Page 15 of The Cuffing Game
As the music continued in the background, Noah stopped dancing to say, “Hi, everyone. Have you ever wanted to be on a dating show? Or see your friends on one?
“Or maybe you want a chance to date me, Noah Jang. Well, if you’re a Marlon University student, your chance has finally come. Nominate your friend—and their secret crush—to be onThe Cuffing Game,thehottest dating show created by Marlon University students, for MarlonUniversity students. More details coming real soon, but I promise you, it’s going to begood.Before we start officially casting anyone else, though, we need your help to make this show happen. You know where to go for more info.”
Alex turned off their phone screen before the video could replay.
“He’s made several more of these,” they said. “With various hooks and formats. But that’s the most popular one so far.”
For a moment, no one else said anything. Kallie sank further into her chair. Alex stared off into space like they were a TV show characterbreaking the fourth wall. Damien glanced at Alex and shook his head, running a hand over his cropped Afro.
“Was this his idea or yours?” he asked Mia.
Mia raised her hands up in a sign of innocence. “Entirely his. I just told him that the SPC gave us the okay to start crowdfunding.”
Kallie pushed her laptop across the conference table so they could all see the screen. “I have to hand it to him. He knows what he’s doing.”
On her computer was an email from the SPC that was cc’d to all four of them.
It read:
Congrats, TCG team! We are happy to inform you that you’ve received a record number of applicants. Youhave also officially met the recommended production budget for the show, so consider yourselves officially greenlit! Please see below for the link to the shared drive that contains the suggested production timeline and all the entries so far. We’re so excited for this project. Thank you!
Until now, Mia had assumed all the emails from the SPC were copy-and-paste form letters, impersonal and devoid of any feeling whatsoever. Or at least, that’s all she’d been getting from them until now. The difference between failure and success was jarring, and it’d just taken a few videos by a popular influencer. ByNoah,no less.
You did what you needed to do to save the show, she reminded herself. But she couldn’t shake off the feeling that she’d made a deal with the devil.
On her own laptop, Mia opened the shared drive from the SPC in one window and the text conversation she had with Jeannette in another. After glancing at the suggested timeline, she sighed and sent her sister a text.
MIA:Hey, J. Can you do me a favor? I’ll owe you big-time when I get home for break.
Jeannette’s response was instantaneous.
JEANNETTE:Sure! What is it?
MIA:Can you tell Mom and everyone else that I won’t be coming home until Christmas Eve? They’ll take it better coming from you.
Due to their parents’ infamous love for Christmas, Mia’s family started their festivities on December 1, opening Advent calendars and putting up decorations all around the house. Although Christmas Eve would be a perfectly reasonable time to go back home for the holidays to some households, it was considered late for hers.
MIA:Anddon’ttell Mom or Dad that this is for my TV show.
JEANNETTE:Wait, did you get it approved? Congratulations!
MIA:Thanks. And yeah, it’s looking like we’ll wrap on the 23rd, which means I won’t be able to fly home until the morning of the 24th.
JEANNETTE:Well, I guess that can’t be helped. I’ll tell them you failed math and have to stay behind to do remedial classes.
MIA:Kind of scary how fast you came up with that lie but sounds good. Thanks.
It was bad enough that their mom already thought Mia had “abandoned” everyone by moving thousands of miles away to studyfilm,something that would “only make her a starving artist in the end.” Mia didn’t need to add any more wood to thatfire. In some families, Mia, who had gotten a full-ride scholarship to one of the best film schools in the country, might have been a favorite. But to the Yoons, she was the black sheep while Jeannette was the golden child who had stayed close to home and majored in accounting, something perfectly practical.
“Okay, so we have two hundred entries and counting,” Alex said, pushing their boxy green glasses up their nose. “How many people are we thinking in total here? Five? Ten?”
Everyone turned to Mia. She immediately switched to the other window on her computer.
“Sorry,” she said. “I was telling my family I have to stay in LA a bit longer for break.”
“You’re fine,” Damien replied to Mia before looking at the others. “Most of the cabins I found seem to cap at around fifteen people, and there’s four of us. So around ten contestants, but make it an odd number so we can eliminate one person on the first night.”
“That’s something else we need to figure out,” Kallie said. “The structure of the show and how we’re going to keep eliminating them after that.”
