Two weeks passed after you and Teen Top went to the restaurant together, and everything had been going well since. You hadn’t argued or fought with any of the members of Popcycle and you had all been getting on well.

You didn’t mind that you hadn’t seen Teen Top over the past two weeks, but you wished that you had more chances to talk to L.Joe, Changjo and Ricky they seemed really nice. Of course, you weren’t that bothered and thought that maybe you would see them in the hair salon another time, maybe even some time soon.

It was slightly strange that none of the other members of Popcycle were complaining that they hadn’t seen Teen Top, but that was probably better than them about it every two minutes. You found it a little strange at first, but after a while you noticed that they were all beginning to use their phones more and more often, they were always texting and laughing, which was strange for them, as they would never even touch their phones usually. You suspected that, while at the restaurant, the rest of the girls and the boys from Teen Top had exchanged numbers.

Whenever you saw the girls texting now, you would simply roll your eyes at them, knowing that they would be talking to the boys from Teen Top. Whilst the other members of Popcycle were engrossed in their text-a-thon’s with the boys, you began feeling a little lonely, maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if at least one of the boys had wanted your phone number.

Even just one of the boys asking you for your phone number would have been nice, maybe L.Joe, after all, you and him had been getting on well and were talking to each other at the restaurant. You sighed, maybe L.Joe was too shy? Or maybe he just wasn’t the sort of person to give his phone number out to girls that he had only just met.

It was the middle of autumn, and you were now practicing a dance with the other members of Popcycle in your practice room.

“Ah girls, come here, quickly!” Your manager smiled, as he barged in through the door and the music stopped. You all obediently walked over to your manager and gathered around in front of him, feeling a little afraid that you had done something wrong and bowing at him politely to greet him. “It’s ok, there’s no need to look worried.” He smiled, noticing the concerned expressions on your faces. “We’re going to the country side.” He paused and looked around at all of your shocked faces.

Relief washed over you, thankfully you hadn’t done anything wrong, you were relived, and also very happy that you were going on a sort-of-vacation.

“Anyway...” Your manager continued, “You will be having a new variety show, especially for Popcycle and you will be living in a different country house every week. I’m sure you’ve all seen variety shows, they’re very popular.”

You all looked around at each other and began grinning like maniacs; of course you had seen variety shows! You were a huge fan of them! And now you were going to have your own! This was one of the things you had dreamed of since being a lot younger, and now it was coming true! You were going to have your own variety show!

The other members of Popcycle looked ecstatic at the news, and you thought that maybe, for once, they would have to put their phones away and actually converse with one another, instead of continually texting their newly found ‘boyfriends’.

Your manager smiled at your expressions and walked out of the room, leaving you all screaming and chatting with one another.

“We’re going to film a variety show!” Cho-Hee screamed at you as she waved her arms around in excitement.

“I know!” You laughed, jumping up and down a little.

“I’m so excited! It’s going to be so fun! Don’t you think?” She sounded as if she didn’t even care that she wasn’t going to see Chunji for a long time, which was probably a good thing.

“Yeah.” You agreed, grinning with excitement.

The other members of Popcycle and you all went back to the dorm and began frantically packing before you had to set off. You walked into the room just after the other members and was met by absolute chaos, the girls were chattering and screaming at one another, as they helped Ae-Sook onto Young-Mi’s shoulders, so that she could get the suitcases off of the top of the wardrobe.

After a fair bit of wobbling around, they eventually managed to get the suitcases down, and began to squash everything they had brought with them into their suitcases, obviously not being able to concentrate on packing neatly because of their excitement. You on the other hand packed sensibly, and before you left you checked to room once more to make sure that no-body had left anything. It seemed as though the other girls were too pleased that they were going on vacation to even care if they had left anything behind.

“I am so excited!” Cho-Hee smiled as you climbed into the van beside her. “We’re going to have to look good in front of the camera; I need to lose some weight.” She sighed, pressing her hand against her already flat stomach.

You laughed as you plugged your i-pod into the van’s stereo and put it onto shuffle as you began your journey to your first country house.

The first song to come on was ‘No more perfume on you’ by Teen Top, and the majority of the other girls screamed with joy as you all began singing along to it.

“Hyangsuppurijima, ireoda yeochinhante deulkindan mallya!” You sang at the top of your voice as it reached the chorus. The journey lasted a couple of hours, and you listened to lots of other songs on the way, some by Teen Top, and others by different artists. Even your debut song came on at one point and everybody sang along, not putting in much effort, but having a lot of fun at the same time.

While all this was going on cameras were being used in the car by some of the older members, which was unusual, but you went with it and most of the time you forgot that they were even there as you were having that much fun with the other members of Popcycle. Some of the girls were talking to the camera, and others were busy dancing and singing their hearts out to the music that was playing.

The van eventually pulled up at the country house that you would be staying in for the first week, It was a huge house with a rather rustic style, and it had a lot of windows.

You climbed out of the car and looked back down the hill that you were parked on, it was rather steep, and made it rather obvious that this country house really was in the middle of no-where.

Slipping your i-pod back into your pocket and pulling your suitcase from the boot, you began to walk up the gravel path to the big wooden door of the house. Doing your best to jog slightly, as it was rather cold outside.

Reaching the concrete step in front of the door, you froze, noticing that the camera men were already set up and were filming you. You bowed shyly to them, not sure about what to do.

“What’s going on?” You frowned, looking over them, the camera men didn’t reply, just continued filming you.

You felt a little embarrassed, and hoped that they would cut that bit out when they were editing the show together.

Leaving your suitcase a little further down the garden, you hurried back down the hill to your co-members who were walking up the gravel path slowly, dragging their suit cases behind them leisurely.

“You alright Mélodie?” Cho-Hee asked as she noticed the look of shock on your face.

“Yeah.” You replied, forcing a smile. “It’s just that I thought we were going to be the only ones here.”

Now it was Cho-Hee’s turn to frown.

“What do you mean?” She asked, stopping right where she was. The other members had noticed her stop, and they all did the same, turning to look at you to see what the problem was.

“Well... It’s just that...” You trailed off, before looking back up the hill at the house. “There’s another van parked outside the house.” You paused as you waited for their reactions. The other members looked a little confused, as they tried to work out what was going on.

They all hurried up the hill to see if what you had said was true, there was a van there and when they all saw it they all looked at each other, and then to the leader for an explanation

“Look, Mélodie.” Young-Mi began. “I’m sure that if anyone else was here we would have been told, it’s probably just the van for the people working here with us, the camera people, stylists, things like that.”

You nodded, feeling a little stupid for saying anything.

Just then you heard a car door open and you all looked across to the van were the noise came from. To your surprise there was a boy getting out of the car, you and your fellow members all looked across at the boy, who hadn’t seen you yet and watched as the rest of the members got out of the car and the maknae walked to the back to begin to take out the suitcases.

Before you knew it the whole of Teen Top had got their suitcases out of the car and were now walking towards you, looking as equally shocked to see you there as you were to see him.

“What’s going on?” Cho-Hee asked, turning towards the nearest member of staff she could see.

“You’ll be doing a variety show together.”  The lady said, smiling at you all. “We wanted to keep it as a surprise for you both as you got on so well with each other in the restaurant.”

Everyone immediately feigned their surprise for the cameras that were there filming their reactions, that was, all except for you, who was deep in thought about how you were going to act around the boys. For variety shows like this you were supposed to be comfortable with the people that you were filming it with, and be able to act relaxed around them, you were shy enough with some of the members of Teen Top as it was, you didn’t need cameras to be there while you were talking to them!

“And cut!” Shouted one of the camera men, looking away from the large camera that was stood in front of him and to the two groups that were stood facing each other, still looking shocked. “We’re done for this scene now thanks, guys let’s get the cameras inside and set up for the next shot.” He looked across at the other camera men who were positioned around the groups, before adding. “Thanks guys, you can go inside now.” As he smiled at Teen Top and Popcycle.

As soon as the camera men were gone, the atmosphere exploded into cheerful greetings and bowing. It seemed as though everyone was very happy that they would be doing this show together, and they were all smiling broadly, showing that they were probably more than happy to be living in one another’s company for a few weeks.

The atmosphere became a little more flirty, as the boys rolled their eyes and commented on how they were probably going to have six ummas looking after them the whole time that they were filming this programme.

“Hey Mélodie.” Changjo smiled as he walked over to you.

“Oh, Hi.” You smiled, picking up your suitcase and turning to walk towards the house.

“I’ll take that for you.” He smiled sweetly and took the suitcase from you, despite him now having two suitcases to carry (with yours being considerably heavy) he made it look effortless and continued to converse with you.

“So how have you been since we last spoke, at the restaurant wasn’t it?” Changjo smiled.

“Yeah, thanks, I’ve been good, and you?”

“Yeah, I’ve been alright, Soo-Min hasn’t stopped texting me the whole time.” He laughed. “But apart from that I’ve been good thanks.”

You were about to reply when you saw someone walking next to you, glancing to the side, you saw L.Joe, who smiled back at you as you headed up the large garden path, towards the house

You were beginning to feel a little more relaxed around these two boys now, and thought that maybe filming this programme wouldn’t be so bad. It might even be fun filming it with Teen Top, after all, L.Joe and Changjo were both being nice to you now, and Ricky was being nice to you when you were at the restaurant the other week. It didn’t seem as though they hated you, maybe Niel did, but you didn’t worry about that, at least some of the boys were your friends.

You got up to the door and were about to go up the step to go in, when someone stepped directly in front of you, blocking your path. You looked up to see who it was and noticed that it was Niel.

Immediately you felt angry again, he had obviously done it on purpose. It might not have been intended to hurt you, but it did, Niel made you feel uncomfortable when he did things like this, and you didn’t really want to film a programme with him if he was only going to make you feel small and unwanted all the time.

You looked back up and now noticed that Niel was holding open the door for Jae-Hwa. He clearly hadn’t been doing anything to annoy you on purpose; he was simply doing something nice for the prettiest girl in the whole group.

Niel clearly liked Je-Hwa, and he was probably trying to win her over by doing sweet things like this. Did Niel even realise that it wasn’t going to work? Jae-Hwa isn’t the sort of girl to be won over by sweet gestures like these, she either likes you or she doesn’t, and if Niel’s looks didn’t appeal to her, then the chances were, they never would, no matter how hard Niel tried.

You looked down, feeling a lump in your throat, who were you kidding? Anyone could fall for Niel’s gorgeous looks, even Jae-Hwa; they would probably be in a serious relationship by the end of the first week of filming.

“Hey, fairy-floss.” You heard Niel say, and looked up at him. He looked back down at you with a serious expression on his face. “Don’t you want to go in?” He asked, his lips curving into a smile and his eyes softening.

You looked back at Niel, slightly shocked that he was holding the door open for you and was smiling at you! His smile wasn’t the same as the one that he has when he looked at Jae-Hwa, but at least, he was still smiling at you. You felt your heart skip a beat, Niel was smiling at you. This was the person you thought hated you! The person who had been your bias for so long. The person who had crushed you and made you regret ever liking him.

The person who stood smiling at you right now.

“Fairy-floss, you there?” Niel asked, tilting his head to the side as he looked at you.

You blinked quickly, coming out of your daydream. Niel laughed sweetly, it wasn’t a cold laugh, like he was mocking you, it was more warm and sweet, as if he genuinely found you funny. You weren’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but Niel looked deep into your eyes and smiled at you again, and then you stopped thinking.

It made you think of the time at the hair salon, when you walked into Niel and he looked into your eyes and you forgot about everything. It was like you two were the only people left in existence, and you felt this same feeling again for a brief second, before you noticed that Niel was looking at you... differently. It wasn’t a loving smile like the one he gave Jae-Hwa, but at the same time, it wasn’t a harsh forced smile.

You looked back into Niel’s eyes before stepping inside the house together. You were probably blushing like mad and you didn’t want anyone to see you like this, so you just walked with you head down .

Even though it was a little awkward with Niel, there was something in his eyes that you couldn’t quite describe. The way he had looked at you just then was...

Different...