Chapter 31

Aisha Kim

Five days and seventeen YouTube videos later, practically anyone who is anyone had heard our story. Media used our confession videos to answer questions about all that had happened. Each member had their own confession video that lasted anywhere from 1 min, 30 sec. to a little over 5 minutes. I'll just tell you now that the longest videos were mine, Jongin's, Sage's, and Luhan's. I'm pretty sure anyone could've guessed that, but I just wanted to clarify.

We hadn't seen the Fist since the day the first video was up. He's probably contacting SM about our bad behavior and seeing what the heck they can do about it. Minha and SangJun have been staying out of the way, refusing to get involved besides telling us what to do. We, Jewelz, haven't actually seen Exo since the Hollywood sign, but I personally didn't need to. Jongin had kept his ring and wore my key proudly, while I wore the black pearls he'd given me and I wore my ring. Sage and Luhan seemed to have an okay time with the separation still.

What I found odd was the fact that the news at first spread the rumor that SM made the two couples and then broke them up, making it all seem like a publicity act. Unfortunately a lot of people bought into it so we had to discuss that lie in our confession videos. After that was done the rumors died down but there were still fans that absolutely hated the fact that the boys were finding/having girlfriends and at times I wish I could just go through the computer screen and strangle them. But despite all the drama, K-Con sold out and I had a feeling the American fans had a plan for Jewelz and Exo to perform onstage together.

The weekend of the K-Con rolled around and I couldn't have been more excited. Naturally we couldn't really be out in public as it was going on, but I did manage to stay behind the scenes and saw a lot of cosplayers. It was weird seeing people dress up from popular dramas...but then again I'd been here with Sage while we were in high school. The perspective changed basically. Everyone looked so happy to be there and I heard a lot of people talking about the concert that night. I didn't know still how Exo and Jewelz were going to get to perform together...we'd tried to find a way yesterday to practice our sneak...but the Fist caught us...I'd rather not go into what happened.

"Are you Pearl?"

I turned around to see who spoke to me. It was an American girl, obviously, and she had a pass that practically let her see everything at the convention. She looked a bit hesitant and starstruck. I nodded slowly.

"I....I...mean of course you're Pearl. You have the mask and everything. And...and you're in the back crew thing...oh gosh this isn't going as planned. You probably think I'm an idiot. Wait wait..." Her face flushed red. 

"It's okay." I said, relief washing over me as I finally got to speak a bit of English without my voice hurting too terribly. Her eyes widened.

"Ohmigosh you're actually talking to me...I'm Julie." she said, coming a bit closer. I smiled and extended my hand for her to shake. She gasped and took it in a firm handshake.

"It's nice to meet you." I said, lowering my voice so I could talk longer. She kind of reminded me of Sage when she was in high school, with a blonde messy bun, glasses and braces.

"I've been keeping up with your channel, and I'm just saying, I support you and Kai, and Sage and Luhan, and whatever other relationship that comes up. SM is insane. That higher ranking person should just be sued." Julie said rather quickly. I smiled.

"And I've been thinking of a way to get you guys and Exo to perform together." I rose my eyebrows at that.

"Really?"

"Yeah yeah!! Uhmm...I was wanting my other friends to help explain it, but they didn't get the pass like I did....and so uh...." she sputtered. 

"Be thankful I'm the most patient one of Jewelz." I giggled. She blushed again.

"See, what you can do, is go into the crowd, cuz Exo's performing first right? So you four/five can hide in the audience. When they say some code word of your choosing or whatever you guys can go run up to the stage and take off your disguises or whatever."

"That's brilliant, Julie!" I exclaimed. It was in fact pretty perfect. I now owe this girl a ton of stuff. 

"Really? Thanks! Uh...my friends and I are dispersed for the performance so if you and the girls want to hide by us then that's totally cool. My other friends...hang on I'll show you what they look like." She pulled out her phone and showed me a picture of her with a ginger, brunette, another blonde, a girl from Latino desent, and an African American girl. "We all came together. And I swear we won't be all attack-y if you guys decide to hide with us. We know about the importance of it."

"Thank you, Julie. And we will. I need that picture of you girls so the others will know." 

"Oh! I posted it on Instagram. My Instagram name is kpoplove1997."

I pulled out my pen I had with me and jotted it down on my hand. We still didn't have our phones. I nodded. "You've been a lifesaver."

"I just want a photo with you and an autograph, please?" she asked sweetly.

"Of course!" I exclaimed, and we took a Selca. I signed her shirt she had bought and we scheduled a time to meet when they would let the people in for the concert. I waved to her goodbye and ran to the hotel to tell the girls the wonderful news and to find a way to tell the boys to choose a code word.

"Julie?" Minji asked quietly as we discreetly made our way through the fans. The American girl turned around and saw us wearing big sunglasses and jackets over our performance looks. Just as she said she was with her other girls. Their eyes widened in shock at us.

"Hi...Diamond..." one of the friends said shyly. "We're here to help!"

"We know, and we owe you girls big time." SunJung said.

"No no no, you don't owe us anything! We just want to help." Another friend said, the Latino one, while blushing. HeeYoung tapped on SunJung for the translation.

"Ready to go in?" Sage asked, slightly freaking out over the fact that we all had to basically sneak into our own concert. Our group nodded and we slipped in, handing in our tickets (we did actually had to get Minha to get us "tickets." The monitors were in on our plan), and sat down semi-near the front so we didn't have to run very far to the stage. We all sat on the edges to also make it easier for us to get to our destination. Yeah, Jewelz was actually supposed to perform first, but Minha, being the amazing manager she was, swapped us out to 'perform' after Exo instead of before.

"I seriously feel like we're doing some pretty hardcore illegal stuff right now." HeeYoung mumbled.

"What did she say?" Julie asked me. Oh yeah...they all only knew English and HeeYoung knew little to no English.

"She feels like we're doing something bad." Sage said.

"But you're not...you're showing people that you can't just break up couples and expect them to be okay." Julie said angrily. Suddenly music began to play and the first band to perform at K-Con appeared. We all clapped and cheered as if we were part of the audience and momentarily forgot that we actually had to run up on that stage when Exo started performing a specific song. Finally after half of the groups performed...it was time...

"And now...introducing...EXO!!!" the snsd girls announced, running off the stage as the boys geared up for their performance. We heard the begining of the song...

 Overdose

Minji stripped off her disguise as she ran out of the crowd and jumped onto the stage with grace and began to dance along with the boys and the song went to "no one can stop her.."

"Her love her love..." HeeYoung stripped off and ran onto the stage, getting perfectly in sync.

"Oh she wants me-" SunJung's turn to run through the crowd. By that time the fans had caught on to what we were doing and we're getting out of the way for her. She got up and went to her little spot the boys left for her.

"Ready, Sage?" I asked. She looked mortified but nodded. "Good cuz here we go!"

"Someone call the doctor-" I stripped along with her and got onto the stage. She ran off and to the back where Minha was waiting for her.

"Too much-" Jongin and I made it to the center of the stage and improvised a couple dance. He smiled so big as we danced to the song and the fans screamed so loud I could already hear my ears ringing.

The second verse came and Jewelz got into the circle Exo had made courtesy of the choreographer and we did the body rolls Sooyoung told us to do and then turned to do shoulder rolls along with a spin and sassy hip strike. The pre chorus came again and we moved away from the boys and swayed our hips and did their little jump roping move. I was already starting to get a bit tired but there wasn't time to think about that. We had a performance to do.

The chorus came again and Jewelz performed in a straight line near the back and kept out of Exo's way. The drums move came and I sunk down to my knees along with SunJung so HeeYoung and Minji could pretend to be hitting our heads. Then came the big rapping moment where we all went into a circle again and improvised. I thanked The Lord improvising was working out for us.

The final bit of the song played and we p