CHAPTER 189: BE CAREFUL

"How does it look from the front?!" Jamie called out as he was speaking to one of the festival organizers in charge of the musical performances.

Ari looked up from the hand-drawn diagram he had in front of him to his teammates trying to organize themselves on the newly set-up portable stage.

Unlike the large, professional indoor stages they had used before, this one was very bare bones, featuring metal scaffolding with chunky black speakers attached to the poles as well as the floor, a canvas-like tent cover overhead, and black, plasticky flooring that Ari swore shook a little too much when they all stood on it.

The rest of the contestants were standing where the audience would be, looking around in boredom as they waited for their turn.

"Everyone take about one footstep inward? And Levi, even if you don’t want to, pretend you like him and move in closer!" Ari yelled, ignoring the look Levi shot at him before reluctantly scooting closer to Ian.

With 8 boys on the stage, there was barely enough space for them to even perform full choreography without somebody falling off the edge, so they would have to be a bit squished, but Ari didn’t think anything major needed to be changed.

But since he wasn’t the one in charge-

"Diego, what do you think?"

"Looks fine, but let’s try it out?"

At Diego’s response, Ari hopped back on stage, grabbed a microphone from Jamie, and got into his position beside him.

"How are the speakers?"

"Trashy. But I can’t do anything about it." Jamie sulked, "I even asked them to consider changing the speaker positions, but they said no. It will literally sound better."

"Maybe they know better? It’s their festival after all."

"Really?" Jamie gave Ari a bitter look as he stomped hard on the stage, causing it to shake a little bit and Ari to stagger.

"I see your point." Ari agreed with a shrug,

but there’s nothing we can do. We just have to do our part."

He just stayed silent and waited for the music to start.

As the guitar sounds that marked the intro rang out and Carlos began humming, Ari began along with the others to keep the beat while they performed the basic salsa steps they had learned.

Clap clap clap

Clap clap clap

Dum dum dum dum dum dum~

Clap clap clap

Clap clap clap

"Yo te miro y se me corta la respiración,

Cuando tú me miras, se me sube el corazón",

"Got me begging, got me hoping that the night don’t stop."

Jamie then stepped forward, his medium-pitched voice easily singing the next lines.

"Bailando~, Bailando,

Tu cuerpo y el mío llenando el vacío, subiendo y bajando"

As the simple chorus without a single ’r’ that Carlos had spent his blood, sweat, and tears teaching Jamie how to pronounce rang out cleanly without a country accent or any mistakes, Ari sighed in relief since a major hurdle had been successfully passed.

With a much more relaxed heart, they completed the rest of the rehearsals, and he mentally made a note of the things they needed to adjust before tomorrow’s performance.

As he got off the stage while the next team went up, Daniel Kim walked over to him, his fluffy orange hair bouncing up and down before speaking with a soft Korean accent.

"Uh....can I talk to you?"

"You’re talking to me now?"

"Alone."

"Sure."

Giving Daniel a strange look, Ari shrugged before gesturing for him to lead the way since he didn’t know where he was going.

"Where ya headed?" Jamie asked, turning away from the performance that he had been humming along to.

"Dunno. Be back soon," Ari replied, waving without looking back at him.

He silently followed behind Daniel, wondering what the Korean boy wanted.

After the incident in the bathroom, where they both overheard William talking to the assistant, PD David, and Daniel handing over his snack bag at a later time, the two of them had absolutely no interaction with each other since their circles of friends and acquaintances did not intersect in the slightest.

Daniel didn’t seem to know where he was going as he walked in a circle twice before leading Ari to the back of a building.

"You need to be careful."

"Of?"

"...."

"Of?"

Ari: ಠ_ಠ

"Listen, there are several things I hate, and one of them is people who tell me things halfway. Be careful of what?"

At Ari’s repeated question, Daniel bit his lip but didn’t say anything, causing Ari to begin tapping his foot impatiently.

Seeing Daniel avoid eye contact while fidgeting nervously and looking around, he decided to change his question.

"Should I be careful of a blondie?"

Nod.

Good.

Progress was being made.

"My blondie teammates or the bathroom one from before."

"...bathroom one," Daniel mumbled quietly, and Ari nodded with a gentle smile on his face.

So it was William.

"Okay. That’s good. I know the person. What’s the issue. Did you overhear something?"

Nod.

"What is it?"

Seeing Daniel tense up again, Ari softened his tone, "Something dangerous?"

Nod.

"To me?"

Nod.

"Really? What, don’t tell me he’s going to kidnap me or something?"

At Ari’s joking words, Daniel froze like a deer in headlights, his eyes flashing from side to side.

His mouth opened and closed repeatedly before he mumbled, "Just be careful," and ran away at a fast speed, his fading orange hair bouncing on top of his head like bunny ears.

Ari: "..."

You’re joking?

What the hell was that about?

Kidnapping?

Ari began thinking through all his actions, wondering if it was serious enough to warrant him being kidnapped.

Sure, Ari had publicly accused William of picking his nose in front of his peers and celebrity judges, and maybe Ari had hit him until he was almost unconscious and his nose bled heavily, and sure Ari pretended not to understand what he was saying while speaking a different language, laughed at him often, fought with him and took the song parts he wanted when the camera was turned off, told him he disliked him and called him a weirdo to his face, stopped others from touching or getting near him and probably stopped him from stealing stats to have a better performance....

Hmmm....

Well....

When put that way, he sounded like he was a terrible person.

Ari didn’t think all those things warranted being kidnapped.

William deserved it all for killing him in the first place!

And kidnapping?

Plus, how the hell is William planning to do that with all these cameras watching them 24/7?

It wasn’t like Ari was living on the street anymore. They literally lived in a building with staff recording their every move.

Even if he had the Assisstant PD on his side, the Assisstant PD couldn’t just stop the camera and let kidnap him...could he?

But then again, this was the person who had gotten him and an old man killed and for all intents and purposes, dumped the body, gotten away with it, and couldn’t even remember the victims face and voice.

For some reason, the anxiousness that Ari had been feeling came back once more, and he couldn’t help but rub his chest as it throbbed in pain.

"Oi...NOVA?"

Once again, there was no response, and still rubbing his chest, Ari promised himself that he would stay extra alert.

He quickly went back to join the other contestants making sure he was always near the center of the pack while trying to keep an eye on William.

He really didn’t like William’s smile.

******

After an unusually fitful night’s sleep, Ari woke up later than he usually did and had to scramble to get ready amongst the rushing contestants.

After skipping breakfast due to feeling nauseous, he was one of the last ones to get styled by the stylists, and he sleepily sat down and dozed off while the stylists argued about who would fix his hair and face.

He didn’t have much of an opinion since it was the first time in a while getting anything done since recording the signal song, so he just let them decide.

Ari’s eyes slowly opened once more as he felt something cool and soft running across his face before his cheeks were pinched and stretched a couple of times.

Used to having that done to him since he was a toddler, Ari just stayed still until she was satisfied.

"Ohh, no sleep? Poor baby. The bags under your eyes are pretty bad. I’ll cover them up and brighten up your face, okay? How do you want your hair styled? It’s getting pretty long."

Soft hands gently ran through and untangled his curls, pushing them back from his forehead, and Ari blinked sleepily at her before replying, "Scissors?"

"For what?"

At the suddenly cold tone, his eyes snapped open fully to see the stylist’s frozen face.

"To cut it?"

He demonstrated by snipping with his fingers in a line across his forehead.

"Just take off a couple of inches."

"Absolutely not! If you don’t care, then I’ll style it for you. If you need a hairstylist, I can provide a recommendation. You said you’re on the Latin American team? Just close your eyes and relax. I won’t ask you again, and I’ll style you to perfection!"

"...okay."

Closing his eyes, Ari let her do whatever she wanted and felt

When he woke up, the dark circles under his eyes were covered up, his lips looked redder than usual, and his hair was slicked back except for a single curl dangling in a perfect ringlet in his face.

With his bright red pants, red shirt, vest, and jacket with a white bowtie, he thought it was quite an interesting contrast with his hair.

Since it didn’t look too bad, he nodded in approval and smiled at the stylist.

"It looks good. Thank you."

Just as he was about to run his fingers through it, his hand was slapped away lightly.

"Don’t touch it. Don’t lean on it. You have to appear perfectly like this on stage, understand??"

Seeing the fierce look in the stylist’s eyes, Ari froze before putting his hand down.

"Uh...yes ma’am."

"Good, have a good performance."

"Your royal sea-ness, let’s go."

Ari looked up to see Jamie dressed in a similar styled black suit with a red tie and red scarf tied around his white cowboy hat.

"Kay."

It was performance time!