Ari rattled the doorknob aggressively, but the door was well and truly locked instead of just being stuck.
'What the heck was wrong with the boys in his room??'
'Who the heck locked the door before making sure all 10 people were inside??'
Holding back the urge to scream, Ari tried to be reasonable.
First, he tried knocking lightly, hoping that somebody would hear it and wake up, but it seemed like everyone was completely knocked out.
The sound of snoring could even be heard outside the door.
'Should I just bang on it loudly so that they have no choice but to wake up?'
'But then, wouldn't everyone in the room hate him? '
'They already seemed to dislike him from earlier.'
But he also wanted to sleep.
As Ari was thinking through what to do, the system decided to add its own to cents.
[Just do it!]
[Smash the door in!]
[Wake them all up immediately.]
[Hehehehehehe.]
As soon as he read the words, Ari immediately rethought his plan.
NOVA was clearly just looking to instigate something, and following along with the troublesome system didn't really seem like a good idea.
It would be better to find a staff member to unlock the door.
Rubbing his eyes from tiredness, Ari turned to go find a staff member but after wandering for a bit, he couldn't find anyone but the old security guard who said that he couldn't help him with a tired yawn then ignored him.
A bit annoyed, especially as he could see the sun rising from the front doors of the building, Ari went back to F1, took a deep breath, and began banging on the door.
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!
His fists rapidly hit the door, and Ari heard the sounds of people moving around, and then a loud thump as something heavy hit the ground, and the sound of somebody cursing.
[Good.]
[Bang on the door even harder.]
[Assert your dominance and show them you mean business.]
Ignoring the strange words that NOVA kept showing, Ari continued banging on the door.
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!
Not stopping, he continued banging on the door until it was yanked wide open, and one of his roommates, a boy named Ian, opened the door.
"What's going wahaghgahhh!" Ian leaped backward after seeing a person wearing a green snail mask glaring angrily in the dim hallway lighting.
"Why would you lock the door without everyone being in the room?" Ari asked coldly, not even waiting for the boy to speak.
"Oh, it's you? Why were you banging on the door, weirdo? Don't you know people are sleeping?" A bit embarrassed at his dramatic overreaction, Ian angrily replied, but Ari stepped into his personal space, pushing Ian back into the room while shutting the door behind him.
PD Park had told them that some hallways had cameras, and he didn't want his argument caught on film, especially after PD Emily had asked him pointed questions about a roommate conflict.
"Which one of you locked the door? I've been trying to get in, and you're complaining about me banging on the door? To get into my own assigned room? Have you lost your mind? Would you want this to happen to you?"
Ari looked past Ian, meeting the eyes of his roommates.
Some looked sheepish, others looked confused, and a few looked irritated at being woken up so early in the morning.
"It wasn't me, so I don't know why you're yelling at me!" Ian yelled back defensively, although he didn't meet Ari's gaze.
He had been the last one to shower, and after discussing with some of his friends in the room, he decided to lock the door because he didn't like how Ari had spoken to him earlier.
He planned to let Ari in if he begged to be let in, but he had fallen asleep since Ari had never shown up.
"Hey! Don't you have any decency knocking on the door like that? People are sleeping!"
"Yeah! What the heck, now I can't go back to sleep!"
"You're so dang rude, you know that?"
The rest of Ian's buddies began complaining at Ari, trying to support their friend, but he took one look at them and rolled his eyes before silently digging out his duffel bag from underneath Vishal's bed.
He definitely didn't want to say anything else because if he did, he wasn't sure what kind of curse words would come out of his mouth.
He just knew that this petty argument would turn into a real argument, so he would stay quiet just this once.
His plan was to just shower, sleep, and hope that they would leave him alone.
"Look at him. He knows he's wrong, so he's keeping quiet after waking everybody up."
"Rude ahh punk."
Unfortunately, it seemed that none of them knew how to be quiet, even when they were wrong.
Ari turned to look at the people speaking while raising his snail mask so they could see his angry face.
His face looked quite creepy, with parts of the face paint and lipstick smudged, and his eyebrows furrowed.
"I was locked out. All night. And you're complaining that I woke you up when the sun was rising? I'm not in the mood for this, so I'm going to take a shower. You can go back to sleep or discuss with me after I'm done."
"Wait. You can't take a shower first. I'm first." Gale, the blond boy with the nose piercing, spoke up.
"This is my turn from last night since I was locked out of the room. If you have an issue with it, let's go explain both our sides to the PD. I'm sure they have footage of me trying to get into a locked room in the middle of the night."
Although he had no plans to go to the PD's with this childish issue, it seemed to be effective as the mouths of the boys snapped shut.
"Cough snitch!" somebody muttered under their breath.
Ari rolled his eyes once more before turning away.
Completely tired from dealing with nonsense first thing in the morning, Ari removed his face paint, showered, brushed, and then reapplied his makeup before covering it with his face mask.
He hand-washed his Otterly adorable jumpsuit, boxers, and T-shirt before dressing in his pajamas.
When he stepped out about 40 minutes later, some of his roommates were sitting on their beds, chatting, while others had gone back to sleep.
Ari slid his duffel bags under the sleeping Vishal's bed before leaving the room to put his things in a dryer in the laundry room.
Then he came back to the F1 room, spread his sleeping bag out in the middle of the floor, and went to sleep, completely ignoring the glares and talking voices around him.
A couple of hours later, the PA system playing the Warrior song at the loudest level possible woke him up.
As the loud bass made his eardrums vibrate, Ari reluctantly sat up and regretted his life choices.
He was completely exhausted, his body was so, so sore from moving in ways it had never moved before, and his roommates were scrambling around and screaming as people made a mad dash to the bathroom and others made a mad dash to the cafeteria for breakfast.
Neither option looked appetizing.
All Ari wanted to do was lie down and go back to sleep.
What had possessed him to join this show again?
It couldn't have been worth it, right?
There was not a lot in the world that was worth losing sleep.
[Money.]
Nova filled his face with a blue screen with a single word.
[You joined for money.]
[What happened to your dear 10k, 50k, 100k?]
[You think you can win that money, make the top 7, and debut with your pathetic skills and current appearance?]
[Get up. Go eat. And go start practicing.]
After groaning to himself, Ari got up.