Deer Luhan,

Rather you than me when it comes to fame.  I’m beginning to appreciate the type of fan that airhostess was more and more: I don’t know if it’s the mob’s reaction to hype, a good marketing strategy or actually you lot yourselves, but the number of obsessive fans you guys have is very disturbing, and my best friend is a self-professed one of those.  For your sake, I’m glad she’s never been to Korea.  You’d hate Britain if she had.

Leigh

I made the mistake of logging into social media the next evening.  Abbie pounced on me via skype when I was trying to figure my way around the Chinese of Luhan’s laptop (courtesy of Sehun’s knowledge of Luhan’s computer passwords) while attempting to get a call through to my dad, who was usually more reasonable than my mum when it came to me and misdemeanours.  Apparently Facebook had given away my location as Seoul when I updated my status, but to be fair, my mum probably had as well.

“Oh my God!” she squealed as I overshot the “reject call” button, still unused to the high-sensitivity mouse pad setting Luhan used, and accidentally accepted it with video.  “I hear you’re in Korea!”

I glanced nervously over at Sehun, trying to gauge whether or not I could use him as an ally to shut the call down as soon as possible, but he was busy with his own laptop and a set of books.

“Yeah,” I said reluctantly.

“I’m so jealous!”

I smiled tightly.  This conversation was already going downhill.

“How long are you planning to stay?  Have you met any celebrities yet?  Wait, while you’re there, you absolutely have to audition for one of the companies – I can’t wait until I can say my best friend is a K-pop idol—”

“Abbie….”  I sighed.  We’d had this discussion so many times before, and K-pop was about the only thing that we ever disagreed over.  She was dead annoying when it came to anything to do with Korea.  Thankfully, I’d known her for years before she became obsessed, so on the occasions I could derail her from her Korea-focussed view of everything, she was still a whale of fun to hang out with.  “Look, for the last time, I’m not interested in becoming a K-pop star.  I like England.  I grew up there.  I don’t want to live abroad, and in any case, I can’t sing.”

“You can’t sing well,” she corrected.  “You almost have a tenor range.  Who cares?  There are plenty of alto K-pop stars out there, like—”

I held up a hand to stop her before she could start, and then suddenly realised that at the moment, I was fulfilling all her wildest dreams at the same time as embodying everything I’d told her I wouldn’t do, because right now, as far as the world was concerned, I was a K-pop star – a male, Chinese K-pop star called Luhan.

I didn’t even need instinct to tell me that it would not be a good idea to tell Abbie that.

“Anyway,” said Abbie, clearly disappointed that I wasn’t taking her up on her suggestion to become a celebrity, but not totally put off, “since you’re in Korea, I was wondering if you could at least get hold of some K-pop merc for me and some CDs – like, it would be awesome if you could get them signed and stuff as well, and if you could get some photos with some of the singers—”

“Abbie, being in the same country as them doesn’t mean I’m going to bump into them on the streets.”

“Same city,” she pouted, “and you might, if you hang out in the right areas.”

Not a chance, not with psychotic stalker fans.  Even going out was tough.  It had only taken a trip to the pharmacist to buy toothpaste to discover that Korea’s laws about personal space and stuff were not the same as Britain’s.

“I haven’t been able to get hold of the latest two Infinite albums, or any of Tasty’s,” Abbie continued, counting off on her fingers, “and I’d really like a couple of packaged 2NE1 and Big Bang albums, if you can get them, because I only have the digital iTunes versions, and I need something by F.T.Island because a friend put me onto them the other day and I can’t get enough of them, and….”

I almost tuned out.  There was no way I was going to remember the entire list – Abbie wanted me to take a suitcase full of albums home before she’d even started on posters and accessories – so I asked her to send them through on an email, promised to see what I could do, and made a mental note to get her a signed album from EXO, whether or not I was able to do all the rest.

“But seriously, you’re so lucky!” she gushed.  “You’re actually in Korea!  I’ve wanted to go there all my life – if I had the opportunity to meet my bias I think I’d explode with hormones—”

“You mean for the past three years, and what about Ryan?” I interrupted.

“Ryan?” she asked blankly.  “Oh, Ryan, as in, my boyfriend?”

“Yes,” I said.  “You can’t marry G-Dragon while you’re still in a relationship with Ryan, even if it’s a long distance one and he’s still in America.”

“Oh, didn’t I tell you?”

If she’s broken up with him because of an infatuation with a K-pop idol she’s never going to meet, I won’t have enough brain cells to bash out against a wall for all of eternity.

“It only came through last week, but Ryan’s just got his first deployment, starting this Christmas!  And guess where?”

She sounded a little too excited about it.

“The Middle East?” I deadpanned.

“No, South Korea!  Isn’t that great?”

“Uh….”  I’d been thinking more along the lines of “worrying” and “nerve-wracking” for any military deployment, no matter where it was.  “Not really, considering the North Koreans actually have some working nuclear weapons.”

“Oh my God, really?  Are the celebrities going to be okay?  If someone in 2PM—”

I dropped my head onto the keyboard with a groan, and from the er sound that followed, sent Abbie a message of nonsensical Chinese.

“Seoul has a population of nearly ten million and you’re only concerned about the celebrities?”

“Sorry.”  Abbie sounded chagrined.  “I know that sounded really bad.  I am worried about the other citizens too.  I mean, Seoul’s really close to the border so it’s a really easy target.  Not to mention you’re in Seoul right now, and if anything happens, Ryan’s in the line of fire too, so… what the hell does this mean?”

I raised my head.  “Ignore it.  I don’t know; I can’t read Chinese.”

“So, anyway, back to R