From Skid Row to Superstardom: An Idol System Novel-Chapter 96: Meet the Boys (4)

The next three episodes of ’Meet the Boys’ aired over the span of four days showing the uncut audition clips and judges reviews of all the 200 contestants who had made it into the second showcase round.

While the second showcase performance was scheduled to be shown the following week along with the very first episode of the official broadcast on television.

But even without seeing the showcase performance, the released content was enough to build audience hype not only about the show but in the lives of the contestants that were not seen in the Warrior video performances.

The traffic song that Ari wrote continued to gain popularity on TokTik, while the views on Warrior performance videos continued to rise, especially the teams that had contestants with famous parents, or strong social media presences.

The people that consumed all the content did their best to find out all the nitty, gritty details of the contestants, created online forums and group to discuss, and began psycho analyzing everything while waiting for the official first broadcast in a week.

While all of this was happening, Ari slowly recovered from his cold.

He spent the majority of the week sleeping and performing his repeat missions by using the signal song to practice his choreography and vocals.

Toward the end of the week, he finally completed the repeat missions for dancing choreography 1000 times and singing a song in its entirety 1000 and immediately added the two points to his visual stat.

[Visual +2]

[Visual: D -> C-]

Because of the release of the videos and online backlash, Ari realized that he couldn’t delay the upgrading of his Visual stat for much longer even though he wanted to up his dance and rap skills to complete the mission on the mission board.

Each time he got curious about what people were saying, after watching each of the mini episodes or searched for his name online, all Ari saw were hate comments about his face paint, people trying to discover who he was and what he looked like, discrediting his hard work, and calling him an attention seeking troll who didn’t belong on the program.

Additionally, when Ari remembered how rough his interactions with his roommates and teammates were, especially as his tiredness and frustration grew throughout the week, and how the PD had basically given him a horrible edit on every video so far, he knew that he absolutely needed to exceed expectations the next go round or when public voting began, he would be one of the ones to get eliminated.

This meant his singing needed to be perfect, his dancing needed to improve drastically, and most importantly, his visual stat needed to increase so he could stop wearing the white face paint.

Curious about what he looked like now that his Visual Stat had moved into C territory, Ari walked up to the mirror in the small bedroom to take a look.

Comparing with his face looked like now to what it had looked like 3 weeks ago was like heaven and earth.

The bruising and swelling were mainly gone, just leaving slightly discolored skin around his eyes, nose, and a bit on his cheekbones.

Since he hadn’t really been in the sun, the left-over bruising along with the dark circles and his red nose from blowing it constantly looked a bit harsh in contrast with his pale skin, but it was vastly better than the monstrosity it had been a week ago.

Slowly but surely, his face was slowly approaching what his ID displayed but for now, it still looked a bit plain and quite ugly, as if somebody had taken a high-quality statue and smooshed everything with their fingers.

Unfortunately, since it hadn’t fully returned to normal yet, he would still have to wear the white face paint when filming but hopefully, he would be able to get the stat points he needed soon so he could get rid of it. fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com

Ari poked the little bruising on his cheeks before wincing and asking NOVA.

"NOVA, Is there any way to quickly get rid of this rap mission? I’ve been stuck on it for a while and I want to get new missions."

[Yes.]

[Get good at rapping]

[Then the mission board will naturally be swapped with new missions.]

[And you can stop being the ugliest person in the room.]

Ari: "....."

Thank you captain obvious. As if I couldn’t figure that out for myself.

Forget he asked.

Thoroughly set on ignoring the unhelpful system, Ari continued his individual practice before using the rest of the night to pack his things in preparation for Jamie to pick him up early tomorrow morning.

****

And when a white trunk honked outside and when Ari walked over to the passenger side, a familiar face appeared as the window was lowered.

"Glad to see you’re alive, your Royal sea-ness. Now, about that 4 a.m. workout-"

"No matter what you say, I’m not joining your gym shenanigans. If you try it, I’m pouring ice into your bed while you sleep." Ari quickly interrupted Jamie with a quick shake of his head.

Throughout the week, Jamie had nagged him to hangout, citing his lack of effort in the gym as the reason he caught a cold.

Even when Ari told him the details of his last week, Jamie was convinced that building stamina by weightlifting would solve the issues, so Ari simply ignored him.

Having to do the repeat missions and dancing all day was enough.

Hearing Jamie click his tongue in disappointment, Benjamin smiled before greeting Ari.

"Big man, Ari. Wagwan. Beautiful day in the city innit? How goes it?"

"Good, I guess?"

The British boy clasped Ari’s hand through the window while Jamie shook his head in disappointment at Ari’s refusal to bond in the gym.

"Sorry mate. Shorties in the back." Despite his words, Benjamin didn’t look very sorry, although he did move his seat forward slightly.

"I’m not short. I’m a respectable 5’10 and still in my growth period." Ari retorted even as he opened the back seat and threw his duffel bag in next to Jamie’s guitar before climbing in.

"Sure. Sure. I believe you. Let’s revist this conversation when you grow a couple more centimeters yeah?" Benjamin laughed before changing the subject.

The drive to the dorm location was surprisingly quick and after Jamie parked the three of them walked in, dropping their luggage and electronics off to the side before meeting the other contestants in the large dance studio area that they big announcements were always made at.