What happened after I-Land and before &Audition?

Hello! New Luné here, rapidly devouring every scrap of &Team content there is (please reco your favs if you have any).

I was so curious what happened after I-Land. Nicholas and EJ got cut fairly early on so I wondered how they ended up being part of the 4 debuting members on &Audition. K was so good, ofc they were saving him for an entirely different team. He and Taki are so close so that made sense. But how did EJ and Nicho get into the mix (other than they're amazing)? Does anyone know the backstory?