From Skid Row to Superstardom: An Idol System Novel-Chapter 93: Meet the Boys (1)

After a quick chat with Jamie, where they agreed to meet up in a couple of days when Ari wasn’t so sick, Ari spent some time completing his phone call errands.

First, he messaged Grandma Kim and Grandma Lisa, promising to see them after the next filming session when he wasn’t sick.

Then, he spent time calling his school and easily convinced them that he was still sick since he was coughing his lungs out every 3 seconds.

After agreeing to take his missed quizzes at the end of the week if he was feeling better, Ari went to visit Priest Steven Choi before forcibly cleaning the church like he was supposed to.

He then dragged his feverish body to the bathhouse while wearing a regular face mask and a baseball hat instead of the snail mask he usually wore.

He doubted that the people who visited would watch an idol survival show and recognize him, but he didn’t want to take any chances.

The moment he stepped into the bathhouse, Granny Choi caught sight of him, and a giant bowl of soup was forced into his hands, before he was forcibly sent back to the church to sleep.

After somehow forcing his body to complete the repeat missions except for running, he chugged his soup and went to sleep, completely missing the release of the first 3-hour episode of the online-only mini series titled ’Meet the Boys’.

*****

After a long, boring day at school and doing the bare minimum at her family restaurant, Grace Choi settled in the back corner of the restaurant where she usually ate with her new, slightly strange co-worker, Ariel.

As someone who wanted to become an entertainment journalist, she was especially tapped into the music scene, especially the Korean and American music markets that thrived in Los Angeles.

She was someone who had been looking forward to the start of Pop Star Academy: Project 777 and planned on following it even closely because her coworker was a part of the program.

She had already written most of her blog posts and filmed her reaction videos for the performance videos, especially praising the Korean trainees she recognized, and of course, her easily recognizable coworker, who refused to show his entire face even when eating.

She was quite surprised at how well he sang, even though his dancing wasn’t really up to her standards.

She planned to finish writing and critiquing the rest of the performances after watching the first episode of the ’Meet the Boys’ miniseries, and even had her notebook to take notes for her blog posts.

Putting in her headphones and pretending not to hear her grandmother’s voice when she called her, Grace tapped the first video that had a thumbnail of a blonde boy with a cowboy hat, a handsome boy with tan skin wearing a leather jacket, and a boy wearing a brown animal-style tracksuit with the hood covering up a strange yet familiar green mask.

She recognized the blonde boy as James, the handsome tan boy as Carlos, and, of course, the boy with the strange face mask as her coworker Ari from the profile pictures on the show’s website, even though Ari’s photo was him in weird face paint.

Jamie and Carlos looked cool as they seemed to have landed in a superhero-style pose, while Ari was leaping down a giant leaf-covered wall with twisted maze paths behind him and holding a peace sign.

Wondering what he had been doing within the last week for the producers to make him the thumbnail twice in a row, Grace excitedly clicked on the video, while hoping it wouldn’t be boring since there were over 100 contestants to get through.

The video started with the instrumental version of the warrior song, but it had been rearranged to have more of a classical feel, as a drone shot of a fancy tall building in the city with a huge sign that said Pop Star Academy.

The screen zoomed in toward the front entrance, and suddenly, it split into nine small windows that displayed contestants either in a group or as individuals dragging their luggage and entering the front entrance into an extravagantly decorated lobby with a large crystal fountain, beautiful sculptures, and floral decorations illuminated by bright golden light coming from the skylight embedded in the high ceiling.

The screen alternated between various contestants gawking in shock as they looked around the impressive lobby.

Some contestants spun around in a circle while others left and reentered the building with a stunned expression.

Then the contestants all approached the front desk and spoke with the receptionists, who sent them to the fancily styled elevators with robotic voices.

A montage of various idols from companies associated with Pop Star Academy flashed across the screen, and Grace smiled happily as she saw her favorite bands BTZ and Mega Junior, who were unfortunately completing their military service as a group.

She then watched the contestants arrive at an area where they dropped their luggage, and several funny clips of the contestants discovering staff members taking their luggage, including a contestant who got into a tug of war battle over a suitcase before the contestant and the staff member fell over, and a scene of a staff member being stuck in a small door with a large guitar.

As Grace laughed at the silliness of how the scenes were edited, the scene transitioned into an aerial scene of a large, green indoor maze before an ad interrupted the video.

"Custom Mazes dot com for amazing mazes for an amaze-ingly fun time for you, your family, and friends. Use the code P777 for twenty percent off your first order."

After listening to a jingle that couldn’t be skipped, the video changed to the image of a boy with a blonde buzzcut, pale blue eyes, and slits cut into his eyebrows with his ears pierced.

Recognizing Levi’s sharp appearance from his profile photo and performance video, Grace watched closer as he read the words on an LED screen telling him to go through the maze and try to get within the top 20 to win a prize.

Once the words disappeared, Levi turned to the camera and froze.

Then, a dramatic edited introduction of him began as his photo transitioned into a black-and-white version of the profile photo he took at the first audition, with bullet points appearing next to the photo with a loud sound.

- LEVI

- Nationality: American

- Age 20

- Hair color: Blonde (natural)

- Eyes: Blue (natural)

- Height: 6’1 (186 cm)

- Position: RAP

- Favorite Food: Mom’s Spaghetti Tacos

- Likes: Efficiency

- Dislikes: Wasting Time

After the bullet points were displayed sequentially, a short clip of Levi’s first audition was displayed.

In it, he rapped a self-composed number and performed a decently choreographed dance while wearing nicely fitted street clothes.

The judges said a few words and once the intro video, which was less than 40 seconds in total, was displayed, the words ’Time to Escape The Maze: 0:00:00’, showed up on the screen as the black and white image of Levi was replaced with live footage of him peeking his head through one of the seven maze doors, retreating and getting back on the elevator to head to the top of the building, and break through the barrier with several strong kicks blocking the stair door before heading down to the correct floor while the time ran down.

As the different camera angles of Levi were shown as he opened the stairs door located right outside of the maze exit, the cameraman and the staff members panicked.

They scrambled to organize themselves since they were still setting up and not expecting a contestant to make it through so quickly.

The editing was quite humorous, as several clips showed the staff members’ eyes popping out as they whirled around.

Smiling cheekily, Levi winked at the camera while making finger guns, grabbed several snacks, and walked off while the staff members were still scrambling.

The voice recordings of the flustered staff members played in the background with the sound of somebody sighing in defeat.

At the top of the screen, the words ’Time to Escape The Maze: 0:01:35’ were updated with a new counter in the bottom corner saying: Production Team: 0, Contestants: 1

As the words, ’A Fierce Battle Begins’, Grace laughed as the rest of the contestants and their journey through the maze were slowly shown.