NeoNara || TXT || taebin || yeonkai

2016: Friday, Part Four

2016, DAY ONE
Friday, August 13, 2016 7:59 PM

"What are you doing here?" Taehyun asks, voice loud over Emmaline's keytar solo.

Soobin turns as well, then smiles. "Hey!"

There's something about Polaris that Taehyun can't place. He's kept up with the news regarding her...of which there hasn't been any. As far as the gneeral public knows, she's still been in rehab for...something. Not alcohol or drug abuse, and not an eating disorder. Nobody actually knows what. But she's been off the radar for so long that people are starting to forget she's a thing.

And now, she's randomly here at NeoNara.

"It has to be you," she says, putitng her hand on Taehyun's head and ruffling up his hair. Normally this would make him nervous, but nothing in his head is jostled around this time. "It has to be NeoNara." And then, something about her goes steel cold. She looks toward the stage. "You and your little blue bunny stay here. I've got unfinished business."

Taehyun half wonders if Polaris is going to walk right onto WoS's set and take over. It wouldn't be totally unlike her, though it would be unlike WoS, and Emmaline would throw a fit. But Polaris doesn't walk on stage yet. She simply stays still, as if she's waiting her turn, as if some magic is going to happen between the end of WoS' set and when Gorillaz go on at 9.

WoS continue their set, showing no indication that anything is about to be any different. They blaze through Rewind and Second Best and finish with Then, as they always do. Taehyun is able to hear the song clearly, mouthing along with the words that he's long since learned.

"Wait here for me?" That's Polaris, again.

Taehyun looks up. "Sure?"

"Please. I need you here, waiting for me. It's the only way this is gonna work."

Taehyun doesn't get it, but he nods. There's no reason he can't wait for Polairs Rider to be done with...whatever it is she's going to do.

The stage goes dark once WoS are done with their last song. Polaris walks onto stage then, using all of the confidence that she's always had in spades. Taehyun watches her go, disappearing into the darkness as the crowd cheers, yelling for an encore.

He suddenly realizes they're about to get one.

Some people backstage start leaving, but he sits tight, Soobin at his side. Polaris said to wait for her, and he's gonna make sure to do so, even if he doesn't know why. This is the same woman who has unknowingly tied him and Soobin together with her music, the same woman he has always regarded as a hero, as someone to aspire to be like. She has disappeared for so long, and now she's back, and there's something about Taehyun that just wants her to be okay.

His mind wanders back to last year's show, when she kissed him on the cheek. It still seems a bit weird in retrospect, even with Soobin there and Polaris acknowledging both of them were queer. What was she getting at?

But then the vocal hooks of Song For Fury echo out into the crowd. The stage turns a light blue. And Taehyun jumps up from his seat to go watch.

In the two minutes that have transpired between the end of WoS' set and now, someone from backstage has whipped up a small DJ station for Polaris separate from Taehyun's, between Amber's drum set and where J.P.'s guitar still is. She doesn't stand out among the instruments, and she's not on a raised podium, but she's still there. And Walking on Starlight are front and center, all standing in the front in a row. Tina and Emmaline are on one side, Amber and J.P. on the other, and Jay Myung is in the middle, and Taehyun swears he's glowing, but it's probably just the spotlights.