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

87. I'M NOT HEARING THINGS, AM I?

Hiding the rehearsals of «From the Wonderland» and «God's DduDuDduDu» from Axel was more challenging than they thought it would be. He found it strange that the girls could not work on the song for the final full-time and telling him that they were rehearsing the other ones for when they did the live performances did not seem to fully convince him either. Still, they could not let him know, so they tried to come up with as many excuses as possible and Chengcheng and Lin tried to keep him busy during their rehearsals so he would not suspect anything.

"Ruby, stop belting the high-notes during rehearsals," Lin told them as she monitored them while Chengcheng was with Axel. "Just do it for the final one of the day."

"It's okay, I can do it," Heejin insisted.

"I know you can, but let's try to keep your voice in its best condition for the day of the show instead."

After learning the two choreographies completely, they were spending around an hour each day rehearsing both of them over and over again, so Heejin had to belt the high-notes around ten times a day. Although she could do it, it was challenging and it was not something meant to be done repeatedly -especially when dancing-, so it was best to just practice it once or twice and skip it for the rest.

"Let's move on to the other song now," Lin said, checking the time. "For that one we needed to pay special attention to Minako's singing and Ruby's rapping, right?"

Heejin had been noticing that ever since she told the other girls about changing her stage name they were a bit confused whenever they had to call her Ruby, but she knew it was normal. They were all used to calling her with her Korean name, but with time she knew they would get used to her new stage name as well.

The rehearsal for «God's DduDuDduDu» was much smoother than the other one in terms of their vocals and rap, but Minako and Heejin were far more nervous with that one than with the previous one as they were taking over parts that were not technically meant for them. Heejin was not known for her rap skills, so taking over such a fast rap part and in between Juiyu and Eunae was nerve-wracking. She wanted to do her best and to really show a good performance, but her lack of confidence was definitely showing.

"Heejin, let's have some quick rap lessons tonight," Lin told her in the middle of the rehearsal. "I feel it will help a lot with your confidence and your delivery."

None of the other girls were told anything other than small comments on how they could slightly improve the performance, which only made Heejin think she was dragging the others down by doing the rap portion. She thought for a second Lihua was right and they should have given that to one of the others.

By the end of the rehearsal, Heejin's frustration was more than evident. She was trying twice as hard as the others, to the point of sweating as if she had been running a marathon while the others just breathed a little heavier. That certainly did not go unnoticed by Lin, but they were all surprised to see that she did not try to stop her at all and went along with the practice as if nothing happened. When it was over, however, she was the first to approach Heejin.

"Take a shower before lunch," she told Heejin. "Let's talk tonight, okay?"

That was all she told Heejin before wrapping up that day's practice but, somehow, they all knew she was very aware of what was happening, but she just wanted to talk to Heejin alone instead of doing it in front of everyone else.