Underground Virtuoso

To play at Bygone Days, the rules were fairly simple. One: you must be sixteen and over. Two: play something, anything, regardless of it being a makeshift harmonica or hammered dulcimer. Three: leave your doubts and fears at the door. Anyone could become a musician here, but performers needed an affinity for pulling magic out of madness. 

Below the stage, Nova could spot security trying to control the chaos. It wasn’t their usual crowd tonight, but a crowd nonetheless. The ones who’ve been here the longest were loitering around the old subway compartments, and he smiled in their direction. 

At the same time, his controller started flickering to life and the juniors began to cheer. Their shouts fed the buzz in the air as a violet interface materialized, featuring synth orbs and glowing vocal hooks that beckoned him to play. 

Unlike a few of his fellow performers, he does consider himself a traditional musician. For whatever “charming sense of nihilism” classical artists were thought to possess, Nova found that they were actually the most alive. Here in Bygone Days, which was located at the border between Chinatown and the Entertainment Center, the blend of old and modern created a lucid but entirely living environment. Such as the permeation of watercolors in which colorful notes chased away the bleakness that stained the city like smog. And wasn’t that a striking image, his imagination carrying him above the stage as he strummed his guzheng.

When he first walks down an unlighted staircase, he mistakes the place to be some underground market. But there are no food stalls, no flashy signs, and no drunkards though a pair of idiots insist on acting like it. By nature of his work, he’s able to visit places only conceivable in dreamstates, but never has he beheld anything like this before. 

In the middle of the station is a floating stage that hovers above an unfinished train. The vehicle will never run, but passengers occupy every seat. 

He stumbles towards a door. Some sort of misty veil is always clouding his vision these days, so he can hear more than see these static commuters. In every sound-proofed compartment, they surround a person or two in the center. 

As he floats from one performance to another, the sounds of folk music—this centuries-old genre blended with modern beats—lure him into a trance. One man with a wispy beard, though he can’t be older than thirty, combines jazz hop with a classical piece on the pipa. 

He wonders if he’s entered a dream. After all, he can’t see their eyes. 

Even if he wanders to the ends of the earth, he’ll still discover faces that look alike. Smiles that curve similarly. And he hates it, hates how every laugh sounds mechanically produced like one piece of a well-oiled machine. Except the mood feels different here, and he is unable to place why. As he drifts out of the train and into a sea of black, he asks himself, what did he come here for? Curiosity, sure, as it always was, but maybe as a last-ditch effort for once.

The fog disperses. He blinks. 

A performer arises into sight, a boy who looks more like a rockstar than a traditional musician. But he might as well be both, the walls of The Underground shaking with the notes he strums. The boy smiles, an exhilarated expression, his fingertips flying over fine strings. 

For the first time in a long while, he feels electric. 

The Underground burned bright tonight, almost too bright for his liking. But where was this light emitting from? There were new fixtures installed around the stage, but they were covered by a curious haze. Nova blinked once, twice, and then again, a long and drowsy press of his eyes. (Bygone prohibited substance use but the sensation wasn’t far off).

While his mind crawled in circles, his fingers were moving instinctively. His left hand, which had been resting on unpitched strings, glided across the interface, piecing together a heavy yet dreamlike sound. He added soft adlibs and hints of noir jazz, the latter to evoke something secretive and almost fatal. Fiddling with synth loops, he settled on one that might drag the audience into the surrealism he was drowning in.

Instead of allowing the music to crescendo to a climax, to reach a momentous shift in the story—yes, the narrator was the murderer all along; no, her “death” was actually faked—he wove subtle twists into the rhythm as if to tease the listener.

Folk and traditional Chinese instruments were his forte, but he figured that this was the real reason he’d been garnering recent attention. Weaving dozens of different styles into something cohesive seemed distasteful and unimaginable at first, especially while improvising on a live accompaniment. Using archaic tools to interpret modern styles was a feat in itself, but composing was another. It should be burdensome, and it was at times, but the joy and spontaneity of it all made him feel completely and effervescently free.

Below the stage, the audience was clearly enjoying themselves. He despised the suffocation of crowds, but it was amusing to watch from afar. There was much to be gained from observing people, in watching their bodies dip and sway with indifference or ecstasy. 

Strangely and annoyingly enough, the haze still lingered in his vision. Squinting, he glimpsed a flash of glasses here, the brim of a hat there, then two blurry faces contorted similarly enough for something dark and dreadful to clutch at his throat. 

He struck the wrong chord. Then again. 

There was a fine line between similarity and uniformity, and that line often looped itself into a noose—far before its captive even realized they were tying it. He wasn’t sure how to explain it, but the idea of purple disguising itself as gray filled him with immense disdain. These thoughts, or the manifestation of them, had no place here. Here, people felt more than thought, heard more than saw, and everything above the Underground was manufactured in gray. 

It took conscious effort to switch back to reality, to resume the rhythm like nothing was wrong. Plastering a wobbly grin on his face, he reminded himself that Bygone was a sacred place, a sanctuary where slipping into his mind proved dangerous and debilitating. 

It was only until he had a few minutes remaining did the haze finally disappear. Glancing up, Nova realized with immense relief that he could see himself on the projector. It was a giant device synced to his controller, similar to how his setup was connected to Bygone’s interior. 

The thing about the Underground was that everyone knew about it. It was even dubbed as one of the Eight’s worst kept secrets. As its name implied, the Underground was located beneath the main city. Comprising performance spaces, exhibitions, and workshops, it soon became a special hub for musicians, writers, and artists. All things considered; it was Nova’s life. 

Each of the global superpowers, or megaregions, had its own idiosyncrasies. He was originally born here, but coming back he hadn’t realized that the Eight, as science driven as it was, was also known for its preservation of antiquity. It wasn’t long before the Underground achieved a reputation for housing “experimental” and “eclectic” talents, who either rejected or made amends to mainstream developments. 

All of the passions and projects here were truly one of a kind, but Bygone was . . . well, it was different. Nova was biased of course, but the simple act of being here almost always evolved into a profound memory. Very fitting it seemed, given its location. 

Chinatown was a historic gem of the Eight Region that (and only on the outside, if you looked far away enough) appeared undamaged by decades of developments. It was far from a ghost town, but on those rare nights when Nova slipped into the city, he felt that his home was shielded by something. Or that an entity slept beneath its surface, deep within the cracks and crevices of pavilion housings of repainted statues. 

But at its core, Chinatown had always shone bright. And Nova would argue that Bygone Days made tangible its residents’ nostalgia for the past (whether unconscious or not) or the ideas of the past eroded by time and buried at the center of a matryoshka doll. Music, he believed, was a way for people to keep truths alive in the present. 

Four years ago, some engineers of Compass who supposedly shared these sentiments had reconstructed Bygone with their game’s technology, transforming the space into a sonic and reactive environment. From the hologram effects that danced through the air, to the neon grid flooring that pulsed with every beat, his music was entirely immersive. 

He was admiring the flooring, a ripple of blues and purples, when his controller flashed red. 

A minute remaining. A genuine smile curved his lips this time, and he let the heavier beats dissipate. The only sound that filled the room now was the tender, almost reverential plucking of his guzheng. No matter how many styles he blended, how much equipment he experimented with, nothing compared to the richness of only him and an instrument. 

“Simple was sexy, but it didn’t always sell,” said Mira, but she was characteristically flashy. 

Nova needed this intimacy though, craved it as much as a child sought its mother’s warmth. That was true in a sense, since he’d learned his techniques and tuning from the elders. He struggled to remember them now (and with great shame), but his memories often returned during performances. This was currently the case as he recalled Wei Laoshi, a man with calloused fingers and who spoke as firm as he played. It’d been an early morning in spring when Wei Laoshi taught Nova his now favorite piece called Chrysanthemum Terrace. 

“Lift your finger, draw it back to your palm,” Nova heard. And so, his left hand drew out the vibrato, all ten fingers playing with grace and gratitude. Mellow notes soothed both him and the crowd, who had since fallen silent. 

At Sol, his hand shot out. The audience erupted in applause. 

Well, he thought with a wry smile, it would have ended anyway. 

Support continued to ring out in the form of cheers and claps. Quite frankly, Nova was just relieved that no skimpy undergarments were being thrown onstage. It’s not like he was a member of some popular boy band, but the Underground was anything but normal. 

Although stunned with a mixture of pride and wonder, his voice was steady as he spoke thanks into the mic. From his place on stage, and thankfully the lights had dimmed, he could see an absurd amount of people crowded beneath him and winding up the staircase. It was probably, no—definitely one of their largest audiences to date. 

When the platform hit the ground, two assistants scurried forward to move his equipment backstage. As per usual, he slid off his finger picks and slipped Luna, an AI assistant, around his wrist. It was currently in the form of a sleek silver bracelet that glowed violet in the center. 

Next, he tugged on a pair of ballroom-delicate gloves that clung to his skin in a peculiar style of lacework. Somehow, they were both heavy like velvet and weightless like silk. Spiderwebs dipped in black ink he liked to describe, but they always served as a reassuring weight. Tonight however, the gloves did nothing to qualm his trembling hands. 

Before his mind could start spiraling, warm arms tackled him from behind. Tackled, as in it took all of his core muscles (which were severely untrained) to not hit the floor. 

There was no need to identify a culprit given the snickering, shouting, and appearance of excited teens who circled to form a ring around him. Nova would honestly be a little frightened if the action didn’t conjure the image of baby ducklings surrounding their mother. 

He let out a sigh, but it was more fond than exasperated. “Hey kiddo.” 

“ . . . We’re only two years apart and I can see right above your head.” 

“I suppose you should give me a proper greeting then?” 

Messy hair and a dimpled smile came into view when Xiao pulled him into an embrace. The boy claimed not to be a hugger, but here they were. 

“I saw you in the audience earlier,” Nova mentioned. “How’d I do?” 

“Do you really have to ask?” Xiao laughed. “There were so many people tonight that security had to ease traffic by opening another entrance. Although these shows are supposed to be kept under wraps, word got out on the Net that you’d be closing tonight.” 

Leaks weren’t too odd especially since Bygone was gaining recent popularity, but Xiao refused to meet his eyes. And well, Nova thought, besides being a force of nature on the erhu, the other was a downright menace even off the stage. 

“Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it,” he acknowledged, because he really did. Time after time, the juniors proved to be more efficient at arousing public interest than anyone else. “But there’s no need to look out for me. If anything, I should be worrying about you.” He didn't mention that disclosing private information in favor of one artist wouldn’t sit well with the rest.

Xiao froze. “I’m not sure what you mean,” he said slowly, smiling so sheepishly that Nova could only shake his head in amusement. He wasn’t fooled, of course. After all, Xiao was his protégé, and he had always told the younger that there was no music without mischief. 

Still circled around them, the ring of juniors had edged closer and closer. Practically buzzing with impatience, they started asking a string of arbitrary questions. Nova, what samples did you use? Can you teach us to play like that? Cool outfit, did you hire a stylist? 

The last question surprised him. Without being humble, his style was a bit . . . haphazard. Half of his wardrobe was dark, and the other half was filled with bright colors and bold patterns that he preferred to wear here. Contrary to the idea that dressing in monochrome gave the impression of professionalism (by god, people dressed unbearably dreary these days), pairing a showy look with the right attitude actually offered him a modicum of authority. 

As implied by their name, the juniors were an ensemble of Bygone’s youngest performers. Similar to himself, they both experimented and trained in strictly classical styles. 

When Nova wasn’t playing his usual repertoire, he enjoyed attempting anything from swing, jazz, bossa nova, and often psychedelia. To sum it up: the feel-good stuff that bordered nostalgia and the unreal. On the other hand, the juniors gravitated towards rock elements. Most were only two years younger than him; Nova had turned nineteen this summer, but they acted more like rambunctious siblings than regular friends. He would never admit this aloud, especially not to Xiao, but he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Wait a minute,” Xiao said, reemerging at Nova’s side. “I forgot to tell you something.” 

“Sure, what’s up?” 

“You know that track you helped us on?” he asked. “The one with the real sexy guitar riffs? Which I said was a solid love song but you said was too melancholic? To be fair, you think everything is sad and melancholic but—” 

Nova coughed into his fist. 

“Right, sorry. Anyways, we sent it to PM Records immediately after. The other day they got back to us saying that Scarlet Eyes agreed to the collaboration! Sorry that I didn’t mention this earlier because I know how much you adore them, it’s just—” 

“Sshh, save your breath,” Nova interrupted, a smile blooming on his lips. Scarlet Eyes was his favorite Japanese rock band; their music had helped him through hard times. “That’s amazing news and it’s well deserved. I’m grateful that you guys asked me to be a part of the process.”

A blush rose to Xiao’s cheeks, his voice softening. “Thanks Nova, you always know what to fix.” 

“Not always. But be warned: I’ll be requesting various autographs as compensation for not telling me sooner,” he teased. “And are the seniors aware?” 

Nudging his elbow, a junior named Yuan Fang folded her arms with a wicked grin. “Nope, you’re the first to know. But speaking of, I’d say you made them jealous with this turnout.” 

Nova flinched. Her tone was as lighthearted as ever, but the words still stung. 

While the juniors had formed ensembles, Nova was the only one his age and experience level (he’d been at Bygone for a little over a year) who was given center stage. Typically, headlining solos were handed to the seniors. On top of that, no one else garnered as large an audience and as many outside offers as him, though none have been particularly interesting or fruitful. 

The problem was these older musicians had nurtured Nova since the very beginning. And now, they regarded him with barely concealed contempt. He did his best to reach out, but they reciprocated with hardly anything more than clipped comments and thin-lipped smiles. Not all the seniors of course, but enough to be disheartening. He knew it was natural, that an unwanted sibling’s recognition birthed envy and spite, but it was hard to reconcile with. 

In this unfamiliar city where he had lived in for the first decade of his life, though it may be more accurate to use the word survived, the people at Bygone Days were his only family. 

“Maybe. But what’s good for me is good for all of us,” Nova replied, refusing to show any bitterness. 

His bags were all packed when Mirabella approached him with an easy gait and her trademark confidence. They’d met a few months ago at a random pub, before Nova had quit drinking. She was a phenomenal singer who'd recently signed with a flourishing company albeit known for their shady deals and rumored affiliation with illicit businesses. Unfettered by criticism directed towards her music or appearance, Nova considered her a creative confidant. 

“So, what’s the occasion tonight?” Mira’s voice was teasing. 

Nova snorted. “I have no idea what you’re referring to,” he said, sounding vaguely like Xiao. 

“You sure? It sounded like you were playing for someone. The mood at the beginning was kinda sensual.” She ran her eyes up and down his form. “Plus, the new look. It’s charming.” 

Sensual wasn’t the word he’d use to describe that experience, but he laughed anyway. “People have been saying that. I’m starting to think I should trust my impulses more.” 

Nova feigned ignorance, but he knew precisely how he looked. Aside from his gloves, which people were accustomed to, his top was a gift from a designer after he performed at her winter show. It was a black short sleeve with a cheongsam style collar and knotted buttons. At the center of his chest, sitting in a neatly embroidered circle, was a design of a parakeet. It rested on a flowering apricot tree, the image inspired by some famous handscroll. 

He liked the shirt not simply for its impressive craftsmanship, but because it reminded him of his mother’s nicer clothing bestowed by wealthy clients. He tried to imagine her wearing them, dressed from head to toe in dip dyed silk and hand-painted motifs. 

She’d have been beautiful, he was sure. 

“Besides,” Nova shrugged, “If I found a girl willing to endure my antics, maybe I wouldn’t be spending every Friday night here.”

Mira raised an amused brow. “That’s reassuring to hear. You really do need to emerge from your dark cocoon every now and then.” As she spoke, he admired her eyeliner which had literal wings drawn in thin strokes like a butterfly in flight. “Also, Miryung’s shift ends early tonight so we’re stopping by a café. You wanna join?” 

“Uh, which café is it?”

“Miryung knows the name but it’s not too far from the conservatory.” 

“That old relic? It’s fairly close then.” 

“Yup, it’s a hole in the wall place and the location is pretty secluded. Right up your alley if you’re tired of the constant noise in your life. I’m sure you love being surrounded by all these people who came to see you, but don’t you live by the Blue Bridge?” 

“I do, but I’ve grown used to its commotion. And nothing compares to a good audience, hm?”

“Oh definitely.” 

Two half-lies added together must resemble a complete truth, right? He wasn’t lying, but there was hardly any commotion to speak of. 

His apartment was located in a small neighborhood between an old bridge and a grove of plum blossoms. Whenever he passed by the light-colored trees, he was reminded of his home in the countryside where there’d been a persimmon orchard nearby. He’d often peel and hang the fruits in the sunshine, where they appeared like clusters of orange wisteria from afar. 

Luckily, his place was well insulated. Sometimes it even got too quiet, leaving him alone with his traitorous brain where thoughts fought for dominance in the dead of night. During those nights, the rustling of leaves and rush of vehicles were as soothing as a lullaby. 

On the other hand, he wilted under excessive noise. For instance, the ruckus of people around them. He enjoyed their energy while performing but being on and offstage were two utterly different experiences. One filled him with euphoria and the other slapped him with unease. 

“Oh shoot, time to go.” A silver ring similar to Nova’s bracelet buzzed twice on Mira’s finger. She gave him an inquisitive look. “You coming along?” 

He shook his head. “Thanks for the invite but I’ll have to pass. I’m holding another calligraphy class in the morning and I’m low on sleep.” Any other day he would have accepted her offer, but for whatever reason he wished to spend the remainder of the night alone. 

“No worries, there’s always next time. Oh, and by the way—I heard there was an incident at The Academy? A weird fire, but nothing major. Be careful!” 

They exchanged goodbyes and Nova approached the staircase where hordes of people were trickling out. Many recognized him, but he only had the energy to smile and wave. 

To enter Bygone Days, you needed to pass through an unused entrance across from the Twilight Arena. Next, head down a staircase until advertisements and colorful posters start lining the walls. Most of these posters were used to promote new releases and special stages. The general rule was that for the weekly Friday night shows, setlists were to remain a secret. This aimed to facilitate the discovery of new artists and it also whipped an air of surprise. 

The place itself was a giant and unfinished subway station originally meant to improve the region’s transportation system. But thanks to proper funding and talented engineers, not only was the Infinity Highway built, but transportation became increasingly aerial. When Nova was younger, the Eight’s infrastructure was still underdeveloped compared to the other superpowers. But now, even a year after returning, it was still a shock to see life in the sky. The sight could be terrific, thrilling, and terrifying all at once. 

Although Bygone had received a tremendous amount of reconstruction to serve its current purpose, no effort was wasted in preserving its original design. Even with the loud lighting, interesting architectural features—such as the high ceiling, glass prisms and tiling, and patterned flooring—just couldn’t be missed. There were also two hydraulic elevators on opposite ends of the room that opened to upper-level floors. 

Nonetheless, the real star of the show was an abandoned train that sat prettily in the center. It’d been left unpainted for quite some time, but it was now decorated with beautiful (and questionable) pieces of graffiti art. Its compartments were also furnished and transformed into mini performance and workshopping spaces that fostered intimacy, camaraderie, and all those inexplicable things Nova had desperately sought out, had craved more than food and water. 

He could hear it now, people talking and laughing above the ground. His pace quickened.  

Rather unfortunately, his mind was still trying to make sense of that bizarre haze which had covered his vision and left him feeling unsettled and disoriented. But as he emerged from the entrance, he felt as if he’d just been reborn. Blinded by bright lights, a cool breeze, and reacquainting with the thrum in his veins at not knowing what’s to come—he pushed everything aside and wandered off in search of a place to eat.