"Amber."

"...ngh..."

"Amber."

"No..."

"AMBER JOSEPHINE LIU."

The young woman jolted up out of her bed, eyes wide as she quickly scanned the room for the threatening voice that had repeatedly called her name. Before she knew it, she was being dragged by some invisible force out of the warm comforts of her bed, while she recognized the rare sound of English flooding through the room, "I'm not lying, I swear! I told her to get up an hour ago!"

It wasn't too shocking when the only response was an exasperated groan, and the Korean response of, "Shut up, Soojung! No one understands about what you're saying!"

"Dear Lord, what am I supposed to do with these idiots?"

"Yah! Unnie, stop speaking Chinese!"

Amber sighed: such was a typical morning in the f(x) dorms. It had always interested her that Lee Soo Man had created such a culturally diverse group, and she was almost positive that it was even more intriguing to the public. It wasn't an everyday standard to wake up in a room with people chattering away in Korean, English, Mandarin, and the occasional Cantonese and Japanese. No, no, of course not. It had taken some getting used to, but Amber ultimately believed that she would have it no other way. Because despite whatever language barriers would sometimes arise between the five of them, she genuinely felt like she could call every single girl in the room her sister.

"Hyung~! We're going to be late now!"

Well, except her dear Sulli, who, in the confusion of things, apparently changes gender whenever she's near the American rapper, and insists that they were brothers separated at birth.

Whatever. No big deal, right?

Despite the clear distress and panic throughout the room, Amber still managed a halfhearted smiile, "Late for what?"

"Soo Man sunbae called for an emergency meeting in the conference room. It starts in thirteen minutes."

If Amber had been drinking something, this is where she would spit it all out in the unsuspecting face of a distressed Victoria.

"What!? Why didn't you wake me up sooner!?"

"I tried, unnie!" Krystal screamed in defense, "I thought that you had gotten up, but I guess not!"

Luna rolled her eyes, "You obviously didn't do that good of a job, Soojung-ah."

"Hey! You try convincing Amber to get her lazy out of bed this early in the morning, and then you can talk to me!"

"FOR GOODNESS' SAKE, SOOJUNG. NO ONE UNDERSTANDS YOUR ENGLISH."

As the argument continued to rage on throughout the bedroom, the young rapper darted off the floor, and threw open her closet. Perhaps if she hadn't been in such a rush, she would've demanded that the others leave as she changed into her clothes, but the poor girl no longer saw a point in such a task. Who knew how long it would take for them to dash to the conference room? And everyone knew that an angry Lee Soo Man was not something that you wanted to face. Ever.

Luckily, Amber was never the sort of person to be picky about what she wore, and she threw on the first articles of clothing that she saw within her closet. "Okay, okay, I'm done. Let's get going now, all right? We're going to be late!"

At her hurried insistence, four pairs of eyes flickered to the American girl in front of them.

"Dear God, what are you wearing?"

"Hyung... I... Don't think that that looks very good..."

"My eyes! Good Lord, just take it all off. Now. There's no saving that outfit. We have to start from scratch."

"How are you going to impress Henry dressed like that!?"

Amber huffed, but was unable to stop herself from blushing at Luna's last statement, "I don't look that bad, right? And we're in a rush. Come on. Let's go."

"Oh no, no, no, no, no!" Krystal shrieked, "Haven't you noticed that Henry's been treating you differently, unnie? I think he might be starting to like you back! We can't let your bad fashion sense ruin everything I've strived so hard for!" the maknae of the group seemed to be getting hysterical, and even Luna seemed a little concerned. However, she quickly recomposed herself, and contorted her features into the infamous Jung glare, "Strip. Now."

The young rapper seemed at a loss for words as she alternated between opening and closing . However, it was her beloved "brother" that came to her rescue, "There's no time for that, Soojung-ah. We have to get going. It's too late now."

At her words, the singer frowned, turning to Victoria, "Unnie~"

Said unnie only sighed, "Jinri's right." As Krystal dramatically fell to the floor in defeat, Sulli let out a cheerful squeal of victory, "But if Amber's outfit is bothering you that badly, you're free to grab whatever you can carry from the closet so that she can change on the way there."

This granting of permission immediately revived the depressed maknae, and she jumped up from her position with a cheer, while running towards the closet.

"Wait. Unnie, aren't we running to the conference room?"

"Yes. We are. Unless you have a better source of transportation pre-arranged. Then by all means, let me know now."

These words made Amber whip her head towards her only senior in the group, "Wait. So you're making me run and change at the same time?" She paused for a moment to let an expression of horror take over her features, "In public!?"

Victoria merely shrugged, "If it means getting Soojung to shut up, then I'm all for it."

And before Amber could complain any further, the leader of the group began to lead the way out of the dormitory, Sulli and Luna had locked arms and were skipping behind her, and the poor rapper was stuck with a nagging maknae demanding her to take off her top and exchange it with the one she was oh-so-precariously shoving into her face.

Ah, yes. A typical morning indeed.

*            *              *

"I change my mind! Take off your pants!"

Amber turned, finally about to give her beloved maknae a piece of her mind, when she was suddenly interrupted by an all-too-familiar chuckle, "Huh. So when did our Ambie dearest turn into a stripper?"

The young woman turned to face a tall, brunet man clad in a comfortable pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and a casual baseball cap, with a lovable grin spread across his features. At his comment, she immediately felt her face go red, much to Krystal's amusement, "Unnie will do anything I ask because she loves me."

"So... You want her to be a stripper?"

"... You know you're jealous."

If it was anyone else, they probably would've run away screaming for the older Jung to take her younger sister to a psychiatric ward, but because he was Henry, he only burst into laughter, "Of course I am."

This response seemed to please the young teenager, as she smirked and gave her older female friend another once over, "On second thought, I think you look fine now. I'll go and ask Victoria Unnie to stuff this in Zhoumi's bag to see if we can confuse him into thinking that he actually owns an outfit like this." At her statement, the older male chuckled once more, causing Krystal to raise her eyebrows suggestively at the two of them, much to Amber's embarrassment, "I'll see you in the conference room~!" she added, before offering her elder a quick wink, and darting off.

"You have such a lovable dongsaeng," Henry offered, with another one of his infectious smiles.

Before she knew it, Amber was grinning like an idiot as well, "I know. You're jealous of my lovely f(x) family."

The man before her burst into laughter at her statement, "Let's be honest here: they can't even compete with my Super Junior hyungs."

Amber merely responded by raising an eyebrow with a skeptical smirk on her face, "Right~. I don't see any of your hyungs asking you to strip for them. So it can't be nearly as interesting as us f(x) girls."

"But Donghae and Eunhyuk strip for each other all the time while Kyuhyun leaks shirtless pictures of them to our fanbase," Henry reasoned, "You can't compete with that."

"You wanna bet?"

Before another word could be spoken, a figure emerged from the conference room, "Henli-ah~! The meeting's about to start!" As he took notice of the figure standing beside his beloved dongsaeng, a large smile appeared on Donghae's face, "Amber! How's my favorite little sister doing?"

Amber couldn't stop a chuckle from escaping her lips, eventually leading in pleasant laughter amongst the three. When their echoes had died down, she curiously asked, "Hey. What's this meeting about anyway?"

"I dunno," was the unanimous response she received from both older men, but Henry added, "I heard something about a new group though. Maybe we'll be meeting the lucky trainees?"

The young woman nodded, "More like congratulating the trainees for sticking with the company. I don't even know how I managed to survive my trainee years, now that I think about it."

Donghae merely shrugged, "It was a good way to make friends, I suppose. But I think that all in all, trainee years are the worst experience that anyone can go through." He released a mild sigh, before throwing both of his arms around the shoulders of his two dongsaengs, "Enough of that bitter talk though, all right? Let's get moving. We don't want to upset the boss man."

*              *             *

"... I sincerely apologize for the delay of this meeting, as I'm sure that most of you were in a rush to get here. Thank you for being responsible and attending despite such short notice."

Amber halfheartedly looked around the nearly empty conference room that was currently arranged to look more like a classroom than anything. From what she could tell, only f(x) had bothered to show up entirely. Seated on one side of her was her beloved younger brother, and on the other right sat Henry and Donghae. Jessica from Girls' Generation was seated beside Amber's adoptive fishy brother, along with Sunny and Taeyeon. She spotted Leeteuk and Onew mumbling together not too far away, with Taemin looking like a tired puppy dog next to his hyung, and Heechul texting with his usual bored expression on his face. There were a few other idols that still lingered in the back of the room, but they were all, for the most part, partially asleep.

"As some of you may have heard, SM Entertainment is proud to announce that we'll be debuting a new boy group in the upcoming months, and we thought that as our beloved stars, you should be the first to know."

Beloved, Amber thought with a silent scoff, Yeah, right.

"They'll be a twelve-member unit going by the name of EXO, and will be split into two different sub-groups: one that sings in Korean, and another that sings in Mandarin."

From the seat beside her, Amber could feel Henry stiffen, and she herself rose a curious eyebrow. The details of the group were eerily similar to the famous group of the Hallyu Wave, Super Junior, and she could feel that suspicion had begun to rise within the room.

"I'll let them introduce themselves. Let's start with EXO-K..."

A string of six young men filed into the front of the room, bowing in unison, and smiling sheepishly at the sunbaes seated before them. As they each introduced themselves, it was hard for the already debuted idols to not judge every little thing about them. Though they wouldn't admit it, a new group debuting meant more division of the fans that SMTOWN already had. And while they liked to think that most fans were "multifandom," as Krystal insisted they call it, they would only be lying to themselves if they said that their fans weren't biased when it comes to certain groups.

And the more fans in each of their individual fandoms meant the more money that they would be able to call their own.

"And now for the members of EXO-M..."

Interestingly enough, only five men walked into the room this time, compared to the former six. As they each introduced themselves in a variety of Korean that ranged from fragmented words and phrases to absolute fluentness, the judgmental silence continued.

As the last soon-to-be-idol, Xiumin, introduced himself, an awkward aura suddenly filled the room.

Lee Soo Man looked at the group before him thoughtfully, before muttering, "I could've sworn that there were twelve of you total..."

Before he could really think about the situation, the door to the conference room threw itself open, and a tall, attractive male strutted in. The way he surveyed the crowd made the individuals in the room sense an arrogant sort of feel surrounding him. But what surprised most of the idols in the room was the confidence with which he walked: a confidence that could easily be compared to the narcissistic nature of a certain Kim Heechul.

Said man swore under his breath and muttered something about stupid trainees trying to copy his image.

"Ah, I knew we were missing someone. Go on. Introduce yourself."

With that being said, the rookie his heel to face the small crowd gathered before him. “Call me Kris. And call that chick over there,” his hand rose in a lazy manner towards a girl seated in the back of the room, a cocky grin on his face, “My next girlfriend.”

It would be an understatement to say that every individual present was more than a little shocked.

Donghae’s jaw was on the ground, and would open and close sporadically, like a fish out of water.

Jessica let out some sort of high-pitched noise that seemed to be a cross between a squeal, a shriek, and a battle cry.

Heechul was already in the process of texting all of his fellow idols who had suffered the misfortune of not being able to attend the drama-filled meeting to let them know about the latest gossip.

Krystal was seething in her seat, steam all but escaping through her ears.

Henry’s eyes were as wide as they could get, and he seemed at a loss for words as his gaze uneasily shifted between the man in front of him, and his best friend beside him.

Amber, on the other hand, was doing everything she could to not jump out of her chair to strangle the arrogant rookie for potentially ruining everything.

Instead, she settled for stabbing him with an assortment of creative weaponry.

In her mind, of course. The bastard in front of her definitely wasn’t worth jail time. Or any of her time, for that matter.

The awkward silence in the room was broken as Sulli, who was seated on the other side of Amber, nudged her elder playfully, her voice a mixture of a singsong and a chirrup, “Gosh, Hyung. I didn’t realize you had such a thing for Canadians.”

All heads immediately swiveled to stare at the flushed American, who felt like she was ready to die.

Or shoot herself in the foot repeatedly.

Whichever one was more painful.