WALK THROUGH WALLS

SEVENTY TWO

I will be lying if I say that I was in the mood of doing anything after just performing a total of eight song s in the same stage with different teams. I was really not looking forward to the Friday night fun day as I usual am...kind of. I was drained mentally. The whole time during the briefing by the judges to the whole group of contestants, I just dozed off.

" Wake up Lensah, you are needed to go to the group leaders' meeting."  Korn said in a whisper.
Now talk about annoying alarm clocks, this was the worst alarm to wake me. I started doubting my life choices. I guess facing Jennie and Lucas at the same time seemed like a nightmare  for me really, especially now that I knew that we were only going to sit and listen to people criticizing our performance that we gave all our effort into. Yes, I know I am having double standards and they are just doing their jobs. They also are professionals who went through all this if not worse than this, but hell, try mastering eight different songs while shouting your lungs out and playing different musical instruments in one sitting. Damn, even pros like Beyonce prepares for a concerts for like seven months before. We had  few days to do so, and the passing of my babu, may he rest in peace!  didn't make things better for me.

" Correct me if I am wrong, but don't we always go before the panel as a team? How comes we are going there as leaders alone." I asked while stretching myself. At this point I was looking at my beloved alarm that just woke me up.
" Seriously P' , have you not been listening to the judges all this time," Korn asked.
" Why should I listen to them yapping about this and that, and yet I am sure they are just going to repeat themselves at the meeting afterward. Did they mention they guys who are going for elimination?" I asked.
" No, they will do so during the fun night." Eugene said as he helped me up the seat.
" Ok, then let me go and represent my Pink team to the max." I said as I stretch myself again.
" And what about the Punishment team?" Miki asked.
" We have three team leaders already there so..." Little Cai interjected
" I want to attend the meeting also, just to have the feel of sitting on the hot seat and face the judges as a leader." Miki said.
" Ok then, we annoying you as our able team leader, make us proud リーダー" Engene said jokingly as he bowed to Miki. This made all of us laugh so loud that we attracted the attention of everyone.
" You guys are really cursed to be noisy." Tem said as he tried to distance himself.
"P', even if you deny knowing us, you just look like our alpha so,please, spare us the speech." I said as I went any hugged him," I still love you anyway." I kissed him on the cheeks and went away, leaving him blushing.

                                                        *****************
So here we were,thirteen leaders, with four being from the punishment group, seated infront of the distinguished judges. The emcees also came to bear witness the judging which had never happen since the start of the competition.
" Good evening once again. We know you are wondering why this time round the judging is not being done at the group level. We sat as the panel and decided that we were going to use you as the leaders to eliminate the useless, if I am allowed to call them that,  members in your teams. We will give you three names and then you as the leaders are to choose the ones that will be eliminated. I hope you know that the members who will fall short of the expectations, will automatically leave. This time round, there will be no elimination competition. You know what is happening in the world today with the COVID-19 pandemic and all so we are to minimize the contact hours we meet.  It has also been suggested that, the songs for the fun night will be the songs to be used as the elimination assessment tools, so the three members will be expected to sing in order to save themselves.  So in short, there will be twelve members going home tomorrow. All the group's will be loosing a member today." The bearer of the bad news, Lucas dropped the bomb on us. They just had to make him the devil's advocate.

" Couldn't he have even waited for us to be comfortable on our chairs, like seriously. Why him, of all the judges. Now the satire came where he spoke in Korean, Chinese and English perfectly. Yes, I was jealous about that. Have you ever been in a situation where you are in a quagmire. You feel pity for the ones in the list yet you don't know if you are among them? That was me at this juncture." This was my soliloquy in my head.