‘You are invited to Emelia’s room for brunch, come at 11 or you’ll starve’ That’s the note I have received on my hotel room door on Saturday. I have been awake for a while before hearing someone outside my room and when going to check on it I see the note. I keep my eyes on the time while waiting for 11:00 to arrive, and while waiting I sit by my laptop as I have been doing all morning, being lazy when writing and going through my schedule and whatnot. I decide to give Honggi a call again when I wait to go eat brunch or what it is Emelia has planned. I am dressed and ready for today’s work so I lie down in bed when calling him, not expecting him to answer since he hasn’t done it for the past week. With a sigh I stare at my phone, the loudspeaker letting the signal go through. “Idiot,” I mutter to the phone when reaching his voicemail. I wait for the female voice saying I can’t reach the person I am trying to contact but I can leave a message after the tone. I say it angrily to show how upset I am at him; “Lee Honggi is an idiot.” I don’t have Honggi to talk to, I don’t talk to Jonghyun either, and then there isn’t really anyone outside my crew who I contact on the phone to randomly talk from day to day. I have really done badly this year when it comes to personal issues. Waiting the last minutes I check Instagram too, wondering if I should upload a picture or not while seeing what others have uploaded since last time I checked. Emelia has uploaded a picture though, and I smile before I decide to leave my room to go see what this brunch is all about. Emelia had uploaded a picture with Kyungho, saying they have prepared brunch for 5 Pieces. That is indeed a spoiler, so I am not surprised at all when I walk inside Emelia’s room to see a table filled with food. “You ordered food, is that what you have prepared?” I laugh when seeing it is all from the hotel restaurant. “We did more than just ordering it,” Kyungho excitedly says and starts showing off how they have sorted out the plates and how considerate they have been of us by choosing food we like and so on. It was probably fun to set it up, but I wouldn’t say they did much more than order the food and put it on the table – I don’t say it out loud though after Kyungho showing off what they have done. Instead I smile when the other ladies come and say the same thing. “What’s there to brag about? We could’ve eaten this in the restaurant,” Julia comments when grabbing a toast. “Eat in the restaurant then,” Emelia mumbles and grabs the toast from Julia’s hand. “Hey…” Emelia gives Julia a glare and bites on the bread. “Hey, we fixed brunch for you. Eat and be happy,” Emelia says and then points at the rest of us. We sit down and eat without another comment on that subject. For hours we are at the recording studio. We play games with Kyungho between recording our parts, we practice Japanese and we go through things from previous meetings about our Japanese promotions this summer and we play around a bit while working too. And in the evening, I finally receive a text from him. Not a phone call, but a text message from Honggi, after more than a week of ignoring me and though I want to call him up and give him a big scolding for ignoring me all this time, I act like a child and ignore his text message. Mostly because he writes that he has been busy and that he isn’t upset and ends with “we should go out for a drink soon”. Idiot. Our stay in Japan ends on Sunday after wrapping up the recording at noon and we take the flight back to Korea. Kyungho is with us at the airport, we fool around constantly, having a lot of fun being children together and running away from managers who tell us to calm down. It’s not just me and Kyungho either, it is 5 Pieces acting silly at the airport after spending a few days recording. We have some energy to get rid of. I went to the gym only once these four days in Japan, so I think of going when coming back to Korea. But coming home in the afternoon on Sunday, I am met by my bedroom. It feels messy to be in my room. I don’t know what it is. It looks the same as always; I have made my bed, I got my clothes in my wardrobe, my desk is quite messy with notebooks and papers, I got three different bags just lying around on the floor and … With a frown I look under my bed, knowing a lot of things have ended up under there thanks to my little kitten. Socks, some clothes, there are even papers under there. She brings a lot of things to under my bed. I turn on some music on my laptop and find myself starting to clean up in my room. I clean the desk and under the bed, I sort out my three bags on the floor and hang them up before I bring out the vacuum cleaner. I don’t know what has come over me, maybe I need to sort things out in my life and feel less messy, and by that I clean up in my room. If my room feels clean and sorted, I will probably not have my head feel so messy. I am in a good mood, that’s for sure, but I need to sort things out. Maria is out meeting friends and Emelia is resting in her room, not bothering me as she is in her own world and I am in mine, our music clashes though as she plays her music and I play mine. From vacuuming I get a bucket and a mop to sweep my floor, which deeply seems to annoy Tiger once I start mopping as she does not dare to leave my bed. She is meowing cutely, complaining that she can’t run away so I end up carrying her out of my room to then continue cleaning in my room. Half past twelve, I walk inside Emelia’s room after spending hours and hours in my own. She is lying in bed with her laptop, playing games online it seems like and she is even wearing a headset to chat online. I sit down next to her and look at her screen, seeing she is playing against FT Island’s Minhwan and some other friends. “What’s up?” Emelia asks me when turning off the chat (or at least the sound to not have her friends listen to us). “What are you doing tomorrow?” I wonder. “I’m going horseback riding tomorrow,” Emelia simply says while her fingers are playing the online game, “Since I couldn’t go today.” “Oh…” I nod, getting into deep thoughts as she will be away pretty much all day then. “Do you know what Julia is doing tomorrow?” “I got no idea…” Emelia mumbles, very focused on her game, “Why are you asking?” I shrug my shoulder. “Wanted to go … buy some things for my room,” I mention, glancing at her. Emelia shows no reaction. “I want to buy a new desk. I have even looked it up so I know what I want.” Getting ideas while cleaning up in my room is what has happened; I have tried to refurnish, to place things better and that has turned out with me wanting a smaller desk that can fit perfectly in my room. Tomorrow is our day off; it is only Emelia and Julia who have a driving license so if I want to go buy something I should ask them for a ride. Since it’s late, I write to Julia on the chat to ask what plans she has for tomorrow and that I want to go shop a new desk at Ikea. Then I wait. Julia: ‘I’m going to the gym with Carolina tomorrow, but if we know her right it won’t happen until evening so I’m free before that. Should we be there when they open?’ Hannah: ‘Call! Sounds great! When do we leave then?’ Julia: ‘Be ready at 9:40’ Hannah: ‘YAY, YAY! Thank you, Julia, I’ll see you tomorrow!’ After that I wash up and go to sleep, and the only thing in my mind is my room. It takes time to fall asleep because I keep thinking of how I can redecorate my room, what more to do than just fix my desk corner. Before deciding on something though, I fall asleep, so my mind is messy in the morning with all unfinished ideas I got before sleeping. I get out of bed an hour before I will meet Julia, giving me more than enough time to get ready and I write down exactly what desk I want so I know what I am going to buy. The weather is great today, a summer day it feels like. Not a single cloud in the sky, the sun is warm, and I feel that Julia and I match each other with similar sunglasses and we both wear black canvas sneakers: though her boyfriend jeans and t-shirt looks completely different from my black outfit. It is absolutely the wrong outfit to wear today; it’s hot wearing black. “What’s wrong with the desk you have now?” Julia asks me when we are in the car heading to Ikea. “It’s quite big,” I point out. “And I want to make my room look different. I was cleaning up for hours yesterday, and then I decided I can get a smaller desk and use the space for something else.” “Ah,” Julia nods, looking like she agrees with my thinking. “What will you do with the old desk then?” I smile at her. “Emelia said I can put it in the hall for now, and we’ll ask Appa what to do with it if no one wants it.” “I can ask mom if she wants it. She is a lot into recycling, so she might find the desk useful for something,” Julia tells me. “We’re going through fan gifts to see what we can put up on the walls too. I got this small gift card from a fan, or a few of them, and I have tied them to a string to let it hang down by the wall in my room; it looks really cool, and it’s like an inspirational decoration as I have a fan-taken picture of myself from our BLACK & WHITE tour hanging next to it. It’s really cool.” “Don’t forget to show me that later,” I remind her. I want to see that. “I got a picture of it actually,” Julia says and picks up her phone, and I feel myself grimace when she glances from phone to road, road to phone. “Eyes on the road please…” I mumble and hold out my hand to take her phone when she has taken out her pictures. “It’s somewhere there,” she tells me and points around at the pictures for me to search. “One of the new pictures.” I find it quickly, seeing these cute gift cards folded like a tiny book cover, several of them hanging in a string down the wall. She has taken pictures from different angles, to show how it looks, and I see the fan-taken picture she has hanging on the wall next to the gift cards. The picture is brilliant. It is a close-up on Julia at the end of one concert when she was sweaty and you can clearly see how passionately she is singing. “Is there any idol in this country that spends as much time as us to decorate our rooms like this?” Julia chuckles. I know a lot of our friends in this industry have barely anything in their room other than a bed and wardrobe, while our rooms are each different with both colours and personalities. Then I remember Jonghyun’s room, and I smile knowing there are some friends who spend a lot of time spreading their personalities in their bedrooms. “Ah, by the way, did you see the new article about Carolina this morning?” Julia laughs lightly. Shaking my head, I say I haven’t seen it. “There were pictures of us coming back from Japan yesterday, and fans are apparently noticing Carolina’s weight loss.” “Hm…” I mumble. I know Carolina has been working out lately, or not really working out but she has been really into what she is eating (I have noticed it these past weeks only when working together) yet I do not know what our fans mean as I think she looks the same as always. She got into a better shape last year for our [Girls Power] promotions, and proudly showed off when she lost a little weight for her solo promotions, but then she was eating well in the winter and I don’t really know what else she has been doing. “Carolina will love that when she reads the article,” Julia points out. “That they are taking notice of it, I mean. She has lost weight, she talked about it the other day but it’s not really that much.” “Is she working out?” I bluntly wonder. “Well… working out for you and me is at the gym or going out on a run or swimming or … you know, when sweating; for Carolina, she has taken that exercise bike to her room and she is watching an episode of some show while cycling. She doesn’t even work up a sweat. I wouldn’t call it working out, but she says it so … whatever.” “So she has lost weight by focusing on what she is eating instead?” I ask her. “I guess,” Julia answer with a shrug. “She still eats ramen though,” I point out. Julia suddenly laughs. “Yeah, she does. Unbelievable, right? She lives on ramen and healthy snacks. No wonder her shape is the same. I don’t even know where she has lost weight, and I can’t believe our fans saw it?” “I think it is from her face,” I point out. “Since our fans saw it.” “Or legs,” Julia comments. We are slow at Ikea. Julia wants to look at everything and all I think of is getting the desk that I’m not looking at anything else, but we are constantly talking. We talk about so many things, many times forgetting we are in public because suddenly Julia giggles and our language shifts to Swedish. As we walk around and talk about this and that, I am reminded of last year when Julia and my manager somehow ended up together. It comes like a reminder in my head and I grimace at Julia, knowing I have slightly brought it up with Manager Lee when I have been upset with him but I have not really talked about it with Julia. “What do you think of Ji Young Oppa?” The blunt question is given a gaping expression in response and I lean back, apologizing and I have to look away from her. Julia look so surprised and then, she just smiles. “You haven’t asked me that once before,” she laughs, looking at some drawers. “All of the other ladies have asked me in private, though it was like half a year ago.” I pout at how lightly she tells me this. “I didn’t dare to ask…” “It’s alright,” Julia smiles at me, nudging my arm. “I didn’t dare talking to you about it either. But I like him, he is fun, alright? But … it’s just for fun. It’s not like we are into each other or something, it’s … Maria said I should’ve asked you first, that it was bad I had with Ji Young without getting your approval first.” “It wasn’t rude,” I shake my head. I don’t know what it was; I have just felt it was wrong between an idol and manager to have . Am I the only one thinking that? “It wasn’t very thoughtful either,” she points ou