It's the day of the first performance as the center. I don't usually feel nervous in the mornings of the concerts. I brush my teeth doing all the usual things. Eating dodgy soup that my brother prepared for me. We had our usual pre-concert conversation.
"You nervous"
"Kind of" I say in a bored manner. He's never going to get a girlfriend if that's the best conversation he can come up with to his sister.
"Well don't be. I already have low expectations, so you cannot fail to meet them." he says in an almost proud manner.
"Get back to work" I say, finishing up and leaving.
The good thing being I can walk to the concert hall from my house. So I am not reliant on my useless brother.
…
I make it into the change rooms. Only slightly late. The change room is quite a crowded room despite its size. Different costumes everywhere. Then there are also halls like a large library just full of racks of different outfits.
"Where the hell have you been?" Yahiga yells, as I enter the room. Everyone is already mostly changed. I quickly got changed and joined the rest. We do some warm ups and stretches, which I guess help with performance.
As the clock approaches six o'clock Everyone is regaining some nerves as the opening looming closer. I don't know why they are scared when they are not even at the front.
The time comes for us to walk out. Everyone does a small swallow. We walk out into the dark getting into our positions in a single file line. The curtains are still drawn in front of us, so it kind of leaves us in the small bubble shielded from the outside world. My mind is thinking of not making any mistakes. We crouch down ready to start a performance.
"Hey Sanaka" Sunia whispers from behind. I look back to see her smiling.
"Remember Cylie" I didn't even wonder why she told me that, but it seemed to click. I don't know why it seems stupid but I forgot my worries. My body seemed to be filled with hate, which was probably an overaction. But I knew all the stuff Cylei went through to motivate CX co. Cylie had been ridiculed because of me, it was time that I had actually lived up to it.
The curtains exposed to reveal the grand stage however. However unlike the more recent performances where they got crowds of over two thousand, the people were spaced out quite a lot.
…
Liana had been contemplating if they really should have chosen Sanaka as the center position. Sanaka wasn't bad, she had somehow had fairly rapid improvements. Sanaka was still not at Sunia's level. In fact Sunia was far better than they had even realised. The competition displayed the difference in abilities of her compared to Sanaka. The contrast was crazy. It was even a neutral opinion that her technique was more refined and superior to even Sayaki.
She had even talked to other people, and they had said the same thing. They had chosen the easy option and all they could hope was that it didn't bite them in the back too much.
…
"They have three more performances before the Polls start". Armano says while fiddling with a pen on his desk. The performance had now finished. "What's up with you?"
He says looking up at the two women in his room. Both beauty's to any normal man's eye. Well also to him, but to him, he can't see anything of them except as relics of the past. Osiki, and her friend, an ex CX co member Himari, someone that decided to move into the three man idol game. A risk by any mark, but for someone of her skill it ended up lucrative. She was equally as tall as Osiki, But she was basically the opposite of someone like Hataya. She hit the gym and it was obvious she had the perfect women's gym body. She had a sharp jawline with dyed rugged hair, she gave off the do not mess with me vibes by just being in her vicinity. She was an A-lister of an Idol no doubt.
"That girl," she says, staring at the wall. Which contained a whiteboard with a list of all the idols in their correlated groups.
"Did you see the performance, Osiki?"
Osiki shakes her head
Armano smiles, he knew before he had even asked why Himari looked confused.
"Are you scared that she might become like Mayaki?" he says with a slight grin. He couldn't help but poke the bear slightly.
"I knew you would've correlated that look with Mayaki's the instant you saw it." She says walking up to his desk. He gives her a nod. "But from what I've heard, there isn't much to look forward to in her future."
"You say that like you know for certain."
"Well we will have to wait and see. No doubt that this is an interesting shoshina group." Osiki interrupts, not really wanting them to have a two hour discussion about the future of Idol groups.
"So what do you want to discuss, retirement?" Armano says, turning his attention to her.
She smirks.
"You've been trying to get rid of me for years, No? I can't leave CX co until I know that it is in good hands." Osiki says sitting down on the chair on the opposite side of Armano's desk, while crossing her legs.
"You don't think Hataya is sufficient."
"She's the one who has the power to burn down CX co instantly. But to extend it to the next phase? no."
Armano nods in agreement.
"So then what do you want to ask me?"
"Who is the person that Tayaki is about to lose to?" she says, staring at Amano.
He gives off a mysterious smile," It is as you have seen, K-pop has evolved again."
…
It might have not seemed that big of a deal for the director and some top people in CX co. However, Sanaka's performance was making a big noise in the audience. For their next performance they had a maxed out stadium of around 3000.
It wasn't the top people that were the only ones to be able to recognise that she looked like Mayaki Dancho. People even contemplated if she was Mayaki's sister. The group seemed to ride the wave of success into the polls.
…
"WOOHOO, We did it" Hosta yells out.
"Calm down." Liana calls while grabbing Hosta by the shirt and pulling her down from one of the tables.
"I can't believe we had a full crowd for all the three last performances. We should've been upgraded to a bigger stadium. " Soa says waving up glow sticks in a cute fashion.
"What's wrong with you?" a blonde haired girl named Sierli says approaching Sanaka.
"I'm just tired. I wanna go to bed and lie there for the next week." she says leaning against the wall.
"Lazy bum" Hosta calls out.
Sunia walks over to Sanaka.
"I think you would've made Cylei proud" she says in a quiet voice. Sanaka smiled back.
"Thankyou"
"When's the poll thing." Liana calls out, while trying to get changed.
"Next week monday" Hosta calls trying on random outfits from the closets. She does that nearly everyday, and has been told off a lot for it. The general consensus is that they probably have given up on teaching her.
…
I don't know why but Liana recommended I wear a face mask. Does she really think I'm going to get swarmed by a bunch of people on my way back. I'm not that big of a star just yet.
I walk through the front door, taking my face masks off before anyone sees it and bullies me for thinking that I am that famous.
I walk in to see my brother with the usual Sid and Samarchi. They are sitting in the living room playing Wizard or something. They look at me confused.
"Did you walk home without a face mask?" Sid says with an eyebrow raised.
"Did you not get swarmed?" Samarchi said.
I look at my brother who finally looks up from his cards and nods. He still looks like he woke up on death's door, but I see he is getting better.
"Why do you think I am going to get swarmed?" I say throwing my bag on the floor.
"Because you legit are pretty famous now."
"Some People, a very small amount, well, are calling you 'the next Dancho'." Sid says while reading some random article in the newspaper.
Why would people call me the next coming of Mayaki Dancho.
"Why Mayaki?"
"You look like you are related to her, especially when you do this look" Samarchi says, pulling up a picture of me on stage.
It's odd it isn't the face shape I normally do for the ugly person. Well it's similar but it's different, I look mean well kind of like that of a model face.
I guess I am pretty good, thinking about it.
"Would you say I'm better than Sayaki?"
"Wait a second Sid, this was gifted by Laraunce. You piece of crap" Sabiti says while pummeling Sid's face into the ground. Well it seems they are too preoccupied to answer my simple question.
…
I
…
Back in a different CX co facility. The long forgotten about the second group.
"Hey good training Hina." A blonde pretty girl yells out to Hina. Hina has an athletic build and her hair in a messy high ponytail. She looks like she has mascara on all the time given her dark eyebrows and eyelashes. She was the number one in this group without a doubt, she was given center at the start, and there has been no point in time when there was a consideration to change.
The blonde girl Silia and her friend catch up to Hina.
"What do you think you are gonna rank in the competition? I'm hoping to hit top 80"
"What if you go unranked?" Hina says not really paying attention. Her mind was more stuck on what she had seen when reviewing the other groups' concerts. She was always a competitive person. Making sure that she always made sure that she knew who the top people were, however she recognised that she was so caught up in training that she hadn't actually been paying attention to the other group. However she knew who the big hitters were. Sayaki the young sibling of Tayaki, and Sunia. She had seen the early performance of this group, She had also recognised this Hataya girl as decent. Sayaki oozed the same personality as her older sister.
She recalled walking by Tayaki and Mayaki in the mall when they were only Shoshina's. She asked them both for an autograph, however Tayaki walked past in a cold manner, While Mayaki looked at her with an eyebrow raised. Like she was surprised that someone would ask for an autograph, but then had signed it for her with a nice smile, Then did a run to catch up to Tayaki who was mentioning something about being demoted.
To Hina Mayaki had seemed like a normal person, someone who hadn't got used to fame, while Tayaki had obviously seen how her Mum had dealt with the fame. But from the insight of now that had changed quickly as Mayaki was forced to adapt with her . It meant that someone, even like Mayaki who was just from an average family could make it to the top.
"I want 57," she says to Silia. It one ups Tayaki's first year ranking, which was one above Mayaki's rank of 59.
"Well That's quite ambitious." Silia says with a grin on her face.
"Thanks for the confidence."