Watched: South Park

      January 13th, 2010

January 13th, 2010

The Nations National Girl Group seemed to be at peace the past few weeks.

It was nice.

They just finished recording their latest comeback song and were given a day off in forever. Technically they had a day off back in late December after their first two concerts as a present, but they ended up moving apartments that day and spent the entire day packing the things they hadn't earlier for the movers and set everything up in their new rooms.

Just the turning of a magazine page filled the new apartment's living room.

"We should do something cool today," Tiffany looked up from her magazine to see Echo half asleep on the couch next to her.

The younger idols eyes popped open at the suggestion. "Define 'cool'."

"Something memorable."

"I swear to god if this is because it's my birthday-"

"No, no, it's not I promise! Is there anything you've been wanting to do lately but you haven't had the time or guts?"

Echo pursed her lips in thought, still a little suspicious of her best friend. "I've been wanting to get another ear piercing, I only have my single lobes and I really want to get something more."

Tiffany snapped her fingers when an idea came to her. "Let's get friendship piercings!"

She gave the elder a surprised look. "You want to get a piercing? Really?"

"Yeah, why not?"

"Should we ask Taeyeon to join us?" Echo softly added, eyes briefly flickering in the general direction of said girls closed bedroom door.

The other girl grew quiet at the mention of their leader.

"It wouldn't hurt to ask would it?" Tiffany agreed. "It can be roommate piercings too."

"Back in the day," the younger member laughed.

Without further hesitation the two best friends got up from the couch and knocked on their leaders door.

Within seconds the door opened an inch, only a familiar eye peeking out. "Do you need something?"

"Unnie, come out with us, we want to do something fun," Echo smiled, trying to keep her tone peppy.

When Taeyeon didn't respond she continued. "We want to get matching piercings, and we can go out and eat something too. We can go to that kimbap shop you really like."

"We're not supposed to eat that on our diets…"

Echo shrugged her thin shoulders. "So? We won't tell if you won’t. We can even raid SM's makeup closet and find cool disguises with wigs and everything."

The unforeseen laugh of Taeyeon filled the air. "Okay, I'll go. But I'm not putting a wig on. I'll be ready in ten minutes." She closed the door.

On the other side Tiffany and Echo shared a high-five.

"So, is there a specific piercing you've been wanting to get?" Taeyeon asked Echo as they walked calmly down the busy street.

Surprisingly, the girls discovered when the city is at its busiest is the best time for them to roam the streets, everyone is too focused on rushing to their own destination to really be looking at anyone else long enough to realize they're an idol.

"There is… but it's more than one," Echo slowly admitted.

"Obviously you want more than one, you only have lobe piercings," the leader pointed at the idol's duo piercing.

She swiftly hid both. "I'm working on it!"

The two elder girls laughed. Happily, Echo looped both her arms around her members, freely chatting with them in the open in what felt like an eternity. They were far from free, but it sure as hell felt like they were.

"Okay, so what did you decide on?" Tiffany asked as they entered the piercing parlor.

Echo hesitated in answering, nervously poking at her bottom lip. "I really want to get a triple or double forward helix."

The two girls gave her a surprised look, Taeyeon 'oh-ing' over it. "I think we should do double, if we do triple it would really hurt."

Tiffany walked up to the counter, asking the bearded man for prices. "A double would be ₩60,000, a triple is ₩90,000. That's including the jewelry and aftercare."

"I think a double then, especially because of infection," Taeyeon spoke.

"Plus, if we really want to get the triple later, we can make sure they leave room for it," Tiffany added.

Echo simply nodded as the elder girls spoke more to the man. She was happy and nervous at the same time. She hadn't had a piercing since she was five, and those were simple lobe piercings. This was her forward helix, it was sure to hurt since it was a thick cartilage.

"You ready?"

The man's words popped Echo out of her thoughts, robotically the idol followed the trio to the back into a separate room.

"Whose going first?"

Without words, the girls soundlessly entered a rock-paper-scissors match. It ended up being: Echo, Taeyeon then Tiffany. Echo's bottom lip jutted out in a pout as she hopped up onto the chair.

The two girls stood on the opposite side of the piercer, Tiffany holding onto Echo's pale hand.

"Nervous?" the piercer nonchalantly asked, ripping the necessary tools out of their sterile plastic coverings.

The youngest idol wordlessly nodded.

"It'll only last a second," the man continued. "And then you'll have some funky new jewelry to show off to your friends and fans."

With a deep breath from Echo, the man wheeled his stool closer to the chair, after making the necessary black dots with a marker, he positioned the needle over the dots.

Echo squeezed Tiffany's hand, hard, when the needle pierced through hard cartilage. The man was swift and pierced the second hole with ease, ing the new jewelry in barely a second after the needle left the fresh piercing.

"And that's it."

She didn't realize it, but Echo's legs were shaking as she slowly stood up, allowing Taeyeon to take her place.

"It looks so pretty!" Tiffany gushed at the two piercings, getting more excited for her own.

"Did it hurt a lot?" Taeyeon nervously asked the youngest girl, ringing her hands together.

"It was a very hard pinch," Echo explained, gently taking the shorter girls hand in her own for comfort. "But it lasts a second and just squeeze your eyes tightly and you'll be fine."

Within minutes the last two members were pierced, the trio moving on and grabbing a few snacks that were definitely banned from their diets, before heading back to the dorm as the sun began to dip into the sky.

"So did you enjoy today?" Taeyeon gave a secret smile toward Echo.

Echo blew a light raspberry at the leader. "Did you enjoy today?"

The two elders took that as her answer and laughed, Tiffany punching in the key code when they reached their apartment door.

The trio met darkness, unsurprisingly the other members must have been gone, all enjoying the day in their own day.

Echo kicked off her shoes and flicked on the hallway light.

"SURPRISE!"

The young idol jumped back in shock, eyes wide like a child's as she took in the scene before her.

The other seven members were gathered around the food covered dining room table, all wearing some sort of party hat, some clutched blowouts and noise makers in their hands or were blowing the former. A foot in front of the group stood a widely smiling Sooyoung, who held a pretty white cake in her hands, multi-colored swirly candles popped out of the top, all lit with tiny flames.

"Make a wish," Sooyoung smiled, holding out the cake to Echo.

Said idol slowly walked forward. "I told you guys not to do anything…"

"Read the cake!" Hyoyeon called out, needing to momentarily pause in her blowing.

With a raised eyebrow, she looked down.

Happy Not Birthday Echo!

She laughed at the wording, wondering what the person who had to wrote it thought about writing that.

Taeyeon and Tiffany came forward, joining the group as they all sung 'Happy Birthday' but changing the lyrics to 'Happy Day' instead.

"Make a wish!"

With an amused smile, Echo blew out the candles while wishing for nothing but happiness with her members.

As the other members cheers died down, Yuri plopped a pointy party hat atop Echo's dark brown hair before pulling her to the center seat of the long table.

The heavy feeling in the younger girls chest became lighter, not just because of what her loving members just did for her, but because of the fact that all her favorites were steaming on the table. There had to be at least six different kinds of foods on the white table.

"You guys didn't have to do this…" she uncertainly trailed off, not wanting to seem ungrateful.

"It's not a birthday party," Hyoyeon explained. "It's just a 'Everything's great and we love you so we decided to throw a party' party."

Half of the members, including Echo, laughed at the main dancers explanation.

"We feel bad we never got to do anything before," Yuri added. "We know you don't like to celebrate it, but we thought that maybe this time will be different. Plus, it's nice to throw a party for a specific member."

"Thank you," Echo gratefully spoke. "I love you guys."

"Don't make it cheesy!" Hyoyeon called out, but laughed.

The mood was light, the girls happily chatted. They weren't idols in this moment. They were just ten girlfriends having a party, only looking at each other.

"I actually have an announcement," Seohyun hesitantly spoke up, nervously ringing her hands in front of her atop the table.

The girls stopped their conversations, all turning to the youngest member.

"I'm going to be on We Got Married."

The members were quiet at Seohyun's announcement.

However, a few heartbeats later, they all had something to say.

"Really? How long did you know?"

"Do you know your husband?"

"Were you approached or did you audition?"

"Are you sure you're ready for this?"

"Have you even had a boyfriend before?"

"Wow, you're really growing up!"

Comically, Taeyeon told the maknae, "I wish you the best of luck." All the girls got a good laugh out of that, remembering the pudding and jelly couple.

"They told me I can pick two members to appear on the first episode with me," she continued. "And I really want Taeyeon-unnie and Echo-unnie to appear on it with me."

Said members shared a surprised look, but accepted their maknae's offer. Echo wouldn't admit it but she was elated at being invited by her own member to appear on a show, especially We Got Married. Maybe one of these day's they'll notice her and ask her to join?

To the members surprise, the doorbell went off.

Yuri jumped up to answer it, speaking a few sentences to whoever was on the other side before calling out into the dorm: "Echo-ah, your grandmother's here!"

Echo made a confused face, her grandmother?

Slowly, she got up from her seat, making her way to the front door. Sure enough, her moms mother stood in the doorway, refusing to come in enough to have to take off her shoes.

"Grandmother?" Echo spoke, uncertain of what was going to happen.

Just like the handful of times they've been in the same room as each other (except for when her own mother's death was involved)  her snow white hair was tied up into a tight bun, her clothes perfectly pressed, and her old wrinkly hands were clasped in front of her.

"Hello," she paused. "Allison."

Echo nodded, staring at the women's forehead, careful to not make eye contact.

"I debated for awhile giving this to you, or how you would react."

The girl raised an eyebrow.

"I think there's been enough time and I know my daughter would of wanted you to have this," her grandmother unclasped her hands, only grabbing her own and twisting it until her palm was facing the ceiling while the other wrinkly hand put something in it. Her grandmother then closed the smaller hand around the item, patting her closed fingers.

Once her hands pulled away Echo slowly unclenched her fingers, her heart stilling at the simple item. It was a silver anklet with a simple crystal teardrop dangling from it. It was her mothers.

"Hyoju-ah begged me to buy her that when we went on a family trip to Jeju for the first time," the elderly woman revealed, her old eyes glazed over with past memories. "It was expensive for a souvenir and I didn't want to spend the money, but she used those big eyes on me, promising she'd never ask for anything ever again and I bought it for her."

The old woman paused. "I didn't know until I got the box of her stuff that she still wore it. I assumed she threw it out after had our falling out." She took a deep breath. "I know she would want you to have it. Please, cherish it like she did."

Echo was extremely touched by her grandmothers words and actions, never before has she felt anything remotely positive in emotions towards the woman. Her grandmother was against her and her father's marriage, causing them to break all ties with their Korean families and move to the States to give birth to both their daughters. It took years just for her mother and aunt to speak again. Her mother and grandmother only ever spoke out of courtesy when around the rest of the family. To this day Echo doesn't know what it feels like to have grandparents. She wondered if the fuzzy feeling she had in her chest now was part of it.

"Thank you, grandmother."

Her grandmother nodded, turning around to leave the dorm. Just as her hand landed on the doorknob she turned around. "Has that man approached you?"

She hesitated but truthfully answered, "Yes."

"Have you been talking to him?"

"No, I've been ignoring all his calls."

"If you're smart, you'll keep doing that," the look in her grandmothers eyes was fierce, her features pulled into a deep frown. "Nothing good comes from that man, remember that."

Echo nodded, saying goodbye to her grandmother.

When the door closed, Echo turned back to the anklet in her hand, playing with the crystal.

It's Echo's birthday right? Why did none of her members say anything (on SNS)?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOVELY DOLL ECHO!

Are the fans the only ones who remembered Echo's birthday? Wow. Some soshi bond.

I have a question for you guys; what's your favorite idol group show? (Ex. Hello Baby)