From Skid Row to Superstardom: An Idol System Novel-Chapter 125: Black Swan (2)

At the shocked expressions of his teammates, Ari stared at them in annoyance.

"Why are you acting shocked? If you watched the maze segment, it literally had my age on there? Same as everybody else?"

"Oh hahaha! That’s right. The greedy French kid with the weird mask who said he liked money." Ian snickered as he elbowed Gale, and they both laughed.

Ari: ಠ_ಠ

No, tell me what you really think.

"Ah, I thought you were older because you’re always bossing people around and they call you captain... never mind." Mathew trailed off into the silence as Ari turned to stare at him.

He couldn’t bear to finish the sentence in front of those fierce green eyes.

"...moving on. That’s my idea, take it or leave it." Done with his proposal, Ari sat back down as Leo stood up.

"Mathew? Do you think you could help us modify the choreography? I know Minjun can help with that as well."

"Sure! I mean, I need to learn the original choreography of the song, but I can mark it out really quick and tweak the details later." Mathew

"I’m fine with that as well," Minjun added.

"Okay. Then let’s vote. Who wants the original swan concept?"

No hands went up.

"Or Ari’s Black Swan concept?"

Slowly but surely, everyone’s hands went up.

"Good, then it’s decided. I’ll take all of the notes and submit them to the staff tomorrow for the costumes and stage directions. Minjun and Mathew will work on the changed choreography tonight. Right?"

"Yep!"

"Yeah."

Seeing that they were all in agreement and the discussion seemed to be finished, the cameraman left after waving at them.

Once he was gone, as Ian and Gale began to get up, Ari glanced at Leo and made an X with his hands behind their backs while shaking his head.

He was telling Leo not to let them go.

"You’re not slick! We can see you in the mirror!" Ian whirled around to glare at Ari, who shrugged.

"I wasn’t trying to hide it."

Leo walked over and stood in front of the door, glancing at Ari, before firming his face up.

"Where do you think you’re going?"

"Bed. I’m tired."

"To get a snack and sleep? We’re done for today, right?"

At the two casual responses, Leo frowned, "Weren’t you listening to what the judges said? We looked like we had never practiced together. Even if the choreography is going to get modified, we still need to practice together until midnight, so everyone should start warming up and marking the formation transitions while Minjun and I split our parts."

The two boys groaned, but seeing the rest of the group already beginning to stretch, they sat back down and joined them.

Ari glanced around, happy to see that with Caleb gone, things seemed to be moving smoothly, and Leo had found his backbone.

Giving the boy a thumbs up, he began stretching, being careful not to move his sprained leg too much.

And for the rest of the night, they practiced the song, slowly marking out the formation parts while Mathew and Minjun went through and began changing the choreography.

By midnight, everyone but Ari was covered in sweat and left the practice room to head to bed.

As he limped next to Ian, who was apparently sharing the same room with him, the other boy smirked before speaking.

"You can use the bathroom first since I’m not showering tonight."

"Thanks," Ari responded, even though he was disgusted at the fact that the boy would go to sleep, drenched in sweat, without cleaning up first.

Making a note to keep his distance even more than before, he entered the room and grabbed his duffel bag to take out his toiletries and pajamas.

The zipper seemed to be stuck on something, and when he finally opened it, he saw that the inside of his duffel bag was covered with white and multi-colored face paint, staining everything from his shoes to his clothing and underwear with the half-dried sticky liquid.

As Ari tried to separate the items, he realized that somebody had taken the time to ensure that everything was soaked, and all the products he used to paint his face had been completely emptied, leaving the empty containers behind.

And to top it off, his screw driver was missing.

Immediately suspecting the person he had had room issues with since day one, Ari glanced accusingly at Ian, who was tucking himself into bed with an exaggerated yawn.

"What are you looking at me for? I didn’t do anything." Ian spoke to him with a smirk.

"Really? You didn’t touch my stuff?"

"What is Captain Crashout going to crash out again because he doesn’t believe me? Swipe it for fingerprints, I don’t care. I’ve never touched it."

"..."

"Guess you have to expose that ugly face now instead of coasting by on your special makeup, hahaha."

Ari just closed his eyes and took a deep breath while tuning Ian’s words out.

He felt as if he didn’t, he would scream and jump across the room and shake Ian all around until he found out who did this.

The more important thing was reporting it, getting compensated for emotional distress, cleaning his clothes, and getting replacements for the empty items.

As for who did it, based on Ian’s smile and taunting words, it was probably Caleb who did something when he ran away after being eliminated.

After all, he was one of the few people who came back early from the elimination ceremony.

Tiredly glancing at his bed once more, Ari took his whole duffel bag and limped up the stairs to the room that some members of the production team stayed in overnight.

Knock.

Knock, knock, knock, knock.

Knock, knock.

He knocked on the door, and one of the assistant PDs named David opened it with a loud yawn.

David had thin blonde hair that was combed over to hide a bald spot, a scraggly beard, and extreme bags under his eyes.

With the slight smell of BO wafting from his body, the assistant PD glanced down both sides of the hallway with squinted eyes before speaking to Ari in a raspy voice.

"Is it a life-or-death problem? Building on fire?"

"No," Ari replied honestly.

"Then save it till tomorrow morning."

SLAM-

The door was slammed shut, and Ari just stood there for a moment before knocking again for almost a minute until the same man opened it with a frown on his face.

"What now? I told you to come back tomorrow."

"It’s past midnight, so it’s tomorrow. Good morning. Someone messed with my stuff." Ari opened the bag so the assistant PD could see the stained clothing.

"You’re a little smart a*s, aren’t you? Save it till 7 am or I’ll tell the PD to cut your scenes."

Without even bothering to glance down -

SLAM-

The door slammed shut once more.

Ari: ಠ_ಠ

What kind of irresponsible staff was this?

Did they only care if people were dying?

And threatening to cut his scenes?

Where was the professionalism?

As he stood there wondering if he should knock on the door one more time,

"Ari? What are you doing outside the production staff door? Are you okay? Does your foot hurt?"

Ari turned to look at the owner of the voice, spotting Carlos standing there with a motorcycle helmet in one hand.