Chapter 4 : The Trials.

What was I doing? 

Well I am currently stooped over the sidebar of the dance dance revolution machine. The room is pitch black except from the glow of the machine's screen. My eyes slowly gain clarity as I see my brother standing in front of me.

"I need to get a perfect score," I say quickly jumping up.

"You have" Hayate interjects excitedly. I look at the sign saying perfect score on the dance dance revolution machine. My heart drops even more.

I point over to Sid who is currently lying upside down on the couch. 

"He was the one who did it. I still haven't cracked 15 percent" I say sadly. How did Sid do it so easily? I think to myself. My brothers face looks at me with disappointment or a look of what he expected.

"Oh hi Hayate, why are you here?" I'am kind of surprised that I didn't even register that she was here.

"I thought we could do some practice." She says in such a caring tone.

"Well I will leave you guys to it." My brother says leaving.

"Well I need to get a perfect score on this" I say, eyeing down the machine with hatred. 

"Why, you know this doesn't make you a better dancer." 

"It's what the book says." 

She gives me an eyebrow raised look. 

"I don't know my brother studied everything ever created and ever not created in two days and created a book that will apparently turn you into the best Idol ever." Hayate looked at me with an expression that seemed of skepticism, and concern for me. 

"I don't know about that, what does your brother know?" Hayate says quite skeptically.

"Everything apparently. Now get on, I still need to get this perfect score." 

"Well okay, Also your brother thought I was Hataya"

"You're talking about the famous CX co one, well isn't that a compliment. And well he is right, you guys do look similar." I say failing the first step slightly.

After that, they fought each other constantly over the whole night, Sanaka not winning a single match. Sabiti would occasionally bring them food and water, so that they would not die. 

…

They stood there staring at Sanaka and Hayate, their moves looked pretty identical except Sanaka was on 45 percent accuracy while Hayate was on 97 percent. 

"Man, your sister's ability to always score so badly, is pretty impressive," Sid says while examining. Sabiti and Samarchi nod in agreement. 

"Knock, knock" 

"Who would be that?"

"It's your house you idiot, how would we know?" Sid and Samarchi say in unison.

"Oh that's my cousin" said Hayate running over to the door. " I invited her to help Sanaka" 

What a nice friend, they all think in unison, undeservingly for Sanaka, they think that too. She opens the door to a girl about the height of Sabiti. From every angle she looks like a supermodel. Perfect body, perfect face. Sid and Samarchi drop simultaneously.

"Cya, is that you" Sabiti says in a surprising tone.

"Yes, well she is decently famous." Hayate says before Cya can talk.

"Yes well most people do not know my personal name" she says examining Sabiti. 

"Well I'm a big fan of you and your sister, Hataya." He says consideringly. Both Hayate and Cya look at him again, as if he has something surprising. 

"Well." before either of them speak, Sanaka interrupts. 

"So you are Hataya's cousin also" Hayate nods.

"So that's why you looked similar." Sabiti says, proud of his abilities to notice similarities in people.

"Cya does not look alike at all" Sid and Samarchi say in unison. 

"However, I think Sanaka really needs your help. She still hasn't cracked 50." He says in hopes to cut the conversation short.

Sanaka steps on the machine ready for action.

" I'm honestly impressed, like you haven't slept the whole night, really."

And then she face plants, well maybe she did need some sleep in the end. 

…

Sabiti had gone out and it seemed that Sanaka and Hayate were wiped out from exhaustion.

Cya isn't what you call a good person, she hasn't spoken to her younger sister Hataya in ages. But the main reason she isn't a good person is because she loves ripping the heart out of naive men who think she is interested in her, however when the time comes to rip their hearts they diverted the conversation to Mayaki Dancho. 

"You guys know that Mayaki Dancho won her last Perfor award in 2014 2 years ago. Right? And Tayaki has taken the award easily in the last two years but is struggling this year" they both nodded in agreement. 

"I tried to win the Perfor award and it was basically impossible. You need to basically score over 6000 in each category to have a chance at winning the award." They nodded in agreement, however, they aren't actually processing what she is saying. 

"Well basically that means you have to be an internationally recognised performer in each category to stand a chance, be in a box office movie or play. Have multiple songs that hit top 10 in Billboard top 200, I guess you also could get something that has your visual arts Like the museum of the year Award, or the bluethumb or pastlov award. However both Mayaki and Tayaki did not need to bother. The main thing of the Award is who has had the most impact on the performing world that year." Cya says to the basically blank faces of Sid and Samarchi. 

"Anyway what I was saying is that Mayaki Dancho is the only person to ever three-peat. Why is it so hard? Because not only is it so physically and mentally draining. People improve drastically, and voters fatigue. For Tayaki currently, there are all these new upcoming stars waiting to dethrone her. To continue to improve in third year is something only a psycho could do." She seemed to rant on for quite a while. Not noticing Sid and Samarchi talking about cool trucks instead of listening to her. 

…

Sabiti woke up in the morning of the trial, which was Friday night after school. However He knew that Sanaka was probably not going to school today. Everyone was asleep in the living room. It was kind of that Sanaka's lack of ability drew everyone together. The machine was glowing blue, with the words Perfection. However, something was odd. It was blue, wasn't it green? However he ignored it and checked into the game to see how many hours she played. But he has to double check his eyes. 

…

My brother wakes me up. I open my eyes feeling the pain of last night's dance off. No one told me that it was this strenuous. Samarchi's face looks like it's been splashed with water, I guess that's what my brother thought was effective for him. However I don't understand why there is a bowling ball next to Sid. Well he doesn't look like he is waking up any time soon. 

.

…

I sat down in the rehearsal room. I didn't really know it was this big of a deal. Hayate

Told me that there are apparently lots of other facilities which they perform at. I guess they did produce the two of the biggest stars in recent years. I am currently wearing an outfit that Hayate got for me. It is weird, bright and not at all like my personality. All the people seem to be chatting farley nervously among each other. A tall black haired girl is surprisingly energetic talking about how she has been training for ages for this, but she is scared that she is too tall. Her friend next to her thinks she is an idiot. I don't know why I am not really that nervous, Hayate doesn't look so at ease as she would like her to be.

However the person ruining my tranquility is this stupid blonde ponytail girl. She looked at me with a stuck up face. Like she was thinking that her face was better than mine. 

After a bit of waiting around they were addressed by a woman with a high ponytail, that you would consider young and good looking, and a very stern face. She basically told them the routine of the Trial. We are basically just going to do a dance routine together where they will learn how to do a simple dance. You have to do that well. Then they give you a singing test, and then an interview in front of the judges. 

They first separated us into different groups because obviously not everyone could be on the stage at the same time. Hayate had fortunately been selected into my group. However, dancing was what I was most nervous of, for obvious reasons I had only just been able to achieve a perfect score. Did it even translate directly to dancing? I had also pondered that question. What did her brother really know about becoming an Idol? He isn't one, and was never one. They went into a small room and learnt the basic dance, no one really struggled to remember the dance. It was as My brother had predicted he said they would be given an easy dance to do in front of the judges. 

We moved onto the stage, The lights were straight up blinding. The people around looked fairly nervous, all of them with a slight shake. I guess my brother's training was good, Because at least I knew I wasn't going to be booed at or anything. He also said that I needed to show emotion. The dance starts.

…

Sid, Samarchi, Cya, and Sabiti walk through into CX co. 

"Wow the Idol world is fairly big" Sid says walking through the large entrance. Only one of the doors was opened up there but there were about fifteen glass doors that were openable. The theater room was black. 

"This is their only sitting stage out of their 11 spread across japan." Sabiti said, inspecting the room. 

"Why don't they have more sitting ones?" Samarchi asks as they make their way down the steps. Looking for the perfect seats. 

"Because they aren't as fun probably" Cya says not very interested in the conversation. 

The stage was fairly grand. In the middle just below were they had chosen to sit was the judges tables. There were 6 of them. 3 youngish men, two youngish women. And a weird guy with a turtle neck jumper. 

"Hey doesn't that guy look familiar?" Sid says pointing to him. They all just shrug and Sid assumes that he is just seeing things also. 

After some Idle chit chat it finally starts. Only about half them actually look nervous. They start dancing to what most people would say is already an impressive performance. 

"It looks like a battle between those four." Cya says observantly. "A welcome surprise by Sanaka." 

Sid and Samarchi nod in agreement. However Sabiti did not shake his head, instead gave a small smile. 

"You disagree?" she says, noticing that he did not nod. 

"You guys saw her performance on the Dance Dance revolution. Didn't it look almost the same as Hayate's?" they seem to somewhat nod in agreement. " Well it wasn't, because it got to a point when her performance had surpassed Hayate's. It was only after I checked the statistics did I realize." He pauses waiting for them to ask 'What?"

"What?" they ask reluctantly. 

" She was on hardcore the whole time."

"That makes sense" they say looking at Sanaka now. Probably not the reaction he was looking for.

"Meaning that Sanaka could be the best Dancer there." he says somewhat quietly. Sanaka's dance moves were not refined but they held the rhythm perfectly. Everything was on time, with each step she almost got better. 

However, like a tornado randomly appearing the air of the dance floor changed. The song was the same, the music hadn't changed, but why did everything feel so different? IT had seemed all the nerves had now worn off. The performance went from that of a pretty good rookie to far more substantial. 

"This isn't what was in the book" Sabiti says looking down at the performance. However his words seemed to be swept away by the dance. With no one seeming to hear what he said. 

How was Sanaka doing, how he would expect. The book had brought her to a point in dancing where she should be better than the average. However the book had not accounted for this. Sanaka was losing rhythm and her body was losing flow. Any second now and she would lose all feeling. Was this the performance of a rookie level Idol group? They all asked themselves simultaneously. 

Luckily the song ended before it could have had any major defect on her performance.

After the dance performances where all over they went on to the solo singing, something that none of them were confident in Sanaka's abilities with.