Author's Note: 

It's a double update, if you haven't read the previous chapter, go back. Thank you!

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About 2 years later, at a music ceremony in China…

Lights went on and off in a show of colors that iluminated various stages at a synchronized pace of programed patterns. The singers that were prepared to perform, stood in formation in the middle of it all, it was then when a strong beat started to pound from two tall speakers and invaded with its sound the whole ceremonial venue.

Loud cheers started to lift an ocean of seat sections in a bedlam of screams. The shouts echoed in and out, making the  surroundings tremble with the sole stregth of the public’s enthusiasm.

At the backstage of the music ceremony - taking place at the heart of one of the most important concert venues at China, targeted by its international appeal –, the members of T-ARA were on a hectic run of preparations. They were expected to go out in about 30 minutes, and the stylists of the group were behind schedule.

Eunjung, however, was far from bothered by the anxious atmosphere trapping the group’s dressing room. She was ready to go, there was nothing about her outfit hanging off place, her hair was styled down, her make-up was done, she was simply basking in the relaxation that washed over her nerves, attributed to the fact that she just needed to wait for the rest to finish preparing.

She was entertained staring at her reflection in the mirror, inspecting carefully the defined line of her eyebrows, when she was interrupted by a loud and possibly exasperated, “go check who’s knocking, Jung.”

Eunjung was promptly forced out of her trance in front of the mirror, and responded with a “what?”, before one of the stylits, who was currently busy running a brush through Jiyeon’s hair, motioned her head to the direction of the door. Right then, Eunjung noticed that there was someone knocking at the other side.

“Oh, I will go get it,” said female announced, and shot the stylist a small smile before proceeding to the door.

The knocks were persistent for a few more seconds as Eunjung let out a sigh at the person’s insistence, and unlocked the door turning the knob to push it open.

Eunjung, out of instinct, bowed her head politely addressing the stranger at the other side of the door with formality, not forgetting to greet the other in Mandarin, and finally lifted her eyes to make contact with the eyes of the girl dressed in black in front of her.

“Good evening,” the girl responded to Eunjung’s greeting with a bow of her own, and rather shyly extended a card to Eunjung’s direction, prompting her to take it with her hands.

Eunjung frowned a bit, not sure what was the card about, and the girl seemed to notice her confusion because she immediately motioned to explain, “that’s the number of your seats section at the performers' area.”

Eunjung concluded the girl was a member from the staff, and nodded her head comprenhending every word. She wasn’t extremely fluent in Mandarin, but years of promotion with her group in the country were enough for her to develop decent skills in the language.

“Thank you,” Eunjung acknowledged the girl, and the female in turn only smiled and mumbled a quick “you’re welcome,” before she stepped back from the entrance.

“What is it, Jung?” Eunjung heard Hyomin asked her in Korean, all the way from the inside of the dressing room.

Eunjung waited for the girl to go on her way down the long corridor, then, closed the door and turned to Hyomin, who was currently sited in front of a mirror, with one of the make-up artists trying to correct the rough line that the eyeliner traced above her eyelid when she moved to talk.

“Can you stay still?” the obviously frustrated woman asked, while she started to play with some base and powder to try and disappear the misplaced shadow of the liner in her right eyelid.

Hyomin turned to face the mirror and silently whined, letting out a puff of air through .

Eunjung tried not to chuckle, to not bother the woman, but either way smiled. She lifted the card for Hyomin to see through the mirror’s reflection and parted her lips to speak, “a staff brought us the number of our assigned section of seats.”

A sigh was heard at the announcement, one of the stylits was reminded about the fact that they were running against the clock.

“Did she told you when we were supposed to go out?” Qri, who was trying to fit a foot into the left shoe of her pair of high heels, asked Eunjung, jerking her head up to stare at her.

Eunjung pulled a face, remembering she failed to recall that particular detail they were all so fixated on, “I forgot to ask.”

Qri let out a brief exhale, as she forced her left foot in into the heel for the third time, before she spoke, “anyways, it's not like we can stay here all night, we better hurry.”

“Finally,” the make-up artist correcting Hyomin’s eyeliner, let out a cheer as she stared at her artwork, “just some details here and there and I will be done.”

Hyomin visibly complained because she thought the make-up was finished, and at that Eunjung chuckled when all of a sudden the door of the dressing room made a loud noise when it hit a wall, and through the entrance came the group’s coordinator with quite a commotion.

Jiyeon flinched in her seat in front of her stylist at the abrupt noise of the door hitting the wall, in a harsh impact of wood against concrete.

Eunjung turned her attention to the coordinator when the man started to count, “1, 2, 3, 4…”, his eyes went across the whole room wandering from her, who was awkwardly standing in the middle; to Qri, who had her head ducked low as she zipped up one of her heels; to Hyomin, who had her eyes closed in front of a mirror; to Jiyeon, who was staring at him with her eyes wide open.

The coordinator went back to Eunjung, and then his gaze zeroed in on Jiyeon’s stylist, “where are the others?”

Said stylist shrugged her shoulders, and when the coordinator gazed at Eunjung’s direction, the female mimicked the stylist’s actions.

“How do you guys don’t know?” the coordinator frowned, “the intro performance is about to finish, and it will be nice if the group could be there for the start of the ceremony.”

Hyomin clicked her tongue, “relax, we still have like half an hour left, we won’t miss much anyways.”

The coordinator rolled his eyes at the careless attitude, “well, make sure they appear before that.”

Jiyeon cut in at that, “they must be in the restroom or socializing around in backstage, who knows?”

The man raised an eyebrow at Jiyeon, “I don’t have time to look for the lost members, I have to make some calls with your manager to the airport to solve some problems with the flight back to Korea,” he said.

“Qri can go look for them,” Hyomin volunteered the fellow member, and the female wasted no time on protesting, “me? I’m not ready yet to go out,” she argued while zipping up her right heel.

The coordinator turned to stare at Eunjung, who was still standing in the middle of the dressing room, and asked her, “are you done?”

Eunjung knew what he was indirectly asking her, but she, nevertheless, nodded her head and said “yes”.

“Perfect, then you can go look for the rest? We are behind schedule here,” the request was meant to sound like a question, but Eunjung knew she didn’t have much of an option at the moment.

Of course she would have to go.

“Fine, I will go!” she buckled under the pressure of the coordinator’s eyes on her.

“Then, hurry up,” the male snapped two fingers at her, “I will get going.”

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Eunjung didn’t really have any idea of where she was. The long corridors were unfamiliar, she didn’t know where to start from, and the theory that the members have went to socialize around in backstage was slowly been replaced by the idea that they got lost instead.

It wasn’t all that difficult to get lost in such a big place, and the fact that there existed a language barrier didn’t help at all. It wasn’t like they were coming in direct contact with the language for the first time, and although the members’ general skills were rather decent, asking for directions could be a bit difficult.

Eunjung had walked down three different hallways, and there was still no sign of the members she was looking for, they weren’t supposed to wander around in the first place.

She was, however, grateful for the fact that she have brought her phone in case she ran out of time. The coordinator was set on giving them 25 minutes to come back, and so far Eunjung was sure she have spent a total of 7 minutes in a futile chase with no clues.

“God, where are you guys?”, she asked to nobody in particular, and adjusted the collar of her dress as she kept on walking with no direction.

She felt the hand gripping into her phone starting to sweat out of nervousness as she wandered around. At given moments, she came across with some people and she bowed her head in greeting, but there was no trace of the members whatsoever.

Eunjung tried to be understanding, but her tolerance was reaching its limit. In all fairness, it wasn’t her fault that the missing members decided to go wandering around, so why was she forced to go look out for them?

She, however, knew that out of the of the rest of the members at the dressing room, she was the only one fully prepared, and that in the given situation it wouldn’t have been fair to send Qri, whom Hyomin have volunteered; or send Hyomin, whose make-up wasn’t done; or Jiyeon, whose hair was an awful mess of tangled locks in the middle, just because she have forgotten to put on conditioner when she went out of the shower earlier at the hotel.

Eunjung, though all the above served as reasons why she was designated as the one resposible for looking for the missing members, couldn’t help but complain to herself, because, and to be honest, it wasn’t her fault she was careful enough to start preparing early.

If only the rest had decided to join her at the hotel and started dressing back then, if only Boram and Soyeon hadn’t decided to go wander around on their own in such an unfamiliar place, if only she wasn’t done with her make-up or her hair, if only all of the previous situations were valid, maybe she wouldn’t have to be walking around lost in the backstage of one of the biggest concert venues in China.

“Just where the hell are they?” she puffed out a frustrated sigh, “what did I ever do to deserve this? Why couldn’t the coordinator go instead? It’s his job to look out for us, in the