Rise To Stardom - Chapter 54

Chapter 54: Going Viral
(February 13, 5:55pm…)

“Hurry up Annie! The ViewTube video and song will soon be dropped!” Wendy beckoned to her sister.

“I’m coming! I’m coming!” Annie quickly put the clothes in the dryer, her legs carrying her as fast as it could to their bedroom.

“Stopping sprinting around the house young woman!”

“Sorry Mum!” Annie apologized, still dashing through the corridors until she reached the room.

Plopping onto the bed, just beside her elder sister, she then asked with a playful demeanor;

“When did we become such obsessed fan girls Wendy?”

“Annie, that’s a question you know the answer to, all too well.” Wendy responded with a grin as she navigated over to Kyle’s ViewTube Channel on the laptop.

Ever since they had learned more about the young indie artist, both ladies had gone down a rabbit hole, wanting to find every single information about him.

The journey had been an exhilarating one for them because hardly did Kyle ever post anything about himself on social media, making every bit of information they could glean about him actually worth it.

As a result of that too, they had ended up binge-watching the fourth season of Rising Voices twice, all because they couldn’t get enough of Kyle Kestis.

Eventually, they ended up joining his fan club too once they found out about it.

Refreshing the ViewTube page for the umpteenth time, a new video finally showed up on Kyle’s page and quickly, Wendy clicked on it, her and her sister waiting in eager excitement for the music video to start.

And then they cussed.

“Stupid, shitty ads!”

“Language ladies!”

“Sorry Mum!” they both apologized instantly.

Finally, after the fifteen second unskippable ad ‘sluggishly’ finished its run, one that felt like an eternity, the music video finally started and Annie and Wendy squealed in excitement.

What immediately stood out to them, was the production values of the video.

The colors were bright and warm, making it look very cinematic, a stark contrast to the channel’s previous videos that seemed to be taken on a smartphone.

Sitting on a bench in a park, Kyle was staring at an obscured picture of a blonde lady in it, piquing Wendy and Annie’s interest in an instant.

Also obscuring said picture, were the texts; Directed by Maria Dominique & Written by Christina Aubert.

And then, retrieving his phone after receiving a text from someone, Kyle had a thin smile grace his face and finally, stood up just as the melodic tune of a guitar, soft drumbeat percussions and a small piano accompaniment, graced the ladies’ ears, enthralling them in an instant.

🎸 🎶 🥁 🎹 ♪

…

🎸 🎶 🥁 🎹 ♪

Just like that, the music video had really begun and Kyle began to walk with purposeful steps as the soulful lyrics of his song, also joined the already captivating tune.

🎸 🎶 🥁 🎹 ♪ 🎤

It’s unfair, the way you blitzed into my world,

Like a heaven-sent angel, you touched my soul…

🎸 🎶 🥁 🎹 ♪ 🎤

‘It’s a song about unconfessed feelings…’ Wendy widened her eyes a bit, seemingly grabbing onto the source of inspiration for the song.

As her and sister kept watching, unable to tear their eyes away from the video, they watched as Kyle walked by a lady who had blonde hair, just like the one in the photo, his eyes lingering on her for a split moment as he continued his walk.

Walking past the trunk of a tree, the video effortlessly transitioned over to him actually singing in a bar as he continued the song;

🎸 🎶 🥁 🎹 🎶 🎤

Wish I could tell you I was,

Yet a smile’s all I can muster…

🎸 🎶 🥁 🎹 🎶 🎤

Already shaken by the powerful chorus, the ladies then watched as the video seamlessly cut from a couch in the bar to one on the street as people offloaded it from a truck.

Again, Kyle walked past them, this time stopping when he saw a bouquet stand.

One rack was full of yellow roses and the other, full of red ones.

🎸 🎶 🥁 🎹 🎶 🎤

I see you in my dreams, we’re so perfect together,

I’d run into your arms, like a kid in a store…

🎸 🎶 🥁 🎹 🎶 🎤

As the song played on, the girls watched as Kyle picked one flower out of the two bouquet stands but, they were unable to see which one it was as the video used a person in a white shirt walking past on the street to transition back into Kyle singing at the bar in his white suit.

🎸 🎶 🥁 🎹 🎶 🎤

She has no clue, not a single clue,

That I’m even here…

🎸 🎶 🥁 🎹 🎶 🎤

Eventually, after watching as Kyle sang the chorus again in the empty bar that only served to make the lyrics and song even more intimate, the camera slowly revolved around Kyle as he sung the bridge.

🎸 🎶 🥁 🎹 🎶 🎤

So close yet so far away,

And I’m back to square one again…

🎸 🎶 🥁 🎹 🎶 🎤

At that exact moment, the video used the exposed brick walls of the bar to flawlessly cut again to the brick walls of a house Kyle was now currently standing in front of.

There was thin smile on his face that was slowly widening as the camera got a close-up shot of him walking up the small staircase to knock on the door.

🎸 🎶 🎤

Please, don’t fall for someone else…

Please, notice me standing here…

🎸 🎶 🎤

Hearing that outro, the ladies were so invested in the music video as they felt the strong emotions imbued into that last part.

Watching as Kyle held the flower he had bought in his hands, still unrevealed to them as the song’s tune finally faded out, he knocked on the door and the ladies waited in anticipation to know which flower he had chosen.

Did he finally decide to let his feelings for the mystery girl in the video be known by picking up the red rose, or did he stick to his place as her friend and bury his emotions by picking the yellow one?

Wendy and Annie were so eager to find out.

And then, finally, as the door opened up to reveal a gorgeous lady with striking ever-green irises, a beautiful face and straight blonde hair that gently cascaded over her shoulders like flowing water, she beamed at her visitor with a radiant smile and Kyle, handed over the yellow rose with a beautiful smile that mirrored hers.

That was how the video ended.

Staring at the replay icon, having gone through a short rollercoaster of emotions just from the music video, Annie was the first to speak out.

“Wendy. Let’s watch it again.” she said, her voice quiet.

“Yeah…” Wendy, already in a trance of her own, gently nodded in agreement and replayed the music video.

That evening, both sisters ended up replaying the video seven times before they finally snapped out of their enthralled and captivated state.

* * *

(February 14, Valentine’s Day…)

“Today’s the day guys!” Victor, a young man in his last year of college rubbed his palms together in excitement, his buddies similarly grinning from ear to ear.

Well, all of them except for one who instantly poured a bucket of cold water over all of their heads.

“Yeah. Like any other fucking day!”

“Y’all be wildin’ over having to buy expensively wrapped red and pink gifts, and your pockets getting empty over getting some what? Five to ten minutes of bedroom action?! Y’all better get the fuck off outta here right now!”

“Savage as ever, ain’t you Tobey?” Paul, one of the four guys frowned in displeasure, the reality of their friend’s words digging into his bones.

“Oh come on! You’re just being salty because Sally got a new boyfriend! Told you you shoulda asked her out back then when y’all were tight.” Danny, the last in their friend group pointed out, soliciting an ‘ooohhh!’ from the rest of the guys.

Instantly, the tables were flipped and Tobey was cornered as his friends, in typical guy behavior, made light work of him with their jokes, finishing him off in literal seconds.

After a while though, they all actually tried to make him feel better and luckily, it worked.

Soon, three of them left the dorm just after to attend some of their classes and also take their respective girlfriends out for a date while Tobey just stayed back.

He had no classes for the day and was also maidenless, so truly, he had the rest of the day off.

Sighing to himself at the truth of his friends’ words, he opened up his laptop to watch a few ViewTube videos with the intent of keeping his mind off Sally and her shiny new boyfriend.

However, just as he was about to click on a funny video that had caught his interest on his feed, he sneezed due to the chilly weather, causing him to click on another video instead.

‘Spring, please hurry up…’ he thought to himself as he opened his eyes from the sneezing, only to see the wrong video playing.

About to close the video and pick the one he had actually wanted to listen to, the melodic tune of the song, captivating and enthralling, reached his ears.

And just like that, Tobey’s interest got piqued.

After watching the video, the man instantly fell in love with both the story that was told in a captivating way and the soulful yet relatable lyrics of the song itself.

Add that to the fact that it was Valentine’s day, a day when a lot of guys actually didn’t have any partner to be with, the lyrics hit even harder for him and Tobey was sure it would do the same for a lot of other guys.

Checking the number of views and seeing it at just 21K views, the young man just couldn’t let a great song like this get buried under ViewTube’s shitty algorithm.

Quickly, he navigated over to ‘j/maidenless’ community on Jeddit and started a new discussion with the title; ‘That one song that really sums up how you feel…’

It didn’t even take a minute before people piled onto the discussion and watched the video.

An hour later, the thread blew up like crazy as people started to spread the word of the song like rushing water from an unclogged pipe.

But no, that was just the beginning of [No Clue]’s music video and song going viral.

In just an hour after that, a popular TicToccer, used the song in one of her videos and that, propelled the song even higher and gave it even more exposure.

And then, to top it all of; Carl Finch, a well-known star in the US, UK and so many other places around the world, dropped a casual tweet a few hours just after that went; ‘[No Clue] By Kyle Kestis… great song.’

That was when the song, finally reached its peak virality and the floodgates, truly opened.