Project: Socialize (Chapters 1-197)

158. And the Show Begins

I still do not entirely understand why I agreed to her father's request, but I believe it must have something to do with my sympathy towards her. After hearing her father's explanation of the game's rules, I immediately concluded that I am the only possible candidate for her partner in this game. The time of live streaming was at night, meaning that it will be a difficult time for high schoolers still living with their parents to leave their homes. Therefore, the only one that can possibly come to Irina's aid and help her was me.

Even though I know that what I had done was to help Irina avoid an awkward situation before the entire empire, I sort of regret my decision. Before I walked into view of the cameras, I was already nervous. However, when I saw those many cameras pointed in my direction with the lighting crew providing bright lights in the back, my nervousness went overboard as this was a situation that I had never been in. I could feel beads of sweat starting to form on my forehead as well as the back of my neck. The back of my neck was fine since no makeup was applied there, but as for my forehead—well, my face in general—a light layer of makeup has been applied prior to my journey towards Studio 3-C. Therefore, I was worried if my sweating would possibly ruin it.

"That was fast!" Leiry exclaimed as he saw my arrival. "Whose friend are you?"

"That's my friend," Irina quickly snapped out of her dazed state and back to the professional celebrity that she was, keeping a smile on her face.

"That's not fair," Shol complained. "He was here before we even started streaming."

"For those of you that don't know," Boro started explaining to the cameras. "This young man actually accompanied Irina to PBS tonight."

"Oh?" Yordan raised an eyebrow and said in a joking manner. "Are you sure you're just friends?"  

"I just saw him walking while we were headed here," Irina calmly explained. "I originally thought that we'll just get some food together and one thing leads to another and now he's here."

"Stop prying into other people's privacy!" Yrel added.

"Alright, alright," Yordan laughed as he faced the scrutiny directed towards him from the others. However, there were no hard feelings as everyone knew that this was simply for comedic effect.

"Since most of your friends aren't here yet," the director then continued, "You guys will have to entertain the viewers so that none of them would switch channels. I will finish explaining the rules once everyone is here."

"Come on," Shol whined. "You should've notified us beforehand."

"Don't worry," Boro said to him. "We're professional entertainers."

"But what're we going to do to pass the time as we wait?" Lindsy asked.

"Let's guess who's friend will be the first to arrive," Yordan said and started explaining what the rules for this improvised minigame will be.

In a nutshell, what happened next was that each person describe and introduce who their friend was and whether or not they think that person will be the next one to show up. This might be boring in theory, but due to the presence of many big names in the entertainment industry, it wasn't as bland as one would think it would be. Whatever time the entertaining minigame did not cover, it would appear that it was used for commercials to be played. Ultimately though, time seemed to pass quite quickly as well since not too long later, maybe about twenty minutes later, everybody had shown up.

"Now that you're all here," the director continued to explain the rules. As he did so, the assistant directs of each person's crew approached each pair and started tying a paper wristband around each person's wrist. "As you go around the city to complete missions and games, if you're bracelet is broken, meaning if it's torn or anything like that, you will be out."