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

67. ONYX AND SAPPHIRE

As Hikaru had told them, the girls were told to gather at the assembly hall to talk about their next task, and the boys joined them as well, curious about what it would be about. Before that, however, Kim Jisoo would be announcing the result of the solos task which, although it did not have any repercussion for later tasks, it would let them see what the public thought about them.

"Unlike other times, I haven't come here to tell you news you don't already know about," Jisoo told them after the introduction. "Since you have your phones back and can now access the internet freely, I'm just doing a recap of the music videos that got the most and the least views up to now. Should we start from the bottom or from the top?"

"From the top!" the girls exclaimed.

"Then I'll start from the bottom."

They were already so used to those things that they did not even react when she said that. It was like a usual punishment that they knew they just had to deal with, so they just listened to her as she gave the results.

Just like she said, the results were not much of a surprise as they had access to the music videos and could see how they were doing, so most of the girls were aware of the views they got. The only one who had not checked was Heejin, who although had checked the ones for the other girls, had not checked hers.

Lihua was the one who received the least views for her song «Yes No Maybe», but it still gathered an impressive forty-five million views that far. After her came Juiyu's «Hwa», Zia's «Water Color» and Nari's «Pporappippam» with around fifty million, then Xia's «Weekend» with fifty-five, Minako's «I'm Not Cool» with sixty and Eunae's «What type of X» with almost seventy million. Those results were already impressive, but the ones from the top three were beyond what they would have ever imagined.

Iku was in third place with eighty million views for her song «Dumb Dumb», but Juna had arrived to break every record out there with «Gone» which had a hundred million views already.

"I think I need to point something out before announcing Heejin's view count, however," Jisoo told them as the girls congratulated Juna. "Although the numbers for the MV are impressive, I think we also need to take into account that Heejin's clip singing the song already has more than forty million views as well, so technically the song has more views."

Heejin had not been checking that clip, so she thought that it would just have a few thousand at most, so knowing just that clip had almost the same views as Lihua's song left her speechless. It seemed like people were really enjoying it and, although glad, it felt bittersweet.

"Now, I'll finally announce Heejin's views. «Maria» managed to get an outstanding... one hundred and fifty million views up to this very moment. Congratulations, Heejin."

Heejin just could not believe it. She had gone from being in the last spot of the rankings to having a hundred million view difference with Lihua, which just did not make sense to her. «Maria» was a song she had written for herself hoping to give her strength and, although she thought it would not reach that many people because it was not in English unlike Juna's, it had definitely surpassed her expectations. Who would have even thought that a song from a survival show would get that many views?

"Come here, Heejin. Say a few words," Jisoo told her.

Heejin went to the small stage as everyone congratulated her and she did not know what to say. She technically had not won anything, but to her it already felt even better than winning the lottery.

"I see you are speechless right now, so why don't you tell us a bit about the song? Maybe also talk about the name as well," Jisoo guided her.

"Well, the reason I called the song 'Maria' is because it is one of the most common if not the most common name in the world, so I wanted everyone to feel identified with the lyrics. If I had just written Heejin it would feel as if it was just for me and, although in a sense it is, I wanted everyone who listened to it to get its message," she explained. "I wrote part the song one day when I was at the greenhouse with Hikaru improvising on the piano and, although the style changed a lot, the essence remained the same. It is a song about being unapologetically yourself. I have been taking other people's comments to heart for way too long, and I wanted to remind myself that there is absolutely nothing wrong with being just the way I am. If people do not like me, then it is okay. I am not here to please everyone."