"What do you mean, you're leaving?!" Min Hee screeched, downright terrifying when she was painted green and standing entirely in her underwear.

"Exactly what I said. We finish the musical, I release my album, promote it for a month, and then I'm off to Chile."

"But what could you possibly need to do in Chile?"

"It's a television drama, but my character is supposedly one of the comic relief characters."

"But why? When you've just recently debuted, shouldn't they be sending you to, you know, bigger countries?"

"They're trying to get me away for a while," I murmured, looking at her pleadingly, and then glancing at the makeup artist still working on spray-painting Min Hee.

"I don't know why you're so upset about going to Chile," Lela remarked, pinning a select portion of my hair behind my head. "I hear it's beautiful this time of year."

I rolled my eyes. "Of course it's beautiful this time of year. It's almost summer there. But that's not the point.

"But what about our challenge against Kyu-line and Psycho club?"

"We can move it up a few weeks. We haven't booked a concert hall yet, so we might as well do that soon."

"How are you going to handle it?" she asked, and I knew what she was getting at.

"I feel like I'm going to suffocate, being away from everyone for so long. Six months. It was horrible, coming to Korea and not knowing anyone. But at least then I was meeting people I'd wanted to meet for a really long time. Going to Chile, I have no idea who anyone is. At all. And I've gotten so used to hanging out with FASE, and practicing all of my songs, and then, in my spare time, or just meeting in the spur of the moment..."

Min Hee covered her ears, making a face. "Do not want to know."

"Hey, you gave me full-color descriptions of you and John! Now THAT was horrifying! You European people are crazy!"

Lela cleared . "Ladies, can we please pretend that we don't have relationships? You know, like the public thinks?"

Min Hee and I fell silent, and then we finished putting on makeup, so we'd be ready for the show.

"So we'll have the performance after I get back from Chile?" I asked Henry as he plunked a note on the piano, and then grimaced, scribbling something out on the piece of paper in front of him.

"Sure. That way your friends in Rstory would be able to help."

"Right. Because despite all of our attempts to recruit people, we're still outnumbered against Psycho club... but we'll at least beat Kyu-line, right?"

"Of course. But the more the better, right?"

I nodded, then got a revelation. "You know who we need to recruit?"

"Who?"

"U-Kiss! Well, Kevin, Eli, and AJ, at least. Then we'd have a decent number of both males and females!"

"How many do we have?"

I counted them off on my fingers, thinking. "Well, for girls, we have me, Min Hee, Jessica, Tiffany, Krystal, Amber, Eliz, Ali, Em, and Jacklyn. So ten. And then for guys, there's you, Kris, Hanbyul, Sam and Aron. So five. Eight if you add Kevin, Eli and AJ."

"Can you contact them at all?"

"No idea. You have any U-Kiss friends?"

He shook his head. True. Very different companies, and U-Kiss didn't work for any of the big three.

"I will find a way," I certified, determined. "We need to beat Heechul. Cocky bastard. Just because he has good friends..." I tapped my pencil against the edge of my chair, and pulled out my phone to check the internet. I did what I intended to, then slid it back into my pocket and went back to work.

"So the songs I have so far are 'Strong', which is the title track, and then 'Finding the Right Words', 'How Many Times', 'Sugar, Honey, Iced Tea', 'High Heels', and 'See You in Asia'. And then 'Hiding' will only be on the Chinese version. And 'Grown Up' is only going to be on the Japanese version." I bit my lip, skimming through the sheet music. "What do you think? That's good for a mini-album, right?"

He shrugged, crumpling up the paper he'd been working on and shooting it toward the recycling bin. "So each version is only going to have six songs, and the Japanese and Chinese versions get one extra?"

I nodded. "Only 'Strong' and 'Finding the Right Words' are going to be sung in the three different languages. The rest of them are Korean... So I thought giving the foreign albums their own special songs would make up for it a little."

He shrugged again, dancing to a tune in his head. "Seems fine to me. But you know, I'm not an expert."

"Yeah. Right." I sighed. "I hope my fans like 'High Heels'..."

"Why?"

"I wrote it for them."

"Oh. But what do high heels have anything to do with fans?"

"It's about going from a country girl to an idol! That I'm not used to it, but I set aside my tennis shoes and t-shirts for dresses and high heels for them, without feeling like I was losing myself."

"You love high heels," he pointed out, indicating the red platforms I was wearing to match my red t-shirt, keeping myself warm with a black button-up jacket.

"I give up," I sighed, sliding out of the chair and flopping onto the floor. "I'm so tired..."

"Try sleeping more," he offered, shooting another apparently unsatisfactory sheet of paper into the recycling bin.

"Wouldn't that be nice?" I groaned, "but with musical performances every other night, songwriting, song recording, dance practice, album management, meetings with the three companies I have endorsement contracts with... I barely sleep at all. My cat sleeps more at night than I do."

"You sending your cat to Jessica and Krystal's house while you go to Chile?"

"No. I'd be away for too long. He's coming with me."

"You're bringing your cat with you to Chile?"

"He's a tough kitty. He'll be fine."

"But who's going to keep Heechul in line while you're gone?!"

"He's Heechul. No one keeps him in line. There is no line."

"Kyuhyun?"

"Have you ever tried?"

"No, not really."

"Neither have I. Not really. Never had the guts."

"I give up. Can you just not go?"

"AW, Henry, are you going to miss me?!"

"Who am I going to kidnap?! Who is going to grill hamburgers for me, and make fun of me for not wearing any clothes, and randomly burst into my room with really weird stuff that doesn't make any sense to anyone?!"

"You mean no one else does that?!"

"Even the guys are a little weirded out."

"WHAT?! You're making crap up. And do you all just like me because I can cook and clean?!"

"Well..." He paused, thinking about it, and I could see the comical smile playing over his lips. But before I could go into full on "beat my annoying brother" mode, someone knocked on the practice room door.

It was Manager Kim. He looked slightly worried. "Ah, Minsung. You're here, too."

"We came in separately. I'm just working on my album while Henry messes with the piano."

"I am writing a song over here!"

"Really? I thought you were just plunking notes."

Henry starts to shoot something back, but Manager Kim clears his throat pointedly. "Henry, team meeting in the main practice room." Henry starts to argue, but Manager Kim cuts him off. "It's important."

Henry looks at me pleadingly, but I just shrug and shake my head. "Don't worry about it, Mochi. Besides, I'm not leaving for over a month yet. We'll be fine."

He frowns and follows his manager out the doors, leaving me behind in the practice room to try and arrange the songs on my album into a sensible order.

I'm so focused on what I'm doing that I don't hear the door open, and don't see Leeteuk until he's standing right in front of me. I jump backwards, almost falling out of my chair.

"Wasn't there a team meeting? That's what Manager Kim said..." I blurted, trying to regain my composure.

"Just SJ-M," he replied easily. "You're here by yourself?"

"I was with Henry, but then Manager Kim came and asked him to participate in the meeting. So... yeah, now I'm alone."

"Good!" he plopped down on the piano bench, openly staring at me. Suddenly, I felt really self-conscious of the close-cut clothes I was wearing.

"Ahjusshi, why are you looking at me like that? You're creeping me out."

"STOP CALLING ME AHJUSSHI!"

I laughed. "Mian, Oppa."

He leaned forward, still staring. His brow furrowed, and he looked like he was thinking hard about something. "What is it about you?"

"Excuse me?"

"I don't get it. How are you so confident? How are you not scared?!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You're really terrifying, you know that? I don't even know how to say it. Are you afraid of anything?! The company, the strangers in Chile?"

I shrug. "I'm afraid of a lot of things. Tornadoes you should already know, Ahjusshi. And I'm afraid of the dark. I'm easily started, and am uncomfortable with animals larger than my head. I'm afraid of close relationships, because I know I'll just second-guess myself."

He backed up, even more in awe than before. "Wait... you're afraid of dating?!"

"You tell anyone that, and I'll kill you. Okay, maybe I won't since I like Ahjusshi too much, but I'll definitely put some little dirty facts about you all over the internet. Which won't faze the ELF at all, most likely, but whatever shreds of your image remain..."

"Okay, okay, I won't tell! But... I didn't think it actually scared you..."

"Do I seem a little more human, now?" I asked, examining my sparkly red nail polish, that made my long fingernails look like claws.

"But why? I don't..." he seemed honestly confused.

I sighed, setting my sheet music aside for the time being. "Well, since we're playing twenty questions... yes, I'm afraid. I don't trust myself. With anything. I'm always questioning, wondering, 'is this the right thing? What if the only reason I like him is because he likes me? Am I so lonely that I'd show my heart to the first person who says he loves me? Do I actually like him? What does he like about me? What am I doing that makes him like me? What if I change, without knowing it, and he doesn't like me anymore?' I ask myself those kinds of questions. Every moment of every day." I bit my lip and clenched my fit, trying to force myself to keep calm. I took a deep breath, slowly unclenching my muscles.

"Ahjusshi... is it always like that?" I asked, slumping back in my chair. "You know, right? I mean, since you're fourteen years older than me. You know, right?"

"I don't know if I'm the right person to ask..." He replied, looking down at the floor. "I'm not really that good with these kinds of questions..."

I exhaled a laugh, trying to swallow the discomfort in my throat. "Sorry. I still think of you as the leader. You know, from back when I was just an ELF. You were always the one who answered the questions." I looked down at my hands, not really seeing them, just looking at them. "You don't have to tell me anything, Ahjusshi. I'm not going to pry. You've had a hard enough life on your own. Don't worry about me."

I forced a smile, using my best acting skills to make it look genuine. Then I stood up, gathering my papers. "Well... I'd better get ready for my performance. The show must go on, you know?"

"You're right," he said, and when I turned around to look at him, he actually looked his age. People don't give Leeteuk nearly enough credit as an actor, really. He was always acting. We all were. Pretending to be strong, pretending to know what we're doing, that we're always certain of tomorrow. Leaders. Solo artists. Both of those more than anyone. "About the questions. I asked them, too."

I swallowed again, fighting back the tears. "Did you ever find the answers?"

"Most of them." He smiled, but I saw the tears in his eyes. I knew that behind the face of a man who smiles and laughs at the stupidest things, was a man who'd held more grief than he ever should have. Than he ever deserved to.

"Park Jungsoo." I said the name deliberately, and carefully, emphasizing every syllable. "That's your name. It's what makes you human. Just like mine is Melissa. You're still a person, Ahjusshi. You can lean on anyone. It's what people do. Leaders or not. If it ever gets too hard... no one is going to hate you for not being happy all the time."

He smiled, genuinely this time. "Take your own advice, Minsung. No one's going to hate you for not being strong all the time. I know I won't."

I crossed the room in two strides, and then hugged him fiercely, happy that he was so well-built, or else I would have crushed his ribcage, I was fairly convinced. "Don't let anyone tell you you're not a good leader, Ahjusshi."

He patted my hair. "I will miss you, though. We've kind of gotten used to you, you know? Always asking us questions, even when we're not the right people to ask."

I shake my head, wiping away tears. "You're perfectly qualified for the job, stupid. You've been an idol for ten years. If you're not going to pass your experience on to the younger idols, then isn't that experience going to waste?"

I pulled away, and before I turned to go, I couldn't help but poke the little dimples from his smile, and start giggling. And then he laughed, too. And then we were both laughing. At dimples. Once a dork, always a dork. Whether we're just pretending or not.

Lela slid my pink dress over my shoulders, and was helping me with the strings on the loose corset that held everything in place, when my phone buzzed in my purse. I leaned over and pulled it out, flipping to the message.

"I need to talk to you. Is your musical over?" -Wo De Mimi

Could this have something to do with the SJM team meeting that Henry had been pulled to earlier? I felt a sudden chill down my spine, and I hoped it was just my imagination. I still had over a month with everyone. While I promoted my album.

"We're leaving the theater soon. Where do you want to meet?"

I felt Lela slide the last loop loose, and then I slid the slip and corset off, and she gathered them up quickly to hang them on the rack. I began to dress quickly, suddenly hurrying with the knowledge that Zhou Mi wanted to talk to me.

My phone buzzed again, and I grabbed it to see the response, even though I hadn't quite put my blouse on, and it was hanging around my neck like a scarf.

"I'll just go to your dorm. It's important." -Wo De Mimi

I felt the chill up my spine again, and then quickly dressed. I rushed out of the theater, trotting right past Min Hee. She caught my arm, halting me. "Where are you going in such a hurry?"

I couldn't just leave my friend in the dust, so I quickly explained the text messages I'd received, and the meeting I'd had earlier, and the bad feeling I was having.

"Well then why are you waiting here?! Go talk to your man!" She pushed me forward, a gentle nudge with a slight tease to it.

"He's not my man!" I called back, blushing slightly.

"If he's not yours, then whose is he?"

"That's not what I meant, and you know it, you brat!" I shouted back, but I was smiling to myself as I went out the door.

I went into my apartment, only after verifying that Jung Ah was in her own apartment, just down the hall. First to meet me was KyuMin, meowing and rubbing against my leg even before I turned the lights on.

I smiled and petted him, the soft fur just at the nape of his neck. He purred, then meowed again.

"I know, I know. You fat kitty. You want your supper. Just give me a second to put my stuff down."

I put my purse and sheet music folder down on the table next to the couch, and then briskly went to refill KyuMin's food dish. He followed me there, impatient as usual. Of course, as soon as I poured his food, he was quick to forget all about me.

I sighed and stood up, heading back to the couch. "Men."

I collapsed onto it, laying on my back and staring up at the ceiling, where I had re-installed the blue glow-in-the-dark stars, to their original pattern of "ELF Queen." I'd thought of changing it to "Queen Be", but something in me just didn't have the heart to change it. I guess some part of me would always be an ELF. Even after I started to synchronize my head and heart, I still visualized the picture set of a hand clasping tight to another, preventing it from falling. One said ELF. One said Super Junior. And which hand was which changed from picture to picture.

Even as I became my own idol, onstage, with my own purpose and own image, I still felt like the hand that kept them from falling. And sometimes, their hands were the only things that kept me from falling, too.

"Hello? Niuwang? Are you here?"

I sat up from the couch, casting my dreary thoughts aside for the moment. "If the lights are on and I'm not home, let me know, because it's probably a break-in," I chided, suddenly feeling self-conscious again.

Zhou Mi crossed the room and sat down on the couch next to me with an exhausted sigh. "I'll try to remember that."

I frowned. "Mimi, is something wrong? I know that I have to go to Chile, but that's not for another month, so we still have time to..."

"Not a month. A day."

"A DAY?!"

"The company's sending SJ-M, Zhang Liyin, and EXO-M to the Beijing branch tomorrow. So we can 'be in the right place for our department'. Or so we're told."

I swore several times in Spanish, and then took a deep breath to calm myself. "I hate this place."

"I know you do." The undercurrent of his voice said "I do, too."

But we both knew why we stayed. Because in the same ways that the company was oppressive, demanding, and cruel, it was a power cushion. Not all SM artists were going to be automatic successes. But it was more likely in SM than most anywhere else. I went there because that's where I could be useful. Because it was a place that could take my good traits and magnify them. It had worldwide presence, worldwide connections, even greater than YG and JYP. And that was why both of us stayed.

It took several deep breaths for me to relax enough to stop my fingernails from cutting into the flesh of my palm. I needed to stop doing that. I was starting to get callouses. Well, aside from the ones I had started to develop while doing housework for SuJu.

I didn't say anything more about the issue. If I got angry every time this kind of thing happened, it would be a really long career for me. I needed to remember that getting shipped to other countries was just another part of being a Kpop idol, and I could either get used to it or quit. And this far into the game, I didn't see myself quitting anytime soon.

So I looked up at Zhou Mi, frowning when I saw his worried expression. "Smile," I demanded.

"Huh?"

"I need to see you smile. You know you have a beautiful smile, right? I never get sick of it."

He does, his lips parting, showing the gleam of his teeth, and I melt the same way I always do when he smiles. I don't really know what it is about it. But he has the most perfect smile of anyone I have ever seen. Ever. Bar none.

"Okay, now your turn. I can't just do everything you tell me to. It's not a very good relationship that way."

I scowled. "I don't like my smile. I have an overbite, my incisors are enormous, and I still wear a retainer at night to help straighten them. Not to mention my eyes disappear."

"That's because you're Chinese," he answers, shrugging, and I remember the first time we met, when we wrote the song together. Suddenly asking me if I was part Chinese because he'd seen the way my eyes disappeared when I laughed.

"But your eyes don't disappear when you smile!" I argue, "no, they're just as fricking perfect as ever!"

He raises an eyebrow. "Perfect?"

"Okay, not perfect. My perfect man has blue eyes. And dark hair. But you know what I mean!"

He leans back, making a face. "Not your perfect man, huh?"

"Well, you know ideals. It's an ideal. Perfect for inventing characters in storybooks, but not very realistic. The person you fall in love with is probably not actually not going to look much like your ideal. I mean, my ideal man has blue eyes and black hair. Well-developed muscle structure, but not too obnoxious. As my sister puts it, I like my men skinny. Which you, my dear, actually are."

I laugh at the expression on his face. "Some things are more important than others." I kiss him on the tip of his nose, and suddenly the questions I had blurted to Leeteuk came into my head. What if I just like him because he likes me?

"What if you actually found someone like that?" Zhou Mi was asking me. "Blue eyes, black hair, skinny. What would you do?"

"Well, if he has a bad personality, tries to submit me to gender stereotypes, doesn't like me whether or not I'm wearing makeup, or tells me that I can't be an idol, then he's no good at all, no matter WHAT he looks like. Oh, and the most important part-- he has to have a great smile. A genuine smile. If he doesn't have that, then he can forget it. I have high standards for smiles. Damn you, Mimi. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have these stupid high standards!"

He laughed again, and I reached up and poked the edges of his lips. "I mean, how do you do it?! Zhou Mi, what is the secret to the perfect smile?"

He poked me in the forehead, pushing me backwards. I tipped, falling into the other side of the couch. I bounced back up, then looked at my watch. It was almost midnight already.

When I came back up, I curled into him, still trying to get the questions out of my head. What if I change, without knowing it, and he doesn't like me any more?

"What, is teasing time over?" he asks, sounding honestly surprised.

"For the moment." I leaned against his shoulder, feeling the way his chest moved up and down when he breathed. It was something I'd always wanted to do. And clearly it didn't bother him all that much, because his arm wrapped around my shoulders, holding me there.

I closed my eyes, laughing a little. "Don't get too intimate. KyuMin's watching."

It was true. The cat was sitting on the table in front of the couch, his huge green eyes staring fixedly at us, barely even blinking.

"Of course. The cat ruins everything."

I laughed, and KyuMin got down from the coffee table and ran into my bedroom. He probably figured that if I wasn't going to sleep in the soft place, then he would take it for himself.

"You're very bony," I teased, brushing my fingers along his ribcage. "Not good for pillows."

"You can move if you're uncomfortable..."

"No... no, I'm fine." I wasn't uncomfortable, really. If I shifted just a little, actually, I could feel myself start to slip into unconsciousness. Despite the chill of the autumn months, he felt warm, and I have to fight to stay awake.

"I have to go soon," Zhou Mi was saying. "We're supposed to be packing for the plane flight..."

I twisted my fingers into the fabric of his shirt. "Just... for... a little while..." I breathed, feeling the darkness start to drag me down.

He nods, and reaches over me to wind his fingers through my hair, making my scalp tingle. It was enough to pull me under, and the last thought to cross my mind was one last question.

Am I so lonely that I'd show my heart to the first person who says he loves me?