Sungmin had promised to text me when he found out what would happen as a result of their actions, so I felt a bit bad the next day while my friends were passing out presents, and I kept glancing at my phone every ten seconds. 

"Earth to Mel, Earth to Mel!" Emily poked me in the side, making me jump. 

"What? What is it?"

"We asked you a question, but you were too much in La-la land. Who should go first?"

"Umm, I think we should let Min Hee go first, since she's the only one here who hasn't been friends with us for years. So we should let her go first to make her feel included, you know? And she's the oldest, so then we'll go around by age, meaning that next it would be Eliz, then--"

I cut off when my phone buzzed, and in a flash I had it open. Goodness gracious, it was Sungmin, FINALLY.

"Taking away two of our vacation days and driving privileges. Essentially, Kyuhyun and I are grounded."

They actually GOT vacation days? Well, not any more. I supposed after the contract issue with Han Geng, the company was required to give them vacation days, but punishment for breaking contracts for someone else was probably totally fair game.

"I hope you're okay. Oppa, fighting!" I texted back, then turned back to my friends. Min Hee had opened her gift from Ali first, a light blue T-shirt with a grenade on it that read "British Bombshell".

Then it was Eliz's turn, unwrapping Emily's present, which turned out to be a bunch of totally random stuff. Animal-shaped keychains, a bottle-opener, and then, buried in the midst, the ACTUAL present, two SHInee bracelets, Taemin and MinHo, and a pair of Jonghyun socks. It was hilarious.

Then Ali, opening Jacklyn's present, an expertly crafted stuffed bunny with blue fur, a top hat, and a monocle. It was also wearing a shirt with a ducky on it. We thought it was hilarious, but Min Hee didn't get it, so we had to explain the many inside jokes behind it. Most of it had to do with Ali's various nicknames (Ducky and Ali Blue-Bunny, for example), but the monocle was MUCH harder to explain.

Perhaps I shouldn't have let us unwrap presents in order of age, because, of course, that meant I was going last. It was okay when my attention was elsewhere, but now that my focus had returned to opening presents, I was getting a bit impatient. 

Just Em and Jacklyn before me. Em opened Min Hee's present first, then had us all gushing over how expensive it must have been. It was a lovely little sliver charm, fastened in the shape of Big Ben. "I didn't know what to get you, but I know you love accents, so I asked my brother to get this for you..."

Em was VERY thankful. It turned out that the charm was actually a working clock that you could put recordings into, so they would chime that recording instead of tolling, like the real Big Ben did. But Min Hee refused to tell us how much it had cost. Living with her, I'd almost forgotten how rich Min Hee's family was, but I was reminded of it.

The rest of her presents were fairly similar in coolness, and she apologized because, according to her, they were more presents from Jay than they were for her, since he had bought all of them. Apparently he'd had them made while he was on one of his annual trips to Switzerland. But they had been thought of by her. Mine was a hairpin of a bee wearing a tiara, complete with little stripes of gold, and sparkly wings that buzzed when you wound up the pin.

When finally we had opened all of the presents, I was extremely happy, because my friends had carried over all of the things I'd been craving while in Korea. Ali gave me an enormous box of various cheeses, Emily managed to smuggle an entire twenty-four pack of root beer in her suitcase (How she got through the metal detectors, I was scared to ask),  Jacklyn brought an entire gallon jug of apple cider, and Eliz, in all of her infinite wisdom, brought the thing I needed most of all:

BRAS!!!! 

You wouldn't believe how happy I was. It had been difficult to find underwear back home, because I was heavy-chested, but had a small ribcage, but in Korea it was IMPOSSIBLE. Even if I did find one that fot, it was usually ugly and very unflattering, always wanting to stick up over the shirt collar. I disliked it very much.

Thank heaven for my friends, who understand. Leave it up to my eonnis to give me stuff I could actually wear underneath my favorite clothes. 

While my friends cleaned up the wrapping paper mess, I sent a "Merry Christmas" text to Henry, inquiring about how his day had been going. I knew that all of my Oppas were extremely busy that day with activities, and only Donghae had been able to get leave to go down and visit his parents. I wanted to give them some kind of present, but I just didn't know what I could give them that thousands of fans hadn't already given. 

I thought about it, then announced that I was going to go get the mail, while my friends started taking pictures with Min Hee.

I went down the steps, to the main lobby, where our mail was always delivered, and I found a giant box sitting just under my mailbox. Written in large English letters on the side was "DO NOT OPEN UNTIL CHRISTMAS."

Was it for me? Or Min Hee? No, Min Hee had recieved her presents from her family already. So... just me? 

I moved closer to look, but before I could see the label, a man swooped out from around the corner and picked it up. 

"Is that package yours, Ahjuss--" I cut off, seeing that it was EXO's Kai. He looked a lot older from the back.

"Oh, it's you. This is our package from the fans."

"Oh... are you sure? Can you just let me look?"

"No, why would you need to look? It's not yours."

"I don't mean any disrespect, Sunbae, I just want to make sure. Can I just see the label?" I stood on my tiptoes, trying to see over his arms, but he turned away.

"It's not yours, you nosey snot!"

"But it's in English..."

"So?"

"Can I just look at the top?"

"Fine, here." He shoved the box into my arms, and I nearly tipped over from the sudden weight. Finally I looked at the label. It looked like the original label had been covered by another one. "To the residence of Choi Minsung at..." it was written in Korean. I guess the original label had been what my parents had sent, and the second label had been the Koreanization of the information. Either way...

"Sunbae, this is mine!" 

"Why do you say that?"

"Unless there's an English-speaker in EXO whose name happens to be 'Choi Minsung'..."

"Fine, take it. And go away."

I couldn't possibly fathom what had happened to make him so cranky on Christmas Day, something I grumbled to myself as I lugged the box up the stairs.

When I got back to the dorm, though, my friends were gone. I looked around, then wondered if they had left, and if they had, how I hadn't seen them walk past me. 

Then I heard singing.

"WE wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas..." 

Oh no, please tell me they weren't...

I dashed down the stairs where I heard their voices, and sure enough, there they were. At the EXO dorm. Unfortunately I got there at the very end of the final verse.

"Hey, can we go in your dorm?" Emily asked.

"Em, we can't just waltz into a guys' dorm!" Ali scolded.

"Sure we can! Mel did! Didn't she tell you about going to visit Ernie in Madison?"

I was totally in shock. What were they doing?!

"So can we go inside? We won't touch anything, honest!"

What was even more remarkable was that the members actually stepped aside, letting the WIsconsin Girls through. Then the one in front, whose name I don't know, turned to glare at Min Hee.

"I'm sorry, sunbaes, I think they ate too much candy. They're friends of Minsung's," she added, pointing to me. Wonderful, Min Hee. Great way to put me on the spot. 

"Are they fangirls?" Was the first thing one of them asked.

"Not of you, they're not," I replied before I could realize that probably wasn't the best thing to say. "Well, at least you don't have to worry about them stealing anything, since they're not Exotics." Although they might steal something to auction off on Ebay, just to see how high of a price they can get. 

"Hey, what happened to your ceiling?" I heard Eliz yell, and I peeked around a few EXO members to look at her. She was nudging Ali and pointing at a large crack on their ceiling.

"Woah! That's got to be structurally unsound!" Jacklyn gaped.

It was a wonderful feeling to know that there was a huge crack in the floor under our dorm, meaning that Min Hee and I could tumble through the floor and into the EXO dorm at any moment. Seriously.

"Blame that on them." Kris glared at Min Hee and I. "Whatever they're doing up there, the loud music  and the sudden thuds on the floor is definitely what put that up there."

I knew enough of loud music to to know that it would take much more than computer speakers to put a crack in the floor, and the sudden thuds were from when I'd been trying to practice choreography and had instead fallen over. Still, it wouldn't be enough to put a crack in the floor unless it was seriously badly made, which, considering the quality of the building we were in (Remember the exploding toilet?), wasn't too hard to believe.

But I didn't get the chance to say any of that, because suddenly Emily was standing right next to Kai, standing on her tiptoes, trying to reach his height. While he was distracted by that, Jacklyn tried to pet his hair, further freaking him out.

"What are you doing?!"  he screeched, turning around to face Jacklyn, just in time for Em to try to stand on her tiptoes just a bit too high, causing herself to tip over and fall forward, forcing Lay to catch her before she hit the ground. Min Hee, the whole while, had her face buried in her hands, and was trying not to look.

"Have you guys been making life hard for our maknae?" Eliz suddenly asked, her tone severe. She wasn't as good at scolding as some of my other friends, but out of the five of us she was probably the best. Were she not scolding guys who were A.) older than her and B.) my EXO sunbaes!

"Making her life hard?!" Kris answered, being one of the best English speakers in the group, "All we ask is that we can come back to the dorm after a long schedule and sleep! But these two are up at ungodly hours of the night, doing who KNOWS what!"

"We're rehearsing!" I argued, knowing that my friends were being too obnoxious for me not to become involved, "As trainees, we have to practice on our own time, which isn't very much. If we want to stay in the company, we have to practice really, really hard, in just about everything!"

"Not to mention that we're careful to turn the music down and do lighter, quieter activities as soon as it hits ten o'clock," Min Hee chimed in.

"See! See! You're being unreasonable!" Ali argued. 

"And looking at the crack in the ceiling, I think it's been there for at least a year, and Mel hasn't been here that long." Em added, standing up and pushing away Lay, who, I had to give him credit, had taken the effort to catch her.

"You just want to be mean to them, don't you?! Because they're foreigners!" Jacklyn accused, getting right up in Kris's face. I was so getting fired for this.

"Jacklyn, I don't think he's the leader. Which one is the leader?" Em asked, looking around. To be honest, none of us paid enough attention to EXO to know.

Kris glared at her venemously. "I AM the leader, thank you very much. Of EXO-M. EXO-K is Suho."

My friends and I exchanged glances. Which one was Suho? I could tell it was what we were all thinking, and Min Hee didn't seem to know either. So they just shrugged and continued to glare at Kris.

"We are not being mean to them just because they're foreigners!" Sehun tried to explain, getting flustered. "Minsung! Tell them that we're not being racist!"

Since I didn't know any such thing, I wasn't inclined to tell my friends so. 

"Honestly, don't you guys know how hard it is to be a trainee? You were trainees once, too, right? And half of you are from other countries, too!" Eliz stopped, considering. "Well, almost half of you. So why are you complaining all the time!? You should be helpful! And be nice to our Melly!" She hugged me, making her point. I was so getting kicked out for this.

"She doesn't need us to be nice to her. She has her SuJu oppas for that."

I froze for a second. There was an undertone to Kris's voice, almost like he was...

"Omo... are you... JEALOUS?!" 

As soon as I said it, my friends' mouths dropped open. No way, no way...

The EXO members themselves seemed pretty surprised, and I expected a rant about how I could possibly say such a thing, but in their eyes I could see that I'd hit the mark dead-on. I'm not the only bad liar in this world.

"When we were trainees, there weren't any idols to help us. The SuJu hyungs are so nice to you! We didn't get that until we debuted..." One of the members whispered. I felt bad, because I had no idea who it was. I would find out later that he was, in fact, the mysterious leader of EXO-K, Suho.

"And here you two are, practically babied." Min Hee not as much but you... why does Super Junior get to pick a trainee?"

Min Hee tilted her head to the side. "Well... why don't you guys pick a trainee to take care of? I think Kwon Mei said she was an Exotic..."

They looked at each other, shrugging. Apparently they hadn't thought about it like that. MEN, I tell you!

"Okay, one more question!" Suddenly everyone turned around, to look at Ali, still in the dorm.

"Why are you guys here? All the other groups are really busy..."

"We were supposed to perform with SHINee today. But then we got replaced by Girls' Generation..."

"You should come party with us! Come on, it's Christmas, have some fun, instead of being cranky butts!" Jacklyn insisted.

Were they NUTS?! None of them even liked EXO!

But naturally, before we knew it, my friends, my wonderful, kind friends who will try to make life fun, even for people they barely even know... were dragging eight willing members of EXO to spend their evening at a noraebang. Oh, the Wisconsin Girls.

It turns out that the EXO members weren't so bad, once they decided that I wasn't as annoying as they thought. They seemed to like the eccentricity of my friends, and totally took over the Noraebang. I supposed that I should have tried harder to make them like me earlier.

Min Hee and I returned to the dorm, still laughing about the days events. Em had jokingly challenged Sehun to beat her at singing an F.T. Island song, and totally gotten her kicked.

It wasn't until I got back inside that I remembered the box from my family. I'd completely forgotten about it in the chaos of my friends' sugar-high. And then we'd gotten yanked into the karaoke room, trying to stand our own against a bunch of guys we barely knew. I'd sent a few of the pictures to Henry, who found them quite amusing. I had to remind him that they were our neighbors though. 

But now I finally was back, and could open the package. While Min Hee stretched her legs before she started her nightly exercises, I zipped open the tape on the box with a pair of scissors. 

It wasn't just from my parents. Along with them were presents from my sister, and aunts and grandparents from both sides of the family. 

Grandpa Henry's letter seemed concerned. Apparently he'd heard that I was living poorly and wondered why I didn't ask him for help more often. To be honest, I loved my grandfather, and I knew he tried hard to be a part of my life, even though I lived so far away, both before and now. But I always felt guilty, living on his money. As my songs started to be bought by the company, I was starting to be able to pay for at least a few things, and I was trying not to rely on him as much. It was sweet, and I know all he wanted was a thank you, but I really just could never thank him enough. 

So I quickly wrote a letter to him, stuffing a few of my favorite pictures into the envelope with it. I hope he liked it. That done, I set his card aside, (Complete with another bit of allowance money that he encouraged I used to buy myself some meat), and moved on to the present from my parents. It was a blanket, a huge, crocheted afghan made by my mother. It had probably taken her months. But it was beautiful, a swirl of sapphire blue and deep purple, my two favorite colors. Not to mention that it  was warm. I pulled it around my shoulders, resisting the chill of the Seoul night air, and moved on to the next present.

I pulled a glass jar out of a bag and started to laugh. Min Hee looked over at me and shrieked, moving backwards. She was such a girly girl!

"What, it's just a super-poisonous spider! Nothing to worry about!"

Min Hee shot me a glare that had me laughing harder. "Come on, Min Hee, it's dead. There's no way even JACKIE would be cruel enough to ship a live Sydney Funnel-web all the way from Australia to to South Korea."

"How'd you know what it was?" she asked, glancing at the spider in disgust.

"It says so on the jar." I turned the jar so that she could see the label.

"Oh, is that what it says? I couldn't read it."

"Yeah, sorry, Jackie's handwriting is pretty dreadful," I apologized, setting the dead spider on my dresser. 

 When I finished unwrapping all of the presents, I had a whole new drawing set-- which was a good thing, since I'd worn out most of my pencils and markers drawing pictures of the various Kpop artists over the past few months-- a bag full of beautiful cat's-eye beads,which I'd also been running out of, after making jewlery for Key, and making a new pair of dragon earrings for Jackie's birthday/Christmas present, a t-shirt with a sassy comment on it, and another t-shirt that said "I don't see YOU speaking three languages." I didn't know where my Aunt Wendy had found it, but I wasn't sure I wanted to ask. But it was cool, and, after pulling it over my head, I realized that it fit really nicely, so she did a pretty good job. But mostly what I had was monetary contributions, which I had to admit, I was happy for. 

When it all came down to it, it was just me and Min Hee in our dorm for Christmas. Although I loved Min Hee-- she was a great friend-- I couldn't help but feel lonely. It was the first year that i had spent Christmas away from my family. We didn't have a Christmas tree-- it cost too much money-- and we couldn't afford a big Christmas dinner, instead eating out at a meager corner restaurant. 

So I did what I'd been planning to-- called home. Well, my Wisconsin family I talked to via webcam, wishing I could hug my brother. His present to me had been an...um, beautiful drawing of the family, including Jackie and I. I'd almost wanted to cry. Dad told me how Patrick had decorated the tree for me, since I had always been the one who did it. Then he took the webcam to the living room, so I could see it. I almost wanted to laugh. Pat's sense of color-matching was kind of... amusing. But I gave him credit for trying. 

After I finished that conversation, I made the phone call I knew would take forever-- time to call the Hawaiian side of the family. 

THAT phone call took me over an hour. I'd managed to call just in time for the family dinner, and got the phone passed around so I could talk about my life to family members whose names I didn't even recognize. And sometimes their Hawaiian accents were so thick that I could barely understand them.

But after it was all done, I was starting to feel that warm, loved feeling that always came with Christmas. I supposed it was possible to feel like a part of the family, even though your family is all the way across the globe. 

But maybe, just maybe, the real reason i was okay with this was because I had another family. Here. In Korea.