After the Jeju trip, everyone returned back to their normal schedule of their daily life, but everyone felt that they have gotten closer than they were before the mini vacation. Unfortunately there were no more physical bonding time during the whole month of July as Serena, Katherine, and Melanie spent all of July overseas in California. One of the importance of the overseas trip was to support GOT7 during their North American Fly Tour although the girls didn't surprise the group until the last concert day on the eleventh by showing up during the Hi-Touch session. After that did they properly hang out for awhile before the boys' returned to Mark's parents house. Although the girls were more than welcome to join them along with the rest of the family and Mark's friends, the trio weren't really keen on being around his friends and said maybe another time.

Anyways, they attended Illionaire Records' NO RE$T TOUR when it stopped in Los Angeles before having fun at KCON 2016 the next three days after that. But the main and major reason for this trip was for Katherine, Melanie, and Serena to finally get the chance to hang out with Daniel and his family and friends as they were like a second family to the sisters' mother. Serena actually got to visit all the cute Japanese stores she's been wanting to visit whereas Melanie and Katherine checked out all the awesome eateries to satisfy their hunger of visiting Los Angeles like home. Even with all of the past and present good and happy memories that Los Angeles always held for them, it also held a lingering residue of sadness that would never really disappear even with the passing of time. It was because of the sisters' mother.

A South Korean immigrant who made Los Angeles her second home with lots of love as well to which she passed onto her daughters and niece. Chae Lim was her name, but was pretty much known as Lim Chae in the states through a confusion with the Immigration Office and her documents while coming to the United States of America. Anyhow, Chae loved Los Angeles and all the things it had to offer to her new life of being in a foreign country and decided that she didn't want to go back to Seoul at all at the age of seventeen. It caused a lot of trouble at first because she had ran away, but her parents let her do her thing for the time being. It was because Chae was to be in an arranged marriage with Sangchul to better honor a promise between her father and Sangchul's father that was long ago forgotten until it was mentioned one day out of the blue by her mother.

It was at first going to be dismissed until Chae's father fell ill and all he wanted was to see his only child married before he died. So Sangchul's father granted him that wish with Chae consenting and the two were finally wedded and her father got to see his daughter married before he passed away several months later. Chae and Sangchul grew to love one another over time after her father's passing and their relationship bloom much to the happiness of their parents. Anyhow, within a year or so of marriage, Chae still longed for Los Angeles and so Sangchul granted her a life there by moving the two of them out there. Unfortunately, her husband had to take over his father's business as his own father began to fall ill as well.

This meant constant travels back and forth and even longer time away from one another. Even though Chae felt like she was being selfish, but she still wanted to live her life despite being married. Anyhow, four years into the marriage, Serena was born, and then three years later, Melanie was born. During the births of her daughters, Chae had decided to give them English names to better assimilate within the American society. Unfortunately when she did that in her state as Sangchul was always away in Seoul for business, Chae had their surnames become Chae instead of Lee. It was only when the girls would visit Seoul whenever possible where their Korean names were used with the surname being Lee. Chae named the second syllable of her daughters after her parents, Yeonsoo and Wonhee while keeping her own name with them for their first syllable.

Anyhow, over time the marriage began to have its own problems as both parties soon began to fall out of love with one another. They only stayed as to not worried their parents. It caused more time apart as Sangchul's father died due to an unexpected when the girls were ten and seven, respectively. Then Chae's mother passed away in a car accident involving a drunk driver when her mother was walking home a few years later. Everything after that became a blur of built up feelings as neither of them had time for one another as they were too busy and far away. Sangchul had to run the company while Chae cared for the kids. It soon became a loveless marriage where they should have divorced, but never found the time to properly go about it.

Then enter the year two thousand and nine where Serena and Melanie noticed that their father visited less often and took more trips overseas then normally. Their mother started to become distant and lost in her own world majority of the time. They knew something was up, but didn't know what it was about. Every time the sisters visited places in Koreatown or anywhere there were other Koreans, they would hear the whispers about their mother and father practically being divorced and that he had another woman, a much younger woman he was caring for now back in Seoul. The sisters wondered why there were such talks going about and how they would even know such things when they themselves didn't even know anything about it all.

It went on for years and the girls chose to ignore such things until their parents actually said something without being so discreet about it. They got their answers upon the death of Chae in two thousand and ten in the month of July on the twentieth of Wednesday when she didn't return home from doing her morning errands. Her daughters were hanging out with friends that morning and so didn't notice anything until they returned home that late afternoon to find that their mother still hadn't returned nor answered her mobile phone when they tried to reach her to ask where she was. It wasn't until around six or maybe seven when they got a call from the police saying that their mother was involved in a bank robbery where she was killed trying to protect a little girl who wouldn't stop crying for her own mother who was being held hostage by one of the robbers.

After that, everything became a blur. They tried to reach their father, but he didn't answer his phone until two days later when they finally told him what about happened. Sangchul didn't arrive until nearly three days later due to business and sorting things out with his mistress, too. Melanie and Serena were upset that he didn't just drop everything and have someone else take care of work matters. Also on why did he even have to tell his girlfriend about their family matters in the first place. Anyways, Melanie was the most hurt with her father's choice of still choosing work and his lover over his actual family at the time. Of course, their dad eventually got everything sorted out and arranged for their mother's funeral and such as soon as possible to be in Seoul, but his daughters decided against it as they knew their mother would rather be buried in Los Angeles.

Serena remembered her mother saying something like that in the past and so their father obliged to having Chae buried in Los Angeles instead of back home. Anyways, once all of that was settled, Sangchul decided that he couldn't have his daughters live alone in America and practically forced them to move with him to South Korea where they were properly acquainted with their father's young girlfriend, Narae. Along with a new life style of being in a country where they just visited and never actually lived nor explored. It was just like how they treated every other place they visited as they traveled a lot with their mother as to teach her daughters the language and culture by actually being in the area. Of course they did learn and appreciate it all, but it was only because they were always by their mother's side throughout it all. And they had to learn to love her first home without her.

Eventually the sisters had helped from their cousin, aunt, and god-uncles which made it bearable, and they were able to get through it and everything that led up to it. Serena and Melanei forgave their father and Narae. Accepted her into their life even though they all knew that Narae wasn't there to replace their mother at all. The rumors eventually died out as people forgot about it, but it popped up once or twice within the year and promises were never made, well never to the sisters at least. With the birth of Yeojin happening, it actually settled the feelings and forgiveness was able to come through as it was a name that Chae would have been named. It at least showed that Narae wasn't an evil woman and she was human just like everyone else.

Anyways, life happened and it continued to happen and why the girls never liked to be in drama, or even start it, and try to get out of it as soon as it showed its face. They tried to live their life as drama free as possible and to just go with the flow of it all. And that's why the cousins traveled a lot, did their own thing, and just lived in the moment with happiness as their own major future goal along the way of little happy moments as their stepping stones to get to it. Whatever happened, happened, and they were just going to let it run its course. Although of course that was always better said than done as the human heart, mind, body, and soul seemed to think otherwise while the thinking, feelings, and emotions get involved on its own accord.

So anyhow, while the month of July was a roller-coaster of feelings and memories, August became a month of total preparation for something quite big as it was Sangchul's birthday on the twelfth. He always did something simple with just the immediate family on the day of his birthday. Then something with his daughters and niece another day, the next day with Narae, the day after with his sister, and then some other day with the god-uncles. Sangchul thought that this year he would do something different by having a party for them all to mingle on his birthday without the hassle of doing something different. No one disagreed with his decision and thought it would be a whole lot better and less of a hassle. Youngae and Narae took charge of planning everything leaving the birthday man to rest which left the god-uncles to run their errands and gathered everything to make it happen. The younger ones were told to just find something nice to wear until the big day and help whenever needed.

~~~~~~~

"Hey, where's your sister?" Sangchul whispered to his middle daughter as he walked down the grand staircase with Melanie's arms hooked within his right arm while his left hand was holding on to Yeojin's right hand. "I think she's making an escape through the fifth floor's exit right about now." Melanie answered him with a small smile as she then felt her father jerked to a stop in the middle of the staircase. "What? Again? Go get Chaeyeon, Chaewon." "Do you really want me to go get her, Father?" "You're right, Won. Maybe I should go get her instead." "Do you really want to go after Chaeyeon unnie, Dad?" "You're right, darling. What should I do?" "Eh, what's wrong, Daddy? Chaewon unnie?" Yeojin asked as she noticed her father and sister stopped walking. "It's nothing, dear. Don't worry." Sangchul assured his youngest daughter with a gentle smile as six other people joined the trio on the stairs.

They were Sangchul's long time friends, the god-fathers of the cousins, and some times the search team whenever Serena tries to pull her usual escapes. "Is everything alright, Sangchul hyung?" Eric asked his friend with a worried look. "It's just Chaeyeon." Sangchul stated with a knowing smile as the six men shook their heads with a small chuckle. "You guys know what to do, right?" Sangchul asked them as Minwoo mock saluted. "Yes, sir. We'll take care of the eldest daughter as the three of you carry on as usual." "Actually, Dongwan, Hyesung, could you actually the girls as I still have one last thing to take care of." "Certainly, hyung." The two agree as Yeojin latched her left hand within Dongwan's right hand and Melanie hooked her arms with Steve's while Sangchul hurried down the stairs and made his way elsewhere within the building.

"How about we play rock, paper, and scissors to deal with Chaeyeon?" Andy suggested as he wasn't looking forward to go after his oldest god-niece. "You just don't want to chase her around the building like last time." Junjin stated with a laugh at the memory of Andy going after Chaeyeon without much su