From Skid Row to Superstardom: An Idol System Novel-Chapter 170: You’re Ah-ri-el?

"Get rid of him!"

"It’s currently out of my hands. Right now, eliminations are decided by public votes, which are counted and delivered by an external company. There’s literally nothing I can do." Assistant PD David tried to calm the agitated William, who was holding an ice pack to his mottled.

His face was swollen, and a large, dark bruise was forming around his nose and under his eyes, as if something had bashed his face at full strength.

"That bastard hit me! He almost broke my nose, and you’re telling me there’s nothing you can do?"

"There’s no proof of that. He took the memory cards, and unless you’re sure there’s nothing implicating you that was caught on video, there’s nothing I can do right now. Unless you want to press charges?"

"Of course not!"

"Then I’m stuck." Assistant PD David insisted while rubbing his aching head.

He still hadn’t figured out a way to let William know that, for the next couple of episodes, his screen time was being reduced drastically because he couldn’t stand out when compared to his other team members, and now there was this.

He couldn’t believe that William had gotten into a fight, and by the looks of it, he had lost, and then gotten the evidence stolen from right under him.

That green-eyed boy was clearly more trouble than he thought, and either had a death wish, or he didn’t know who he was messing with.

"What’s the point of preparing that room for me if the memory cards can be so easily snatched, huh? You’re a useless money-grubbing pig who’s not even worth the paycheck!!" William shouted through gritted teeth as he repeatedly kicked at Assistant PD David’s legs, ignoring the fact that the man winced.

He was furious that nothing was going his way, and it was all due to that stupid, smug know-it-all brat!

Gritting his teeth, William grabbed his phone.

Ring. Ring.

"Hey. It’s me. Could you run a deep investigation on a contestant? His name is Ariel Matisse. He’s on the show that I’m on right now, and seems to know a little too much. Yes, I’ll wire the money over. Just start the process, find out who’s behind him, get some people to follow him, and find out everything he’s done since birth!"

Beep!

Hanging up, William turned to the assistant PD and kicked his leg once more.

"And you! Go search his things for that memory card or any other recording device! Just know that if you don’t find it, you’ll pay!"

**********

By the time Ari made it back to his room, it was to see his things scattered all over the floor while his roommates were all fast asleep.

It was easy enough to guess who would do such a thing, and clearly there was no point in reporting it to the assistant PD.

With a resigned sigh, he picked everything up, washed up, and went to bed after locking the room door.

And for some reason, he had a strange dream that he would wake up William choking him while sucking out his stats like some weird demon.

****************

"Oooh, I’m very excited to see the team performances. Aren’t you?" Jelissa clapped her hands happily as she took her seat next to the other judges.

It was evaluation day, and she and the other trainers would see what the contestants had come up with for their performances and give them notes.

"I don’t understand why you’re excited. You’ve basically lived at the studio, implementing all their requested changes. You know what it will sound like. We don’t get paid for overtime, you know?" Larry Jackson spoke harshly.

He almost felt bad for not doing as much work as Jelissa, but he would much rather enjoy his life than slave away for some contestants.

Besides, she had rebuffed his advances and often opposed him, so there really wasn’t any reason to be excessively kind to her anyway.

"Well, I don’t mind, and we have quite a few up-and-coming, talented, all-rounder producers, and it’s always good to nurture their talent. Who knows if you’ll purchase a song for them in the future."

Jelissa replied with a bright smile as she thought of the two standouts in the vocal class, one of whom had a phenomenal ear and could deconstruct a song into separate parts before creating and fitting the pieces back together into a new puzzle, and the other who was talented in taking an idea and creating something from nothing, before fine tuning it into a refined product.

They were quite talented, and she was looking forward to hearing what kind of music they would make if they ever worked together.

Not to mention, they were great singers too.

"Well, if you say so. It’s not like I don’t know which teams you’re looking forward to." Larry Jackson grumbled, not in the mood to get into an argument, as they would have a lot of performance evaluations to get through.

"And which teams are those?" Jelissa asked mischievously, her legs swinging as she played with the flower in her hair.

"Naturally, the team with Selena’s favorite French contestant and the team with the cowboy. Who doesn’t know that you like those two? Selena as well."

"You mean the two contestants that you seem to dislike?" Selena shot back since she was dragged into it.

"I don’t dislike James. I’m just hard on him because he can do so much more with his talent." Larry Jackson defended himself, although he was still reeling after Jamie’s father called to yell at him for not following through to kick Jamie off while he had the chance.

Now it was out of Larry’s hands, and unfortunately for Jamie’s father, the public seemed to love the blonde, puppy-like, cowboy who could sing and compose.

"And Ari?"

"Please don’t mention him to me. You can tell that Ah-ri-el is not taking this competition seriously. Who the hell comes to an idol show wearing that kind of makeup and having that kind of attitude? Plus, Jaywalks agrees with me, right? You said he’s never trying hard in the dance classes, unlike what you previously thought, when compared to other contestants. I recall you saying he was terrible."

"That’s true." Jaywalks agreed, remembering Ari’s seemingly lackadaisical attitude, "But, he seems to be improving at a fast rate. Especially for someone with clearly no dance experience. And he’s put on good performances."

Even though he didn’t think Ari had a talent for dancing, he had been somewhat impressed with how Ari had pushed through to learn the signal song choreography despite being sick.

Even if he didn’t try hard in class, he clearly put in some personal practice.

"Peh. He plays it up for the cameras and has been carried by his team so far. Just watch, I guarantee he shows up with that stupid mask or face paint again. And when they perform, he’ll be the second-worst dancer behind that Vishal fellow while William will carry the team as always."

"Well, here they come now." X-ponent pointed to the students wearing different styles of athletic clothing as they filed into the room.

Some of them were happily chatting with each other, others looked exhausted to the point of passing out, and others were quiet with a strange tension between them.

Larry Jackson searched around for the strange green mask or strangely painted face, but didn’t find it among the remaining contestants.

Knowing that contestant, he had probably been careless once more and gotten injured or something.

Once all the contestants were seated, Larry Jackson began speaking.

"Since it’s a song competition between teams, today we’ll just be reviewing your basic performance and giving you some notes. Which team wants to go first?"

The contestants immediately quieted down, and nobody raised their hands, so Larry Jackson honed in on his favorite contestant, hoping to give him some more time.

"William, why don’t you come up and show them how it’s done. Start us off strong."

At being called up first, William got up slowly, walking forward with the rest of his team.

The taller blonde one had a slightly swollen face covered with heavy makeup, and several of the judges silently wondered what had happened.

While they were used to the boys being a bit tense, it shouldn’t have gotten to the point of a fight, right?

Looking at the rest of the team, although things seemed a bit tense, everyone else seemed fine, and the boy at the front wearing a brown tracksuit with a cute animal face was yawning as if he found the situation boring.

"...."

Who was this person?

Larry Jackson looked at the unfamiliar handsome face before blurting out his thoughts.

"You, in the brown clothes. Who are you? Why are you here?"

Ari: ಠ_ಠ

What kind of nonsense was this?

He knew that Larry Jackson didn’t like him, but was it to the extent that he would pretend not to know him?

Crazy!

"I’m Ari. This is my team? I haven’t been eliminated?"

Hearing that lazy tone and seeing the familiar sea green eyes, all the judges flinched before looking over him again.

The height was the same, the curly hair was the same, and the relaxed way of standing and speaking was the same.

Was this really him?

"You’re Ah-ri-el?" Larry Jackson asked in complete disbelief.

"Yes."

A simple, short answer with a raised eyebrow that asked why such a stupid question was being asked before putting on an unfamiliar polite smile as he glanced at the camera.

"You-you took off your makeup!" Selena gasped as she looked him over.

The transformation was too shocking.

"It kept being commented on, so I decided not to wear it from now on. Do I look weird?"

Shake shake.

Selena shook her head from side to side, her ponytail whipping back and forth.

"Looks good?"

Nod. Nod.

"Cute? Très mignon?"

Nod. Nod. Nod. Nod.

"Superb."

Ari laughed silently before straightening his face as he looked at Larry Jackson, who couldn’t believe what he was looking at.

"What the-?"

Where was that strange black and white makeup and red lipstick?

"Where is-"

Why would a person who looked like this choose to wear that kind of makeup in the first place?

It literally made no sense.

Larry felt like his face was being slapped as he remembered all the times he had called Ari ugly, and the green eyes stared at him like he was crazy.

After rubbing his face and sputtering without being able to say a complete sentence, Larry Jackson looked around the room, thinking he was being punked, but the only shocked people were the judges.

The rest of the contestants acted as if it were normal, having grown accustomed to seeing Ari’s bare face over the past couple of days.

The only other unsurprised person was PD Emily, who smiled as the shocked expression of the judges to Ariel’s face review was successfully captured.

"...so...can we perform now or...?" Ari glanced from Larry Jackson to Jelissa, unsure of what the holdup was.

"Please do. Good luck to you and your team, Ari." Jelissa smiled happily as she pulled out her notepad to take notes

"Thank you."

"Everyone, get into position," William ordered in a commanding tone as he took the center position since he had the intro.

All of the boys got down on one knee, their faces hidden as they stared at the ground while waiting for the music to start.

Brrrrrrrrr Thum~

The sound of an intense electric bass rang out, and as the beat dropped, William suddenly jumped to his feet, moving his head and arms in a robotic manner as he began saying the words of the intro.

"I’m like, some kind of Supernova. Watch this."

The source of this c𝓸ntent is fr𝒆e(w)𝒆bnovel