"Hey Mom, are you available for webchat?"

"Yes, I am, actually. Just a second."

I saw my mother's face bloom across the screen, and her hand, waving. I waved back.

"Hi Mom! It's me, of course. I'm just hanging out in the guys' dorm right now, waiting for a mess to happen, so I'm free to chat... where are you?" Looking at the background, it was nowhere I recognized, and certainly not the house I had grown up in.

"Do you remember that trip that Henry offered us?"

"The one to go to Canada? What, are you at a hotel or something?"

"No, actually, we're visiting the Lau family home right now."

"You're at their house?!" I gaped, then yelled somewhere behind me. "Henry! My parents are at your parents' house!"

He came and sat down next to me, looking over my shoulder at the computer.

"HENRYYYYYYYYY!!!!!" The yelling came from the computer, and, through the video feed, I saw a girl come up behind my Mom, hovering over her shoulder. She was a girl about my age, actually, and looked a lot like Henry.

"Hey Whitney," he said around the straw of a strawberry milk container. I started to yell at him for drinking Eunhyuk's strawberry milk, but Whitney cut me off.

"Seriously, Henry, you get a huge medley for the concert, and you're only performing it in SEOUL?! What happened to coming and visiting us in Vancouver?"

I turned to Henry. "Your sister?'

"Yup."

"Well, hey, Whitney. Pleased to meet you. I'd shake your hand, but we're on opposite corners of the world."

"Air shake!" She reached out her hand, and I pretended to shake it, and we both laughed. 

Henry rolled his eyes. "Great. You two are going to be best friends now."

"Actually," my mom interrupted, "Whitney's been really great to Patrick. He seems to really like her."

"Seriously?" Well, thanks a lot, Whitney. I wish I could be there to help you out," I commented.

"No problem," she replied, shrugging, "he's really adorable. And way more fun to hang out with than your dad. He keeps talking to my dad and older brother about politics."

"Agh, I know how that is. It can get so boring, and my dad's so stubborn..."

"I know, right?! But hey, don't you worry about your brother. I'm making sure he enjoys Canada." Someone called her name from the background, and she turned around and yelled something back before coming back to the screen. "Well, I have to go help my mom make dinner. Henry, seriously, come visit. You can bring Melanie-"

"-Melissa," I corrected, "My name is Melissa."

"Oh, sorry. Anyway, you can bring Melissa with you. Our families seem to get along just fine, so I think it should be okay. Welcome to the Lau family, Melissa! I hope we can be friends. Or sisters, since you've been adopted by my brother."

I laughed, and she waved and walked away, leaving me back with just my mom. "So how's Canada for you, mom?" I asked.

"It's very pretty. We went outside Vancouver for most of the day yesterday. First canoeing, but then Pat tipped over his canoe because he got overexcited. Then we showed the Lau family how good Patrick is at catching fish." 

"I'm sure they were amazed," I replied, not a bit sarcastically.

"When he reached down and pulled a fish right out of the water, they were."

Henry's eyes widened. "Wait, your brother can catch fish with his BARE HANDS?!"

"Yup," I answered, "he has serious skills."

"Awesome! Can he teach me?"

"Well, we haven't had any success learning from him, so good luck with that," my mom answered. 

"I'll try. I'll get it out of him somehow," Henry replied, shrugging.

"Henry, you do anything to my brother, I swear to god, I'll pull your brains out and feed them to my neighbor's pigs," I threatened.

"Ouch! Geez! I won't, I promise!"

"And don't drink Eunhyuk's strawberry milk! He counts how many there are in the refrigerator! And he'll blame me!"

"Why would he blame you?" Mom questioned.

'Because usually there's no one in this apartment during the day but me. Henry was bored today. And he was supposed to be helping me make Wookie's birthday cake..."

"You're making a cake?"

"Well, so far all Henry's doing is tasting the batter."

"Ah, I see. So how are you, Mel?"

"I'm doing much better ever since I started working here. It's actually a lot of fun, despite all the work. The members are crazy, but I fit right in. Of course, accidents happen, but that's okay. I'm more comfortable being me, and I can do that here if nowhere else."

"Sometimes there are accidents invlolving alcohol. You should've seen it last week, she--"

I slapped my hand over Henry's mouth, hard enough to get a satisfying "smack" sound. 

"Alcohol?" My mom seemed concerned.

"It was... nothing major. Just... someone got drunk while I was here, and things got chaotic. But it all turned out okay in the end, and that's all that matters." I glared at Henry, giving him the silent message that said "don't you dare tell my mother that I got drunk. I'm still way underage, remember?! And if she found out, the blame would go to Heechul and Kangin!"

"Oh. Well, be careful. You are a young girl in a men's dorm."

"They don't act like men; trust me. They're frozen in a state of teenage boyhood. Only with slightly less hormones. Besides, if anything happened to me, who would know where everything was supposed to go in this place? Who else knows exactly which members don't like which foods, and whose underwear is white with red hearts?"

"You sort their underwear?"

"Just part of being a housekeeper, Mom. I have to do the laundry. They're fortunate that I haven't really had the urge to steal any of their clothes, mostly because I know that none of it will fit me."

"Including their underwear?"

"Eeeeeew, Mom, no! I'm not going to try on their undwerwear! Wearing someone else's underwear is just CREEPY!"

Henry choked on his strawberry milk, and I pushed him out of the view of the camera so that he rolled over, laughing to himself.

"Okay, so it's creepy to everyone but Henry. Who apparently does it all the time."

Mom shook her head, sighing. "You sure do have weird friends."

"That's why they're my friends. My friends from Wisconsin aren't that normal, either."

"That's true. Anyway, I just wanted to see how you were doing."

"Better than ever. I'm going to be performing with Henry at SMTown in Seoul soon, actually! I'm scared I'm going to mess up, but I'm still excited. Wait, you do remember what SMTown is, right?"

"Your company's world tour. Yes, I remember. Well, I'm proud of you. It seems like you're doing well, even moving up in the company, if you can do that as an artist. the family is all proud of you, up to your aunts and uncles and cousins, and your grandparents. And your dad is, too, even if he won't say so. He also won't say that he's really happy to be vacationing in Canada. But we know he is."