and to himself.
Just as Daniel was loosening his stiff body with a resolute expression.
Aaaaaaaah!
Sarah Stewart’s song ended with cheers.
“You’ll go up in three minutes!”
A staff member’s cue was heard.
Gulp.
At those words, nerves surged through Daniel, and he swallowed dryly.
And for good reason.
Even backstage, the stage looked as though it were burning hot enough to be felt.
And he felt the pressure that he had to deliver a stage worthy of that.
“Hoo….”
The junior singers had bought him time and, at the same time, opened the stage in dazzling fashion.
He needed to take the baton well from here, but would this diseased body hold out…
Clench.
Daniel tightened his hand hard, as if steadying his resolve. Blue veins rose over the back of his painfully thin hand.
Just then.
He turned his head at the weight he felt on his shoulder and saw Hyunseung.
For a moment, Hyunseung looked at him with an unreadable expression.
“Go do everything you want to do.”
He added with a grin.
“Even if the concert crashes and burns, it’s my loss anyway.”
“You always have to make a point of it.”
Daniel smiled along with Hyunseung and started walking.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Each step as he climbed toward the stage felt strangely heavy.
It wasn’t that his body was actually heavy. If anything, it felt strangely light.
It was probably because his heart was heavy.
Burden and regret tangled together and made his steps heavy.
He had lived more than half his life climbing stage steps.
Of course.
He had once been seized by vague imaginings that one day he would retire and spend a quiet old age.
But he had never imagined that would happen not by his own will, but for health reasons. He had tried to act composed.
But he absolutely was not fine.
He regretted it, and regretted it again. Thinking he would never be able to stand on this stage again made even climbing onto it frightening.
But he had already reached the center of the stage.
“Hoo….”
In the darkness, he adjusted his grip on the microphone.
♫ ♬ ♬
A familiar accompaniment rang in his ears. It was his debut song, one he had heard dozens, no, thousands of times.
It was also the song that had launched Daniel into stardom in one stroke.
Flash!
Before long, performance footage of Daniel began playing across the giant screens surrounding everything.
From his earliest debut days to footage from his previous album stages, it flowed past quickly.
Then a spotlight fell over Daniel’s head.
Aaaaaaaah!
At the same time, the crowd welcomed him with thunderous cheers.
“Are you ready?”
And just like that, as if his mind had never been complicated at all, Daniel stretched a hand out toward the audience and asked.
Aaaaaaaah!
They answered with wild cheers.
That was when it began.
Daniel ran across the stage as if possessed by something.
“I was born to sing.”
As if he had never felt burden or regret, he sang from the very first stage with the force of pouring everything out, without even trying to pace himself despite the length of the concert.
“All I can do is sing.”
Sweat immediately began to bead across his forehead, and every time he ran, droplets fell from his hair.
“You’ll sing along with me like that.”
The next stage, and the one after that, and the one after that too.
“I want you to remember me clearly in your head.”
Daniel ran all over the stage with the exact same intensity.
His breathing grew ragged, and the hand gripping the microphone began to tremble.
But he couldn’t stop.
Right now, in this moment, Daniel had only one thought…
That he was truly glad he had been able to open his eyes today.
That he was so glad he had been able to stand on this stage, run among the audience, and hear the sound of their cheering…
He was truly glad.
“Instead, I’ll sing for you until the day I close my eyes.”
Yes, Daniel thought that as he roughly wiped away the sweat pouring down his face like rain.
Meanwhile.
Hyunseung watched Daniel through the monitor installed backstage, then gripped a guitar in his hand.
Clench.
He had thought it would be unnecessary if Daniel managed to overcome such terrible conditions and pull off the stage well…
But as he watched Daniel’s performance, he was seized by excitement he could not contain.
At last.
Slipping the guitar strap over his shoulder, Hyunseung started toward the stairs.
“Life is like the sun. Now I’m just the low sun.”
At just that moment, the stage for “it gets dark,” the third track from the album he had made, was coming to an end.
“Hoo…”
As he climbed the stairs, Hyunseung let out the breath he had been holding.
Then he snapped the helmet shield shut and strode up the stairs.
In a way, it was something that could be called an accident.
Because this was the appearance of a guest that had never been agreed upon beforehand….
No, an intrusion.
Daniel, who had been drinking water in the darkness while preparing for the next stage, spotted him and was so startled that he spat out the water he was drinking.
“Pfuhoooop!”
“Ah, gross.”
“Why did you come up here?”
Instead of answering, Hyunseung pointed at the in-ear microphone attached at Daniel’s mouth.
Yes.
That meant the words Daniel had just spoken had gone out through the speakers installed all over the venue.
“What’s going on?”
Only then did Daniel ask with his lips, covering his in-ear mic.
Slowly.
Without saying a word, Hyunseung lifted the guitar to show him, then silently walked toward the rear of the stage.
Then he took up a spot and stood there like a session player who had been booked from the beginning, waiting for the stage to begin.
“Huh…”
Daniel stared at Hyunseung in disbelief for a moment.
♫ ♬ ♬
When Hyunseung began playing the guitar to the accompaniment, Daniel straightened his posture.
Because he had realized Hyunseung hadn’t come up on stage as a joke.
Flash!
Then the lights came on, and Daniel delivered the first line.
“There’s one thing I want before I die.”
The audience spotted Hyunseung standing at the back of the stage and shouted in surprise for a moment.
“Vincent! Vincent! Vincent!”
He had no idea what was going on, but suddenly they were calling for Vincent.
But what did it matter?
Hyunseung focused on playing the guitar so he could stay true to a stage he would never be able to stand on again.
So that it wouldn’t clash with the backing track already playing, and would instead create richer harmony.
“I’m praying every day to let me sing for you in my next life.”
Matching that, Daniel sang like he was forcing the song out through raised veins.
Truly.
He wasn’t just singing, he was pouring it out.
His voice had already begun to wear down from the stages that had come one after another.
But Daniel didn’t care at all and kept forcing the song out.
Even if his pitch was a little off, even if the beat dragged a little.
None of that mattered to Daniel right now.
He simply sang as though coughing up blood, even adding ad-libs that hadn’t existed before, in step with the sound of Hyunseung’s guitar.
“Daniel! Vincent! Daniel! Vincent!”
The people, watching the two of them, shouted themselves hoarse again and again.
“No, sing it together.”
♫ ♬ ♬
At some point, Daniel drew closer to Hyunseung as though pulled by a magnet.
“Will you do that for me?”
♫ ♬ ♬
He kept singing as though locked in a contest of strength with Hyunseung, who was playing the guitar.
“Then even death will be happy.”
♫ ♬ ♬
In response, Hyunseung plucked the guitar strings so hard it felt as though the joints of his fingers might snap.
“Let’s not say goodbye.”
♫ ♬ ♬
The taste of blood surged up Daniel’s throat, but he paid it no mind and delivered the final line.
“Because it’s tacky.”
At the same time…
Thud!
Daniel collapsed forward onto the stage.
And Hyunseung, too, collapsed helplessly in front of him.
Because he had poured everything out without leaving even the strength to stand.
Aaaaaaaah!
The crowd loved even that, thinking it was part of the performance.
Clack!
With difficulty, Hyunseung moved his hand and lifted the helmet shield.
Then he met Daniel’s eyes.
Daniel was smiling brightly, as if he had no regrets at all.
Heh.
Hyunseung smiled along with him, then closed his eyes as they grew heavy.
Aaaaaaaah!
It was the moment history was born.
T/N: The last scene was like a movie in my mind. It gripped me: the description, the emotions involved… Aahhh, hoping more people discover this gem of a novel.
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