Infant shark doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo
Infant shark doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo
Infant Shark
Mother Shark shark shark shark
The bright, cheerful pop song for children filled the air, and the young boy wearing black clothing with his face painted white began doing a childish dance that kindergarteners would do with a serious expression.
Pretending to swim like a shark with his hands on his head, using his hands like fins, spinning around, and hopping.
It was clearly childish choreography that belonged in a preschool.
In fact, Selena had definitely seen her three-year-old niece try to imitate this dance thousands of times at this point and even present it at the preschool talent show with the rest of her toddler classmates.
The issue was…that her three-year-old niece was actually performing the dance better than the young man in front of her!
His legs kept getting tangled, he almost tripped on air three times, and he was as flexible as an iron pole in Antarctica—completely rigid and looking as if he would snap.
For a few seconds, Selena thought this was a humiliation dare the kid had been put up to, but he seemed serious.
His green eyes were focused, and he was sweating hard while performing the steps to the dance with a lot of force and energy.
The white makeup was even smudging in some places, making the face paint look even more bizarre.
When the music finally stopped after the most excruciating one minute of her life, the boy, Ari, was panting and bent over while holding his knees.
As if he had exerted all of his energy completely.
Larry, who was sitting beside her, began clapping slowly and sarcastically before beginning to laugh.
"Wow, wow, the amazing Ariel. Dance extraordinaire. I've never seen anyone as unique as you are. Puahahaha"
"Thank you." A calm response came back from the panting boy, and Larry pointed his pen at him in anger.
"You know I was being sarcastic, right? That was terrible. Probably with the worst dancing I've seen in my life."
"Oh, well, thank you for watching anyway. I'd appreciate any feedback you have to give me." Ari politely bowed his head despite the man constantly antagonizing him.
'Mentally, he was just treating Larry Jackson as air and letting his words run through one ear and out the other.'
'The guy was clearly strange and had some type of problem with him, which was odd because they had only knew each other for about 10 minutes.'
'He would continue to be polite, but that was just in hopes that he would pass the audition and a stat point would fall out of the sky.'
As their eyes met, Ari could see Larry's neck turning red again while his face remained the same color.
…this man.
What was his problem this time?
"Tsk. Selena, what do you think of this terrible dance?" With an angry sound, Larry turned toward the female judge.
"Well…" Serena looked up at the sky, trying to withhold her laugh and find a diplomatic way to express it.
Seeing her struggle, Ari relieved her burden.
"Feel free to laugh. I know it was bad, but I did my best."
"Hahaha, thank you. Well…to put it mildly, that was really bad. I have video evidence that my three-year-old niece can do a better job. There's no constructive feedback I can give in the limited time, so if you make it to the next round, I suggest you begin some sort of dance practice and stretch routine immediately. You are…amazingly stiff and uncoordinated."
"Understood. Thank you."
Seeing that he didn't deny her harsh criticism toward him, the smile on Selena's face became warmer.
"Good. Now, in regard to you passing the audition…I see potential in you, so I'll give you a yes and admit you into the program. How about you, Larry?"
"He gets a no from me. Absolutely not. No way in hell."
At Larry's vehement denial, Serena turned to him in surprise.
Sure, Ari's performance wasn't the best they had seen, but his vocals were solid, his guitar playing was good, and the dance—well, it was there.
Once the kid decided to remove the strange face paint and prosthetics and return to the appearance she could see from his submitted photos, with that voice and laid back attitude, he was sure to be a hit among teenage girls, which was the core audience of a boy group.
Even without that, she and Larry had given a pass to other kids with weaker skills than Ari.
Since they had to fill a quota of at least 200 decently talented people, it was inevitable that the high standards had to be lowered a bit so they could find a gem in the rough.
Once the Pop Star Academy properly began after the next round, the program planned on training the contestants from the basics onward during the six-month period, so potential was a big thing that they were looking for.
And Ari had potential.
His voice was good and catchy, he could play an instrument, and he was…confident.
Maybe unnecessarily confident when looking at his skill but it didn't come off as rude or cocky.
He gave off a vibe that nothing could really faze him and that he would roll with whatever punches came his way.
That was a great mentality to have, especially in a survival program with different contestants, judges, trainers, and most of all Program Directors who could edit contestants however they pleased.
Since many kids had been passed who didn't quite meet the cutoff but had been sent to the next round, Selena really couldn't understand why Larry was being so difficult.
She turned to try and convince Larry but seeing the stubborn tilt of his lips, sighed before turning to the young man looking at her face.
"Ari, please back up and give us a moment. We need to discuss."
"Sure."
Although Ari's tone was calm, internally, he was quite flustered.
'Had they run out of slots, even though there was an extra 24 hours to the online application?'
'Or was Larry's dislike of him that strong?'
As he peeked at the two of them, he could see Larry and Serena having a fierce discussion.
The conversation seemed to be about him since they both glanced over and pointed multiple times with Larry's arms and neck becoming redder and redder.
When they finally called him back, Selena had an apologetic expression on her face.