Chapter 8: I wonder about our fans, sometimes
Jamie
"That's going to be on social media tomorrow," LJ tsk-ed and looked forward to the direction we were going again. We had our arms around each other's shoulders and have been walking comfortably like this since we got onstage when LJ tried to get me to pick him up and carry him, which I of course refused. He was feeling clingy tonight, for some reason, and had his other hand at my waist, his forefinger hooked on my belt.
"What is?" I asked. I was too lazy to look back at whatever he was looking at.
"Mark and Kate," LJ replied. "Mark just strong-armed Rob for flirting with Kate."
"Sheesh, some idiots never learn," I shook my head. "Are they even talking to each other again yet?"
LJ didn't respond right away, and I immediately saw why. Succulent was a few feet in front of us, heading in our direction. They were a 6-member girl group who were all very good singers, had a wholesome, sweet girl concept despite their suggestive name. A year after their debut, some music show MC started calling them Girl Next Door and the more aggressive Geends got livid and started an avalanche of hate posts. That was the time we had changed our image from wholesome preppy boys to more mature artists, or so we wished, and Antonia had to redirect the unwarranted attention from Succulent back to us by appearing in our music video for Hunger. Since it was sacrilegious for anyone to hate on Antonia for dancing sexily in our video, nobody made hate posts for her, but the hate on Succulent did die down as a result.
I wonder about our fans, sometimes. They're totally okay when Mark is surrounded by Peach Fuzz, whose girlband concept seems to be ditzy slut, but they don't want Succulent to be compared to us. Then again, that's not the only reason why they hate Succulent.
"Hello Jamie, hello LJ!" chorused Succulent very politely as they walked past us, careful not to bump into us or anything.
"Hello," I nodded back. LJ said nothing, didn't even look their way. But where his hand was at my waist, a sharp pain pierced and spread. I kept my face as stoic as humanly possible and took his hand to stop him from pinching me. I squeezed it, hoping it would calm him down somewhat.
A few steps later, with Succulent maybe two meters behind us, "Kate is still not talking to Mark, as far as I know," LJ suddenly said. He squeezed my hand back and hooked his two tall fingers in my belt again.
"Well, maybe social media is just the thing he needs," I smiled brightly at him, making him laugh.
LJ has grown up a lot in these 9 years. When we started out, he was still a baby and Steve's biggest worry was what if LJ's voice dropped post-puberty and we would have to reassign everyone's vocal parts for all our songs. But LJ's vocal range didn't change even when the rest of his body matured, he remained Steve's alternating tenor. Burt and I were baritones, Mark was by default a bass.
What Steve did instead was reprogram LJ's vocal quality so that it would be sexier than your usual sweet, cherub castrato. The training aligned with Rock Star, the movie LJ starred in, where he plays, well, a rock star. LJ was so sick of being the Nation's Sweet Little Brother that he actually begged for this project, hounded Ned stubbornly, even camping out in his backyard until 4 in the morning, and the extreme transformation created shockwaves all over the world. He took to his new sex symbol persona like fish to water and kept the image even months after the movie had premiered and he was doing publicity for our album of that year. He was acting 70% of the day. But the remaining 30% of the day, when it was just us, he was our little brat again.
We all have our imagined public personas, I guess, but they're more or less an exaggeration of our true personas, not extremely different like what LJ did to convince the world, and Rory, that he was not a baby. Although, I do constantly feel that I was more like public Jamie, who was just several levels of cool above real Jamie. It's tiring, though.
Eventually, LJ also got tired of acting like bad boy sex symbol rock star all the time and relaxed the constant character projection, but didn't totally get rid of it. It was interesting to see how easily he turned it on and off. Right now, it was off. I have a feeling our walking around arm in arm like this is going to be on social media tomorrow, too.
We finally got to the center of the stage, where Burt was standing with the other bands' lead vocalists, chatting with them happily when he was not singing. Our label makes the solo artists and the best vocalists from each group sing the curtain call song, while we lesser vocalists do the rounds. I really mean that like that, by the way, without any resentment. LJ and I sing rather well, if I may humbly opine, but Steve and Burt are just seriously the best singers in the country.
Also, LJ and I are grateful we don't have to sing this lame-ass ending song. Now, if they only let us skip this entirely.
We circled around the lead singer clump so as not to disturb them and stopped when we arrive behind Burt. LJ poked his shoulder blade and Burt looked back at us and winked.
A few people away, Veronica also turned a bit to look back at us. I winked at her. Winking is contagious. She blew me a kiss and faced front again. Veronica isn't conventionally model-esque pretty like Goddess Athena or even wholesomely cute like Succulent, or slutty cute like Peach Fuzz, and honestly, she probably looks like a normal person and can go grocery shopping without any make up on, but she's quite striking onstage. Quite sexy, though it's mostly her confidence, I think. Maybe it's also the outfit. Her stylist is good, I should compliment her later.
Without letting go of me, LJ leaned over to whisper in Burt's ear. Burt was singing, so he couldn't reply, he just looked at LJ with one raised eyebrow and shook his head.
"What did you ask him?" I raised an eyebrow.
"If we could go home yet," LJ sulked.
I laughed. "Let's go, round 3," I said, pulling my new siamese twin along and headed for catwalk 4 again. Veronica again turned to look back at us as we walked away. I could have turned back to say goodbye, but we were too far by then. Maybe I should have done something earlier, like pat her back or something. Oh well.
Along the way down catwalk 4, we passed PYD. Several exchanges of "Ey bro, 'sup!" back and forth. I said nothing, just nodded at them. Gangsta intentionally stopped in front of me to block my way, tossed his head back and thumped his chest in greeting. I kept moving and brushed past him.
LJ turned back and called after him, "Hey Frank, nice jacket!" and cackled crazily as he turned back around. A few meters later, I whacked the back of his head and he laughed harder.
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SongforJ
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