Theme Song

Miura Yuki's name, meanwhile, had four characters, and he happened to be standing right beside him. Not only could he be ruled out entirely, but he was also very likely the unlucky fellow on the receiving end of the snide remark.

Compare that with his criteria for a roommate, and Miura Yuki seemed tailor-made for the role.

No scheming or backstabbing—

He spoke without thinking and dared to say the scripted lines outright.

Not inclined to stir up trouble—

He pretended not to hear snide remarks.

Not overly lively—

He was a man of few words and always kept his voice low.

His only possible drawback was that his striking looks might attract too much attention, but he didn't seem to care much about that, which could also give his other roommates a chance to get some screen time.

All things considered, Miura Yuki was the safest and most suitable choice of roommate in Class F.

Liang Zhisheng shook out his rumpled clothes and caught sight of his roommate getting up from the corner of his eye. "Aren't you going to catch up on sleep?"

Miura Yuki raised his clear, bright eyes, which shone like obsidian. He seemed to have a strong insistence on looking people calmly in the eye when he spoke. His polite, gentle manner gave them the respectful feeling that they had his undivided attention.

He slowly shook his head. "I'm not sleepy."

For a moment, Liang Zhisheng wondered if he was getting old. He had slept longer than Miura Yuki, yet he was so tired he could barely keep his eyes open and had headed straight for the dorm without even eating brunch.

"How old are you?"

The other man was visibly taken aback. "Nine... nineteen?"

"..."

The twenty-five-year-old Liang Zhisheng thought, So it really is a matter of age.

Maybe not.

Even at nineteen, he figured he would have been just as exhausted and listless in the same situation.

Noticing Miura Yuki heading out with paper and a pen in his hands, Liang Zhisheng asked in surprise, "You're not going to the practice room, are you?"

Miura Yuki stopped at the head of the bed. He turned halfway around and gave a small nod.

Liang Zhisheng stared at him, dumbfounded. "You're going that hard?"

So it wasn't that dorm 707 had no king of grinding. He was just competing on a different track: he didn't grind over makeup and styling.

Liang Zhisheng didn't know whether his roommate genuinely wanted to practice or was trying to build an image of making up for a lack of talent through hard work in front of the cameras.

Either way, going this far was incredibly intense.

But on second thought, not everyone was as uninterested in the survival show as he was. Setting practical concerns aside, if given a choice between debuting and not debuting, he believed 99 percent of the trainees would choose the former.

Especially with a face like Miura Yuki's, it would be a shame not to debut.

"There probably won't be many people in the practice rooms. Everyone's gone to sleep or eat." Liang Zhisheng couldn't help feeling a little worried as he recalled the disaster that had been the initial stage. "Will you be okay practicing alone?"

"I'll be fine."

"Then remember to eat lunch," Liang Zhisheng reminded him. "I know you just had breakfast, but you didn't eat much, did you? This afternoon's dance class will take a lot out of you. Practicing on an empty stomach can give you low blood sugar or strain your muscles, but don't eat too late either. Exercising on a full stomach is bad for your stomach."

The thoughtful concern from his roommate made Miura Yuki unable to hold back a smile. "Thank you."

This was the third time Liang Zhisheng had received his thanks.

He had noticed it the second time, and now he was almost entirely certain: Miura Yuki was in the habit of adding an object after "thank," as if deliberately emphasizing that the person he was thanking was "you," and no one else.

It was a tiny detail that made his gratitude seem all the more sincere.

"I won't hold you up. Go on." Liang Zhisheng waved a hand. "You're racing against the clock to practice, and I'm racing against the clock to sleep. I'm too old to keep pulling late nights."

The light-blond-haired young man smiled, his brows and eyes as lovely as a painting. "Sweet dreams."

Chapter 16: Theme Song

After leaving the dorm, Lai Yudong let out a long breath.

The so-called early start for a clumsy bird wasn't some brilliant plan that could turn the tide—if he had that kind of ability, he wouldn't have been worried in the first place. It meant familiarizing himself with the theme song and writing down the lyrics.

There was very little he could do at the moment. Whether or not the production team handed out the lyrics separately, it couldn't hurt to memorize them in advance and save time during the practice to come.

That was why he had gone out of his way to fetch the paper and pen included with the "newbie gift pack." He hadn't expected Liang Zhisheng to skip his meal and head straight back to the dorm to catch up on sleep, leaving him with no way to avoid a one-on-one conversation in front of the cameras.

Fortunately, he had already adjusted to communicating normally in his brand-new persona and hadn't made any mistakes throughout the exchange. The only problem was that the bullet comments complained he spoke too little.

[Question: how many characters did Yuzu say in that conversation in dorm 707?]

[I doubt it was more than ten.]

[I counted twelve, not including filler words.]

[Oh my god, how did I end up falling for a little mute?]

[I wanted You Shu to keep quiet onstage, not all the time.]

[+1, your voice sounds so good, so say a few more words.]

Lai Yudong: ...

Leaving everything else aside, had "Yuzu" become his default nickname?

The practice rooms were on the third floor: one large classroom and four small ones. The latter were used to teach the theme song to trainees divided by class.

Quite a few trainees were going up and down at this hour. To avoid spending an awkward dozen seconds in the elevator with someone else, Lai Yudong had the foresight to take the stairs.

But human plans were no match for heaven's. At the turn between the third and fourth floors, someone came walking toward him.

Lai Yudong had a good memory and immediately recognized the face he had only seen a few times. It was Zeng Kai, the Class F trainee who had stood next to Liu Qichu during the gathering.

He had probably just come up from the second floor after eating, which suggested his dorm wasn't on an upper floor.

Whether out of politeness or their bond as classmates, running into each other face-to-face in the narrow stairwell made a greeting unavoidable.

In this situation, there were usually three standard responses that couldn't go wrong: "Hello," "Have you eaten?" or a polite, slightly surprised smile.

But reality gave Lai Yudong no chance to choose. Before the corners of his mouth could lift, Zeng Kai brushed past him without looking aside.

"..."

Lai Yudong froze for a moment, rooted awkwardly to the spot.

He withdrew his belated smile and turned his head to look back. Zeng Kai had already turned onto the fourth floor, leaving him standing there alone in confusion.