Suddenly remembering Grandmother Honey’s stories about Fae men traveling to the human world to find lost Fae women, eventually winning their hearts only to find out that the women were only human, and then eventually killing them sent shivers to her already cold limbs. Hera doesn’t know what brought about such memories as she continued rubbing her hands together, then tucking them back to her hot pack-lined pockets. She surveyed her surroundings and could already find more than fifty other girls in various states of hypothermia. They were all waiting for the Inkigayo pre-recording to start.

            “Argh! This is your entire fault, Hera,” Jin cried beside her. “Your paranoia of being late caused me to forget my I ♥ Siwon banner!”

            “I’m so sorry, Jin,” she told her bestfriend who was now squatting in the pavement. “Besides, we aren’t allowed to bring banners inside.”

            Jin looked up at her, at first pouting, and then smiled: “You owe me then.”

            Hera rolled her eyes at her friend. “Not again.”

            “It’s not a blind date this time, I promise,” the girl explained, now standing closer to her. “And besides, you owe me and Siwon can’t notice me because of that…” Then hesitatingly added: “… and because you look so sad. It’s been, what, five years, Hera!”

            There is no use trying to shush Jin when she gets into this mood. Her bestfriend still thinks that Hera’s inactiveness in the local dating social circle is due to a previous broken relationship. There is no use dispelling her best friend’s beliefs so she just gave her standard answer for the past five years. “I have Super Junior, what more do I need?”

            Jin smiled conspiratorially at that. “I know right! Siwon is just so hot! And our bias, well, is another kind of hot!”

            The two both shrieked at that for reasons only fangirls can comprehend. They were both jumping and giddy when the fan staff announced that they could now all go inside the studio. The two held hands as they went in, Jin squeezing Hera’s hand, looking intently into her eyes.

            “It’s a party near Konkuk station and the rest of the gang will be there,” she said. “Tomorrow night.”

            Maybe that was why her grandmother’s Fae stories have been plaguing her lately. Those stories were essentially love stories and her best friend was right about the five-year-gap since her last “relationship”.  Maybe it was time to go ‘out there’ and really experience a human single life. But her friend does not have to know about the latter.