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The clues led to nothing, really. Little clips of no-context dance practices, out-of-focus photos, exclusive profile-picture frames for social media, and the big ones were short, fifteen-second clips of the group congratulating the fan for finding all the clues.

That was it.

The ‘prize’ was figuring out something before other people. It turned viral marketing into a competition. The frames and videos came with a ranked number. It didn’t take me long to find all the clips and clues, and eventually I was awarded the rank #10,011 after finding a specific congratulatory video clip. It was the kind of marketing that everyone could participate in, regardless of country, and without spending a penny – which, for K-Pop, was kind of unheard of.

I hadn’t even listened to the album yet, and I’d already helped promote it by following the trail of clues.

I huffed a quiet laugh as I leaned back in my chair.

It was genius.

I’d taken notes as I’d fallen further down the Auriga rabbit hole, a brief outline that had shifted my original idea of reviewing the album as a comparison to their previous works – which in hindsight is what every publication would do – to a piece more geared towards the lore of the group, and how they included Vibers in everything they did.

I’d spent so long deep-diving into the marketing campaign that the day passed without me even picking up the CD, so I resolved to walk home instead of taking the bus.

It was a cold, but clear day and I reminded myself that I didn’t have much time left in London, so at five on the dot, I put my coat on, slung my rucksack onto my shoulders and tried to shove my portable CD player into my pocket. I set off walking the easy distance to my flat as I pressed play.

The sound wasn’t what I’d been expecting, and almost immediately I was reminded of what Woojin had said last year, during the interview when I’d asked specifically about their upcoming album.

“We are not the same people we were when we made our last album. Whatever we produce next will reflect that, and how we have grown as people, and artists.”

It was immediately clear this was the case.

The album had been arranged in a specific order, as all their albums were. An obvious start, middle and end. A deliberate choice of songs created, and chosen, for the story they wanted to tell.

This was their first studio album since their military enlistment and already it felt very different. The first few tracks were stripped back in a way that there was nowhere to hide, both lyrically and vocally. It was like listening to the members prove to themselves that this was who they were meant to be, more so than to prove their worth to reviewers and critics, and the more I listened, the more I felt that this album was for themselves first, and then Vibers. It was almost exactly as the thought crossed my mind that I stopped dead in the middle of the pavement to listen to Jihoon sing,

You ask us who we are

They tell us who we are

When is it our turn to show you who we are?

A smile nudged its way onto my lips as I felt a coil of something like delight at the subtle dig at an industry that forced roles onto its performers. I kept walking, feeling a flare of heat in my chest. Something that felt a little like pride.

Reset released at the end of the week and it immediately hit several top spots in the global charts – both conventional and streaming. Half of the album managed to bump artists off their top spots, despite not being promoted outside of their guerrilla marketing campaigns. Their title track, Shelter, went straight to #1 across the world when it was released, and the music video fared similarly. It was a monster of a release, and soon it seemed almost impossible to turn on any screen without seeing the group appearing on all manner of shows, podcasts, or radio interviews.

I watched it with a professional kind of detachment, but I couldn’t entirely suppress the way I wondered if they were eating and sleeping properly amidst such intense promotions.

GVibes had been largely absent from the world since enlistment. Now, the world seemed to be demanding its due.

My last formal assignment for Frequency was to write about the album and the group's explosive return to the global music scene. It was probably one of the easiest and somehow hardest articles I'd ever written. I knew exactly what I wanted to say, but I had to do it without falling back on the bad habit of writing about them as though I knew them.

Because I didn't. Not anymore.

In a way, Reset was like my fresh introduction to them as a group, and that was the angle I chose to write from.

I spent the rest of the month tidying up my life in London. It didn’t take long, I barely had anything that could be considered as ‘unfinished business’. I returned a couple of library books, I donated some clothes I didn’t care enough to pack.

I kept trying to find things to do, to pad out my time in the city, grasping for ways in which I had made some kind of footprint. But there weren’t many. The friends I had were mostly online and all around the world. I had narrowed down my worldly possessions to one big suitcase and three cardboard boxes.

That was it.

I didn’t even need to muck about with utilities because that was all included in the extortionate amount of rent I had paid for my short-term lease.

I felt… transparent. Like I'd spent so long creating the idea of a life that I'd forgotten to actually live it. I couldn't seem to find a balance. I was always a little off-kilter in one area or another.

I pushed the thought down.