DELIVERANCE

CHAPTER 1. The first step towards freedom

freedom :

ˈfriːdəm/

noun

1.
the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants.

synonyms:right to, entitlement to;

2.
the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved.

synonyms:liberty, liberation, release, emancipation, deliverance.

"What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead."
/Nelson Mandela/

Leaning over the microphone, I put everything into my encore song. When I say, everything, I meant everything. My throat started to hurt from the beginning of the world tour,and I could do nothing about it. My body ached, I was tired all the time, needed to sleep but I had no time. So I just got on with it and I sang my heart and soul out to my fans, or whoever bought the overpriced tickets for my last concert in Singapore.

Yeah, I mean it. Overpriced. I was filthy rich, I didn't need more money, I could live happily ever after if I wouldn't move my pinky finger the rest of my life.

Yeah. I know, I shouldn't sound like some egoistic bastard but this is the truth. Of course, the production designer, the tour management disagreed as always. They needed the money like bees needed to feed on honey.
What a world we live in. The only thing I was allowed to do for this world tour that Ive got to write my own music without any change of censorship or anything the sort of.

It felt liberating first, then it turned to panic. What if it's not good enough? What if nobody will like it? What if someone will like it only because of the persona that is associated with DG.

Let me talk about DG aka D-Genius.

Yeah, That's my stage name. I'm D-Genius. Am I a genius?

I highly doubt in that.

Apart from writing music and wiring the majority of my songs, I'd be hardly able to manage my finances, my estates, businesses and all of the other shenanigans. I was incapable of managing anything outside of my world. Out in the world I was nobody.

I might be cheered and loved by millions of fans, but yeah, I was still a nobody.

A body with full of fears, doubts, self loath and a cry-baby, mentally so fragile that when my recording label insisted that I need to enlist to the mandatory army service, I cried for two weeks non stop.

Then sucked it up and did it.

The last song was over. The encore was over. No matter how much the crowd chanted 'DG, DG, D-Genius' - no matter how much I wanted to go out to the stage and smile, bend down to halfway to my knees and thank everyone for their support. I didn't.

You should ask now, why? Why are you such a heartless bitch, why are you putting up on an act?

No. Itself, this whole tour is an act. An Act of Nothingness.

I made up my mind already.

I locked myself into my costume room. Everyone knew that nobody allowed to get to me after my concert. I needed to wind down on my own.

I cried for a good twenty minutes. Then removed all the make up from my face. Looked closely at my face to realise how empty my eyes seemed.

I took off the nail polish. It's true, I wore nail polish for every now and then. I'm a guy, so what? I have nails too, I don't even give a damn.

I put my head under the tap, the lukewarm water started to dissolve the temporary bright red hair colour from my hair. Slowly my natural black hair started to emerge.

Nice. When I lifted up my head again, with my black hair I started to resemble to me. The real me.

But who was I really? DG? D-Genius? Adored by millions and hated by so many because of my lucky upbringing. Everyone keeps forgetting how hard I worked for this.

In the process of making D-Genius one day I couldn't make out that fine line that supposed to be drawn between Song Taehyun and DG.

Who was I really? It always came back to square one and hit me in the face repeatedly.

For millions of fans, teens, and middle aged ones who tried to relive their youth : I was the only one, the D-GENIUS. The star, the idol of the nation, who can sing, dance, rap and if just move my pinky toe millions will fall to my feet.

Yeah, that bastard badass persona was me.

I never meant to be that person. I blame the circumstances. The greedy management that stood behind me, my own boys, I called them, my mates at the recording label, they were all to blame. When I cried hours that I wanted to go home to visit my dying mother, and nobody bothered to listen, something broken inside of me.

For once in my lifetime, I knew what I definitely didn't want to do anymore.

I did not want to live in this false world, this pretence,in this world that was created to blind the whole nation, with money, fame, pop idols and gossips. I was a part of it. Believe it or not, I enjoyed it but deep down in my heart I was disgusted by it.

I was nobody.

I didn't no who was I really.

Was I person or just a label, a brand?

I would never know if I'd stay behind and continue this madness.
So I decided to leave it all behind and I walked out of my life.

Out of my life. Did I really live? There, closed off from reality, that I didn't even know how to buy a ticket to the airport?

I stood in front of the ticket machine and tried to figure out how to work this piece of high tech support machine. I was only two years in the army and technology advanced so fast, I was barely able to catch up with it.

It took me a good few minutes to work it out then managed to purchase a ticket to the airport.

I pulled my hoodie more into my face and steeled my demeanour.

I was no one. Nobody can see me.
I was not D-Genius.

I was just a man. Or at least I was supposed to be one. I stood up straighter and put all my faith and strenght into my next move.

I stepped out of my comfort zone and I took the subway to Incheon National Airport.