From departing at 10:20 in the morning, a 13 hour flight later we arrived the same day at 15:55 in Sweden’s capital. Though Kyungho was excited to be in Sweden for the first time we went straight to work. I got work, and he stayed in the shadows with our stylists, but I think he was quite excited still because Sweden is so different from any place he has ever been at before and for me, well, Sweden is still the place I feel the most home even if I don’t want to admit it. I jumped straight in to work with my ladies, embracing them and hearing their stories about the past few days apart and they are in glory about our album’s success by being mentioned all around the world (it is not forgotten or out of people’s interest) and they have also done some brief promotion with interviews and radio appearances. When I came we did the same thing; more radio programs broadcasted all over Sweden as well as some interviews, working from dinner to after midnight to squeeze in as much work as possible before we can go to the hotel to a cosy bed. Tonight we have a hangout live event too, where we sit down for a live interview to talk about our album and 5 Pieces, which we did at 21:59 to be exact. It is hilarious doing the live hangout interview for the album where we sit down next to each other in a sofa and talk to the interviewer with cameras airing it live for our fans to see across the globe. The whole thing is in English but occasionally we will use words in another language and between the five of us we are laughing and translating for each other. One time when Maria says a word in Korean, all of us laugh and translate and I see Emelia next to me nodding to Manager Lim who is always worried about how we are doing when he doesn’t understand the language. We do well, we always do, but he still worries as he doesn’t know how this country and place will react to 5 Pieces being 5 Pieces. I am wearing a pair of washed and distressed jeans shorts in light blue to a plaid shirt that is messily tugged in at the front, and over-the-knees socks in black to ankle boots. I wasn’t supposed to wear this beside from the shirt but at the quick photo shoot we had before this I wore the socks and I asked if I could buy them (I got them for free) and my stylist gave me a pair of shorts to change my look a bit, and I’m alright with it as I get to wear a blanket over my legs since the room is cold. That’s my excuse anyway; the room is cold, that’s why I’m hiding the little skin my clothes are showing, but I am also tired so that makes me cold. I am pretty certain fans comment on it during the forty minutes live hangout, but I don’t sit prettily with one leg over the other like my members, instead I sit with my knees leaning towards the other and feet quite afar and while the other ladies are talking I glance at Emelia’s foot next to my knee. The interview is long and half of the time I am not really listening because it is just on and on with strangeness of words being spoken. They talk about our fashion, our music video, our music, our teamwork and so on. I say “they” because I am not speaking much at all. “What if you are given a set of clothes and you notice you like another member’s outfit more? Have you ever fought over that?” “Of course,” Maria strongly says and I find myself nodding while hearing all of us agreeing. I try to say something with the others before Maria puts her hand on Carolina’s mouth to make her quiet. Emelia takes the word though, taking the chance when Maria tells Carolina to get quiet; “We all know each other’s style when it comes to clothing so usually when given an outfit we can tell quite easily who would fit it the best-” “But in the past we fought over certain pieces of an outfit all the time, if we liked a jacket another one was wearing or an accessory or pants or anything,” Maria interrupts, finding it her subject to talk about and Carolina is leaning towards me to get away from Maria’s hand. Maria removes her hand to look at us. “But it’s true, we know each other’s styles so well now that … we can see an outfit and know who could wear it the best, right?” She is asking us and I nod with my members. “So you know what the other members like to wear?” we are asked. “Yeah…” “Pretty much” “It’s also about body-type,” Maria adds, “Because we are five very different girls, both in what we like to wear and how our bodies look like so we know what looks best on ourselves and each other to create this … sense of fashion, I think, as a group and as a team.” “Would you say you don’t fight over clothes anymore? Because let’s set this straight; you are young women in the fashion industry, there must be times you like the same thing, right?” I know by the look on Maria that she doesn’t the way he mentions “let’s set this straight; you are young women” as if women focus more on clothes and fight more. But we still answer the question, a bit in mouth on each other to say we do argue but we don’t really fight and I hear Julia laugh on my right side so I look over, smiling widely when meeting her eyes. Emelia sits between us and Maria is laughing at Carolina sounding funny next to her. We continue to talk for a bit before the subject becomes drinking and I know I join in on our loud voices. “Who is the worst drunk?” “The leader is-” “Don’t say I am the worst!” “She is absolutely-” “I think it’s Ca-” “Absolutely what, what are you going to say?” We are answering different things. I am about to say Carolina while Emelia is arguing with Maria whose voice is heard the most and as soon as I start pointing at Carolina, our mascot grabs my hand in hers and laughs awkwardly and Julia is having a silent conversation with someone behind the camera. “We’re all weird when we’re drunk,” Emelia finishes off, and I laugh loudly, pulling my hand out of Carolina’s. “But she’s the worst.” Her arm is held out in front of me but it isn’t Carolina she is pointing at. “Don’t start!” Maria bursts out and gapes at the interviewer. “I am not the worst. I’m the best drunk, ladies!” “You’re hilarious, not the best,” I giggle. “Watch it, baby.” Maria warns with a finger at me. I grab Carolina’s arm to hide and laugh from the leader. “Who does Julia think is the worst drunk?” We get quiet and the attention is put on the one sitting the furthest away from the interviewer, and she really takes her time to think it through. I turn to Carolina with a silent laugh at the seconds passing. Maria shakes a finger saying she is not the one. “I don’t know who is the worst drunk,” Julia grimaces and the interviewer says it is a boring answer and she is fast to say; “No, no, it’s not that but we all are quite annoying when we are drunk so it is a difficult question to answer-” “Julia can’t remember the times we have been drunk,” Carolina jokes and for the first time Maria gives her a so-called ‘bro-fist’. “Nice one,” she says. Maria is getting swag for this interview. “But no,” Emelia disagrees. “What does Emelia say?” the interviewer asks and out of nowhere I am moving my body as if music starts playing, though no music is there. Maybe I do it to not fall asleep. “Maria is-” “I am not~” Maria sings out beautifully but Emelia suddenly stands up and Julia falls to the side by that, Carolina and I lean back laughing and I even lift up my feet to not have Emelia step on me. “Let me finish talking before you do that,” Emelia warns Maria, picking up a shoe that it takes a few seconds for me to realise is Maria’s. She has taken off her high heels, typical, and typical Emelia to be threatening her with it. “Give me back my shoe,” Maria says and holds out her hand, about to take it but Emelia backs away and I start laughing even more as Maria gets up on her feet and Emelia runs to Julia’s side, getting behind the sofa when Maria picks up her other shoe to almost throw it at her to get the first one back. Carolina is screaming, Julia is laughing, and I hide under the blanket laughing. “Sit down!” Carolina whines at them, pointing at the seat next to me, following the ladies running back and forth around us. “We’re live, ladies!” I lean back behind the blanket with a laugh at Carolina’s worry about the live hangout and the interviewer is sitting frozen, asking “what is happening?” over and over again. Emelia leaves the shoe on the floor and takes her seat, dodging Maria’s fist from hitting her arm but Maria kicks her leg instead before a bit upset putting her shoes on the side and sits down. The interviewer laughs awkwardly. “What just happened?” Maria looks angry but Emelia says; “Maria has a very lively personality, and when she has been drinking it gets even worse.” “Isn’t having a lively personality a good thing though?” the interviewer is so confused and when Emelia says it could be, the interviewer points a bit at Maria, who also looks a bit confused. “She is overly lively when she is drunk, which is good socially but it is freaking annoying,” Emelia points out. I hide behind my blanket when Maria stands up again, and Carolina cries out for her to sit down but Maria leans down to give Emelia a hug. The interviewer is the most confused one though. “Do you love each other now?” Julia jokes. “I didn’t expect that,” Maria says and stands up – her back towards the cameras – and she holds out her hand for a cool handshake with Emelia. “That’s pretty cool, man.” “That’s pretty cool, woman,” I repeat with some fingers in the air and I reach my tongue out when Maria looks at me. “I’m the best drunk, man,” she tells me and I give her a high five. Maria turns around, hands in the air. “I’m the best drunk, yo.” “The worst drunk,” Emelia corrects. “I think it’s the best drunk,” Maria corrects her and takes her seat with a laugh. “I’m the best one.” “You girls are truly crazy, I got no idea of what just happened but I have to ask the other members who they think the worst drunk is,” the interviewer says and I point at Maria, which all the ladies do. Even Maria points at herself. “The worst drunk for these four means the best, so I am the best one,” Maria explains when seeing the confusion in the interviewer’s face. “Not the best!” Julia laughs loudly in her corner. Maria turns around at us. “If I’m not the best, then who is?” she asks. I think she is sitting on her knee based on the height she suddenly got. Carolina suddenly puts her hand up in the air and all of us burst out laughing so hard. I think we’re about to tilt the sofa backwards, causing us to scream and laugh even more that the interviewer has to move on to make us stop. Even when the interview continues, I push Carolina’s arm and I lean towards Emelia who wraps her arm around me to laugh too. After that interview we do two more (not live) before heading out to go on the next thing on our schedule, and the street is crowded. We must be tired because we are crazy, and when I mean crazy I mean Emelia jumps up on my back and Carolina is singing our new song to the screaming fans. Julia hits Emelia’s (I think) when she is on my back and I squat down when loosing strength in my legs and I start laughing even more when the fans scream out in worry I will get hurt. “They are weird,” Maria says while giving her autograph to some fans, “Not someone I know at all. No.” I wave my hand behind Maria when I am just laughing a little, and when hearing our fans want my autograph too I start dancing to Carolina’s singing for [Pieces’ Invasion]. Maria turns around, the only one of us acting normal as Emelia and Julia are being weird too, but when Maria sees me she starts dancing too (wildly) and our fans starts screaming. Our managers are not butting in other than making sure the guards are keeping the fans on a distance so we can act crazy. It’s for fun, because these people are following us everywhere during the day so we just let loose a bit for them. When we stop to dance and be crazy we sing a bit of our new song for them, briefly in acapella style before waving and heading off to the next schedule. It’s over midnight when we get back to the hotel after our schedule has ended. Kyungho has gone to sleep already, he fell asleep hours ago as the excitement couldn’t overcome the tiredness from the flight. But for me, I wrap myself into my quilt in the bed I share with Julia and we start talking instead of sleeping. She is the first one I tell about what happened with Honggi, and I make sure she will keep quiet about it if we have managers, cameras or Kyungho around. “You didn’t do it because of Jonghyun?” Julia asks. She seems tired but she has listened to me the same way I have listened to her. I nod. “I couldn’t,” I answer. “Is that about everyone or just … because it was Honggi?” she looks confused. My face-expression is like hers. “I… don’t know? It was strange just lying in bed with Honggi, to … touch him and have him touch me, you know, even if it felt nice it was really strange.” I feel almost disgusted now when thinking of what we did. Honggi, probably the oldest friend I have in Korea, the one I used to run off with to eat pizza whenever we wanted to disobey our diets… I actually got in bed with him, even if we didn’t go all the way it is the strangest thing I have ever done. Julia watches her nails as she lies more comfortably in bed. “If I tell Maria, she will tell me it was not meant to be. Should I try with someone else? A … stranger?” “Are you trying to have with anyone just to forget him?” Julia looks confused at my reasoning. “Because choosing the first alright guy is probably not the best idea. I like it, I want to do it, but for you? Hannah, I’m not so sure what the others will think of that.” “What does that mean, ‘what the others will think’?” “Our ladies,” Julia answer, her lips moving instead of shrugging her shoulders. “You honestly think they will let you grab on to anyone you see and have with that guy, just so you can try forget about Jonghyun?” “What does it matter what they think? It’s my body, is it not?” “Is it not your head that’s the problem?” she asks me, still calm though noticing I am getting irritated at her words. “You want to forget about him-” “Maybe I just want to have then?” I ask, opening up my arms to the suggestion. “Maybe it’s not about Jonghyun at all. Maybe I just want to have with someone else?” Though the words are spoken through my own lips the words feels as foreign as Greek in my ears, and I don’t need much seconds to know Julia has the same thoughts. She does not believe a word I just said, but she nods and says “good for you” before saying we can talk more tomorrow. She turns around in the bed, her back facing me, and I sigh as I pout at the notebook I have been sitting with in my lap. I haven’t written a thing today. I wish I did. But I don’t. Instead I put the notebook away and lie down, switching off the lamp on my bedside and I stare up at the ceiling. Honggi never called back, neither did he text me. I wrote to him at the airport that I am heading to Sweden and will be back in two weeks. Maybe he doesn’t care, or maybe I did wrong by leaving him alone that night? Sleeping that night is horrible. Each time I open my eyes I glance over at Julia sleeping deeply and before I want it is morning and I don’t even know when I wake up because I am just staring at Julia who in the morning is facing me. Her short hair is messy, her skin is fresh and she looks ten years younger than when she wears makeup. Our tomboy. She likes being called that, mostly because it suits her but also because she has stolen it from Emelia who used to be our group’s tomboy; Julia thinks she fits the role better because her short hair and features is more suited to be a beautiful tomboy than Emelia’s charismatic “try”. I don’t speak when getting up. I don’t wake Julia, she has her own alarm to wake her up when it is time and when that alarm sets off I have left her a note saying I am in the other hotel room getting hair and makeup done. The morning is slow as one by one we wake up and gather in the different hotel rooms, eating breakfast and transforming from sleepy girls to celebrities. We got a TV appearance in the morning and then we will leave the capital to go to our hometown to spend the rest of the day resting (and filming Good Sister). “They are outside again,” Carolina comments when sneaking a peek outside the window, then she pulls in the curtain to hide it. “Have they been there all night?” “No,” Emelia answers. I got no idea how she would know. “They started to come early though.” “How would you know that?” Mi Young giggles, styling Julia. I am already dressed and ready; I keep going back and forth between the rooms in lack of people in the other room where we’re supposed to eat breakfast. So I am sitting with a bowl of cereal in the armchair, listening to the conversations and not being in a hurry at all. Kyungho is half asleep when we leave the hotel. We got an appearance on a Swedish morning show, the five of us lad