"You, what are you doing?"
Ari glanced at Jaywalk with a confused expression at the sudden question.
Was the man blind, or was this one of those rhetorical things?
"Entering the room?"
"Where are your shoes?" Jaywalk asked as he furrowed his brows while staring at the strange kid in front of him.
Firstly, the kid was wearing a strange, plastic, brown, and green mask which looked like some type of alien face.
Then, instead of proper training clothes, he was wearing a dark brown animal two-piece set with a hood that had a cartoon face drawn cutely on it.
Finally, he was entering the dance studio with socks instead of proper shoes that could grip the wooden floor and prevent slips and accidents.
On the whole, the boy just seemed like he was mocking everything that Jaywalk stood for.
"I didn't know I needed separate shoes for dance class. I planned on going to buy some after the class was over."
"I hate unpreparedness. And what you're showing me is unpreparedness." Jaywalk scolded Ari when he heard what sounded like excuses.
"I asked PD Emily at the end of yesterday's performances, and she didn't mention anything about it. If you don't believe me, you can go ask her or any contestant that was there," Ari replied coolly, ignoring the gazes of other F-grade students staring at him.
At the clear challenge in those words, Jaywalk frowned even more.
"Those are just excuses. You should have read the rules on what to prepare."
"I read the rules, and it didn't say that I need shoes specifically for dancing in a studio." Ari stubbornly argued back, refusing to take the blame for something that he didn't know.
It wasn't his fault that he hadn't taken a dance class before!
"Then you should have used your common sense!"
Ari was about to retort to the dance trainer, who was trying to blame him for not having shoes, even though it wasn't his fault.
But when he spotted a cameraman who was drawn by the back and forth, pointing the large camera at him, he restrained a sigh before speaking to Jaywalk again while trying to keep his voice as polite as possible.
"Okay. I'll be getting shoes after the class is over. May I enter the room now?"
"No."
Ari: "...?"
"When you're in class with me, take that mask off."
Not in the mood to quibble, Ari just shrugged.
"Sure."
At Jaywalk's words and Ari's agreement, the contestants standing in the hall looked excited about finally seeing Ari's face.
Every time they had seen him, he was either wearing that weird-looking mask or had on so much face paint that his only recognizable features were his eyes and his lips.
There was even a rumor from class F1 that he slept with the mask on like a weirdo.
It was finally time to see what he truly looked like.
Everyone, including the cameraman who was zooming in on the green face mask watched while holding their breath, wondering what it was going to look like.
Thick lips?
Ugly scarring?
Terrible acne?
There was a strange excitement in the air.
Ari's thin fingers grabbed the green horn of the snail mask, and he slowly lifted it up.
And what was underneath was…..
A face painted the whitest of whites with black graphic designs on it.
It appeared a bit glossy, like he had rubbed some oil, but otherwise it looked exactly like the face paint he wore to the secondary performance.
- Sigh
- Boooo.
- How boring.
Everyone was completely disappointed that the grand reveal hadn't revealed anything grand at all.
But on the other hand, the trainer who had never seen Ari before was completely flabbergasted.
"Wh-what the heck is wrong with you?" Jaywalk looked even more confused as he stared at another layer covering up this strange student's face.
Somehow, he had piled on so much makeup that his entire face looked flat except for his lips, which were painted a bright red.
Instead of a person, he really thought he was looking at a mime or a clown.
What kind of weirdness was this?
At the bizarre question, Ari blinked before speaking calmly, "The rules allow for makeup, so I'm just wearing it to express myself. Can I enter the studio now?"
"…just get inside. And stop talking!"
"Thank you."
Ari nodded his head politely before dropping his mask in his cubby and walking into the studio in his bare feet.
Wanting to avoid any issues with the trainer, he headed straight to the back of the room and waited for everyone else to come in.
There were quite a few students from the F1 dorm room, including Vishal and Gale, the blonde boy with the nose piercings.
The others were a few Korean trainees he had briefly met, who didn't speak a lot of English, and several other Americans, and a Brazilian contestant who Ari remembered because he had extra-long hair.
With over 20 of them inside the studio, the large room quickly began to feel crowded, and Ari could barely see himself in the mirror that took up the longest wall.
Jaywalk, shut the door after letting in the cameraman, and head to the front of the room.
"How many of you have taken dance classes? At least once."
A majority of the people in the room raised their hands.
The only ones who didn't were Ari and Vishal, who had come in barefoot and had somehow managed to avoid being scolded by Jaywalk.
"Not bad. Well, since we're starting with the basics, before I start teaching you all the choreography, I am going to take you all through a stretching routine as well as teach you a warm-up with three songs, which last about 10 minutes. After today, you can use the stretches and the warm-up routine that I teach you, or you can use whatever you find comfortable. What matters is that your body is fully warmed up, so we can avoid injuries. Let's start off by slowly setting our legs, shoulder width apart, and reaching for the ground. Let's hold it for 15 seconds."
As Ari bent down to try to follow the instructions, his thighs and back began screaming in pain and shaking as he struggled to hold the position.
[You look like a newborn baby giraffe trying to walk.]
[Didn't I tell you to exercise properly?]
[Pathetic.]
'You shut up!'
Ari focused on ignoring Nova while doing his best to hold the stretching position and preventing tears from coming out of his eyes.
"Next, let's sit on the ground, feet together and grab our legs…"
...This was torture.
That was Ari's conclusion.
He completely struggled to follow along with the stretches that Jaywalk made look easy.
His body was simply not flexible in the slightest.
Touching his toes, stretching his legs, and balancing were completely out of his wheelhouse, and he was doing much worse than the other contestants.
Because he was wearing socks, his footing was unstable, so he would frequently fall down, and each time, Jaywalk's face just got angrier and angrier.
At some point, the man didn't even look at him anymore. He just completely pretended that Ari didn't exist.
By the time they completed the full body stretch and light exercises like jumping jacks and jogging in place, Ari's body was aching in mysterious ways, and he was ready to go back to bed.
This was more tiring than just running a 3k.
If it wasn't for the otterly adorable tracksuit, Ari was sure that he would be as sweaty as the other contestants in the room.
And he could only imagine how much worse he would be without the extra stat point in dance.
All the contestants collapsed on the ground with shaking legs while hoping for a break.
Unfortunately for Ari and the rest of the contestants, Jaywalk tapped a tablet that was connected to a speaker, and cheery pop music began playing.
"Now that we've stretched lightly, let me teach you some of the basics of dancing."
Even though Jaywalk was smiling as he spoke, for some reason, Ari thought he looked like a devil.
"The first thing we'll learn is a glide step. You take one step forward and kick off with your other foot in a diagonal manner. Like this."
Jaywalk quickly demonstrated a cool-looking glide step forwards and backwards before staring at the room of contestants.
"Now you all try it. Remember, you need to kick off with your foot in a diagonal manner."
Thump-
Boom-
Crash!
As the contestants tried to copy Jaywalk, over half of them, including Ari, tangled and tripped over their own feet and fell to the ground.
The cameraman, who had been silently recording everything, excitedly turned the camera to focus on the despondent contestants' faces before turning it to capture Jaywalk's disappointed and thoroughly disgusted expression.
Even though a thick tension filled the room, the cameraman continued his actions while internally screaming with joy.
He knew PD Emily and PD Park Ji-ho would be so excited to see this footage. He might even be able to leave early!