Five Nights At Ailee’s K-pop Vocal Fan Camp 3

It’s coming up to Halloween, so that means the next installment in Kpopalypse’s horror fanfiction series!  Enjoy the third episode of Five Nights At Ailee’s K-pop Vocal Fan Camp!

New readers feel free to read part 1 and part 2 first if you haven’t, or just jump straight ahead into this year’s spooky Halloween story!

Five Nights At Ailee’s K-pop Vocal Fan Camp 3

It’s hard being a western k-pop fan.

You’re a 25 year old male living in New Jersey, USA and you’ve been a fan of Ailee for some time now.  Naturally you love it that she’s such a great singer, she’s also attractive and you love all her songs too, even her crappy American comeback wasn’t as bad as people say.  Your interest in Ailee and specifically her voice started off small with you just appreciating her songs on YouTube, and gradually built from there as you discovered threads on k-pop forums where you could discuss her voice and prodigious talents in more detail.  Then through the k-pop forums you discovered a website called truekpopvocalfaggotry.com, which talked about all the best singers in k-pop and kept close track of their activities.  The site was a blessing – here you could discuss Ailee’s voice technically and in-depth, as well as monitor Ailee’s career easily including her touring and hopeful American advancement.

However there’s one thing about following Ailee that is frustrating – nobody where you live knows who she is.  Not that you care what your friends are into, but with such a small fanbase there’s a guarantee that there’ll never be an Ailee concert in your area, and you just don’t have the money to hop on a plane to Korea.  So it was a great surprise when you saw the following advertisement:

The details of the offer: Ailee is holding a k-pop vocal camp, at her new mansion in Virginia, only about two hours drive from you!  Five nights in Ailee’s mansion, special events, catering, discussion panels… it looked too good to be true, and at $200 per ticket wasn’t even that expensive.  You quickly went to the discussion forums on truekpopvocalfaggotry.com to see what people were saying about the camp:

QueenAileeSlayYassss – I can’t wait to go to this, makes up for the lack of a proper US tour!  Glad it’s being offered to us first.

Aileebuttslut69 – this looks great!  I get to see Ailee in the flesh, $200 seems pricey but that’s cheaper than a lot of VIP k-pop stuff… and it’s for a whole five nights!

Ionlystantrutalent – I went to this in Korea, it was great!  A positive life-changing experience!

Yoloswag420 – I heard there’s a woodcutting event.  I’d cut my wood to Ailee.

The advertisement said there were only seven places reserved for the website members, so you signed up fast.  Why risk missing out?  You’ve never decided to pay for something online quicker than at that moment.

You’re driving through the countryside to Ailee’s mansion.  You’ve been on the road for a couple hours and it’s early afternoon.  You’ve picked up Brian, he’s an older “uncle fan” and one of the other truekpopvocalfaggotry.com members, he’s “Aileebuttslut69” on the forums and as he lived on the route and wanted to save some money you agreed to collect him if he paid for half your fuel.

“What do you think Ailee will be like?” he asks.

You ponder the question as you continue driving.  “Who knows for sure.  She seems really nice in behind the scenes videos though.”

“I wonder if she really is as racy as she looks in the videos.”

“I doubt it.  I’m sure it’s just an image to sell records.  She might be a true vocal talent, but she’s still gotta pay the bills, and sexiness sells.”

Brian nods.  All of a sudden you see the mansion approaching.

“Wow, that’s huge!  I thought ‘mansion’ was just hype but it really is that big!” exclaims Ryan.

You murmur in agreement, as thoughts race through your head about what is in store for you at the camp.  You can’t wait to see Ailee and stan k-pop’s one true vocal talent with a bunch of like-minded individuals.  You follow the narrow driveway and pull the car over into a parking bay.  A sign saying “camp entrance” in the parking bay leads towards a side door of the mansion.  You and Brian exit the vehicle and walk through a large, ornate metal side door into a small reception area.  There is a reception desk, with nobody seated on it.  A piece of paper is pinned to the front of the desk:

There is a large luggage trolley by the reception desk with a sign saying “GUESTS – LEAVE BAGS HERE”.  Two doorways lead off from the reception area, one marked “AUDITORIUM” and the other marked “BUFFET AND GALLERY”.  You drop your suitcase with spare clothes onto the trolley.

“Damn I’m starving”, you hear Brian say behind you.  You look around and notice that Brian has already exited to the buffet room and has picked up a platter with some kind of meat sticks on it.  You’re not hungry however.  Since there’s plenty of time to kill, you wander into the gallery.  It’s a small room that is dimly lit.  You expected to find plenty of pictures of Ailee here, but instead the walls are filled only with line drawings, the most terrible fan-art imaginable.

The drawings are all done in the same style, seemingly by the same person, and other than that they all depict Ailee (this is obvious enough due to her scrawled name) it’s not clear what is going on in any of them.  There’s not much else to do except look at the weird kid-drawings so you play with your phone, passing time with games because there’s no phone coverage indoors here.

It’s 7:00 pm and you’re sitting in the auditorium, which is a small venue that looks like it could hold maybe a hundred people.  You think about how it’s pretty impressive that Ailee built an auditorium inside her own mansion, the large size of the building now starts to make sense.  The six other attendees of the camp are all here:

• Lauren, an older lady with pink frizzy hair who is one of the moderators from truekpopvocalfaggotry.com
• Emma, she’s about your age, is slightly overweight and talks a LOT about Ailee, vocals and k-pop in general
• Josh, is also about your age, maybe slightly younger, tall and rake skinny, also talks a LOT, between him and Emma they won’t shut up
• Christie, looks about 20 years old, carries a lightstick/microphone combination thing with her at all times
• Brian, the uncle fan who shared the car ride with you, he’s still picking pieces of meat out of his mouth and complaining about the aftertaste
• A young teenage girl who you don’t know the name of and who hasn’t said a word to anybody, she only fiddles with her phone, even though there’s no signal here

Aside from Ailee and her obvious singing brilliance, which everybody is in agreement with (even the young girl who doesn’t speak kind of nods when this is mentioned), the main topic of conversation is that nobody has seen any actual other people yet.  Apart from the somewhat reassuring signs, there is no other sign that the fan camp is really happening.

The lights go down in the auditorium suddenly and everyone gasps.

“Hello and welcome to Ailee’s K-pop vocal fan camp!  How are we all today?”  The voice comes from over the sound system.  Everyone cheers in response.

The voice continues.  “I suppose you’re wondering where Ailee is.  We do apologise, her flight has been delayed, however you will be seeing her tomorrow morning.  Or we think so… hang on… it’s tomorrow morning right… what… lunchtime?  Okay, so I’m told it’s tomorrow lunchtime that her flight gets in.  So after that.  But don’t worry, we’ll keep you entertained!”

The stage lights come up and a girl appears with a microphone.  You don’t recognise her.  “Who’s that?” you whisper to the others.

Lauren shakes her head.  “I don’t know.”

“That’s Jeongyeon, from Twice.” says Brian.

“Twice?” Lauren doesn’t know who Twice are.

Emma looks pissed off.  “TWICE?  Oh fuck.  Twice fucking suck.  They can’t even sing!”

“What are they doing here?  This is such bullshit!” Josh huffs.

Jeongyeon looks out to the small audience, but not making eye contact with anyone in particular.  “We’re so happy to be here!  Hey girls, let’s sing a song!”

A bunch of other girls all invade the stage.  You remember this group now.  What the hell are they even doing at a vocal fan camp?  Weren’t they the group that couldn’t even sing their own songs?

Jeongyeon addresses the other girls in the group.  “Okay, we don’t have our backing tracks today, but as this is a vocal camp, we should sing just with vocals only!  Let’s do “Signal” – let’s go girls!”  The girls being a vocals-only version of “Signal”.  The volume is really loud and hearing them sing is excruciating, not only are they not using any type of proper singing technique, they can’t even hit the notes properly.  You didn’t come here for this.

“You SUCK!” yells Josh, at Twice.  The girls don’t react at all, continuing to smile and sing badly as if nothing was wrong.

“I’ve had enough of these talentless girls” snarls Emma, taking a metal bracelet off her wrist and throwing it at the stage.  The bracelet somehow doesn’t hit any of the girls and lands at the rear of the stage.  This only makes Emma more furious, who takes off one of her shoes and lobs it directly at Jeongyeon’s face.   The shoe passes right through Jeongyeon’s head, and also lands at the back of the stage.  Jeongyeon doesn’t react and keeps singing.  Emma screams.

Christie climbs up onto the stage, and walks right up to, and through, the Twice members.  “Guys, it’s not real, it’s a hologram!”

“WHAT?  What bullshit!  Fuck this, I’m out!  Christie, can you give me back me shoe and bracelet?”

Christie runs to the rear of the stage and picks up Emma’s items, then returns to the audience area and hands them to her.  Meanwhile, “Signal” continues to play as the holographic members dance around her.

“Jirrit jirrit my fucking ass, fuck this shit.  See you later, everyone!”  Emma moves to the edit door, but can’t open it.  “It’s LOCKED!  Are we seriously stuck in here?”

The other fan camp attendees all get up and start looking for exits… except the girl who doesn’t speak, she’s still playing with her phone.  They have no luck, everything is locked up.

“I think we’re not going anywhere” says Brian, who doesn’t seem that bothered, and is busy watching the Twice girls.

In the meantime, “Signal” ends.  The jubilantly happy holographic Jeongyeon addresses the audience.  “Doesn’t that song sound so fresh?  I can feel the freshness!  Hey, we’re so incredibly honoured to be at the camp!  Ailee will be with you tomorrow, you can go to your rooms now!  Take the exit door and up the stairs, you each have your own room with your name on the door!  You can also help yourself to the buffet dinner!  Please enjoy your night!”  The holograph switches off and the auditorium lights instantly come up.  Emma pulls on the exit door again and this time it opens freely.

“Oh my GOD it’s over!  Tomorrow had better be a lot better than this, or I’m leaving and suing these people!”

“I’m so sorry Emma, I had no idea that we were going to forced to listen to that”, consoles Lauren.  “Hopefully the next day is better.”

Feeling drained and disappointed, everyone retires to their separate rooms.  You don’t bother with visiting the buffet as you had packed some wraps which will go off if you don’t eat them tonight.  You go to the room with your name on it, it’s a small bedroom with a tiny bed and thin walls, plus a bedside with a laptop on it.  You know the walls are thin because on the other side of the wall you can hear Emma and Josh chatting about how much they hate Twice and you can hear every word almost as clearly as if they were in your room.  With not much else to do for now, you finish your food and decide to get an early night and go to sleep.

You wake up to the sounds of Josh and Emma talking.

“What do you mean we can’t leave the house?” asks Josh.

“We’re locked in here.  All the doors to go outside are locked.  All the windows have bars on them.  Didn’t you see the huge bars on the windows?”

“I thought they were just for decoration.  It’s an old house, don’t they all have bars like that.”

“It is NOT an old house, she built it herself.”

“Yeah but it’s built in an ‘old house’ sort of style, isn’t it?”

“If we don’t get to see Ailee this afternoon I’m calling the police.”

“What are you going to tell them?  I hate Twice too, but I don’t know if they’ll consider being forced to listen to their songs as a felony.”

“They fucking should.  Anyway, something’s not right.”

You get up.  You feel like you’ve slept forever.  A quick glance at your phone confirms that you have indeed been asleep for a long time, it’s nearly 2pm.  Your heart rate increases as you realise that Ailee should be here by now!  You quickly get dressed and open the bedroom door.  Christie and Lauren are in the hallway outside.  Both of them don’t seem all that excited.

“Ailee’s not here yet?” – you ask the obvious question anyway, just in case.

Lauren sighs.  “Not yet, but it should be any minute now.”

In the distance you can hear a car pull up into the parking bay.

“That might be her!” exclaims Christie.

You go back to your room and look out the window, unfortunately it doesn’t give much of a view of the parking area and you can’t really see anything, however you can hear footsteps below from outside, and you’re just in time to see a female figure move toward one of the side entrance doors and enter the building.  It has to be Ailee!  You are about to exit your room and tell the others when you hear a crackle over the mansion’s PA system which you didn’t even know existed until now.

“Hi everyone, it’s Ailee here.  Sorry I’m late.  Now, let me tell you how this camp is going to go.  Normally I would spend the first day chatting with you all for a whole ten seconds each, getting to know you all and your little endearing quirks but really I’m just making sure that I’ve got the right people at this event.  After all I wouldn’t want anyone turning up here by “mistake”, or it could be a terrible tragedy.  The introduction is also about making you feel at ease with your surroundings, so you don’t get too scared straight away.  However we did actually miss the first day completely thanks to my fucking flight being delayed and frankly I’m a bit jet-lagged and over it now, so you’re probably going to have to start getting scared right fucking now.”

You exit your room and walk out into the hallway, the others are all here, looking at each other for answers.

“What does THAT mean?” asks Josh.  Everyone looks at each other in silence for a while.

Christie shivers.  “This is creepy.  I’m going to leave.”  Christie and Emma both go into their rooms to pack their bags.

“I wouldn’t bother, I’m sure we’re still locked up.” says Brian.

The PA comes on again.  “So, go to your rooms and open up the laptops.  Your first k-pop vocal analysis starts now.  I want a 1000-word essay from each of you about the high quality of Twice’s “Signal”.  Having heard it last night, the song should be fresh in your memory.  Write what you like, but make sure to only write positive, constructive things, as I’m quite fond of the girls in Twice!  No negativity will be tolerated!  During this time you can move freely within the building and help yourself to food, but I can’t allow you to go outdoors.  I’m sure you can all come up with something appropriate, you’d better write well because the worst two entries will be removed from the camp.  You have twenty four hours, use the laptops in your rooms, and save the essay as ilovetwice.txt on your desktops – good luck!”

Christie runs out of her room, luggage in tow and tears in her eyes.  “I just can’t do this.  I’m out.”

“But we’re locked in!” says Brian.

“I don’t care, I’ll find a way out!” yells Christie as she runs across the hallway and down the stairs, out of sight.

Emma comes out of her room and turns to the girl who doesn’t speak.  “I’m blaming YOU for this.  You haven’t said a word, you haven’t even told us your name!  I bet you’re in on this somehow!  Give me that fucking phone!”  Emma snatches the phone out of the girl’s hand and then throws it on the floor, smashing it, then starts stomping on the pieces.  “Say something!  What do you have to say for yourself?  SAY SOMETHING!”

The girl looks at Emma, starts to cry, then runs into her room, shutting the door behind her.  “That was a bit harsh, Emma” scolds Josh.  “Look what you’ve done.  She definitely won’t talk to us now.”

You go back to your room.  1000 words about Twice’s “Signal”… you have no idea what to write.

All evening you listen to the voice of Emma next door, quietly intoning “fuck you fuck you fuck you” over and over, while typing.  At one point Josh comes into her room.

“Aren’t you going to do a proper analysis?”

“Fuck off.  She is up to something.  She doesn’t care about the analysis.”

“I know she’s being a bit extreme, but don’t you think…”

“No, I don’t think, Josh.  She’s fucking with us.  I hate her.”

During all of this, you try and think of what to write yourself.  You’re feeling anxious and you can’t think of anything.  Eventually you give up and go to bed.

A voice comes over the PA.  “Time’s up!  Please go to your rooms, open your laptops and remain with them.  I will remote-access into the computers to check your essays.”

You had a rough night, it was hard to sleep.  You didn’t write anything either, but then you didn’t really know what to write.  Your laptop is still open.  You watch as Ailee opens up a remote chat session on your laptop.

“You don’t have a file here.  You were unable to write anything?”

You type back:  “Sorry Ailee.  I was just lost for words.  I guess I’m just feeling a bit anxious about this camp.”

Nothing happens on the screen for a few minutes.  Then Ailee eventually types: “Very good.”

The chat window closes.

Another few minutes pass, and Ailee’s voice comes over the PA again.  “Thank you for your participation.  Rewards and your second task shall be distributed later!  Please enjoy your day!”

The camp so far has been nothing like you’ve imagined.  Nobody knows why they were forced to analyse a Twice song, nobody has even met Ailee properly yet (you’ve come the closest to “seeing” her out of anyone) and the rest of the time is spent just sitting around locked up with nothing to do – it feels like being in prison.  What’s the purpose of all this?  You’re in your designated room, silently pondering the eerie pointlessness of the camp, when your thoughts are broken up by a blood-curdling scream from downstairs.

Yourself and Josh both rush out of your rooms and down the stairway, to the buffet where the screaming has turned to sobbing.  Emma is here, on her knees.

“What’s wrong, Emma?” you ask.

Emma points to the buffet.  Rows of metal trays filled with various meat dishes.

“What?” you ask?

“Oh my god, I see it…” says Josh, who immediately starts vomiting on the floor.

You look closer.  One of the meat trays has a pinkish colour, it’s the colour of Lauren’s pink hair.  She has been decapitated, her skull has been caved in and the pieces of bone and brains plus her hair distributed inside the tray.  Another tray contains the head of Brian, sliced into various fragments.  Some of the other trays contain collections of limbs.  You start to also feel violently ill.

Ailee’s voice comes over the PA.  “I hope your evening is going well.  As you can see, two participants have failed the analysis test and have been removed from the camp.  Please consult your laptops tomorrow for your next assignment.”

After a few minutes of collecting yourselves, all three of you retreat back upstairs.

“Why did this happen?  What’s going on?” Emma asks, her previous anger now replaced with extreme trepidation.

You think out loud: “She said the worst two entries would be removed… but I didn’t even make an entry?”

Josh shakes his head.  “Neither did I.  Emma, what did you write?”

“I just wrote ‘fuck you” a bunch of times… she told me that was okay?”

“What about no-name?  Did she write anything?” asks Josh.

You knock on the door of the young girl, she opens it slowly and looks at you.  She seems extremely scared.

“Excuse me, can we please see your essay about Twice’s “Signal”?

She shakes her head.

“Come on.  Two people are dead.  You need to help us, or we might all be next.”

The girl’s expression changes from fear to shock.  She opens the door fully and all three of you walk in.  She shows the laptop desktop screen with the file “ilovetwice.txt” sitting on it.  You open it up:

Everyone looks at each other, confused.

“We’re asking the wrong questions.  Never mind what we wrote – what did Lauren and Brian write?”

Emma and Josh go to retrieve Lauren and Brian’s laptops, while you wait with the girl with no name.  Josh comes back in after a minute, looking confused.

“Brian’s essay is… actually really good?”

He shows it to you, it’s a well-thought out deconstruction of the Twice singers’ respective vocal attributes.

Josh yells to Emma “What’s Lauren’s like?”

Silence.  All of you go over to Lauren’s room and take a look at the laptop.  Emma is in front of it, her face as white as a ghost.

“It’s… amazing.” whispers Emma.

You read through Lauren’s analysis.  As expected from a moderator of truekpopvocalfaggotry.com, her write-up is incredibly in-depth, going through each of the Twice members and their vocal strengths and weaknesses.  Points of argument are referenced with videos and popular as well as academic websites.

“I don’t understand?  I don’t understand?!?” whispers Emma, again and again.

You wake up.  There’s a message on your laptop.

Please meet at 2pm in the auditorium for the next special test.  Don’t be late!

You make sure that you are there at 2pm sharp.  Not that it’s hard to be punctual given the complete lack of things to do except tremble in fear and avoid the buffet.  When you arrive, Josh, Emma and the no-name girl are all seated and waiting.

The lights go out as soon as you sit down, and the auditorium sound system comes to life.  It’s Ailee’s voice.  “Glad you could all make it.  Please listen to the following recording of Twice’s “Signal”.  I want you all to tell me which member it is, and how their voice could be improved.  Please co-operate with the test, or there will be consequences.”

A recording of “Signal” plays, only one member of Twice is singing throughout it all.  Their voice sounds shaky and weak, like they are not projecting properly.

Eager to not die, the group participates as actively as their mood allows.  “Tzuyu for sure” says Josh.

“It’s Tzuyu!  She’s using too much head voice!  Not enough projection!” says Emma.

Is it Tzuyu?  You’re not sure.  “I… don’t know who it is?  Could be Tzuyu or Mina?”

The girl with no name just shrugs.

Gradually a red curtain in the middle of the stage is pulled back.  It’s Ailee, standing up.  With her is Christie, singing “Signal”, doing her best to mimic the vocal tones of the Twice members.  Emma gasps with the twin shock of seeing Christie again, and also noticing that Ailee has a double-barrelled shotgun pointed at the back of Christie’s neck.

“Too much head voice, you say?  Not for long!”  Ailee pulls the trigger and Christie’s head explodes all over the floor and walls of the stage.  Emma screams.

“Looks like Christie has ‘projected’ herself quite well onto stage left,” smirks Ailee.

“You’re a monster!  What’s wrong with you?” screams Emma.

“Well, apparently… let me see.  I supposedly have an unbalanced mixed voice, a poorly-positioned larynx in my lower register, problems with my regular and head voice above about F5, my midrange is too ‘chest dominant’… shall I go on?”

“No, I meant about the killing people thing.”

“Oh, that.”  Ailee lets off another shotgun blast and decapitates Emma.  “Sorry, I have no idea.  I’m… seeing someone about it.”

Ailee quickly reloads her shotgun.  Yourself, Josh and the girl with no name seize the small window of opportunity and run out of the auditorium door, which mercifully isn’t locked this time.  Josh and the girl both run away in different directions, with the girl going upstairs and Josh trying to find a place to either exit the building or hide within the buffet.  You decide to go upstairs.  You go to the toilet, lock yourself inside a cubicle, put your feet up on the seat so nobody can see them under the gap in the door, and wait.

“Ah.  There you are.  Gosh, that hiding spot wasn’t predictable at all.  I can’t even see you, but I know that you’re in there.  I can hear you breathing and squirming.”

When Ailee finds you, it occurs to you that locking yourself in an area with only one escape route may not have been the wisest decision you ever made.

Ailee continues: “So I don’t really want to wreck my nice new toilet doors, after all I just built them.  Getting just the right doors is quite a chore, and I’d like a break from redecorating.  So you’ve got two options, you can either wait in there and die from starvation, or you can come out and I can find a way to give you a quick and architecturally non-obtrusive death involving minimal rework to the house’s structure.”

You hear sirens gradually approaching.  You’re not sure how it happened, but someone has called the police!  You hear Ailee sigh.

“Oh great.  Looks like you’ve been saved by the bell.”

“Where are the others?  Josh?”

“The tall thin one?  Dead.”

“I didn’t hear your shotgun go off.”

Ailee laughs.  “It went off.  Maybe you were listening to an MR Removed mix that took out the ‘dead’ frequency.”

“What about the little girl who doesn’t talk?  Did you get her, too?”

“Let’s just say that she’ll be talking even less now.”

“Why, Ailee?”

“Do you really not have ANY idea?”

“What do you mean?”

Ailee doesn’t get time to answer further as the cops burst into the bathroom, arresting her.  You can’t see what’s happening from inside the toilet cubicle, but it’s clear that she doesn’t resist.  Exhausted from the ordeal, you pass out on the toilet floor.

You wake up.  You’re in a hospital bed.  You look around.  There’s some tubes stuck in your arm and another tube going up your nose.  Nobody is here in the room.  You move your body a bit but it hurts to do so, you think that there might be more equipment attached to you in places that you can’t see or get to in your current state.  You feel weak and dizzy.  It doesn’t take long for you to become tired again and drift back off to sleep.

You wake up.  You’re still in hospital.  The nurse is here, she’s brought dinner.  It’s evening and the TV is on.  She wheels a dinner tray with steak, vegetables and mashed potato up to your torso so you can reach it, and adjusts your bed so you are more upright.  You taste the food, it’s exceptionally bland.

“What happened to me?” you ask.

“Fractures to your leg in three places, a fractured rib, various bruises on the lower half of your body, some internal organ damage.  You really got a beating!  Don’t try to move so fast, take it slow.”

“But… I don’t remember any of that?”

“What do you mean?”

“It didn’t happen… I fell asleep, and I woke up and I was here.  Right?”

“Whatever you say.”

“I’m not lying – don’t you believe me?”

“Look, you’re on the news!”  The nurse points to a TV in the corner.  You watch as the newsreader speaks over footage of Ailee live in concert:

“Violence in Virginia last night with some tragic and bizarre news from the home of famous k-pop singer Ailee.  A group of armed fans invaded her newly built home earlier this week and locked her in her bedroom at gunpoint, demanding that she release money from a private bank account.  Allegedly the funds were sought to build a vocal education school to make other k-pop singers sing as good as her.  After a tense standoff with police, five fans were killed and another one arrested.  Ailee and a sixth fan believed to not be involved in the incident were injured and both were rushed to hospital, where they remain in a stable condition.”

“Who’s Ailee?  Is she related to PSY?”

“I don’t know, but doesn’t she look so much better than him!  Onto the weather now…”

“But… that’s not what happened?  That’s all lies!”  You gasp in indignation and then recoil as a shooting pain arcs across your ribcage.

“Don’t stress yourself out, you’ll just injure yourself!  You need food, and rest.  Try to be calm.”

Reluctantly, you follow the nurse’s instructions.  She’s Asian and looks vaguely familiar, like you might have seen her before.

Six months later, you’re at home.  The website truekpopvocalfaggotry.com closed down immediately after the incident at Ailee’s mansion.  Ailee is still performing and going strong.  You still follow k-pop, but you’re not as concerned with Ailee as you once were, as thinking about her brings back memories that you’d rather not revisit.  You’re still not entirely certain what happened during the fan camp, but you do know that although it took a long time for you to recover physically, it was ultimately a positive life-changing experience.  It certainly got you out of the rut of caring so much about vocals, you’re even starting to appreciate the music of low-skilled groups like Twice, although you’ll definitely never be able to listen to “Signal” ever again.

You’re downloading a free version of Twice’s new song “Likey”, just to see what it sounds like.  Of course, you’ll buy the full song if you like it, you always do.  You open up the archive:

THE END