“Yura? What are you doing here?” I could see my mother’s face full of confusion as she opened the door. “If this is about seeing your brother, forget it. I told you, I don’t want him distracted at the moment.” My heart skipped a beat. A part of me was still wishing that this woman would find it in her to accept me but a part of me had given up on it and hater her for that. I gathered up what was left of my courage and pride and looked straight into her eyes.

“I’m here to make a deal with you.” I started and she seemed slightly interested.

“Let’s go somewhere to talk.” She said, leaving for a second to grab her bag and I used this chance to glance inside. It made me curious why I couldn’t go in and I could hear her talking to a man and a boy, maybe around Yoojin oppa’s age trying to peek at the door to see who it was. I felt a burst of anger – had I really not noticed something before? There weren’t any pictures of anyone else when I had been here last time, but there was no way these people were just visitors. My fists clenched up as I stepped slightly away from the door. I wasn’t going to run, but I did not want to see this. I didn’t care what she did with her life but to me, this seemed like betraying my father. He hadn’t remarried, heck he didn’t even date no matter how much I pushed him and here she was – living with another man? I felt disgusted.

“Let’s go.” She finally appeared and started leading me towards a café nearby her house. I was trying to get my thoughts together and go over once again what I would tell her. After we had ordered couple of coffees and sat down, she looked at me and I took that as a signal to start talking.

“I know Howon oppa is with Woollim entertainment.” I began and her eyes widened. Good, that meant she had never thought I would find out.

“You won’t get to see him anyways. He’s debuting soon enough, he has even moved into a dormitory, I’m sure his schedule is busy enough not to have free time to run around meeting people. He has to concentrate on his debut for now.” She said, with her face stone cold and stiff. She was scared that I would get to him, distract him – everything seemed to be in my favour.

“You might be right, however, there is one thing that brings me closer to him.” At this point I took out the contract and placed it in front of her. It only took one look at it for her to know what it was. Obviously my brother had brought back one of his own not that long ago. Her eyes seemed to get bigger and bigger, seemed like they are going to fall out any second. “Now, I joined not too long ago - couple of weeks to be precise. I have even seen him.” At this point she grabbed her coffee and started sipping on it. I knew she was getting very nervous. “Don’t worry, I did not talk to him. Yet.” I mentioned.

“So what do you want from me? What sort of deal are you talking about?” She was trying to control her voice.

“Well, I could just try and find him and talk to him, however that would only mean he would get distracted, like you said and it is very close to his debut.” I was trying not to mess this up. “I would not want to disturb him either. So you see, I would like to prevent this as much as you do. But just leaving like this there’s nothing in it for me either.” She did seem a bit confused at my words. “Basically, the deal is – I stay away from him, at least until his debut but you have to sign this contract – I need a parent to sign this and dad would not do it. Legally, you are still my mother and have the authority to sign this. I was offered to debut as well and they need legal approval by one of my parents or guardians to take control over my daily schedules and to sign other contracts in my place. Also you need to confirm that you understand what it means for me to debut and so on and so on. I’m sure Howon oppa had one of these too so you should be fully aware of the contents.” I finished off my speech and kept my eyes on her. She was my last chance in this, if she refuses, there is no way I’ll be able to debut without this, at least not until I’m 18 or over.

She picked up the contract, went through it without paying much attention to it and then looked at me again. “And what if I don’t?”

“Well then, I will have to go and meet him, explain everything to him, keep disturbing him from this and maybe even talk him out of debuting. I mean, I still remember how close we were when we were kids. And he made a promise. I’m sure he would be happy to know I still remember it.” She was sitting there, her lips tightly shut and her arms crossed.

“So if I sign this, you promise to leave him alone? Until his debut?” She asked, rising and eyebrow.

“Yes, I promise.” I said, getting more nervous and nervous. If only anyone could hear my heartbeat at the moment, it was like a woodpecker. I felt that I was close to convincing her.

“And what about after the debut then? If he finds out and then the media finds out, how do you think it will sound? A girls living in England for the most of her life turns out to be his sister – they will want to know why you were brought up separately. About his family life and the company thinks that my fiancée and his sons are his real family.” At the word ‘fiancée’ I felt like puking. So she wasn’t just dating or living with someone, they were engaged. That was such great news. “It will be a big blow to his career.” She seemed to be trying hard to find an excuse, but I had spent all morning trying to think of a reply to any single scenario that could come up.

“I thought about that already.” I said with a sly grin on my face. “The story goes that I’m a childhood friend of his from our birth town and we were very close – almost like real siblings – but me and my father decided to move back to England at one point so we haven’t seen of each other since. But for both of us, debuting was our dream so I returned to Korea as soon as I could and once I found out which company he was with I decided to join in as well and now we’re pursuing our dream together.” I recited as if out of a textbook and she seemed to think it over. I was just praying in my mind for this to work. This HAD to work.

“And your father? You know he is not going to like this and he will probably go mental once he finds out.” She mentioned, but it looked like I had gotten through her.

“Don’t worry about him. I know how to deal with him. Another deal with him and this should all go down well. Just, I need to show him some proof that this is going to be worth it and not just a complete waste of time.” I said with the little grin not leaving my face.

 She looked me in the eyes, had the last of her coffee, looked at the contract and back at me again. “Alright.” She said. “However, if I hear anything from him, anything at all or if anything shows up in the media, I will make sure you go down faster than he does and you don’t climb back up.” Her voice was cold and she sounded almost robotic. But I was barely listening – victory trumpets were going off in my mind and I wanted to break out into a dance. It took a lot to contain myself so I just nodded and she took a pen out of her bag and signed the contract. We quickly bid our goodbyes - there was no other reason for me to stick around her. She just made sure I remembered the promise to the last bit and I ran off as soon as possible to hand in the contract to the company. I met up with the president, we talked over everything that was going to happen and where we’re starting first. They told me to pack up by the end of tonight and to arrive at the company very early tomorrow morning to move into the dormitory, settle in and start my very own hellish practices.

Once that was over, I got back to the house a soon as possible and just felt buzzing. As no one was home, I turned up the music loudly in my room, danced for a bit, packed for a bit and then danced again – I was celebrating already. Yes, I still didn’t know what my dads’ reaction would be like, but I was pretty sure I had this covered – there were quite a few good parts about being daddy’s little princess.  As I was packing my bags and humming the song, someone suddenly grabbed my hand and I turned around with a slight yell.

“OPPA! You scared the hell out of me! I thought I told you to knock before coming in here.” I put my hand on my heart – it seemed like he just loved to scare the hell out of me recently.

“I did, about ten times. But obviously you didn’t hear me.” He laughed in my face and I immediately pulled the ‘I’m-so-sorry’ face. “What’s all this anyways?” He asked, pointing at the bags. “You still have a week and a half before your flight, did you change it or something?”

I threw my fists in the air as I danced towards my copy of the contract and I handed it over to him, continuing to pack. He was silent for a while and once I turned around to look at him, his face seemed a bit dark and gloomy.

“You got your mother to sign this? How? That seemed like an even less likely option than your dad signing it.” He finally said, lifting his eyes to look at me.

“Well, it made a little deal with her. I stay away from Howon oppa until he debuts and in return she will sign the contract for me and I will get to debut as well.” I explained what had happened this morning. “Oh, and after the debut I will have to make sure to keep my mouth shut about the whole thing – to the general public that is. Of course I will be able to finally meet Howon oppa and talk to him.” He did not seem happy about this, not at all. “Are you ok?” I asked him, coming closer and putting my hand on his.

“And your father?” He asked, not moving, not even showing any reaction to me being this close as he normally did.

“I was going to talk to him in a bit. Just need to ask him to go on his computer so we can have a little chat.” I gave my brightest, happiest and widest smile to him. “I know some ways to convince him.”

He stepped away from me, placed the contract on my desk and walked to the door. “Well, tell me how that goes then.” He just said and went off. There was no time for me to be confused, I had bigger things to do. I logged on my computer and got ready to have the talk battle of the century that is going to change my life forever or could end up with me being dragged back to England by very, very huge force.