From Skid Row to Superstardom: An Idol System Novel-Chapter 63: D Class (1)

After a quick lunch that was basically the same meal as yesterday’s dinner, Ari read the posted schedule on the wall along with other contestants.

It stated that they were to meet with their assigned class ranks in a designated room and a staff member would share further details.

Since Ari’s assigned class was D because his F-grade dance brought down his overall average, he trudged to the correct room while hoping that he would recognize at least one friendly face.

When he entered the room, the good news was that he actually recognized several faces.

The bad news was that some of the faces he recognized were his roommates and those he saw in the F-grade dance class.

When Ari walked in, the chatter stopped for a second before continuing as Ian and a group of his friends pointed and laughed at Ari snidely.

Rolling his eyes, Ari picked a corner and sat there silently, waiting for everybody to gather and for a staff member to tell them what to do.

About 5 minutes later, all 22 people in the D-class had arrived in the room, sitting with their acquaintances.

"What are we supposed to do?"

"Dunno, where’s the staff?"

"Should we go get a snack and come back?"

"You just ate fatso."

Just as people began getting rowdy again, a staff member walked into the room with a large whiteboard and markers and a stationary camera that was set up in the front.

"Good. It seems that you’re all here."

The staff member handed the whiteboard and markers to Ian, Ari’s roommate, who was the closest to him, and continued speaking.

"You all need to divide into two groups of 11 people. In your groups, you can split the song parts and start practicing the choreography. When the dance trainers come this evening, you can ask them questions about formations. Tomorrow afternoon will be your first review by the judges. You’ll be compared against the other teams, but against your class team as well. Any questions?"

"How do we decide how to split the teams?" Ian asked curiously.

He definitely didn’t want to be grouped with some people, especially a particular mask-wearing contestant who was his roommate.

The other contestants nodded as well while sending signals with their eyes at each other.

"You can decide. Just make sure you guys stay centered in the camera as you discuss. Once the teams are split, one group should move to the room next door. Good luck."

The staff member quickly left, and the room was quiet for a moment before everybody started talking all at once.

"I wanna be on the team with Gale! He killed it in vocals today!"

"I want to be on a team with Ian; he has the choreography memorized!"

"Pick me, my vocals and dancing are both D, but I’ve been practicing rap on the side!"

Each person yelled about who they wanted to team up with and tried to sell their skills, and the only ones left out were Vishal and Ari.

Ari thought that it was only natural.

After all, some of the people in the room had been in his dance group yesterday, and none had been in his vocal group today.

They had seen him fail miserably while dancing, but didn’t know he was a good singer despite his vocal badge being higher than everyone in the class.

A bit curious as to why Vishal was being left aside, Ari glanced at him subtly, catching his resigned smile before looking away.

It seemed everybody had their own issues.

"Hey! Quiet down, guys! She gave me the whiteboard, so I’m in charge!" Ian yelled loudly, and everybody became quiet.

Giving them all a smirk, Ian continued speaking, "I already know who I want on my team. Gale, Sage, Brandon, Lee,...."

Ian glanced around the room, picking his friends and those with the highest dance badges while ignoring those with F-grade dance badges.

It made sense because while the vocal and rap portions of Warrior were a bit hard, the dance was intense and difficult to perform, especially the synchronized portion.

If they only had six more days to memorize that hard choreography, it would be better to choose those with a stronger dance background than those without.

Ari hadn’t even started to memorize it yet since he had focused entirely on grasping the basics of the warm-up.

And honestly, he wouldn’t pick himself either after his embarrassing dance performance yesterday.

"If you all agree, why don’t we form a team?" Ian smiled at all the people whose names he had called.

"Fine by me!"

"Let’s do it, Ian!"

"Great choice. I didn’t want that masked weirdo on my team anyway."

As the people around him praised him while quietly badmouthing Ari, Ian turned to smirk at Ari before turning to the others who weren’t chosen, "All of you who weren’t chosen, get going. The winning D team is about to show you all up."

Ari rolled his eyes before getting up and going next door as the staff member instructed.

He sat down by the whiteboard and he dejected rejects of D-class trickled in with dark looks.

"F*cking clicky bastards," Caleb, a boy with dark brown hair and thin, upturned eyes, grumbled angrily before kicking the door as he walked in.

"Language," Ari warned while pointing to the camera off to the side.

"Shut up! You’re not the boss of me!"

Ari: ಠ_ಠ

’I’m trying to prevent you from getting bad takes you damn punk!’

Mentally withholding a sigh, Ari looked at the group that seemed to have lost its motivation after not being chosen by Ian and his group.

Their vocal grades, including his own, were: B, C, C, D, D, D, F, F, F, F, F

Their dance grades, including his own, were all F’s.

There was not a single person with a dance grade higher than that and his group didn’t have a single person in the rap group.

Ari began to feel like he was doomed but he shook his head and tried to not lose hope.

’Maybe the judges miscategorized somebody’. After all, Larry Jackson had a grudge against him. There wasn’t anything that said he wouldn’t have one against another person.’

As everybody in the room sat silently or murmured to their neighbor and several minutes passed, it was clear that nobody was going to take the lead.

Sighing to himself once more, Ari grabbed the whiteboard and a marker, tapping it to get everybody’s attention.

As they all stopped to stare at him, Ari thought about the icebreaker he had learned when he worked at a mini summer camp the previous summer.

With a calm expression, he wrote his name on the whiteboard before starting his introduction.

"Why don’t we start by introducing ourselves before we begin, since we don’t all know each other. I’m Ari. I’m in room F1. Vocal grade B, Dance grade F. Two fun facts about me are that I speak three languages and can play four instruments."

Once he was done, he passed the whiteboard and marker to Vishal, who was sitting to his left.

The Indian boy hesitantly took it before writing his name on the board and speaking. "I’m Vishal. I’m also in room F1. Vocal F, Dance F. Two fun facts about me is...I used to intern at a tech company and...I won a hacky sack competition when I was younger."

As the faces of the other contestants darkened, Ari clapped loudly before gesturing that Vishal should pass on the white board.

Vishal passed it to Caleb who took it, glanced at Ari’s masked face, before throwing it to the ground.

"You think that just because you have a higher vocal grade than all of us, you can just pretend to be the leader and boss us around! No way!" Caleb pointed his finger at Ari while glaring.