Chapter 276: Meeting BTZ (4)
"What in the worl-"
Jaywalks couldn’t believe what his eyes were currently witnessing.
I’m the Maestro,
Follow my lead and come
He was watching the young boy with the large fur hat wink and smile in a cocky manner as his slender fingers waved in the air like a conductor before beginning the fast-paced footwork that was not only tiring but could look chaotic and cause an inexperienced dancer to trip and fall.
Jaywalks himself had struggled a bit to learn it perfectly, and of the contestants in the room, the only ones that had nailed it during the 10 minutes of practice were Daniel Kim and Mathew, the two people who were objectively the best dancers out of everyone here.
Naturally, Mathew was performing the movements perfectly.
He used the ideal amount of strength to execute the footwork, kept his body lines smooth and straight, and used a sound technique, so as a dance instructor, Jaywalk had no notes.
It was Ariel who was shocking him right now.
The cocky smile never left his face, and as he began to dance, to the surprise of everyone, he didn’t look out of place beside Mathew.
Each complicated step was executed, and although he lacked the technical precision and control that Mathew had over his body, the confidence, smooth style of dancing that made it look easy, and vibrant facial expressions really sold the performance, making him stand out from Mathew in a way that couldn’t be explained.
At some point, Jaywalk found himself staring solely at Ariel.
He felt as if he were the snake at the end of a snake charmer’s flute; no matter how he tried to look away and break free, he was sucked in by the charm of the dancer.
Even though, as a dance instructor, he could nitpick the way Ariel danced by overexerting himself because he didn’t have the muscle strength and flexibility to back up his dance moves, as a performance, it did exactly what it was supposed to do— engage the watcher.
The sound of synchronized stomps hitting the ground sounded out over the music as the boys of differing heights crossed their legs, before jumping, performing a high kick while spinning around, and then landing in unison.
As Ariel landed and then bowed, his hat flew off, exposing a head of messy red curls. Not only Jaywalk, but Shin Ji-yong and the rest of the contestants stared with a slight bit of shock.
Ari used his foot to kick his hat and used it to fan himself before smiling at Jaywalk and the cameraman.
"So how was that? Can we see the playback?"
"Uh....sure?"
"You come too." Ari dragged Mathew over by the hand, and the two of them watched the short clip of their dancing.
"How do you feel about it?" Ari asked Mathew, who kept replaying the clip.
He was fine with it, but the taller boy seemed a bit dissatisfied and kept chewing his lips while glancing at Jaywalk and Shin Ji-yong.
"Uhmm..."
"Not satisfied? Want to do it again?"
At the question, Mathews’ face immediately brightened up.
"Yes! Wait, do you mind? Or is your leg hurting agai-"
"No, it’s fine." Ari immediately cut him off before Mathew began ranting, "Nothing hurts. My career is fine. Let’s do it again then."
"Thank you so much!"
"Yeah, just let me know if you want to do any of the challenges again. You know I don’t bite."
"You don’t bite, but you squeeze my face like a stress ball when you’re annoyed!"
"This is this, and that is that. I only squeeze it because you keep mentioning an injury from months ago, like it’s a career-ending injury. It was a sprain. Speaking of which, did you check?"
Ari waved his finger without saying anything, but Mathew knew he was talking about checking his blood sugar since he was diabetic.
"I checked earlier. It’s a little low, but it should be fine until I finish filming all the challenges. Then I’ll go buy some food. Don’t worry."
Ari: ಠ_ಠ
Although he was dissatisfied with the answer, in the end, he wasn’t Mathew’s mom.
"It’s your body. Make sure you manage it because these people don’t care. And tell the staff later they need to have snacks that you can actually eat, so you don’t have to spend your own money."
"I don’t want to inconvenience anyone. I’m sure it’s annoying having to get specialty stuff just for one person."
"It’s more inconvenient to go to the hospital in a country where you can’t understand anything. Tell them. Got it?"
"Ugh..."
Ignoring Mathews’ groans, Ari stretched, tossed his hat to the side since it didn’t seem like it would stay on, and got into position in front of the camera.
"3, 2, 1, go!"
As the cameraman counted them down and started the music, Ari narrowed his eyes while smiling confidently and tapping the transparent screen, which only he could see, with the preloaded song.
Then, tilting his head back, tongue licking his lips, he held his hand out and beckoned with his pointer finger.
I’m the Maestro,
Follow my lead and come
**********
"I thought it was said that he wasn’t a good dancer?"
Shin Ji-yong spoke to PD Ji-ho in Korean as they watched the 2 contestants still performing the dance challenges.
Go hit that ggum chom ggum
Dun dun dun dun dun dun
GGUM chomp ggum
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
GGUM chomp ggum
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
As if they were in a shampoo commercial, bright red curls were whipping side to side as the head they belonged to tilted from left to right before spinning in a circle as the owner performed body rolls before transitioning into hip thrusts.
"Well, he started off not knowing how to dance, but he’s not bad now." PD Ji-ho replied politely even though he himself was quite shocked at how well Ariel was doing.
As the PD, naturally, he had watched hours upon hours of footage and was one of the few people who had seen how the contestants’ skills had improved tremendously.
But this-
This was on a different level.
Although they gave the contestants this challenge, realistically, they only expected each contestant to memorize only 2 or 3 choreographies, with the truly talented dance members memorizing 4-6.
The fact that 2 people had memorized over 20 songs and had danced to them almost flawlessly was amazing, and for a second, PD Ji-ho began wondering how the editing for this would happen because no matter how it was framed, this was a fantastic accomplishment that couldn’t really be hidden.
Well, that could be decided later.
For now,
"If this is not bad, that must mean the other contestants are much more impressive. I’m looking forward to seeing it." Shin Ji-yong commented in an amused tone as he watched the previously confident red-haired boy bury his face in his hands in embarrassment before trying and failing to grab the phone being held high by the boy he danced with.
PD Ji-ho glanced at the top idol before bowing his head silently.
It was well known that Shin Ji-yong was as capricious as he was talented.
He might say one thing to your face and mean something else or vice versa; it all depended on his mood.
To avoid his nitpickiness or catching his interest, the best thing to do was to stay completely silent until he got bored and left.
And as expected, after patting his back, Shin Ji-yong approached Ariel and Mathew instead, who were having a full-blown argument.
"Mathew. I’m warning you. Hand the phone over!"
"Why are you embarrassed?! You were the one dancing to it! Mr. Sexy! Performing body rolls and hip thrusts ooooohhh. I can’t wait to share it with the world." Mathew openly laughed in Ari’s face as he held the phone high up.
Finally, he had something to tease Ariel with.
"Give it."
"No way."
"Mathew."
"No matter how much you glare lasers at me, I refuse. If you want it so bad, come get it."
Due to his much taller height and longer limbs, no matter how much Ari stretched, he couldn’t reach the phone, and after a while, he just collapsed to the ground and began begging.
"Ugh!!! Please delete that one! You know I don’t have a sexy bone in my body. Just delete it."
"No way."
"Remember all the times I let you redo the song?"
"As you like to say, that was that, and this is this. Here you go, camera man. Please keep this safe."
Shin Ji-yong glanced at the childish display happening in front of him before clearing his throat.
"I’ll admit that was quite impressive. You accomplished what you said you would. As a man of my word, I have a promise to keep. I said that I would do an extra challenge with you both, and I will. Have you decided what song you want to perform?"
"Yes!"
"Yep."
At the positive response from both young boys, Shin Ji-Yong blinked before giving them his sparkling idol smile.
"Wow. So excited. Then who wants to go first? I have to learn the choreography so you can decide the order."
"Mathew can go first." Ari decided.
"No, you can go first. You let me redo the dances so many times."
"Trust me. You definitely want to go first."
Seeing the fire in Ari’s eyes, Mathew gulped and looked away while feeling somewhat bad for Shin Ji-yong.
Even though he was a very successful idol, in the short time that he knew him, Mathew hadn’t seen Ari lose an argument.
And each time he had that look of evil overflowing in his eyes, like Benjamin liked to say, it never boded well for anyone.
"Then would you please perform the Spring Day challenge with me?"
"Oh? That’s a surprising choice. It’s an old song."
"Yes, I love the choreography so much because it’s so light and elegant with bursts of energy. It’s one of my favorite songs by BTZ."
"Ah, thank you so much. Since it’s our song, I don’t need to review the choreography so we can get right to it."
"Okay!"
As the two of them walked off, Ari just laughed to himself.
He watched them perform the dance that was both graceful and with bursts of power. He couldn’t stop shaking his head and laughing, causing those standing around him to move away.
When Shin Ji-yong came back, he looked at him curiously before asking.
"And what song would you like?"
"I’m just double-checking that you said any song, right?"
"Yes. Any song."
"Excellent. The song that I want is-"