From insane London to 5 Pieces’ fanatic hometown, the weather seems to get colder but they are also traveling north. In Sweden, it is winter. Snow is covering the streets of their hometown, the water in the lakes have turned into ice and snow scooters have replaced the bikes outside the city. The surroundings are similar to the five ladies, they have been met by overjoyed families of Maria, Emelia and Carolina, yet somehow it feels as if their hometown becomes less and less like home whenever they return for a concert. Their hometown that always have felt like a quiet getaway is too crowded by people. Fans are everywhere, and it isn’t just a few of them – it’s crowded.

“Wow.”

“Double wow.”

“Make it triple,” Maria finishes her sister’s exclamations, pressing their foreheads against the window to look out at the streets of their small city, holding more people than it fits. “They are here for me.”

Agnes, the oldest of the three blonde sisters, gives out a horrible loud laugh at Maria’s words and across the room, at the sofa, Hannah finds herself laughing over Agnes’ laugh. Maria has always come off with a strong personality, someone who is heard and takes space; everyone in her family is like that. Hannah has not been able to stop smiling for the past 46minutes, all because of the Kivela sisters entertaining her with their conversations. That they are now almost looking identical pressing their faces against the window to see the crowd below and on nearby streets, people waiting and hoping to see 5 Pieces.

“Woah, that person has a Finnish flag,” Molly points out.

Quickly two heads are pushing next to hers along with her sisters asking “where, where?”

“That’s awesome,” Maria chuckles.

“Will you mention it at the concert?” Agnes jokes.

Hannah gets interrupted from hearing more when Manager Lee throws down a can of Coca Cola in her lap when taking a seat next to her in the sofa.

“I know it’s three of them but how come it’s Maria’s voice in all of them?” Manager Lee comments with a sigh, looking confused over at the Kivela siblings by the window. Hannah smiles at him, she sinks down a bit more in the sofa and sighs with her smile at her friends.

“Some things never change,” Hannah tells him.

Her manager gives a low laugh at her answer before taking the Coca Cola from her lap, knowing she won’t drink it. He threw it there to joke around, though Hannah didn’t react to it.

“You’re in a good mood,” he mentions to Hannah.

“Yes,” she agrees. She had told him on the flight to Sweden that she was nervous, nervous because coming back to Sundsvall means coming back to families. Not Hannah’s family though.

Manager Lee makes a sound after a few seconds of silence, making her know he is waiting for an explanation as to why she is in such a good mood when she before wasn’t. A few more seconds passes before he looks down at her, aware that she isn’t answering on purpose.

“So?” Manager Lee asks.

“Yes,” she repeats, quick and short and her smile is printed in her face. He laughs again over her answer.

“I heard Manager Lim is curious whether you have invited anyone to the concert tonight,” Manager Lee comments, glancing down on his right at her to see how she frowns.

Both Julia and Hannah have had their manager father ask them about families, if there is a cousin or relative they have coming to the concert. Hannah hasn’t talked to her family, she is curious about her brothers but other than that she feels pretty done with them all and for Julia, her two half-sisters are coming tomorrow. Hannah understands Manager Lee asking about her good mood but he is ruining it by bringing up who she has invited for tonight. Hannah hasn’t invited anyone and he knows it.

“With that, I mean I expected you to not be in such a good mood considering the other ladies are with their families,” Manager Lee comments in a low voice.

“Julia is hanging with the band,” Hannah lets him know.

“And you’re sitting here, laughing from a distance,” Manager Lee reminds her.

“Ouch,” Hannah sighs. She knows he is right. She keeps some distance from the others, even if she is sitting in the same room she isn’t sitting with them, she isn’t even talking to them, she is just … watching from a distance.

“Therefore, I wonder where the good mood comes from?” he continues.

Hannah gives out another sigh, she checks her phone but knows she has nothing to check as she did it a few minutes ago so she just looks at her phone, her screensaver of her ladies and the crew trying to fit in a picture together; it’s from their concert in Los Angeles.

She tilts a bit towards her manager, looking over at Maria and her two sisters still amused by the crowd outside.

“Do you see how happy Maria is?” she asks Manager Lee.

He gives out a grunt when crossing her arms over his chest, focusing his eyes on the youngest Kivela sister. “… Maybe,” he comments.

“I see it. Julia has it with her mother when we are in Seoul, now I see it in Maria. Her sisters have it too.”

“You mean they are unhappy if they aren’t together?” Manager Lee mutters under his breath, their voices gets lower.

“No. I mean they have a glow when they are with their families,” Hannah starts to explain for him, “I don’t have that, but seeing my best friends so happy? I am happy. It’s sad they don’t get to see each other more than once or twice a year.”

Manager Lee keeps looking at Maria, at Agnes and Molly. Three sisters, they have been talking nonstop like the Donkey in Shrek the movies, but if he thinks about it, maybe he can see the glow they have. The familiar joy in their body languages and light tones is something he recognizes from the way 5 Pieces is with each other. He doesn’t know how Hannah can divide the glow from now to anytime else as Manager Lee see the same joy he usually sees. He smiles all of a sudden.

“You should see the glow on all of you during any meal,” Manager Lee tells her, looking more than satisfied as it is the best off-stage set of memories he can come up with.

Hannah on the other hand gives him a frown. “Seriously, you bring up food into this?”

“Well, when everyone sits down to eat, it is the best time of the day. It’s quiet, most of the time, and it’s… how to say it… it’s a specific calmness. Anyway, what I want to say, is that the glow you see, is there a lot more often than you think. And you have it too.”

“Comparing family to food though,” Hannah shakes her head at him comparison.

Manager Lee smiles, nodding. “Yeah, I guess I have spent too much time with the pieces,” he jokes.

The two of them sit quiet for a few minutes, hearing conversations around them and Manager Lee drinks his Coca Cola. Hannah remembers that it is his birthday today, her phone reminded her of it once yesterday, then again this morning and she has congratulated him just like everyone else have but they won’t celebrate it until yesterday. Yesterday they can celebrate his birthday along with two of the dancers’ birthday as well as two days concerts in their hometown.

For the next couple of hours, it is insane with interviews, they meet fans and prepare for the concert. The ladies are distracted with their families being around, there seems to be too much they can talk about but in the end the ladies need to prepare for the stage and their families need to go take their seats in the crowd.

Their hometown is on fire before 5 Pieces is even on the stage, it is insane when the ladies start off because their fans are too wild to even be listening to the music. They sing along, shout along, dance and jump, but from the stage it sounds like roars barely following the music. Hands are held up in the air, phones filming or taking pictures but it seems like the crowd is enjoying the concert. The crew on stage does. 5 Pieces can feel the fire from their fans, putting flames by their feet when dancing, their dancers feel it too, and a cheer whenever they are on the stage to complete the performance, and the band plays excellently for three hours.

In the middle of the concert, Hannah sees a fan crying. She waves at the fan before pointing at her own eye, mouthing ‘you are crying’ and points at the girl, smiling at her and probably acting cute. A lot of people seem to be crying, Hannah has seen a few of them. She tries to point them out, to let the fans know she sees them, but she can’t be sure because of the spotlights on Hannah making it difficult to know if the crowd is responding to her or not. She loves the stage, she loves their fans, but she isn’t sure if their hometown is the best city for her. It’s important to remind herself that this is a concert with 5 Pieces and Puzzle, not a concert in her hometown. She still wonders if anyone she knows is here, old classmates or old neighbours.

Turning around she almost bumps into Julia. They both giggle, Julia touches Hannah’s arm from almost bumping into each other and Hannah keeps smiling when they round each other, glancing back at her friend just to see Julia look back too. Hannah laughs over having them both turn around and Julia points over at her for turning around.

Around them there are roars screaming louder than before. Hannah looks at their fans, laughing even more when seeing she and Julia are the reason for the screaming. Next thing, someone embraces Hannah from behind. It’s Emelia; long blonde hair falls down over Hannah’s shoulder and Emelia had been running over to hug her, in the push from Emelia’s back hug Hannah steps forward. They are fooling around to the song, laughing and doing what some people might call fan-service. To the ladies, they are just being silly together. Which includes, they end up acting y to their fans. By that it is Julia who says it, Emelia is half-y and half-comedy while Hannah waves down to her heels, bites her lip and gives a wink. She does like Emelia but the response is completely different. Maybe because Julia and Emelia have decided to make the response different by giving a wild reaction themselves.

The concert goes well, they all are a bit out of it afterwards and Emelia’s mother is emotional for some reason as she walks around hugging everyone (everyone meaning even managers and the staff that speaks a different language) and Emelia pretends she is embarrassed over her mother. Hannah loves it actually, seeing Emelia’s mother say she sees how much they have grown since their previous concert in Sweden, how much wilder their fans have gotten. To receive praise like that, Hannah likes it.

Once the concert has ended the ladies are almost running to wash their faces and change clothes, so they can go home.

Emelia is sleeping in her parents’ house, where she grew up, Julia is going with her, Carolina is sleeping with her family in their house out in nowhere, and Hannah is going with Maria to the leader’s home. The previous night had been spent at the hotel, only because they had rehearsals until three in the morning so the ladies didn’t want to go to their parents’ houses and wake someone up.

Hannah is in black leggings, a long and warm oversized sweater in grey and a green/black scarf that a fan had given her around New Years. Comfortable and relaxed after the concert she takes a seat on a chair to wait for the others to get ready. She is smiling a bit too silly at her friends, listening to Molly boast about her driving skills to them. Molly is driving tonight, she will take Maria, Hannah and Agnes to the two sisters’ apartment and she seems eager to show off how good she is at driving.

“It’s better than anyone driving in Seoul, that’s for sure,” Maria chuckles, her voice loud and hoarse; “People in Seoul can’t drive. Hannah has even caught a fear of the road because of it.”

The leader who is washing her face turns her arm behind her back to try point over at Hannah. Hannah just nods when Molly turns to look at her.

“Fear of the road?” Molly asks and Hannah nods again. “Not with me, I assure you. I’m a great driver – a brilliant driver.”

“Maybe you could teach Ji Young a few things,” Hannah jokes.

Maria is the one who laughs while Hannah explains to Maria’s sisters that Ji Young is one of their managers. It is a lot of people for Molly and Agnes that they don’t really learn the names of the staff.

A lot of cars leave the stadium, the ladies having different rides as most of them go with their families. Their own staff have minivans and a bus taking them back to the hotel. Hannah thinks it is the best solution they have ever done after a concert; no one follows their car when they leave. The fans wait for the minivans to leave or they have followed a minivan that already left; expecting 5 Pieces to be in one of them. No one guesses 5 Pieces is divided into normal five-seated cars.

The car that Molly drives is a grey Volvo, a typical Swedish car, a new one. The windows aren’t tinted but still when leaving the venue, no one looks their way. Hannah is fascinated sitting in the backseat, her hand holds up her scarf to hide her face as she is staring out the window. More than hundreds of fans are still outside the venue, outside the garage doors, but their attention is not on this car; they are looking for a van. Maria laughs at how cute their fans are, they are pointing out for meters how this and that person is dressed (how visible it is that some of them are fans, with banners and hoodies of 5 Pieces) and even when leaving the area they can see people waiting for the bus, some are crying and others are squealing together over the experience.

Hannah was so focused on what she saw outside the car that she misses Molly turning up the volume in the car; playing BTS’ [Run]. Hannah laughs when hearing it. No, she doesn’t laugh for hearing that song, she laughs because Molly and Maria starts to sing along. Molly sings the wrong lyrics, even Maria sings the wrong lyrics. Knowing the language doesn’t mean you know the lyrics. Molly is a k-pop fan, she hasn’t been much interest other than listening to a few good songs, but then she heard BTS’ [Dope] and everything changed. Hannah has heard from Maria that Molly asks a lot about Block B, BTS and WINNER – her favourite three. Which also means Maria has boasted a lot, saying she is close to Block B. For Agnes, she is more of the old generation; Shinhwa and Fly to the Sky. It was Agnes and Molly that made Maria a k-pop fan, afterwards Maria made her friends k-pop fans, which eventually created 5 Pieces.

Though they don’t talk much in the car there is a lot of other things going on. Dancing and mumbling along to the songs, laughter. It isn’t often Hannah enjoys songs like this unless she is with her members, but Maria’s sisters are exactly the same. And though Molly is singing and dancing while driving, Hannah isn’t worried; Molly drives steadily and safely, proving her own words to be true that she is a great driver.

Molly stops the car at a gas station, saying it will go quick, but as she opens the door, Maria open hers as well.

“Who wants something?” Maria asks, turning back to look at Hannah.

“I’ll come along,” Agnes answers from the passenger seat at the front. So Maria keeps her eyes on Hannah.

“I’ll come too,” Hannah nods.

Over Christmas it wasn’t a lot of snow in their hometown according to their families but if you walk where no one has shovelled, the snow reaches Hannah’s knees. It’s white and gorgeous wherever she looks, and cold.

“We should take time to go sledding,” Maria groans as she hugs her jacket around her. She is dressed in black today, a turtleneck sweater, dress pants and a long jacket. Hannah has her jacket in the car, her sweater is warm enough as it isn’t too cold – colder than other places they have been to recently but not colder than their regular winter.

“What about tomorrow?” Agnes asks. Agnes is first inside the station, a warmth hits then when they walk through the doors. There is familiar snacks and necessaries in the store for Hannah, she recognizes everything in there and can read without problem. It smells like freshly made cinnamon buns and saffron buns, reminding Hannah that she really wants a saffron bun.

A young man, tall and skinny, is standing behind the counter, only looking up from his magazine to see how many customers walks inside. A few other customers are already inside, owners of the two cars outside Hannah guesses.

“What do you want?” Maria asks Hannah in a hoarse voice, seeing the youngest has a goal with her steps.

“Saffron buns,” Hannah answers and smiles over at Maria. “Do you want one?”

Maria grunts and follows Hannah to the source of the inviting smell of the store. Maria links arm with Hannah as they step up to the buns of different kinds, coffee is also served there. They stop and just look, breathing it all in.

“Should we get tons and hand out tomorrow?” Hannah asks in a low voice.

Maria thinks about it a bit, or she counts the amount of saffron buns before sha