*Get on! On to this mystery ride Where we can hear the sound But you just keep on running open your mouth, yeah*

Emelia seems excited as she is practicing the song, facing the mirror in the dressing-room and looking charismatic staring into her own eyes. She looks great in a pair of navy faux-leather rocker-style skinny pants with zipper pockets both front and back, a drop-shoulder 3/4-sleeve top and her long light brown hair is slightly messy to fulfil her style. For today’s recording of The Ellen Show, the ladies are going for a simple style with pants and shirts, mostly as it will be a surprise appearance so they don’t want to go full out with costumes but also because dressing comfortably might lead to being more recognized as ordinary ladies than a global girl-group visiting all the way from Korea.

“5 Pieces!” a cheerful voice calls by the door, a short haired blonde woman steps inside with arms held out in delight. She is laughing happily at her own tone to greet them. “5 Pieces is in my building! How are you?”

Ellen DeGeneres, the host and entertainer of the show as well as the first person outside Asia to welcome 5 Pieces on the show back in 2012, steps straight up to Maria to shake her hand and give her a hug when asking how she is.

“Are you excited?” Ellen asks as she looks at the other members spread out in the small dressing-room.

“Yes!” they answer without hesitation.

The character that is Ellen DeGeneres is wonderful, she is open-minded and friendly and she doesn’t care how small a person is, she sees them still as a human being and treats them fairly. She’s nice, all the ladies likes her a lot.

“I have to go start the show but thank you for coming all the way here,” Ellen says, putting her hand on Emelia’s arm. “It will be fun having you here again. Let’s surprise people, right?”

With a laugh she waves her hand and leaves the room. Just like that she came and went, but the fact that she came by at all before the show means a lot. When she has left, Hannah is suddenly up on her feet; from top to toe she is expressing nervousness by not being sure of what to do. Wearing a pair of super soft and stretchy jean leggings in stark white and a shirt ed to reveal some cleavage along with the necklace she is carrying, the sleeves are rolled up to her elbows and her wrists are covered in bracelets. Her fingers carries a lot of rings too, all fingers beside from one as she has decided to keep that finger for the special ring she isn’t going to wear when working.

“Hannah, where are your shoes?” stylist Yong Hyun sighs, squatting down next to some pairs of shoes to fix what’s lacking on the lady.

“Are we nervous or are we nervous?” Julia laughs at her own hands before she glances around at her friends that agree; they are nervous.

It’s not their first time visiting this show; it’s probably the only show outside Korea they are comfortable to visit, but it is their first surprise appearance ever, one that isn’t about shortly appearing to promote themselves but this time they are appearing as Ellen’s “friends” to surprise a fan in the audience. Well, it is partly to promote their upcoming tour; but mostly to make a fan happy.

Julia gets up to the mirror, playfully bumping her hip against Emelia’s and checking her styled hair in the reflection. She is wearing a pair of jean leggings; the same kind that Hannah wears but in black and the way she wears the pair is completely different. Julia has a plain white shirt to her leggings, only one side tugged inside the high-waist leggings for the other side to hang loose, giving her enough character though the outfit is simple.

“I look great,” Julia tries to calm herself, checking her good fringe and blinking to make sure her eye makeup looks as great as she feels. Emelia is smirking next to her. “I’m thinking of cutting it shorter for our winter single, what do you think of that?”

“What winter single?”

The ultimate shock and panic in Carolina’s voice and face-expression eases Hannah’s nervousness a little bit, just a little yet enough to make the corner of pull up in a smile. She doesn’t want to admit that she is as curious as Carolina in the answer of what winter single Julia is bringing up, as Hannah is fully aware of their concert schedule, and pretty much only that.

“The winter single…” Julia answers while turning around to look at Carolina, then she glances at the others too as if to make sure she is not the one who is lost. “The Japanese winter single?”

“Ah,” Hannah leaks out and as soon as she has said it she smiles widely at Yong Hyun who is raising an eyebrow at her. Busted.

“I think our fans will like that,” Maria starts to nod.

Julia gives her a weird look though. Maria is sitting comfortable in the sofa, her legs tailor dressed in a pair of vegan faux leather rocker-style skinny pants with zipper pockets in front and back, whitewashed, but barely visible underneath a white oversized top with 3/4 sleeves, a big round neckline showing off her shoulder and cut up on the sides to her waist, where Maria has been tying two ties to have the front of the top seem shorter than the back. It looks great, but then again, Maria makes everything look great. She has finished her outfit with a simple long silver necklace and high heels. She is the only one in high heels, all the other members are in boots where none or a short heel. Yet she matches them thanks to her oversized top. At Julia’s weird look, Maria returns a strange one.

“I said at the arena tour to our fans that it would be nice if we had more ballads; that’s what the winter single will be, more ballads,” Maria explains her comment.

“Oh,” Julia chuckles, glancing and smiling at Emelia next to her; “I thought she meant my hairstyle.”

“Do whatever you want with your hair,” Maria suddenly looks disgusted, grimacing with dislike as if she would never comment on Julia’s hair. “It’s your hair and not mine.”

“Hey, hey now,” Manager Park says in Korean when entering the dressing-room before switching to English; “Let’s go through the surprise again.”

Carolina looks like she still has questions about the winter single. Hannah remembered when they said it was a Japanese single, that made her catch on instead of thinking they will release an international winter single (because that is something she hasn’t heard of) but for Carolina, she still seems a bit confused. A good-looking confused lady, that is, as her dark jean leggings with tonal tux stripes rolled up to show off her ankles looks perfect on her to a white blouse with details at the neck and down, a nice mix of business and relax in her look. She is wearing glasses today and Yong Hyun had commented that even straight girls will want to date her because of this look. Carolina has gotten that recently, a business style, she loves blouses and blazers, ties and glasses that makes her not just look smart but also attractive. She has found her style, Hannah thinks as she admires the confused friend of hers. Just as most of them, apparently, as she thinks of it. Julia is a tomboy, she has found it along with her short hairstyle (which isn’t new, but it has really become her character to be a tomboy); Emelia is not just a rocker anymore but a feminine rocker who can wear dresses and still look like a badass rocker; Maria is the ultimate fashionista, she love to relax in boyfriend jeans or style it up in a mini dress, making everything work. Four ladies have found their style then what is Hannah’s?

“Oppa,” Hannah whispers to Yong Hyun who is standing next to her.

“Mm?” he asks while standing focused with arms crossed over his chest and chin pointed at Manager Park who is going through the cheat paper of how 5 Pieces’ appearance on The Ellen Show.

“Do I have a style?” Hannah whispers, trying to not interrupt the others and also to not let anyone hear of her sudden wondering. “The way I dress, do I have a style?”

He glances at her with eyebrows frowning, just for a second, she thinks he won’t answer her when his eyes returns to look at the others but Yong Hyun leans a bit to the side to get closer to her, turning his head halfway to her as if they are not allowed to talk and he too does not want to get caught talking about something on the side of this appearance they will do.

“You’re the comfortable style, right?”

Hannah frowns though, is he asking or stating?

“Yes,” Yong Hyun nods slightly.

“What?” Hannah whispers, not understanding a thing.

“You’re the comfortable style. Leggings and a big top is your … usual style, right? You always say it too, that you don’t want to wear something because it is uncomfortable.”

“I have worn dresses for two years soon though,” Hannah points out, just to show that it isn’t just leggings.

“Yeah, on stage, when working. I have been pushing you for seven years to wear dresses,” Yong Hyun comments and he is raising that eyebrow at her, telling her that he is right.

The response he gets is a pout.

She can agree on her style that he points out; she likes to wear comfortable things, not understanding why Carolina wants to wear a blazer that makes it hard to lift your arms in the air or why Emelia wears leather pants that just make it awfully hot and sweaty. True, Hannah prefers leggings and a big top, it sounds exactly like her style. But then again, it is also the style that suits the way she looks. Hannah can’t pull off leather pants unless she wear high heels because her legs are short, she doesn’t have enough shoulders to fill up a blazer nicely, and when it comes to Julia and Maria – their styles are just too focused on too much that Hannah would get tired after a day.

“Hannah!” Manager Park’s outburst gives her a jump, clearing her mind as she stares at the room, at her friends looking questioningly at her.

“What, what?” Hannah asks, confused of what she missed. Emelia is smirking again.

“Can you do it?” Manager Park asks.

“She didn’t listen,” Emelia points out, as a kid telling teacher what a classmate just did.

“I was … listening,” Hannah mumbles, but she looks at Manager Park with the expression that he should still repeat what they are talking about.

“It’s widely known that you are engaged now, can you handle it if you’re asked about it?”

Before Hannah can get a word out of that she opens, Maria is fast to say;

“We’ll handle it!”

The light voice is cheerful and Maria even bounces when she says it. She turns to give Hannah a wide smile.

“We’ll handle it together, ne?”

 

The Ellen Show is as friendly and active as always, the audience stands up to dance between the breaks and Ellen DeGeneres is the ultimate host by cracking jokes to her guests as much to her audience. The time for 5 Pieces to make their appearance is approaching as Ellen is sitting in her armchair, reading some stories to the audience and cracking jokes about their Facebook entries and Ellen finishes the subject by saying;

“I want to bring someone from the audience down here to talk with me for a bit. In the audience today we have one of 5 Pieces’ biggest fans, right? Alyssa Anthon, where are you?”

A scream is heard from a girl standing up in the audience, Ellen smiles at the usual reaction as the girl is shaking her hands as she is making her way out. A typical American teenage girl with long brown hair, petite from top to toe and all shaky as she approach the stage where Ellen is standing up to greet her.

After taking their seats again, Ellen goes straight into questioning;

“I looked around on your Facebook before the show and I saw that you are a huge fan of 5 Pieces. How big of a fan are you?”

“I LOVE THEM!” the girl squeals out, then she stops herself as she gets aware of her surrounding but as soon as she looks at Ellen she continues; “They are absolutely the best people on this planet and I love them so much because they are beautiful and caring and talented and, and, and everything…” Her eyes are large as she is sharing her love to Ellen.

“Have you seen them in person?” Ellen calmly asks, friendly as always with a light hand motion for Alyssa to answer.

“No… I tried to see them a few times but I never actually saw them.”

“How did that work? You tried but didn’t?”

“The thing is, I have gone on some of their events here in LA but it has always been too crowded or I have missed them… I have been their fan for years but I feel very unlucky…” Alyssa’s voice dies out in the end, as if regretting her last sentence.

“5 Pieces is having a concert here in LA soon, are you going?” Ellen wonders.

“I didn’t get any tickets!” Alyssa sighs hopelessly, “I stayed up the whole night to get the tickets but ended up not getting any.”

Even the audience sighs, pitying the unlucky fan sitting in the guest-sofa.

“Are you upset over not getting any tickets?” Ellen asks.

“I am upset but…” Alyssa started off strongly but stopped herself to think a bit, “I hope they will have another concert I can attend. I’m not giving up.”

The positive tone when saying she is not giving up receives applauses and Alyssa is smiling at a smiling Ellen DeGeneres.

“You know, I am personally pretty close to the members,” Ellen starts to say.

“Oh, I know!” Alyssa cheers excitedly, “I love it when 5 Pieces visits your show. It’s the best!”

Ellen looks behind the table hidden next to her armchair while saying; “I guess you have to be pretty close to them to get a ticket…” The audience is ready to cheer when she will take out a ticket and Alyssa brings her hands to , staring at Ellen’s hands by the table, but Ellen sits back in her armchair without taking out anything, disappointing Alyssa who thinks she is being tricked and will be given a check at a supermarket instead or something. At the same time as those thoughts of disappointments reaches her the audience suddenly shrieks at something completely different that makes Alyssa turn around.

Emelia’s head pops up next to her with a “surprise”-look, just to have the girl shoot up from the sofa and scream loudly with tears bursting out from the surprise. All five ladies are there, rounding the sofa, waving or bowing to the audience that is actually standing up applauding at the surprise appearance. Maria is next to Alyssa first, putting an arm around the girl who leans away from her, but not to get away, but to check if it’s really 5 Pieces, then she burst out in more tears.

“Surprise,” Ellen simply says and laughs, standing up too to greet the ladies with hugs one by one. “You guys should have stayed quiet.”

She pretends to be upset at the audience that had given away with their shrieks, the audience laughs while Emelia nods at them, saying that they almost ruined the surprise.

“I liked it,” Maria comments. After she has hugged both Alyssa and Ellen she has sat down, waiting for the others to get done with greetings, she leans back to be seen on camera and see the audience. “Your reaction was awesome!”

She receive more cheers for the compliment, it even sounds as if there are more fans in the audience. When everyone is sitting down, five ladies and one fan in the sofa for four people (it’s crowded and they comment on it, the ladies only asking if Alyssa can fit, not caring that Emelia takes a seat in Hannah’s lap once they have directed where to sit), Ellen claps her hands together, leaning forward and smiling at them.

“How are you?” Julia asks first though, feeling comfortable like they all do here at The Ellen Show.

“I’m fine! I’m great now when the surprise was a success,” Ellen laughs and adds that it was almost a failure because the audience couldn’t hide their own surprised reaction.

Emelia tilts her head back to the audience. “Ellen called us to say our biggest fan didn’t get any tickets to our concert,” she comments.

Alyssa is still crying. She has been given a napkin from Ellen and has Maria’s arm around her as they are sitting in the middle, Hannah and Emelia are sitting on Maria’s left side, closest to Ellen, while Carolina and Julia are crowding in the other corner.

“Yeah, I mean, how is that possible?” Maria shakes her head at Alyssa. The girl is just staring at them, crying and staring, and staring wide eyes almost popping out when Emelia holds out something in her hand, very relaxed.

“So we got you two concert tickets,” she says and holds them out for Alyssa.

“You’re kidding!” the girl screams out, leaning back with hands covering half of her face as she is surrounded by 5 Pieces and has two concert tickets in LA right in front of her.

“We love to kid around, but this is no joke,” Emelia teases.

“This is actually a real surprise appearance,” Ellen explains, to Alyssa, to the audience and to the viewers in the cameras. “In the last minute I gave 5 Pieces a call – because we are close like that, we call each other at times – and asked if they could come over to surprise someone in my audience who is their biggest fan. It was luck that you guys were in LA!”

“Yes, it was,” Julia nods.

“You’re here for just a short trip, right?” Ellen wonders.

“We are here for some weeks to prepare for the tour,” Maria is professionally answering, promoting the concert. “As we in October are kicking off our WORLD INVASION tour, which will be a real world invasion so we have prepared a lot for our fans to look forward to when coming to see it.”

She is saying the last half while hugging on to Alyssa, the poor fan who looks like she is going to fly up in the clouds from happiness.

“You’re coming right?” Maria is joking with Alyssa.

Hannah is certain the girl is blushing from Maria’s friendliness. While they have been chatting, Hannah has kept her arms wrapped around Emelia’s stomach, holding on to her and leaning forward to see anything and to be seen for the cameras, which also gives her a nice view of Alyssa’s reactions.

They finish up with Alyssa on the stage before continuing, with Alyssa back in her seat in the audience and 5 Pieces able to fit next to each other in the sofa (as Ellen pointed out she could not see Hannah behind Emelia so it was better to continue the short interview next to each other).

“It hasn’t been that long since last time you were here, right?” Ellen asks them. “You were here back in April to promote the album.”

The ladies are all nodding. “Yeah, we were promoting the album in April and now we are back here to promote the concert and to introduce our new single coming up…” Maria says with excitement.

“When is it coming out?”

“On September 19,” Carolina answers.

“Ah, but then it will be released before this episode airs on TV,” Ellen points out and Hannah gapes, instead of saying ‘aah’ and nodding she just gapes a bit.

“Right… So when this airs, everyone will already know what we’re talking about and have probably already purchased the single,” Maria simple says with her hands lightly held out, saying it softly that Ellen laughs at how she saves it.

“[Come to me] is the single’s name,” Julia points out and looks around at the audience, “Just so you all know.”

“It’s a brand new song?” Ellen wonders.

“It’s a song from our album [Pieces’ Invasion]. It is a good song so we decided to put it out in a single to warm everyone up for the tour,” Maria answers. She is smiling so much, moving her arms as if she can’t contain how happy she is that the single is coming out.

“I talked to you backstage earlier and… we’re going to get a special tease of the song today, aren’t we?” Ellen smoothly asks, looking from one lady to another.

“We have prepared an acapella version,” Hannah quietly answers with a nod.

“But before that,” Ellen says and holds up a finger, “I wanted to talk about something…” She turns to her staff. “Can you show it?”

Her hand goes to the back, to the screen where a picture is digitally put up by her staff. The ladies turns around to see what Ellen wants to talk about and Hannah is staring at it with her cheeks hurting from trying to not smile too much. Emelia leans against her, not to see the screen better but to not show the audience and cameras how she is smiling widely too,

The picture is taken from the proposal video that came out the other day, it is taken from the side to show Hannah’s face right before she realises why Jonghyun has gotten down on his knee. He is seen too, but you can’t really see his face from this angle, and the quality isn’t too good as it is taken from a video but it is clear enough to see Hannah there.

“Congratulations!” Ellen cheers, causing Hannah to sit correctly and look down at her knees, almost bowing to thank her for the congratulation. “I saw the video- I saw it several of times! I think it is one of my favourite videos actually… I think for everyone who has seen the video it seems clear that you didn’t know what was happening, right? Did you know he was going to propose to you?”

Hannah shakes her head, smiling as she looks at Ellen. She isn’t sure how she can talk about this, in English, on TV, about Jonghyun. She has never done it before, not when he was her boyfriend and definitely not now when they have been engaged for a few days only. For the first time though, no one talks for her. Hannah glances at her friends, just to see them watching her. They wait for her to talk, for the first time in their lives not thinking this is something for them to explain.

“We had talked about it but never really … gotten that far,” Hannah quietly answers when knowing no one will answer for her.

“He’s here in LA too?”

“No. He came over the weekend. He’s already back in Korea.”

Her answers are short but she can’t find longer sentences, all Hannah focuses on is to not smile all too silly.

“The best part is that everyone knew about it,” Maria starts to say.

Hannah looks as if she remembers that. “Yes! Everyone knew it,” she says and motions at her members before pointing up at the screen, “The people performing with him are our dancers, I have spent weeks practicing with them all and they were all planning this behind my back.” She is too exalted to share to notice she is actually saying a long sentence, without hesitation or any ‘um’.

Her friends are looking very proud though, hearing the audience and Ellen laugh at Hannah’s story.

“It was hard work to keep it from her,” Julia admits.

“As I know it … he is in the same line of work, isn’t he?”

Hannah is nodding again, just to hear Emelia chuckle next to her. “Um, yes, yes he is. We are even in the same agency.”

“He sings very well,” Ellen points out.

Hannah holds herself from covering her cheeks when feeling how she is blushing.

Lucky her, they don’t go in deeper on the subject. Instead they are asked about the acapella, to which Hannah actually laughs and says it is sudden to make her blush and change the subject to sing. They laugh at her comment. Hannah isn’t even sure if she means it or if she knew they would laugh at it as a joke.

++ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + -+ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + -+ - + - ++ COMMENTS ON JJONGHAN’S ENGAGEMENT VIDEO: - “what … did … I … just … watch …?” - “HOLY COW! IS THIS FOR REAL? HOW BEAUTIFUL ISN’T THIS????” - “Lucky O_O” - “Hannah and Jonghyun are engaged? Is this the reality we want?” - “I’m so happy for them! Look how genuine in love they both are this is the most amazing video I’ve ever seen how he sings for her how she adores it how he goes down so romantically how she reacts so honestly TT.TT” - “Am I the only one who finds this weird? Like, not just weird but ‘we were in love then we broke up but now we’re engaged!’ kind of weird??” - “Jonghyun’s voice is so in love! His English is surprisingly good too right?? But damn… this is the most perfect thing ever, makes me wish I had someone to sing like that to me too.” - “A kpop couple engagement? Does that mean they won’t continue their careers?” - “I love this, not because it is a proposal but because the look on their faces. Jonghyun is shooting hearts with his eyes whenever he look at Hannah in the video and she is like the ultimate fangirl just cheering him on and sending back hearts xD they are adorable!! I hope we’ll get to see much, much, much more of them!” - “5 Pieces is done, I guess, if Hannah is now engaged. All of her fans that have loved her will leave now. Poor girl, just when she was finally starting to learn how to sing” - “OH MY GOSH! Did you see Hannah’s face? And Jonghyun’s face from beginning to end??? Look how relieved he was in the end! I hope whatever happened between them is forgotten now because they look like the happiest couple when they’re together ^^, kisses to the lovely JjongHan couple!” - “I don’t know who the guy is other than he is dating 5 Pieces’ Hannah. It’s a cute video too, so congrats to them!” - “HUUUUUUUUH HOW DID THIS HAPPEN WHAAAAAAAT our baby is grown up TT.TT what are the other ladies doing, letting her get engage and everything? What’s next, she will leave the group to get married and have kids and disappear? I DON’T WANT THAT!” - “4 Pieces next then, I guess = (” - “What’s all this talk about 4 Pieces and Hannah leaving 5 Pieces??????? WTH folks! She is engaged, not dead!” - “I’m happy for them