“It helped a lot, yeah, thank you,” Maria is smiling on the phone, motioning for me with her hand that he keeps talking and talking. I smile with the spoon of ice-cream in my mouth and glance over at the man behind the counter. “He keeps looking this way,” I comment. “He has never seen someone as beautiful as me before,” Yong Hyun answers and I giggle. Yong Hyun smiles too, putting a spoonful of ice-cream in his mouth. “Now this, this is delicious.” We are out in a dessert shop in Tokyo during lunch break, both to eat ice-cream and also that we have gone shoe shopping. It is Maria, Yong Hyun, me, female dancer Yamawaki Orino and the band’s female bass player, Shinozaki Kimiko. Kimiko is nicknamed Ino, because she is a big fan of Naruto the anime and because she has dyed her long hair blonde. Orino is called WakaWaka, and the reason behind that nickname is unknown to me but I know she has had it for years so it’s no question it is used at times. “Are we going to the store across the street after this?” Kimiko wonders. She is done eating already, while Maria is still on the phone with Dong Bang Shin Ki’s Yunho. “Yeah,” Yong Hyun answers in Japanese before he looks at me and says in Korean; “You need new shoes, right?” “I need summer shoes,” I answer in Japanese. That’s the whole reason I came with them; to buy a pair of summer shoes. Maria has bought two pair of shoes already while I haven’t found a pair yet. “If you’re done we can go now,” Kimiko suggests to me, “I’m done and restless.” I smile at her. “You are like me then,” I comment; I am also done eating ice-cream and becoming restless. “We’ll catch up,” Yong Hyun says and waves at us when Kimiko and I get up from our seats. Maria looks confused with phone by her ear, looking at us as if we will leave her alone but I just wave at her as she is on the phone and go with Kimiko across the street to look on shoes. The store is pretty and filled with different shoes. There are two rooms where one is filled with more ordinary shoes (your kind of shoes found anywhere) and then the other room with unique shoes of Japanese style. Kimiko and I wander around the store by ourselves, stepping next to the other a few times to talk or to ask opinion of a pair of shoes. Standing alone watching simple shoes for my summer decision I wonder when the others are coming. “So…” The voice makes me laugh and I turn around to see Yong Hyun two meters away, looking at a pair of pointy shoes as if he has been there the whole time. “So, what, Oppa?” I wonder, turning to face him while looking around at the shoes. “Emelia is on a date, ha?” My smile is hurting my cheeks as I know why we are taking so long shopping shoes and even having time to eat ice-cream when it is only six days left for the open concert in Osaka. Emelia and Ryo are on a date, their first one and Emelia has acted very casual about it in front of others as if it is no big deal but among us ladies she has grabbed our hands and asked simple questions. In the end we got her to wear shorts and a pretty top, though it was mostly Maria’s and Julia’s advices she seemed to like. Somehow, I do not have much advice to give when it comes to dating, I was more like “if I tell you to do something, do the opposite and it will work”, kind of. “How do you think it’s going?” he asks me. “How would I know?” I laugh. “Well… I’m a bit worried though.” “Why?” I look at Yong Hyun with a grimace. “Emelia is a lot like the guys. To see her on a date … I imagine them talk cars and comparing feet or something.” Yong Hyun does seem a bit worried. “That sound like Emelia,” I admit, “If that is what they have in common, then that’s what they should talk about, right?” Yong Hyun looks at me with a smile and I smile back at him. I look forward to when we are back in the practice-room; I will ask her of all details from the date then. “Talking about Emelia creating a love-life…” Yong Hyun starts to say and raises his eyebrows at me. “How are you and Mr. Hannah doing?” I look around us to see where the others are. The three of them are admiring some shoes with the one working here in the other room and I sigh looking down at a random shoe I have in my hand. “I don’t know.” “You don’t know because you haven’t talked to him,” Yong Hyun nods and I grimace at him. “I don’t have to talk to him, Oppa, he said it won’t work between us again, alright?” “And why did he say that, you think?” “Because of me,” I mutter. We have already talked about this last night, I had our stylist and the ladies talking crap about Jonghyun to make me feel better and trying to make me grab some sense in the fact that we broke up months ago but we are still as messy as when we parted. “Because you waited for him to leave to write on your phone what you actually want to say and ask,” Yong Hyun repeats yesterday’s topic. “Why are you bringing this up now?” I sigh, putting down the shoe. When turning around, Maria is coming inside the room. “This store is glorious,” she breathes out for us, “Hannah, baby, have you found anything?” “Not yet…” “I have found at least ten pair of shoes that I want to take home and cuddle with, this store is my style. Did you know they opened just a few months ago? Hannah, come on, you must find something here.” I give Yong Hyun a glance. He doesn’t bring Jonghyun up now, instead he goes to the other room to see what unique shoes he can find there. We don’t leave until I have two pair of shoes bought, not slippers or flip-flops like I had wanted to try but simple flats. When we come back to the practice-room the first thing I see is Emelia smiling at us. “What took you so long?” Emelia asks in Japanese, making sure our managers can hear, “Ryo-kun and I have been back forever.” The whole story we told our managers to let Emelia go on a date was all of us going to buy shoes, but truth was the two of them parting from us when no one else was nearby and whoever came back to the practice first would say they left earlier. As expected, the plan was fulfilled perfectly and I am smiling widely as our crew can not hold themselves from laughing. Everyone but our managers know what we planned which is why Manager Kawayama is looking strangely at those who laugh at Emelia’s words. And then we are back at practicing. This last week we got tons of work to do. Our stylists are working non-stop, we and the crew are in the practice-room from nine in the morning to midnight with breaks and everyone around us working for the arena tour are running around planning the last days to make sure everything is as it should. Thanks to Yunho’s advice with the ballad and some of the other advices, we are pretty much done with the set list (I hope) and then we work from that. It isn’t all work though. Emelia tells us about her date, how awkward it was and that they laughed over it. Emelia isn’t an awkward person, but to meet a friend she has known for two years to go on a date, it is understandable for everyone if it was awkward. The strange thing is that for dinner the next day they go on their second date, and Emelia comes back with rosy cheeks. That is what’s strange. Emelia, giggly and rosy, and all I can do is gape at her. “He kissed me,” she whispers behind her hand when telling us about her date in the bathroom. “On the mouth?” Maria sounds impressed. “How?” I ask, still gaping at Emelia’s rosy cheeks on pale skin. “He asked me if he can kiss me,” Emelia happily tells us in a voice she never uses, “And then … he kissed me on the mouth.” “He kissed her on the mouth,” Carolina hisses and hits Julia on the arm. Maria laughs and claps her hands, delighted. “Was it good?” I wonder. “Did you like it?” We are a bunch of teenage girls gossiping about one kiss, giggling and giggling some more. I like it, the way we act and that Emelia gather the five of us to tell us of her date. Emelia loves the attention both from us and from Ryo, and though I am not sure of my opinion about Furusawa Ryo, Emelia seems to really like him. I wonder what will happen with them; will they go on a few dates and have fun, will they become a couple, will they argue and not want to see each other anymore. Emelia says she has nothing planned but she likes him and will see where it leaves. But now I know why you should not work with someone you are dating. For the days we are practicing and working in Japan the two of them are a pain in the . I never knew Emelia could go on people’s nerves like that. She plays the guitar, and she gets to borrow Ryo’s guitar during practice for him to stand behind her and teach her a new song. It is silly and lovely and we all are teasing them. At the same time, I keep thinking of Jonghyun and getting depressed because the more I look at Emelia, the more I think of Jonghyun. And the week is dreadful but hilarious with practice and practice and practice and a photo shoot and some more practice and before leaving Tokyo for Osaka on Saturday we perform [labyrinth] for the first time on live TV.   Osaka is the opening city for our second arena tour. For three days we will perform here and it is the craziest thing we have ever done in Japan (right after Tokyo Dome, of course) and the rehearsals are the reason I think that. Everything is crazy, everyone is running around and I think all of our minds are a bit too excited to go touring in Japan because we are not making any sense at all. It’s like all practice learning choreographies and lyrics are forgotten on the D-2 Rehearsals. I am out of breath from dancing when hearing Julia hum out the lyrics. We have gotten halfway through the song and it is far from the first mistake. Even I made a mistake in the lyrics, Maria didn’t even know which part was hers so she sang my part and it feels like other than being excited for the tour, we are a bit too excited that we can’t even think straight. “Sorry!” I call out in Japanese when the music is stopped. “Emelia, don’t you know the choreography?” choreographer and dance teacher Kim Ji Hwa asks in Korean from in front of us on the stage; she was the one telling them to stop the music. “And where is the synch, ladies? We have gone through this, those in the back moves first. Do it again without the music, starting from the second verse.” I take a deep breathe as we sing and dance slowly to make sure we are in synch and know our parts. “FOCUS!” Teacher Ji Hwa calls out and claps her hands strongly at us, meaning we are not good enough. We don’t rest when rehearsing, only because we are not good enough. We are the ones deciding to not rest, the staff is allowed to take pauses and we have bathroom pauses (mostly because Maria needs one every other hour) but other than that we stay up most of the night rehearsing and making sure we aren’t complete fools on the stage. That night we don’t sleep at the hotel. Even if many of the crew go home or to the hotel to sleep, the rest of us stay at the arena. If we aren’t practicing we have meetings, we are constantly working on the concert because we do not feel ready for it. Sitting in the dressing-room at five in the morning on Sunday we all are pretty smashed. “Get your mind straight, idiot, it’s the same song we sang last year,” Maria is muttering angrily and tiredly with the Japanese lyrics of [POWER UP]. “We spent all of last year singing it in Korean,” Carolina mutters. She too is looking through the Japanese versions of our songs and I understand that, as I am too pretty familiar with the Korean versions, and my head mixes up the two languages. We have practiced the songs so many times that we should have learned it by now, but I think the excitement for the tour is messing up our heads just slightly. “Korean or Japanese or whatever, I can’t make out any language anymore,” Maria groans and glides further down in the sofa. “When can we eat?” I ignore the conversation about food and instead look at the video from rehearsal. We were a mess most of the day, which is why we have stayed up all night going through that mess. Teacher Ji Hwa is sleeping in another room, like most are doing by now and us ladies are yawning too. Emelia is sleeping though, not bothered by our talk but I bet she is only half-asleep like she usually is. Our concerts in Osaka are from Monday to Wednesday and our second Japanese album will be out in stores on Wednesday. Which means the concert tomorrow will be the first time our fans hear the new songs; a tease of all the songs have come out but it just gives a taste of the songs. Our fans have just asked for more, wanting to hear the full songs and asked us to stop tease them, and tomorrow the teasing will be done. “Could someone go wake someone who can get us some food?” Maria asks. “Go get some food on your own,” Julia mumbles, “Does anyone know if there is any harmony singing in [Small Reason]? Because I can’t read my own notes…” I get up on my feet to get out of the room, away from the tired mood of my ladies and get my body moving to stay awake. I bring my notes for the concert, a pen and my phone with me and I walk around until I reach the parking, some air slipping through so it feels a lot more fresh than being inside the dressing-room. Sunday morning; it is only one day left and we still got a lot to do. With a sigh I sit down on the step to the door I walked out through and I start looking through my phone. I haven’t talked to Jonghyun in a week; it seems like whatever I do I can’t do it right with him. “Yo.” Looking up it is Emelia coming outside and she sits down to join me with a sigh. “Maria started talking about food,” she lets me know, “And that got me hungry.” Out from the inside of her cardigan she holds out a hand-sized bag of chips, smirking at me. “So I sneaked out with these,” she says and offers me some. I gladly take some because I am hungry too. “We are done with the set list, right?” I ask her while chewing on the chips. “We have to be. The amount of times we have changed it this week should be forbidden. I am struggling with all the changes now that pitying Yong Oppa who has to change the outfits is not my priority anymore.” “We aren’t changing the outfits,” I shake my head. “Yeah we are,” Emelia nods, glancing at me tiredly. “We changed like the whole set list.” “But the segments are the same,” I point out. I know because it is my measurements he is the most keen to get if there is a change in the outfits, but he said he won’t need to change anything so he will go get some sleep instead. “The segments are one thing but the outfits need to work with the songs, and the songs are a mess compared to how we planned it,” Emelia talks back. We are having a tired argument about two things we can’t prove by sitting here, yet I do not suggest we go ask our stylist about it as I instead cover a yawn behind my hand. “Are you sure about the lyrics?” Emelia asks me, changing the topic as she seems to have noticed we are arguing about something neither one of us can prove righ