𝚍𝚘𝚗'𝚝 𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚟𝚎 𝚖𝚎; 𝚓𝚊𝚍𝚎𝚗 𝚑𝚘𝚜𝚜𝚕𝚎𝚛

𝐢. 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰

NARRATOR

"PLEASE WELCOME... THE SWAY BOYS!" the announcer screams, hyping the crowd up.

A group of seven boys make their way through the doors and are greeted by the roar of the fans. Smiling and waving at the large mass of people, they await the arrival of the rest of the featured creators.

"NEXT UP... THE HYPE HOUSE," he screams again. "FEATURING ADDISON RAE, CHARLI D'AMELIO, CHASE HUDSON, AND AVANI GREGG-"

"Why is it so fucking loud in here?" Kio mutters. His friends chuckle at his inexperience with these events.

"oh trust me, the volume hasn't even peaked yet. just wait till she walks in," Josh says.
"who's she?"
"jaden's girlfriend"

"dude I've not even talked to her yet," Jaden rolls his eyes and turns his attention back to the entrance, waiting for her arrival.

"and now... the moment many of you have been waiting for... may I present..." Lights start flashing, and music comes blaring from the speakers around the room. "CORA QUINNNNNN," the announcer screeches.

Cora

I hear my name echoing around the room. I take a few breaths to compose myself before strutting out like the bad bitch I am- nah, more like the one I try to be. The cheers are deafening, and I feel myself drowning in the screams that blasted through the air. Shaking my momentary shock off, I grin and wave at my fans.

As I make my way to the back of the room, my eyes focus on a guy dressed in all black. His green eyes are literally piercing into my soul, and I immediately become self conscious of everything I'm doing. I hope I'm not doing that weird duck walk thing I do whenever someone's watching me, I think, glaring at my feet.

as I draw closer, my eyes start to pick up on all these little details. he has an earring on one ear; it's a silver cross. his fluffy hair is straightened and poking out from literally everywhere. okay but like why can't my hair work like that?

I walk closer to him, our eyes still focused on each other. I open my mouth to say something but chicken out at the last second and swerve around him. I speed walk to Avani, who is shaking her head disapprovingly at me.

"sup Vani"

She instantly tackles me in a hug, squeezing me tightly. As we pull away, she grabs my shoulders. "dude, what the hell was that?" she asks.

"What?"
"You just swerved around Jaden fucking Hossler. He's your crush! The love of your life!"

"I mentioned his name, ONCE"
"as I said, the love of your life"
"bitch I've not even talked to him yet"
"And you never will if you keep avoiding him like that. You know how disappointed he looked when you walked over here?"

Rolling my eyes, I glance back at him. He's still staring at me? "Get used to it. I disappoint everyone," I mumble. "I'll talk to him later," I say. Neither of us are convinced, but Avani drops the subject.

"My interview with Leland is in twenty minutes," she says, changing the topic. Leland is the announcer/interviewer here at Playlist. His job is basically hyping up the crowd and interrogating the creators until they spill all their secrets. Nobody really knows how he does it, but he somehow manages to get everyone to leak all their personal feelings and ideas. He's also a pretty close friend of mine.

"Mine is in an hour. For once, I'm not nervous."

"Of course you aren't! You're literally so calm when you're on stage. Let's just hope you won't go off about your feelings for Jaden," she retorts.

"Vani I'll admit he's cute, but that doesn't mean I like him. The only time I even brought up his name was when I was talking about music-"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Now I'm gonna leave you so you won't super glue yourself to me for the rest of today. Go make some friends! And don't tell me you're not good at it, because we both know you are."

I sigh as she walks off into the crowd, causing an uproar. Meanwhile, I start planning out a way to escape to Starbucks without being seen. But as much as I want to leave, it's really not fair to the fans. So instead, I force myself to follow her into the crowd. It doesn't take long for me to be laughing along with my fans, hugging them, and taking pictures with them. I have to admit, it's really never as bad as my mind depicts it to be.

Jaden

"He's staring at her again." my head swivels around to see my roomates smirking at me. I glare at them before turning my attention back to the line of fans ahead of me. A few minutes later, it's my turn to step up for an interview.

"please welcome Jaden Hossler to the stage!"

I walk up and sit down on the chair, grinning at him. "hey Leland!"

"hey Jaden! I'm not going to waste much time on formalities, since this is the fourth time I've seen you in the past year. so let's jump right into this!" the fans cheer, waiting for the first question. "the fans want to know... who do you most look forward to meeting today?"

"Uhh definitely Cora Quinn. She's been one of my idols for so long, and it would be so cool to meet her," I say.

All eyes went to Cora, who smiled at me and waved. I feel a slight blush creeping up my neck, and pinch my wrist to control it.

"Well I'm sure you'll be able to before Playlist ends! Now we don't have much time together, so I'll just switch this over to the fans." I nod and decide to call on a girl at the edge of the crowd.

"When are you releasing your new song?"

"I'm planning to release it on June 3rd, so show some love for it when it comes out," I reply and call on another person.

"Who's your favorite Sway boy?"

"Wow, y'all are really trying to get me murdered, huh?" I glance at the boys, who were all glaring at me with their arms crossed. "Probably Anthony. He's the only one who doesn't try to steal my pizza rolls. Oh and Josh, stop trying to flex your muscles, they're nonexistent." I hear a chorus of "oohs" rising from the audience. Anthony is beaming at me, but the other six look like they're about to murder me.

"yo JayJay! you better sleep with one eye open buddy," Josh yells. I roll my eyes, causing the crowd to scream again. Leland calls on a girl at the edge of the mass of people.

"who's your celebrity crush?" she yells. The crowd immediately starts screaming at the directness of the question.

"Uhhh..."

"Come on, Jaden. I'm sure that anything you say in here will stay in here," he winks at the hundreds of cameras in front of him. The fans chorus their agreement. I feel a blush rising to my cheeks again, and I glance nervously at my boys. They're all grinning at me, and Griffin is looking back and forth between Cora and I.

"I'd rather not answer that right now-"

"Is there a reason why you and Griffin are looking at Cora right now?" Leland cuts me off. I feel my cheeks turn red, and I swallow hard. "I KNEW IT- LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, I BELIEVE WE JUST FOUND JADEN'S CRUSHHH"

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