As night settled over the island on a Wednesday — quiet and warm and carrying the particular peace of a day that had somehow, against all odds, ended better than it began — something had shifted in Liam's group.
It was subtle. The way real shifts usually are. Nobody announced it. Nobody marked the moment. But it was there — in the way the jokes landed easier, in the way the laughter came quicker, in the way the space between people had quietly shrunk without anyone having to measure it.
They were getting in sync. Actually, genuinely in sync. The kind that doesn't come from talent alone but from going through something together and coming out the other side still standing.
Liam was still slightly awkward around Zen — orbiting him with the careful, sideways energy of a person who knew they owed an apology they hadn't quite figured out how to deliver yet. But Zen, being Zen, interacted with him like absolutely nothing had happened. No score to settle. No pointed silences. Just Zen, moving forward, because that was simply how Zen moved.
And Mikko's 9.99 secret?
It came out. Not willingly. Not graciously. But the choreography wasn't going anywhere without it, and Mikko was many things but he was not someone who let pride get in the way of progress. Begrudgingly, with the energy of a man surrendering something precious, he demonstrated his method.
The room lasted approximately four seconds before it dissolved completely.
Everyone hit the floor. Clutching stomachs. Tears streaming. The laughter coming in waves, each wave bigger than the last, the kind that takes over your whole body and doesn't ask permission.
"Bunny hop to the left—" someone wheezed, and that set off another round entirely.
"My bad," one trainee managed, barely, between gasps, "I guess we really did need to pay just to witness something this EPIC — BWAHAHAHA—"
Even Liam. Liam, who had started the day losing his streak and nearly committing aggravated assault on a fellow trainee — was laughing. Fully. Helplessly. The real kind.
"I'm glad," Mikko said, surveying the carnage of his fallen teammates with magnanimous satisfaction, "that I could provide this experience for all of you." He shook his head slowly. "Better enjoy it while you can."
And so, by any honest measure — minor catastrophes, a brief unconsciousness, one shattered streak, and a 9.99 secret reluctantly surrendered — it had been a successful day. Relatively. Technically. The hiccups were significant but the landing was good.
And then it happened.
The kind of happened that the room feels before it fully registers.
Time doing that thing it does sometimes — stretching, slowing, every detail arriving with unusual clarity.
The studio doors swung open.
Every head turned.
And in she walked.
Long, wavy, royal blue hair that moved like it had its own agenda. Eyebrows immaculate — on fleek, as the people say, and in this case the people are correct. The kind of entrance that doesn't require an announcement because the room has already made one on her behalf.
Dora.
And before any confusion sets in — not that Dora. Not the one who asks questions to an audience that never responds. Not that schizophrenic Dora with a monkey for a friend and a talking bag and map. That's creepy. Wandering through a landscape that raises significant questions about the nature of reality and what exactly her parents are doing while all of this is happening.
That Dora is a different situation entirely. A concerning one, arguably. We wish her well.
This Dora is a world-renowned dancer and choreographer. Globally acclaimed. Award-winning. Very much right in the brain — with one small, specific, notable exception, which is that she has always had a slight tendency toward the sadistic when it comes to her teaching methods.
Not maliciously. Just. Enthusiastically.
The trainees who knew her reputation straightened up instinctively.
The ones who didn't — well.
They were about to find out.
****
"Wassup, boys!"
Dora's greeting landed with the easy confidence of someone who already owned every room she walked into and simply chose to be gracious about it.
"Sup, Miss Dora!" came the immediate response from several directions at once.
"No." One trainee — who was, genuinely, physically on the floor, flat on his back, staring at the ceiling with the vacant peace of a man who had made his peace with his own limitations — did not even attempt to move. "Why are you here. Please. Have mercy. I cannot lift a single finger. Not one."
Dora laughed. Bright and genuine and carrying absolutely zero sympathy.
"Don't worry," she said. "I come in peace."
"Since when?" someone asked.
"Since never, that's what," Liam said, from experience.
"Alright, settle down."
The shift in her voice was subtle and immediate and completely effective. The room straightened. Collectively. On instinct. The way rooms do when someone who means business decides to mean it.
"The other trainers and I have been watching you all very closely for the past three days," Dora said, moving into the space with the unhurried ease of someone who had all the time in the world and intended to use it however she pleased. "And we've decided it's time to shake things up a little."
"I KNEW IT—" one trainee said, with the dramatic devastation of a prophet who had never once wanted to be right.
"Now. This next assignment is going to test one specific thing — your ability to adapt. Because what we plan," she said, "does not always go the way we plan it." She let that sit for a second. "Take your predecessors. LEAVEN. First group in line for debut. You all watched the Golden Disk performance, yes?"
A room full of nods.
"Excellent performance. Remarkable, even." She paused. "But how many of you are aware of everything they had to go through just to finish it?"
The room shifted slightly. Listening differently now.
"Mics failing. Confetti malfunctions. And then a malfunction so severe that it put Javi's life directly on the line." She said it plainly, without drama, which somehow made it land heavier. "And they pushed through. Every single obstacle, they pushed through, and they delivered a performance that people are going to be talking about for a very long time."
Silence.
"So what does that have to do with your assignment?" She smiled. "Everything. The trainers and I believe that you should be prepared — not just for the performance you plan, but for the performance that happens to you."
"This is getting scarier by the second," someone murmured.
"No need to be scared," Dora said pleasantly. "The assignment itself is simple. Everyone prepares an additional performance for the upcoming evaluations."
The room detonated.
"ANOTHER ONE?!" Liam's voice came out louder than he intended. "We've barely survived finishing ONE performance and you want us to add ANOTHER?!"
Dora raised one perfectly arched eyebrow.
"Did I stutter?"
Liam closed his mouth.
Zen turned to Mikko and showed him his phone. It read: "This is crazy."
Mikko nodded with the solemn gravity of a man receiving a medical diagnosis.
"Here's the framework," Dora continued, unbothered by the mild chaos she had just ignited. "If your current performance features a male artist, your second performance must feature a female artist. And vice versa."
"Do we at least get to choose the song?" Mikko asked.
"You get to choose both the song and the artist."
"Oh, thank GOD—" one trainee exhaled, the relief physical and total, before immediately catching himself. "I — I mean. Thank Allah."
The room absorbed this gracefully.
"That's all from me," Dora said brightly, already turning toward the door. "Happy song picking, everyone!"
She paused.
One hand on the door frame. Not turning around. The pause of someone who had remembered something important, or had planned this pause all along, which with Dora could genuinely be either.
"One piece of advice," she said. "Don't bite off more than you can chew. Don't let ambition write a check your preparation can't cash. Be smart. Be honest about where you are." A beat. "Got it?"
She didn't wait for an answer.
"Toodles!"
And she was gone.
The door swung shut behind her.
The room sat in the aftermath — the specific, particular silence that follows a typhoon. The kind where everyone is still standing, still blinking, still taking stock of what just happened and what exactly it means for the immediate future.
Because that's the thing about typhoons.
They don't stay.
But what they leave behind?
That stays plenty long enough.
****
The song selection process began with great optimism and deteriorated almost immediately.
"Why don't we do 'Look What You Made Me Do?'"
"Absolutely not," Mikko said, with the velocity of someone who had been waiting to shut this down.
"Why?!"
"Because it's too Taylor Swift."
"It's BY Taylor Swift! Of course it's too Taylor Swift!"
"See," Mikko said, pointing, "case in point."
"What do you even have against—"
"Okay, okay — what about that one song, the one that goes like—" another trainee cut in with the enthusiasm of someone who had just remembered something great, "'hottie hottie like a bag of Takis!'"
"I am not," Liam said, with a finality that closed the door, locked it, and threw the key into the ocean, "performing a song with 'a bag of Takis' as a lyric. That is the end of that conversation."
"What about 'Who Run The World?' Queen Bey herself—"
"Too iconic," Mikko said immediately. "Next."
"How is something being too iconic a reason to—"
"NEXT."
And so it went. Suggestion after suggestion launched into the room, considered for approximately four seconds, and shot down for reasons ranging from the legitimate to the completely arbitrary. Nothing landed. Nothing felt right. The mental energy required to actually make a decision was simply not available in this room at this hour.
Eventually, Liam looked around at the collection of exhausted, glassy-eyed humans that were his team and made an executive decision.
"Guys." His voice had lost its edge and found something more tired in its place. "We're running on fumes. All of us. Song selection can wait until tomorrow. Go get some sleep."
A collective exhale. Grateful. Immediate.
"Wow," one trainee said, with genuine, slightly emotional appreciation. "Look at Angy, being all concerned for our wellbeing."
"Awwww—" two of the other OG trainees began, voices climbing toward full cooing territory —
Liam's glare arrived before they could finish the sound.
Both trainees stopped. Mouths closed. Eyes forward.
"Don't push me more than I've already been pushed today," Liam said, low and final, before turning and walking out.
The three OG trainees fell into step behind him. As always. Hot on his trails.
"Why," Mikko said, to nobody in particular, hoisting his duffle bag onto his shoulder with a thoughtful expression, "does that sound borderline pornographic for some reason."
Zen picked up his phone. Typed. Passed it over.
"You mean the 'push more than he's already been?' part. Hm. Was he a bottom this whole time?"
Mikko read it.
Looked up at Zen.
Took in the face — soft, wide-eyed, angelic, the face of someone who had never once in his life done anything questionable —
"Oh my God," Mikko said slowly, with the weight of a man having a revelation. "Olaf. That innocent face of yours is a complete and total façade. Deep down, you are one corrupted little—"
Zen was already typing.
He passed the phone over.
"Stop swearing. That's bad."
Mikko stared at the message.
Then at Zen.
Then at the message again.
The look on his face said everything and nothing simultaneously — the specific expression of a man who had just been gently scolded for swearing by the same person who had thirty seconds ago made a bottom joke without blinking.
He had absolutely no words.
Which, for Mikko, was arguably the most remarkable thing that had happened all day.