From Skid Row to Superstardom: An Idol System Novel-Chapter 97: Team Selection (1)

The seats were arranged in rows of 20 and the retractable screen was down while cameras were located in all corners of the room.

The staff members were urging contestants to change into their grey school uniforms but since the three of them already had them on, they just walked into the space, filled with 100 noisy boys subtly grouped up with their team members or people they knew while talking.

Benjamin immediately peeled off, walking over to go talk to a random group while Jamie stuck around Ari, speaking whenever he was spoken to by his former teammates or other contestants who approached him.

Ari stayed to himself since he wasn’t particularly close to his former teammates, and they had parted on a bad footing the last time.

As he looked over them, a few of them still seemed sick but everybody looked better than last week.

His former teammates were split into two partially separated groups, one led by Michael, and one led by Caleb.

The two boys were surrounded by a small semi-circle of people while Vishal stood off to the side, closer to Michael, and joined Ari when he spotted him, causing the rest of their former teammates to look over at him.

Ari took in his former teammates pleased yet slightly upset faces as they pointed toward him while talking, before rolling his eyes and turning to Vishal.

"What’s their issue? Do you know?"

"Well, most of them blame you for getting them sick. They’re also happy that they’re a contender for the top performance spot but are angry that most people are only talking about you under the video." Vishal explained with a wry smile while pushing his ink-colored hair back.

"They’re jealous because they’re not getting cursed at and called every name under the sun in the comment section?" Ari asked in complete confusion.

He could take the blame for getting everyone sick since he didn’t tell them about the water prop until the last minute but he couldn’t understand being jealous about not being talked about.

What was wrong with them?

"Well, it’s the fact that the comments are all about your face paint, and that the dislikes are much higher than the likes on the video. They think because of you hogged the parts and brought down the quality of the video."

"The face paint is valid but Me? I was the one who hogged the parts and brought the quality down? After I had to repeatedly wake up, drag half of them to practice several times a day, and take on all the special additions that everybody wanted to include but nobody wanted to learn?" Ari laughed incredulously as he asked in a loud voice while turning to glare at Caleb who was the most likely culprit of such words.

As expected, the boy avoided his eyes with red ears as the room temporarily grew silent before the noise picked up once more as the discussion topic turned toward the performance videos.

Rubbing his head that suddenly had a headache, Ari sighed before turning back to Vishal who was raising his hands up.

"Hey! I know you’re not like that and I properly defended you, but that’s what’s going on over there. I know they say any interest is better than none but personally, I don’t know why they would want negative interest, because those comments are vicious. Speaking of which, how are you doing? Some of those comments are rough." Vishal winced sympathetically while looking him over.

Ari did the same, noticing that the Indian boy had slight dark circles under his eyes and looked a bit thinner than he had last week.

"I’m fine since I don’t really care what random strangers have to say about me. How are you holding up though? You look...a bit tired?" Ari asked with a bit of concern.

After him, the person who got the most hate comments seemed to be Caleb for the random yowling he did mid song, and Vishal who had noticeably worse skills than everyone else in the video.

Ari wasn’t sure if it was a confidence thing, especially since Vishal usually did solidly in practice and never complained even when they repeated a single move over and over again.

"Yeah...I’m fine. It’s just rough you know? It’s my first time doing any of this and the people online..."

Before he could continue speaking, PD Emily Raleigh and PD Park Ji-ho appeared at the front while clapping their hands.

"Let’s have a seat. We’ll watch the first episode together before talking about the fun stuff that will happen in the up coming week and announce the winner of the little contest we had." PD Emily said with a pleased voice as she looked over her money-making contestants.

Rather than seeing them as kids, all she saw was piggy banks.

The reception for the extended online mini-series she had pitched to get the public to know and get attached to the contestants after watching their great performances was quite successful.

Although it was quite an investment, preliminary tracking across multiple online forums and with comment filtering showed that things were right on track and doing better than expected in some ways due to a particular contestant who ignited strong feelings in watchers and judges alike.

Moving her eyes around until she found that painted white face, PD Emily smiled at him and chuckled when Ari looked away after narrowing his eyes at her.

She thought his little rebellion was cute, but as someone who seemed to create controversy just by existing, he was doomed to be exploited by the production team and whatever narrative the public saw fit to craft about him.

Even now, he was within the top 10 mentioned members of a 100-person cast, had trended on multiple apps for different reasons without having any social media presence, had the most replayed portions in several posted videos, and already had several hate communities built to disparage and dox him all within a week.

He also had several judges and contestants of various skill levels who disliked him, and it was sure to continue to cause drama.

For her own sake, she hoped that he wasn’t eliminated too soon because she felt like her future TV ratings would drop if he disappeared.

Smiling once more at the rest of the contestants who were sure to be shocked when they saw episode 1, PD Emily cleared her throat as PD Ji-ho stepped aside to speak with the staff members preparing the next event.

The room immediately got quiet as all the contestants found the closest seat to them and stared in anticipation at the screen.

While they had all had a decent amount of visibility in the ’Meet the Boys’ miniseries that had been posted on the programs WeTube channel, an episode being broad casted on TV was a completely different story and most of the contestants were quite excited to see what would be displayed.

Yet after the two hour special that showed everything from when they received their grade badges, to room assignments, their first classes with their mentors, team assignments, and part of the first performance evaluation, the faces of the majority of the contestants including Ari’s were completely pale as the first episode showed just how many hidden camera’s were in the hallways and practice rooms, how much audio the mics really picked up, and how much inter team drama the PD’s captured and were willing to display.

As the video on the screen transitioned into a preview of the remaining performance evaluation, specifically when Ari’s team got scolded along with other bad teams, groans could be heard while some people covered their faces and slumped down in their seats.

In fact, the only team that had gotten a decently good edit was Jamie’s team led by Benjamin, William Forbe’s team, and Levi Temple’s team.

Other groups were neutral or miss, and in Ari’s groups case, they were an extra hard miss as he his team had two of their group fights and one trainer scolding displayed just in episode one alone.

Pleased at getting the reaction that she wanted from the contestants, especially because she knew people loved to watch drama that had amazing results like the already published Warrior performance videos, PD Emily clapped happily, before speaking, "Don’t be so sad, we don’t have time for that. We have lots to film. Lots for you all to do, and not a lot of time to do it. Next up on our super fun schedule, don’t you want to know who won the prize for the Warrior performances? If you remember the top team gets to split $1000 in prize money, room exchange tickets, and immunity from being eliminated despite their rank. The losing team gets to sleep together in one of the F rooms. Shall we find that out? The contest was closer than you think."

As the previously disheartened expressions of the contestants brightened up at the welcomed change of subject, PD Emily clapped her hands before pointing at the door.

"MC Ryan Leary, take it away!!"