The next few days following the blind auditions slowly passed by.
During that time, the contestants who had already been promoted over the course of the week, had quite a lot of free time to themselves.
For Kyle though, he just focused on taking more vocal lessons and learning how to dance a bit more through the choreography classes.
Obviously, that also meant that he ran into Lily and Steven on multiple occasions.
Considering they were no longer just acquaintances and were actually friends now, it was usually quite fun to sit down around the hotel's central living room and just have mundane conversations.
At the same time too, the new hotel was slowly getting filled up and soon, Ryan, Katie, Joe, Helena and Paxton, along with some other contestants soon arrived after also making it through the blind auditions.
Today though, late night Thursday to be specific, also had some of them sitting in the living room while conversing.
"I swear to God, my whole body hurts. Who invented dancing anyway?" Steven frowned and said while Ryan just replied casually while downing an energy drink.
"Whoever it was. I'm super grateful to them"
"Of course you'd say that" Katie rolled her eyes and sighed, her head resting on Lily's shoulder.
"I have to agree with Ryan there. Dancing's pretty fun" Joe on the other hand said without even raising his head up from his phone's screen.
"Food's ready!" Kyle called out as he walked in with a wide tray of food containing all kinds of delicacies.
"Good heavens they smell delicious Kyle!" Katie was the first to spring up and grab her plate.
The others also did the same and greatly complimented Kyle's cooking.
Lily's especially was a standout.
"You are also a great cook. Definitely a dreamboat" she had casually said while enjoying her food with the most satisfying expression.
Katie and Ryan immediately had their eyes widen in surprise at her sudden compliment while Kyle just tilted his head in mild amusement.
"See! I told you she was broken!" Ryan pointed to Lily while speaking to Katie who swiftly replied.
"Now I believe you! Something's inherently gone lost in her!"
"Well I appreciate the compliment. Thank you" Kyle just said and sat down to eat his own food.
"What? What's gone lost?" Steven asked in curiosity and the same could be seen Joe's face.
Lily, not particularly minding her two closest friends' reaction while also purposely ignoring Steven's question, just spoke to Kyle again, her tone full of humor.
"Say Kyle. Really, why join this crazy show when you have skills that would equally ensure you a stable life"
"Hmmm… Well, that's because passion can be a curse Lily" Kyle replied with a thin smile.
"How so?" she then questioned with a curious expression.
"You want the serious answer or you want me to play along?" he pointed his fork at her.
"Hmmm… let me in on the serious one first" Lily replied.
"Well, just like me, and all of you here, I'm sure there's one thing or the other that you can all do to effectively live a stable life…" he began.
"But you won't do it because you don't love it as much as wanting to be a well-known artist or a star. You might even be willing to make big-tradeoffs and sacrifices just to reach it. I don't recommend that though. Usually leads to eventual disaster…" the young man casually concluded while eating.
To Kyle, those were truly his honest thoughts on the matter.
But unknown to him, those words had really struck a chord with all of them seating around and a small introspective silence then descended into the room.
Wondering what had happened, Kyle raised his head up to stare at all of them, his face questioning what had caused the pervading silence.
"Oh it's nothing Kyle. Just that… that was a really insightful answer" Lily replied with a subtle smile that pretty much summed up everyone's thoughts.
"And now, you play along! What's the other answer?" the lady questioned again with an even more playful smile while everyone else waited in slight anticipation for his answer.
This time, Kyle sported a genuinely wide grin as he suddenly spoke in a British accent.
"So, I'd rather be here, cursed to be on this show, doing what I love, than have some foul-mouthed, rude, short-tempered, blonde-haired, sassy British chef, calling me an idiot sandwich!"
The moment he ended his sentence, everyone in the room took a few seconds to grasp his joke and then, instantly burst into a wave of uncontrollable laughter, completely forgetting that it was currently close to midnight.
* * *
"First off, congratulations to you all for making it this far! You're all truly talented!" Chris congratulated the promoted contestants with his signature winning smile.
"It's definitely been a long journey I'm sure but remember, there's still more challenges to come"
Those were Kiara's words as she stared at all the twenty-four contestants sitting around in the expansive living room.
"And speaking of challenges, it's time we informed you about the theme of the next round" Blake clapped his hands.
Instantly, the large TV-screen in the room lit up, showing as the Rising Voices logo slowly came up and then, rapidly began to spin faster and faster.
The producers and camera-persons were all situated expertly in the corners of the room, each taking different angled shots that would then be edited into a cohesive video later on.
"The theme of the next round will be…" Blake continued while gesturing to the screen as the contestants watched in anticipation.
"A Boy Band, Girl Band Knockout Round!" he declared as the rapidly spinning logo exploded to reveal the theme of the round.
Instantly, sucked breaths, mutters and hushed whispers as usual filled the room but Jack spoke over it all as he began to explain how the teams would be made.
"So the teams will be randomly selected through the use of two different spinning boards. No biases here"
As soon as he uttered those words, a few production staff members walked in with two large standing spinning boards, one for the ladies and the other for the guys.
On each of them, the twelve names of each contestant were already written and evenly split.
"This time, all of you will be performing on the same day next week. Saturday to be exact. Considering today's Friday, you have a little over a week to prepare" Jack added.
"Also, there will be no use of instruments this round. The songs that you will be tasked with performing will be assigned to your respective bands" Blake chipped in and said.
"You are, however, free to make your own artistic changes to the song to fit your members. Don't worry, you won't be facing any legal issues for doing so. We've handled that" Kiara explained with a thin smile.
"Now, when you hear your name been called, walk up and spin the board" Jack then concluded as one of the production staff members walked up and began to call their names.
* * *
"Well well well… I'd say we all have some truly nice luck, don't you think?" Ryan grinned and said as he stared at his assigned band members.
"I can't believe this…" Steven shook his head and sighed, although it was obvious he was quite happy with his paired members.
"I mean, this is fine right?" Joe remarked with a small smile.
Kyle on the other hand, just casually strolled into the room, the song they were tasked with performing already given to him.
"So uh, we might be in a bit of a pickle guys" he sighed and said as he connected his phone to the external audio speakers in the practice room assigned to them and played it.
Immediately the song began playing, all the other guys realized it truly was just as he had said.
"Why give us [Dancin' On The Edge]! It's infamous for having a very soulless vibe to it!" Steven was the first to comment.
"Yeah. The music itself isn't bad. A casual listen is even alright" Kyle mused out loud, a thoughtful expression on his face.
"But there's just something off about it, isn't there? It just, feels, mediocre…" Joe scratched the back of his head while Ryan let out a dry laughter as he spoke;
"Haha… It's actually somewhat comical when you think about how the song's from The Carl Finch"
'Yeah. That's also another major reason why the song's poorly received by most music lovers out there…' Kyle mused to himself, finding Ryan's words true.
Carl Finch was a popular American Singer who had started his career at a very young age of eighteen and had gone on to become a global superstar.
Most of his songs had always been hits, especially those in his third album [Fun Times], which had been about youthful adventures.
However, [Dancin' On The Edge], which was a pop-rock song, and also the last song on the album, always felt like it was the outlier out of the rest.
It also felt somewhat rushed, and also like it wasn't done with the same passion that the other songs in the album had.
Why that was so, no one really knew.
'It's such a shame though because the song would've been just as big of a hit as the other songs in his album if it was given more time to be fleshed out…' Kyle inwardly commented.
"Well, regardless of all that, we still need to give a good performance" he then spoke out loud and the guys nodded in agreement.
Considering they had this room all to themselves for the week to practice and get their bearings regarding the song, they figured there was no point complaining about a situation they had no control over.
"So, we have to be a boy band in a week? Quite the challenge I must say" Joe let out a few of his thoughts.
"No. we don't just have to be a boy band in a week. We have to be a great, boy band in a week!" Steven corrected him and the others also agreed.