The mood of team Yeonin was dark as they returned to the dorms. Geomi had gone ahead of them after filming his interview, which had taken a long time. Alex had been in scheduled to go after Geomi and he'd heard the sobs from within. His heart hurt for Geomi. How had this happened?! The guy was a main vocal! It felt so unfair! 

The team paused in front of the vocalist room. The door was open and inside Geomi was sitting on the matress with his legs drawn up and head buried in his hands, crying. Alex glanced at the leader, Yeonin, who just looked from Geomi to Alex, obviously at a loss of what to do. Inshik just shrugged. It was Bomseok who moved toward Geomi first and Alex followed. Meanwhile Yeonin just walked away.

"Geomi-" Bomseok started, and sat down on the bed next to Geomi. 

Alex sat down on the mattress facing the crying guy. "Hey," he started, not really sure what to say. "Eh- . About the thing. I'm sorry."

Geomi nodded and sniffed audibly. He wiped the tears from his face but more just replaced it.

"Hey at least you don't have to see our ugly mugs again," Jeongha said with a forced smile. "I envy you, I have to see mine every time I look in the mirror!"

Geomi smiled back, very briefly, and sniffs again. "Y-yeah, a-anything but that." It came out hollow. He tried to rub away some of the snot with the back of his hand.

Yeonin returned and handed Geomi a wad of toilet paper with a solemn nod. So he hadn't bailed after all.

"Th-thanks," Geomi stammered, blowing his nose. "I-I'm s-sorry."

"It's okay," Alex said, he moved next to Geomi and put an arm around him, comforting the sobbing boy. Alex noticed Geomi's bag laying abandoned next to the mattres with some of his possessions halfheartedly shoved inside.

"It's just-" Geomi started inbetween sobs. "It's my looks again and I know it. It's m-my stupid ugly face."

"It's not!" Alex said immediately. "Your looks are fine!"

"Yes it is." Seowoo came through the doorway followed by the other vocal members from team James. Seowoo sat down opposite Geomi. "Look I'm not trying to be a , but there's no use in lying to yourself. You're not going to get through a survival show with a face like that. You wanna make it onto the stage you gotta find another way, and there are other ways."

It was getting crowded in the vocalist room now. Jaemin was in the corner trying to hide the fact that he was crying himself.

"Why are you crying?" Seowoo snapped. "You hardly know him."

Jaemin sniffed. "I just- I can't help it." Yeonin wordlessly handed him some toilet paper and Jaemin blew his nose.

"Look-" Inshik started. He'd been quietly sitting with his knees to his chest on his own top bunk and watching the others. 

"No not you," Alex cut him off. "You've done enough." He was still angry when he thought about how Inshik had treated Geomi, freezing him over something as stupid as not getting the lines he wanted. He was probably happy Geomi was going so there'd be less competition for him. This wasn't about Inshik, it was about Geomi. 

"Come on," Bomseok said, giving Geomi's shoulder a squeeze. "We can help you pack."

It didn't take long to gather the few possessions Geomi had taken with him. After many hugs and more toilet paper tissues, they saw Geomi off. Then one by one everyone turned in for the night. Kyungtaek and Seowoo took care of Geomi's matress, pushing it under one of the bunk beds. 

Alex retreated back to the dancer room where most guys were already sleeping. He felt too restless to just go to sleep. Even though it was pushing 2AM and they had another hectic day tomorrow. After tossing and turning for about an hour Alex climbed down from his bunk and went to the dark empty bathroom.

He splashed some water onto his face and looked in the mirror. There were clear bags under his eyes from lack of sleep, their team had put in ridiculous hours of work to get their last minute song change together. He'd gotten most of his sleep the past 48 hours on the bench in the practice room.

He let himself slide down to the floor, the cold tiles giving him a chill. Just to think, just for a moment.

The door opened and the lights . "Huh- oh. Hey." Ted was standing in the doorway, looking really sleepy and really confused.

"Hi hyung," Alex said, a bit disappointed. But if it was Ted it would be alright. 

"What are you doing?" Ted asked, rubbing his eyes.

"Just thinking."

Ted motioned for him to move over and sat down next to Alex. "Thinking about what?"

"Thinking about Geomi."

Ted nodded. "That's worthy of thought."

"It's just-" Alex started, feeling like a dam was about to break. "It's just so unfair, you know? He's a great singer, how could he get eliminated already? And is it really just because of his face? Are people really that superficial? And if so then did they just vote for me because of my face?"

"Probably," Ted said. "Survival shows are like that. You're either pretty or you stand out or you get eliminated. Geomi knew what he was in for when he applied to this. He'd done it before."

"But that still doesn't make it right," Alex muttered. It wasn't really the answer he wanted to hear. He wanted someone to be angry with him, not be reasonable! "Why does he get to go while someone like Seowoo or Hugo get to stay? Or Inshik." he wrinkled his nose.

"What has Inshik done?"

"He was a jerk to Geomi about the lines stuff."

Ted cocked his head. "Are you sure you're not judging too quickly?"

"No I know what I saw. He made Geomi feel like and now Geomi is gone!"

"You don't have to like him," Ted conceded. "But you do have to be civil."

"Ugh, fine." Alex sat up. He couldn't get that nagging feeling out of his head that Inshik had treated Geomi wrong, and now Geomi was gone. 

"Now go on, go to bed," Ted said, giving Alex a slight push.

"Aren't you coming too?"

"I still need to pee," Ted said. "This is a toilet after all. I'll see you in the morning Alex."

So when Seowoo had found himself shoehorned in the kid's team without having any say in it, well, .

"Eh, okay, sooo," Alex started. "We should... listen to the song?" 

Seowoo rolled his eyes. Who'd made this kid the leader? Oh right, the voters had. .

He glanced around the group as they listened to Fireworks. The song was so obviously worse than the other two, he felt set up to fail. He could already imagine how the judges would call them forgetable and blame them for it when the song itself was probably too dull to even be sold as a nugu b-side.

And with both Haneul and James being famous even before the show started, their group didn't stand a chance. Not even with Alex' looks and cuteness, there was a reason he'd been the last to pick the song. Seowoo sighed. It felt like to be set up to fail.

"So... parts... we should divide the parts," Alex said rather uselessly.

"I want to do main vocal!" Inshik all but jumped up in eagerness.

Alex noticeably stiffened, narrowing his eyes. "Now that Geomi is no longer here you're really going for it aren't you?

"Now, now," Bomeseok quickly interrupted, putting his hands up to block both Alex and Inshik. "No fighting. Who wants to do the main vocal? Jaemin?"

Jaemin was fidgeting with his pants, the guy never seemed to sit still and it was really getting on his nerves. "I'm okay with a smaller part," Jaemin said. "I think that would be better."

"I want a main part," Seowoo said himself. At the very least he could try to get some recognition out of this sinking ship.

"Okay Seowoo gets-" Alex started

"We should let them try out," Bomseok reminded him.

They each sang the main parts of the song and he could see from the get-go that he wasn't going to make it. Disappointment number two. Everyone always responded to that kind of youthful energy even if the guy's singing was sub-par.

"I liked Inshik better," Bomseok said. "Seowoo, you can do the lead part,"

"It's a really important part too," Jaemin added. "You get the bridge to the chorus, it's what people will remember-"

"Don't patronize me," Seowoo snapped. He really, really hated being set up to fail.
 

"Admit it, you're happy Geomi is gone so you can finally be a little main vocal!" Alex accused.

"Stop it, I'm not!" Inshik felt his voice break into a squeak. He didn't understand why Alex was being such a jerk to him, it wasn't Inshik's fault that Geomi was gone! It was only the voter's fault and it had nothing to do with the fact that he had been mean to Geomi. 

He couldn't let anybody know that he'd been ignoring Geomi, all because he'd taken the parts that Inshik had wanted. He hadn't meant anything by it. He'd just been petty and angry about it and hadn't wanted to talk to Geomi for a bit. That was fair wasn't it? What Alex was doing to him totally wasn't! Besides, Inshik was sure Geomi'd done it on purpose since he knew Inshik wanted those parts- 

"Alex, Inshik, stop," Bomseok snapped.

"Where is Changui?" Jaemin asked. "Weren't you supposed to help him with his rap?"

Bomseok stiffened. "Yes," he said angrily. "I was."

"Come on then, let's find him," Seowoo got up from where he'd been sulking. "At least that's more productive than this."

They first checked the other practice rooms and production booths in the vain hope that Changui had been working hard on his own somewhere. No such luck. Then they tried the dorms, maybe he was taking a nap? But no.  

As a last resort they checked the canteen and even before they opened the door they could hear voices from within. Inshik shared a worried look with Bomseok who looked ready to lynch Changui. They opened the door and, bingo, there he was chatting with Hugo at one of the tables, happily eating some noodles and dumplings.

“The thing about Plato though,” Changui said in English. “Is that he's unreliable. He's writing about democracy from the viewpoint of someone whose mentor was executed by popular vote.so when he's painting his picture of a true democracy ready to be overtaken by a tyrant, that's not an unbiased conclusion.” Inshik could barely understand what he was saying let alone understand what he meant. He glanced at his hyungs with confusion but they just glared at the scene in front of him.

“True,” Hugo says in Korean. “Even without putting a judgement on the right or wrongness of his statements, you can't deny the effects they've had on the many political systems of this earth. True democracy scares people.” Hugo’s mask was off at it always was when eating and the gnarly scar underneath it still gave Inshik the jeebies. No wonder he wore a mask all the time, who wanted to look at that?

“I wouldn't call most political systems democracies either,” Changui pointed out. “If you're voting on a leader to represent a county does that still count as democracy? It seems to me that is more like an oligarchy,  especially since the pool of candidates is small and often comes from the same circles.”

“The people still vote for the leader,  as opposed to a true oligarchy where the oligarchs determine the next leaders. Unless we get into conspiracy theories of course.” Hugo slurped some noodles.

Changui laughed. “Yeah let's not. But a true democracy, I think that's what we need. Switzerland has had a true democracy for decades and they're still growing strong.”

“But Switzerland is a small insular country,” Hugo pointed out. “Of course it's easier for Switzerland to maintain that sort of politics. Also Switzerland still has parties and leaders and lawmakers, and even then their policy is hopefully conservative as a result. In this day and age a true democracy is simply unfeasible for larger counties. And when there is one, fear tactics and misinformation rule the decision making process, just look and at Brexit.”

“Hmm true that was a disaster,” Changui nodded before unhaling a dumpling.

“So we're at a conundrum,” Hugo said with his mouth full. “Damned if we do and damned if we don't.  Our leaders are corrupt but we need them and we need them to be qualified. So who do we look to to lead us? The corrupt politicians, the unqua