Check-in

The organizers told us to meet with the host at 2:30 p.m. for a rehearsal. When the time was almost up, I went to the club room to grab my guitar. At the library, I suddenly saw a familiar figure drifting out—it was my vocalist. We didn’t plan to meet, yet somehow arrived at the elevator at the exact same time. Our synchronization was getting a little scary.

When we got upstairs, the hallway was packed with people. At the end of the corridor stood a small stage—that’s where we were performing today. They had speakers set up in each conference room, all connected to the same sound system, giving off the vibe of a café live show. I originally thought we’d be playing in the international conference hall, but seeing this setup actually felt kind of simple and intimate.

Beside the main corridor, there was another one stretching as far as the eye could see. The organizers told us to find an empty meeting room to wait in. As we waited, all the band members arrived, but the host never showed up. So we decided to head to the convenience store in the Student Activity Building to grab some food.

For some reason, while we were eating, everyone suddenly started gossiping.

“I always thought you already had someone.”
“Nope. Not even one.”

Then they started discussing how they should download a dating app on my phone, saying: “Christmas in sophomore year is coming soon—you have to! Otherwise, there’s a curse!”¹

When we got back to the library, sure enough, my phone had been forcibly downloaded with a dating app. Even worse, they checked off some weird interest tags for me—like “Latin dance” and “likes sitting with kids.” Then they started chatting with my matches using my account.

First conversation

Hi
：Hi
Wanna hear a cold joke?
：No

Second conversation

Hi
：Hi
Wanna hear a cold joke?
：Sure
Hold on, I’ll play guitar for you first.
(voice message: Secretly Loving You)

I don’t know how things went after that, because I quickly grabbed my phone back and deleted the app immediately. Who knows what a closed-source program like that might be doing to my phone?

After that little episode, the host still hadn’t shown up. Looks like that “rehearsal session” just vanished into thin air. We were finally moved to the organizers’ office—probably because they needed our previous meeting room. The whole corridor was filled with buffet tables, and the smell was amazing, making my stomach growl.

After waiting for what felt like forever—almost three hours—it was finally our turn to perform.

Performance

By the time it was our turn, there were hardly any people left in the audience—just our own members². But even if there’s no crowd, we still had to go on stage; after all, we were getting paid. Still, no audience means we could go a bit wild.

The previous band mashed up May the World Treat You Gently as You Treat It with My Passionate Kiss. Our vocalist couldn’t hold back and passed the mic to the guitarist. Thankfully, the guitarist handled it like a pro. I just kept playing normally, and surprisingly, someone in the audience started singing along. Guess they’d been waiting for this moment all night.