CHAPTER 188: EPISODE 3 (2)

Still expecting Ari’s team to be next, Grace was shocked when the screen suddenly turned dark, before a circular spotlight came on, showing the shadow of a person wearing a trench coat with a hat.

The face of the person was heavily shadowed as they seemed to be performing martial arts-type moves before they froze.

Then, like a spy movie, more and more people appeared in trench coats as the guitar intro to Back Door sounded before the boys began singing and dancing in a spy-like sequence that looked like it was ripped out of an old noir film with the play of intense white lighting and shadows.

When they finished and the judges gave resounding praise to the team, Grace was amazed, and so was the chat.

- Dang. Theater kids are really winning. I felt like I just watched a movie!

- That was amazing!

- The stage staff are the real MVPs here.

- hearing about the concept and seeing the execution...wow

- No, like there’s minimal popular people on that team, but they killed it?

- wdym? Justin is popular!

- WTH? Why is this a better music video than the original?

- lowk I agree

- If this is the team that came in second, what the heck did the first team do?

That was Grace’s thought as well.

If this team came second, what the heck did first look like?

"No, seriously, Ari. What the heck did your team do to get first place? You were literally had nothing last episode."

As Grace spoke aloud, the scene panned back to Ari talking to Leo in his nonchalant voice.

"You’re a lazy, procrastinating, pushover without a spine."

Hearing the harsh words for the third time, Grace couldn’t help but wince and want to reach through the screen and smack him on the head.

It was as if Ari had never heard of evil editing or media training a day in his life!

There was a small pause as Leo hiccuped while holding back tears, before Ari continued.

"But, on a more positive note, you’re trying your best to make the team succeed, which is admirable....so just let the judges drag us to **** with their criticism."

- Is...that supposed to be a positive note? He didn’t apologize for being harsh

- he’s a bully

- hater!

- Poor Leo, I’m sure it was him who turned things around

- At least he’s self-aware that they’re going to get dragged. Larry Jackson will cook them!

- Can he take that ugly green mask off?

- This is the team that’s supposed to be first? How?

- Justin’s team was robbed!

- How were they robbed??? The audience voted live!

- Let’s just watch and see.

True to Ari’s words, their team was absolutely shredded by the judges on everything from the singing, to unwillingness to dance to the original bright pink girly ballet concept, to not even having an idea for what they would do on stage, and throughout Leo seemed to be on the verge of tears while Ari yawned as if he couldn’t care less.

- Look at him, he doesn’t even care about his team!

- he can’t even dance at all. All he has going for him is his good voice.

- Well, duh, it’s an idol program. Better than your fave who can’t sing and can barely rap.

- At least my fave isn’t ugly and has to hide his plastic surgery with weird makeup and a strange mask!

- sybau

Ignoring the arguing commenters in the chat window, Grace watched as the scene changed to Ari’s team coming back to their practice room and then Ari passionately talking while pasting blurred sticky notes on the mirror, drawing lines and arrows with a marker and connecting them as the rest of his teammates stared at him with blank expressions.

- He’s crazy!

- Captain Crashout has finally lost it again.

- They’re completely sick of him

- ughhhh how did they win?

As he was doing his explanation, a lot of the words Ari was saying were beeped off, but from what she could gather, there was some type of transformation.

Then the scene changed to the boys standing on stage wearing all white costumes, with Ari in the back of the formation with a completely painted white face, unlike his usual makeup.

"Like swan swan swan."

The bright upbeat pop song that she knew sounded, and the boys began dancing the graceful, energetic dance that she knew from the original music video.

- Oh, they just copied the original choreo and changed outfit colors?

- What’s so special about this?

- transformation? From the usual clown makeup to mime makeup? Boooo

- No wonder he’s performing a song from the group Dozen. It’s cause he is a dozen (dozen dance, dozen show his face, dozen have talent.)

- Hey! Don’t drag another fandom into this, our Dozen unnie’s are talented, unlike this khia group.

Although Grace thought that Ari’s singing sounded good, and his teammates were doing well with their parts, she had to admit that she couldn’t see what would make this performance number 1 over Justin’s.

Maybe it was because of the Matthews fans from the dance community who attended the show? Or the Korean team members had more US supporters than she thought.

But as the performance continued, she began noticing something.

Slowly, the pure white clothing began changing, with a dark spot here and a dark streak there, making it look like darkness in the shape of feathers was creeping up their outfits and staining the bright white clothing black.

First, it was their legs, then their arms and torsos, the darkness slowly crept up and inwards, overtaking the light.

The music became more eerie, and the previously graceful flowing dance lines became more erratic and aggressive, as if each person was becoming corrupted by darkness.

And the lyrics changed, from like swan to dark swan, from escaping the darkness to sinking into and reveling in it.

The synchronized dance suddenly wasn’t so synchronized anymore, and each time a person took the center, their clothing darkened faster.

And all throughout the performance, Ari’s unique voice could be heard supporting everyone with a slightly eerie harmony until it was his part in the center, where he killed it by singing in that characteristically raspy yet clear tone that could be easily identified.

As compared to the others, like Mathew with his almost perfect dance lines, Ari didn’t dance or stand out as much as he was mostly hidden in the back, but when it was his part and he took the center, your eyes and ears could only pay attention to him for some reason.

"Black swan swan swan~"

Hearing Ari’s voice singing the changed lines in an eerie way to end the incredible performance, the last piece of white on his costume turned black, and he closed those piercing green eyes, showing the black feathers on the white canvas that was on his face. Grace literally felt chills run through her body.

How?

What the heck?

How did they do that to the costumes?

Was this invisible ink? Or special effects like in the movies?

And change a bright song into something creepy and dark?

Grace needed to know the details, and she hoped that the MC or the judges would ask these questions or give her some clarification.

Thankfully, it seemed that the judges, including Bing Yongsun himself, were impressed by the performance and asked clarifying questions, and unsurprisingly, Ari was the one who claimed the credit while also giving credit to his other team members.

- Thermo paint? What the heck is that?

- No, you’re telling me he came up with that?

- I don’t want to believe it!

- I don’t believe it, he’s just some stupid high schooler

Despite others not believing it, Bing Yongsun definitely did as he gave Ari the highest compliment heard so far.

"Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern. This is the second time you’ve come up with an impressive performance concept that wouldn’t lose to ones from professionals paid to do this for a living. I’m looking forward to the third concept you come up with, Contestant Ariel."

- gasp

- A compliment from the person who said the most important thing was looks to a person whose looks we haven’t seen? That’s crazy

- I mean, the performance was cool, but there’s no need to glaze him geez

- You better be grateful and grovel, punk. I still haven’t forgiven you for being mean to Leo.

Unfortunately for them, Ari gave a self-satisfied smirk before replying in his typical laid-back manner.

"Thank you."

As if he wasn’t satisfied with praising Ari, Bing Yongsun continued with a serious expression on his face.

"And if this doesn’t work out for you and you get eliminated, I would love to offer you a job on my team to help create performances for different artists."

- Gasp! No way!

- a job offer from exec producer Bing

- I’m jealous!

Thinking he would at least be honored, Ari simply blinked before replying in the same lackadaisical tone while quirking his lips.

"I’ll consider it."

Then the screen went black.

Naturally, the chat blew up with people calling him arrogant, cocky, thinking that he’s better than he is, etc, but Grace just sat there silently for a moment.

She just had a feeling that Ari was just the type of person who would be controversial, since he was apparently living his life with no filter and had a non-groveling personality, which was extremely divisive and not ideal in the entertainment world, especially in a field so close to K-pop.

As a future PR firm owner, the thought of how to handle this gave her an extreme headache.

While the chat was blowing up and Grace was having a crisis, the preview for the next episode showed a bunch of different contestants performing on the street, a snippet of a rap battle between Benjamin and a group in white outfits and red hats, then Jamie playing his guitar, before another clip of Ari jumping on a table with a crowd partying around him.

Looking at it, Grace couldn’t understand what the heck was going on at all.

It was just straight chaos.

Following the usual ads urging people to vote for their favorite contestant and sign up on the website for behind-the-scenes content, a screenshot announced that the Pop Star Academy boys would be performing at the UCLA Culture Festival from 12-1 pm on the upcoming Friday.

Seeing it, Grace had one thought on her mind.

Must! Go!

After missing out on getting tickets for previous performances and being unable to convince her father or grandparents to let her go to Las Vegas, Grace knew that this was her chance.

Opening the UCLA website to get a ticket, Grace put on her best puppy dog expression and went to beg her grandmother, Granny Choi.

"Halmeoni(grandma)."

"No." Granny Choi immediately refused without thinking about it.

She knew what that wheedling tone meant.

"Please let me skip school on Friday."

"Absolutely not." There was no way she would allow her only granddaughter to skip out on getting an education.

"It’s to see Ari perform! Live!"

"No! And if you dare go, I’ll ground you for the rest of your life!"

"Hmph! Fine!" Grace pretended to give up while secretly planning how she would leave school to sneak into the UCLA cultural festival.

Maybe she could convince her dad that she wanted to do an early college campus visit?

With determination filling her eyes, Grace began plotting her attendance.

***********

And on the other side, Ari was secretly suffering while dealing with a mix of practicing, deflecting calls from Carlos’ mom, and dealing with tension between Ian and Levi on the same team.

On one of the evenings, the production staff made them watch episode 3, which was slightly redeeming for him but quite brutal for another person.

Ari glanced over at Benjamin, who had a stoic expression when he saw how the production team had depicted his issue with William, which painted him as the aggressor and William as the innocent party who even came back to apologize.

When asked how he felt, he shrugged, saying that there was nothing he could do and he would just focus on giving a good performance while avoiding the prince from now on.

And William behaved strangely as well.

Whenever he saw Ari, he made slick comments about sending a guard dog to scare him or would continually tell him to watch his back and to prepare for a surprise and stop being a snitch.

Thinking that William had finally lost his mind or was taking out his frustration from being questioned by the PD, Ari just treated him like a crazy person and ignored him.

With NOVA not responding, there really wasn’t much he could do anyway and as long as William stayed away from him, he was fine.

And finally, the day of rehearsals arrived.

Early in the morning, after breakfast, they all loaded up on the bus and made the long drive to UCLA.

As their large group walked through the campus, they received quite a few glances from people walking around.

They also saw people setting up the booths, barriers, canopies, ribbons, and more for the culture festival, making it look like a mini carnival.

As an unusually strong wind blew, Ari could smell the salty, almost fishy smell of the sea, and he stopped and closed his eyes to savour the scent that he had liked since he was little, wishing that he had time to go visit and stick his feet in the water and reminisce.

Unfortunately, he really didn’t have time for that these days.

Bump-

"You’re in the way."

Almost falling over, Ari opened his eyes to see Levi brush past him without looking back, a pair of black headphones on his head.

Somewhat used to the harsh way that Levi spoke when he wasn’t trying to fight Ian but was in a bad mood, Ari immediately snapped back.

"Talk like a normal person."

As Levi turned back to look at him, Ari just stared back at him.

Levi: ಠ_ಠ

Ari: ಠ_ಠ

As the two of them silently stared at each other, Ari heard bets being placed about which one of them would snap first.

It had been a running bet the entire time he and Levi had been teammates.

Levi: "...Don’t stand in the middle of the walkway so you don’t get hit."

"Fair enough. It was my bad." Ari immediately apologized, and Levi nodded before turning away and continuing walking on.

Mathew, who was walking by him, gave him a look before shaking his head.

"This is what I mean. Social anxiety and crazy people are afraid of you."

"Be nice. He’s not crazy."

"Sure. Sure. And I’m a great singer."

Seeing Mathews’ serious face, Ari just laughed and continued walking.

It was time to get to work.