Emelia takes the picture for her. Hannah wanted to take a picture by the wall, but Emelia is more into photography than that; she tells Hannah to naturally walk down the stairs and the picture will be taken from behind. It started out as a simple idea for Hannah, but Emelia wants to make it a photo shoot, though because Hannah isn’t in the mood, Emelia only get two good pictures before Hannah doesn’t want to do it anymore.

“I can do it myself,” she mumbles when taking her cell phone back.

She looks at the pictures Emelia took, sighing when not having the energy to take a picture of her own so she takes one of the pictures Emelia had taken; it’s from the knee and up of Hannah’s back profile, the blonde girl having her right hand on the banister and the left is moving her hair over her shoulder, as if she is unconsciously removing the hair from her back to reveal the details on the dress. But it does look good; Emelia always make it look good. Hannah can even see the shape of her shoulder-blades in the picture. But isn’t it weird to upload this kind of a picture?

“Hurry up ladies, lunch time,” Maria pushes them forward to hurry back to the room, so Hannah uploads the picture quickly on the way while hearing her members talk about food…

{Twitter, 5P_HANNAH: (picture) Photographer is Emelia}

Simple, she likes it; a simple tweet that doesn’t say anything. She comes to think of that she doesn’t show her face in the picture, which means no one can know if she is having fun or if she is in a bad mood, and she writes simple too. In the end, she likes it, the tweet came out well.

“Hannah,” Manager Lim waves at her inside the dressing-room, “you and Carolina are coming with me. We got some things to do at SM and then you have your combat practice. We are bringing the food with us so you can eat at the agency.”

She changes back into her comfortable clothes, hiding under her jacket even if it’s hot outside in the rain. She had totally forgotten about the combat practice today, and she still doesn’t want to eat anything. Can she trick her manager to believe she has eaten somehow?

On the way to SM she is just quietly listening to music, happy that Carolina has their manager to talk to so Hannah can be left alone. Carolina has no meeting, she more likely has a practice meeting about the concert; she is still planning her solo performance at the concert. Hannah remembers when she talked about hers yesterday, but she doesn’t want to practice today. She is wondering how she can put up with the combat practice; being nice and polite to the trainers and then do her best at everything they ask her to do. Can she do that?

Hannah looks up at her manager when she is lead inside a room. Manager Lee is sitting there with a woman, a woman Hannah knows at the agency. She works by handling the media; to talk to them if scandals pop up or if an important thing needs to be said. She has the best contacts as well, and she is the reason Hannah looks up at her manager. A part of her knows what this is about.

“Please take a seat,” Manager Lim tells her quietly, guiding her to one of the chairs around the table. All of them sit in one corner, and Hannah lowers her eyes. It’s like sitting in the principal’s office, being interrogated about your bad behaviour and what we will have to do about it. Hannah has never been in a principal’s office though, so maybe it doesn’t feel like this.

“How are you doing, Hannah?” the woman, Ms Park, asks her kindly and Hannah just nods, keeping her eyes low. “I guess you know why we are here… so I’ll go straight to it as we all have more things to do today. Your fans and the media are going insane at the moment after what your sister said, and we need to come up with a statement about it.”

“A statement?” Hannah looks up at her, surprised. She didn’t expect that. But what did she expect? She doesn’t know.

“We need to explain for everyone why your sister said the things she said and we need to clarify the errors in her stories. I am thinking of-”

“I don’t want to explain myself,” Hannah interrupts her with a frown, glaring at Manager Lim when he says her name in a way that she needs to listen. “I don’t want to explain myself!”

“But people-”

“I don’t care!” Hannah squeaks, her shoulders go up to her ears. “You want me to go talk in public that my sister lied to the media to get money for drugs? I didn’t give her money for a reason when she called me; this is how desperate she is. I won’t say a thing about it.”

“But-”

“No buts! I’m a person, not just an idol. There are things I don’t want to talk about and I don’t think I have to explain myself every time something happens that makes the world dislike me or hate me. I did nothing wrong!”

“Hannah,” Manager Lim puts his hands on her face, holding her to look at him. He had sat down close to her just in case she would react like this. “Please listen to what we have to say. We have to deal with this somehow.”

She is glaring at him; her whole face says she tries to hold back the tears when she takes down his hands. “We don’t have to deal with it this way,” she tells him behind gritted teeth. “I will not talk to the media and I will not explain to why my sister lied because I don’t know why she lies and I am not going to defend her for it.”

With his hands away from her she gets up from her seat, stomping out of the room without another word, without hearing what they want to say. Manager Lim sighs and holds his hand against his forehead.

“I’m sorry about that,” he tells Ms Park tiredly.

“No, no, it’s alright for me. Lee Sooman said we don’t have to get her statement right away; all of us can understand it is hard for her. But we still need to say something to the media; can I get a few minutes with you now to talk about it?”

Manager Lim nods and asks Manager Lee to go keep an eye on Hannah. The younger manager leaves the room, but he doesn’t know where to go; he walks around for quite some time, checking rooms and corridors and stairs, even the elevator. In the end, after searching for too long, he goes to the garage, finding Hannah leaning against the wall in front of the van.

“There you are,” he says when walking up to her.

Hannah looks up at him with a glare, listening to music in her earphones with her cell phone held with both hands. Manager Lee doesn’t know what to say. He has found her, now what? It’s obvious she doesn’t want to talk about what is going on, and it’s not like he will ignore it and talk about other things; Manager Lee is not that kind.

“Is it bad if I hate her?” Hannah quietly asks him. She doesn’t look up from her cell phone where she has paused her music when she asks the question, and Manager Lee doesn’t answer at first as he isn’t sure she is talking to him or with herself. “My sister; is it bad if I hate her for what she said?”

“I don’t think there are a good and bad in your reaction to this, Hannah,” Manager Lee answers quietly, formally. “No one will have a say about it.”

“Because no one will ever experience the same thing, right?” she mumbles, obviously upset. She has no problem talking to Manager Lee; he knows secrets about her no one else knows. He is someone she can … talk to, without lying or hiding anything. It isn’t like talking to Manager Lim, who is like a father for the group, nor the ladies who are parts of her soul, not Jonghyun either… Manager Lee is just someone who knows a lot of things about her. She sighs in annoyance, glancing around. “Everyone have a say about it, they just think I’m too stupid to notice.” She gives him a glance too. “Are you giving me a ride to combat?”

“You want to go now?”

She nods.

“You don’t want to… talk to Manager Lim first?”

She shakes her head and he nods for her that they will go. He texts the manager first, to announce they are leaving. Manager Lee is supposed to give her ride to the combat practice; he just thought she was going to talk to Manager Lim first. For herself, Hannah doesn’t want to talk to Manager Lim, especially because she is hungry and he will make her eat – she doesn’t want to eat.

 

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Her day is far from easy. She is starving herself and it makes that difficult during combat practice. But they treat her different there too; they aren’t hard on her to do well but instead say she can take it easy, saying she can take a break if she wants… It’s not good. Hannah gets in a bad mood, though she doesn’t want to show it when working so when those three hours are over and she is back in the car, Hannah can be herself again.

“Do you want to buy something to eat on the way or will you make something at home?” Manager Lee asks her when he is driving her home to the apartment. Manager Lim had texted him during Hannah’s combat practice, saying the rest of the day Hannah can stay at home – no need to go to the concert practice. Hannah keeps looking out the window even after his question. She is still hungry from not eating all day, but does she want to eat?

“I’ll eat at home,” she mumbles for answer. She doesn’t want to eat.

Manager Lee glances at her, making a face at her answer and he looks at both directions when driving. “Chunho Hyung said you didn’t eat lunch today,” he mentions, saying it quietly as he isn’t the one who usually says these things but he follows the main manager as he should.

“I was too upset,” she mutters.

“What did you eat for breakfast then?”

Hannah bites her lips at his lingering question. She has no answer on that and her silence is answer enough for him, making him sigh and give her a quick glare. Hannah glares back at him when noticing it. “Don’t start to lecture me,” she warns him, actually surprising the manager a bit by her tone, words and face-expression. “I don’t need everyone around me telling me what to do 24/7.”

“I’m not going to lecture you,” Manager Lee answers.

“Good,” she is fast to say, staring out the window again. “I don’t have the appetite to eat.”

He didn’t know she knew those words in Korean, ‘lecture’ and ‘appetite’. In the middle of all this, he is impressed with her, in all the mess that is her life, and he is still admiring her. He looks up to this young girl, and not because of her choice of words but because she is still professional. In the car she is angry and furious, it’s almost like this wave of anger leaving her body that makes him worried, but at the combat practice it wasn’t there; she calmed down, hided her feelings and emotions to try to her best and even if she felt wrongly treated she held her posture until she was alone. Hannah is professional, and she is just twenty years old. He is impressed with her, he always is he knows that, but even after a year and a half working with her, he can’t stop being impressed with her.

“SM still wants a statement,” he tells her.

Manager Lee doesn’t want to hide anything from her, because compared from others who have worked longer with her; he doesn’t see her as the youngest member in 5 Pieces. He has worked with her during her solo promotions and though he knows she is childish and shy, she is a lot more as well. He doesn’t treat her the same way, and he thinks that is why she is different around him than around her members and the other managers; because she knows he treats her like a grown-up.

“Mm,” she mumbles for him.

“Chunho Hyung gave them one.”

“I guessed he would…” Hannah doesn’t look away from the window, and though she sounds upset when giving such short cold answers, she is sad. He gave a statement without talking to her? She didn’t guess that even if she says she did.

“The statement is that you and your family lost connection because of the distance between you, that both parts glided apart with time. You are sad for your sister’s decision to go talk to the media rather than trying to talk to you personally,” Manager Lee is calmly telling her.

“She did call me, you know,” Hannah mumbles.

“How did that end?” Manager Lee wonders, not sure if she means Julie has called again or if it is the first time she means.

“She got angry at me for not wanting to give her money,” Hannah says in a lower voice, sounding more distant. “And I got angry at her.” She sighs, wanting to cry again. “She sounded the same as she did three years ago, just as … lost.”

He glances at her, not really understanding what she means but noticing that Hannah is breaking down again. She shakes her head, looking to remember something, and she sighs again when looking more out the window.

“Julie has never said anything about me coming to Korea. Whenever I met her, she never once asked me about it, not once showing any signs of that she knew about it.” Her voice is merely a whisper now and she looks down at her hands, where she is ruining the painted colour on her nails with her bad habit of nervously. “I always say that I don’t care, but truth is that I am too tired to care. Julie could be like a random person on the street for me. All I see is a drug addict asking for money… Though I admit, I am more surprised that she called me that day than her talking to the media for money.”

Hannah closes her eyes when the tears want to come out. She isn’t home yet; she needs to hold them in. Manager Lee is just quiet, driving and listening to her, not really sure if he should cry for her or tell her … No, he has no idea what to tell her. No one he knows has ever taken drugs. Hannah smiles sadly.

“I once came home from school,” she starts to say, not smiling but clearly trying to not cry, “and the door was open to the house. The weather was great; I think I had walked all the way from school because of it. There were no cars outside the house, so I knew everyone was at work. But I heard screaming from inside… My sister had some guy there, and they were screaming at each other… … I remember how terrified I was when I stepped inside the house. I thought they would stop if they heard me coming, but they didn’t hear me.” Hannah doesn’t know where to look. She looks up to try hold back the tears but then looks down at her hands that are almost shaking. “I hided in my mother’s room, hearing them scream at each other. I could hear them fighting, something was thrown and Julie screamed even more at this guy, trying to close some door between them… Once he had left, she came to look for me; she had heard me come, but the guy … he was completely wasted (drunk), and he noticed nothing…”

Now she glances at her manager, looking away when he glances back at her. He looks scared, and Hannah has tears in her eyes. She breathes out when looking out the window, the silent seconds gets longer.

“It was one of the last times I saw her,” Hannah mentions, swallowing her tears when she closes her eyes tightly. “And no matter how many times I try, I can’t forget it. I forget a lot of things – I even forget if I showered a few hours ago or not – but I don’t forget the sound of my sister screaming at that guy. And when I was there, hiding behind the door to my mother’s room, all I could think of was that they were fighting about drugs. And she wasn’t even living there anymore.”

“She wasn’t living there?”

“She had moved out already. I hided in my mother’s room because they were fighting in my room and I didn’t know where else to hide.” Hannah then glares out the window. “When she came to look if I was there, it was so weird. She asked how much I had heard… and then she went to the kitchen to eat. They had just broken a computer, thrown a cell phone across the room and broken a door, and she was going to eat.” Hannah shakes her head. “I hate drugs. They ruin people. Their minds become like … like they can’t think.”

Again it gets quiet. Hannah is in other thoughts and Manager Lee is just trying to process what she just has told her. He knew Hannah’s sister used to take drugs, but he did think it was in the past. Hannah actually doesn’t know if her sister is still taking drugs, but she doesn’t know her sister anymore so she has no idea. She watches the car park outside the apartment building, none of them moves until Hannah turns to look at her manager.

“I’m not going to explain myself to the media and my fans to why they shouldn’t believe what my sister said. I don’t want to get down at her level to talk bad about other people in public, and don’t think I am a bad person for what I just told you,” she says, and Manager Lee thinks she is now trying to explain herself for him. “I’m not. I’m just … emotionally damaged at the moment.”

“Why would you be a bad person?” That is what he got stuck on; the rest, he can agree on. Hannah seems taken back by his question as she opens to say something but stops herself.

“Um… Because of everything?”

“You’re not a bad person, Hannah.”

She just looks at him, not getting why he says that. She feels like the bad person, or that others sees her as a bad person. Because she didn’t give her sister money when being asked, for not trying to keep the contact with her family… She lowers her head and gets out of the car, confused. You’re not a bad person, Hannah.

“Don’t forget to eat something!” Manager Lee calls behind her when she reaches the door to the building. She glances behind her, looking at him drive away and she can’t stop frowning.

Changing her attitude as if she is better than us, her sister had said to the media. Hannah had changed; her attitude had changed completely against her family in Sweden. She was cold to them, not wanting to listen to them because all they said to her was to stop being an idiot and focus on her studies. They never wanted her to go to Korea, they never wanted her to sing. In the very beginning they didn’t even want her to hang out with Emelia. She is not good for you. While Emelia told her that her family was holding her down.

Hannah gets inside the apartment, being in other thoughts while greeting Ace (the puppies aren’t there, probably because the others came to pick them up after the music program) who is lying in the sofa. She gets upstairs, preparing to shower after the tiring day.

The story she just told her manager, about her coming home to find Julie and a guy fighting… She didn’t tell him that when her family came home after that, Hannah had hurried out for a walk, crying. She had come home to find a stranger fighting with her sister; how would she react? Hannah had cried because she didn’t know the guy, he could just as much have come upstairs to her, what would she know? She had freaked out, crying badly when lying down on the grass on the school grounds. She had walked there, lied down and cried up at the stars coming out.

Hot water hits her skin when she gets inside the shower, and Hannah lifts up her face to have it in the water, hiding the tears that now are mixed up with the water, hiding them from herself as no one else is around. She washes up slowly, not being in a hurry to get out of the warm water. Imagination lets her think she is washing away everything. What it is, she doesn’t know; just all emotions, memories, feelings, thoughts… everything, she wants to get it away from her. She cries it out too, having her tears washed away, her whole day. She hates this day. It’s horrible, it can’t get better and she doesn’t want to live the rest of the day to know it get worse. Getting those thoughts, Hannah cries even more. She falls down in the shower, sitting down on her heels to hide her face in her hands and cry with the water hitting her back.

Her family always butts in, always making her miserable. Why can’t they just forget her? Everyone would win on that.

Getting out of the shower, Hannah just puts on a dressing-gown, going out of the bathroom to lie down on the bed. She is exhausted, lying there on her stomach with her hair and body still wet, covering herself with the dressing-gown that she rarely uses. She doesn’t know what she is crying over; her sister’s words, her family, her fans, her day, her empty stomach… All she knows is that she doesn’t stop crying.

If you go to Korea this time, you turn your back against us. I won’t open the door for you when you come home crying

Hannah has no home in Sweden; her mother had told her that many times. She still calls them family. It is where she grew up. She has avoided the truth, thinking that as long as she doesn’t think about it or faces it, it doesn’t exist. She has a family; they just … don’t talk to each other. Her tears are not just for what her sister has said; she is crying over everything.

She is a fake, like everyone else

The comments and words people tell her online are printed in her memory. The two-sided people she meets all the time, the fans that got disappointed when hearing she has a boyfriend now hate her when believing she has lied to them.

Poor Jonghyun, he should break up with her; it’s not like he will stay with a foreigner, right? It’s just a phase everyone goes through

She will loose him. She knows it. Why would he want to be with someone so messed up like her? Why would he love a person like her? And her fans… all of them will leave her, they won’t care that she love what she do or say that they like her voice, her presence on the stage or even her book. In the end it is just a phase.

But what about 5 Pieces?

Hannah shakes her head. They wouldn’t leave her. They have done too much together for that, they have gone through everything that nothing can break them apart. Emelia said it to Hannah this morning. Yes, she is sure of that. She will have her ladies on her side. She won’t… But she can’t be part of 5 Pieces if no one else wants her. No matter what her members think, it is not their decision to make.

What is she thinking? How did her sister’s lie turn out like this?

Though she goes overboard, she still thinks of her fans. Emelia said she will see on the stage the true reaction from her fans, but she saw nothing. The fans where cheering during the stage, but it was Julia’s stage; it was Julia they were cheering at. None of them cheered for Hannah because she was just part of the background. Someone made fun of her outside, calling her Charlie. They don’t like her because they think she has lied to them about who she is, hiding her true identity; they think she doesn’t trust anyone.

That part is true. Who can she trust? Why would she trust anyone? She doesn’t trust anyone; it is the same thing that she never used to say she loves anyone. Why would she love someone when she always gets turned down?

Hannah gets up from the bed, going to brush her messy hair after the shower. She feels disgusting though she just showered. She gets inside the bathroom, stepping up in front of the mirror to brush her hair, to glare at her mirror-reflection. *I see myself in the mirror, I can’t recognize my reflection*. She sang that in [I CRY], she wrote the lyrics. She wrote it because every time she saw herself, she didn’t know who she was watching. Hannah thought she had found herself through 5 Pieces, but the person glaring back at her in the reflection isn’t her. Or is it her? Is this angry and broken mirror-reflection Hannah?

Along the ride to try becoming a better person, to do charity events and give money to those who need it, to give joy to others is something she tries to do every day when working. It is part of her dream. But along that ride, did she loose herself more than what she found?

The dressing-gown glides open when she brushes her hair, she can see a body she isn’t familiar with. Who is this person?

Upset, Hannah puts on and a camisole, pulling the dressing-gown over her again when getting out of her room to head downstairs where Ace is stretching out over the sofa and the silence is horrible. She turns on some music in the living-room before getting to the kitchen, going through it all to see something she can eat. She doesn’t want salad or fruit, no berries or egg that she always eats. She takes out the leftovers from the pizza Emelia ordered yesterday; a simple sort with just ham and cheese because Emelia doesn’t like to have a lot of things on her pizza. She warms it up in the microwave, taking some Coca-Cola in the biggest glass she can find and then goes to sit around the kitchen table to eat. All three slices of pizza she eats, drinking two glasses of Coca-Cola. She feels sick eating fast and a lot, but she still goes to get something else to eat the moment she is done.

They have some kind of ice-cream cake in the fridge that she takes out, taking a big slice of it before putting it back and she takes out some cookies that wasn’t hidden, sitting down around the table with a third glass of Coca-Cola to keep eating. A few years ago, she could easily eat this and twice as much. She eats up the cookies, just taking them in and chewing, swallow and put in more. She doesn’t even think about it, all she does is eat.

If she hadn’t gone to Korea five years ago, Hannah is pretty sure she would have eaten herself to death. She would eat and eat, if not every hour it would be every other hour. She used to sneak around eating because her mother always looked at her whenever she ate something; even during parties and such, Hannah wasn’t allowed to take a single cookie because her mother was always watching her with this if you eat, you get fat. Hannah wanted to die at that time so it didn’t really stop her to get fat; she ate in hope it would end her self-hate. But coming to Korea, she had to stop eating like that, she was giving a diet after diet and she had to go to the gym, she lost weight and she spent just as much time practicing to learn how to sign and dance as she did trying to loose weight. Over and over she has said she did it to be healthy, and Hannah wants to believe that, but the agency wanted her to be skinny.

The person she saw in the mirror is not Hannah. The Hannah she knows doesn’t have abs; when did that happen?

Just one taste of the cake, Hannah has gotten enough. She drops the fork and runs over to the trash under the sink to lean over it, the disgusting smell from trash makes the food she just ate come up much easier.

 

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When the other ladies are coming home, Hannah is in her bedroom, lying in bed and just spacing out. She had thrown away the trash, cleaned up after herself and she had even lied down on the floor to calm down, listening to music and feeling lost. Maria had come to check her up when she came home, and Manager Lim did it too. He asked if she has eaten, and Hannah says she ate the pizza leftovers. It is true. She just doesn’t say that she threw it up too.

She feels worse now than she did this morning. She thinks too much and she doesn’t like it. She thinks in her old negative way, she worries and is terrified for what she has, for what she can loose, and she has no one to tell it to. She doesn’t want to talk to her members about it; it will just make them worry. Hannah had let the dressing-gown fall down on the floor before she lied down in bed, she had made sure to brush her teeth – doing it three times to get rid of the nasty feeling in – and her hair is now dry, her hand ruffles it messy whenever she rolls around to lie on her back, staring up the ceiling with an irritated expression.

None of them had to practice much today for the concert. The other ladies got to end their practice when Julia finished her schedule, and Hannah can imagine them just being lazy in front of the TV downstairs. But the youngest is hiding her self, just lying in bed. She doesn’t want to pity herself, feel bad for herself; she doesn’t want that. She just wants to feel bad for who she is and for what is going on.

The laptop has been put on her bedside table, playing a mix of music. Some Japanese ballads, some random Korean songs that is mostly used for dramas, then it is Kelly Clarkson, Beyoncé and of course her favourite Christina Aguilera. Songs that can let her cry and songs that can let her get angry just by the sound of it.

She has turned around on her stomach again, pressing her face against the pillow when the tears are coming again and she holds on to her head with her hands. Today has felt like a week, so long and painful in all kind of ways for her. She doesn’t want to know how tomorrow will be like, knowing she has to perform like she did today; but only with Carolina and Julia. It makes her remember that Emelia can’t be home now; she is practicing for some solo song. She is apparently filming the promotional video tomorrow; a new Japanese single for Emelia, a solo single.

Like always, Hannah gets all still and quiet when it knocks on the door. She expects to hear a voice ask to come in and she is prepared to say she wants to be alone. But no voice asks on the other side. Hannah crawls in her arms under her body for her hands to reach her face, wiping the tears as she turns her face across the pillow to peek out under her hair at the door. Now too she expects to see someone’s shadow under the door, as her room is dark beside from the light from her laptop. But the door is open – she hadn’t heard it open because of the music and she hadn’t seen the light come in her room because she had her eyes closed against the pillow – and standing there is the prince of her dreams.

With his hair shining in the dark, he closes the door after him, letting the darkness of the room surrender him. He is wearing a white sleeveless top, and though it isn’t tight she can see the shapes of his arms thanks to the spooky light from the laptop and he is wearing a pair of appliqué straight-leg cropped jeans in black. He looks stylish on his clothes and hair, but his face is sadly looking at her.

“What are you doing here?” she whispers, trying to not sound like she is about to cry just to see him.

If she hadn’t felt this bad she would jump out of bed and hug him, cry with her arms around him, but now she even turns her head away after asking him the question, rubbing her eyes away from tears. He looks like a dream. When he doesn’t answers she almost starts crying, thinking she imagined him being there, but someone sits down in the bed and she lies completely still with her eyes staring widely at the wall, feeling him lie down behind her. Kelly Clarkson’s [Walk Away] starts playing on her laptop. He doesn’t get under the quilt, but he wraps an arm around her to pull her closer to him and she turns her head towards the pillow when he breathes in her hair.

“I hate it when you cry alone,” Jonghyun breathes near her ear from behind, and just by those words memories flashes by her of all the times he would find her at the agency each time she cried from practice. All those times she ran away to cry without being seen, and he found her, just being there with her without saying anything.

She starts crying again against the pillow. If it is about the day or because he has come all the way here to be with her, she isn’t sure, but she can’t stop the tears. He lies there with her, holding her hand in his and stays quiet while she cries, his thumb moves over the back of her hand once in a while, but he doesn’t say anything. Hannah has kept her cell phone off most of the day to not have to talk to anyone, and she was even horrible to him when talking to him this morning, but he still came here from Japan – he has a concert tomorrow! What does that make her? A bad girlfriend?

It takes many songs until she stops crying and another song until she has calmed down. She is relaxed around him, his body against hers, his hand holding hers and his breath in her neck; all of it is relaxing for her, to know he is here, to somehow know he doesn’t turn away from her even when she does.

Another song by Kelly Clarkson plays, [Cry]. Hannah listens to the lyrics and she closes her eyes tightly. How would he react if she starts crying again? What she doesn’t know is that Jonghyun tries to listen to the lyrics too. For what he understands, all the songs that are being played have a pattern; he thinks they are all sad love songs. But he knows it isn’t about him, maybe Hannah just finds these songs the most fitting for her mood. *If anyone asks, I tell them we just grew apart*, Hannah takes notice of that, *and what do I care, if they believe me or not?* It is the perfect lyrics for her.

“You should listen to other songs,” the soothing voice from her dreams whisper by her ear.

“I don’t want to,” she mumbles quietly. She is looking at the wall; the tears are drying up on her skin, around her eyes. “You are here…” She can’t seem to get it. Jonghyun went from one country to another, for her?

“I’m here,” he whispers to her, his hand has let go of hers but he is keeping her still by caressing her arm. “All day I thought of how you are doing, and I made a deal with my manager to come here tonight and then take the first flight in the morning back to Japan. He agreed on that I was too unfocused, saying I better be in better thoughts after comforting my girlfriend over night.”

“You want to help me get in other thoughts?” Hannah wonders, her voice different for some reason. But he said that earlier today.

“You don’t think I can?” Jonghyun smiles in her hair.

“I’m sure you can, I’m just unsure if you think this is the right time,” Hannah answers, “I can feel it, Jonghyun.”

“Oh,” Jonghyun leans a little away from her; his hand that a second ago was caressing her arm leave her to go down to his pants, embarrassed for the situation. “I can’t really control that part of me,” he apologizes.

For the first time today, Hannah gives an honest smile when she rolls on her stomach to sneak a peak at his slightly embarrassed face-expression over the pillow. It’s rare to see him embarrassed. She is reminded of how she looks; no, she doesn’t know how she looks, but imagine yourself crying for hours and lying in bed, it can’t be good. So far he has only seen her back. Hannah pulls up the quilt over her, struggling a bit because he is lying on top of it. She hides her face, trying to wipe her face clear from any kind of traces, and Jonghyun is smiling on the other side. His smile grows when her gets visibly on the side, because she is pulling in the quilt and since he is lying on one side, she tries to pull it over her on the other side, but the moment her get visible she turns around to let her back under the quilt face him, hiding her whole body.

“Nabi,” Jonghyun whispers, clearly amused by her sudden cuteness, “Are you trying to hide your face from me?”

“No.”

“Then look at me,” he smiles.

Hannah is lying still. She just came to think of something. Under the quilt she turns around, peeking out to look at him with sad eyes, making the smile in his face disappear.

“What is it?” he whispers, worried at the sudden change.

“You have read what my sister said, haven’t you?” she asks. Jonghyun nods, sensing that is not what she wants to ask him. He takes out his hand to remove hair from falling down her face, by that making more of her face visible. She looks pale and insecure, but her eyes don’t look away from him. “What is your opinion about the relationship between me and them? You think I cut off the connection?”

“Hannah…” Jonghyun breathes.

“I want to know what you’re thinking,” she tells him, and he takes down his hand from her hair when seeing that her eyes are getting teary.

He moves his head to be in the same height as her, his eyes deeply looking in hers.

“This is based on my thoughts, alright?” he says first, not knowing he scares her with those words. He looks at her eyes for a few seconds before he says something more. “I think your family was angry at you when you ran away from home, and you were gone for a few months before coming home to say that you are going back to Korea. They maybe felt that you left your family behind, to go live a better life without them. And I think you hurt them, even if your mother is too proud to admit that. I was there when she wanted to take you back to Sweden, if you remember? She loves you, Hannah.” Jonghyun takes down the quilt from her head to see her even better, looking back at her quiet face. She is waiting for the worst part. “But I also think they hurt you, and that you ran away because you knew you would be better on your own. I haven’t met your whole family, and I don’t know how you grew up even if you tell me you liked your childhood… And as your boyfriend, I know you need confirmation on everything. I think you wanted them to show that they miss you, but instead they just fought with you at every attempt, and all of you lost the connection. You have a life here, they have their lives in Sweden; it’s not easy to make up after fighting if you are so far away from one another.”

“Then…” Hannah starts off with hesitation, looking down at nothing but the space between them when she gets quiet. She hesitates to ask him, and she actually expects him to say something more when she hesitates, but he stays quiet. This is Jonghyun comforting her; letting her be the one saying what she wants, and when she asks something he answers truly. It is no need to lie for her. She bites her lower lip, not looking at him when she asks it; “Don’t you get tired of me?”

“What?” he sounds shocked. “Why would I get tired of you?”

“Everything,” Hannah breathes, feeling she is on the verge of loosing it again. She can’t look up at him. “If I need confirmation for everything, isn’t it tiring? To come all the way here to hear me complain and cry, isn’t it tiring? All our fights and my issues and… everything about me-”

“Stop.”

Hannah looks up, surprised at the tone he just had at her. Jonghyun looks angry, not this comforting boyfriend anymore; he is angry at her.

“Are you serious?” he asks, both looking and sounding angry at her. “Get tired of you? Is that a joke? You are the absolutely most beautiful woman I have ever known-” he sees how she lowers her eyes at his words and he grabs the side of her face, holding her face up to look straight in her eyes and he has to hold his body up to do so, “not on the outside, Hannah. It is everything about you. You are beautiful because of your personality, how you manage to be so pure and innocent, but still you take my breath away when you suddenly get this confidence that just … I don’t know where you hide that part. You are thoughtful and always think of others, even if you for some stupid reason think you are being selfish. You say you aren’t the romantic type, but nothing can beat the birthday gift you gave me; not because I know it was expensive, but because I know you had given a lot of thoughts behind it to get those books for me. The most beautiful part about you is that no matter how much I know how hard it is for you to say you love someone, you struggle to tell me because you don’t want to hurt me by not saying it. I love every part that comes with you, Hannah, and I would never come here if it made me tired.”

“I’m sorry,” she is fast to whisper with her hand on his that is holding on to her face, unsure if she is trying to get out from his grip or what she is trying to do. Jonghyun’s mouth gets a tight line when she says it, his eyes looking at her, angry and deep.

“You have no idea of how beautiful you are,” he whispers at her, his tone telling it is wrong for her not to know and he glances up and down at her. His hand loosens the grip of her face, the back of his fingers caressing her cheek. A small smile shows on his lips when her cheek gets warmer by his touch. “And no one is prettier than you when blushing.”

He leans down to kiss her cheek softly, staying like that for a moment just to figure out what to do next. The tip of his noise get wet, as if something wet is on her face, and when realising what it is he flies up to look at her with huge eyes.

“What’s wrong?” he bursts out, terrified when noticing she is crying. Hannah shakes her head and grabs his top to pull him down for a wet, hard kiss. Jonghyun is all confused, but he still closes his eyes when she kisses him. A desperate kiss. His heart is facing faster in his chest, scared of why she is crying and to why she is kissing him like this.

“I’m scared,” Hannah whispers against his lips when leaning back, and Jonghyun lies over her to not have too much space between them. “I’m scared you are just a dream that will disappear when I wake up.”

He smiles. He can’t help it. He smiles at her words; his racing heart isn’t scared anymore. He lowers his head to kiss her below her neck, then he smiles at her again. “I should be the scared one,” he tells her quietly, moving his lips over hers. Jonghyun is happy now, knowing the tears now are just silly tears, knowing they aren’t anything to worry about. Hannah giggles shyly, wiping her tears with her arms lying over the pillow.

“You think I struggle to say ‘I love you’ to you?” Hannah giggles as she remembers what he said.

“No. I know that part,” he confidently answers, his nose tickling her cheek when he moves to whisper in her ear; “You love me.”

He then looks at her eyes, smiling when seeing her eyes have this iness in them, the part of her that surprisingly always takes his breath. She lifts her body up to lean on her elbows, reaching all the way up to him even when he holds himself up with his both arms. Her eyes go from his mouth to his eyes. “But you know…” she whispers, leaning her head back for her lips to brush against his chin, “… the truth is always harder to say.”

Jonghyun knows what she means, but instead of smiling he bites on to her lip, making a noise in his throat in agreement to her words and Hannah giggles happily when throwing her arms around him.

 

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Headline 12th: 5 Pieces Confirmed For Music Bank’s K-Pop Festival In Istanbul On September 7

Headline 12th: 5 Pieces Keeps Showing Love To Julia’s Solo Promotions Backstage At Music Bank

Headline 12th: Julia Performs [Party Tonight] On Tonight’s Music Bank Featuring 5 Pieces

Headline 12th: SM Entertainment Give A Statement About 5 Pieces’ Hannah

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X. devonalias

It isn't the happiest chapters, is it? :P Please comment ~~~~ =)