From Skid Row to Superstardom: An Idol System Novel-Chapter 151: Prince William’s Reign (5)

"Did you hear me? I said that you can’t wear that weird face paint for the performance. Your previous teams might have allowed it, but I certainly won’t."

"That’s fine. I won’t have it on for performance day. Excuse me."

"Really?" William asked with a skeptical expression as if he couldn’t believe it was that easy.

"Yes."

Ari pushed past William to sit inside the practice room beside Mathew, who had dark eye bags under his eyes, and began to stretch in preparation for choreography practice.

Mathew stared at him for several seconds, his mouth moving but no words coming out, until Ari finally broke the silence.

"What?"

"How’s your ankle?"

"It’s fine."

"Are you sure? You were limping yesterday. You need to be careful about injuries and make sure they heal properly the first time. I recommend going back to the hospital and getting an okay from the doctor."

And have them charge me an arm and a leg? No thanks. Besides-

"You’re saying this after teaming up with Benjamin and forcibly teaching me to moonwalk and the butterfly legwork dance yesterday?"

"You’re right! I’m really sorry once again for injuring you. This might end your career, I-"

"I’m kidding. I’m fine. My career is fine. My leg doesn’t hurt." Ari interrupted the apology session that was about to happen with a resigned sigh, "Just manage yourself and take a break to check your blood sugar and eat a snack whenever you need to."

"I just don’t like interrupting. The director and some of the trainers are scary...I don’t know how you talk to them like that." As Mathew sulked slightly, Ari smacked him hard on the back.

Thwack!

"Ow! What the-"

"Interrupting is better than you passing out again. And what’s the worst that they can say? No? Just open your mouth and ask for what you need. Or would you rather end up in the hospital again?"

"I guess, but still..."

"How was the choreography creation? You were still up when I went to bed?" Ari quickly changed the subject, not sure why it was turning into a therapy session.

At the question, Mathew immediately perked up.

"Really good! Haruto and I tried to keep some of the original choreography but still make it look cool. We’re not done yet, but we have the first two verses and the chorus down. I want to get the dance trainers’ input on formation transitions and find out if we can really use the bike. And we’re also waiting for any lyric changes."

"We’re going to work on the lyrics today and ask the vocal trainers about the arrangement, but that’s pretty amazing, getting that done in only one night."

"Haha, not really. We just built it off existing choreo." Although he said that, the proud look on Mathews’ face indicated his real feelings, and Ari just smiled and let him chatter away about the dance moves he was considering mixing in.

Clap clap clap-

"Alright, enough chatter. Carlos won’t be gracing us with his presence this morning, so let’s get to it. Has the lyric and music arrangement team done anything yet?" William looked at Ari pointedly while ignoring Benjamin, who was also in the room and on the lyric and arrangement team.

"No, not yet. We’ll try to get it done today."

"Hmph. As expected."

What do you mean by ’as expected?’ We literally haven’t met with the vocal trainers yet???

Plus, I don’t see you doing anything!

"Moving on. Have our performance details been submitted?" William turned to face Nile, but it was Vishal who responded.

"Not yet. We wrote up the proposal and added all the details, but wanted to go over it with everyone before submitting it." Vishal responded coolly.

"As the leader, I said it was fine to submit. You should have submitted it. Now we’re behind other teams."

"Right. But, it’s good to review everything one last time to make sure everyone’s opinion is reflected and that the final draft is up to par without things like silly typos, which would reflect poorly on your leadership. Plus, your sign-off would be nice after the group review." Vishal responded earnestly, making it sound as if he were looking out for William.

The blonde boy nodded thoughtfully after a few seconds.

"...fine. I’ll allow it just this once."

"Thanks."

Ari glanced at Vishal, completely impressed with how he handled William.

"Then, choreography team, come forward to show us the choreography you came up with."

"Sure. We recorded the overall flow so we can watch that first, and then Haruto and I can teach it step by step."

Mathew got up with a graceful movement, with Haruto following behind him.

The two of them grabbed a tablet and began playing what they had recorded. As he saw the energetic, synchronized movements that seemed to be hitting every single beat of the song, Ari briefly regretted choosing to fix his visual stat over the dancing, but at this point, there was nothing to be done about it.

He would just have to practice until his bones became dust.

Once the choreography video ended, everyone applauded except for William, who was frowning.

"Where’s the rest of it?"

"What do you mean?" Mathew asked with a confused look.

"The whole thing is not choreographed yet?"

"No, not yet."

"Why not? Don’t you think that’s completely unprofessional? Making us practice a half-done choreo? I assigned it to you yesterday and expected it to be done today, and it’s clearly not."

Haruto looked at William, confused as to why he was criticizing them, but with the practiced air of someone used to dealing with those not in the dance space, Mathew calmly explained.

"Even professionals can’t come up with a song’s choreography in one night. Not unless you pay the choreographer thousands of dollars. We’re amateurs, and we worked hard to get this much done. Besides, these parts won’t change, and naturally, we’ll ensure the new parts fit in well, so nobody has to relearn anything. There are some things we wanted to ask trainer Selena and Kim Young-woo since they’re the experts, and it would be stupid not to take advantage of their help. Does that clarify it?"

Although William was dissatisfied with the answer, used to the speed at which things were turned around at his agency, seeing Mathew, who was an actual professional dancer despite his amateur claims, look down on him, he let it slide for now.

"....fine. Then let’s start practicing."

At William’s reluctant instruction, they all got into their positions as Mathew stood at the front, trying to teach them the steps.

Like usual, Ari stood in the back, and as he watched almost everyone around him easily pick up the movements while his body refused to cooperate fully, he realized that his low dance stat might cook him.

[Remember when I asked you if you were sure about fixing your face over everything else?]

[This is the result.]

Ari: ಠ_ಠ

Don’t remind me, please.

I was greedy.

And to make matters worse, as hours passed, William intentionally danced beside him and kept picking on him both quietly and loudly so everyone could hear it.

"Let’s do it again. Somebody messed it up."

"That’s not the right move. Your leg isn’t supposed to go that way."

"Are you really going to hold us back like this?"

"Messing up on the same part again? Have you learned nothing?"

"I can’t believe you were fighting for the chorus when you can’t even dance it properly. Are you really going to hold the team back like this?"

"Are you even trying? The rest of us are drenched in sweat while you look fresh as a daisy, how funny."

It’s because of my tracksuit.

On the inside, I’m dying, I assure you.

"Wow. You really suck as a dancer. And you wanted to get a dance-pop song? Why? Wouldn’t you be embarrassed? Or maybe you’re embarrassed about your face? I’ve seen the online pictures. It seems that you’ll finally be exposed on stage."

To Ari, William’s words were entering one ear and flying out the other.

Although he was racking up hours for his JukeBox skill, he couldn’t use it to practice every time since it only worked for the duration of one song, and he had already wasted several uses on the dances Benjamin and Mathew had taught him yesterday.

What he needed to do was figure out how to earn a free stat point so he could dump it into his dance stat or somehow improve the stagnant dance stat, which hadn’t increased even once.

As for William flapping his lips off to the side, as long as he wasn’t trying to touch him to steal his or anyone else’s stats, Ari didn’t care at all.

He just pretended that the blonde boy didn’t exist while trying his best to learn the choreography.

Which is why he was surprised that on his way to get lunch, he was pulled aside by Assistant PD David.

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