03 Pick Your Arrow

“I’m so nervous for tomorrow!”

“You’re nervous? I’m excited! I wasn’t called for the voting so I think I racked up enough points.”

“Me too. But what do you think would happen tomorrow?”

Thalia looked at the two women, alternating between the pink-haired and the blue haired who were talking giddily with each other across from her as she continued to chomped down on her pizza.

They had finished shooting for tonight and now they’re off-screen and were left to enjoy their supper for the night. All the casts were gathering at the garden dining table outside the house, eating and chattering away. It was the last night after all. After the last shoot tomorrow morning, it would be the end of the show and everyone would return home.

Thalia quietly nibbled at the crust of her pizza. She had purposely picked the far-left seat where she could have as little as interaction as ever with everyone else. She felt tired and she just wanted everything to end quickly so she could go back home.

She bet they didn’t know how exactly the crossing of names from the voting boxes worked out. They must had thought it was because of the game points that winners got their boxes taken out from the next voting. But in truth, it was the arrow. The game points was actually a façade. It was a dating show after all—even though the staff tried to sugarcoat it saying it’s a game dating show.

In the first voting, they were told to drop their arrow in the box of the person that they’re interested in pairing up with. However, throughout the show, they were not told of their points or how much points were worth for each game, except that the games did have points. But nobody bothered asking (for real, why did nobody ask?), so Thalia did not pry further but such loopholes in the show that she thought didn’t make sense, brought her to her final thoughts of how the voting boxes actually work.

She relied on her eyes and ears, and putting together two and two from what she saw and heard, she could pretty guess how the show worked. It didn’t seem like the show was hiding it too. In fact, it didn’t matter to them if any of the participants figured it out. Rather, there was this small inkling that Thalia felt like the show actually wanted for it to be figured out by the participants.

Like, c’mon, why would they use arrows with names on to put in the voting box in the first place anyways? Can’t they just be lazy and decided to use balls instead? That would be anti-climatic by all means, and far from cryptic, which she doubted what the show was aiming for.

But of course, Thalia who avoided anyone and everyone else would choose to pretend oblivious of it because by doing so would she able to cut off a little of the possible conversations that might evolved from a small curious question to a deep discussion, which meant longer conversations, more interactions. Troublesome and tiresome, so she wished to evade it.

“What happened?” Anna and Nyla looked around, baffled by the sudden commotion among the staffs.

Then they saw a male older staff--looking like he’s in his late forties, rushing in, following after the two men who stormed into the garden with sullen expressions on. It was seen that the staff was explaining something in a panic mood, probably trying to get the two men to calm down with his words, but failed miserably as they continued to march straight to the dining table.

“There’s only one last shoot left tomorrow!” The older staff explained.

The taller one with spiky dark hair narrowed his cold eyes at the older man. His overall black outfits made him look almost eerie with his pale skin under the night lamp. He didn’t look very pleased of what he had heard.

He looked down at the unbothered Thalia who was busy eating her second slice of pizza and paid no attention to what was happening. As how she was during the whole shoot, minding her own business when she needed not to use her survival skills.

Reign barked, “Get up, you’re leaving.”

Surprised, Thalia looked up. She then furrowed her brows, clearly not expecting to see the two. But her brows immediately shot up when she noticed the older male staff beside them. She stared at him in silence, finally putting the puzzles together on how her mother could put her in the show.

The older man was smiling at her nervously. It was a smile that seemed to ripple with tension, the kind that falters at the edges, betraying the frantic scramble of his mind to come up with any plausible excuse.

Well, at least she now knew he felt guilty for doing her wrong.

Thalia sighed. “Can we leave after I finish eating?” The pizzas were premium. She gotta get her worth filled with these expensive toppings.

Reign proceeded to stack four pieces of the pizza together before shoving them on Thalia’s hand. She looked at them quizzically before she got pulled up and thrown over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Her pizzas almost fell off.

“This is uncomfortable,” Thalia complained, holding tight to her four-stacked pizzas with both of her hands.

“Bear with it,” He curtly responded before he turned to the blonde man who he came with. “Go and get all her stuff,” he instructed.

Nixon, who in contrast looked very flamboyant with his messy blonde hair and laid back with open-buttoned red shirt, appeared more than happy to do so. He chirped, “Alright, give me a few minutes.”

He went ahead and barged himself into the house, bulldoze everyone that tried to stop him in the process. Not knowing which her room might be, he made full use of his face to ask a random female staff who he found taking a break near the place who had no idea what was happening outside.

Mesmerized by what her eyes had laid upon, she easily answered it like she was in some kind of a trance. He worked fast and swift. In less than five minutes, he already got all her stuff out of the house. She didn’t have many stuff to begin with, so it didn’t take long for him to pick up all her stuff.

He came back with a smile on his face. “Got all of them.” He shook the hand-carry bag in his grasp. “Honestly though, she packed too little.” Well, even if he unintentionally missed a few miscellaneous things of hers, they could always buy another to replace them.

“It doesn’t matter,” Reign replied curtly.

They turned around and quietly left with Thalia silently chewing on her pizzas on top of being dangled like a sack of potatoes on the man’s shoulder. It was odd to see her being very compliant and very much less obstinate.

Everyone was too stunned to say anything. They watched in awe at the scene unfolded before them. It was unbelievable that something as absurd as that, had just happened. Their eyes darted after the older man who didn’t seem like he had given up yet. He was scurrying after the two young men who were heading towards their car parked outside the fence gate.

Thalia was put in the back seat together with her luggage. Slamming the car door closed, Reign proceed to grab the older man’s collar, which startled everyone. The people there thought that there was going to be a fight, and some of the male staffs were ready to run to stop the fight. But they halted in their tracks when they saw that the man was only shaking the older man by his collar.

Reign’s jaw tightened, clenching with the effort to keep his teeth from grinding together as the corner of his mouth turned downward. A frown was seen that seemed almost too heavy for his young looking face.

It was clear that he was upset about something as he spoke but what’s weirder was the older man laughed in response. It left the people completely puzzled watching such altercation. Nixon pried Reign’s hands off the older man’s collar and pat him on the back, saying something. Both of them shook their heads and the older man was seen sighing very deeply, finally raising both his hands up in a surrendering gesture.

The people watched the two of them got in the car and the older man waved them goodbye as the car left the curb.

He returned with slumped shoulders and a very dispirited face.

One of the staff hurried off to his side. “Tedd, what happened?”

“I feel like I just aged ten years just now,” the older man mumbled. He could feel his soul nearly fly off when he saw the two brothers came just now. His sister clearly mentioned that her two meddler older sons would be out of town this month so how did this pair of obscure nephews of his appeared here? More importantly, just how did the news slipped out to them about their little sister being in the show?

No matter, it had already happened so what’s best now was the show’s risk management following suit. “We need to change a few things for our final shoot tomorrow. Thalia won’t be joining us.”

“What, why?” He expected the dissatisfaction to arise but alas.

There was a brief pause before he sighed yet again. This time deeper, and louder. The frustration felt like a leaden weight pressing down on his chest, and when he finally let it out, it came as a deep despondent sigh that seemed to draw the very air from his lungs.

Yes, he’s frustrated but he can’t do anything about it now.

“Let’s just say there’s a personal emergency on her side.” He would rather not explain, not that he even needed to go into details anyways.

He gave a dismissive wave, “You people can continue eating. Our writers and staff on the risk management team, please follow me.”

They had an urgent last-minute meeting that night.

TBC.