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

46. LAST CHANCE

Both groups worked non-stop after their short break to get the performances ready for the day of the evaluation and, although excited, everyone could see that their energy levels dropped each day from their long practices and few sleeping hours. They tried hard to keep a healthy work-life balance, but their futures were at stake and the moment they stopped practicing they felt like they were wasting precious time.

A couple of days before the live evaluation, it was time for the mentors and Lou to visit each team. Once again, they could not see each other's performances, but the mentors were there to aid them with last minute pointers before the big reveal.

The conflicted team was the last one to be monitored that day, so they used every single extra minute they were given to perfect everything, which meant that, by the time the mentors and Lou arrived, they were already sweating.

"Good evening!" Lou said as he walked inside with Kasai and Hikaru. "You look tired!"

"We have just finished another round of practicing," Xia explained as they all bowed. "We were just recovering our breaths."

"We will give you a minute, then," Lou assured them. "I was just talking to Hikaru and he was telling me about how he really liked what he heard of your song."

"I just heard the demo and saw some of the dance practices, but they were really good. The dance is not that complicated, but it really works with the concept," Hikaru explained.

"After the other group's rehearsal, I'm excited to see what this one has to offer," Kasai told them, checking the notes he had taken of the previous group. "How is your song called?"

"«Lovesick girls»," they all answered at the same time.

"Oh, interesting!" He wrote it down. "And... did you have any leaders? Group leader, dance leader, vocal leader...?"

"Heejin is the group leader," Eunae answered. "Since we all worked on the song and dance together there wasn't a real need for a leader in the other areas, although you could say Nari is the dance leader as she was the one giving us the most pointers."

"I like that you all worked on the song and dance. It makes you grow more attached to it and get the feeling easier," Lou praised them. "I have never been particularly interested in song writing, but for the album the rest of the C1K boys and I have been working on we have all worked together in every step of the process for some songs and I have to admit it made a significant difference."

"Have any of you never written a song before this one?" Kasai asked them and Nari, Minako and Xia raised their hands. "Oh, interesting. I look forward to hearing it, then."

Without further ado and after recovering their breaths, the girls did a group cheer before performing in front of their mentors. Since they had to monitor everything, they would be singing live as well, so it was a full performance and not just a dance rehearsal.

"Xia," Heejin called her as she noticed Xia had the wrong leg out for the starting position.

"Sorry!" Xia said quickly changing it before Hikaru played the song.

Right from the start, they changed their gazes to performance ones and not just rehearsal ones. They wanted to show something that would be as close to their actual performance as possible.

Taking into account the advice the mentors had given her the last time, Heejin did not cut back on her expressions unlike other times, which did not go unnoticed by any of them. Even if she did not have that many lines, she caught their attention from the very beginning, which was something exceedingly difficult if you did not have many lines or centre time.