"come out oh!" Sarah shouts from outside my gate.

I slip my legs into my slippers "I'm coming!" I open the gate and lock it back then I turn to meet her .

As I slip the key into my pocket, Sarah runs to me pulling me towards the motorcycle waiting for us.

Motorcycles are also a mode of public transportation. We apologize to the okada rider (okada is a common term for motorcycles) for the delay. He nods. (A/n. Btw a very young okada rider, let's say 16... He looked 16 was flirting with me. I was so creeped out but it was kinda cute)

We begin our journey to a small mall 'pep store ' not too far away from our neighborhood.

When we get there, Sarah hands over some money to the rider and we enter the building.

"First, the shop for clothes" I point to a store. We get in and separate.

She checks for tops and I check for pants. I find a good pair of black pants and locate her on another aisle frantically pushing hangers aside.

"What exactly are you looking for" I ask her

"Body con top but badass and neon green" she doesn't even look up to reply.

"Green?" I ask again

"Yes green" she stands, putting her right hand on her waist " or what do you want?"

"I don't know? White? Grey?" I shrug

She kisses her teeth loudly "why do I even bother asking you. You never have anything sensible to say when it comes to clothes. You need to wear something flashy enough so they can remember you immediately"

"Who said they won't remember me" I interrupt

"Let me land. " She emphasizes the landing by slamming her hand on the rack " you need something with flashy colours, comfortable, simple enough but most importantly, badass"

"I think you are overthinking this"

"Wait, what did you think we were coming to buy? A hoodie and some sweats. You have to look professional enough, not shabby" she snatches the basket from my hand. "Follow me"

I quietly follow her to another aisle where she quickly runs to a rack with green clothes.

Sarah has always been the more fashionable one between us. She could scroll through AliExpress for hours looking for the perfect fit. Her dad always scolds her concerning the number of clothes she has.

Last year she had to sell most of them because she doesn't wear them. She's always talking about colour shades and what colour should go with what, fashion era, styles that match ...Let's just say she really likes clothes.

***

Two hours after and we are finally done picking out my outfit.

(Pick one, I couldn't choose)

"Can we get something to eat?" Sarah asks once we come out of the mall.

I transfer the bag to my left hand " yeah let's go to Chicken Republic"

We order our food at the counter and it's immediately served to us. We take our trays to a table by the door.

I usually prefer the tables by the wall but the place is packed today. The aroma of fried rice mixed with jollof rice, you can smell the peppered meat. It just smells beautiful.

We dig into our food gisting about random stuff

"I don't think there'll ever be a day that their chicken won't be heavenly" I say as I greedily eat my chicken

"Alright Wolfie, chill a bit. You're embarrassing me" she whispers

I roll my eyes "don't care"

"You know I told you that I went to write my Post UTME ( university entrance exams) at UI (university of Ibadan) ." Sarah says

"Yeah you said you weren't so sure of an excellent result " I answer

"Well, I was wrong because I got 87%" she tells me casually

"What? " I drop my spoon "and you are just telling me this now because..."

"I forgot okay " Sarah is always a bubbly girl so I know that her countenance right now is off.

"What's wrong. You don't seem happy"

"Cause I'm not " she cleans her hand with a serviette. "I don't want to go and live in Ibadan. It's too far"

"You should look at the bright side, you are free from your family, a new beginning, new friends, new opportunity to start all over " I reassure her "don't focus on the negatives "

"I might ignore the negatives but that doesn't mean they aren't there staring me in the face "

"Hey! Don't! Stop being so negative okay? " I cleaned my hands too "don't you remember when it was time for Lucas to go to uni for the first time?"

She cracks a smile.

"He threw so many tantrums but look at him now going accross the country. " I point my tooth pick towards her "so stop worrying."

"Okay o" she sighs

***

"Leave! They're calling in two minutes " I pull Sarah's hand away from my shirt.

"But but your outfit " she tries to reach out to me again.

"Okay that's enough " Lucas says from the doorway. He walks in and drags Sarah out. He turns to me one last time "don't mess this up"

I give him a thumbs up and he closes the door.

I go through some choreos in my head and stretch for the last two minutes. I stare at the dormant screen after all my warm up.

I finally get a connection. I straighten up. A table with three people I assume to be officials of jype are seated looking directly at the camera.

I do a quick bow "good morning"

I try to not show my nervousness on my face.

"Good morning Liliana" the man sitting at the right says. "I trust that you have trained enough for this "

"Yes sir" I nod

"Okay. You would be singing first. The first song you are to sing is going to be English because we don't expect you to sing Korean so well"

I nod in understanding waiting to be told the question. I'm in my church choir so singing is not something I've ever struggled with.

"It's a well known song" he brings out a sheet of paper, so do the other judges " it's ' Chandelier by Sia'. Do you know the song?"

"Yes sir"

"Alright, when you're ready"

I take a deep breathe and begin singing. (The cover is above)

Their reactions mix from shocked to satisfied to impressed throughout. I'm glad I didn't receive any negative reactions.

I finish and look to them. "Splendid"the lady sitting at the center claps. The other judges join in the clapping.

"You have a nice voice but what I love most about your voice is you have a wide range. You have the ability to hit high notes conveniently. Key word being convenience and you can sing a low range without sounding breathless" she explains

I smile bowing "thank you"

"Now, would you be able to impress us with your dancing?"

"I hope so" I respond

"Great" he takes out another paper and the others follow suit "you'll be dancing 'charmer by straykids'"

"Okay " I go over to my phone which is connected to a speaker.

Charmer by straykids didn't have an official choreography at it's release but a choreo was made for their maniac tour. I leant the moves from the choreo but I wasn't completely satisfied with the results.

The choreo was made for men so it doesn't really fit a woman and it doesn't show enough sexiness for a woman so I did a little spicey spice, added some feminine moves at the stretchy beats.

And I focused alot on the hips and waistline but I still didn't forget to engage the other parts of my body. I just hope they like it.

I stand in position. The song starts and I start the choreo. I put emphasis on the pops and landings. I also focus alot on my facial expressions. My friends always said I had the perfect facial expressions when I'm dancing so I just put on a cocky face

A cocky expression for a cocky song.

I finish the choreo and bow. I try as much to hide my heavy breathing.

They applaud once more. The lady smiles widely at me.

"Where do I start" the first man speaks first "your facial expressions are perfect"

I sigh in relief. I thought I got a bit aggressive in my expressions

" Your control over your limbs too. It wasn't sloppy or too sharp. I would say that you use too much energy when landing your feet but overall, your moves were clean" he continues

"I must add that your ability to lip sync the lyrics also added a bit of flare to it. You owned the choreography. I'm also glad that you didn't stick to the original choreography since we didn't specify. Alot of contestants tend to give the exact choreography. It's alright but doesn't make your performance different from the rest" the lady says

I nod quietly

"My favorite part was the bidibadabidiboom. you made that part fun which really contrasted with the agressive but confident performance of the rest of the song" he claps "good job"

"Thank you " I smile happily

***

I walk out of our study where I did the audition.

My brother and bestie run out from his room with my cousin slowly following after.

"How did it go?" Lucas asks once we make eyes contact

"It went well actually" I reply
Sarah engulfs me in a tight hug

She doesn't say anything but just squeezes me happily. I look up and see Lucas smiling at us softly .

**
Song recommendation for the chapter

Doom du doom - P1harmony

**

Top 5 skz songs ?