From Skid Row to Superstardom: An Idol System Novel-Chapter 86: Signal Song (3)

"Listen to me and listen to me good, if you don’t want me to blo-....." William’s voice faded until Ari couldn’t hear him anymore.

It seemed that he was walking around on the roof.

As Ari was considering whether or not he should leave, William’s voice could be heard once more.

"It doesn’t work properly. There are too many conditions to use it, and the effects are temporary. You need to look at that old man’s res-"

The voice faded away again, but this time Ari sat up at full attention while whispering quietly to NOVA.

"Old man? Doesn’t work properly? Hey, Nova, is he talking about when he absorbed stats?"

[No comment.]

"Hey! Tell me!" Ari harshly whispered before clearing his throat as he felt an itch in his throat, and his nose twitched from inhaling dust all over the stairwell.

[I said no comment.]

[Bless you.]

"I’m not going to ah-achoo!"

Ari’s muffled sneeze sounded out, and as he tried to cover his mouth with his arms, but unfortunately-

Crinkle crinkle-

The plastic wrappers around the bag of snacks Ari held shifted, and the sound echoed in the small stairwell like a bullet shot from a gun.

Hearing the conversation that was getting louder suddenly stop, Ari immediately dashed down the steps and through the hallway.

He could faintly hear footsteps following behind him as the snacks in his bag made noise, so he quickly slid into the first room with no lights on and locked the door behind him before sliding to the ground in relief.

Phew.

That was way too close for comfort.

Ari took a deep breath of relief while stuffing a cough drop into his mouth, trying to soothe his itchy throat, when the bathroom door opened, and a familiar face stepped out of the cloud of steam in his boxers, wiping his wet hair down with a towel.

Benjamin Moore looked around the empty room before turning back to Ari.

"....mate, what are you doing in my room?" Benjamin asked curiously as he pulled on athletic pants over his boxers.

"Hide and seek?"

"At this time?" Benjamin tilted his head sideways before smiling his wide smile, "Which lads are playing? I want to join in."

"I’m lying." Ari quickly corrected before changing the subject, "Have you seen Daniel Kim?"

"The ginger? His room is a couple of doors over. His stomach was hurting him earlier, so he was in the toilet, I believe." Benjamin replied while putting on a sweatshirt and tying a banana over his damp hair.

"Can I leave this with you and come get it later? Or can you give it to Daniel for me?" Ari held up the snack bag that he didn’t want to be caught with, and Benjamin narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the crinkling sounds.

"What’s inside?"

"Snacks."

"Give me one as a tax and I’ll agree."

Ari grabbed a bag of honey butter chips before tossing them at Benjamin, who easily caught them, popped them open with one hand, and poured the contents straight into his mouth.

Crunch crunch gulp.

The chips were quickly finished with the bag balled up and shot like a basketball toward a mini trashcan off to the side.

"Mmm, pretty good. If you’re done playing solo hide and seek, mind shifting aside? I’ve got to practice the signal song for tomorrow’s ranking, innit?" Benjamin asked as he wore slides while holding his dance sneakers in his hands.

"Right, sorry." Ari quickly got up from the floor and opened the door.

After glancing at both sides and not seeing William Forbes, Ari calmly made his way into the practice room, which contained Jamie, Carlos, Vishal, and a few other people.

Deep in thought, he tried to decode what William was talking about.

The blonde boy had spoken about an old man and ’it’ not working properly, and yelling about not being given information on time despite his father paying.

What was going on??

As Ari sat there blankly while thinking, his vision was suddenly filled with a large blue screen.

[Rather than wasting time on nonsense, why don’t you focus on memorizing the song and choreography so you don’t get eliminated?]

"Why don’t you tell me what he was talking about?" Ari whispered while pretending to stretch.

[No.]

"Fine. Speaking of choreography, will I complete the surprise mission if I memorize the signal song choreography before midnight?"

[Of course not.]

[The moment the full choreography was released, you failed the mission.]

[You should have learned it earlier in the day when you discovered the hint.]

"Figures." Ari muttered to himself before grabbing a tablet, finding an open spot in the room, and began his process of slowing the choreography video down to the 0.25x speed and mimicking the moves to the best of his ability.

To Ari’s surprise, since he had previously memorized the warm-up, he easily memorized the new order of the moves and was able to match the choreography at 1x speed within two hours.

Although he was completely exhausted each time he danced it, Ari alternated between singing the song and dancing to the choreography before giving himself a five-minute break to regain his energy and starting the cycle all over again.

By the time it was 2 am, Ari had stopped singing and just danced the choreography to rest his sore throat.

The rest of the people in the room had gone to bed already so it was just the four of them here.

He sat on the ground while watching Jamie, Carlos, and Vishal still struggle through the choreography.

Jamie and Carlos had mastered the song portion and were in the final stages of learning the choreography, while Vishal struggled to master both.

Although Ari gave him vocal pointers when he could, the dance portion was completely beyond his means, as he was not the greatest dancer himself.

His only skill was his quick memorization, and his familiarity with basic moves in the warm-up.

Just as Ari was weighing the pros and cons of going to sleep and waking up early versus just practicing right now, a large group of familiar faces entered the practice room.

Michael, Diego, and Sachi were at the front of the group, looking at him awkwardly, while Jacob, Caleb, and several others from his D(2) team loitered at the back.

Ari glanced over everyone before turning to meet Michael’s eyes.

"What?"

"We wanted to practice." The stocky boy began awkwardly.

"There’s space, and somebody can take my tablet since I don’t need it, " Ari said, gesturing at the large room.

Since only 4 people occupied the room, 9 more people could easily squeeze in.

"No...we wanted to practice together," Michael repeated his words while scratching his head in embarrassment.

"...why?" Ari stared at them in confusion.

The judges would make them perform and evaluate them individually, making practicing together pointless unless two people were at similar skill levels.

It was why, despite them being relatively close friends, Ari and Jamie both practiced at their own paces with their own tablets.

Ari had no interest in dragging Jamie down, and despite Jamie being a kind pushover, he clearly worked hard to hone his skills and would probably refuse if Ari asked, especially since it was an individual evaluation, not a group one.

Although Ari and his D(2) teammates had similar dance levels, he couldn’t consider them close enough to want to practice together, especially after the hellish week where he had dealt with grumbled comments, complaints, curses, and other annoying behavior as he dragged them through the hellish practice schedule.

By using Picky Listener (B), he had corrected every sound they made as they sang until it was perfect, and by slowing down the choreography and copying it, he had increased the synchronicity.

All at a detriment to his voice and his body, which had to wake up early, go to sleep late, sing the parts of everybody, and drag those who wanted to give up back to the practice room.

After that experience, Ari vowed never to be a leader again.

It was unpaid labor that nobody appreciated you for, and looking at the faces of his former teammates, Ari could guess what they wanted from him. Free coaching where he did the mental labor and they just followed along while grumbling.

Pretending not to know, he tilted his head and asked innocently.

"You want to practice together? You with me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Well....for good old times’ sake?" Jacob responded lightly while the other teammates looked hopeful.

What good old times! It had been H*LL!!!

Rather than say what he truly felt, Ari looked them all in the face before responding simply, "No."

His nose was becoming stuffed, his throat hurt, it felt like he was catching a cold, and most importantly, he didn’t want to do it.

They were no longer a team he was responsible for, and at this point, it was truly every man for themselves.

"Really? Please?" Sachi looked at him with watery eyes, and Ari’s resolve briefly wavered at the puppy dog eyes pointed his way.

Sachi was one of the few people he actually liked on his team, but when he glanced at the others and saw the expected gazes that said if he caved for one, he would have to cave and help all of them, Ari shook his head.

"You can still practice here, but if you really need help, you should ask somebody else. No offense, but after this past week, I don’t want to practice with many of you guys. It was a lot of work, stressful, and not really beneficial for me, so I’d rather pass." Ari told them honestly.

Having people grumble and swear under their breath at you, even though you were working hard for the team’s betterment, was something Ari never wanted to go through again if he didn’t have to.

At the blunt words, the faces of many of his teammates turned red from embarrassment, but a few like Caleb glared at him angrily.

Bitter gazes were burning holes into his back, but Ari simply stuffed another cough drop into his mouth and stood up to dance the choreography once more.

After a couple more hours of practice, he went to sleep as the sun rose, and as his alarm went off a couple of minutes before 10 am, he dragged his feverish, aching body out of bed, changed, and went to sit in the area the staff directed him to since the judges were going to start evaluating their performance of the signal song.