Chapter One

    “Are y’all ready to go live?” Nik asked her friends from the Skype chat they were currently in.

    This week was different. “Always,” Lily said, adjusting her camera. Lily lived in New York. She was born in the Philippines, but had moved to the United States when she was a kid. She had long dark brown hair with pink and turquoise highlights. Briley lived in the UK. She currently had her short curly hair dyed a royal blue. Nik was from Texas. Her hair was finally growing out after having kept it short for years, and it was usually pulled back in a braided ponytail.

    “Let’s get it,” Briley said, giving one last adjustment to her camera for the best angle. Lily hit the live on their YouTube channel and played their intro. Viewers slowly started piling in and the comments were already starting.

    The three of them had been doing this for over a year now and had collected a bit of a fanbase on their YouTube channel. Known for the “Fangirl Fridays” where they caught up on music videos that had come out over the past week, each of the girls also took another day of the week for their own personal videos. Nik’s videos were mostly about taekwondo, fitness, and cooking. Lily was all about the news. She kept everyone up to date on what was going on in KPop and acting news. Briley was focused on KDramas and a few variety shows. Their channel put out four videos weekly.

    Nik laughed at some of the comments as all 3 of the girls waved from their separate box in the video. Today was an unscheduled day for videos and they had announced on the Friday video that they would be doing a live video the next day with a big announcement. “Today is a special day!” she said, grinning at all of the questions already flooding in.

    “That’s right!” Briley added.

    “But WHY is it a special day?” Lily asked.

    “It is two weeks from KCon New York! We have a very special announcement to make,” Nik said.

    Suddenly Nik was being pushed out of her window on the screen and her son was climbing into the screen. He was 8, turning 9 in a little over a month. “WE’RE ALL COMING TO NEW YORK!” Aaron shouted.

    Nik pushed her son up so that she could get back in the screen. Aaron went behind her and rested his chin on her shoulder as he read the comments along with his mother. “No, we were not asked by the convention, so we will not be having a panel,” Nik answered the question that had been asked by several of the commenters.

    “That brings us to our next order of business,” Lily said. “Since we will not have a panel there, the hotel across the street has offered us a place to have a fanmeet.”

    “We would like your suggestions on what to do during our meeting. It will be Saturday morning,’ Briley told everyone.

    Messages poured in. The girls laughed and commented on most of them. They decided not to give any confirmation on what sounded good and what did not, wanting to surprise everyone. Their video lasted about 30 minutes when they finally signed off.

    “There were a lot of requests for us to do a cover concert during our fanmeet” Briley said once they were sure they were no longer live.

    Lily nodded, “It could be fun. We have all been learning dances. But if we do this, we should sing, too.”

    “Of course, so we need a list. We have the room for two hours. That is a really long time. So I say we do a song or two, then talk for a bit, then another song or two, and so on. Should we end with a song?” Nik asked.

    “What about photos and hugs at the end. Depending on how many people show up, that could take about 30 minutes.” Lily said.

    And so they agreed to create a list of songs and started working on their schedule. Nik, Aaron, and Briley were flying in to New York the Monday before the convention and were planning on staying in the hotel that they would be having their fanmeet in, and even though Lily lived in New York, she would probably be staying with them so that they could have as much time together as possible. They had been online friends for a couple years, but this was the first time they would all get to meet in person.

~*~*~

    The next week flew by like a whirlwind. Nik and Aaron were greeted by Lily at the airport with a giant colorful sign that said “Mrs. Jung Pilkyo”. The moment Aaron pointed the sign out to his mom, she fell to the floor covering her face and laughing. She knew her friend would probably try to do something, but she was not expecting her to have placed photos of them all over the board.

    When she was finally able to get back to her feet with the help of her son, Nik braced herself as her friend ran at her and they hugged for the first time. “Oh my gosh, that sign! I can’t believe you” Nik laughed as they collected their stuff to head to the hotel.

    “I thought you would appreciate it, since we are going to get to see him in less than a week!” Lily laughed along with her friend as they headed out to the hotel. “Briley’s flight doesn’t land for another 4 hours, do you want to go unpack or would you rather drop your stuff off and go get some food?”

    Nik looked down at her son and then back at Lily, cocking her head and raising her eyebrow like there was even a question to that. “Food,” the all said in unison.

    After dropping off Nik and Aaron’s stuff in their suite, the trio headed back out in search of sustenance. Lily took Nik and Aaron to a Chinese bakery she had found on Google to get a snack while the explored the area and waited for Briley to land. They picked out several treats while Nik talked to the owner. She was getting some tips on cooking and baking. Nik asked if they could come back the next day to film for their YouTube channel.

    After they walked out, Lily turned to her friend. “You are always thinking of new stuff to do, aren’t you?”

    Nik grinned and nodded. “It’s fun, and the people that watch our channel enjoy it. Besides, once I’m done with school, I may not have as much time to spend on our channel.” Nik’s face sunk slightly, the smile falling from her eyes.

    “Girl, you don’t have time to do anything now and yet you still manage to put out great videos with us. Just because you will be living in Korea does not mean that we won’t be able to keep this up. Besides, you know Briley and I will be there visiting you all the time.” That made Nik smile again. Her and Aaron were moving in a year, and while she was excited to finally move on to the next chapter of their lives, she was still nervous about such a big change.

    As they continued walking along, Aaron took his mom’s hand to drag her over to a stall that had stuffed animals. “Look, they have fruit plushies! You should buy the Orangie!” he said, smirking up at his mother.

    Nik made a face but asked the vender how much it was. She also bought Briley a blue heart plush, Lily a plush that looked like Sailor Venus, and Aaron the stuffed koala that he wouldn’t put down once he noticed it.

    Noticing the time, they rushed back to the airport to collect their English friend. Lily pulled her backpack off and pulled out two posters. One poster had “It’s Morphin Time” with Briley holding the BLue Ranger Morpher out. The other Had “Triceratops” with her photoshopped in front of the Triceratops Dinozord behind her.

    Briley squealed out a laugh the moment she saw her friends holding the posters. She ran up and Aaron handed her the blue heart they had just bought.

The three friends, finally in the same time zone, embraced in a long hug.

    “Oh my gosh we are finally together” Briley broke the silence but didn’t pull out of the hug.

    Nik instantly started laughing. When Briley and Lily looked at her confused, she responded while still laughing. “I’ve honestly never heard the British accent in person. You’re so cute.”

    Briley gawked at her friend. “You’re from Texas. Have you not heard your accent?”

    “What accent?” Nik winked and they all laughed again, finally separating completely.

    “Let’s get this stuff to the hotel and then we can go eat and plan the rest of our week,” Lily said excitedly.

    Back at the hotel, Nik checked the time and decided to go see a movie before supper. “We have a lot to get through this week,” she said, looking through her to-do binder with all of their plans. She shoved her binder into her panda backpack as soon as the other girls were ready to go.

    The group of four headed out to the movies to see the new live action Lion King movie, and then headed to a small wings shop to sit and talk. After talking for nearly two hours, Nik insisted that they head back to the hotel to plan and work. Everyone agreed. Aaron was tired from all of their adventures, so the moment they stepped into the suite, he headed to shower and then sleep.

    The girls pulled out all of their plans and equipment for the coming week. Lily pulled out her portable speaker and their performance playlist, knowing that they need to keep the songs as fresh in their heads as possible. They then set up all three of their cameras and lights, hitting record as soon as they were satisfied.

    “So, since none of us are doing our individual videos this week, we will be documenting and uploading our adventures as we go,” Briley said after their greetings.

    “Currently, we are planning out our meals and dance practices,” Lily added. The rest of the video was going to be sped up with music playing, so they turned their heads away to the camera and towards all of their work.

    They worked quickly and efficiently, getting their work done. After working through some of their dances, altering the dresses they were going to wear, editing some photos they had taken that day, and starting on some of the decorations for their fanmeet, they turned back to the cameras. “So it has been roughly three hours,” Lily said.

    “We were about to edit and post this video, but we just got a notification that Shinhwa is currently on VLIve, so we’re going to do what we do best and fangirl together,” Nik said as Briley connected her computer so that it would record them and the VLive at the same time.

    Nik sighed dreamily as the screen came up with Pilkyo and Choongjae live. Lily leaned against Nik as they listened to their biases ramble on about having just landed in New York and preparing for KCon.

    Briley laughed, poking her friends cheeks, “You are both so cute.” They continued watching, occasionally translating something funny or stupid that was said, and commenting on their antics. After a bit, Junghyuk came on to crash the party, squishing himself between the seated men. “Erik is such a good man, handsome, too” Briley laughed at her bias’ antics. “His wife is so lucky.”

    “So true,” Nik agreed. “Eventually they will all be married to the luckiest women on the planet.”

    “Hey, you still have a chance. Hyesungie and Junjinie are still single,” Briley giggled out.

    “Yeah, okay,” Nik laughed, still watching Pilkyo. Junghyuk and Choongjae were now picking on him and his ears had turned a cute shade of red. After a bit longer, the men said goodnight to the fans and the three girls waved childishly back at the screen.

    With that, the girls redirected their attention and ended their video. “It’s late, if y’all want to go to bed, I’ll stay up to edit and upload the video,” Nik offered around a yawn that she had caught from Lily.

    After much discussion and argument, they decided to all stay up to edit. Finally, around 3:30am, they each climbed into their beds to sleep.