Seohyun’s POV

Now, please keep in mind that I am no longer the same painfully shy and reserved maknae I used to be.

Okay, I admit. I still have my awkward tendencies but I'm getting better!

Yes, my hours and hours of tirelessly researching, reading of teen novels and analyzing of numerous and fluffy fanfiction have prepared me for this moment!

Just centimeters away from my soon-to-be beloved’s lips! I can already taste the vanilla-flavored Chapstick of victory!

C’mon, Seo! Just pucker those lips!

There! That’s it!

…just a little more.

“Wow. I just go to the park for a quick jog and you’re already getting it on with some chick? On the front yard too. Your popularity in Korea must be no joke, huh?”

English?

That voice didn’t belong to Sica unnie or Fany unnie… and it couldn’t have been Soominnie…

There’s also no way my unnies’ horrid Engrish would ever sound that good. Especially Yuri Corn…

Before I could contemplate any further, I feel the weight on top of me shift away and I open my eyes only to see Soominnie’s back running to a girl who went inside the house.

End of POV

“Wow. I just go to the park for a jog and you’re already getting it on with some chick? On the front yard too. Your popularity in Korea must be no joke, huh?” Elle says monotonously, seeing her sister on top of Seohyun in a compromising position.

The teenager scoffs before stepping to the front door, digs her keys out of her pocket and with one swift motion, opens the door, steps in and shuts it behind her.

Seeing your dongsaeng’s retreating figure, you quickly get off Seohyun without a second thought and run after Elle.

“ELLE!” you yell right after you hear her bedroom door slam loudly.

“Elle! Open the door right now!” you run up the stairs and repeatedly knock on the door.

The members watch from below with concern and worry. They’ve never seen you acting like a real unnie, since you were a few months older than Yuri and basically the same age as everyone except outgoing and independent Yoona and the ever mature Seohyun. There weren’t many opportunities for you to act as an older sister within the group.

“I swear. Open up right now, Elisa Kang! I’ll break down this door if I have to!”

“THEN, GO! BREAK IT DOWN!” Elle’s voice from inside her room challenged.

“What’s wrong with you? This isn’t like you and you know that!” you yelled, hot tears threatening to fall from your eyes.

Loud steps could be heard before the door swung open, Elle with her own angry tears cascading her face that was so similar to yours.

“HOW WOULD YOU KNOW?! Do you even know me anymore? You’ve been in stupid Korea all this time! Living your glamorous celebrity life, not even bothering to check up on us, ON ME! I’ve been through a lot and changed so much since you left! But you don’t seem to care! You were never there for me! All you cared about was that stupid group of yours!” Your sister’s eyes pierced into yours as she inched closer.

“I always called.” was all you could say as you shrunk under that scrutinizing stare.

Elle scoffed at this, tears not stopping.

“When? When was the last time you called ME? When was the last time YOU asked ME how I was?!”

“OKAY! That’s enough with this angsty bull.” Jessica stood between both of you, breaking the intense eye contact.

“Don’t interfere.” Elle said threateningly as she pretty much towered over Jessica.

But, as expected of SNSD’s resident ice princess, Jessica wasn’t affected and merely saluted the teenager with her middle finger.

“Jess, please.” You look at the ice princess pleadingly to go back and let you handle this. She was your sister after all and this thing should be handled by you.

“Nope, no can do.” Tiffany also stepped in.

“Sorry, kid. But Allison’s like a sister to us, well, more of a child to Tiff and I but you get the point. So we’re butting in.” Jessica said with a slight smirk.

“Please. Don’t fight with your sister.” Seohyun said in slightly accented English.

All the other girls had also gathered around the two sisters.

Yuri got hit when she silently started to chant “Fight! Fight! Fight!” in the background.

Elle looked at the other girls with an unreadable expression on her face.

“Aigoo, all this English is making me dizzy. NO, no English. English make unnie’s head hurt so so much, arrasso?” Hyoyeon told Elle.

“Oh yeah, man~!” Yuri added with a dorky thumbs up and an exaggerated American accent.

“Eburibuddy justu chirr.” (Everybody just chill) Taeyeon tried to coolly say much to Sunny’s amusement.

“God, your English is still horrible, Taeng.” Sooyoung teased.

“Whatever. I don’t care anymore. You,” Elle once again faced you, ”I don’t care if you and your group stay here but leave after you're done with your concert thing.”

The teenager went back into her room not forgetting to slam the door. That seemed to be the younger Kang’s thing.

“She speaks Korean! That weasel made me use my limited English when she can speak Korean! Unbelievable.” Hyoyeon threw her hands in the air.

You heave a heavy sigh right before your vision turns black.

All the stress from your fully-packed scheduled life in Korea and the endless silent tension with your sister for the last few days has finally caught up with you.

Jessica’s POV

Pfft, nice engrish, Taengoo.

Aish, what’s with this kid? Teenage rebellious phase, much? Soojung would’ve been long dead if she ever spoke and acted like that. But, nooooo. This lucky kid just had to get the gentle and understanding Allison as her sister.

I bet if some of the fans heard that our shameless cutie’s sister talks to her like that… well, I can’t even imagine what they’d do to the kid.

Oh, she even dares to slam the door at my child’s face?

After Hyo’s little hissy fit, Allison sighs really deeply before she practically faints but Seo catches her. Maknae gets so suave when Allison is unconscious, I swear.

Aish, that teenage brat is going to get it from me for sure now.

…

Right after Allison wakes up, Taengoo receives a call from manager oppa reminding us about an interview tomorrow.

God, I forgot about that.

We were told it was going to be like that pillow fight thing we did way back in Horror Factory where we have to express our complaints at a member and hit them with a pillow to let out all the pent-up frustration.

Ugh, companies and their girls-having-pillow-fights es.

Pillows are precious. They belong in beds not in violence. Make Z’s not war.

I just hope Allison will be alright tomorrow. She gets really quiet when something’s bothering her and it’s usually taken as rudeness during interviews just like when I space out.

We both seem to have a resting  face.

Maybe I can push Joohyun into cuddling her tonight… Allison always says that she loves to cuddle with maknae the most.

Could that Poké maniac actually be falling for Joohyun without her even knowing it? She never had a relationship and let’s face it, she isn’t the brightest bulb in the box when it comes to romance…

“Jess.” My child sits up from the couch, cutting of my thoughts.

I should talk to Tiff about this later. My little honey badger always knows what to say.

“Yeah, sweetie?”

“I’m confused.” She leans back into the backrest and holds her head in her hands.

“I guess it’s complicated since you two haven’t really talked in a while, huh?” I sigh.

“Honestly, I didn’t notice she was lonely. I would hear from Luke or from the others about how well she was doing in school and in her club activities. I thought it was enough that I heard she was doing well. I did plan several times to visit. I really did. But everything just got all mixed up, schedules kept pouring in. Advertising offers and promotional contracts kept getting shoved in my face. If we weren’t active in Korea, we were in Japan. Last time we had a SMTOWN concert here I did plan to go here, to Chicago, but then we were told we had to go right back. I’ve been so busy lately, I-I… everything was going too fast. There were times when I didn’t even know what day or month it was…” she started to sob uncontrollably as she talked.

I moved to sit on the couch beside her and she immediately clings onto me.

Aish, pabo. What were you thinking, keeping all of this bottled up? You haven’t even said a word about all of this to any of us. On a side note, damn, Allison can talk fast. She isn’t out of breath…

Looks like we found SNSD’s new main rapper.

Back to the point, what if she wanted to say something but never had an opportunity to talk to us about her worries?

It was obvious she was almost never at the dorm for the past several months and she always looked so drained when we did get to see her.

Now that I think about it, she was always either asleep or extremely quiet.

That day when we went to the amusement park was the first time I saw her so energetic in a long time.

Before, I was slightly jealous that she and Yoona always got the most schedules, although Allison got more radio hosting and MC-ing gigs, now, I’m worried that the two never have any time to rest and how they sometimes have to perform without any sleep.

Things sort of cooled down for Yoona when she said she wanted to concentrate on her studies first but then I guess all the burden went to Allison.

I remember when we asked manager oppa to show us her schedules and it was fully booked for months! Like seriously, there was no room for free time or sleep whatsoever.

On some days, her schedules overlapped so she had to travel between them and come back to finish the others.

Some of her schedules even had to be passed on to other members since they couldn’t shove it into her schedule.

Most, if not all, of those deals were probably agreed on by the company without her consent too…

It’s so frustrating not being able to say or do anything since this is the life we all chose.

“Aish.” I mumbled.

I have got to make that kid understand that her unnie isn’t just goofing off and living the A-list life in Korea.

And maybe beat some sense into her teenaged .

Hello, everyone! Sorry it's kind of been a while. I just had my finals this week and since I'm graduating, I had and still have a lot of things to settle this month.

I might have bombed my Physics and Filipino (I swear the language hates me) test but I'm in such a great mood because I got an Above Average rank in my college entrance exams for my dream course and I no longer have anything to worry about. :D So yeah, I'm in good spirits.

Special thanks to Razang for upvoting :)

See ya!