Korean

English          

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           “Hey, it’s Lila! I’m too busy to answer my phone right now so leave a message after the beep in 3..2…1…”

            Beep!

            “Aish.” I muttered. “Answer your phone brat, before I make you regret this. I’m at the airport, where are you?” I hung up, grumbling and complaining the whole time. Seriously, this chick needed to learn how to use her phone before I strangled her. Finally, I got too impatient and just called her manager, Dohyun-oppa.

            He answered on the second ring. “What, Axle?”

            “I’m at the airport, can you pick me up?” I asked, ignoring the obvious annoyance in his voice.

            He sighed. “Be there in five.”

            Technically, it took him ten minutes, but I wasn’t about to complain to him. Especially once I got a good look at the bags under his eyes.

            “Sleep well?” I asked, slipping into the passenger seat. He shot me a glare before driving out of the airport parking lot. “Did the kids have a schedule today? I talked to Lila and she said they didn’t today.”

            Dohyun-oppa stayed silent as he drove for a long time. I knew better than to bug him for an answer, the guy was pretty terrifying when he got angry, and I could tell he was getting close to anger already.

            “You’re sister hasn’t been seen since last night. We don’t know where she is and she won’t answer her phone.” He finally said after a while.

            He seemed to notice the panicked look on my face as he quickly added; “She disappears sometimes just to be alone for a while.”

            “She never goes at night. She’s terrified of the dark.” I said, already pulling out my phone. Once again, it went straight to voicemail. “Yah, pick up your phone. Where are you?”

            “Relax, Ax, we’ll find her. She couldn’t have gone far.” Dohyun-oppa said, reaching out and placing a hand over mine. “You two are the most independent girls I know, so don’t worry about her.”

            “My sister is missing, I shouldn’t be worried?” I asked in disbelief. He shook his head.

            “It won’t help her if she finds out you were freaking out over something like this. We’re going to the Cube building, I have to talk to my boss, so just go get patbingsoo or something in the café, okay?” he replied, placing his hand back on the steering wheel.

            “Oppa—“

            “And stop worrying, just enjoy the first part of Seoul. She’ll be back in a little bit and you guys can hang out for the rest of the week.”

            “She has schedules next week?” I asked, my shoulders slumping in disappointment. I knew my sister was an idol, therefore she would be busy, but I had been hoping for a longer time to spend with her outside of photo shoots and performances. Sure I was going to be in Seoul all summer, but I hadn’t seen my sister in two years, one week was not enough time for us to catch up.

            “Sorry, Ax, you know how it is.” He said, giving me a sympathetic look.

            Of course I did, we may have been an ocean apart, but Lila kept me up to date about everything going on in her life as an idol, I knew everything about being an idol and I hadn’t even gone through training.

            We drove up to the Cube building and walked through the front doors. He steered me towards the direction of the café then gave me some money.

            “Get some sugar, you must be tired. I’ll take you over to the girls’ dorm in an hour or so, okay?” I gave him the ‘OK’ signal then walked over to the counter to order patbingsoo.

            Honestly, nobody made it like Cube’s café. It was like happiness in a bowl. I sat by the window and enjoyed the sweet snack, looking around in curiosity. That’s when I caught the eye of a guy sitting with a group of boys. He sent me a smile and I instantly looked away. Was this, like, normal in Korea? Smiling at strangers?

            Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him get up and walk over to me. The closer he got, the more I noticed how familiar he looked. Oh right, he had been a trainee with my sister! I’d seen a picture of the two of them together once.

            What was his name? Peniel, right.

            “Li, what’s with you? You’re never alone.” He slid into the seat across from me and I just stared at him with a confused expression. The smile on his face faded. “You’re not Lila.”

            “Nope.” I said, shaking my head. He shoulders relaxed.

            “But you do speak English.” He chuckled, glancing up at me. “Lila’s twin sister, right?” I nodded, giving him a thumbs up while also taking another bite of patbingsoo.

            “Lila’s friend, right?” I asked after I had finished my bite.

            “Peniel.” He said, leaning back in his seat. “And in case you’re wondering, I’m from Chicago, which is why I can speak English.”

            I shrugged. “To be honest, I wasn’t wondering.”

            He laughed. “Lila was right, you are blunt.” I smiled and rolled my eyes.

            “She’s worse, it’s just that her voice is softer so everything she says sounds nice.” I replied, crinkling up my nose. “She gets away with everything.”

            “I know.” Peniel nodded. “Whatever she did, I was always the one that got in trouble.”

            “Welcome to my world.” I glanced over to the group of boys at the table that Peniel had come from. “Are those your members?”

            He turned around to look at them then sighed and looked back at me. “Sometimes, I’d like to say no.” I looked over again to see them flicking water out of their cups at each other and just being typical guys. I couldn’t help but laugh at them.

            “I see.” Was all I could say.

 

 

            Peniel invited me to take a tour around Cube building. He left s to themselves and led me through the first couple of floors. We got to the third floor, where the practice rooms where at, when he totally lost me.

            Okay, technically, he didn’t lose me. I left him to go inside one of the singing rooms and check it out. No one was in there when I entered so I didn’t feel like I was going to annoy anyone. I sat down behind the piano and looked around in amazement.

            Peniel entered the room a while after me and sat down beside me. “Your sister loves this room.” He said, also taking a look around.

            “I’m not surprised. It’s so peaceful in here.” I smiled, running my fingers along the keys of the piano.

            “For now.” Peniel sighed. “The guys make a lot of noise sometimes when they come in here.”

            I started playing a simple tune on the piano, thinking about Lila and the possibility that something could have happened to her. I know oppa had said not to worry, but what else was I supposed to do? Peniel seemed to sense something was wrong.

            “Everything okay?” he asked.

            I shook my head. “Lila’s missing.”

            He stayed silent as that sunk in. “What do you mean by missing?”

            “No one can find her.”

            He let out a heavy sigh. “That’s not good.” He muttered. I snorted to show how ironic that sounded. ‘Not good’ was not a big enough phrase to explain how bad this situation was.

            Just then the door opened and Dohyun-oppa entered with Cube’s CEO standing behind him. Peniel and I both stood up to greet him properly.

            “Axle, do you think we could talk?” Dohyun-oppa asked, glancing at Peniel.

            I exited the room, sending a small wave to Peniel on my way out, and followed the two down to the CEO’s office.

            “We can’t get any information about where Lila could be. We’ve checked all the normal places she goes to be alone. There’s just no sign of her.” Dohyun-oppa said, sitting down. He gestured for me to take a seat. “We’re going to wait until the end of the week, if she doesn’t come back we’re going to have to make an announcement, and cancel all performances for AlphabetSoup until she comes back.”

            I instantly shook my head. “You can’t cancel the performances! They’ve worked so hard for this comeback!”

            “If the lead singer is missing, people are going to notice.” Dohyun-oppa said. “There’s nothing we can do about it.”

            “Unless,” the CEO said from his seat behind his desk. The both of us turned to look at him. “Axle, would you fill in for your sister?”

            “Me?” I asked, my voice rising on octave higher. He nodded.

            “You could fill in for your sister until she gets back. You two look exactly alike, no one would expect a thing.” He said.

            “Except, you know, the fact that Axle’s hair is a totally different color, she doesn’t know the dance or the song, and her voice is totally different.” Dohyun-oppa said, turning to look at the CEO.

            “We can dye her hair, she can learn the dance, and I’ve heard Axle can do a great impression of her sister.” CEO responded, raising an eyebrow at Dohyun. “Anything else?”

            Dohyun sighed, turning back to look at me. “What do you think?”

            I thought about it. If I didn’t do it, AlphabetSoup would have to suffer. How many times had Lila emailed me about how much they had been working hard on this comeback? How could I just let it all go to waste? I turned to look at Dohyun and nodded. “I’ll do it.”

            He nodded. “Let’s give it a week, if she’s not back, then you’ll step in and be Lila.”

            “Okay.”

 

 

 

            He drove me to the girls’ dorm a while after to get me settled in.

            No one was home since they were all at practice, so I had time to myself to explore the dorm. There were a lot of pictures taped to the walls of the band and other members of Cube Entertainment. I noticed a picture of me and Lila from back before she’d come to Seoul to train. I couldn’t help but smile at all the pictures.

            I’d never met her band members, but I knew so much about them from her letters, it felt like I did.

            There was the leader, KJ, with his goofy yet protective attitude. Kato, the choding of the group, who loved to prank the members at any chance he got. Those two lived with the members of Beast, as they were guys and couldn’t live with the four girls in the group. Out of the four girls, Minnie was the most mature, not that she didn’t ever have her child-like moments, just compared to Sunri, she was much more mature. Whereas Minnie was mature, Rin could be described as haughty. Out of every selca I could see on the walls, Rin didn’t smile in any. From how Lila described her, she wasn’t arrogant or rude or anything, just kept to herself and didn’t really open up to anyone.

            I looked around at the kitchen area and living room and noticed how neat everything looked. Minnie was a neat freak, Lila had said, so everything had to be spotless. I entered the room that Lila shared with Rin and noticed that one of the closets were open and empty. I peeked into the drawers and noticed the majority of the stuff was gone, excluding a bottle of purple nail polish. I knew for a fact that it was Lila’s closet, since she had an obsession with purple nail polish.

            So why was it so empty? Where was all of her stuff?

            I glanced around and noticed that half of the room seemed to be especially empty—as if someone had come in and taken out everything that gave that half of the room personality.

            All of Lila’s stuff was gone. She’d packed up and left, but why? And when was she coming back?

            I didn’t have any more time to investigate, though, as I heard the front door open and voices filling in the empty air. I exited the room to go and greet the girls.

            “Wah, it’s Lila’s sister!” Sunri squealed, running over and throwing her arms around my shoulders. “It’s nice to meet you!” she added in broken English. I smiled and bowed to the rest of them.

            “I hope you don’t mind me staying here for a while, Dohyun-oppa didn’t want me staying in a hotel.” I said after greeting and introducing ourselves to each other.

            Minnie shrugged. “I don’t see why not. So have you and Lila been hanging out all day? She missed practice.”

            I frowned. So Dohyun hadn’t told them yet. “No one’s been able to find her all day. She’s been missing.”

            They all stopped moving to turn and look at me.

            “I think you’re getting your Korean mixed up, what do you mean by ‘missing’?” Rin asked, crossing her arms.

            “We haven’t found her and she won’t answer her phone.” At my words, Minnie pulled out her cell from her back pocket and dialed Lila’s number. We stood there, holding our breaths as it rang and rang. Then, Minnie let out a sigh and shook her head.

            “Voicemail.” She muttered, hanging up the phone.

            “What if she doesn’t come back into for our performance next week?” Sunri asked, a look of worry clouding over her face.

            “I’m filling in for her if she’s not back by then.” I piped up. They all looked at me in disbelief.

            “You?”