CHAPTER 305: FIRE AND ASH FAMILIA (1)

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A slim, older woman, wearing a snug black turtleneck sweater, tailored black pants, heeled leather boots with a red sole that flashed with each step, and an oversized mink fur coat draped over her shoulders, stalked through the hallway like a woman on a mission.

With gold-rimmed sunglasses perched on her nose, the perfectly cut French bob not moving a single inch despite her fast-walking speed, and blood red lipstick perfectly painted on unsmiling lips, as she marched through the hallways, leaving behind the woody scent of tobacco mixed with expensive perfume in her trail.

And surrounding her were staff members who both chased and flew out of her way in terror.

"Ma’am, please slow down."

"Miss, please wait...You can’t go there...."

"No, not there either. Please just stand still and tell me what you need!"

Eventually, the woman ran into a dead end, but before the staff chasing her could celebrate her stopping, her red lips parted.

"Sabine."

A thick French accent called out a single name, and the tall personal assistant, who looked more like a bodyguard than anything and had prevented them from touching the woman, stepped forward and spoke to one of the stressed-out staff members.

"I’ve informed your production director that the Madame will be coming to visit. Where is his office?"

"Did you make an appointment?"

"He’s been informed."

"But..."

"I assure you. He’ll want to take this meeting." Sabine reported with a cold, yet professional smile.

The staff member’s eyes rolled, and realizing that this was completely out of his pay grade, decided to let the PD deal with it.

"Please come with me."

"Please move with a sense of urgency. The madame has several important things to do today, and you’ve already delayed her by 5 minutes."

Then why are you here?!!

The staff member wanted to scream.

Instead, he walked faster and led the way to the PD’s office before politely knocking on the door.

"What?" an irritated voice called out.

"There’s someone here to see you."

"I thought I told you that I wouldn’t be taking any visitors except for those we scheduled. Send them away."

"....they insisted."

"So what? Chase them away!"

As the staff member stood there, wondering how to explain to the PD that these people didn’t look like they could be chased away, he heard a calm voice.

"Allow me."

Sabine stepped forward and politely knocked on the door.

"What?! I said chase them away!" the irritated voice of the PD could be heard, but, used to dealing with Chloé, who was sometimes called an angry bear, Sabine politely conveyed what he needed to before Chloé lost her short temper.

"Hello, sir, this is Sabine, personal assistant to Chloé Laurent. We informed Bing Yongsun of our visit, and he assured us that we could stop by to see you at our leisure. Would you like to give him a call to verify that information so we can proceed with this meeting, or shall I?"

"Director B-b-bing Yongsun?"

"Yes. Please check your email. Perhaps you missed the initial message that he was supposed to send."

There was the faint sound of a keyboard typing before the door swung open, and a slightly sweaty-faced Korean man appeared.

"Please go get the guests’ coffee! The good stuff. Madame Laurent, please come in." Yelling at the staff member, PD Ji-ho greeted Chloé with a bright smile.

"Thank you. After you, Madame."

As he led the two people inside the office that had been hurriedly tidied, Chloé sat down and crossed her legs, while Sabine arranged the fur coat to drape behind her before standing with his back against the wall.

The coffee was quickly brought in with two mugs placed in front of PD Ji-ho and Chloé.

As the rich scent of coffee spread throughout the small office, a small sniff could be heard when Chloé picked the mug up.

"Instant?" Chloé Laurent asked with her derisive tone as she glanced over the sunglasses perched on the tip of her nose.

She placed the cup back down on the table and wiped her hands on a handkerchief that her assistant immediately offered, and glanced at the PD, who looked nervous.

"Where’s the boy?"

Judging by the heavy French accent, PD Ji-ho had a bad feeling about what she was asking, but even knowing that he had no choice in the matter, especially after the email to cater to her every whim, he tried to play dumb anyway.

"Where is who? What boy?"

"Could it be you have more than one French contestant still on the show, or are you just incompetent? If it’s the latter, I’d rather speak with Bing Yongsun instead of dealing with a useless middleman. Sabine."

"Are you ready to leave, Madame?"

"Ah...please wait. Perhaps you mean contestant Ariel Matisse?" PD Ji-ho asked nervously.

With the way she threw around the name Bing Yongsun, he was pretty worried about what she would go back and say.

For now, he needed to pacify her while figuring out why she was here and how she was related to Ariel.

Chloé Laurent just stared at him silently, her expression inscrutable due to her glasses.

"Ah, well, because of the upcoming performance, which is quite essential, he’s busy practicing with his team."

"Bring him here. I told him that I would be coming to see him to address these issues that I’m seeing online."

What exactly did she mean by address, and how the hell did a random kid with foster parents in Los Angeles know thee Chloé Laurent and could call her to argue his cause?

It seemed that Emily was actually correct? Ariel was being pushed by a separate camp that opposed the Forbes family?

Why were things going this way?

First, it was the judges giving Ariel good scores in the evaluation, and now this?

This was turning into a mess!

For now, he needed to get rid of her and inform the director about what was happening.

"I’m sorry, the contestants are currently not allowed to see outsiders. If you can give me a message, I’ll pass it on to him." PD Ji-ho replied with a polite smile even as a cold sweat began dripping down his back.

"I am not an outsider," Chloé responded confidently.

"Then, can I please have your relation to the contestant? I don’t recall seeing your information in the emergency contact section or family."

"He’s the son of my enemy." Chloé Laurent announced calmly.

"Pardon me? I don’t think I heard you correctly."

PD Ji-ho stared at her face to see if she was joking, but couldn’t see her eyes.

The assistant behind her was also stone-faced, making it difficult to gauge the atmosphere.

Was this the strange French sense of humor that he heard about?

After all, people didn’t go around calling people their enemy, right?

Much less fly over 15 hours to ask about the son of an enemy.

And who the hell were Ariel’s parents that they were enemies with her?

What was this kid’s actual background?

"Along with being incompetent, it seems that you’re also deaf? As far as I know, he’s of legal age, so bring him here and he can verify whether or not I’m an outsider."

"I’m sorry. Due to safety reasons, I can’t do that since he’s considered a minor in Korea."

"Then I shall give him a phone call and have him come. Give him the afternoon off so I can take him out for lunch and hear his side of things before I sort you out."

"All phones have been seized from contestants due to the performance. We want to avoid any leaks since a collaboration between many agencies. And unfortunately, all contestants are currently banned from leaving the premises due to this performance unless it’s an emergency."

"Really?" Chloé dragged her words out slowly before continuing, "Several minors are in a foreign country, and you seize their only form of communication to the outside world and lock them in a building. Rather than an idol survival show, aren’t you running a child trafficking ring? Do the international police need to be called?"

At the sudden pointed accusation, PD Ji-ho suddenly got defensive.

"This is how we’ve always done it. When we were in America, it was the same, so I don’t understand why it’s suddenly an issue. I’m sorry, ma’am, but no guests are allowed to see the contestants. If you continue this line of questioning, whether or not you have Bing Yongsun’s permission, I’ll have you escorted out of the building."

"Sabine."

The assistant stepped forward, while magically pulling out a binder from an unknown place and flipping through it so the PD could take a look.

"Let’s pivot then. We wanted to know if you had any plans to issue a statement to protect Ariel? He’s currently receiving an unprecedented amount of hate due to that foul episode that you released, and you vowed not long ago to protect the mental health of your contestants. The comments underneath posts are not being filtered; there are a couple of your contestants, including the supposed ’victim’, liking terrible posts calling for unspeakable things to happen to Ariel when they supposedly don’t have phone access. To make matters worse, the official Pop Star Academy account has also been liking those terrible posts and comments. Do you plan on releasing the full footage to show the truth of what happened that day and put to rest the speculation that this was ’evil editing’ that is apparently a common occurrence on shows like this? Or is this retaliation against contestant Ariel for constantly speaking out?"

Looking at the printed examples that Sabine was showing him, PD Ji-ho put on his best customer service smile while cursing William for his stupidity.

All he had to do was stay quiet and be a perfect victim, but instead, he was currently terrorizing the contestants internally and liking stupid things externally with his main account.

Hadn’t he ever heard of a burner account?!

Why couldn’t he just learn how to act?

PD Ji-ho would have to speak with his uncle immediately after this and update him!

As for the staff member, they would be immediately found out and dealt with.

He just needed to get rid of this nosy woman first.

Putting on the subservient smile that had helped him climb the career ladder, PD Ji-ho softened his stance and sounded remorseful.

"Unfortunately, that’s just how things are. If we put out a statement for one contestant, it sets a precedent that we won’t be able to keep up with. But rest assured, we’re monitoring him properly internally, and he’s in extremely high spirits. None of this is affecting him emotionally. He hasn’t shed a single tear!"

His spirits were so high, in fact, that he was acting like a raging bull in a China shop and constantly antagonizing both the PD and William with not a hint of fear.

PD Ji-ho had to give it to Ari; it seemed that his spirit could never be broken, no matter what was thrown at him, and it was almost admirable.

Unfortunately for him, despite whatever backup he called, unless it was the record label owner himself, the Forbes family planned to push him out of the competition and make him disappear.

"Oh?"

"Yes. As you know, Ariel’s quite mentally tough. As for the liked comments, I’m sure it was a mistake, but I will discipline my staff properly so that such a thing doesn’t happen again. I will also double-check with William and let him know that his account was probably hacked and that people are trying to frame him. You mentioned releasing the full footage. Unfortunately, the original files were corrupted while editing the episode, so even if there was another story, which there isn’t, there’s nothing we can do."

Truly, the files were gone.

They had been thoroughly destroyed by PD Ji-ho himself, so that only magic could make them exist again.

"Is that right?"

"Yes, it is. It saddens me too because there was so much footage I wanted to release. I’ve tried all the experts, and no one could recover the files. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do. I just hope that contestant Ariel uses this as a lesson to behave kindly from now on. If he did so in the first place, he wouldn’t be suffering so much karma. Does that answer your question?"

"Madame?"

Sabine turned to Chloé, who hadn’t moved a muscle.

"We’re done here."

"Of course, Madame."

The binder quickly disappeared, and Sabine helped arrange the fur coat on Chloé’s thin shoulders as she stood up.

"Ji-ho was it?" Chloé Laurent looked him up and down before her blood red lips curved up in a cold smile.

"Yes, that’s correct."

"I’ll be seeing you soon. I wouldn’t look forward to it if I were you."

"I’m sorry you feel that way. Thank you for coming. It was a pleasure to meet you."

"I can’t say the same."

********************

Ari spent the rest of the week in a busy state. His mornings were vocal practice with Jelissa and team practice during the day.

At night, he spent time composing the song with Jamie, emailing preliminary information to various lawyers to initiate his lawsuit against the Crouch family, and attempting to message Chloé on her newly created Finstagram since everyone had their phones seized.

During his brief free time, he spent the time hunting down Daniel, who either ran from him, was dragged away by William, or, the few times that Ari actually cornered him, refused to talk.

With his timer counting down and only one surprise mission being completed, Ari was getting a little stressed out.

The days quickly passed by until finally it was performance day.

Since they had rehearsals and a sound check before the performance time, the day had started very early, with everyone cycling through hair and makeup before putting on their outfits and boarding the bus to drive to the location.

By the time they arrived there, even though it was several hours before the actual show began, the area around the red carpet was full of fans, photographers, and reporters, all noisily taking up space and yelling commands at the different groups posing for photos against the backdrop.

Ari waited quietly for all the other groups to leave the bus while gathering his group, dressed in pinstriped suits, while holding black and gold canes.

"Boys, you know the order. It’s Levi, Alfonso, me, Justin, Woobin, then Jamie. Sunglasses on. Grab your canes. Shoulders back. Stand tall. No smiling. Especially you, Jamie. No smiling. We’re the mob. Levi, show them why you’re stone-cold killer number 1."

"...for the record, I hate that name."

"Too bad, so sad. Now go. 10 seconds to yourself, so use it well."

Holding back a sigh, Levi, whose buzzcut was now a bright silver color, put on his dark sunglasses.

Holding onto his cane, he rested it on his shoulders as if it were a baseball bat and walked down the steps of the bus slowly while adjusting his tie.

As numerous cameras flashed when they caught sight of him, instead of following orders to keep a straight face, a sharp smile appeared, exposing sharp canines that glinted from the flashes before disappearing as he resumed his previous glare.

As Levi moved out of the way, another foot appeared as Alfonso stepped out of the bus.

With his long hair slicked back, fedora at a slight angle, and cane resting on the ground, the Brazilian boy would fit right in if he were thrown into a black and white mafia movie.

After holding several poses, Alfonso stepped to the side, and a couple of seconds later, a bright red shoe landed on the step before the owner stepped out.