"I had a splendid time over the break. How about you?" Ryan questioned.
"I was just stuck with my part-time job really. It was nice to have some people recognize me though" Joe had a content expression as he said that.
"Seriously, the amount of people that asked if I'm dating you just keeps bugging me. I quite literally, have a bit of disdain for you so what's up with that?!" Steven slightly frowned as he spoke to Lily.
"Glad that we agree on something for once Steven" the beautiful lady casually nodded her head in agreement to his words.
"The frenemy between you two never ceases to amaze me honestly…" June had an amused expression on her face as she stared at the two.
"Helena! I love your new hairstyle! Very chic!" Katie complimented the French lady.
"Aww Katie! Thank you!" Helena beamed in response.
The expansive living room was not only filled with these set of people, but also a few other contestants left who were glad to see each other after the two week break.
As the chatter between different contestants present in the room just kept increasing, Kyle soon raised his gaze up from an issue of his favorite comic book [Tech Wiz] which he had been reading, just to appraise everyone in curiosity.
Staring at some of their status screens, he couldn't help but have a small sigh escape his lips as he began to feel a bit wary about the future.
'They've all improved…' he thought to himself.
Lily and Steven's singing skills were now, respectively, at level 12 and 11 from their previous level 11 and 10.
Katie, Joe and Helena were now at level 10 from their previous level 9, while Ryan and June were now also on the same level as Kyle himself was, level 9, both also advancing a single level from their previous skill level.
Although he had already expected this to happen at some point, it still left him feeling a bit unsure of his chances of winning against most of them as he currently was.
Even though he had also improved by leaps and bounds in just a month and a few weeks, he was sure it would end up being game over for him if he had to battle against the top two.
The others he could find a way to outperform, but those two were a literal death sentence if he ever had to go up against them.
Sighing to himself, the young man just resumed reading his comic, hoping that fate would deal him a good hand when the theme for next round would be announced tomorrow.
* * *
As the cameraperson's in the room angled their cameras expertly to get the right shots, the contestants sat around the living room while waiting for their judges who were seated on the wide couch in the middle of the room to speak.
"Welcome back everyone! Trust you had a nice break?" Blake, warm and receptive as ever, smiled at the contestants who grinned back at him and responded in affirmation.
"Good. Because starting next round, your fate won't be lying in our hands anymore but in how well you're able to persuade the audience, both in the hall and viewers at home to vote for you" he reminded them.
"I'm sure you all remember Howard informing you just before you left on the break that we will be switching over to a livestream format yeah?" Kiara smiled at everyone and said.
Once again, the contestants nodded at that and Jack then finally spoke, introducing the theme of the next round to them.
"With that refresher done, let's now inform you all about the theme we've decided on this round…" the salt-pepper haired judge trailed off as he said.
"… and that's a Duet Round!" Blake clapped his hands and instantly, some contestants sucked in a deep breath.
"We decided to go for a more traditional route this time but make no mistake, in this round, whoever you sing a duet with, is pretty much your opponent!" Kiara explained further and Jack picked it up from there.
"Which means only one contestant among each duet performer will move on to the next round by means of voting from the audience" he concluded, his expression blunt.
Studying the gazes of the contestants as a pretty tense atmosphere descended upon them in the room, Blake then opened his mouth;
"All that being said, we won't be the ones to select your matchups. Rather, it will be selected purely at random by using a lotto ball machine."
Saying that, the friendly judge then signaled to the production staffs and shortly after, they walked in with two lotto ball machines, one for the males and the other for the females.
Each machine already had few similarly colored and numbered balls in each of them, and it was yet to be switched on.
"As you can see, each machine has a colored lotto ball along with its number. So, when you select a ball and it corresponds to another on someone else's hand, that's who you'll be facing" Kiara gestured to the machines.
"The songs you'll be singing will then be assigned by us after you've identified your fellow opponents" Jack conclusively said.
Following that, the atmosphere in the room got even tenser as a few contestants began to dread facing anyone that they couldn't even put up a fight against, especially Lily and Steven.
Not minding their predicament, Jack calmly gestured with his hands and said;
"Now when you hear your name, walk up and select a ball."
And just like that, contestant names began to be called out by members of the production staff.
"Paxton Brown"
Swiftly, the young Canadian man got up to retrieve his ball, a red no. 6 one which was eventually then picked by June Roberts on the other machine, a pretty even match up considering both were at level 9.
"Helena Cadieux" the pretty French lady was called and she promptly retrieved her colored-ball from the machine.
"Jerry Thomson"
"Anna Briggs"
"Ryan Parker"
Upon hearing his name called, the brown-haired man soon had a wry smile form on his lips when he picked up his own ball and realized that he would be facing off against Helena.
Kyle pretty much understood that expression on his face and already felt sorry for his friend.
Steven on the other hand, was very safe as he faced off against the lady by the name of Anna Briggs whom had previously been called and Kyle had appraised to be at level 8.
He did pity her though when he saw the immense wave of panic in her eyes the moment she realized that the Swedish man was her opponent.
Joe, ended up being evenly matched with Katie and Kyle was really interested as to how that would play out since they were both at level 10 and had pretty powerful skill sets.
Eventually, Lily was called up and she ended up selecting a green no. 2 ball but none had selected it yet so she had to wait till her opponent picked a similar ball to hers.
After a few more minutes, Kyle was also called up.
Taking a deep breath as he put his hands into the lotto machine whose colored balls were spinning rapidly in the transparent container, he hoped for the best.
Just as his hands slightly latched onto a yellow ball, fate, being the bitch that it was, had a certain green suddenly ball smack away that which was in his hands and at the same time, perfectly lodge itself into his hands.
Sighing as he retrieved it, Kyle glanced at the large no. 2 on it and inwardly cussed.
'Just my darn luck…'
* * *
Not wanting to linger too much on his shitty luck, Kyle watched as Lily stared at him from the other end of the piano where she stood whilst leaning against the wall, her expression pretty casual.
Flexing her eyebrows upwards, she then lightly smiled and said;
"I won't hold back dreamboat. In fact, I plan to go all out again this round. I hope you can do the same too"
"Well, I'll make sure to give you a run for your money. Just be prepared. Who knows, you might actually end up losing to me" the young man replied with a thin smile, rising up to the challenge.
"That's the spirit!" she grinned at him as her hazel eyes lit up with excitement.
At the exact same time, a particular staff member walked into their rehearsal room and handed over their assigned song to Kyle via wireless transfer using the smartphones they had been provided with since the second auditions.
Walking over to his side and sitting just beside him on the piano stool, Lily glanced at the song they were tasked with performing.
'[End Of Us] huh…' the lady inwardly commented.
'This is going to be a pretty tough one to pull off due to how well we need to be in sync right from the first verse…' she mused.
'Will he be able to keep up?' Lily glanced at Kyle who didn't seem to be particularly disturbed despite the complexity of the song, judging by the expression on his face.
Although she felt like the young man was improving rapidly, probably even faster than anyone on the competition, this was a song that had a lot of high and low notes that was so well perfectly-blended together.
In addition to that, there was the fact that the song was also sang by two very popular musicians who had collaborated to put out such a great song that had then gone on to become very popular all over the world.
As a result, Lily more than anyone also understood that they couldn't afford to ruin it, unless, the fans of those two musicians would absolutely rip into them.
Kyle on the other hand, just stared at the song's 99% potential which had been met, unable to even come up with anything he felt he could use to gain an edge or an advantage over Lily.
Accepting that he just needed to give it is all regardless, he then turned over to Lily and said;
"Alright Lily. If you're ready, let's begin rehearsing"
"Sure" the lady replied and just like that, they began practicing the song in preparation for the duet round.