Idol (Selection Project rewrite/inspired story)

Day 1: Suzune

At the word "eliminated", the bear's eyes turned into red X's and it crossed its arms into an 'X' shape as well. "For this round specifically, we will have you form groups. Each group will be given a week to practice together, and will then have to hold a concert in this very room that will be livestreamed to all the viewers at home. The group with the lowest number of Hearts at the end of the week will have all of its members eliminated. Ah but not to worry, the groups have already been randomly assigned, so no need to concern yourself with forming them yourself."

At this, Kana erupted with an indignant "What?!" from behind me.

"Well then, let's cut straight to the chase and reveal the teams shall we? Drum roll please...and here are the groups!"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------This is kind of awkward...

After the teams had been announced, we all decided to split up into our teams to get the preliminary discussions out of the way. Though there were three of us together, none of us were saying anything and no one seemed willing to initiate. Nagisa in particular had fixed her eyes to the ground at her feet, quite blatantly avoiding eye contact. Kasumi, for her part, at least seemed to be trying to initiate conversation, but she would never make it past mumbling "um" and "uh" under her breath.

Unable to stand the silence any longer, I decided to speak up. "How about we decide what song to do first?"

"Y-yeah! Let's do that!" Kasumi responded quickly, eager to get over this awkward patch. Still, I could detect the anxiety and uneasiness behind her words. Nagisa, meanwhile, merely nodded meekly, not answering verbally. "W-well, for now, let's just try to narrow down our song choices..."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "That didn't go well at all..." I muttered to myself back in my room.

"Tell me about it," Shiori groaned, similarly exhausted.

The only one that appeared to have had any success was Kyouko. "Rough start huh?" she asked with a laugh.

The three of us has been placed into different teams. I ended up in a three-person team with Nagisa and Kasumi, while Shiori's sole partner was Kana. Kyouko, meanwhile, ended up in the biggest team with the remaining three: Rena, Rei, and Hana.

"It was so awkward," I said. "I just met Kasumi, and Nagisa isn't exactly the social type. In the end, we only started looking at potential songs."

"At least you got started with something. Kana just told me that she could handle everything herself and left. Seriously, I have no idea what her problem is."

"You guys really do have it rough."

"Not to mention, one of the groups is going to get disqualified already. Isn't it way too cruel that there's no way for everyone to make it past the first round?" Shiori lamented.

"Not really. It's more or less what I was expecting actually." I responded.

"Really?"

"Yup, Suzu's right. This type of thing is pretty common. They want to weed out people early you see. That way the people with a lot of promise get more time to shine. The preliminary rounds before this were the same too, no?"

"I guess so. Wow, you two are unexpectedly pretty mature.," Shiori said, marveling at us.

"Eheheh, not really." Kyouko said, brushing aside the compliment with fake modesty. Then, she added, "Ah, by the way, our team already decided on a song."

"What did you choose?" Shiori asked.

Kyouko widened her grin. "We're going to be doing an original!"

"What?! I thought they said that covers were fine? How are you even going to have the time to make your own song?"

"Makina said that she already had a song in the works, and that she could just tweak it a little for us to use. Should be ready by tomorrow, according to her."

Shiori let out a deep sigh and flopped back onto her bed. "You got so lucky with your teammates. Suzu, can you believe this?"

"Guess we just have to work with what we've got."

Kyouko gave me an encouraging clap on the back. "That's the spirit Suzu! Oh by the way, I could probably give you a hand with Kasumi."

I raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Yup! You see, she's kind of like a little animal, and not just the way she looks. You just need to give her a little food and she'll warm right up to you. That's how it was for me, anyway. Ah, she likes macarons, by the way. Cotton Candy's her favorite. Cute, right? Just like her!"

"Wait so now she's getting help? C'mon Kyo, you have to help me out too!"

"Sorry, I don't know anything about Kuroi. You're on your own here. Best of luck!" Kyouko saluted Shiori as if sending her off to war.

"I can't believe this... What am I going to do?"