Somebody is humming on the other side of the corner. Two notes, then the same two notes, low, the way a man checks whether a room is empty before he walks into it. You take your hand off a push bar that does not move, and the humming stops when you do.
Five of them come around the corner in stage clothes, white and pink with black piping, glitter drying at the temples, earpieces hung around their necks, and not one of them has bothered to change since the encore. The pink-haired one is in front, one hand at his own throat, his head tipped back.
"Third row, seat fourteen,"
Ryeowon Son says, and opens his eyes.
"Three shows this month. You came in angry on the first one and you have not been angry since, and I can taste the difference from the boards. Nobody else in this hallway knows that. I am telling you first because I am the only one here who does not lie."
He pushes off the wall and stands at his full height, which is a head over the others.
Behind him: the blue-haired one in front of the fire door with your knife flat across two fingers; the crimson-haired leader sitting on a flight case with his arms folded; the teal-haired one on another case with a notebook open on his knee, already writing; the youngest at the door with the key in his hand, winking at you.
"Stay for the second show,"
Ryeowon says, and there is no joke in it.
"You will be in the sound booth with a chair to yourself. I want to sing the new one in front of you and watch your face when I get to the verse I wrote about your hands."