From Skid Row to Superstardom: An Idol System Novel-Chapter 202: He’s Back (1)

"Welcome back, contestant Ari. I’m so glad to see you. Also, happy belated birthday and welcome to adulthood."

"...Thank you?"

Ari could only give PD Emily a suspicious glance, especially when she was kindly greeting him with a gentle smile on her face.

She never, ever smiled.

Ever.

So seeing her smile so kindly, somebody was clearly in for it, and he hoped it wasn’t him.

"You came nice and early, so we have some time to get some house cleaning out of the way. Why don’t we have a personal interview first? I have some things to update you on. There’s some content for you to film, and then you can rejoin the contestants. Understood?"

"Sure."

Ari followed along behind her, wondering what kind of questions he would be asked and whether he should follow Grace’s nagging advice to be more palatable to the public or just continue being himself.

As he was led into the room, Ari still hadn’t made up his mind at all, but it seemed that the PD had no plans to wait for him to collect himself.

The red light of the camera turned on as the bright light aimed at his face, and she began.

"Well, let’s begin. How does it feel to be back after a nice long break?"

"It feels pretty good," Ari replied simply.

As she gestured for him to say more, Ari thought for a bit before continuing, "I’m glad that the production team allowed me to come back onto the show to continue pursuing my dream, and I’m thankful to all the fans who put in the time and energy to support me; it means a lot."

"We haven’t announced your return to the public as well as the other contestants, but there have been quite a few think pieces, polls, and opinions about you, your character, the incident, and what we as the production team should do in regards to your situation. What do you think about that?"

"I think people are entitled to their own opinions, but I generally don’t let those opinions affect me, especially if the people giving them don’t know who I am as a person or the truth of the matter. I just try to live life as best as I can and do to others as they do to me. And at the end of the day, I was allowed to return, so the thoughts and opinions of others are no big deal."

"Very profound. It seems adulthood agrees with you. Speaking of opinions, we recently had the contestants take several polls about each other, and some of the results were quite interesting to say the least. Would you like to hear them?"

Do I even have a choice in this matter?

Rather than saying what he was actually thinking, Ari just shrugged.

"Sure."

"Excellent!"

PD Emily gestured to one of the staff members, who brought over a clipboard. She immediately skipped past the positive results and straight into the more controversial ones to elicit a good interview response.

"First of all, we had the contestants take a poll on which contestants they would want to debut with and which contestants they did not want to debut with if they could choose. You happened to be the number one contestant that people didn’t want to debut with. How do you feel about that? Does it bother you?"

Ari: ಠ_ಠ

What kind of insane question was this?

Why in the world would you ask contestants that?

And what kind of response are you expecting me to give?

Of course, it bothers me a little bit!

Holding back a sigh, Ari tried to respond as politely as he could.

"I think people are allowed to have their own opinions, and it doesn’t particularly bother me one way or another as long as we all work toward our goals on the show. In life, you don’t always get to work with the people you want, but you still have to get the job done."

"Do you plan on trying to change their minds?"

"Not really? I want to continue to present my true self, and if it’s something others don’t like, there’s nothing I can do about it since I don’t want to live a fake life."

"How diplomatic of you." PD Emily commented dryly, a bit disappointed at the PC’s answer, before continuing, "Well, can you guess how many people wanted to debut with you? We took the poll when 79 contestants, excluding you, were here."

So they had taken the poll right after his incident, when he got arrested at the cultural festival.

It didn’t take a genius to know that most people wouldn’t want to debut with someone caught in that kind of situation, especially when he had just disappeared and production wasn’t saying a word, so Ari just listed the number of people who had snuck out to see him for his birthday.

"Probably five people?"

At Ari’s surprisingly accurate guess, PD Emily’s eyes widened slightly before she regained her neutral expression.

"...correct. How do you feel learning that only 5 contestants out of 80 would choose to have you on their debut team? And many of those same people voted for production to kick you out when asked about how the issue should be resolved."

"I’m thankful to those people who thought I would be a good person to debut with and continue participating in the program."

Ari wanted to leave it at that, but PD Emily kept pushing.

"And those who didn’t? What about those who wanted you gone?"

"Well...I’m still here, aren’t I? Clearly, their opinion isn’t that important in the grand scheme of things." Ari replied with a sharp smile, causing PD Emily to smile in return.

Perfect.

"Great answer, but don’t celebrate too quickly. You missed a performance last week, and as a result, your team didn’t earn any additional voting points and actually had the worst performance. Since this week is Social Media Week and our halfway point, one of the tasks contestants have to complete is to create a short video introducing themselves in a way that stands out, which will be posted on all our channels along with their current rank. Just like before, the 7 contestants with the most views in a 24-hour time period will get a reward. You have about 10 minutes to film yours before you need to head to the ranking ceremony."

"Did the other contestants only have 10 minutes to complete it all?"

"Of course not. They had a day to prepare their ideas and 10 minutes to film, but you weren’t here now, were you? Unless you want to skip the ranking ceremony entirely? Of course, you will be immediately eliminated if you do. And wouldn’t that be a waste?"

Ari: ಠ_ಠ

"Tick tock, your time is wasting away. If you want to spend it making faces at me, that’s your prerogative. See you in 10 minutes?"

"...yes."

"Good."

PD Emily got up while gesturing for Kate to come grab him.

"Welcome back, Ari. It’s so good to see you and happy belated birthday! Sorry to rush you, but I’ll take you to the camera room to shoot this, and then I’ll drive you to the ranking ceremony immediately, okay? And no need to worry, it’s just a simple video that is a max of 30 seconds. If you can’t think of what to do, you can simply state your name, age, and a fun fact. Your face is pretty enough, so I’m sure you’ll be fine just staring at the camera."

At Kate’s words saying that she would drive him to the ranking ceremony, Ari’s face instinctively paled as he remembered how she had tried to kill him on the way to the hospital the last time.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to dwell on that; he had to come up with an idea that was memorable enough to stand out among other handsome contestants.

He easily kept up with Kate as she speed walked and asked, "Can I choose my song?"

"Of course. Everything from the camera angle and song is at your discretion, and feel free to grab any props from the box."

"Can I get a hint about what others did?"

"Yeah, some people did dance challenges, sang, and told jokes; it’s really just personal preference. Anyway, here we are. Rob. One more short video recording for mobile browsing, please." Kate waved at the familiar-looking cameraman.

"Got it. Let me know when you’re ready, contestant. Props are over there."

"Got it."

Rushing over to the prop box, Ari kept thinking, his brain working overtime trying to come up with something that would stand out.

He didn’t particularly want to give a basic introduction of himself since people who watched the show most likely already knew about him.

Dancing a challenge? He wasn’t confident in that, especially since he couldn’t use his jukebox skill right now. 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Singing? Everyone could sing, so he wouldn’t stand out.

Telling jokes? He wasn’t funny.

The only thing memorable about him was wearing makeup and being at the center of a controversy, where people thought he was going to be kicked off the show.

His hands swept over a green, ogre-like mask that vaguely reminded him of the mask that William had broken.

Hmmm.

Maybe he could do something with this?

There was one sound that he had seen trending with villain edits that would fit, and if combined with the controversy, and this mask...

"Can you do it like this?" Ari explained the concept and sound he wanted to the cameraman, and after laughing, Rob nodded.

"Not a problem. Not a problem." The man said, grabbing the phone camera and setting it up on the handheld tripod gimbal.

With seconds to spare, Ari got his less-than-10-second video filmed before dashing out with Kate.

And when PD Emily saw Ari’s video, she could only laugh because he really was a cheeky brat.

He really made it too easy to edit him in one issue or another.

Her finger quickly pressed the replay button as she watched the 10-second clip of booted feet walking up to the camera, before the owner squatted down to grab and hold the phone up, displaying a green monster mask topped by black curly hair as the audio played with boss like electronic music backing the words.

- Everybody hated me, they wanted me gone, they had a lot to say when I wasn’t here, but guess what? Heeeeeeeeee’s baaaaaaack!!!!

Slender, pale fingers pulled off the mask, exposing that striking face that had his tongue sticking out in a smirk as he made a peace sign.

And his requested caption was seven simple words.

Ariel - I’m here thanks to the angels

Laughing to herself once more, PD Emily went back to the editing room after seeing Kate peel off from the parking lot in a black van.