From Skid Row to Superstardom: An Idol System Novel-Chapter 111: It’s Your Fault (1)

Leo, Ian, and Caleb were standing in the middle of the practice room, going back and forth, while several others just sat against the walls of the room, staring at them.

Not wanting to be caught up in whatever was going on with them, Ari slipped to the side, found an empty spot, and began doing his repeat mission crunches as he listened to the argument.

The general gist was that everyone was panicking, realizing that they had lost an entire day of practice due to recording the vocals for the signal song and would likely lose an entire day of practice due to recording the signal song video.

With only Ari and Leo’s parts (Main Vocal and Main Rapper) decided, with the eliminations and mid-week review in two days, Ian and Caleb were blaming Leo for not organizing anything properly and leading the team in a chaotic manner.

Leo began firing back at Ian and Caleb, calling them difficult and unhelpful.

He stated that nobody had helped decide whether to change or keep the bubblegum pink ballerina concept, hadn’t requested choreography help or changes from the trainer, hadn’t agreed on song parts, and most of the team hadn’t bothered practicing the song, as they were each completely focused on preparing the signal song.

As the argument transitioned into its secondary phase, with Leo being accused of poor leadership and not alerting them of the schedule properly so they could have made different decisions in the past and Leo shooting back that they weren’t children that he was supposed to babysit, Ari finished his 100 crunches and transitioned into push-ups as he slowly realized that his second group performance evaluation was going to be a complete disaster, and if it kept going that way the live performance would as well. freēnovelkiss.com

Laughing to himself so that he wouldn’t scream in anger as his arms and chest burned from the1 pushups, he began doing lunges as he watched Minho, Minjun, Alfonso, and Gale jump into the argument as they tried to figure out what to do so they wouldn’t be the worst team at the mid-week evaluations.

Some of them wanted to have everyone re-audition for parts, some wanted to practice and memorize the choreography even though they hated it, some of them were justifying not learning the songs because of the signal song performance, and all of them agreed on not doing the bubblegum pink ballerina concept with a vague response like just masculinizing the dance and avoiding the super girly moves by making their own.

Considering that the only people with choreography experience were Alfonso and Minjun, who both spoke English with heavy Korean and Brazilian accents and didn’t really interact with each other, Ari had little to no faith.

Off to the side, Suzuki Rei was just watching the mess with an expression of disbelief, and it seemed that Alfonso had given up arguing and had returned to spectating while muttering under his breath in Portuguese.

As Ari let out another pained chuckle as he came to realize that his peaceful(?) days were over and that he would have to actively participate in this group or their performance would be trash, his eyes met Leo’s in the mirror, and the boy turned to face him angrily.

"Can you stop exercising and laughing?! This is a serious matter!"

Ari froze mid-lunge before slowly completing it and standing up straight.

"Is it?"

"We’re trying to have a serious discussion here, so why don’t you stop fooling around and contribute instead of doing some stupid pushups?"

"6 of you are already arguing and can’t come to an agreement, so I don’t think adding my opinion is particularly helpful in this instance. It’s just extra noise pollution and wasting the limited time that we have right now. Everyone knows what we need to do, you’re just having a battle of pride right now because nobody wants to cave in for the betterment of the team."

At Ari’s cold words, the expressions of those standing stiffened with anger.

"You sure have a lot to say for someone who hasn’t offered a viable solution." Ian spat out, still angry that Ari had broken the door handle of the room, which the production team refused to fix.

He had also stepped on a loose screw, injuring his foot, but fortunately (?) didn’t get tetanus.

Shrugging, Ari continued in a casual tone, "If you want my opinion, I think we should decide all the positions now, so people can learn their parts individually and spend some time as a group discussing what concept we can use. Otherwise, let’s just use the original one and learn the choreography and use the styling."

"Absolutely not! I’m not going to wear a stupid pink tutu and do that girly dance? They’re gonna call us g*y!!! I’m not g*y!! You’re g*y!" Caleb interrupted with a red face as he thought of how embarrassed he would be if such footage went out.

"I’m not, but if we need to use the concept, then so be it. I don’t really care either way. If you’re that against it, everyone should put in work to come up with a different idea. After we film the signal song video, regardless of when we get back, we should stay up all night to practice for the mid-week evaluation."

As people’s faces darkened at the thought of staying up, Ari shrugged before continuing his lunges, "At the end of it, you’re the leader, and it’s your call, that’s just my opinion, so you can think about it and do whatever you want. I just don’t want to embarrass myself at the live performance in front of the judges, and those will be voting for us not to get eliminated."

Eight sets of eyes looked his way before the position’s argument began once more, with Alfonso and Suzuki Rei joining in this time.

It seemed that the words voting and elimination had ignited the wills of everyone to stand out with a good part, and they once again decided to vaguely masculinize the concept and costumes.

Seeing them, Ari realized that the team was completely screwed.

If the director was as bad as others were saying, there was a good chance that they might be stuck recording all day, and he truly couldn’t trust the people on the team to come up with a good idea when they were hell bent on standing out individually instead of thinking as a group.

And although he talked a big game, he had no interest in participating in a bubblegum pink ballerina swan concept, meaning that he would have to spend some time doing research once more and find something cohesive with a different vibe that would work with the song that they were given.

Which meant his sleep time would reduce once more.

Ari gave Leo a bitter look as the song parts were roughly divided and people left the practice room, saying that they would practice individually since they planned on getting some rest in preparation for tomorrow.

Although Leo tried to stop them, everyone eventually left, leaving only the two of them in the practice room.

"I hope you’re not letting it go like this. Nothing was concretely finalized," Ari told him

As if he had been waiting, Leo turned on him with an angry glare, his lips turning white as he bit them hard.

"This is all your fault!"

"Huh?" Ari looked at Leo over like he had completely lost his mind.