When I rang the doorbell to the apartment, I was even more nervous than for my college entrance exams. My heart beat faster than ever. God, let this thing be over quickly.

The door opened and a middle-aged man looked at me. After a moment of confusion, his face brightened significantly.

“You must be Im Shinae, my assistant!” He exclaimed.

I bowed. “Yes, sir. I'm here to help you with your work. I'll do my best.” I bowed again.

“Of course you will. Come in, come in. The boys are just getting ready.”

I nodded and followed him into the apartment. I took quick glances around. After closing the door behind me, I noticed the rather big entrance area. In fact, the location and the building itself had given away that living here was expensive.

The rest of the apartment was the same. After leaving the entrance area, I found myself in a rather bright and wide hallway. One end seemed to lead to rooms while the other one, to which I followed the manager, seemed to lead to the living room. I passed the kitchen and there I was. The living room was bigger than my small apartment at the dorms. Though it also contained a large eating table, it still seemed huge. On the other side of the room, sitting on the couch and packing bags, sat those five guys.

I sighed inside.

“Guys, this is Im Shinae, she'll be helping me with my work. So maybe I get to sleep some.” He laughed. He really liked the idea of an assistant.

I bowed to the guys, who where just getting up. “Nice meeting you. I hope we'll get along well, I'll do my best and work hard.”

When I lifted my head again I saw that two of them, Micky and Hero to be exact, were smiling, no, grinning.

I frowned for a second but then remembered my manners. Having been raised by a father who took respect to the outmost that I still had to call him 'sir' had it's advantages. Only a few, though.

The leader, U-know, spoke first. “Nice having you with us. We too hope to get along well.”

I bowed again slightly. Was I supposed to say something?

Fortunately, the manager spoke up already. “Ok, guy, that's enough. We need to got to practice for the SM Town songs. Since you guys were in Japan, we're a bit tight.”

He handed everyone a slip of paper, and to my surprise I also got one.

IM Shinae, August 2nd 2008

8am – 10am Practice “Summer Vacation” (all 5)

10am – 12am Practice “One Love” (XIAH)

12pm – 1pm Lunch

1pm – 4pm Practice “Show me your love” (all 5)

4pm – 8pm Vocal Practice

8pm – 12am Dance practice (all 5)

I stared at the schedule. I knew that my job was helping the manager, but it felt like doing this much on my first day was a bit too much. I didn't know the first thing about this job and this big schedule scared me. I tried not to show my surprise and just nodded. I needed to be professional, at least for now. I needed to know how to get to him, to Hero. We went to the office building, that also contained practice rooms, in the big van. I was last to leave and had been charged with the keys to lock the door.

I got in the front seat and the whole drive to the office I listened in on their conversation, trying to seem immersed into some papers.

“I can't wait to hear the new song” said Xiah with excitement.

“You mean 'Summer Vacation'? It's going to be great. When I read the lyrics I could almost hear the music.” said Micky.

“I just want to sing in Korean” said Hero, sighing.

I frowned. What a weird statement, to not be interested in to the singing but the language.

The conversation continued like this, they were all happy despite the busy schedule ahead of them. They must be real professionals, as I'd guessed. You didn't go far as an amateur in SM. Thinking about how they even made it in Japan, they must be able to endure a lot.

When we arrived, I jumped out to open the door for them. I bowed when they got out.

“You don't have to do that, you know” said Max, the last to leave the van.

I looked up surprised that he had talked to me.

“Um, sorry? I just don't want to make any mistakes today, I'm sorry.” I bowed in apology.

The youngest laughed. “You're doing it again. Don't bow, it makes me feel old. By the way, what age are you?”

“I'm 23 this year” I said.

“You're my noona then? Then you can't bow, okay? It would be wrong.”

I guess I hadn't thought about this. With age being such a huge issue here in Korea, I should know by now. But I had only thought that they were my seniors in the company.

“Okay, I won't. But aren't U-Know, Hero and Micky older than me? I'm born in november.” I asked, wanting to get rid of this age-seniority problem.

He burst out laughing. “Do you actually call them that? Those are only stage names. I guess they are, though. You can call them oppa if you want to” he said, winking.

I stared at him. And I felt my face getting red. I didn't know why, but ever since middle school I didn't like the term oppa. I'd gotten used to using it in college, but I still avoided using it as best as possible. Thankfully, Changmin (I tried to think in their real names) had already turned around to follow his band mates. I shook my head and closed the car door.

My being at the practice turned out to be nothing more than just watching the boys practice the song. Since the manager was there as well, I really didn't have much to do. Since they were late with starting preparations for SM Town, the song was already almost finished. The rest of the artists had already recorded their parts. I watched them warming up their voices and practice the few lines that they had. I'd thought such short parts wouldn't take long to record, but I was wrong.

After the two hours, they still didn't have contended the producer.

“We'll need to reschedule tomorrow a bit then and squeeze another two hours in for this song. I'd hope to finish this today, but I guess they still need to get used to Korean.”

I'd watched them try recording and thought to understand the problem. I was hesistant at first, because it was my first day and I didn't want to seem disrespectful, but I wanted to help them record.

“Um, sir, but isn't it hard to record like this? I mean, like Yunho-sshi, he has to rap together with a Super Junior member and his lines are already recorded.”

The manager nodded. “I know, I already asked for him but he isn't free until next week.”

He shook his head. I thought that it must be hard having to give good results but not to be given good circumstances. I was thankful that he didn't take my comment as an offense and accepted my help-

“The boys'll do it though, I'm sure. We have to record the music video, too.”

The next schedule I had was with Junsu. The manager wasn't there but told me to have an eye on him. But I didn't have to do anything. The Super Junior member, Eunhyuk, who sang this song with him, was present and recording went well. In fact, both of them had great chemistry. I remembered something like this. Hadn't they known each other for a long time?

Afterwards was lunch which I took with my old colleagues. They were all from the media department and seemed quite jealous of my new position.

“I know it's just being and assistant, but you get to spend so much time with them!” said my youngest colleague Jungah.

“It's quite boring though” I said, “all I have to do is watch.”

“It'll be better soon, I'm sure” encouraged Eunhye.

However, for the rest of the day, nothing changed much. All I had to do was getting water and towels for them. I brought snacks too, because I was bored. When schedules were finally over, everyone was tired. The guys were sweat through, the manager seemed to be falling asleep while opening the van.

“Sir, I can drive if you don't mind” I offered.

“It's okay, I-” He yawned.

I grabbed the keys from his hand. “It's okay, I want to, last time I drove a van it was filled with porcelain.”

He didn't protest further and I started the engine after everyone was inside. I noticed too late that I didn't know the way. I looked to my right to ask the manager but I was already snoring off. Damn, I couldn't just wake him. I looked into the mirror and say that the five also seemed to be dozing away already. I sighed. Thankfully, they didn't notice that it took 20 minutes longer to get to their apartment than usual. They were just confused as they checked the time and it was so late.

“I don't remember us taking so long back there. We must have been really slow today” said Junsu.

I twitched a bit. Please don't let them find out I took a wrong turn. Twice.

I stared at my feet as I held the door open for them. When I noticed that they'd all quit the car, I closed the door and turned around, only to see Jaejoong stare at me. I twitched again, out of surprise.

“I...” I started, but he had already turned around and left.

I stared after him until he entered the building. Then I realized that it was already almost 1 am and I had to try to get the last subway or to take a taxi. The manager had told me he'd stay with them for the night. I didn't have to go up with them. Although no one had said goodbye and it felt weird just leaving, I had to hurry.

I sighed, then I started to run.

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A/N: I got inspired with the schedule thingie by the story: Kyuhyun...it's been hard on you.