Unprepared To Love You

The Leader

All the girls were gathered together for the results of the theme song challenge. The room went back and forth from silent to full of whispers. When it came to her turn, she was disappointed to be moved down a class, but not too surprised as her performance hadn't gone as well as she had hoped. However, this only left her more determined to do better next time.

None of the contestants were expecting what they announced next.

"A few of you stood out for your dedication to improving yourself. For the next challenge, we will choose the group leaders by those of you who have spent the most time in the practice room over the last couple of days."

A little bit of hope built up within her. She felt like she had spent a decent amount of time practising, so she stood a chance, but she was sure a lot of others did too.

"And lastly, the person who spent the most time practising. Even after their performance, they continued practising until they were satisfied that they had improved. Your final group leader is..."

She sat in shock after hearing her name. Not only because she would get to lead a group in the next challenge, but because she didn't know how they knew about her extra practice after the evaluation.

"Now we are going to show you the song selection for this challenge. As the theme this year is international we have chosen some songs from artists around the world. This round also has a particular theme. All of these songs have demanding vocals, although they vary in style. It's the vocal round."

On the screen recordings of each song played. The selection included: Follow The Light by Krystal Chan (a past winner of the show), Hard To Love by Rosé, Light Me Up by Ingrid Michaelson, Across the Pacific by Xu Geyang, River by Bishop Briggs, and some more songs that she didn't know.

The girls immediately broke out whispering about which song they wanted to do.

"Group leaders we have assigned you each a song. Please leave the room and the rest of your group will follow shortly."

Outside the staff led each of the group leaders to a different room where their song was revealed.

One by one, other contestants joined her. She found out that the rest of them got to choose which song they wanted, but didn't know who the leader was. When they saw that their group leader was her, she saw some disappointed faces. She tried not to let it bother her. She would just have to prove to them that they made the right decision.

As the last few members of her group joined them, she realised that some of them weren't singers and had chosen this song because at least it was in Chinese.

That's right, they had assigned the only foreign team leader a Chinese song rather than one of the English ones. She assumed it was meant to be a challenge for her, or perhaps it would make good TV. Perhaps they expected her to fail.

Her team was doing the song Follow the Light by Krystal Chan, a past winner of the show. She had heard the song before, but she didn't know the lyrics well. This meant that as they assigned parts she was at a disadvantage as she didn't know how to pronounce a lot of the lyrics yet.

And her team members weren't going to give her any slack. One by one they each tried out for the parts they wanted and then voted for who got the part. The majority was against her and she ended up with the smallest part. Her argument that her pronunciation would get better went unheard.

They were about to start rehearsing when a staff member came in.

"They forgot to tell you one of the rules. The leader must be the centre."

The group looked around at each other and mumbled under their breath about how unfair this was.

The girl who had originally had the main part challenged one of the others for their part and once the parts were redistributed they began rehearsing.

Instead of helping her with the pronunciation, the others got annoyed at her.

"There's no point doing this until you've learnt the lyrics."

"Then let's practice separately for today and put it together tomorrow."

After everyone agreed, she left the room to find a private space to work on her part. Running her hand through her hair, she sighed. She had a feeling it was going to be a long day.