"Quieres comida?"

I awoke from my sleep, blinking, in response to a strange voice in a strange language. "Siñorita, quieres comida?"

It suddenly sank in that she was speaking Spanish, that I was on the airplane en route to Chile, and she was asking me if I wanted food.

I considered it. Did I feel hungry? I didn't even know anymore. Times when I hadn't eaten for a while and should have been hungry, I wasn't. Then there were times that I had just eaten and would be shaking with hunger in only an hour.

"Estoy bien, gracias," I answered her, then watched the stewardess disappear down the aisle of the airplane. I looked down at the cat carrier at my feet, watching KyuMin sleep. "Oh, my poor baby. We'll be there soon, okay?"

He didn't respond, of course. But it was honestly comforting to have him there. Silent and calming, just a small animal. A tiny piece of Korea I could bring with me.

I sat back up straight, looking out through the plane's window. There was nothing to see. It was nighttime, and we were flying through the clouds. 

We'd departed from the airport in Hong Kong in the morning, and we were still in the air. It was an achingly long flight. Technically not much longer than the flight that had carried me from America to Korea and vice versa, but loneliness made the hours stretch, so it felt like forever. 

After the concert, I had been alone. The company had not allowed Zhou Mi to stay in Hong kong for any more than the concert. As soon as that was over, he was immediately sent back to Beijing, with nothing more than a hurried goodbye. It was awful. 

I pulled out my notebook, staring down at an empty page, trying to imagine it filling with powerful, meaningful words. Nothing came to mind. I was scraped hollow. Nothing was in my mind except those wonderful memories. 

I closed my eyes again, trying to clear my mind. Still, nothing but the dull ache to go back. It would get better once I could get to work, I knew. For now, though, when it was quiet, and I had no other distractions, it haunted me.

I put the notebook away, and then my hands came into contact with another spiral of wire around sheets of paper. My sketchbook. I hadn't touched it in ages.

I flipped through the pictures, until I found the sketches I had made of Kyuhyun. Not perfect. He had a small acne scar on his right cheek. In real life, his left eye was slightly bigger than the other. But otherwise, it was a fairly good depiction of him. I'd almost captured his evil smirk.

I opened to an empty page, and dragged my pencil over it in a gentle curve, and then another, and then a careful sweep. My mind found focus. Finally, the images faded out of distraction, and the picture began to form.

Cheekbones. Long, thin eyes. A high forehead. Feathery lines for the hair. A narrow nose. And then that smile. It would never look right unless it had that smile.

Before I knew it, the white paper had bloomed into a spectrum of grayscale, and the tips of my fingers were dyed gray where I had smudged the edges of shading. I was not the perfect artist. But it didn't matter. It was a way to focus. 

"Llegamos al aeropuerto de Santiago en diez minutos. Preparen para desembarco." The captain announced, and I looked down at my near complete picture. There was something missing. But I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Still, I didn't have time to think about it. We would be arriving in Santiago in only ten minutes.

Jung Ah turned around in her chair, yawning. She'd been asleep for most of the ride. She looked down at my drawing, then chose to ignore it, looking back up at my face. "I hope you understand what's going on, because I have no idea."

I laughed. "Don't worry about it, Eonni. Our translator is meeting us at the airport. He can help you. Although I don't know how well I'll do, either. After all, what I learned in school was Mexican Spanish. South America Spanish is very different. So I hope I can figure it out. And it's been a while since I've really used it. I might mess up sometimes."

She shrugged. "Just do your best. I don't think they would have asked for you to be on their TV show if they didn't think you could do it."

I slid my sketchbook back into my bag, leaning back in my chair and looking out the window at the ground that was beginning to rise up to meet us. 

Unless they deliberately want to humiliate me, I thought.

Had it really been a day since I had arrived? Already there were press conferences, meetings, introductions. Apparently the director was pleased. Chilean Spanish gave me a daily headache, but people were pretty nice about it. My character was supposed to know every language except Spanish when she first came, anyway.

I rolled over onto my cot in the corner of the trailer I inhabited, and KyuMin jumped onto my back and settled himself between my shoulderblades as I flipped through my script.

My character, Mary or María Johnston, was the daughter of a very successful international business. Her father and mother both held extremely powerful positions, and as a result, she grew up traveling from place to place, and even when her parents were staying in one place, if she ever wanted to go somewhere, she had the money to go wherever she wanted. During the drama, though, she was exiled to Chile, to stay with a relative who had a vacation house there, to keep her out of her parent's hair. 

She was rich and vain, having a better-than-you attitude, but was a comical character instead of a negative one. She was always making exclamations in all kinds of languages, and making mistakes in her Spanish. After a lot of the events in the series, though, she learns what it really means to be rich. What she has the ability to do.

She was actually a pretty good character, I thought. She was fun, and I could goof off with her and not get yelled at. Not like Rosaline, who was tough, but serious. Not like Glinda, who was lighthearted, but restricted by the music. Except for the whole rich thing, Mary was a lot like me. 

KyuMin got bored, and got up from his spot on my back to walk up to my head and rub his face against my cheek. I smiled and patted his soft black head, then looked around at the empty walls of the trailer. They didn't need me all of the time through the filming process. So quite often, I was going to spend time in there, I'd been warned. 

KyuMin rolled over onto his back, and I sat up so I could rub his belly, listening to him purr. Out of nowhere, I heard a tap on the window, and looked up to see Cezar, one of the male leads in the drama, waving at me through the window. I'd have to remember to close the blinds from now on.

Well, he'd seen me already, so I couldn't just pretend I wasn't there. I rubbed KyuMin's belly one last time, and then got up to open the door. I stepped outside, greeting him outside the trailer. 

"Hola". He stood, leaned against the trailer, his hands in his jean pockets. He had caramel-colored skin and large brown eyes, and I supposed he might have been attractive if my thoughts werene't elsewhere. Well, that, and that he had tight curls, something I had never really liked on men. Personal preference. 

I crossed my arms. "What do you want?" I asked in Spanish, trying not to sound too cruel. He didn't deserve cruelty. So far, he hadn't done anything to merit such treatment. 

"I wanted to visit the rest of the cast. We met during the press conference, right? You didn't talk much."

I shrugged. "I didn't know anyone there. You were all laughing with each other, and I really didn't know what to say. If we were in Korea, it would be a different story."

His eyes lit up. "So you're really from Korea?"

"No, I'm from the United States. But I live in South Korea now, yes."

"Have you ever been to Chile before?" he asked politely, even using the formal "usted" instead of the common "tú". 

"No I haven't," I answered, firmly continuing to speak informally. We were the same age, from what my research had told me. There was no need to be shy. Still, I was starting to warm up to him, my Spanish beginning to sound less clumsy on my tongue.

"Do you want to see some of it? I can show you."

It was bad form to go to a different country and then stay in your room all day. So I smiled. "That doesn't sound so bad." Then I reconsidered. Alone in a foreign country with a man I had only just met? Might be scandalous.

That's how you met Henry, though... my mind told me, and I shrugged, asking, "is anyone else coming?"

He nodded. "If we go to Santiago, Emilia will meet us in the city."

Emilia was the lead female, where Cezar and I were only support leads. She seemed nice enough, but looks are always deceiving.

Eventually we arranged to go to Santiago, so I could be shown around the city. 

We met Emilia in the city, and together the three of us explored the city. We had empanadas, drank slushies, and they showed me all of the sights. We visited the Plaza de Armas, the Parque Forestal, and all kinds of popular statues. They were nice people, not too thrown off by my immense knowledge of the countries on the other side of the world. They did stop and give me weird looks occasionally, and I got lost sometimes, but they handled it fairly well.

After exploring a good deal of the city, we took the long way back to the first filming site, a road that led us through hills and around the curves of mountains, where I could see the magnificent scenery.

We didn't get back until late, when the sun had already gone down. The next day would begin filming. I thanked Emilia and Cezar for the trip, and told them that I had enjoyed myself. I started to head to my trailer, but Cezar caught my arm. 

"You're not so bad... Queen Be." He bit his lip, saying my name. "It sounds weird to say that. Do you have a real name we can call you?"

I thought about it. Not Minsung. It didn't make much sense outside of Korea. And Niuwang was special. Private. 

I remembered a moment, what seemed like forever ago. Before I had even left for Korea, before I had even received the phone call that told me I was being considered as a trainee. When I had nothing to lose and plenty to gain, though I didn't know it yet. Where I had repeatedly lied to one of the smartest people I now knew like a member of my own family.

I smiled at Cezar, gently pushing his arm away. "You can call me Sofía."

I worked very hard through the days, pushing myself for perfection. You have to try and get a perfect run. No re-takes. I forced myself to incorporate myself into the main cast, to be recognized. We played games, we did activities. I focused on making my Spanish more seamless. I wasn't quite fluent. 

Filming only lasted a few hours, though, and when those were over, I was idle in my trailer. Jung Ah would most often sleep, or work quietly on her laptop in the corner. We would talk sometimes, about Chile, and about what we would do when we got back to Korea, but most of the time, the conversation would quickly end, and we would fall back into silence, each of us doing different things.

Many days, I would open up my laptop, hoping to see a webcam connection. When there was one, I would open it up and try not to giggle like an idiot. 

"We were in the middle of filming! I was having a stare-down with Emilia, all serious, and then suddenly everything is shaking! I thought the camera would tip over, but there was nothing. It was an earthquake. And while everyone else just kind of planted their feet and waited, I looked like a complete idiot, stumbling around, trying to regain my balance. Everyone was laughing."

Zhou Mi tried not to laugh and failed. "Please tell me they got that on camera."

"YOU ARE NOT WATCHING THAT!" I yelled, not caring if his computer speakers went out. 

"Hey, you watch videos of me trying to say stuff on a roller coaster! You can let me see this!"

"Not if I can avoid it, I don't."

"How big was it?"

"How big was what?"

"The earthquake."

"Oh! Right! The earthquake! Ummm... 4.2, I think they said. So decent enough to be noticeable, but not big enough to cause much severe damage. Filming went on as soon as it was over."

"Filming with the very handsome Cezar Malvino?"

"You looked him up?!"

"Uh... maybe..."

"How old is he?"

"Nineteen", he answered automatically.

"You DID! I knew it!"

"I'm sorry! I was curious!"

I rolled my eyes. "Well, I guess I can't blame you. It's not like I haven't done the same thing before. But seriously, don't worry about me. He's a nice guy."

"So am I!"

"Sure you are."

"What, you don't think so?"

"No, you're right. You are the nice guy."

"Maybe that's not such a good thing. The nice guy always gets used and dumped horribly."

"This isn't a drama. Or a novel. I met some not-so-nice guys. And they didn't get the girl. They got thrown away. Worse than friend zoned. Is that a word in Chinese? 'Friend zoned'?"

He shook his head. "Don't think so."

"Well, you know. People should be happy just to be able to be my friend. I'm quite choosy."

"That doesn't sound vain at all."

”It's not! 'Friendzoning' is stupid. People should be grateful for friendships. It's hard to get real ones."

"I-oh, wait, Niuwang, I have to go."

I stopped my rant, looking down at the ground. "Oh. Right. Well...bye..."

"Look more sad, why don't you?" called Jung Ah from the corner of the room, and I turned pink.

I closed my laptop and flopped backwards on my bed, staring up at the ceiling. It was empty. Not sapphire blue stars to zone out at. I had left those behind in Korea.

My stomach growled. "I really want some kimchi right now," I confessed aloud.

"I thought you hated kimchi," Jung Ah remarked without even looking up from her notepad.

"I do! But now that I'm in Chile... I really want some. Oh, and soft, gooey chocolate chip cookies. And apple pie. Have you ever had apple pie?"

She rolled her eyes. "Not that I know of."

"Exactly. You don't know how many things I'm craving right now. But there aren't exactly any Korean restaurants, and I have no kitchen."

"I think there's a grill behind the director's spot. If you can get permission to use it..."

"This is Korean beef?" Emilia asked, taking a bite. I sat back in a lawn chair, soaking up the warm sunshine.

"Yup. I grilled it myself. That and the sweet potato. Delicioso."

 Cezar had barbeque sauce running down his chin. "You can cook. I can't believe it."

"Amazingly, girls who grew up in farm families learn how to cook. It's a tradition," I replied sarcastically.

"You grew up on a farm?" Emilia asked.

"Oh geez, not this again. No, not on a farm exactly, but I was raised that way. Eat some sweet potato and shush."

I held out a hot tuber for her, already hand-peeled. Since she was older than me. It was a habit I had learned in Korea and couldn't seem to shake. I took care of people older than me. I still gave them sass, but when it came down to it, I ended up doing what I was asked.

"Besides. In Korea I had to feed at least eight guys. You learn how to cook stuff."

"EIGHT?!" the cast members asked.

"Sometimes more. Well, actually, pretty often. And they could be picky, too. Of the youngest two, one refuses to eat his vegetables, and the other can't stand spicy stuff. One doesn't like sweet things, and hates seafood, and the oldest one has the food palette of a five-year-old..."

"How old are they?" Emilia asked around a bit of sweet potato.

"Late twenties to mid thirties," I answered, grinning. "But they still look and act like kids."

"They sound difficult."

I smiled, shrugging. "They're not that bad. I complain about them, but I love them all. ...I miss them."

Emilia frowned. "You're talking about that group you toured with in America, right? Super Junior? They are fairly popular here."

I nodded. "I know." I looked down at the barbecue on my plate, holding on to the last bits of it. I was starting to lose myself again.

Had three months gone by? It felt like I had aged several years. I didn't belong in Chile. After only a few months in Korea, or a week in Japan, I had felt at ease in the place, but I didn't belong in Chile. It was something subtle I couldn't explain. I had spent five years of school learning about Hispanic culture and language, and I behaved just fine, but something always felt off. I was just a temporary visitor. 

For filming that day, we had taken our caravan all the way down to the southernmost part of Chile, a great distance from Santiago. It was the furthest south I had ever been. 

I laid on my back in the dry grass, looking up at the night sky. I'd gone there as soon as I had finished eating dinner, when it was dark.

It was clear as could ever be, not a cloud in sight, and entirely without pollution. 

"¿Sofía? ¿Por qué estas aquí?"

I'd been humming to myself in Korean, so I didn't register the words until Emilia was standing right above me, clutching her arms close to her chest and shivering.

"Sofía, ¿por qué estas aquí? ¿Eres loco? íHace frio!"

I looked up at her, realizing she was there. I switched languages in my head, away from the one I had been preoccupied with. "Is it really cold? I didn't notice."

She sat down in the grass, still shivering. "How can you not notice? It's freezing!" 

I shrugged. "I wasn't thinking about it. And it got pretty cold in Wisconsin."

"Your lips are blue," she pointed out, sticking her hands under her armpits to keep them warm.

"Are they really?" I asked, entirely without energy. I really didn't feel the cold. My mind was elsewhere.

"What are you doing out here?" she asked, looking down at me.

I continued to look up at the sky, the little white lights in the distance. "The stars are brighter here. But... I don't recognize the sky. I've been trying to figure out which way Home is. But there's no North Star. I don't know where to go."

Emilia said nothing, but looked up at the sky with a skeptical expression.

"When I was in Korea, or Japan, or China, I would look at the sky and see the same thing I had seen when I was in Wisconsin. It was a little bit of security for me. It was a little piece of home I took with me wherever I went. But I can't see it now.  Maybe, I just... for me, they were an analogy for the stars in my life. My stars. Precious to me. Always there to light my way. As I fought to join them, I was under the starlight. And I'm in a different place now, with different stars. The night sky still shines, but it's not comforting anymore. It's frightening."

She frowned, finally understanding. "You miss them?"

 I sat up, curling into a ball and resting my head on my knees. "Yes." 

"Can I... can you tell me what they're like? They sound like a lot of fun."

"Really? You really want to know?"

She nodded, smiling. "I do." Then she shivered, and curled herself into a tight ball. "But... maybe somewhere with heat."

"Do you have allergies?"

"Allergies? Like animals? No."

"Great." I stood up, holding out my hand. "No problem then. Let's go somewhere warm."

"Careful when you step in," I warned Emilia when I opened the door. She stepped inside my abode, looking around at the walls.

He mouth fell open. "Wow..."

I bit my lip. "I know, it's messy. I'm like that. Do you want something warm to drink? Tea, maybe?"

"Huh?" she asked, tearing her eyes away from the drawings all over the walls. 

"Tea. Hot tea."

"Do you have any coffee?"

I grimaced and shook my head. "No coffee. I don't like coffee." Then I paused, thinking. "Well, actually... my manager drinks it, so there might be some in here..." I the electric water heater, then went digging through the small storage spaces to find some coffee. When everything was in order, I walked over to where she was, looking at the walls.

"Did you draw all of this?" she asked.

"Yeah. Whenever we weren't filming, I was in here."

It made me look psycho, I realized when I looked at it. Obsessive, at least a little. Barely a few centimeters of the wall were still showing under the pencil and colored pencil drawings. "They're not that great. But drawing helped me get my mind off of things. As long as I was working on something, on and off the set, I didn't miss them so much."

She laid her finger on a large pencil drawing, making the edges of the paper flutter. "Is this them? The members of Super Junior?" 

I nodded, eyeing it fondly. "All fifteen. Of course, pictures like this don't actually exist. You would never be able to find all fifteen together."

"You know all of them personally?"

I nodded, then corrected myself. "Well, all except that one."

"Why not him?" 

"He dropped off the planet. Supposedly doing dramas, but I don't actually know where he is anymore. Ever."

"Are all of these from Korea?"

I shook my head. "No. A lot are, but this one..." I pointed to a colored pencil drawing of the swingset in the orchard of my Wisconsin backyard in springtime, with the trees in full bloom, "this one's from back home in Wisconsin. And these are my friends. Other people from my graduating class."

"They're good."

"They're okay. I don't actually draw this well off the top of my head. I look at pictures for everything."

"Either way, I can definitely tell that you miss it," she said, sitting down on my bed. Suddenly, KyuMin jumped up onto the mattress, rubbing his head against her leg.

"Oh! A kitten!"

I snorted a laugh. "A fat cat is more like it. All he does is eat."

She smiled, petting him until he purred. "What is his name?"

"KyuMin."

"What?"

"KyuMin. It's a... Korean name."

"Ah... I see. So, tell me about Korea."

Four months. We were getting close to finishing with filming. The entire while we were near Cape Horn, we were so far away from cities that there was absolutely no internet. That meant no Skype, no webchatting, no Facebook, and no Twitter. I was cut off from the rest of the world. When we finally got back to Santiago, and I logged on, there were a myriad of messages waiting for me. From my friends, from FASE, from SM, and plenty of "love calls". Movies, dramas, commercials... my clothing company...

I scrolled through them, just at what was what. I would open them later. Filming that day had been exhausting, and I didn't have much energy to read. 

Until I saw one that said, "do you remember this? It was a few years ago, but it makes me think of you. I don't think the audience knew that, though. It must be hard in Chile, all by yourself. I wish I could be there. But this is all I can do. You still remember, me, don't you? It hasn't been too long?"

I clicked on the video, wondering what was in store for me. I laid back on my bed, just listening to the voice through the headphones. Of course. Zhou Mi. Stop being so damn perfect. It'd been four months, and it felt like only a day when I heard him sing. Because he still made my heart pound.

The summer quiet fills the air
And keeps you company as you cry
He suddenly became merely a memory
But then you lost yourself, too
The weather, now ice cold, cools the distance off
I see you smiling
And hear that he’s slowly getting further away
But I haven’t gotten any closer

Let my loneliest tenderness
Warm this most painful wound
Quietly watch over you
Empty my heart
Exchange my longing for your supportive arm
I am learning to give up on you even as I fall in love

Let my most distant embrace
Combust in loneliness for you
I love you but I must not bother you
I will use the hollows of my palms
To sublimate your tears into thin air
And let your sadness melt into my embrace

I watch as the two of you silently press close
Realize that you are gradually moving further away
Slowly I am accepting the law of heartbreak
The best things are best left to the past

Let my most distant embrace
Combust in loneliness for you
I love you but I must not bother you
I will use the hollows of my palms
To sublimate your tears into thin air
And let your sadness melt into my embrace

I closed my eyes, feeling my smile come out as I pictured his face. Too long. Just two more months. Not long. I hadn't forgotten anything. When I returned, everything would go back to the way it was. Everything would be fine when I went back.

The warmth of your hand
Is something only those who hurt you will get to know
But I can never touch
And seeing that you can smile calmly
Will always be my most beautiful support
This kind of distant embrace
Makes me imagine a hint of happiness

Let my loneliest tenderness
Warm this most painful wound
Quietly watch over you
Empty my heart
Exchange my longing for your supportive arm
I am learning to give up on you even as I fall in love

Let my most distant embrace
Combust in loneliness for you
I love you but I must not bother you
I will use the hollows of my palms
To sublimate your tears into thin air
And let your sadness melt into my embrace

I sat up and opened my notebook, staring down at the blank pages. I wiped the tears from my face and looked down at the thin blue lines, waiting for the inspiration to come. That was usually when it came. I waited, even listened to Zhou Mi's song, "A Distant Embrace" again, and nothing.

I closed the notebook, sliding it back into my bag. Maybe I should start another drawing.