A tall man in his late fifties is sitting restlessly, staring at the fans that are waiting outside the building who are completely unaware of the three people sitting in the van. The man is wearing a blue shirt, a bit loose on his body as he recently lost a bit of weight around his beer belly, and his hair has turned grey over the years. He has a kind face, looking like the kind of man who silently sits and listens to everything that is being said around him. Next to him sits his wife, skinny and of average height for a Swedish woman. They both look to be a bit nervous, watching the fans waiting outside the building’s entrance with a lot of patience.

They had arrived at Incheon airport around the same time as Hannah did yesterday. She had gone with them to the hotel, talking for some time before Hannah went home and the married couple could get some rest. Today, Hannah went to pick them up together with her manager. They are nervous while Hannah, who is sitting at the front, is smiling from her phone to them to the fans and back again.

“What are they waiting for?” the woman, Anita, asks with a frown on her forehead.

Hannah leans forward as a person standing outside the van is blocking her from seeing all the fans. “Do you mean the fans? I think they will be staying there during the day,” she answers the question. Though the words are said fluently, you can hear the hesitation in her voice that she is not used to speak her native language. She adds; “Usually they are there in the morning to see the guests arrive for the show, then they are there in the evening when it ends.”

“They stand there the whole day?” Anita sounds shocked. “Don’t they have school to attend?”

“I think that man is old enough to work,” her husband Tom points out. His finger is stretched out in front of Anita to point out the window.

Hannah turns her head to smile widely at them. “That’s my manager.”

The man in his thirties that was pointed out walks past the crowd, through a brush and walks past the parked cars to reach the van. The married couple in the back are laughing when he opens the door, because the manager was mistaken as a fan. Manager Lee is wearing a black and white cap, a matching sweater underneath his winter jacket and a pair of jeans, and a serious face-expression when opening the door on the driver’s side.

“Are you ready to go inside?” he asks when leaning in, speaking Korean and looking at Hannah.

She looks at those in the back. “Are you ready?” she asks in Swedish.

The man breathes in loudly in the back and Hannah laughs, clapping her hands once when saying they are going. Manager Lee holds out his hand though, telling her to wait.

“I can’t keep an eye on all three of you,” Manager Lee explains to Hannah, “So I want you to tell them to walk inside, and the two of us walk behind them.”

Understanding what he means, Hannah simply translates before they are getting out of the van. On the way out of the van she grabs a cap from her bag to put on.

“She won’t see us walk inside then?” Tom wonders while shutting the door. Hannah looks over her shoulder to see it was asked to her, shaking her head in response.

“She is on the stage so she won’t see us come,” Hannah answers.

He follows her around the front of the van, stepping up to where Manager Lee is waiting with Anita. As explained, Anita and Tom walks first, the same path Manager Lee had walked. It doesn’t take many steps before those fans starts screaming. Tom almost stops walking at the sudden screams and looks behind him, seeing Manager Lee take care of Hannah by lowering her cap. The tall man continues to walk though, realising the screaming is nothing unusual here; the fans outside the building just spotted 5 Pieces’ Hannah, reacting to the sight of her.

For the Swedish couple, it is a bit odd getting all the attention, the closer to where the fans are by the entrance the more questions they can hear. Though they don’t understand the language, the fans are asking “who are they?”, “is that Hannah’s parents?” and those questions. Fans concludes that it is not Hannah’s parents, and the squeals gets louder just as Anita and Tom reaches the door.

“It’s Emelia’s parents!” a fan squeal.

“Hannah! Is that true?”

“You look lovely, Hannah!”

Their voices are still heard when they enter, fading out the further away from the entrance they walk. When being inside. Anita looks over her shoulder to look at Hannah.

“Are you okay?” she asks, sounding worried.

Hannah just smiles, the same wide smile she has been giving Anita since her best friend’s parents arrived yesterday. “It’s nothing unusual for me,” Hannah lets her know.

Manager Lee slinks past to show the way, and Hannah happily points out at the second floor “that’s where we do this” and point across the hall to below the stairs “that’s where we do that”. Since Hannah was nine years old, she has known Anita and Tom. Emelia’s parents. Her best friend’s parents. She used to feel spoiled whenever she came to their house, they always treated her well, asking about her studies and saying what they have heard from Emelia.

Emelia is busy with work, as she has been for weeks. Her [Soldier] promotions have ended but as it is the end of the year she is today filming for Yoo Heeyeol’s Sketchbook, completely unaware that her parents are currently in the building (she doesn’t even know they are in Korea) and this is going to be the best surprise ever. Hannah can’t stop smiling by the thought of how Emelia will react. Their cool and charismatic rapper, always so tough and acting cold-hearted; Hannah has planned together with KBS to give her a Christmas present.

Manager Lee shows them to a room backstage. It has everything needed. A makeup table, mirrors, a sofa, a table with water and some snacks on it, some chairs and a TV on the wall.

“This is nice,” Anita comments in a light tone.

“You sound impressed,” Hannah laughs, smiling widely at her.

“It’s a nice room, that’s all,” Anita admits. She lets down her handbag on the sofa to take a walk around the room. Tom is looking a bit stiff glancing around the room from next to a chair, looking like he isn’t sure whether he should get comfortable or be judging his daughter’s workplace.

“So…” Hannah breathes out, glancing at them, “there is water and snacks if you want… if you need to use the toilet, I’m sorry but you’ll need someone to go with you to make sure Emelia won’t see you. … Any questions?”

She is standing like she is expecting them to have a lot of questions, at the same time worried for what will be asked. But Anita just points out how big the TV is.

“Um… Hannah,” Manager Lee lowly says by the door behind her, lightly patting his fingertips against the door when Hannah gives him a smile. “Emelia knows I am here, which means she knows you’re here. You should be around when she comes backstage later.”

Hannah nods. “Is the PD here? By the stage?”

“He’s on his way here, just to meet and greet… you should stay for that. Because … well, we need a translator,” Manager Lee says and motions his finger around to the room. He is nervous for that he might have to be alone with the two foreigners, with no way to communicate together. It is a big question to him how the Swedish ladies of 5 Pieces and the Korean staff could communicate with each other eight years ago, with a huge language barrier between them. When he was in Sweden last week, having dinner with Emelia’s parents and getting to see the house where Emelia grew up, he depended on Hannah the whole time. When Hannah went to the bathroom it got awkwardly quiet due to the language barrier.

Hannah waits for the PD to be there as a middle woman, translating and going through with Emelia’s father what they are planning to due during Emelia’s interview. When the PD is done talking, Hannah leaves with him, both to talk to him on the way and to go wait for Emelia backstage.

The youngest lady of the group is wearing black leggings, a long white tee under a knitted grey sweater, a thick scarf and black converse. She is walking with a smile today, very different from how she usually is backstage when she is not the main star because today she is going to surprise her best friend and she can’t help but to smile at it. She greets the staff backstage as well as the few people that are in Emelia’s dressing-room.

When she had talked to Julia about this surprise, Julia said they should film it to make a YouTube film out of it, as Emelia and Julia are currently working hard on 5 Pieces’ YouTube channel. Julia even told Hannah to come by to get the camera but Hannah has brought her own as she didn’t have time to go to the house. She talked a bit in the van when going to get Emelia’s parents and she brings the camera with her now to film inside Emelia’s dressing-room. She speaks in Korean, talking lowly in the dressing-room and saying they have arrived and Emelia’s parents are hiding in another room to make a surprise appearance on stage later.

“Oppa, do you think this surprise will be successful?” Hannah asks and turns the camera around to film stylist Yong Hyun, who is quick to put down something on the makeup table as Hannah caught him. She laughs brightly at his reaction. “I just caught Yong Hyun Oppa taking a picture of the highlighter to remember the brand, that’s hilarious.”

“It’s a new one,” he explains and picks it up again, smiling at Hannah. “What did you ask me?”

“Uh… Will this surprise be successful you think?” Hannah repeats her question. She steps closer to film him up-close as well as look at the highlighter cream that Emelia has been using for a few weeks. Yong Hyun isn’t working on Emelia’s solo promotions but he is here as a friend today. As a clothing stylist he has also interest in makeup, though he doesn’t wear it himself or puts it on others, he is still fascinated by it and gets inspiration from makeup to what clothes the ladies might wear in the future.

“Unless you make a mistake, it will go well. But knowing you…” Yong Hyun says and his whole face is saying the end of that sentence that Hannah turns the camera to show herself grimacing.

“I will do well,” she says.

“Emelia is good at catching on to things though,” Yong Hyun tells her and Hannah nods, agreeing with her.

“She’ll probably just find it weird that I am filming because I never film on my own, according to the ladies,” Hannah adds. “So she might just … get suspicious because of the camera.”

“Or because you’re too cheerful.”

“I tend to be cheerful,” Hannah frowns at Yong Hyun.

“Yeah but not like this.”

“I do not know what you’re talking about,” Hannah say with a grimace, not agreeing this time. She can’t help but to smile because Yong Hyun says a cheerful Hannah means it is a good day and that a cheerful Hannah will probably make Emelia feel like it is a good day. Hannah says he is making no sense at all, but the two of them playing around is interrupted by having people enter the room.

Emelia along with her stylists are back and Hannah brightly (a bit too brightly, yes) jumps over to her friend with the camera to film her and ask how she is feeling, how the performance went and commenting on how cool Emelia looks. That’s just the first few seconds and Yong Hyun is certain Emelia will find Hannah’s too-bright behaviour a bit suspicious.

But Emelia is cool about it, happy that Hannah is there and answering the questions nicely before she has to prepare for the next performance she is going to do. Emelia is wearing a military t-shirt, cropped, and with leather pants, her hair long and straight with a black beanie for the winter concept. She looks like a charismatic rapper. Her lips are in a colour and her eye-makeup isn’t as strong as usually but still powerful the way that only Emelia can make it do because her eyes are a point in her charismatic concept. Yong Hyun ends up with the camera because the people in the room are not finding Hannah as a good camera-holder. They asked Hannah a few times what she was filming before Yong Hyun took the camera from her.

His hand is steady. When Hannah leaves the room, saying she is going to the bathroom, he steps up behind Emelia who is getting a touch on her makeup, their stylist asks Emelia why she thinks Hannah is in such a good mood. He just blurts it out, finding it natural because he can ask such questions at times.

“Hannah?” Emelia asks and blinks through the mirror-reflection at him. “She has been abroad for a few days, that’s why. Hannah always acts like a baby when she has missed me.”

Yong Hyun nods, realising that Emelia is confident about that. He finds it true too, because even if Hannah is not the person who tends to show affection often or open, her mood shows often that she is happy to be around her friends. It sounds like a good reason, he thinks.

Hannah isn’t back when Emelia goes to the stage, so Yong Hyun is following Emelia with the camera. She has performed a remix of [Soldier] and [Super Woman], and her last performance is the song [Dear Tom]. Emelia has talked about it before but it is only her third time performing it. First time was at the album showcase and the second time was on radio, and now her third time she is on the stage, performing the song that people say is her most personal track on the album.

While Emelia is performing, Hannah and Emelia’s parents show up behind the stage, right outside the hall so they can glance at the performance. Emelia’s mother cries when seeing it, though she doesn’t understand Korean she knows what the song is about and you can feel Emelia’s emotions in the performance.

As soon as the performance ends, the audience is still applauding, the host Yoo Heeyeol is walking up on the stage for the interview. Two staff members comes up with chairs to Emelia and the host. She drinks some water while taking her seat and they basically go straight to the interview as they are still filming, a nice concept they have on the program as the performers usually gets to catch their breath at the beginning of the interview.

At first they just talk casually about Emelia’s solo promotions, Christmas feelings, song-writing and briefly about her collaborations with other idols like Rap Monster and Tiger JK. She is completely clueless that behind the stage, Hannah is preparing with some staff members and Emelia’s parents. Since this will be Emelia’s father’s first time on camera, Hannah is giving him some last-minute advice. He is a lot calmer now than before, maybe because he can see his daughter on the stage, looking different from how he is used to but still looking as his daughter.

In the interview, Yoo Heeyeol starts talking about the song Emelia has performed for them.

“[Dear Tom] is written about my father,” Emelia explains to him and the viewers, “it’s a song about how my father helped me get through my fears and how his constant support has made me grow strong and stayed strong. You could say it is a letter, therefore [Dear Tom].”

“Ah, because you usually begin letters with ‘dear’,” the host nods. “I guess your father’s name is Tom? … When was the last time you met your father?”

“Um…” Emelia takes a deep breath to think about it, after she had said ‘yes, his name is Tom’. “I met my parents before summer, so it’s been some time now.”

Hannah is happy to hear Emelia say ‘before summer’ and not ‘at Hannah’s wedding’.

“I actually have prepared a Christmas present for you,” Yoo Heeyeol mentions and smiles weirdly at Emelia while changing the card in his hand. He takes his time before saying; “I have a letter from your father here.”

“No you don’t,” Emelia laughs, not believing him.

“But, since I can’t speak Swedish, I need someone to read it out for me,” Yoo Heeyeol explains, slowly turning a bit to look over his shoulder, creating excitement for the viewers. “Could the translator come up here?”

Emelia smiles, thinking Hannah will show up to do something because she knows Hannah is there and probably the only one in the building besides from Emelia who speaks Swedish. She leans a bit to the side to see who is coming up but as soon as her father is spotted among the staff coming up on the stage, the charismatic lady drops her smile and she is off her chair. With a sob from the tears that out of the blue drops from her eyes, Emelia walks over to him, long arms embracing her father.

Hannah is smiling widely by the entrance, blinking to not start crying as she sees her best friend absolutely break down into tears at the sight of her father, forgetting about the cameras for a moment when embracing her father. The surprise is more than a success. A lot of the people in the audience are showing tears too, the cameras for the program are capturing the moment perfectly, seeing mothers, men and women wipe tears or cover their mouths, just as surprised to see the touching reunion of father and daughter as Emelia is to see her father all of a sudden. The hug between father and daughter is tight and long, Emelia telling her father over his shoulder that she didn’t know he was here, repeating that she didn’t know he was here and her father telling Emelia tha