The mall has been loud and filled with screams since before our arrival, the three floors are crowded and people are jumping, holding up their cell phones and expensive cameras. They are excited and loud, making it hard to hear the Christmas music playing during 5 Pieces’ fan-signing while the five of us are sitting behind the table and smiling at each person getting up in front of us to get a signed copy of the single. Our Christmas single [The Falling Snow] has come out today, the music video will come out in a few days but it seems that our fans have waited patiently for the single – especially since it is a chance to meet 5 Pieces. “HANNAH!” The loud roar from the crowd surprises me when waiting for the next fan to be passed on by Carolina on my left side. I must’ve opened my eyes widely because when looking out at the crowd in front of us there is countless off people screaming over my reaction. They surprised me with the sudden outburst of my name but I flash them a cute smile and give them the v-sign, after all they said my name to get my attention. Carolina is taking forever to sign and talk to the fans, holding up the line and even if Manager Lim is standing behind her and reminding her to keep the flow going, she can’t seem to realise that she is stopping the line. I lean my head lightly on her shoulder, smiling at the female fan who blushes cutely at me. Our fans are so obvious at fan-signings, they are really cute and they blurt out things at times.  It’s fun and touching to know we have the ability to do that to people; or our status in 5 Pieces has that ability. “My turn?” I ask Carolina. After six years doing this I know what I’m doing. I’m not asking a question that can make it seem I want to get this over with, I’m not rude to either Carolina or the fan or the ones waiting in line; what I do is that I show that I want to have time with the fan too, making this girl in front of us blush even more as she probably feel wanted by both having Carolina talk to her for long and me asking for the same thing. I don’t do it to be mean, I do it for several reasons but that’s not one of them – and it is easy to tell by the way I ask. After all, we are professionals. Carolina hands the single to the fan and shakes her hand to wrap it up and I happily sits straight to welcome the fan to stand in front of me. She is a cute girl in either her late teens or early twenties. “I’m sorry for making you wait,” the fan apologizes and hands me the CD with both her hands. “Don’t be,” I smile widely at her before looking down at the CD to flip my own page open. “I heard you want to be a kindergarten teacher?” “Ah, you heard that?” the girl shyly leans down a bit to hear me with the crowd behind her being loud. “Mm, it is a dream of mine, so I am studying very hard now. Could you write something that can keep me going at hard times?” I start to write below my autograph, my left hand focused on the writing. “I’m sure you will be a great teacher,” I tell her, “After all, someone who is studying hard to achieve her dream, you must become a really good teacher for that.” I give her a large smile when handing back the CD and I shake her hand. Her hand is firm and warm, and she is nodding after my words. “I will do my best. Thank you.” During fan-signings it often happens that fans want a word of encouragement so they can do well at a test or accomplish something, and often I really have to think about what they tell me so I won’t give the wrong response. I am still smiling when looking at the next fan stepping up in front of me, another girl who steps sideway in front of me and she is hugging on to the CD with a smile stuck in her face. “Hello,” I greet her kindly. She is pretty. She doesn’t response but instead quickly puts down the CD in front of me, my page held up and I start writing my autograph while asking what her name is. Next to my picture on the side it is a post-it note, with big letters I read it out loud ‘Phuong’. Phuong… “Are you … Vietnamese?” I ask her, looking up at the pretty girl and I add a bit simply; “Vietnam?” The girl drops her jaw and nods, in Vietnamese or maybe a try to speak English she says something but I have no idea what because I don’t understand Vietnamese but I laugh as I got it right – I’m actually surprised myself. She laughs too as she understands I don’t know what she’s saying so she takes out a piece of paper for me, where she in English has written shortly that she is a big fan and had to ask her brother to come to Korea with her, and that she was at our concert the past weekend. “Thank you,” I tell her in English, not knowing any Vietnamese words. A classmate of mine from high school was from Vietnam and I often heard her speak, but I never learned any words and even now when we have stops in Vietnam now and then, I seem to forget everything once I set my foot on the plane. But to say ‘thank you’ in English works every time and the girl is shining up happily. “Surprise,” she says in English and I give her a questioning look. She does a few hand gestures. “Vietnam, you surprise me.” “Aaah,” I laugh, “I surprised you? Thuang is a pretty Vietnamese name.” She blushes anew, I think she know what I said. I thank her again and shake her hand before giving back the signed CD to keep the flow in the line going. It is the second fan-signing this afternoon, both have been long due to the surprisingly big amount of fans showing up but it has been so much fun. To start off the day at the gym was the best decision and I am in a great mood smiling and chatting with the fans, joking with them and I even remember some of them. I get extra happy when I recognize a fan, mostly because my memory isn’t the best and also because I can just see how happy the fan gets to be recognized. A few fans ask me though if I recognize them and when I don’t they pretend to get upset but then explains a fan meeting or something and they had given me this kind of gift and I had said this kind of thing to them; it’s difficult to remember every single fan, but with a smile they seem to forgive me. Our fans are adorable; I hope they can see that in the way I can’t stop smiling at them during the day. The two fan-signings go past smoothly and loudly, and at the end of the day we are five ladies laughing at how unique and adorable each one of our fans are. One fan had even apologized to each lady until he reached Julia at the end of the table and confessed his love for her. “Should we eat dinner first?” Manager Lim asks, sitting behind the passenger seat that he had given Emelia. “Ramen!” Carolina bursts out. “No, meat!” Maria corrects with a hand up against the van’s ceiling. “I want chicken,” I suggest from the back. Carolina and Julia are sitting next to me, Maria is sitting in front of me and Manager Kim is driving. Manager Kim is our female manager, a nice woman who melts in with us very well and she is a careful driver. “Julia and Emelia, what do you want to eat?” Manager Lim calmly asks. They are used to us wanting different things, but the thought of chicken seems really delicious. “Meat sounds good to me,” Julia comments. “Mom likes the meat dishes.” “Then meat it is!” Maria cheers, not commenting on that Julia actually took her side for once. “But she likes ramen too,” Carolina mutters. “You eat ramen almost every day,” Emelia comments from the front. “I’m in on meat.” I stay quiet, knowing the restaurants serving meat have dishes including either chicken or ramen as well. I wonder if the reason to our manager’s silence is because he thinks the same, but the talk about food is far from done. “What’s popular to eat in Hong Kong?” Maria wonders, putting up her feet on the driver’s seat. Her boots from the fan-signing has been taken off to enjoy the ride; Maria always does that. “They have healthy tea that I like,” Julia is the first one to answer. “I’m getting some ingredients so I can make it for mom.” I lean my head back and look out the window as Emelia starts saying all the things she remembers from our previous times in Hong Kong. Next week it is the Mnet Asian Music Awards which is being held in Hong Kong once again and 5 Pieces will perform. We have been nominated for a lot of the awards on the show but I doubt it will be as it has been previously; you can win big one year, after that it doesn’t go as well. Last year EXO got all the big awards, and according to rumours they will get it this year as well because no one of the really big artists are there other than G-Dragon and Taeyang from Big Bang and they haven’t done any group activities this year. I hope it will be fun. My team is actually arriving there earlier, I’m not sure if we will film a commercial or do a photo shoot but I know the ladies are planning on having some fun that day – we are also meeting Iggy Azalea who will be performing at the MAMA this year, who we met at our trip to Las Vegas back in August as well. We don’t really know her but she follows us on Instagram and we follow her. 5 Pieces were in Hong Kong just at the beginning of this month for our GIRLS POWER tour, I hear how Maria laughs when Manager Kim says Maria even had her sister there. Maria seemed to have forgotten it and she laughs so loud when she has been reminded of it. I remember those days in Hong Kong, it was the same weekend we celebrated six years since debut and one of Maria’s sisters had come with her to spend the weekend enjoying our concert and on Maria’s day off afterwards they went around shopping in the city while the rest of us went back to Korea. We stop by a restaurant to get food before heading home, all of us gathering in the second house to eat together. Julia’s mother is still new to the way we work, especially to experience it this up close rather than hearing about it in Sweden. It has been a half-day of work but we keep talking and laughing and telling her of our fans while eating a late dinner. I am eating spicy stirred-fried chicken; the less spicy kind with juicy chicken, tasty noodles, cabbage and more. I really like it, it’s delicious, and like always when sitting all of us together I am determined to not let anyone taste my food. Carolina has a bad habit of doing that; on purpose choosing a different dish even if she want the same as someone else, just to put her chopsticks in someone else’s bowl while eating. After all these years and she still doesn’t learn: two times she tries to taste from my food but I am fast to stop her. I’m a bit sensitive when it comes to sharing things, especially things you put in your mouth. She should know that. When dinner is almost over it rings on the doorbell and we all look at each other with the same clueless expression. Carolina and Emelia runs up from their seat and the rest of us laugh hearing Carolina complain that this isn’t Emelia’s house to open the door for. They run to open the front port to race of who gets to open it for the guest after seeing who it is and with the house’s door open you can hear the loud voices as they come back. “Hi!” our stylist Mi Young lowers her back as soon as she is led inside the kitchen. “Am I interrupting your dinner?” “No, no, we’re about to finish,” Carolina is fast to answer, guiding her to take a seat. “Do you want something to eat?” “Maybe some tea?” Julia suggests, already leaving her chair as she seems to know the answer. The pretty An Mi Young is a young Korean woman with her long brown hair shaped with bangs around her face, her lips are shaped like an M, her nose was bullied when she was in school for being too big but she doesn’t seem bothered by it, she is wearing a pair of large glasses in brown. This is 5 Pieces’ hair stylist and friend, Mi Young gets to sit down with a smile and eat with us what’s left on the table. “Has your schedule ended now?” Julia’s mother asks in Swedish while the table is filled with conversations. “We’re going to the saloon,” Julia answers and I find myself smiling at the thought of the saloon. “I’m not going,” I tell them, in Swedish for Julia’s mother and the smile grows in my face as Emelia laughs. “Mi Young is here to help me.” Tomorrow we are filming the music video for our next international single, and for days we have spent our late evenings deciding on what to do. it annoyed me when we have gone to the hair saloon before and the stylists there have told me to not dye my hair in dark colours because it won’t fit me, nothing red or dark brown, definitely not black. As a natural blonde, I understand it can be a big difference, but I really want to dye my hair. The ladies are doing it too – Carolina is just refreshing her beautiful bright red colour but Emelia is changing her colour, Julia is talking about a different style on her already short hair and Maria is going from the platinum blonde to a more ash blonde colour. “You said my name?” Mi Young whispers to me, a hand