Since I was a Kpop fan long before I was an actual Kpop artist, there was one place I absolutely had to go. No questions asked.

The EatYourKimchi studio. 

Actually, it was amazing how willingly they decided to let me talk to them. One of the nights I decided to not sleep and instead spend my nighttime on the computer, I realized that they'd actually reviewed my video of Kpop Music Monday! What?! How did I get enough votes?! 

Oh. Right. The ELF. 

Hesitantly, I sent them an e-mail asking if they'd like an interview. I tried to make it sound as humble as I could, considering that I didn't want to sound self-centered at all. Technically, Simon and Martina had more fans than I did.

The response I got was pretty amazing. "OF COURSE YOU CAN. When?"

So the process of organizing a time, and sending an official invite from the company to verify that it was really me, began. I had an official envelope from the company, and SM posted it on my event calendar.

Then yet another e-mail had to be sent. "Umm... is it alright if Henry comes, too? he thinks his schedule will be open that day."

"By Henry, do you mean Super Junior-M Henry? o.O"

I turned around and snapped a picture of Henry, then sent it. It was pretty hilarious, actually. His expression was priceless. "I mean this Henry."

It took an astonishingly long time for me to get a response, and then finally it came when I was in the middle of makeup for the drama filming that day. "I'm sorry, I just had a long moment of stunned silence. We'll announce it for you both. Thank you!"

"So now we're getting ready to interview... Queen Be, and Super Junior-M's Henry!" Martina calls, and the camera pans over to Henry and I, on the couch. We wave at the camera, then bow.

"Hi, I'm solo artist and actress, Queen Be!"

"Hey guys, it's Henry."

"We were really surprised, because we actually got the request for the interview from Queen Be. She didn't have to ask. So you... know us?"

"Oh, yeah. I guess you could say that I've been a Nasty for a few years. Before I came to Korea. You guys were kind of my link to Korean culture," I answered, trying not to feel awkward.

"And Henry! Thank you so much for coming! Sorry for joking about you all the time. You're from Toronto, right? That's where we're from."

"Woah, seriously? Awesome! When was the last time you went back?"

"I think... Simon, was it five months ago, or six?"

Simon shrugged and grinned at Martina, who rolled her eyes. "Well, thank you both for coming. So do you want to move on to the fan questions first?"

"Sure! This is actually the first time I've done this," I admitted, laughing. "And I'm a bit nervous, since you guys have more fans than I do right now."

"Really? What about Henry?"

Henry shrugged. "I don't know. I lost count."

"Okay, so... first question. From Maya Louise from New Mexico, 'How well do the two of you speak Korean? Both of you have released solos in Korean, but neither of you are native Korean speakers. Do you ever have difficulties with speaking it?' "

"I actually did wonder at this. Pretty much always when we review SM's songs, we're a bit skeptical of how good the English is going to be... but obviously for the two of you that wasn't the case. I was more worried about whether your Korean would be okay. But Soo Zee says it was just fine," Simon shrugged.

I glanced at Henry, and then he immediately blurted "she has a Mokpo accent."

"Shut up! I do NOT!"

"Yes she does. She sounds exactly like Donghae."

"A Mokpo accent? Wouldn't you have an American accent? Like we do?"

"I had Korean lessons when I first came here, and then for a quick learning experience, my teacher sent me to help on a farm in Jeolla-do. I learned a lot of my more conversational Korean down there. So according to these guys," I explained, jabbing Henry in the side, "I picked up the accent. Other than that, I've been told I have a knack for languages."

"How many languages do you both speak?"

"Umm..." I began to count them out on my fingers. "Obviously English, and then five years of Spanish in high school, and two years of Japanese, which got fairly fluent because my vocal trainer was Japanese, and then obviously Korean, and Chinese. So five."

Simon and Martina made exaggerated "gasp" faces at the camera, then went back to us. "And Henry?"

"Six. Mel doesn't know Thai. But I know French, and not Spanish."

"Wait, 'Mel'? Who's Mel?" Simon asked.

I raised my hand. "That would be me. My real name is Melissa."

"Wait, so are you telling us that Queen Be is NOT your real name?"

We laughed, and then Martina admits that they were just kidding. "Okay, so next question... how long have the two of you known each other? Is there any special reason the two of you decided to come together?"

"Henry is like a brother to me," I automatically replied. "It just kind of... happened that way. We both were English speakers surrounded by Koreans. So we kind of started to hang out together. Then we just started kind of adding people... now we even have our own club."

"Like who?"

"Pretty much everyone in the company who's spoken English for a long time. Tiffany was the first one, and then Amber, and Krystal, then Jessica, and... Henry... I'm missing someone."

"Kris?"

"Oh yeah! Right. Yeah, Kris, from EXO."

"I love how she misses the only other guy in the group," Simon laughed, and I felt my cheeks turn pink.

"Kris isn't with FASE very often, okay!"

"Wait, 'FASE'? What does that mean?" Simon asked, suddenly interested.

"It's what we call our little group. Like Chocoball and Kyu-line... we're 'Forever and Always Speaking English'."

"Oh, and hear  thought it was like 'in your FASE! Like you were flipping me off or something." 

Henry and I lguhed. "That's great. In your FACE!" We should do that! Henry, we should show that to Tiffany and Amber when we get back."

"Oooookay, now that we're off-topic... 'Is it true that Queen Be is a fangirl?'"

"Completely. You should have seen me when I watched SuJu's 'Paper Wall' music video. I was practically in tears."

"Actually, that reminds me. The video was really strange, because I watched it, and I saw all of the current members, but then I also saw Henry and Zhou Mi in it. Was that just a spur-of-the-moment thing, Henry, or was that planned?"

 "We thought it would confuse international fans if we said 'well, there's two extra members that aren't exactly part of the group.'

"Not to mention that it would be stupid to release an English-language album, and then exclude the member who speaks the best English."

"How good are the other members at speaking English?"

Henry and I looked at each other, then started laughing. "TERRIBLE!" we both declare, still laughing. "Actually, when they were preparing for the release," I added, "I was giving the lessons. You'd never believe how extremely... frustrating it is to try and explain exactly how to make every single non-Korean sound in the English language."

"Oh, no, we know. That's why we love Soo Zee so much!'

"I know! I couldn't believe that she'd never left the country! Her English is ten times better than my Chinese! But we can blame Henry for that."

"Blame Henry?"

"He's the one who taught me Chinese. Well, him and Zhou Mi. And Victoria."

"Wow... all of these different Kpop artists... okay, Queen Be, we're going to ask Henry questions, now, since you know us pretty well. So, Henry..."

The interview went on, and I laughed with them, and Henry. That's the thing about EatYourKimchi interviews... they have a tendency to go on random tangents, then circle back on themselves, and are just overall, really relaxed.

At the end, we gave them three signed CDs each. From Henry, one of his his solo album, "Trap", and two of SuJu's "Paper Wall" album, and from me, my newest, and only, album, "Summer Flower". I really liked the album art. It was a picture of a honeybee on the petals of a rose, cupped in a pair of hands. 

"There's going to be a contest for these?"

"Yes, so we can watch the fans kill each other over these albums!" Simon yelled, then calmed back down. "Just kidding."

We laughed, then handed the albums over. "Well, thanks for letting us come!"

"Thanks for coming! It was really awesome! And hey, Queen Be, feel free to talk to us whenever you can!"

"I'm already following you guys on Twitter. And Tumblr."

"Wait, you have a Tumblr?!"

I laughed evily. "Hehehehe..."

"No, wait, how long have you been our follower?!"

I never answered, just letting them (and the fans) be curious. Heechul did it to us, I can do it to my own fans. None of which I'd actually ever met, yet, but...

 "HENRYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!" I yelled, running into his dorm with my laptop in my hands. He jolted up from his bed, and I quickly stopped to glare at him. "My goodness, put a shirt on. You're making a scene."

He rolled his eyes and slid a t-shirt on. "Mel, what are you doing, running in here without knocking?!"

"I never knock," I pointed out immediately, "besides, I've seen much worse than your bare chest. Try being backstage for a play when all of the guys are asking you which pair of underwear is your favorite."

Henry stared at me open-mouthed. "I may have underestimated you."

"That was stupid. Now shut up and listen!"

"Hang on, I have to go do something."

Henry got up and went over to the bathroom, pounding on the door and yelling in Chinese. "Zhou Mi! Mel's here! I hope you have your clothes in the bathroom!"

He came back, plopping down on the bed again. I raised an eyebrow. "Do all of you walk around in your dorms half-?"

He shrugged. "Its a guy thing. Now what do you want?"

I sat down next to him on the bed, eagerly opening up my laptop. "One of my fans posted this on my Twitter feed after I posted something about watching the end of 'Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood'. Doesn't it sound awesome?!"

Henry looked at the page I was showing him. "It's an anime con in Korea."

"EXACTLY! Do you know how long I've wanted to go to a con?!"

"Why are you asking me this?"

"Do you want to come?!"

"Not really."

My shoulders slumped. I'd been sure that he'd be fine with coming. "The company said I could go, so long as they could use it to promote... and I couldn't go by myself. They wanted me to bring different people from the company... and we could promote there... I already asked Jonghyun-sunbae, and he said he wanted to go, so I wanted to go with you, too..." I pouted. "Okay, fine. I'll go ask Eunhyuk-oppa. He'll want to go!" 

I started to get up, then Henry grabbed my arm and pulled me back down. "Hey, wait a minute! You're just going to go to a con with Jonghyun and Eunhyuk?! Are you crazy?"

"I've been told so."

"Shut up. That's not what I meant."

"You bring it upon yourself. What's wrong with Jonghyun and Eunhyuk?"

"They're... You can't just go with two guys, okay? It's... it's indecent."

I gasped mockingly. "Oh my gosh, Henry! Do you have the big brother syndrome?!"

His cheeks turned pink, and I couldn't help but lean over and pinch them. "Are you worried that something indecent will happen?"

He pushed my hands away, rubbing his cheeks. "No! I just... go with some girls, too. You know... safety in numbers."

"I'll talk to my SNSD and f(x) sunbaes, okay?" I laughed, getting up. "Henry's afraid that I'll get attacked!" I sang to myself, then dodged the piece of cloth that got thrown at me. I was fairly sure it was the shirt that Henry had put on when I entered the room, but you could never really be too sure.

"This is awesome!" I grinned, running around the open area. People didn't even give me a second glance, despite the fact that I was wearing a bright pink wig and a fairly ornate purple dress with a large bow in the back. Of course, that might be because half of them were dressed similarly.

I turned back around and grinned at my companions. Jonghyun, Eunhyuk, Sunny, and Amber. They'd all agreed pretty quickly. Sunny didn't know much about anime, but when I told her about all of the stuff that happened at cons, she decided that it sounded like fun.

Jonghyun was dressed as Naruto. Amber had chosen to dress as Ichigo from Bleach. And Eunhyuk and Sunny just looked like themselves. I turned and pointed at the crowds in the convention center. "Our mission is to enjoy the sights of the con, and talk to the various speakers and other guests." I cheered, as excited as could be. When I turned back around to look at them, Jonghyun was gone. 

I found him a few meters away, taking a picture with a girl dressed as Sakura from Naruto. I laughed, then surged into the crowd with my friends.

"Who are you?" a girl a few years younger than me asked. "You look familiar."

"I'm Sheryl Nome. From Macross Frontier," I replied unquestioningly. It was common, I'd realized, in the con, to immediately refer to yourself as the character you were portraying.

"No, I mean... who you actually are. You're an American, right?"

"Oh! I'm Queen Be!" I answered, blushing. Right. People were going to recognize me.

"Oh my gosh, really?! You're at an anime con?!"

"My friends and I are here. We just wanted to have fun."

"Oh, wow, can I get a picture with you?!"

I quickly agreed. This was my first time doing this, and it was just as fun as I'd expected.

Sunny was getting plenty of attention, too. Just for being Sunny, of course, but by the next time I met her, she was wearing a blue wig. "Who are you, now?" I asked.

"Umm... Chi... do...ri?" she answered, trying to remember the name. "A girl gave me this wig when I said I didn't know much anime," she laughed, the fake hair.

"Oh! From Full Metal Panic!"

"Sure. Where were you going?" 

"To sign up for the anime theme song performances. This is fun, isn't it?"

She nodded. "It feels like chaos, but it's not. You really fit in here, don't you?"

I shrugged. "I'm weird. And now I'm surrounded by people who aren't hiding their strange interests. It's fun."

"So what are you going to sing?"

"The theme song from Shuffle."

"Oh... okay. After that, do you want to come with me to the guest fansigning booths? I want to see if any of our friends from Japan are here."

"Sure!"

"Hey! Minsung! Look!" It was Eunhyuk, coming up from behind us. He held up a toy gun, all futuristic-looking. "It's from Gundam!"

"You look like a little kid," I laughed, then pushed forward. "Come on, we're headed to the fansignings!"

The place where all of the guest stars were was abig, open room, with long lines at each table. I stared, open-mouthed. These were J-pop stars, and popular voice actors, and...

I was ready to have a fangirl breakdown. It wasn't FUNimation or anything, but... I wanted to go to a con every single year of my life.

I glanced around, then saw a board that said "Kalafina". My jaw dropped open, and I started to make my way towards it. Behind me, I heard Eunhyuk get pulled away by a coulple of fangirls.

I passed by a girl who was distinctly Japanese, and accidentally bumped into her. "Oh, Sumimasen!" I bowed, straightening back up. And when I did, my heart stopped. "Kalafina no Keiko-san desune?!" It was Keiko from Kalafina! My favorite Japanese group of all time! My favorite girl group of all time!

She smiled. "Anata wa daredesuka? Fandesuka?" Yes, I was a fan!

"Oh, gomennasai. Queen Be desu. Hai, fandesu." Wow, I really was turning into an idol. I even introduced myself as my stage name. "Watashi wa America-jin desuga, Kankoku no singa desuyo." I was pretty freaking proud of my Japanese. Thank you, Nakata-sensei! I was able to tell Keiko-san that I was from America, but was a Korean singer!

"Aaaah, nan saidesuka?"

"Watashi wa juu-hachi saidesu. Keiko-san wa watashi no senpai desu." She was so nice. And pretty. And elegant. I liked Keiko. My favorite thing about Kalafina- the thing that made me love them so much, was that they sang pop songs, but they sang them in perfect, three-part harmony. How often do you hear that nowadays? Keiko-san was the alto of the group. It astounded me just how low she could sing, considering that her natural voice wasn't actually that deep. Impressive. Incredibly. 

She smiled, and I was able to see just how pretty she was. Pretty, and elegant, and soft-spoken... very feminine. "Kimi wa yuumei da ne?" she asked, switching over to informal speech, now that it was definite that I was younger than her. That was why I'd been speaking formally the entire time. She was asking me if I was famous.

"teimasen. Ichinensei no singa desu." I didn't really know. I was only a new singer, so it was a bit hard to tell. "Watashi no senpai wa koko ni imasu. Kare wa totemo yuumei desu." I wasn't famous, but I knew someone who was. I turned around, and grabbed Eunhyuk's arm. "Oppa, this is Keiko-san! From Kalafina!"

"Who's Kalafina?" he asked, earning him a glare.

"Japanese girl group who did the theme music for Kara no Kyoukai and Puella Magi Madoka Magika. Come on, just say hello!" I pushed him forward, saying, "Kare wa watashi no senpai. Kare no namae wa Eunhyuk desu."

And when I saw him look nervously at the floor and try to remember how to speak Japanese, I ran to go find Amber. Or Jonghyun. Or Sunny. Or somebody, so I could have an excuse to not be there.

On second thought, I was going to go get signatures from Wakana and Hikaru instead. 

"Alright! For our fifteenth performer, we have a special guest who just wanted to show her appreciation for anime, The newest singer from SM Entertainment, Queen Be!"

The announcer left the stage to a fairly decent applause, and the lights went down. I clenched the microphone in my hands, and then relaxed. It was just for fun. It didn't have to be perfect.

With the sound of the instruments, the lights came on, and I looked up at the audience, smiling. I could see Sunny and Amber, Jonghyun and Eunhyuk, all grinning up at me expectantly. Well, here goes... 

"These words I hold for you within my heart...
I hope I can tell them to you someday..."

The heavy guitar came on, and the audience started to cheer. I liked this song. It was peppy and fun, and I could get totally into the performance.

"Almost feverish as my heart beats faster,
I had no idea what that feeling was at first.
But once I realized it, I can no longer erase my feelings.
I can no longer lie to myself.

Even if meeting you was just a trite accident,
I can sense a special moment."

Refrain time. Everyone was cheering. Was I actually doing well? Oh well, might as well put the heart into it. I blasted out the notes, moving across the stage as I sang, practically dancing.

"I give my thanks to god every day
for letting me stay beside you.
I want to keep looking at you from your side.
Your profile is always without a trace of hesitation.
The time I spent alone with you
gives me unwavering strength.
Unknowingly, these words for you came into my mind.
I hope I can tell them to you someday."

The guitar part came in, and I whipped my hair around, sending Eunhyuk a wink. good grief, this was fun. The song wasn't about him, but he was there. So why not? He just grinned, and shrugged, as if to say, "just keep going. You don't need my help."

"A slight touch of your warm fingers,
and some words of kindness were all it took.
Almost like watching a dream's continuation, 
these strange feelings form within me."

I really loved the anime audience. Half of them dressed as the colorful, cartoony girls and boys of Japanese animation, and they were all punding their fists in the air to the beat of the song. I must not have been doing too bad.

"Even if we ever lose sight of each other one day,
we will surely meet again, no matter what."

I went right over to Eunhyuk, grabbing his hand, and then letting go and walking to the other side of the stage. I almost wanted to laugh when the audience cheered. I was stage-high. And con-high.

"I pray that I have a place
in your precious memories.
I've never seen before the world you are from, 
but I want to know more about it.
I want to grant everything that you wish for,
and not a single bit less.
I trust you with my heart;
for you, I will change myself into anything."

Back to the musical interlude. I took the chance to pump the crowd for all they were worth. Even more people had come in since I had started, and plenty of them were cheering. Some of them, because I was dressed like Sheryl Nome, and some of them... well, I'm not sure. Maybe because it was a good song, and i was enjoying it. I really didn't think the amazingness of the performance was because of me. It was really just because the song itself was so awesome. Jpop deserves more credit.

"-Like the colorful flowers,
a story is blooming far away.
The colors that will never disappear,
ride on the wind and resonate..."

Final refrain. The song wasn't really about my life. It kind of was, if you think about it, though. That desire to stay by someone's side, even if things change between you. The desire to tell someone how I feel, and how little it took for me to be charmed. So maybe it wasn't too hard to think of Eunhyuk.

"The time I spent alone with you,
gives me the strength to support myself.
These words filed with prayers for you,
I hope they reach deep into your heart!"

I tossed my head to the sound of the guitar, then ended by shooting my fist into the air when the lights shut off. I set it back down when the lights came back on, to the sound of applause. 

"Queen Be! Queen Be! Queen Be!" the audience was cheering, led by my four friends. Quickly it turned into "Encore! Encore! Encore!"

I bowed so much that my head felt dizzy. I waved, then went off stage and grabbed Eunhyuk's hand. "Do you mind if I have this guy help me?!"

I was answered by wild screaming, so I assumed that it was okay. Jonhyun and Amber found it the most entertaining of all.

"What am I supposed to do?" Eunhyuk asked, wide-eyed.

"Just follow my lead," I answered. It was nice to be the leader, and not the follower, for once. I knew how to speak Japanese better than he did.

So if no one else, I had won the hearts of the Korean anime fans.