First Round (3)

The rest of the first round sped along quickly, with Jonah beating Tiffany and then Dark Bats and Lazy coming out on top on the other side. With everything for the first day settled, the contestants made their ways out of the building and were swarmed with far more reporters than had been there earlier in the day.

Aria lay on the couch, half watching the TV and half watching Aika's parents interaction on the love-seat. Even though she was glad that Aika had gotten to skip the round and move on freely, Aria was still pouting because she hadn't gotten to watch her perform. As she saw the various teams and individuals leaving the building, she caught a glimpse of Emma and her other two team members.

Ever since their little show earlier in the day of wanting to reject the slip to advance to the next round without competing, people were talking all over social media about how kind and genuine Royal Harmony was and how they were totally going to go to go all ouUnsupporting such sincere people. Towards the end, even the news stations had caught on to the new trend and were showing footage of it and complimenting them on how dedicated they are.

Each compliment and positive comment about them was like a nail driving into her heart. She couldn't stand to watch people complimenting a girl who had tried to harm her from a young age out of jealousy for being sincere. Plus, all these people were totally blind, her Aika was on a totally different level of those fakes.

At the same time, Aika was watching the reporters fawn over Royal Harmony because of their actions earlier in the day and their outstanding performance the day before and calling them the rising stars while most ignored the rest. The only other person getting a lot of press attention was Zachary, though that was actually earned and deserved.

She hated seeing a girl who clearly had an agenda against Aria receive all this praise from fans and reporters. Even though she didn't know the other two girls in the group beyond their first names, Aika was sure that they couldn't be good either if they were with someone like Emma. Anyone who harms her precious Aria in any way doesn't deserve any sort of praise.

Unknowingly, Aria and Aika were having somewhat similar thoughts at the exact same time.

A little over an hour later, Aika walked in through the front door of her parent's home and saw her parents speaking quietly on the love seat and looked around. Seeing her, her parents both held a finger up to their lips at the same time and then gestured to the couch.

Walking closer, she smiled upon seeing the now less sick Aria sleeping peacefully on the couch and understood why she hadn't seen her. Careful to be quiet, she sat down on the other end of the sofa and waved at her parents.

Several minutes later, Aria's phone dinged and woke her up and she blushed once she saw that there were 3 other people who had been purposefully quiet to let her sleep on the couch.

Before she spoke, she glanced down at her phone and saw a message from Mr. Park.

[Aria, I forgot to ask this earlier because I was shocked by you spending so much money at once. Low risk or high risk?]

[Highest risk possible! ^~^]

[You're torturing me... fine. I'll let you know if anything important happens relating to your money.]

Looking away from her phone, Aria flushed in embarrassment again as she realized she had totally neglected to say anything to everyone sitting there when she woke up.

"I know you didn't actually have to compete, but congratulations on getting luck, Aika!" Quickly, Aria had decided that the best option was to distract everyone so they forgot about her sleeping.

"Thanks, oh, and... you have some drool on your face..." Aika pointed to her own chin as an indicator and maintained a serious face.

Even more embarrassed, Aria quickly rubbed at her face several times and didn't feel anything. Figuring she was just missing it, she pulled out her phone to use as a mirror and was confused when she didn't see everything.

When she turned in confusion to Aika and saw her struggling to hold back a smile and then turned when she heard Yuna and Max laughing quietly to the side. Turning back to Aika again, she saw that she had stopped trying to hold back the grin and was obviously amused.

"What??"

"I'm sorry... I didn't think you'd actually wipe your face and check."

Due to her mind being somewhat dazed from having just recently woken up, Aria only then realized that she had been tricked and threw a pillow at Aika. "You..!"