In Case of Fire, Burn This First

Drop the Bomb

Their set finished up with their hit single, "Your Favorite Arsonist." Baekhyun was smiling so much that it seemed to hurt, and his eye makeup was going down his cheeks. He kept bowing and muttering his thanks into his mic and so did Zitao and Yixing, wordlessly, as the clamor of the casual audience and their sizable following combined pounded from all corners of the packed venue---a racket that buzzed in the ears like guitar feedback, long after it was over. Kyungsoo was one of the many who stood up for them, clapping until his palms were tinted red.

In a series of heady, quickfire vignettes, the band graduated from risky deals where they went home empty-handed to being paid door deals and the occasional fixed fees---in the coveted times where they headlined the shows.

They were invited to play for MYX and other radio shows, and a ton of live venues in Metro Manila. Some local journalists had emailed them to arrange interviews. They kept raking in reviews. Their single trended in various platforms, their number of plays on Youtube and Spotify was still climbing, and they generated considerable profit from sound recording royalties.

Their EP, "Certain Secret Dreamscapes," attained just over fifty thousand downloads on iTunes and Bandcamp---a feat they credited to Chanyeol's studio trickery and production magic, which sculpted the tidal waves of noise into listenable, poppier songs where Baekhyun's vocals stole the attention. Chanyeol overreacted and bragged ceaselessly the instant he was informed about it, and no one took that right away from him.

But the band decided not to go through with getting a record deal, even though they were sought out by quite a few indie labels, along with a major one's subsidiary.

If they got themselves signed, they wouldn't be able to keep themselves safe on their own terms. As Heechul said, their social security numbers were phonies. So were their driver's licenses and every single one of their identity documents. Zitao and Yixing, having been smuggled by Baekhyun's father in a cruise ship from South Korea, were actually illegal aliens. They only managed to get legally employed through rampant, skillful document forgery.

The band had no choice but to keep their own counsel. And streaming was the future of the music industry, anyway. Perhaps even the final destination.

But having a record deal would bag them bounties they wouldn't deny, like a substantial budget; connections to professionals such as booking agents and media moguls and cronies; plus a larger, established network of supporters. The band would have to DIY their big break into the industry, and that was bound to take away a lot of valuable studio time.

Yixing tried to bring levity by claiming that there were tons of cons in getting signed: limited creative control, fewer profits, intimately dealing with industry politics, being forced to chase trends, and nauseatingly complicated and often exploitative contracts that would lead to expensive legal wrangling, long battles over exclusive rights, and meager buyouts.

Yet they all knew that they wouldn't run into so much risk if they had radically different pasts or identities. If their entire existences weren't sorry states of affairs. They could never hope to have a clean slate, when all the mechanisms of society were built to sanction them and work against people like them.

Their histories weren't seashells that they could simply cast aside at the shore and run away from, barefooted. They were shaped by the abattoirs that were their pasts, singled out and inducted for being strong enough, and made to step on an ever-increasing mass of knives.

And then they unyoked themselves. The only place left for them to go was a tumble down a rocky escarpment. Yet they kept finding their footing through sheer, delusive willpower that never ran its course.