Three days later, the auditions finally concluded. A total of 34 participants passed. Rayen had no idea how many failed.
He had already witnessed the farewell meal countless times, but it still made him feel the impending doom of failure. He sometimes even had nightmares that he was one of those people sitting on the dining table.
Since that day, that corner in the cafeteria had been silently acknowledge as an off-limits area. No one would voluntarily sit and eat there.
During those three days, Rayen hadn't seen Liam or even his shadow even though the sixth floor dorms aren't that big. It's impossible not to run into each other even once. There were only 34 participants, how could that even be possible?
'Is he avoiding me?'
Rayen wasn't even a patient person to begin with, so if Liam was doing it on purpose, he wouldn't seek him out too.
It would be better to just spend the time to improve his shitty dance skills.
Rayen looked at his phone, staring at the pitiful letter of his dance skills with a wry smile.
[Dancing: D+ (Dance Fertilizer in effect. 4 days remaining.)]
Despite practicing whenever he had an epiphany, it hadn't increased much... Even that annoying roommate of his had a B- rank in Dance!
With nothing else to do, Rayen fiddled with the Idol:Revive app on his phone. Recently, he had discovered one of its functions that mini Plotter hadn't explained to him.
A searching function!
So he tried searching for the only people he was currently acquainted with, and saw their decent skills.
[Name: Liam Ferrer
Stage Name: Not Set
Nationality: Filipino
Singing: C-
Dancing: B-
Life Book Points: 3 (764,091)]
[Name: Adrian Buenaventura
Stage Name: Not Set
Nationality: Filipino
Singing: B+
Dancing: B-
Life Book Points: 4 (1,003,507)]
Although Rayen had exceptional stats in singing, his dance aspect was really too shitty to even look at compared to theirs. Fortunately, it wasn't F or lower, else he might have cried unfairness.
'Was I asleep when God decided to rain down talents in dancing?'
Rayen laughed deprecatingly, feeling bitter inside.
When Rayen's vision landed on Adrian's Life Book Points, the gray numbers beside it almost made his eyes bulge.
'What the hell? He's more famous than me...?'
What the hell was this guy before he died? And how were these points even counted? Rayen's former Life Book points only numbered over eight hundred thousand, but before he died, their album sales average was over millions!
Although they weren't considered a worldwide famous band, they could be considered one of the nation's current representative band. But that enigmatic, long haired dude had a higher former Life Book points than him and Liam...
Rayen glanced at the person who had just finished showering and entered the room. Adrian noticed Rayen's gaze and blinked.
"What?" he asked, also noticing the phone in Rayen's hand. "What are you looking at?"
He quickly approached Rayen and peeked at his screen, his stats quickly registering in his vision.
He laughed softly. "Eh, you're stalking me."
'No. Don't be smug about it!'
Rayen quickly exited the app and lowered his phone.
Meanwhile, Adrian climbed onto the bunk bed to grab the phone he had tossed there before taking his shower. He opened his own Idol:Revive app and asked Rayen.
"How did you see my stats? I want to see yours and Liam's." Tapping on the screen, Adrian finally saw it. "Oh, found it."
He typed in Rayen's name and was dazzled by the high singing stat. It seemed that this band vocalist was a true, full-fledged singer. He wanted to salute, but when he saw the dance stat, he stopped.
Rayen noticed his strange expression, and felt annoyed.
"If you dare say anything, I'll kill you."
"I'm already dead." Adrian replied, unable to hold back his laughter. "How did you even pass?"
'This guy...'
After just three days of being roommates, Adrian had been becoming even more casual and unhinged with his actions and words.
"Can you please shut your mouth? Remember that I am ranked higher than you." Rayen said begrudgingly, trying to shut him up.
Adrian pursed his lips and didn't say anything anymore. Knowing that Rayen wouldn't give him an answer, he tried to figure it out himself. He saw the buff message beside Rayen's dance stat and got enlightened.
"Oh, I get it. How much did it cost?" He asked.
"It's a freebie."
"Huh? Freebie?" Adrian tilted his head, clearly puzzled.
"After the tutorial ended, the system gave me a freebie book page for demonstration."
Rayen stopped talking. He became annoyed with himself for having explained it all.
'Can we not talk about my stats?!'
"Oh, that..." Sensing that Rayen wasn't going to talk anymore, he finally shifted his focus and searched for Liam's stats. "Your friend's stats are decent too."
Rayen, realizing that this person had already repeatedly tried to ask questions about his former life, convinced himself to also satisfy his curiosity. Partly because he just wanted to change the subject too.
"You had over one million former Life Book points. How?"
Finally getting bored of seeing the stats of the two celebrities, Adrian realized that he didn't know any other person's name to search. He threw his phone onto the upper bunk of the bed again.
"That? I don't know," he said and threw himself to Rayen's bed as if he owned it. "I didn't know I was even that famous."
He chuckled to himself, thinking the situation was too amusing.
"What did you even use to do before dying?"
Adrian thought it would be quite fun to imitate the strange interviewer from before and tease his dormmate, who was clearly trying too hard to change the subject. He flashed a wide smile at Rayen.
"Guess."
Rayen shut his mouth, realizing that this dude was just messing with him again.
'Never mind. If you don't want to answer, fine!'
Adrian laughed lazily before finally answering Rayen's question.
"I was a writer."
Rayen blurted out, "A writer could be that famous?"
"What? We can't? I'm unknown, but still famous!"
Rayen felt the urge to beat this person that was on his bed, but he was too tired to deal with him. If Rayen were to rank the most annoying people in this place, Adrian might be able to snatch the first place against Plotter.
'Didn't he have his own bed? What is he doing on mine?'
Still, a writer had higher dance stats than him... Ah, this was just too unfair!
Rayen wallowed in his bitterness when both their phones suddenly started ringing.
Rayen unlocked his phone as Adrian reached out for his on the upper bunk, thinking that he shouldn't have tossed it back there again.
They both opened the app and was greeted by a notification pop-up that was continuously flashing with red lights.
[Dear participants,
Please assemble in the second floor's dance studio. Thank you.]
Looking at each other, the two of them nodded. Is it finally starting?