I Accidentally Became A Superstar

“The special guest must be the vocal coach,” Oska started off. “We definitely need their help.”

It was the next day, and they were in their practice room, waiting for the “special guest” to arrive. They had been practicing for the past day, and it was safe to say it wasn’t going well.

Fortunately, they didn’t have to wait too long.

The doors burst open, and in walked a woman clad in chiffon.

She marched in, boots clicking on the studio floor. She wore red-tinted sunglasses indoors and behind her trailed two assistants, one carrying a humidifier, the other struggling under a crate labeled “Throat Spray: 83 Variants.”

Janie J.

Also known as “The Lung Queen.”

She had played Elphaboo in Twisted: The Untold Stories of the Other Side of Aus. She brought tears to sold-out audiences as Celestine in The Shade Purple. She made history as the youngest lead in the classic Allie: The Musical.

The staff popped in to confirm the obvious. “This is Janie J. You will be working with her this week to polish your performances. Consider yourselves lucky.”

“Hello, children,” Janie said, lowering her glasses, not even bothering to introduce herself or ask for their names. “Let us begin. We start with the first song. From the top. Now.”

“Like… right now?” Billy asked with wide eyes.

Janie raised a brow. “Do I need to repeat myself?”

Billy pursed his lips and stood with the rest of the team. With that, the group began to sing the musical’s opening number, “One Week.”

She listened to the entire song quietly, but her eye twitched from time to time.

As soon as the ending notes echoed through the air, she let out a deep breath.

“What,” she asked icily, “was that?”

The room turned silent.

“I’ll tell you what it was. That was a mess! Are you trying to become idols? Are you auditioning for a toothpaste commercial? Where is the soul? Where is the pain?”

Daniel raised a hand. “We were… singing?”

“You were performing too polished. All of you!”

She paced down the line.

“You,” she pointed at Billy, “sound like a pop artist. I hate it.”

“You,” she pointed at Daniel, “I know you’re attractive, but try singing with your vocal cords, not your cheekbones.”

She arrived at Oska. “You’re doing fine. But you’re always fine. Try being interesting.”

“Again!” Janie barked. “From the top!”

They sang again, this time more cautiously. And somehow, that made it worse.

Janie’s eye twitched again. “You’re acting like you’re singing. But you’re not singing from your gut. You don’t become the character. You are the character! Who are you!?”

Daniel raised a hand. “Uh, Daniel?”

“NO. You are Thursday, a priest who has seen the worst. You come back to your dying father, yet you sound not even a bit optimistically sad!”

“How can you be optimistic and sad at the same time?” Daniel muttered.

“Exactly!” Janie. J exclaimed. “That’s what you need to answer for yourself.”

The room turned silent again before she clapped once.

“We’re moving on. Second number. Let’s see if that works.”

The group shuffled into place for the more emotionally grounded song.

That’s when she stopped and turned to Zeno.

“You.”

Zeno bowed his head and said nothing.

“You’re Wednesday.”

The room turned to stare at him. Zeno suddenly wished he had an invisibility booster.

“I’ll show you,” Janie said, clearing her throat.

She sang the climax of the song.

And boy, can she sing.

Every note stabbed you with grief. Every word was soaked in loss. She sang Wednesday’s song in a rich, male key—soaring over emotional valleys.

When she finished, she pointed at Zeno. “Just like that. Alright?”

Zeno pursed his lips. Well, his lungs weren’t forged in Olympus.

“Sing,” she demanded.

“You say I have a good life,

But I can’t even feel it.

You say I have a full plate,

But I barely get to eat it.”

Zeno was singing just fine. In fact, his teammates felt he was doing a good job—although they would never admit that.

However, Janie J. seemed to not be satisfied.

“Again,” she said. “But this time, don’t think about sounding good. Think about breaking.”

Zeno tried once more, and he did break. Well, his voice did at the highest note.

Janie sighed and shook her head, eyes narrowing at him. “You don’t get it, do you?”

“You must have been praised for so long, you think you’re above learning something new.”

Zeno’s brows furrowed. That didn’t sound right.

“A lot of screen actors think they’re better because they have fans,” she cut in, voice rising, “because you have followers, because your face is pretty. But can you do this? Can you make someone cry live, with no edits, no take two, no camera angles to hide behind?”

“You’re wondering why you’re even doing this mission,” she said, pacing. “I can see it on all your faces. You think it’s pointless. Musical theater is too loud, too theatrical, too exhausting. But this? This is discipline. This is craft. Every form of acting is a language, and this—” she stabbed a finger toward the stage “—is one you have to learn if you ever want to understand the soul of performance.”

She stopped right in front of Zeno.

“You might think your achievements would suffice. That your resume will carry you. But in the end…” She placed her palm over her chest, right over her heart, “…it’s in here that matters most.”

“You’re just too closed off to see it.”

Why was she saying all of these to him?

Just then, Daniel raised his hand.

“But… we’re not musical actors.”

Janie froze. Silence dropped over the rehearsal room like a velvet curtain.

She stepped back. “I can’t do this,” she muttered.

And with one final sweep of her scarf, Janie J. turned and walked out.

“You’re on your own.”

The door slammed behind her.

With Janie gone from the room, the atmosphere turned even more awkward.

Zeno pursed his lips and sat on the floor, his elbows resting on his knees.

Still, somehow, all eyes turned to him.

He could feel it. No one said it outright, of course, but their quiet muttering and sidelong glances insinuated that Zeno was the one at fault.

He didn’t even do anything!

Zeno clicked his tongue and muttered under his breath, “These people are really insufferable.”

“I can’t believe this,” Billy grumbled a few feet away, arms crossed. “We all sang well.”

“Yeah,” Daniel chimed in with a snort. “I mean, between all of the contestants, we might be the best singers in this whole show.”

Zeno closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“That wasn’t her point,” he said, butting into their conversation.

The room fell quiet. A couple of the production assistants looked up from their phones.

“She wasn’t mad because we sang well,” he went on. “She was mad because we couldn’t tell the story.”

Billy frowned. “Isn’t that the same thing?”

Zeno stared at him for a full three seconds. Then shook his head slowly. “No. Not even a little bit.”

Oska let out a long sigh. He ran his hand through his neatly styled hair, which was now doing its best impression of a bird’s nest.

Zeno glanced at him.

If there was one good thing about this group… there wasn’t.

Oska looked like he was actively regretting signing up for this team. Phoenix, who had been uncharacteristically quiet, sat with his script folded neatly in his lap.

They hadn’t practiced their lines together. They hadn’t even blocked the first act. And when they did rehearse, everyone still moved like a soloist waiting for the spotlight.

There was no cohesion. Just a bunch of inflated egos and a ticking clock.

Zeno exhaled and rubbed his jaw. His brain was replaying Janie J.’s demonstration. She had become Wednesday with just two lines.

His eyes followed his teammates again, where they had now slowly returned to their “designated spots.”

It had been like this for two days. They would memorize their scripts individually. They would sing individually. They would practice individually.

His mind drifted back to his own problem. The second song. The key was ridiculously high for him. So, aside from this godforsaken group, this was another problem of his.

Right on cue, a soft chime echoed in his mind.

[New Side Quest Available]

[Reward: Range Enhancer – Upgrades your vocal range to suit live musical performances, including difficult keys. Control of vocals not included.]

Zeno stared at the glowing text hovering in front of him.

He then scrolled a bit further down to see what he needed to do.

[Quest Title: 100 compliments]

[Unlock the mystical power of belief—in other people! Compliment 100 individuals sincerely to receive your reward.]

His eye twitched.

Sincerely?!

He looked around the room. There weren’t even a hundred contestants on this show! Aside from that, he didn’t know everyone that well to give them a compliment out of nowhere! Was this a new torture method?

He’d rather run barefoot through broken glass and listen to Hero’s freestyle poems for him.

Zeno leaned forward, resting his face in his hands with a groan that came from the deepest part of his soul.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”