Hannah’s trip to Hong Kong felt like an hour long. On Friday after Music Bank, 5 Pieces went to do their pre-recording for Music Core that would be the next day – as Hannah wouldn’t be in the country on Saturday, they pre-recorded the songs the day before – and they didn’t end until two in the morning, because they needed to record two songs with two different sets. So at that time Hannah went to the airport, taking the earliest flight around 5AM to land in Hong Kong three hours later. On the airport she had uploaded a picture on twitter of herself pouting and saying she is on her way.  She slept on the plane, and she got two hours sleep at a hotel room before she went to the rehearsal of SHINee’s concert. She is in a good mood, she really is, and though Jonghyun was busy preparing and focusing on the concert, she never feel left out because it is a family she is familiar with (SHINee, the dancers, the stylists and managers, the Korean staff) so the day was spent happily. Her performance with Jonghyun goes super well too; not too y, not uncomfortable but simply said just super well.

The concert comes to an end, Hannah sitting in a different room from others after congratulating them. She is waiting to get to leave, sitting on the sofa and looking through some gifts she received from fans. Manager Lee, always coming along on her solo activities, checks his cell phone and sighs.

“I’ll go see if we can leave now,” he says and leaves the room. They have a plane to catch; though they have plenty of time to get there he has been told to be as early as he can. Hannah barely hears him, busy reading a letter written in English by a Hong Kong fan.

The door to the room was left open after that her manager leaves, but someone walking inside closes it. Hannah doesn’t look up from her letter, thinking it is her manager returning, but when that person walks straight up to her she looks up and is just about to panic – still thinking it is her manager – when the person puts his hand on her shoulder and leans down to her. She just gets her breath back when he takes it again by kissing her roughly, leaning her back in the sofa. Jonghyun has one hand by her shoulder and the other by her jaw, leaning over her while his mouth is pressed against hers, feeling her heart beat fast in her chest. Hannah takes her hand on his wrist, her fingers lightly on his skin, feeling the veins that are clear on his arms. Her hand feels its way to his elbow, not reaching further it falls down and she starts to giggle when her fingers falls down to surprisingly touch more skin.

She turns her head to the side while laughing, looking down at his body before looking up at his face. Jonghyun smiles at her, putting up one leg on the sofa and moving his face to her neck to kiss her.

“Why are you topless?” Hannah giggles, her hands bringing themselves to touch his hard abs.

“My t-shirt was wet,” he answers and sits down next to her in the sofa, leaning sideways against the backrest, smiling cutely at her. “y, don’t you think?”

Hannah giggles again and moves closer to kiss him, her hand tracing up his stomach, up his chest and to his neck. His body is damp from the concert, his skin feels good under her light touch and she turns her hand when touching his chest again, feeling his skin with the back of her hand while kissing him on the lips. She moves her lips to give him a kiss on the neck before she leans away, looking at him smiling back at her.

“When do you have to leave?” he asks quietly, taking her hand in his. Her hand is really small, like a child’s. Her fingers are short too, and he is always fascinated by how different her hand is compared to everyone else’s. At times when they have been sitting next to each other on the airplanes he has hold her hand in his and studied it. Though it is small, it somehow manages to be feminine, and he likes it. He just smiles at her now, not looking at her hand though his thumb is caressing it; he can’t look away from her eyes.

“Soon. As soon as I am told,” she answers, blushing by the way he looks at her.

“I will drop by some day,” he tells her with that adorable smile of his, “I will sneak in.”

She knows what he means and she just smiles back at him. She will let him sneak in home, and she knows her members won’t disagree. They never do, beside from Emelia.

++ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + -+ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + -+ - + - ++

Now she is sitting in the van on her way to Inkigayo with her members to do a pre-recording of [Black & White]. Today they will do [-erase you-] live while [Black & White] will be pre-recorded. Promoting two songs at the same time is tiring, especially since their time at the music programs is double as much time than it normally is. The girls got to sleep longer in the morning, which means also Hannah got to sleep some when coming home, and now they have gotten make-up and hair done before heading towards Inkigayo.

Sitting in the car is boring. Carolina has fallen asleep, sitting on the middle seat of the van with Maria who is humming to the music on the radio. Julia, sitting at the back with Hannah is playing some online game on her cell phone with Emelia sitting at the front, passenger seat. Hannah is sitting by her laptop, writing. She has been in a better mood since she met Jonghyun earlier in the week, being calmer and not as distant. Being in the car now she tries to focus on writing, as with the schedule lately has made her mind blank on what to write for ‘Joe’. It goes back and forth there. And since she can’t focus, she gets for some reason happy to receive a mail. She is happy until she reads it though.

The mail is from her sister, who in the mail explains the current situation at home. Hannah earlier in the summer was told that her stuff (every single thing of hers at her home in Sweden) had been put in a storage room in some building, things like the bed and desk and things that wasn’t really Hannah’s but more her family’s, had been sold. But she still has a lot of things from her childhood, from school, things she brought home from the first year in Korea too that are put in that storage room. In the mail, it says that she has until Christmas to clear that storage room as there is no money to pay for it. As a PS her sister has written that she finally has moved out, in a tiny apartment closer to the city and she is working part-time at some clothing store. Hannah doesn’t care about the PS; all she thinks of is that she has to clear the storage room because there is no money. How can there not be any money? She turns off her laptop and picks up her cell phone, giving her sister a call.

“That’s the fastest response I’ve ever gotten,” her twin sister Jen picks up her phone with a laugh.

“How can there not be any money? I sent extra money to mom for the storage,” Hannah doesn’t understand it, not laughing as her sister, trying to keep her voice low to not disturb the members.

“Yeah, but you know, I have moved out. So mom helped me to buy a micro and kitchen things, a sofa and … well, it’s kind of expensive to move out.”

“So you took my money to move? Why did you then have to move out just now? You could’ve saved your own money instead of spending it on clothes and candles like you always do. Those money was supposed to be for the storage,” Hannah is clearly upset, not understanding how her family is thinking. Hannah has been sending them money for the past years, sending money to her mother who would divide it between the family living in that house, to their grandparents and even to the older sister who isn’t really doing much. And now the second sister has moved out too. Hannah has known all the time that her family just wants money from her, but she still thought they were related to each other; is she just some money maker?

“Don’t be so sensitive. I have wanted to move out for a long time, you know that, and I’m twenty, of course I should move out. Our friends are moving out too.”

“But it’s still my money!” Hannah tells the window in an annoyed voice. “It’s the money I sweat for, that I work hard for to make. I send most of the money I make to mom, I basically am the one feeding you all, and if I send a little more money to something for ME, you take it? Have you all forgotten about my existence?”

“You are so stupid, Hannah. The only way we get to see you is on the computer, beside from lately as your face is stuck on the TV too. You are over there on your own, making your own decision to work as you do, and you blame me for wanting to move out?”

“Then move out with your own money!” Hannah bursts out, turning to face the window even more when noticing the others in the van reacting. “You are living on my money, Jen!”

“On the salary you get you can’t have much to complain about. Just that book you came out with is making millions, right?” her sister sounds angry and annoyed, but her voice isn’t screaming.

“The money that freaking book brings in is directly being donated for charity, idiot! I don’t get anything from it because I am not as selfish as the rest of my family!” Hannah can’t take that her family thinks she is kind of rich just because she is an idol. And that every single person – even at interviews – assumes that Hannah brings in a lot of money with her good selling book.

“Fine! Fine!” her sister yells. “My fault, okay? But what’s the big deal, I borrowed some money and you can’t forgive me?”

“The difference, Jen, is that when you borrow something it starts with asking and ends with returning. You do none of it, which none of you seem to do. Honestly, I haven’t expected much from any of you, but to openly kick me out of the family and my hometown, really nice. Tell mom that from now on, you will all have to work to make a living. Just like I am.”

Hannah hangs up, wanting to throw her phone away but ending up just staring out the window and holding the cell phone in her hardest grip. Emelia turns up the volume on the radio when all of them – beside from the sleeping Carolina – feels the weird atmosphere of silence. Maria turns around in her seat, looking at Hannah around the backrest.

“You okay?” she asks kindly.

“Did that sound okay to you?!” Hannah asks in a harsh tone, not even looking at her. She is so angry that she just wants to cry, staring out the window to not let the tears out.

She can’t believe her family. First they almost hated her for running to Korea, yelling and cursing at her through the phone whenever she called them, but they got quiet when she got paid – as she was just sixteen years old, underage, her mother got the money. Once she turned eighteen she got to handle her own money, though she was every month after getting paid sent a chosen amount to her family. Time to time, that amount got bigger as the only times her family contacted her was to ask for more money. Every time it would be her sister asking her first how life is, and then say her mother would want to get some more money. Hannah always agrees, since they are family, though she lately has gotten tired of the amount of money they want. Most of her money has been taken to them this year just because three houses, rents and food need to be paid. Her mother and mother’s boyfriend both works, not having such a bad salary, but since Hannah’s older sister and grandparents all need to borrow money all the time, Hannah helps out with that. Hannah is tired of it; only waiting for something that would make them cut the bond between them – this seem to be it.

“I just want to know what’s going on, Hannah,” Maria doesn’t like that the anger is being turned to her. “Don’t be angry at me for trying to be a good friend.”

“Just leave me alone.”

Maria sits back down in her seat, glaring at the backrest of the driver’s seat, seeing straws of Manager Lim’s hair stick out at the top and his shoulders below. She is quiet for several minutes before turning around in the seat again, glaring at Hannah. “You’re an idiot too, you know that? Jen might be an idiot, your family might be idiots, but you are also an idiot. Yes, I got no idea of what is going on in your family and I might never get why you are such idiots to each other. But I have never asked you a question where I didn’t care about the answer. So don’t start snapping at me for loving you, and stop with your self pitying because whenever you are upset, the rest of us get upset too. Why do we get freaking upset? Because that is what we do! So don’t you DARE go around being angry by yourself instead of talking to us! ing scream at us if you now want, as long as you share your life! Because guess what; we will be part of it tomorrow and the other days too!”

Her seat shakes when she plops down to sit correctly, upset and angry and happy she got that out of her. She releases a frustrated sound as Hannah doesn’t say anything. She turns back again, not screaming this time, and Carolina is actually waking up when the loud noise of screaming is gone.

“You got issues, girl,” Maria tells Hannah calmly. “We all know that and you keep thinking you’re the only one having problems. I don’t have a boyfriend and I don’t have issues with my family beside from that I miss them so much that I keep looking at my pictures every day, but you used to talk to me about every single thing before that I felt I did something to make someone feel better. Don’t forget that. so when you are done being upset and ready to talk, open your mouth and let it all out, because no matter what we are doing or where we are, I will always listen. Okay?”

Hannah is looking down at her hands, holding in the tears. “I do tell you things.”

“I know that. But whenever you think the rest of us are too busy, you lock yourself in. I can’t take that. I’m telling you this before it happens again, because I know we are all too busy with the comeback and we don’t have time-” Maria is saying, the car stopping so she glances around to see they have arrived. Maria looks back at Hannah. “Let’s continue inside.”

With her head down, not saying anything, Hannah walks with her members inside SBS’s building. They don’t really say much inside. Maria gives Hannah a hug, Hannah stays quiet and Carolina asking what has happened.

Hannah is angry the whole day, not saying much at all and when being on the stage she avoids body contact with her members and the ladies are at times whispering to her to ask what she is upset over and if she is okay. How could she be okay? What wouldn’t she be upset over? With everything happening in Korea, in her present and in her past, the moment she thinks those things is okay; her family makes their entrance. The moment she forgets about her family, that moment when she thinks she can be happy and laugh with the life she has chosen, they remind her of what she doesn’t have and she can’t take it. She is boiling on the inside, but is quiet and expressionless in her face.

++ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + -+ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + -+ - + - ++

5 Pieces comes home around midnight after finishing another radio program, Manager Lim dropping them off and the girls quietly going in. Hannah doesn’t say anything, tired, and she hasn’t been in the mood for anything the whole day. Her members let her be at Inkigayo, but when they did the radio program after, Carolina kept trying to make people laugh, especially Hannah even if she wasn’t showing the world that. Hannah only smiled forced at her, quietly thanking her when no one else heard. Now, when coming home, Hannah leaves her shoes on the side in the hall and starts to go inside.

“I wasn’t the rudest person today at least,” Emelia breathes out when stretching out her hands. Hannah can feel her eyes on her neck. “She couldn’t even fake a smile.”

“If you got anything to say to me, Emelia, you can always say it right to me instead of behind my back,” Hannah mutters without turning around, leaving the hall to go to her room.

“In fact I have a lot to say to you,” Emelia answers, stopping outside the hall and several meters away, right outside the only bedroom in the corridor, Hannah stops to look at her. The group is tired after the day, and Carolina is sensing the negativity between the members so she quickly says she will go wash up first. Julia goes to leave some gifts they have received from fans in the living-room, Ace following her while Maria is slow in the hall. “Why must you always feel sad for yourself about your family situation, huh? You cry about this, you cry about that and you make our lives miserable with all your miserable feelings of feeling sad about yourself. Just stop talk to your family and everyone will be good.”

“Would you stop talking to your family without being upset about it?” Hannah asks, annoyed but she doesn’t seem like she would care about the answer.

“My family loves me, so I wouldn’t stop talking to them,” Emelia answers, and she sounds proud. “We wouldn’t even have a disagreement to begin with.”

Hannah gives her a glare. “Good for you then,” she says and throws her bag inside her bedroom that she is standing by, looking tiredly back at Emelia. “Are you done?”

“Why? Do you want to go hide in your room and call your boyfriend?”

“Hey, Emelia, don’t start,” Maria sighs when coming out from the hall. “We’re all tired, so let’s go to sleep.”

“I’m not the one starting. Hannah always, always, always needs to have something troubling her. Her family, her health, her boyfriend-”

“Why bring Jonghyun in the conversation?!”

“Because he is the ing reason you have been weird the past weeks!” Emelia yells at her. “If you weren’t so sensitive all the freaking time, he wouldn’t have to go around and worry about you cheating or falling apart from exhaustion! And that wouldn’t make him angry and you two would skip all this idiotic fighting and crying ! And just for the information, I don’t like that you are the only ing member who can go around that dating contract!”

“You were the one agreeing to it!” Hannah bursts out. “And what goes on between me and Jonghyun is none of your business!”

“It is my business! It’s all of our ing business!” Emelia’s voice is roaring through the apartment, waving her hand to say it is for all members in 5 Pieces.

“EMELIA!” Maria shouts.

“5 Pieces is made of us five!” Emelia continues as if she hadn’t heard Maria. “Not us five and your boyfriend! If he gets more attention than us even at our schedules, if you ing think of him when we are on the ing stage-”

“I DON’T!”

“That’s what it looks like!”

“I don’t care what it looks like as long as the world doesn’t find out!”

“Oh, so as long as the world doesn’t find out that you have a boyfriend, you don’t care? You don’t care about us? We all know you don’t care about your family, so what difference is it with us?” Emelia asks. Maria picks up Ace who runs around them, walking inside the living-room where Julia is sorting out the gifts and letters in small piles of whose name is on it. Maria glances to the two girls fighting outside the hall after taking a seat in the sofa.

“I care for my family. Why do you think I have been giving them money all this time?”

“Because you have been scared of your mother all your life and you are so stupid that-”

“Yes!” Hannah bursts out, cutting Emelia off and throwing her hands in the air of annoyance. “I’m stupid, I know! I know that I’m a stupid blonde bimbo because you have reminded me of it every single day since the day we met! What do you want me to do about that? Go dig a hole to hide in or what is the point of reminding me of my hair-colour and idiocy every single day? Maybe I’m not positive 24/7 like Carolina, but at least I don’t push other people down for fun.”

“So that’s what you think I do to you? Push you down?”

“It’s the ONLY thing you do!” Hannah answers loudly. None of the other members seem to disagree.

“But this isn’t about me! It’s about you-”

“You said it’s about everyone! About 5 Pieces!”

“YOU need to order your priorities! Every since that car-accident you have changed!”

“Oh my GOD!” Hannah takes a dramatic half turn away from her before looking back at Emelia, “why do you have to bring that up? The accident was two years ago! Whenever it is something you have to bring that up! It’s in the past!”

“It’s the ing present! You think we don’t notice how your back is hurting when we are getting of the stage? That you even fall asleep because of those stupid pills you have to take? That accident was the beginning of everything, Hannah! Of you changing, of us changing; of all of us being freaking terrified of loosing you! I don’t give a damn if you don’t smile every day, but you have for all this time I have known you been focusing the most of our friendship.”

Carolina has come out from the bathroom, quietly standing by the door and glancing from girl to girl, looking worried. Emelia doesn’t sound to be close to crying even if her neck has gotten red from the heat and her face is red too. Julia glances at Maria, her eyes wondering if they should join in.

“But then Jonghyun came in the picture and you suddenly forgot all about the importance of our team that you always used to think about,” Emelia continues.

“So what, everyone get to live their lives but me? I don’t want to be stuck in the practice room!”

“That’s not what she means,” Maria’s voice is heard.

“It’s what all of you mean! You all keep complaining that I have a boyfriend, that I have lost weight, asking me how I’m doing! I’m sick of it!” Hannah shouts, angry and frustrated at her members.

“We worry about you, Hannah!” Emelia screams at her.

“Stop with it! We can’t spend every day worrying-”

“Stop yelling! All of you!” Julia gets up from her seat. “You won’t get anywhere with screaming at each other!”

Hannah stomps inside her room, throwing the door close after her with a loud bang. Emelia walks to her own room, muttering some cursing and other words. Maria glares after both of them, watching Carolina sneaking in to her room and Julia shouts to everyone to not be so childish before she walks back to her seat in the living-room. Maria sinks down on the floor, looking to her left where Julia is sitting and then to the right where. She hates when this happens. When they all get angry at each other and go to their room like any other teenagers fighting with their family. For several minutes she is sitting there, gathering herself before she lets Ace run away. She sees Ace running over to Emelia’s room, so Maria sighs and says she will take the youngest. Just when she knocks on Hannah’s door she can see Emelia opening her to let in the mewing cat.

Maria opens the door, looking inside with a cute expression to be prepared to face Hannah. She sees the girl lying in her bed, her back facing the door. Maria closes the door quietly and walks inside, first sitting down on the bed before she lies down on it, having Hannah’s back facing her.

“It hurts her too, you know,” Maria mumbles.

“I don’t care,” Hannah sobs.

“None of us like the way your family treat you, Hannah. She is angry on them, not on you, just the same way you are angry on them and not us,” Maria tells her in a low voice. She is quiet for a while, hearing Hannah quietly sobbing. “I wonder though … whenever we mention Jonghyun, you get upset, while you don’t seem to care when we talk about your family.”

“It’s because… I have accepted my problems with my family. I know I am not welcomed there, and I don’t really care since I have this place, but I am still hurt about it. But … I can’t grab that I have a boyfriend. At times I realise, that Jonghyun is my BOYFRIEND, I just remember it and I get excited. You know, it is the same feeling like when we went to Sweden. We talked about it for weeks, but not until we actually got there we got the feeling.” Hannah lies on her stomach, turning her head around over the pillow and glances on Maria who is lying on her back. “It’s like I am trying to hold on to a dream that I will soon wake up from.”

“Are you scared?” Maria wonders, it is what she concludes from what Hannah said.

“I don’t know. But my priorities haven’t changed, Maria.”

“I know, I know,” Maria nods, patting Hannah on the back. “I will talk to Emelia, she didn’t mean that. She knows it too. It’s just … with the comeback and everything; she maybe thinks you let Jonghyun be too much on your mind. And then today it was your family, which we all can’t understand completely.” She gets quiet for a while again, Hannah almost falling asleep. “Let’s go to sleep, and talk more in the morning.”

Maria leaves the room, going to Emelia’s room instead where also Ace and Julia are. Julia and Emelia have already talked; Emelia angry and Julia saying she is childish.

“Definitely really childish. You can’t even talk like normal people,” Maria joins in to tell Emelia when stepping inside. “Let’s go to sleep now and talk more in the morning. Maybe everyone can calm down and talk better by then.”

She waves for Julia to come out the room, making sure the members go to bed before she goes to bed. She takes a last glance in each room to make sure they have lied down before she can collapse on her own bed and wonder how to do in the morning.

++ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + -+ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + -+ - + - ++

Headline 28th: SM Entertainment Release Highlight Video Of 5 Pieces’ Swedish Concert

Headline 28th: 5 Pieces Look Their Best At Inkigayo With [Black & White] And [-erase you-]

Headline 28th: 5 Pieces Breaks The Usual Girl-Group Image, Voted As Strongest Girl-Group Today

Headline 28th: Running Man Have A Tight Battle With Tough 5 Pieces

Headline 28th: Haha In A Jealous Drama With 5 Pieces’ Maria In Latest Running Man Episode

Headline 28th: Teaser For Next Week’s Running Man Battle Vs 5 Pieces Is Long Anticipated