FIVE MONTHS LATER

I slid past the crowd of people at the entrance door, trying not to bump into any of them. My head was in a daze. Eleven hours, thirty five minutes, and sixteen seconds, trapped inside a plane. It had been too long since the last time I committed such a thing.

I rushed out of the airport, and with the phone in my hand, I started dialing. There was ringing, and my call was answered. I didn’t wait for any sort of greeting and looked up at the clear sky as I spoke over the phone.

“Yo, it’s me. You better open the door.”

It took me another hour in the cab to get into the heart of Seoul, and a lot of cash. I paid the driver once I reached town, and I stopped there and walked all the way. No way was I going to waste any more of my precious wons.

Nothing’s changed. I was kind of pleased. The food stalls were all around, people walking early in the morning in search for food. I remembered that feeling. And everything was the same as it had been half a year ago.

Except this time, Seoul was finally greeting me with a smile.

“WATCH OUT!”

I turned to the direction of the shout. Opened my squinted eyes. And threw myself across the street.

All right, maybe Seoul’s still not being all kind to me. But who cares. Because when I looked up at the face of the person who had almost run me over, my grin broadened.

“Mochi!” I exclaimed.

“You need to stop calling me that.” He frowned, turned it upside down, then launched himself at me with the biggest and tightest hug ever imagined.

We walked side by side along the street, me with a hotdog in my hand and Henry walking his bike alongside him.

“So Miss Jung is finally back,” he beamed.

“Miss Jung, the wedding planner.”

He stopped his bike and looked at me with a big smile. “Seriously?”

“Mhmm.” I grinned at him widely. “I worked up all the income I got from work, plus adding a few dollars Dad pushed in, and finally.”

“Aww, my Cali baby is all grown up,” he said, wiping an invisible tear.

“I think I’m getting used to it already. I’m still taking sewing classes, though.”

“Wait, you design?” he asked.

“Yeah. And I also have to know what’s in and what’s not. The dresses these days are off, but a little tweaking can go a long way,” I winked.

“No way. Remind me to recommend you as our stylist,” he said, smiling. “Our cordi-noona just bailed. I think she just got a job over at a different company. I dunno. Maybe Heechul threw her off. Or was it Key?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Hey,” he said, “since you’re here, you’re coming down to the stadium at eight, right?”

“What’s at eight?” I asked.

“You don’t know? EXO’s hosting their first showcase.”

“EX…O?”

He looked surprised with my reaction. “Didn’t Kris tell you? He’s in. He and the guys are debuting tonight.”

I froze a little. Did Kris tell me? No.

“Are you going?” I asked Henry instead of answering his question.

“Can’t. SJ-M’s heading back to Taiwan.”

“What? No way. Just as soon as I’m here?”

“Sorry, baby girl.” He threw himself on his bike, getting ready to peddle. “I’ll text once I’m there.”

“You better,” I said, and I watched him wave at me with one hand as he rode off.

Over the past five months, I had a great time. I managed to open up my own business. Small, but good enough. And I’d been keeping in touch with my sisters more than ever.

Although, Kris…

We exchanged our ‘Heys’ and ‘Sups.’ He practically woke me every morning with phone calls. It was annoying, yet somehow comforting. Krystal did it, too, though maybe not as much annoying as he was. I didn’t know whether it was a good thing or not.

But this. This I didn’t understand. He was debuting. Finally.

Then why didn’t he tell me?

I stepped inside Girls’ Generation’s building and stepped over to the elevator—till I was stopped. The receptionist stood from behind her desk.

“I’m sorry, but can I help you?” she asked me. She was in a grey suit. Dull grey.

“I’m just here to see my sister.”

“Do you have a scheduled appointment?”

“Do I need to?” I asked her. I must’ve sounded sarcastic, because her smile tightened. She wasn’t the same receptionist from before. This was a new one. Slightly younger.

She stepped closer to me. “Look, kid,” she said. I rolled my eyes. “If you have something for the girls, just hand it over and our staff will send it over to them for you.”

I looked out the glass windows. There were groups of teenage boys and girls trying to fight their way into the building, most of them wearing bright pink T-shirts with the writing I HEART GG across.

I looked up at the woman—she wasn’t that much taller than me—and returned the fake plastic smile, and walked out the door, out of the building. Once I was out, I threw away everything calm inside of me and stomped my feet hard on the ground.

This was ridiculous.

“Do I need a pass to see my own sister?!” I shouted out loud.

But not one in the building could even hear me.

“Excuse me,” a tiny voice said from behind me. I looked over to see a girl, small, petite, bob hair, I HEART GG T-shirt. She was talking to me, I realized after a minute of staring.

I blinked, raising my brows. “Huh?”

“Are you—” The girl didn’t even get a chance to finish, when a bigger, taller girl shoved her to the side.

“Erika Jung?!” The tall girl exclaimed.

I blinked some more, “Uh, yeah?” and a hoard of Sones came at me.

I pulled my arms over my face, ready to be attacked, when they all stopped, just a foot away from me. I pulled my arms down. I was trapped in a circle. They were all around, crowding me, eyes wide.

“That’s Erika Jung!” one of them squealed.

“Jessica’s dongsaeng!”

“And Krystal’s unnie!”

“She’s prettyyy~” one the guys said, and I felt myself turning into a hot red tomato.

This.is.Awkward.

The girls were gushing over me. And I could tell that the guys were trying to come over and take a whiff of my hair. One of them even managed to predict my perfume. Okay. Creepy.

But hey, as creepy as they were, they finally gave me a new perception of Sones. Not all of them were b