'Rachel....'
Aiden thought about her. Their relationship had always been hot and cold. From the start, she disliked him but to be fair, she was someone who disliked everyone.
But after their collaboration, they have gotten close and Rachel had even told him that she was thankful to him for giving her a chance.
After all, it was because of that one song that her career had finally started moving forward in the right direction. She had gotten chances from her label after that and rebranded herself with new singles and albums.
She now even had a song with over a billion views.
That was a very big accomplishment as a singer and even Aiden knew that clashing with her might turn out bad for both of them. But he was also sure that Rachel was someone who wanted a clash.
Maybe because in her mind, he was someone who she had not beaten completely. A perfectionist worked in weird ways after all.
'I won't be surprised if she has a hitlist in her bedroom with every singer she wants to defeat in the charts.'
A weird image of Rachel formed in Aiden's mind as he smiled to himself.
He wondered whether he should just give up on releasing his album this year to escape her but that sounded like something that was very against his nature.
Moreover, she might see it as him running away.
"I doubt we could do anything."
Aiden said as he looked at Wade who nodded his head. He was apparently thinking the same thing as him.
"Yeah, a clash is unavoidable. Cyco media isn't really something that avoids these things. They are pretty much like the big baddie of the record labels."
"Yeah and didn't you say you had a fight with one of their stockholders?"
Aiden asked, suddenly remembering an incident during the time of the first mini album. Jackson also looked at Wade, wondering if that was true.
But Wade shook his head.
"It wasn't really a fight. We just had some disagreements and he was not listening to me." He said, then changed the topic, not wanting to dive into what had happened in that one particular meeting. "Anyway, I will keep an eye out on her activities."
"Don't do that." Aiden said suddenly. "Just ignore her. Let her do her own thing and we could do our own."
"What about the clash?"
"It's gonna be more between the fans. As for Rachel, I'm very sure she wants to beat me but if we start to focus on her, then it might affect us. Let us do our own thing and not worry about other external stuff."
Eddie silently nodded his head hearing that. That was a much more sane way of going through things.
Focus on yourself and worry about external factors later.
"Anyway, let's focus on the recording for now."
Eddie said, ending the conversation.
Wade sat down in one of the corners, messaging Sasha and others about how to go with the clash of Rachel.
Although Aiden said that it was better to not react to it, Wade still was going to make some plans to deal with it.
In case, things go wrong.
***
Things happened at a rapid pace in the next two months. It was recording day after night with different singers and then practising his vocals more and more.
After that, there was practice of live acts and other things. Aiden felt like he was doing the same thing everyday and it was a vicious cycle but he knew that it was important.
If he doesn't do it, there would be mistakes during the live act and he can't afford that.
There was also a sense of rustiness to his voice and that only went away after he practised more.
Thankfully, he had good people around him and it was fun spending time with them.
Drew would tell him a lot of things from the time that he was still active and Eddie was fun to talk with about music. He was someone who was like an encyclopaedia. Someone who had made music his whole life.
As for Jackson, it was always nice to spend time with him because it was an indication of how far they have come compared to X-Star. One should always know the place they have started from to keep themselves grounded.
That's what Aiden believes in.
Every night, Aiden was going to bed by seeing a lot of system notifications on his system display.
[You have gained experience.]
[You have gained experience.]
[You have mastered the silver light.]
[Your control over the silver light had increased.]
[You have gained experience.]
[You are close to advancing to the next grade in your singing skill.]
These messages told him that he was on the right part and like that, the time for the album release came.
***
A day before the album release of both Rachel and Aiden, a few journalists from a magazine that focused on the music industry were talking about it in their leisure time while drinking coffee.
All of them had been a part of the industry for years and although they were not a direct part, journalists and reporters were often the overseers of any industry.
They would know everything in and out as they would observe a lot and would be passed a lot of information from different sources.
So, their perception of the industry was very sharp.
"I was pretty sure one of them was going to be postponed by a month or so. But it looks like I was very wrong. The industry rarely sees clashes."
One of the guys said as he sipped his cold coffee. After talking about the politics of a spy balloon in the air, they have started discussing the current popular topic in the music industry.
The rematch of Aiden and Rachel.
"Rachel was never going to miss this opportunity. She sees Aiden Silvereye as her biggest competition. She admitted it in an interview even though she was all praise for him."
An older woman said. She had taken a lot of interviews of different celebrities, so she knew about this. It was one of the facts about Rachel.
"Why though?" Another man, a fairly young one this time, asked. "Her career was made due to getting an opportunity to sing in Aiden's first album right? That song was everywhere back then and Rachel got a lot of fan popularity."
The man actually wanted to say she got a whole simp army after that but he didn't sound professional. Some types of men liked a woman who looked like she could trample over them.
"Yes, that's what had happened. I'm pretty sure she has respect for him due to that but it runs deep. They are the most popular contestants to come out of X-Star and although Rachel won, Aiden was out in the early rounds. But their careers went in opposite directions. She was probably insecure that she lost in life despite winning the competition until that song happened."
"So, although she has respect for him, the insecurity is still there."
"Yes, she wants to beat him to finally prove to herself that she's better."
The woman explained and everyone nodded but the young journalist still seemed a bit confused and asked.
"Isn't she already more popular than him?"
"As a singer, yes but her rise was subsequent with Aiden's fall as a singer and that was because he wanted to focus on acting. As a celebrity, he's miles ahead as he's already one of the most popular commercial actors."
Another man explained more about it. He was one of the senior journalists.
"She probably wants to beat him one on one and this is her opportunity. Moreover, the fans are already fighting."
He showed everyone his phone. On sparrow, trends were up and in the comment sections, fan groups were already against each other, talking about how they would defeat each other.
It was a bit weird as it was nothing to fight about.
But these were mostly people who were watching both Rachel and Aiden since X-Star. Others were those who have become fans of them as they moved in their careers.
A lot of them were teens and fan groups could often become toxic.
Even though Aiden's fan group was mostly mature but outside the core fans, there were a lot of teens.
Moreover, people like 'Chad Putin' and 'Moaning Frodo' just liked to see some chaos, so they don't stop these fan wars.
"Must be nice. I can make a full report on it after the results come out." The young journalist said as he finished his cold coffee.
He wondered who was going to win in this clash.
His bets were on Rachel, simply because of the simp army behind her with the Cyco media marketing team.
At the same time, he was sure of her victory due to the collaboration she had done for the main title song.
'She really got a super famous k-pop group to work with her.'
