A beauty also known as a concert is coming to an end when SM Town’s last day in Osaka reaches its last minutes for the ending stage. I am wearing a cardigan over the logo t-shirt, I have spent the whole day being thrilled and excited, mostly to give my all for the last day with our SM Town family. The day has been pretty glorious, tons of work but also tons of laughter, which is the best mix and now at the ending stage I have been foolishly dancing with Taemin and Ana, surrounded by friends, colleagues and fans and smiling throughout the concert. It has been a great weekend. I have indeed had a blast, and Kyungho has been exhausted in the mornings as he has been up until late either playing games or just spending time chatting with the rest of us. He has even been invited up on the stage for the ending, yesterday as well as today, and I have laughed seeing him being carried and hugged and treated warmly by everyone, being treated like a precious little brother. I don’t want it to end but the seconds are passing quickly while I am waving at the crowd filling Osaka’s Dome stadium. I am standing between Taeyeon and Kyungho as we are preparing to bow to the crowd, two small pale hands holding mine, and while Kyungho is looking somewhere else to not have to face the loud crowd, I am smiling at Taeyeon when she leans in closer, holding up the hands we hold on to each other. “Does it hurt to hold hands?” she asks and meet my eyes with curious ones. “No, it doesn’t,” I answer with a shake of my head just before we can hear our seniors thank loudly in the microphones, cueing for the time to bow. My mouth mouths ‘thank you’ in Japanese before my back bends with everyone else. It has been a great weekend. Saying goodbye we wave to the crowd, some bows a few more times and others are already starting to head to the main stage. I turn to look where Taeyeon goes, seeing she has her arm linked with Tiffany waving to the fans and I feel something cold at the crown of my head. I put my hand up and see someone behind me as I was looking after Taeyeon, and just as I spot Taemin with that evil smile I also feel the water pour over my head that I scream at the sudden wet and cold water running down my hair and squat down as if that would help me dodge the waterfall above me. It doesn’t. My hands are held against my chest and I lower my head, just to feel the water roll down my neck and back. Taemin laughs over me while I scream and I hear fans giving mixed response between laughing and shouting “be nice!” just to have a second bottle poured over me. Kai and Taemin had planned revenge from my own revenge. On Friday they attacked me backstage, so earlier today when filming Good Sister, Kyungho helped me to take revenge backstage on them both so it turns out their revenge on my revenge is taken on the final stage. It is great that I wear a cardigan over the t-shirt though, to not frighten everyone with a sudden wet see-through. “Ya!” in the end I can’t hold it in anymore and I throw my arm around to hit Taemin on his leg. He laughs and throws the empty bottle in front of me, making me whine as he has just poured a whole bottle of water over me and the water keeps coming, from Kai. By the time the water stops pouring over me someone pulls the hood of the cardigan over my head and I keep whining out at our fans laughing at the prank. I know they are done pouring water on me so I stand up and turn around to show how upset I am, but Kai and Taemin are already running away. I run after them without hesitation, but careful as the stage is full of colleagues and the two evil friends of mine run all the way to the main stage. On the main stage I grab two bottles of water on my way to them and with the loud surrounding they are focused on laughing and looking out at the crowd and the other stage in search for me that when I come up behind them, they don’t know I’m there until the water pours down their backs. I held the bottles by their necks to have the water pour down inside their t-shirts, just to let them know how it felt for me to have the coldness drip down my back – still dripping down my back. ++ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + -+ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + -+ - + - ++ The next day, our SM Town family is heading back to Korea. My members included while Kyungho and I stay in Osaka to continue filming for Good Sister; Maria is also left behind but she goes to Tokyo with our stylist for some shopping and fun. In fact, she is probably already there by the time Kyungho and I leave the hotel. I have had a meeting in the morning so we don’t leave for the day’s schedule until lunch time. Osaka is having it’s hottest month, the weather is hot and humid and my stylist had done her best to not let me wear whatever I wanted, so we compromised with her distressed light blue shorts with me choosing thin over-the-knee socks to a pair of flats, and I get to decide on wearing a long-sleeve shirt but my stylist chooses a white one, we roll up the sleeves and since I haven’t showered from the concert I put on a floppy hat in black. As I am supposed to be part of a fashion ‘It’ girl-group, accessories are important too. I wear a big silver watch on my right arm and some casual simple bracelets on my left, and to finish it all off I am wearing some simple bandage for my hand injury. Annoying but necessary; at least I can use my hands now after three weeks, though I still need my hands to be patched up. Kyungho is turning into a fashionista too, an 11-year-old fashionista in yellow shorts, a blue t-shirt and a black/white cap. He is indeed stylish, probably because of the yellow shorts, but it looks good on him. “What do you want to do first?” I ask Kyungho when we sit down in the van outside the hotel, cameras put up in the van to film us and a camera crew sitting down in another car to follow us. ”I’m hungry,” Kyungho answers, the look he gives me makes me nod. “Let’s eat first,” I fill out his hint and I glance out the window. “What should we eat then?” “Nuna said yesterday … there is something you always eat in Osaka,” Kyungho quietly says while trying to remember what I had said. “Ah-ah, okonomiyaki,” I remember and then laugh when he says we should eat it. “I always eat okonomiyki when coming to Osaka but I haven’t this time. There is this great restaurant specialising on okonomiyaki…” My voice fades before Japanese comes out of me, asking Manager Kawayama sitting at the front if we can go to the okonomiyaki place we have gone to before. During the ride, Kyungho and I are acting pretty silly imitating the music on the radio and talking about a little this and that, which includes the exhaustion from the weekend with SM Town. We talk about Kyungho’s time with SM Town which seems to make him smile and almost stutter as he wants to talk about everything he did this weekend at once. The van comes to a halt parking outside the restaurant and I pat Kyungho on the arm when telling him to get out on my side – to not walk out on the car-filled road on his side but on the camera-filled street on my side. There is quite a big crew we have with us and as soon as we walk inside the restaurant the delicious smell of food makes me hungry. We are guided upstairs right away, sitting down at a table with cameras set up to film us and while I am chatting with Manager Kawayama next to me, Kyungho looks on his left at the cameras set up to film us. “It feels strange with that,” Kyungho tells me from across the table and points at the cameras filming us, the staff too. I look at what he points at and nod, not taking as much notice to it as he does because he doesn’t have anyone sitting next to him while I have Manager Kawayama. “When we were in Osaka for the arena tour we went here,” I tell Kyungho, remembering the celebration we had after the opening of the tour in Osaka. “Their prawn is the yummiest.” Manager Kawayama leaves to get me some aspirin – that was what we talked about, I noticed I didn’t have any with me so I asked her if she has any but she doesn’t so she go back to the van while we are being served. The fun about this restaurant is that you can decide what topping you want for the pancake-like dish and you can even prepare it yourself at the table or have a waiter prepare it at the table for you. We order a lot, and we get to prepare it ourselves when Manager Kawayama comes, or pretty much she prepares it as she is better than me at it but both Kyungho and I give it a try. I’m better at eating than preparing it though. “Nuna, is prawn or shrimp your favourite?” Kyungho asks while we are eating. “Shrimp,” I simply answer and put some food in my mouth, saving the flavour by chewing slowly. I look at him after putting the food in my mouth, feeling how seriously I answered his question so I smile. “How can you answer it so quickly?” he mutters, pouting a bit while eating his okonomiyaki. “I like them both.” “I like them both too but I prefer shrimp,” I answer and cut off a bit of one pancake. “Try this one.” I feed him the bite of okonomiyaki my manager just finished, with prawn and other toppings and I raise my eyebrows waiting for his reaction. Kyungho chews clearly and slowly his face grimaces a bit, I laugh seeing his reaction to the okonomiyaki. “What’s in it?” Kyungho asks, stuffing his mouth with the one he liked. “Is it pepper?” “Its pepper,” I chuckle and taste it myself. I am not much for taste but the pepper goes well with the other flavours. In Japanese I compliment Manager Kawayama: “I like this one.” I smile when chewing the food, saying ‘mm’ at pretty much every bite. The taste of Osaka, I would say, is this. Manager Kawayama had given me an aspirin for the headache I feel arriving when we are at the restaurant, I’m not sure if it is because I haven’t slept enough, been drinking enough water or if the heat is the reason for it but all I know is an hour later when leaving the restaurant my stomach is full but my headache is still there. The highlight of the day should be the visit to Osaka Aquarium, both Kyungho and I stand with mouth wide open staring at the different things we see, we take some fun pictures too and take our time there to really see everything and the best part is that the air is cool in there, not humid like it is outside. We also going shopping; we walk on streets and visit stores. Every time we walk through a door leaving the hot air on the streets we are met by air-condition, which is really nice. It is a big difference from being outside and inside; it’s too hot in Osaka. My neck feels stiff after a while, making me tired and the headache worse but I do my best to enjoy the time with Kyungho. We eat takoyaki on the street, which I have done with him before so it was actually Kyungho who pointed at the food stand suggesting it. After eating takoyaki we keep walking around, mostly looking from outside at the stores. It is also now, for the second time today, that I realise I am not just anybody walking with my little brother. At the Aquarium some foreigners had recognized us, and now when casually walking with cameras around we are spotted pretty quickly. Most people just points and follows for a bit before going to mind their own business, but the point in it all is even those following us keep some distance. We sneak inside an instrument store, filled with guitars on displays and equipment, while pianos and other instruments are inside the store, not displayed as much at all. When entering there are just a few people inside, no one really minding us so we can walk around comfortably and as I walk around I admire mostly everything in this store, like always I admire people who are able to play on these instruments and Kyungho shows a lot of interest in it too. He tries to play everything, the skinny man working in the store helps him out to play whatever he wish to try and I translate some parts when needed. By the keyboard I press some keys, smiling as I can’t play anything good but I still press the keys on it to make a sound and then I see in a different room they have the instrument I was in charge of when 5 Pieces was a band. It is strange how attached I am to the instrument though I played it for two years, which was over seven years ago. It pulls me to it, so I glance behind me to make sure Kyungho is in good hands before I walk inside the room, a camera-man follows and I bite my lip looking at the drum set. Just looking at it, I remember how awful I was in school when we started out the band. I learned from scratch, tone-deaf and everything and I remember it was Carolina who took the time to learn with the rest of us. She knew how to play the guitar and piano, self-taught in everything, and she learned to play the drums just to teach me. I sit down by the drums, and pick up the drumsticks with my bandaged hands, lightly hitting the air while finding my position in the seat and where to keep my hands. It’s still in my wrists, how to play the drums, and I start off playing it softly. As soon as I hear the sound of the drums I feel a joy inside of me and I start playing a melody I practiced hard for two years; it’s imprinted in my memory. It’s a lot of fun to play the drums, to nod my head as I move to the rhythm and really feeling everything I feel each time I sit by the drums, one of few instruments I know how to play. Most of it, I realise, is imprinted in my memory. The rest, I notice when playing makes me stop and repeat, and I mess up because I can’t remember it. The loud drums and my headache together as I loose my-self in playing because I like it, my hands starts hurting too. I consider not caring about my hands as I really like to play the drums but I remember I have told myself countless of times to be careful of my hands, to care for my hands the way I never tend to do when it comes to myself, and so far I have done that, which makes me sigh in pleasure when stopping to drum and I smile up at the camera-man. I put my hands together but hope he focuses more on my smile than my hands when filming me that he doesn’t see it. “Nuna!” Kyungho burst inside the room, mouth wide open. “Did you just play that?! It was so cool! You could hear it to the other side!” I have never played the drums for Kyungho, I guess. I thought I had but based on his reaction I wonder if I haven’t. “Can you do that again?” Because of his enthusiasm I pick up the drumsticks again, pointing one at him. “Watch and enjoy, Kyungho, how fun it is to play the drums.” Though my hands hurt I play for him, with more energy than before just to show how fun it is and also because I need to hold on to the drumsticks hardly because of the pain so I accidentally use more energy than needed. In the end I give up on playing pretty drastically because the pain starts sticking in my palms so I get up on my feet to ask Kyungho if he wants to give it a try. It is the kind of thing you don’t need to ask twice. Kyungho is fast to change place with me, taking the drums and starting to hit the instrument badly, making me start imitate a cry and stop him by grabbing his hands. “Can you not hear the drums crying?” I whine at him, “You are hurting it.” “Nuna,” Kyungho laughs at me, “The drums don’t have feelings.” “They do,” I grimace at him, “And if you hit on it the way you just did; the drums will cry, your ears will cry and therefore your heart will cry. Try play it softer.” He does as I suggest and I stand up straight, breathing in loudly through my nose to breathe it out with satisfaction. “Do you hear the difference?” I ask him; feeling satisfied that the drums aren’t crying. It is basically an expression that he was hitting the drums too badly. “You didn’t play like this,” Kyungho sounds like he doesn’t agree though. “Why didn’t I?” I ask him quietly. He sighs at my question and pouts, rolling the drumsticks together between his palms. He takes his time and I smile up at the staff filming us. Kyungho sighs again. “You know how to play the drums,” he ends up muttering, then his tone goes higher when looking up at me; “Can’t you play that cool thing again? You looked really cool, Nuna.” “Try play by yourself some more first,” I suggest. Honestly, my hands hurt so I don’t want to play but I can’t really say that out loud so when Kyungho has been hitting the drums for a while (hitting, not playing like I suggested) we exchange and I play something softer than before. Continuing to walk around in the store after that I spot the flutes, and for the first time in a few months I remember I was so into getting a flute after my visit on Weekly Idol during my solo promotions. I remember it now and laughs, whisper it to Kyungho who grimaces, apparently he didn’t know I played it in school. It is a lot of things we don’t know about each other apparently, but I think we have learned a lot about each other through this show. Though I had said I want to start playing the flute again a few months back, I don’t feel the urge for it anymore. After we are done at the store we thank the man for helping us out to try the different instruments before leaving. We decide to go eat dinner pretty fast as the people recognizing us outside gets more and more when the evening arrives. Eating this time we get a big private room to have the staff eat too as it is the last hour of filming for this time. Everyone orders food and it doesn’t take long until the cameras are set up, with no one controlling the filming as everyone sits down to film, but the cameras are rolling. Eating with the staff is nice, though they want us to focus on filming the conversations go over the tables that ten minutes into eating I have pretty much forgotten that the cameras are still rolling and I’m certain Kyungho has as he leaves the table too many times. He goes to feed the director more than once some of the wraps, showing a lot of affection to the staff and I too go up on my feet but since the director has received some love already I give it to someone else. Wrapped food is the best kind to feed others with, or at least it is a favourite among Koreans. “I’m going to the bathroom,” Kyungho says and get up on his feet again. At first I nod and then I look at his plate to see if he has finished eating. He hasn’t eaten up everything, but we ordered a lot so I understand him. I am sitting tailor on the cushion on the floor at the restaurant and when Kyungho leaves I turn to the right to continue chatting with the others. Seeing Kyungho leave I wrinkle my nose seeing a set of cameras go with him, it’s weird to have them go with Kyungho to the bathroom but on second thought they might take the chance to do the solo interview with him now so I don’t think more of that. “Four servings,” the female staff member tell us as we are talking about meat. “Only four?” I gape in surprise but when two other staff members looks weirdly at me I laugh behind my hand. “Is four servings a lot?” “It’s a lot for two people,” one of the male staff points out. “How much do 5 Pieces eat?” someone else asks. “I don’t know,” I answer and shape my head without even thinking. They laugh at my answer. “I don’t know, really. But Maria said she ordered eight servings for her and two friends. Three people.” “That’s a lot!” they exclaim with laughter. “But you have eaten with us,” I say when pointing over at the director, “Do we eat much?” “You don’t,” he answers and I find myself laughing more. “But your members do.” “But eight servings doesn’t sound like much,” I tell the staff who said four servings were a lot. Chatting with the staff we talk about a lot of small things, and the atmosphere is good even if my headache is hurting. I put one hand up to my head, my fingers digs in to my scalp to slowly massage where it aches while talking to the others. Mostly everyone are done eating, we are pretty much just chatting now. I long for the bed at the hotel though, to get some sleep for the headache to go away. “Hannah,” a staff member standing two tables away asks, interrupting the current conversation we’re having. “It’s your birthday tomorrow, do you have any plans?” “Rest,” I happily answer, expecting laughter and receiving it too. With my fingers still massaging my scalp I smile happily at them. “I will be at home and rest tomorrow; and I will visit Kyungho on the set for his movie as I haven’t had the time for it earlier.” “You’re not going to celebrate your birthday then?” I shake my head with a grimace. “No,” I answer, “And the ladies are working.” “Heee, they are wor