Sakura paced the corridors of SBS Open Hall panickingly, where weekly episodes of Inkigayo are filmed.

As she held an infamous inkigayo sandwich in her hand, she paused and checked the time.

Realising that she had roughly 30 minutes left before she would have to go on stage, she began pacing again and tried her best to hype herself up. If she wasn’t going to do it now, then she might never get another chance to.

You see, all morning Sakura had been thinking about one thing and one thing only.

The inkigayo sandwich.

 

- flashback to that morning -

 

“Kkura unnie!” Yena yelled as she stepped into the van and sat herself next to Sakura.

“Yes Yena, how can I help you?” She sarcastically answered, realising that it would be a long trip to the hall if she had to sit next to Yena the whole way there.

“Hey unnie, you know you love me,” Yena teased, pouting her lips as she hugged Sakura.

her hands through the blonde girl’s hair, she answered, “Yeah yeah.”

“Actually unnie,” the younger girl said as she got up again and looked at Sakura seriously, “since we’re going to perform at Inkigayo today, have you heard about the whole inkigayo sandwiches thing?”

Eyebrows furrowed with curiosity, she asked her, “not at all, what are they?”

“Well they’re just normal sandwiches I guess,” she admitted before continuing in a lowered voice, “but I heard from other trainees that apparently idols use them to pass phone numbers around.”

Sakura paused for a bit, giving herself time to take in the new information, before reaching a sudden realisation, “Ya, don’t make stuff up like that. I won’t fall it this time. As if they do that.”

“No really it’s true!” Yena protested, as she attempted to defend herself. “Apparently they unwrap the plastic on the sandwich, slip their phone numbers in and give it to other idols,” she continued, gesturing as she demonstrated the process.

Sakura thought about it for a while. Why would she lie? What could she gain from this? Besides, it does seem pretty ingenious of them.

After re-accessing the situation, she answered, “Okay… I believe you, but why are you even telling me this?”

As a cheeky smile began to grow on her face, Yena replied, “Well, you know Red Velvet are going to be there today as well to perform RBB.”

“Of course I know, I could barely sleep last night thinking that I may actually see them today, especially Irene-sama, in the flesh,” she answered a matter of factly, shocked that Yena would even think for a second that she didn’t know their schedule.

Teasingly, Yena suggested, “Well why don’t you give Irene a sandwich with your number then?”

“Ehh? Me? Give my phone number to Irene? I-“

“Come on, you never know what might happen. Remember Jennie approached Irene first and look at them now,” she reasoned, trying her best to encourage Sakura to confront her ultimate bias.

She does have a point, Sakura admitted to herself. Imagine, you even talking to Irene-san.

Throughout the entire car ride, Sakura ended up sitting there in silence, conflicted as to what she should do.

She was already ecstatic at the thought of seeing the five members of Red Velvet in real life.

If she decided to go with Yena’s idea, then that meant that she would have to approach Irene, which would be both a blessing and a challenge.

As the van neared the hall, she finally came to a decision.

For Irene-sama, she thought, Let’s do it!

 

- end of flashback -

 

And so, here she was. Pacing the hallways with an inkigayo sandwich in her hand, convincing herself to give it to the one and only, Irene.

It had been 15 minutes already since she was about to give it to her, but at the last minute she panicked and ended up running away, lost inside the Open Hall.

As she frantically walked back and forth, Sakura reread the note that she had quickly written in the morning, making sure she had spelt everything correctly and didn’t sound too weird.

Well, Sakura would like to say that she wrote it quickly, but in reality it was not so quick. In fact she had actually written around 23 drafts, struggling to say all the right words and spell them correctly.

She just needed everything to be perfect, was it too much to ask for?

She once again checked the time and saw that she now had about 20 minutes left. She knew that if she was going to go, it’d be now or never.

Still attempting to find the courage to go, Sakura stressfully thought to herself, What if she doesn’t even like the sandwich? She’s probably too busy anyway I’d just be a nuisance.

But she did really want to go and give Irene the sandwich. The mere thought of Irene and Jennie’s friendship motivated her.

You really never know what could happen, she reasoned, trying to calculate the prospect of a positive result.

And so, after all the pacing and all the doubting, she came to a decision.

She would go.

______________

Sakura began to make her way through the corridors and towards the waiting rooms.

She thought that if she were to find Irene, then Red Velvet’s waiting room would be where she would most likely be found.

Now feeling eager to meet her idol, she quickened her step and held the sandwich tighter, not wanting to lose it, but also careful not to squish it.

As she spotted some waiting rooms not too far away, her face brightened and she paused for a second to take it all in. There was a high possibility that she was about to meet the Irene.

About to start making her way towards the waiting rooms again, Sakura was suddenly halted in her step when she heard, “Saku-chan!”

Oh no, she thought, please no.

“Chaeyeon! What are you doing here?” She asked curiously, trying to hide the sandwich behind her back.

“I was just looking for you,” the blonde girl answered, slightly suspicious of her friend, but moving past it and continuing, “I didn’t know where you were and I was worried. Come on let’s go to our waiting room, we don’t have much time left,” she answered with a bright smile and her hand sticking out, wanting to take her best friend back with her.

While she was touched that her friend was worried, Sakura started panicking as she needed to give Irene the sandwich. She was already so close.

Quickly thinking of an excuse, Sakura explained, “Oh okay. Um...you go first I just need to...go to the toilet quickly. I’ll see you there,” praying that the younger girl would buy her excuse.

“Alright, you remember where we are right?”

“Yep,” she reassured, giving her friend a thumbs up as she desperately wanted to leave.

“Okay I’ll see you there then!” Chaeyeon said as she waved and promptly left.

Waiting until the girl was out of sight, Sakura let out a big exhale as she felt like she could finally breathe.

Looking at the sandwich in her hand, she found her confidence again and began walking towards the waiting rooms.

As she got there, she started reading the signs on the doors.

‘EXO’

‘TWICE’

‘MONSTA X’

Then she saw it, ‘RED VELVET’.

Behind that door could be Irene or even, and most likely, all five members of her favourite band.

As she stood outside the room, Sakura rehearsed what she was going to say to Irene in her head, wanting to ensure she pronounced every word correctly.

Just as she raised her closed fist and was about to knock on the door, she noticed that further down the hall stood a woman that looked much like her favourite idol.

In fact, it had to be her, the resemblance was uncanny.

Sakura took one last look at the waiting room and turned away to slowly approach the woman.

The closer she got, the more she could see from the woman’s side profile that it was indeed and definitely Irene.

While she was talking to another idol, Sakura knew that if she didn’t go now then she would never have the courage to do so in the future.

So she formed a fist with her right hand and told herself, Sakura, go to Irene-sama. Ganbatte ne!

With all the strength in her body, she started making her way towards the idol and held the sandwich with her note in two hands.

Legs shaking, Sakura tapped the older woman on the shoulder. It’s really happening, she realised.

Startled, the woman turned around to see who had tapped her and was shocked to see Sakura formally bowing with her back arched at a 90 degree angle.

Holding the sandwich out in front of her towards her idol, Sakura took a deep breath and blurted out,

“helloirenesunbaenimmynameismiyawakisakuraofizoneandimahugefanofyoursithoughtyoumightbeabithungrysoitooktheinitiativeandboughtyouthissandwichihopeyoulikeitgoodlucktodayfighting!”

Frantically, the young girl pushed the sandwich into the confused woman’s hands and before she could actually see the woman’s face, turned around and ran as if her life depended on it.

With her head cocked back and her legs running as fast as they could, Sakura thought to herself, you did it, you really did it, you met Irene-sama.

Proud of herself, a delighted grin formed on her face as she quickly made her way back to IZ*ONE’s waiting room, hoping that Chaeyeon hadn’t gone looking for her again.

Meanwhile, a bewildered woman was left behind holding a random sandwich that had been somehow ed into her hands.

At first, the raven-haired beauty had been simply talking to her labelmate, Golden Child’s Y, when the odd girl approached her. One thing lead to another and suddenly the girl began blurting out words so fast that she couldn’t understand a single thing that she was trying saying.

You see, unbeknownst to Sakura who had run away too fast to even realise, she hadn’t actually given the sandwich, and thus her phone number, to her ultimate bias, Irene.

Instead, she had actually mistaken the woman for her fellow member, Kwon Eunbi.

After realising that Y had left her to her own devices, Eunbi stared at the sandwich, not knowing what to do with it. No one had ever given her a sandwich like this before.

As she stood there alone, Eunbi inspected the sandwich and turned it to see a note under the plastic.

Hoping for some clarification, she unwrapped the plastic and read the note,

 

“Hello Irene sunbaenim,

I’m IZ*ONE’s Sakura and I’m a fan of yours. I was hoping that maybe we could get to know each other. My phone number is (02) 458-0248. If you’re too busy, that’s okay, it was nice meeting you anyway.

Please rest well and enjoy the sandwich,

- Sakura.”

 

It was Sakura, she realised, she thought I was Irene-sunbaenim.

Laughing to herself, she looked up to see if she could find Sakura again, but unfortunately the girl was already long gone.

Instead, she saw the ash brown haired beauty, who she was mistaken to be, walk out of Red Velvet’s waiting room.

Realising that she would now have to give her sunbae the sandwich on behalf on Sakura, she sighed as she began to try and catch up to the older woman.

“Oh Sakura,” she said while smiling to herself and looking at the sandwich.

“She really is something else.”