From Skid Row to Superstardom: An Idol System Novel

Ari looked down at the thick stack of papers that he was supposed to synthesize into his brain.

It contained the list of things that contestants could do, say, and the proper way to answer questions, among other things, and after eating a breakfast he couldn't even taste, he and the other contestants were stuck sitting through a boring lecture for hours.

"Now, as contestants who have made it this far, you all need to realize that it's an honor to be here on this program. You didn't make it here through your skill alone, and there are thousands of people who want and might even deserve to be in your position. You might not agree with it, but the PDs, staff members, have your best interest at heart, so when you act out like a toddler instead of going through the proper channels to express any frustrations or second thoughts you may be having, or choose to say the first thing that comes to mind and cause a misunderstanding with the public rather than talk it over like adults, it causes problems for everyone including your teammates."

The production team has our best interest at heart?

What a bunch of nonsense.

As the man paused midsentence to glare at him, Ari coughed in return while staring him dead in the eyes.

What?

Have something to say to me?

The man looked away.

"Ahem, as I was saying, when difficult questions pop up, the correct thing to do is to gently change the subject or look to a staff member to help guide you on how to navigate it. And if you have issues-blah blah blah blah blah"

While listening with one ear and ignoring what was obviously propaganda, Ari skimmed through the documents, filtering what seemed helpful from what was basically nicely worded statements that were basically telling contestants to shut up and sing, dance, and obey the production team without making them look bad when given the opportunity to speak.

In other words, it was complete nonsense.

Wishing that he had Jamie's amazing talent of sleeping with his eyes open or had at least thought to bring his schoolwork, Ari suffered through the rest of the lecture, and when it was finally done, 4 hours later, he got up along with everyone else to eat and then hopefully take a nap since they had an unusually large amount of free time.

For some reason, many of the staff members had slowly gone missing, and the few they saw around looked as if they were on the verge of collapse from overwork.

It seemed like the PDs were making everyone suffer.

"Hey…can we talk?"

A tanned hand grabbed Ari's shoulder, and as he turned, he saw Vishal with a complicated expression.

"Yeah, what's up?"

"Let's get a private room."

"Sure, cough. Double J, save me soup, please. A lot."

"And tea? Lots of honey?"

"Oui."

"Got it. See you soon."

Ari followed the Indian boy curiously, wondering what he wanted to talk about.

After their performance, Ari had naturally apologized to his teammates.

Not because he regretted his actions or that he wouldn't do what he did again, but because he thought they might feel offended and hurt that he changed the script without letting them know.

Despite the apology, there was still a notable distance between him and the other people on the team, with the most apparent one being Vishal, who seemed to have something weighing on his mind and generally avoided him.

As someone who didn't believe in holding in bad feelings, Ari was glad to finally clear the air.

After locking the door and ensuring that there were no cameras in the random practice room, Ari sat comfortably against the wall on one side of the room and stared at Vishal, who kept opening and closing his mouth like he wanted to say something but ended up just staying silent..

"So what's up? I can tell you've been feeling some type of way since the performance. Didn't like my actions, or is it something else?" Ari decided to get right to the root of the matter.

"You…you really just dive into the heart of things without any small talk. Don't you get nervous when talking about serious things?" Vishal stared at him with a slightly exasperated expression.

"As long as the person doesn't start crying, then no. Take a seat because my head hurts from looking up. Feel free to speak your mind, and we can have a conversation if that's what you want. Contrary to being called a crashout, I AM a pretty good listener and I generally don't act like a crazy person unless people act crazy toward me first, cough."

Ari slipped a new cough drop into his mouth while staring expectantly at Vishal, who sighed before sitting down.

"Can you look away? I know you're not angry at me, but when you stare at me like that, it's a bit difficult to say what I want."

Ari immediately pulled the fur hat lower and looked at the ground while waiting for Vishal to get whatever he wanted to say off his chest.

"...You're right. What you and Levi did at the performance…. I didn't like it."

Ari just stayed silent and let him continue.

"I think what you did was wrong and inconsiderate, especially toward those of us who were supposed to be your teammates, and as the person who became the de facto team leader, changing what we practiced last minute, changing the words of your verse, and even changing the ending to allow Levi to perform like that is not okay. You put us in a bad position."

"How so?" Ari glanced up briefly before looking back down, "My verse is mine and has nothing to do with you all, and I intentionally made sure that none of you were on stage when Levi did his thing."

"Yeah, but we're a team. Your actions affect all of us, and because of your beef with the production team, the trainers, or whatever, we are all liable for your actions and words."

Ari: ಠ_ಠ

Are you though?

I'm pretty sure only one of us gets to have the PD blackmail you while the assistant PD tries to kick you out and only backs off because of the parent of another contestant.

"Let me get this straight, you're against me calling out production for sabotaging me when they clearly sabotaged us on stage at our performance?"

"You're assuming that it's their fault when they're not the ones in control of the venue we performed at, and so many things went wrong there. I'm positive all the bad things that happened weren't just to take you out or sabotage you, and if you think that, it's pretty egotistical of you, no offense. I went to the audio station to help fix the sound issue, and it was a mess with staff panicking as they tried to figure out what was wrong. They weren't trying to be malicious. There were just a lot of accidents that happened at once, and while I'm glad you had the extra flash drives of music, you then blew it out of proportion with your verse and then Levi's whole thing, which was obviously preplanned, putting the rest of the team in a bad position..."

Ari just stared at the floor blankly since he wasn't even sure where to start explaining the issues that connected him, William, and the production team.

While he partially understood where Vishal was coming from, he also didn't agree.

But, for someone who didn't know what was going on behind the scenes, of course, it sounded like a made-up story and like he was being egotistical.

"Look. I understand that you might not like the production team. They go overboard sometimes, especially toward you, but I think you take it too far because at this point, you're basically able to do whatever you want. After all, you're really good-looking, you have a high rank, and other high-ranking contestants like you. You're clearly talented because you've improved so quickly, and your fans and the general public know and support you hardcore. However, the rest of us don't have that luxury, okay? We can't risk it, act out, and make accusations just because we're angry or upset at a situation happening. Especially when it was a lot of coincidences lining up."

"What's that supposed to mean? You think the media training guy was right? That instead of complaining, I should go through 'proper channels' and report what's going on?"

Ari wanted to laugh because if people thought that reporting to the PD would accomplish something, they were very, very naive.

"A little bit. Those of us not at the top, like you or Benjamin, and those who don't have family support, like William or Levi, have to struggle for the spotlight, and when you act the way you do, it makes it hard for those of us on your team to stand out. Especially when you act like you did, things change from a team performance and suddenly become the Ari show. You suck away all the attention. Even now, rather than people talking about our team's performance or even any other team's performance, it's all about you. All over the news, all over the communities, it's just discourse. About you. What are the rest of us supposed to do, huh?"

"I didn't know that. You know I don't check the news."

Contestants had various ways of dealing with the impact of the program.

Many, like Benjamin, obsessively checked to see how they were doing in the public eye whenever they could, and there were those like Jamie and Ari who chose to pretend they were in a bubble and just ignore everything.

The few times that he did search himself, while there was a good amount of positive things, Ari felt both amazed at how creatively toxic and insulting people could be, but also felt that it was kind of sad in a way.

He didn't know these people, and they didn't know him, but they had formed an entire opinion on his life due to watching 2-hour episodes and extra content weekly about him, and decided to make it their own personality.

If they liked him, that was fine, and if they disliked him, that was fine too.

He just thought that a lot of people had a lot of free time to devote to something or someone they supposedly hated, and maybe they should pivot and use that time on something they liked instead.

They might be happier that way.

"Because you have the luxury to do that. Not to mention the backlash that we'll get from production, the trainers, and producers because of this, even though the rest of us didn't do anything or even know about it, we're going to be affected because of what you and Levi did, and again, some of us don't have the luxury of having a huge fan base and community to prop them up, no matter what happens, or have famous parents that everyone loves. I am here struggling to stay in the program with everything that I have because if I'm eliminated, it's over for me. You know that my parents don't even know that I'm here? I quit my internship to be here, and I'm betting everything in hopes that I make it so I can show them that my decision wasn't a mistake or me throwing my career away. Lots of other contestants are in the same boat. We're doing our best, holding it in, and not acting selfishly. Because for all that you say you don't want to be the leader, you always take charge of the group, and in this situation, you put the needs of yourself and Levi over the rest of us. You changed the music without telling us, and you and Levi clearly discussed what would happen and executed it. And even though you apologized, it doesn't mean anything because I know for a fact you would do the same thing again. Right?"

"That's right."

At Ari's flippant response, Vishal's expression darkened, and he took a deep breath

"This is what I'm talking about. You think you're always right, no matter what you do."

"I don't think I'm always right, I think I'm always vocal. I also think that there are a lot of things going on in the background that you're not aware of, things that I can't explain, and things that are honestly none of your business. I did my best to stand up for myself and support another teammate who wanted to stand up for himself after being unfairly disrespected and belittled by someone he respected, while keeping the rest of you out of it as much as possible. Is that a perfect solution? No. Were there other avenues to get the point across in a better manner? Maybe. Should I have told the team and let them decide on Levi's issue? Probably, but that would mean we both know what the response to that would be, and this was the best compromise I could think of. Am I sorry that this might affect the rest of you badly? Yes. But would I do it again? Of course."

"Then the apology is useless because what you did is still wrong, it's going to affect the rest of us negatively, and you would still do it again, so who cares? Why bother to apologize?"

Ari just stared at him for a moment before taking a deep breath and trying to keep his voice calm.

"I think that we will just have to agree to disagree. I don't think I'm in the right completely, but I also don't think I'm fully in the wrong. I'm glad that your experience here has been good enough that you think my response to things is egotistical, and that going to production fixes things. However, as I mentioned, that's not my experience. I know for a fact that the production team is sabotaging me and just watching to see how it plays out. And I know for a fact that my and Levi's 'outspokenness and selfishness' have benefited not only me but also the team members. After all, if the two of us didn't say anything, what song would our team be performing? Do you think you would be in a position to have this discussion now? I barely check the internet, and I know Lil Pumpy is under fire for that trash song he originally made. Left to the rest of the team, we would have performed the wrong song, onstage instead of waiting until Levi went to fix the sound issue again. Yet you're telling me no sabotage was involved, heh."

"Well…"

Seeing Vishal look away, Ari just sighed before lowering his voice.

"I'm not going to argue with you because your feelings are valid, and I heard your message loud and clear. I'll do my best to ensure you're not affected by my future actions. At the end of the day, this program is an individual battle until the last ranking ceremony, but the ultimate goal is to form a team, which means considering the feelings of others. Thank you for sharing your feelings. From now on, if it's something I plan to go through with anyway, I'll let you know, and you can do whatever you want with that information, whether it's sharing it with production so they can stop me or keeping it confidential. But…I think that it would probably be best for you to just not be on my team from now on if possible, and it might be better for you to distance yourself from me as well."

"Distance myself? Are you mad at me?"

"I'm not mad at all. Disappointed? A little, but I'm happy to clear the air. I just think that everyone has a different level of things they can tolerate. Levi and I align very closely on where that line is and how to handle it, and you are on the other end of the spectrum. Inevitably, we'll clash, but inherently that's not a bad thing. I don't want to be the reason you don't achieve your dream, especially if you feel that my presence on your team takes all the attention from everyone else or is always causing drama. My only advice to you is…you know what? Never mind. I don't think it matters, and it might sound condescending, but I wouldn't worry about getting retaliation for this performance. Knowing the PD, I'm about to be edited like a literal monster, while the rest of the team will get an angel edit for putting up with me and my selfishness. But, I digress. Thanks for letting me know. I appreciate it. Anything else you wanted to talk about?"

"…no, that was it."

"Cool."

Giving Vishal a polite smile and a thumbs up, Ari walked out of the practice room and shut it behind him, leaving Vishal inside alone.

He briefly considered skipping lunch since he really wasn't in the mood to socialize anymore, but remembering the mission to add weight, he dragged himself to go eat a meal.

And after he was done eating, before they could disperse, PD Emily showed up with a bright smile on her face despite the dark shadows underneath them.

"Hey, Boys! After that lovely Media Training lesson, are you guys ready to perform some fan service? Go get changed into your uniforms and come line up."