Chapter 3: Nemesis With a Peacock Past

I typed that out as a tweet and instantly got a thousand replies. Apparently, everyone agreed: humans are overrated.

Thanks to my unique popularity with the peacock, I gained a ton of fans.

My follower count shot up overnight. Brands started sliding into my DMs. I even got a couple of marriage proposals (from humans, thankfully).

The director gave me a raise—but also extended my work hours.

Trust me. Hollywood logic: more fame, more work. I was grateful, but my feet were killing me.

No office worker likes overtime. Trust me.

Compared to my forced overtime, the peacock seemed to love “working.”

He’d strut out, feathers fanned, soaking up the attention like a pro. I think he was born for the spotlight.

All he had to do was fan out his gorgeous tail and strut around me, as if declaring his territory, and he’d draw gasps from the tourists.

Kids pointed, parents snapped photos, and the crew just shook their heads. The peacock was a natural showman, and he knew it.

He would purposely bring me his beautiful fallen feathers, then nuzzle my palm, waiting for me to say something nice.

It became our little ritual. I’d pretend to be surprised every time, and he’d puff up with pride. I started keeping the feathers in a mason jar by my bed.

Everyone was charmed by his flower-offering gesture.

People started calling him "Romeo" online. Even the grumpy old janitor started sneaking him treats.

Whenever I got close to his little head, I’d secretly ask, “What’s going on, buddy? You’re getting more and more like a puppy.”

He’d cock his head, like he understood every word. I half-expected him to start wagging his tail.

“What if the other peacocks don’t like you?”

He’d blink at me, then strut away, completely unbothered. Confidence goals, honestly.

At that moment, I finally understood my mom a little. Weird, right?

I remembered her fussing over me before my first school dance, worrying about my dress, my hair, whether I’d make friends. Now here I was, worrying about a bird’s social life. Life comes full circle.

Not only do you worry about your kid eating and sleeping well, but you also worry about whether they’ll find someone.

I caught myself fussing over him just like my mom did with me. It was a weird, sweet kind of nostalgia.

The peacock tilted his head at my words.

He looked at me with those big, dark eyes, like he was waiting for an answer I couldn’t give.

The tail he’d just put away suddenly spread out again.

I burst out laughing. "Alright, buddy, you win."

I honestly couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. Story of my life.

“Buddy, this is a twisted kind of love.”

I shook my head, grinning. Only in my life could this make sense.

Before joining the show, I was in frequent contact with a junior at my company.

Matt Lee. Tall, charming, with a smile that could melt ice. He always seemed to find a reason to text me—questions about scripts, dance moves, or just to say hi. I’d gotten used to his daily check-ins.

He’s 6’1”. Handsome, with a slightly mischievous look—but with the gentlest personality. He’s a studious kid, always asking me for professional advice.

I’d watch his practice videos late at night, cheering him on from afar. He was the kind of guy you wanted to root for.

But since I joined the show, he hasn’t messaged me at all.

The silence was deafening. I tried not to overthink it, but my phone felt awfully quiet without his texts.

He used to greet me three times a day without fail.

Morning, noon, and night. It was our thing. Now? Nothing. I wondered if he’d forgotten about me.

I watched his dance practice videos, with all his fans in the comments showering him with praise.

He looked happy—maybe even happier without me distracting him. I tried not to feel left out.

He’s probably busy training hard now. Or maybe he just forgot about me.

As his number one fan, I liked and shared his post on my main account.

Maybe he’d see it and remember me. Maybe not. Either way, I wanted to support him.

Such a handsome junior deserves to be seen by all my fans!

I even left a little heart emoji, just in case he was looking.

Another female star in the group is Whitney Lin, known as the queen of clicks.

She’s the kind of person who can turn a Starbucks run into a trending topic. The crew both loved and dreaded her.

Before filming, her one complaint about the heat and sun made the whole crew wait six months.

We all joked that she could control the weather with her moods. Production schedules bent around her like she was the sun.

After the show aired, her fifteen-second preview brought tens of thousands of viewers to the program.

She had that kind of star power—the kind you can’t fake, no matter how many followers you buy.

Naturally, the biggest name gets the flashiest animal.

No surprise, she was paired with the tiger. If you’re going to make an entrance, might as well do it with stripes and teeth.

She was assigned the king of beasts—the tiger.

The rest of us? We just tried not to get eaten—by the animals or the ratings.

Of course, she didn’t need to study animal care overnight like I did, nor did she have to become a real poop-scooping caretaker, spending all day in the park.

She breezed in for her scenes, perfectly styled, barely breaking a sweat. Meanwhile, I was up to my elbows in animal chow.

She only needed to interact with the tiger under the protection of professional keepers, and with powerful post-production editing, she could create the image of a Disney princess who gets along with all animals.

Honestly, I almost admired her hustle. She knew exactly how to play the game. I wish I’d taken notes.

In the show, nearly ninety percent of her screen time was just her looking gorgeous.

She could’ve been posing for Vogue, not wrangling a tiger. The editors loved her. The rest of us, well… we made do.

For a no-name, bottom-tier artist like me, I was just there as a supporting act.

I was background noise, the person you see in the corner of the shot, smiling and waving at the animals.

But go figure, this season’s viewers were in a weird mood and suddenly I was trending.