“Morning, ladies! Up, up, up!” Manager Kim cheerfully calls by the bedroom’s door.

That is what wakes Hannah up Saturday morning, as soon as she realises what woke her she turns around to check her cell phone, wondering why Manager Kim is waking her up and not her alarm like always. Her phone isn’t even on.

“Damn it,” Hannah groans and throws off the cover to get up. She needs to load the batteries.

Maria is still asleep, like usually not waking up by a simple call by the door. Neither do these two ladies usually need someone to wake them up in the mornings because Hannah is always the first one up, which annoys her deeply. She connects her phone to the charger, hurries to grab her clothes and get in the bathroom to get ready, constantly muttering from not being able to keep her eyes open, too tired for it, and the thing that her alarm never woke her is making her pretty angry.

Stepping out of the bathroom, dressed in a pair of black shorts and a scarlet cotton blend t-shirt, Hannah pats Maria’s stomach.

“Wake up, Maria,” Hannah says before stepping away. She needs some bracelets to fill up the bare space on her wrists. “Maria, wake up now. Emelia has to share her date with you.”

“Screw her,” Maria mutters and rolls around so she can snore against the pillow.

“Manager Park is going to scold them for leaving practice too,” Hannah points out, hoping it will make Maria interested.

“Screw him!” she says against the pillow.

Hannah sighs. “Emelia made out with Bill Skarsgård last night.”

The youngest looks away from her bracelets to see why Maria didn’t say ‘screw him too’, just to see Maria sitting up with big eyes looking at her.

“SHE DID?! her!” Maria burst out and is quickly out of bed, only wearing . She grabs a top from the chair in the corner to put on while running to the door.

“Maria!” Hannah sounds shocked at Maria suddenly leaving the bedroom.

Grabbing her bracelets, Hannah walks out the room too, curious of what Maria will do.

Maria come running back though, just to start hurrying down the stairs. Turns out no one were in the second bedroom. But what is she going to do, Hannah wonders; ask Emelia straight out with everyone in the house being awake?

They are sitting around the dining table, Manager Park, Julia, Emelia and Carolina; it looks like the ladies have been scolded already because Manager Park is enjoying a cup of coffee at the end of the table looking like he has said what he wanted to say and is not going to care about it anymore.

“EM, was he good?” Maria steps up to the table, speaking Swedish. Hannah didn’t think of that. They can speak Swedish without their managers understanding – clever. “I heard you locked lips; was he good? How good from a scale from 1 to 10? Did he use his tongue? Man, give me all the details.”

Emelia looks at Hannah though, not upset but knowing it was Hannah who told her. Hannah tries to laugh before she sneaks away to the kitchen, mostly because she do not want to hear the details and also to not be the one babbling about something she does not know.

In the kitchen she finds Manager Lim pouring himself a cup of coffee, the source of living for most people.

“Good morning, Appa,” Hannah kindly says, rounding the kitchen worktop to look in the fridge for her yoghurt drink.

“Good morning, Hannah,” he murmurs.

“How are you feeling?” she asks and starts to shake the yoghurt in her hand, walking around the kitchen worktop anew but stops to wait for an answer. She feels alert from waking up so suddenly, her eyes aren’t, though.

“I feel the same as yesterday,” he answers.

“You’re not coming with us today then?” Hannah wonders. He shakes his head, looking at the cup of coffee as if it is what’s keeping him alive. “You should go back to bed, Appa.”

“I will. I was going to get some coffee and see you all off first,” Manager Lim answers and looks up, looking behind Hannah briefly before looking at her. She can hear the Swedish words from the dining table, Emelia getting to giggle off about her secret date last night. “What are they talking about?”

“What?” Hannah blinks at the question, hoping she heard it wrong.

“Maria. What are they talking about out there for her to come running down like that?” Manager Lim asks. He doesn’t miss a thing, she guess behind the sickness of his gaze he is looking at her to see if she will lie straight up his face or tell what the secret fuss is about for the ladies to be speaking Swedish.

“Uh…” Hannah turns around as if she is going to try listen, swallowing as she really has no idea of what to say. She can’t mention Bill, she can’t say Emelia has been on a date, she can’t say something happened last night; she can’t really come up with anything at all. Hannah ends up looking down at her yoghurt. “I don’t know.”

With a glance up she sees that her manager does not believe her. Well, she does hear what they are saying out there but she is not going to explain it to him.

“You should ask her yourself,” Hannah ends up mumbling before hurrying out of the kitchen. She is frowning when taking a seat next to Julia around the dining table, awkwardly sitting there with them and worrying if Manager Lim can catch a word or two as he once studied Swedish a bit.

Emelia seems to think the same thing as her sentence changes midway to completely change the subject when Manager Lim comes to take a seat too, only Julia catches on right away while Maria, Hannah and Carolina look like they have no idea what Emelia is suddenly talking about. When finally understanding the reason based on Emelia’s glance at Manager Lim, Hannah keeps an eye on their managers. Manager Lim looks pale and sick, maybe even having pain in his stomach after throwing up the past two days, making Hannah wish he could go back to Korea where his wife is waiting and worrying for him. Manager Park looks to be too focused on the newspaper and Manager Kim has gone somewhere.

“Eh-eh-eh,” Maria says, speaking Swedish; “Let’s start watch it together then, I want to watch it too.”

“We can have a movie night!” Carolina suggests, not on the same page as the other ladies that are talking about Bill’s series on Netflix while she means they want to just watch something together.

“No way,” Emelia chuckles: “I’m not watching anything with you.”

Her finger points at Maria, making Julia cough up the bread in , keeping it in though so Hannah just laughs at her reaction. It’s the tone Emelia used, how awful it would be to watch anything with Maria. Maria, on the other hand, throws a used napkin towards her.

“Ya!” Maria bursts out before pointing across the table at Hannah. “Watch it with me.”

“Ha?”

“What are you talking about?” Manager Lim asks them.

“Emelia found a new series to watch but she doesn’t want to see it with me,” Maria is fast to blame the rapper, but in fact there is no problem at all as truth is they had changed the topic when Manager Lim sat down.

“You’re watching tons of series already,” Manager Park comments, “You shouldn’t watch so much TV.”

“Shut up,” Maria growls at him.

“Stop that attitude, Maria,” Manager Lim warns her with a serious look.

She closes but does not look happy that Manager Park gave a comment to their conversation.

Only a few minutes later, it knocks on the door – Michael is here – and he seems pretty surprised that no one is ready to leave. Maria is still in pyjamas, Carolina isn’t dressed either and Julia says she has to fix her hair.

Michael looks like he can’t believe it because even when he says they should be leaving NOW, no one seems to be leaving the dining table.

“Sir, we have to leave if we are going to be on time,” Michael says to Manager Park, the only English speaker of the managers.

“Ladies, you heard the man,” Manager Park says, also in English.

But no one reacts. Hannah is leaning towards Julia to read the text messages between Emelia and Bill that Emelia is showing them on the phone, not reacting either.

“Ladies,” Manager Lim mumbles, “Time to go.”

“You should go lie in bed, Appa,” Maria comments when standing up, “You need some rest.”

“And you have to start moving,” he says, also getting up.

With the captain and father of the group stands up to leave, Emelia takes her phone back, receiving complaints from both Julia and Hannah that they are not done eating but Emelia just leaves. Julia goes too, repeating that she has to fix her hair.

Hannah looks after Julia, her friend who always straightens her hair every morning for forty minutes. Then she looks up at Michael standing a meter behind her.

“I thought we don’t have to leave until half an hour,” she points out.

“Wrong calculations, miss,” Michael politely answers.

“Miss,” Carolina smiles, “I like that.”

“You should go get dressed,” Manager Park points out to Carolina.

“He has said that the whole time we’ve been here,” Hannah says in Swedish to her.

“I know, I like it,” Carolina answers.

“Carolina,” Manager Park is starting to lose his patience.

“Go get dressed,” Hannah whispers over the table to her friend, a bit careful as she seems to be the only one noticing how sensitive Manager Park is. She wonders why no one of the other ladies listens to him. Not that Hannah always does it either but now in the morning it is about coming in time for work.

When Carolina leaves, it is just Manager Park and Michael left by the table with Hannah so she sneaks upstairs too with her drinking yoghurt. Hannah goes to the bedroom she shares with Maria.

“Why are you so mean to him?” she asks as soon as she spots Maria getting dressed.

“Who and what?” Maria coolly asks back, checking her mirror reflection.

“Manager Park, it’s like you hold a grudge against him or something,” Hannah comments.

“I know… But he butts in everywhere these days, it’s frustrating and annoying and I can’t handle it,” Maria mutters, suddenly glaring at her mirror reflection as if she can see him there. “It’s nothing, really, just some annoyance.”

“Hm,” Hannah mumbles, sitting down on the bed. “You’re the same to Manager Lee.”

Maria puts a hand on her hip and raises her eyebrows at Hannah. “Your manager deserves all hate I can give him. All hate you give him too, for what he does.”

“You treated him like that before he was doing anything … like that,” Hannah says with no care at first but frowns when she can’t really find herself to bring up Julia’s name or what they have done.

“I did.” She isn’t hiding her behaviour towards Manager Lee, but Maria isn’t either the kind of person who hide things she does. “At first I tested him, you know we do that and then … well, I don’t know, he goes on my nerves.”

“Like all our managers does these days,” Hannah points out.

“Fine, sure, whatever,” Maria gives up, sighing and hitting her hands down her sides when swinging around to get her bag. “I need to release my frustration on someone. Manager Lee isn’t here, is he? So Manager Park is the poor soul to take his place.”

“Ahh…”

Maria smiles at Hannah’s easy way to show she understands, how the youngest nods her head slowly as she understands why Maria is treating Manager Park the way she does.

Around 25 minutes passes before they are in the van, singing and shouting for Julia to get her inside so they can go work their charm on radio.

It’s a small radio channel, the ladies doesn’t wear makeup or anything as they are going to practice afterwards, but they are prepared to do their usual thing at the radio. They will sing their new song and promote both single and tour, and not have any relationships mentioned at all.

When first arriving at the radio station the five ladies do their usual things, Manager Park does his job well too when introducing them to everyone and opening up conversations when the ladies are not. The radio DJ is your typical American host, talkative and light brown hair and the kind who cracks joke in every other sentence he says. Not the kind of person Hannah likes, but to do a radio program it’s alright; a short visit, that’s all.

The radio host starts the segment with 5 Pieces sitting tightly together to fit on two microphones, Hannah is holding her hands firmly on her knees under the table as she leans forward to introduce herself along with the group.

“Please introduce yourself,” the host says, the ladies ready while Maria is the one who says;

“Good morning all listeners of XM Radio, we are pieces of one-”

“5 Pieces.” Instead of cheering it out they are quite calm when saying their name, but to have five ladies say it together seems surprising to the host as he starts laughing and saying he did not expect that and asking listeners if they were surprised to suddenly hear so many voices at once.

“Before we are going to talk about your up-coming world tour, your new single will be out on Friday and you are going to give us a special treat to open up the half hour we have here together. You’re going to sing… Why don’t you just do your thing and we’ll introduce the song and single afterwards?”

“Sure, that sounds great,” Maria says and turns to the ladies. “Who’s counting?”

“We’re doing an acapella of the new song,” Emelia tells the listeners, “So no one wonders what we’re doing. Carolina?”

“1, 2, 3, 4,” Carolina counts down before they start to sing the acapella version of [Come to me]. Hannah keeps her eyes on her members to keep up, thinking they are doing a good job together. Maria looks to enjoy it, not annoyed as she was in the morning but really relaxed and comfortable singing with the rest of them even if she has to lean in a bit to the microphone together with Carolina. Hannah is sitting in the middle, Carolina on her left and Emelia on her right, looking at Julia as the three ladies share one microphone. Hannah knows she can’t be heard as clear as the others, but she doesn’t mind, besides, Carolina is always heard the most. She can’t hide it; Carolina, she is too thrilled that 5 Pieces is constantly doing acapellas and acoustic these days. According to Carolina, they are finally being noticed for their talent.

“NO FREAKING WAY, SERIOUSLY?!” female dancer Ribae shouts out in the corner of the practice-room and starts applauding while laughing loudly, making all the heads in the room turn to where she and Emelia have been talking in the corner. Hannah smiles at it, taking a guess Emelia told Ribae who she is meeting tonight, but the youngest only looks for a second before she turns her focus back to the mirror to practice the choreography with some of the others.

“What’s that all about…” she can hear Myung ask, chuckling with some of the other dancers at the girls giggling in the corner.

“Emelia is going on a date tonight,” Julia whispers when leaning towards the dancers.

Hannah turns around, gaping in surprise that she actually tells them. Dancers and choreographers are there, but no manager to catch them, yet Hannah feels awful that Julia said something that is honestly not her thing to say.

“Whoa, Emelia!” Shiwon is fast to burst out, skipping on his toes across the room, hearing how others laugh at him. He looks cool when bouncing down to sit next to Emelia, his arm around her and tongue sticking out at the corner of his mouth as he smiles at her. “Who did you catch? An American?”

“Who the ratted on me?” Emelia bursts out, her eyes scans the room at the ladies and right away you think Carolina said something, it would be typical, but those that heard what Julia said looks at the guilty one. “What the , Jul!”

“It’s like the most awesome story of the year,” Maria smiles from the centre of the room, sitting there with a bunch of papers. She turns her head around. “No offence, baby, your engagement is freaking awesome, nothing can top that. But I have to admit, Emelia dating Skarsgård is probably the most awesome yet sick story to tell.”

“Who?” Shiwon looks confused.

“He’s a Swedish actor,” Emelia answers.

Hannah squeals at Emelia’s expression, how proud she looks to be able to say that.

“Like, the biggest Swedish actor in America,” Maria points out.

“1 out of 5-ish,” Emelia corrects.

“You’re kidding!” Shiwon seems impressed though he probably has no idea of who it is. “Well done, lady!”

Emelia gives him a high-five for the good words. Everyone praises her and wishes her good luck and asking things, for a minute no one focuses on practice, beside from two; Carolina and Hannah have already heard it all, their focus have returned to practice. Maria is only listening to add in her own words, to be part of the story telling. After a minute of telling they decide to continue after practice, as they have a lot to do.

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