OPEN YOUR EYES (BLIND I) - MUSIQ SERIES PART 2

43. VOTING RESULTS

After dinner with the mentors, Lou finally arrived, signalling everyone that the results from the online voting were ready and they would be announcing them that night along with the new task they had to do. They were told to go to the assembly hall that time since the Cosmos trainees were using the main living area, so they all headed there and took a seat on the first rows while the mentors sat behind them as they too were curious about the results.

On top of the stage were stools with boxes in them numbered from one to ten, but they were all the same size and colour, so none of them knew what could be inside.

"Hello, everyone. I am C1K's Xiang Lou and I will be taking over the MC role for the next few weeks," Lou said as soon as the cameras were rolling. "Probably many of the viewers were not expecting a change in MC, but here we are! I hope you all welcome me warmly."

"Lou, we love you!" Xia playfully exclaimed to tease him.

"No, you do not," he said with a straight face and picked up his cue cards, making everyone laugh. "So, the results of the first round of online voting are ready, but are you ready to see how they went?"

"We are ready!" they all said at the same time, even if it was a lie.

"Let's start then with... the ninth place. This trainee received a total of 1.532.952 votes from the audience and was in team «Only You»..." Lou read. 

"It's probably me," Zia said.

"No, I bet it's me," Minako argued.

"It could be me, we never know," Iku reasoned.

"It's... Minako," Lou finally announced and the girls applauded her. "Please, come over and say some words before going to your stool. After adding the votes from the live audience and the professional jury you have 1.592.952 votes."

"Thank you to everyone who voted for me," Minako said as soon as she got there. "Although the ninth place out of ten is a very low spot I promise to work harder for the next evaluations and make it to the top of the ranking. Thank you for seeing my potential."

"Well said, Minako!" A.Jin cheered for her since she had been her mentor for that evaluation.

"Now, the trainee in eighth spot received 1.526.981 votes from the audience," Lou continued.

"That's less than Minako," Juiyu pointed out.

"With the added votes from the live audience and the jury the grand total goes up to 1.636.981. Congratulations to... Zia."

After everyone congratulated her, she went up to the stage and stood in front of her stool before bowing. 

"Thank you to those who voted for me. Although the start was not as strong as it should be, I promise to work harder from now on. One of the future group's spots has my name on it."

The ranking announcements continued with Lihua in seventh spot with a total of 2.061.369 votes, Iku in sixth with 2.252.119, Juna in fifth with 2.279.953, Xia in fourth with 2.597.244 and Juiyu in third with 2.684.687. Everyone was receiving very high scores but, with every announcement, Heejin was more certain she was going to be in the last spot.

"Before announcing the second and first places, let's announce the tenth one," Lou said. "This trainee was on the top five from the professional jury, which makes it even more shocking that she's in this spot. With 894.375 votes from the public and 1.224.375 in total, that trainee is... Jang Heejin."

Since although they would not admit it aloud, they all knew it would be her, they tried to make everything more light-hearted by applauding and cheering for her, trying to make her see that everything was all right.