CHAPTER 214: SORRY

"Contestant Ariel. What exactly are you doing?" Jaywalks asked in as calm a tone as he could manage while staring at the seizure-like dance moves that had been happening in front of him for several hours.

"...trying to do the choreography?"

"You consider this trying?"

Since it was clearly a rhetorical question, Ari just stayed silent while trying to catch his breath.

He felt as if his body was stuck and made out of wooden blocks.

Naturally, he was never the strongest dancer because he was still learning, but he had been able to learn and perform everything to a decent level in the past; now, he was just struggling.

And the reason for it was this whole choreography that Rex had pieced together from the original song performance, along with Jaywalk’s help.

And it seemed that Rex had really taken that ’sexy’ concept to heart, which was the reason for Ari’s struggle.

When the choreography was something he considered normal, it was okay, but the moment he had to do something... ’sexy’, it was as if his brain and body both seized up from embarrassment, and he turned into the stiffest block of ice known to man.

And unfortunately, he had been repeatedly messing up the choreography all day.

Jaywalks glanced at him before rubbing the bridge of his nose in irritation and taking a deep breath.

Yelling wouldn’t help, even though that’s precisely what he wanted to do.

"Contestant Ariel. I don’t understand what the issue is. It’s a simple body roll that leads to the ground, where you repeat the process. Why do you look like you’re having a seizure? Try harder."

"I’m sorry, I’m doing my best."

"Are you? Because it doesn’t look like it from where I’m standing. The rest of your teammates are red in the face and covered in sweat while you look like you’re taking a walk and barely putting in any effort."

"...I am."

Ari truly was, but it seemed that Jaywalks really didn’t believe him.

"Sigh. Get ba,ck into position. We can’t keep stopping for you, and we only have a limited time together."

"Right. Sorry."

As Ari moved to the very back of the practice room, where he was the tail end of the triangle formation, Jaywalk restarted the music.

"Let’s start again. 5, 6, 7, 8."

At the start of the music, all 7 of them dropped down to a squat, taking large sweeping steps while rocking side to side as if they were on a ship.

"1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1 and 2 and 3 and 4. First person up, 2 3 next row up, 2 3, next row up, 2 3, final row step up. Jerome is in the front; lean, lean, human wave then kick out and turn. Good, good."

As Jerome mouthed the words for the section he had chosen, Jaywalks continued to call out the moves while keeping time by clapping his hands to the count.

"Make an X, move into a line, then body roll, roll, roll, roll. Dive to the floor. And up, two and three, and four and up into a line, and three and four. Hold out your shirt, your hand goes up from the bottom, and roll your waist. Hip thrust, hip thrust, move don’t stop Ari!"

The moment Ari met his own eyes in the mirror while trying to perform the move being called out, he immediately froze, getting knocked over as Levi ran into him and sent him stumbling and eventually falling to the ground and onto his injured hand.

"You’re in the way."

"Sorry."

"Contestant Ariel, please. You’re supposed to be a professional. If you can’t concentrate, then take a seat so you don’t injure anyone else. We already have to make accommodations for your hand."

Receiving both the glares from his teammates and the trainer, Ari did the only thing he could do.

Apologize.

"Sorry."

It was the first of many.

Needless to say, the first choreography practice session with the trainer was a failure.

And the rest of the team practice continued in the same vein.

*****

"I don’t think I’m built to be sexy," Ari admitted as he sat on the ground while sipping a bottle of water.

Although he wasn’t drenched in sweat like his teammates because of his otterly adorable tracksuit, he still felt out of breath and tired from the multi-hour practice, and his mental strength was almost depleted after being constantly nagged for doing the dance moves wrong and not trying hard enough.

"What’s the issue. You seemed to be getting the other dance moves just fine. Just stop freezing up. I don’t know why you’re scared of whine-ing your waist. Such a prude."

Seeing Benjamin demonstrate one of the moves by body rolling while lifting his shirt up to expose his abs, Ari immediately looked away.

"I’m not a prude; it’s just embarrassing for me to do it."

"That’s the definition of a prude, innit? Stop looking away and freezing up. Unless you see something you like and are too shy to look? Don’t worry, I don’t judge. You can look at my body in all its glory. I worked hard to build it."

Ari: ಠ_ಠ

What kind of nonsense was coming out of his mouth?

Had he finally lost it?

"If you wanted to die today, you should have told me earlier so I could have poisoned you before you made me eat beans and toast for breakfast. But I’m still willing to take you out, so come here. It’ll be painless, I promise."

"I’m not afraid of you, short stuff. Pack on some muscle before you buck up at me, yeah?" Benjamin laughed before snagging Ari’s water and chugging the rest of the bottle, ignoring the dirty look Ari gave him as he crushed it up.

"Relax. I know you won’t finish it before it gets warm, so I’m just helping you out. Have fun with your solo practice. Once I’m done showering, I’ll bring you a cold one in about an hour. No need to thank me, I’ve already helped myself to a couple of snacks from your bag as payment."

"I hope you slip and fall in the shower."

"And I hope you find some oil for that stiff back and waist of yours." Benjamin retorted, waving lazily as he shut the door behind him, leaving Ari alone.

Laughing to himself, Ari stood up after him to lock the door and cover the little window with some paper.

After diligently taking out the batteries in all of the cameras in the room, even though he wasn’t supposed to, he sat down in front of the mirror, staring at the transparent blue screen only he could see.

[Ready to practice after that dismal display?]

"Yeah, I’d like to use the JukeBox Skill. Hopefully, I can get through it because I really want to be the center this time."

[JukeBox, coming right up.]

The blue screen flashed, and an old-style jukebox, flashing with rainbow colors, appeared in Ari’s vision, accompanied by a tiny screen displaying the words "vocal," "dance," and "rap," with the amount of tokens he had off to the side.

Ari reached out and tapped rap, and the little screen changed into a list of dances that Ari had ever memorized with ’Neverland (Pirate Edition)’ at the top.

He briefly wondered how the entire thing worked before shaking his head and selecting Neverland and utilizing 6 tokens or 30 hours worth of practice time so he could dance at an A rank level.

Even if he asked NOVA for the details, it probably wouldn’t tell him, and he had bigger issues to worry about.

As the countdown filled his vision, Ari started the music on the tablet, and a strange feeling began to wash over him as his body started moving without his control.

The first part of the dance went smoothly, even though he mentally made a note to request kneepads.

As he stood up at the appropriate time, humming the lyrics, he slowly transitioned from section to section, his body somehow using his full energy into the song.

And when it got to the same part where he had to start body rolling while keeping his shirt on, one glance at his body in the mirror, and he froze in place, the sensation of his body being controlled stopping as his movements became jerky like before.

"Let’s try it again."

[JukeBox - Dance - Neverland (Pirate Edition) ]

He restarted the song, only to deplete another 30 hours of practice with the same result.

"What the hell? Huff hufff. Why isn’t it working? Huff hufff. Is it broken?"

[Not at all.]

[Wow.]

[This is a new one.]

[Your embarrassment is so strong that it snaps you out of an A-rank skill.]

[Truly, you are a one-of-a-kind, never-before-seen, generational talent.]

[Seems like you’re really allergic to being sexy.]

[Aren’t French people supposed to be ultra liberal?]

[Where is this prudishness coming from?]

"It’s just a bit much, okay! I don’t get why people want to see me move like that!"

Although he wasn’t someone who got embarrassed over things, he felt weird performing the excessive body rolls and hip movements to the song.

But since he wasn’t an expert on what fans would consider sexy, he really had no say as to what the choreography would be, especially after insisting on keeping his shirt on no matter what.

The rest of his team seemed to have no issues with it, so he was the only one having a hard time, but just the thought of himself dancing like that was enough to make Ari’s ears turn a bright red and freeze up each time he saw his own reflection dancing.

[Are you embarrassed?]

[Wow, you’re really embarrassed.]

[Your face is turning red.]

[Your poor fans.]

[First, they’re not getting the red hair they requested, and now they’re not getting the sexy performance that they want.]

[And after all the money they spent on voting to push your rank up.]

[I feel a bit sad for them.]

Ah right.

The red hair.

Ari thought back to the envelope with his name that had been on the practice room door.

According to the production staff, they had filtered through all the data and collected the most popular requests for the contestants and passed them on to them via envelope so that the contestants could try to fulfill those requests by the time of the fan showcase.

Benjamin’s most popular request was to please show his abs more. Specifically, they wanted to see him shirtless.

Jamie’s request was split between cutting his long hair short and burning his cowboy hat forever.

And Ari.

Ari’s number one request had been for his hair to be dyed red.

A very bright red.

The production staff had even printed out a colored card with the exact blinding shade of red that the fans had requested.

".....why the heck do they want my hair to be red?"

[Is that a real question, or are you actually delusional?]

"I’m not delusional. I just don’t think I would look good with that hair color, so why do they want it?"

[.....]

[Truly, you don’t understand the mind of the fans.]

[Let’s just practice your dancing instead.]

*********

While one person battled with trying to perform sexy choreography, another person was trying to push an agenda online.

[We Need To Convince Contestant Ariel To Dye His Hair Red - Walk with Me.]

They tried to silence me, but I refuse to be silenced any longer.

Now that we’ve finally made it over the hump of Ariel being made fun of because of his name, among other things, we need to tackle the true issue.

Returning him to his true hair color, which is obviously the brightest shade of red that you’ve ever seen.

Walk with me here. Green eyes go with what? Red hair.

You know who else has red hair? Ariel.

Join me in filling out your survey and pressuring the production staff to request that Ari dye his hair back to his true, natural hair color (red) and achieve the look he was always meant to have.

If you don’t believe me, take a look at these photos showing how handsome he would look with red hair(redHairAri.img)

- OP, you’ve clearly lost it

└ No, listen, it’s such a mistake for him to have that name and not have the hair color, you know? Walk With Me.

└└ I’m walking, I’m walking

└└└ to a dead end?

└└ +1 on the red hair agenda. I’m ready to see my live-action, red-haired mermaid prince

- This is why I voted for a water concept in the survey. Imagine a water concept (please mermaid, please) plus red hair. I would die

└ +1

└ +1

- Guys, think about the bleach damage. His hair is jet black. Given the darkness, how much lift will he need to achieve a bright red color? It might fall off

└ Welcome to being an idol; he’ll survive.

└└ His scalp won’t.

└└└ Baldriel is coming soon near you (baldAriel.img)

└└└└ Get that cursed image away from me

└└└└ Give my son back his hair!

└└└└└ Why is he still kind of...rawr

While Ari’s angel community was heavily pushing for a red-haired appearance, their chosen contestant...well, he was currently being tortured in the name of dance.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

A pained shriek echoed out of the practice room, but for those who had been hearing it for the past hour, they just increased the volume of their music and continued what they were doing.