68 Lou Pearlman

With Amazo grounded in his temporary room, I immediately called up A.J. and let him know I was available now. Even though it was already 8pm, A.J. sent over some videos of the bands choreography and told me to study them until tomorrow when I was to meet his manager. I immediately went to the holodeck and had a 3D rendition of the 2D videos made. The computer probably used something like A.I. to fill in the missing parts. When it played, it looked like it had always looked like it had been 3D. It all looked very natural. 

I played the videos one by one over and over until I had mastered each choreography for each song. It was easy simply because I was a Saiyan. Dancing and Martial arts were similar in a lot of ways. If anything Id say Martial arts was a lot harder to learn. This sort of thing was nothing to me. 

After working non stop for most of the night without sleep, I had finally mastered each videos choreography. It was December 13th today, so I walked outside to cool off. As soon as I walked out of the Castle, I saw this years first snow lightly falling. Matteo, Mayank, and Charlotte were outside in casual clothing also cooling off from their own workouts. Seeing me, they all smiled and waved in my direction. In turn, I couldn't help but smile back as I walked towards them.

Christmas was approaching and it would be the second one for me in this world. Before I moved to this dimension, I had nobody but my brother Michael to spend the holidays with and sometimes I didn't even have that. The first Christmas here I still had nobody but acquaintances and the children at the Orphanage. It's only been a year and I have already surrounded myself with many people that I care about and that also care about me. The difference between my past life and this new life was vast.

Looking at my three disciples , no... my three illegally adopted children, I couldn't help but walk up to them and pull all three of them into a warm hug. Matteo fought back for a second, but eventually accepted his fate as his arms dangled to his sides. "You kids liked the concert a year ago right?" 

Hearing my words, the three kids pulled away as I loosened my hug allowing them to escape. All three of them seemed excited as they anticipated my next words, but Charlotte was the first to speak. "Yes, why do you ask?" She felt she knew why, but she did not want to sound spoiled and so she wanted to hear her Teacher say it first. 

"We are not kids, we are basically teenagers". mumbled Matteo. Mayank said nothing as he had his hands in his hoodies pockets trying to keep them warm. 

"I was thinking about getting you guys some new front row tickets again if you wanted to go to another backstreet boys concert. This time they are VIP tickets and you will also get a lanyard that will let you meet the band after their show. What do you say?"

"I know I probably sound like a broken record, but are you rich Teacher?" asked Mayank. 

I shrugged my shoulders. "I have quite a bit of money and nowhere to really spend it. I am not that materialistic myself. You guys have been working hard over the past year and I thought you all deserved a break. If you would rather do something else instead just let me know".

The three quickly shut down my secondary offer. "We had so much fun at the last concert you sent us to, we are more than fine with going to another one". Charlotte said as the other two boys nodded enthusiastically. We then all talked for while longer before I had to go.

Leaving the young teenagers, I realized it was 6am. I hadn't slept at all. Luckily as a Saiyan I didn't need as much sleep as humans and decided to just skip sleep for one night as I headed towards the address A.J. had given to me. Arriving in front of the building, It looked more like a warehouse than it looked like a place to train or record music. 

The building seemed sketchy and the feeling only grew when I saw a fat old white man wearing an outfit that made me think he was an 80's Italian gangster come out of said warehouse as he shoved a burger into his mouth and started to talk as he chewed. "Prince Aeric! My name is Lou Pearlman, I hear you want to work with my talent and even offered to give us a song". 

The man absolutely disgusted me with his first impression, but I somewhat remembered hearing about the manager of the backstreet boys, he was also coincidentally the manager of NSYNC in my old universe. The man was a scam artist. A con man that took advantage of old women and even the boy bands he managed. While he was rolling in money, the backstreet boys were flying coach to their shows and being forced to work non stop never really seeing the appropriate payment for everything they did. 

Having heard I wanted to supply my own song from A.J., Lou obviously started to see dollar signs and has made me his new target. Unfortunately for him, I knew what he was up to. Just when I had begun to think I was wasting my time and was about to tell Lou to fuck off, I saw A.J. come out of the warehouse and walk my way. " Prince Aeric! you made it, I see you met our manager". 

"I did" I replied before walking up to meet A.J. as I brushed past Lou ignoring him as we headed into the warehouse A.J. had just come from. Lou seeing my attitude towards him wasn't happy. "Wait for me, we need to talk about our share of your songs earnings. That is of course if it is any good and we choose to use it of course" he said as he waddled to catch up with us. 

I couldn't just tell A.J. in front of Lou that he was scamming him, but I did owe A.J. quite a lot and I didn't plan to sit by as my only real friend in the music business was getting exploited. I decided to play along for now considering it was in my best interest to currently do so. After the show, I would need to make my move. Doing anything now could only be detrimental to my career. The current show must go on.