Yu Ri personally accompanied Rayne and Ness during the weeks after the "airport fiasco". She could see that Miss Chiba had a mischievous side to her. Rayne apologized profusely for the incident, of course. Ultimately if anything happens to any of the ambassadors, the Program-ssi's will fire the head chaperone. Which means her job was on the line! But the cool thing was that the two girls were interested in learning more about Korean pop culture.

 

Miss Chiba and Ampersand insisted that Yu Ri call them by their first names. As of late she was constantly in their room (Rayne was still star struck after running into Jonghyun oppa). Vanessa, er, Ness told Yu Ri about her love for Asian culture, particularly Japanese culture. Rayne is from Japanese decent, but she considers herself  American as a matter of choice. It was very interesting for Yu Ri to hear about all the diversity in America. When Yu Ri applied for this position, she tried to study as much as possible about all the different types of people she would be meeting through this student ambassador initiative. This was her second year and Yu Ri found the work and the personalities very rewarding!

 

As the first troublesome days turned into weeks finally a whole two months, Yu Ri, Ness and Rayne's school year was winding down. Yu Ri made a promise to both of the girls that if both of them kept out of trouble and achieved high marks for the year, she would do something really special at the end of their first semester in Seoul. The results we're in and Yu Ri wanted to do the honors herself. She was interrupted by a scream form the upstairs.

 

“OH MY GAWD NESS IT’S WRONG!!!!!”

 

Yu Ri looked up in time to see Rayne run out the bathroom. Her hair was flaming bright! Ness came running after her "IT’S NOT”, she pause gulping slightly "that bad..." On close inspection Rayne's hair looked like a strawberry sundae. The bottom level was platinum blonde and the top looked like the color red exploded onto her head. It was all horribly frayed, the dye job was disastrous. Still Yu Ri gave both her friends smiles, she knew what the ultimate goal was today.

"Well it's...almost Jonghyun..." she hugged Rayne trying to calm her down.

Ness spoke up, "I thought bleaching it would make the colors pop even more?"

"Shut up, you could probably see this ship from space now, WAHHH" Rayne cried.

"Most assuredly, Jonghyun oppa can see it from fourth row, seats 9, 10, and 11" Yu Ri stated matter-of fact.

 

At first Ness and Rayne looked at each other, to Yu Ri, then back to each other. Soon stupid grins started spreading over the girls faces. Ness broke the silence "ok, huh whatduyah mean?"

 

"My meaning is" Yu Ri jumped up and down, failing to contain all her excitement for this moment. She handed the girls two manila envelopes. "Your grades came in!!!" The two girls opened the envelopes and both pulled out two identical frames. "Haha yes! I framed them for you so you would have a keepsake with you always.” They had received framed hard copies of their grades. Of course, the school put all the grades up electronically on the school website, to save money and time. Ness and Rayne appreciated the jester very much so.

"Thank you!" they exclaimed while bowing to the, still jumping, PA.

 "Ani, No keep looking!"

Now Ness and Rayne were confused, still the two girls opened up the envelopes again, finally, " OH MY GAWD!!!!!" Each girl pulled out a ticket. The words sparkled officially with all type of anti-counterfeit watermarks and inks. The ticket said, bright as day "SM Town '08 Concert" The girls screamed at the top of their lungs.

"Wait wait wait, Yui" as Rayne sometimes called her " Where’s your ticket?!?"

Yu Ri laughed as she pulled out her own “Silly! Seats 9, 10, and 11!! But first we have to get your hair fixed".

 

***August 2008***

 

YuRi's sister drove them to the stadium using the back way. So when she dropped the girls off, they had to walk around to the front to get to the box office. Various people ran to and fro doing things pertaining to the start of the show. Around the bend, there was a light source the kept appearing and reappearing. As they walked closer it was clear that this was the back stage door. "OOOOH" Ness, Rayne, and YuRi giggled together. "Let’s try and sneak a peek". The girls slowly got to the door, and one two three on top of each other lined up to look inside!

With the rush of people one of the stage hands yelled at them, "Hey! Get away from the door!" And shut them door right in their faces. They all laughed it off though; at least they were quite close to seeing something.

While continuing down the path, something shiny caught Rayne's attention, "Mwo?"It was too dark to see what it was exactly. She picked it and put in in her clutch for later.

 

The stage show was spectacular! Lasers shot from every way and with different colors of the spectrum. Smoke and fog poured in as different groups from SM Town performed on stage. And now, it was SHINee's turn! The three girls waved their light sticks and screamed their hearts out. Jumping, singing and dancing to the Minho/Rabi raps for their newest single "Ring Ding Dong". Everything was going great, but then Rayne felt the chain on her clutch brake. "Oh man" the purse fell under her feet, she bent to pick it up while trying to make sure her s didn’t fall out of her black plunge mini dress. She wore her favorite forever long Shinobi scarf to add some color (and hide her cleavage). When she picked up the clutch, it popped open. As she checked to make sure everything was intact, lipstick, lip gloss, ticket stub, won and… wait a second... She picked out the thing she picked up earlier, "Oh my G------" she tapped her two friends on the shoulder. Their faces froze as well. The object she picked up was shiny because it was laminated. Someone dropped their backstage staff card...

 

*after the show*

 

"No, no, no, NO!! You promised! No more mischievous schemes, Rayne! Also my sister will be here soon!"

 

"YuRi, this isn't a scheme! It’s a chance of a lifetime!!!"

 

"No, I forbid you"

 

"What! You gotta let her go do it! I would if I found it!

 

Rayne stood by Ness at that last comment. Yeah Boi, Ness was on my same page. After staring Yu Ri down, she reluctantly gave in. "Aigoo, I'll call my sister, but please, please Rayne. Take no more than an hour or we'll leave you here!" With that she stomped away, leaving Rayne and Ness with a grin on their face.

"So much Haterade for you right now girl!” Ness hugged the lucky girl. "Oh snap, Ness" Rayne remembered, taking off her stilettos, "hold mah shoes!" Rayne dug deep into her clutch and pulled out a small black satin bag. She took her flat shoes and her new Ray Bans out.

“WHAT? How'd you fit all that in there!!?!"

 

“Shhhh!" she told Ness as she put the things on," that’s my little secret"

 

***

 

Once the stage area got clearer, Rayne searched a bit, before following a group of staff to a swipe locked backstage door. She heard the beeping noise as they went in. After taking a steadying breath, she closed her eyes and stood in front of the door. She opened her eyes as she swiped the lanyard through.

 

"Beep beep, click"

 

She was in.

 

Rayne ran directly into the mess of the stage crew breaking down and movie the set, all yelling things among themselves, in really fast Korean. The workers were way too busy with the break down to notice the girl. Rayne snuck past them running toward dodging folded risers to speakers to fog machines until she got to a corridor with a door.

 

"Oh my God this is it" she whispered to herself. Suddenly, she saw Donghae and Siwon from Super Junior walk towards her way. Rayne panicked and ran away toward the largest space between them, which was to the idols’ left. She hugged the wall to get around them, deciding to put her sunglasses on and wrap the long scarf even tighter to hide the bottom her face. Rayne was traveling around in the slight dark lit stage when she bumped into someone.

 

"Ophf, sememasem, er sorry -wait- um," she saw the person's uniform and "security" lanyard. "Uhhhh."

The guy yelled in Korean but she knew what it meant "HEY, YOU STOP!" Rayne took off running

She was dipping and dodging people, idols and stuff alike (she swore she saw BoA at some point). But the guard, who picked up another guard at this point, was still right on her heels. Rayne had to do something and fast. Finally she started to open doors up.

 

"Damn" that first one was a closet.

 

Rayne then switched up her direction, splitting the guards up, giving her a little bit a time. She tried door after door, with no luck: men’s bathroom, electrical closets, empty super small dressing rooms. But at this point she had to find something fast. She had tried three more doors after fully escaping the sight of the guards, opening up a green large door, and shutting it behind her.

 

“Woooo..." she sighed, collapsing onto the door, "I’m never ever doing this again!

 

Mwo? She heard a choir of what(s) behind her. Rayne very, very slowly turned around. She got an eyeful of Key, Minho and Onew staring at the girl quite strangely. Various people where taking costume pieces away and taking off their makeup. She saw Taemin leaning up against the vanity that lined the long wall of the room. Rayne let out a fangirl squeak by accident. She was frozen in place, not knowing what to do. She lost the ability to speak, that is until Choi Rabi came busting into the dressing room.

 

"Ja! Hey guys! I just heard some crazy fan girl is running around backstage so we should all be careful!" Rabi had stepped through a secondary adjacent door to that of the main green door.

Seeing Rabi had the total opposite effect on Rayne "IIE, I’m not Crazy!" That startled Rabi for a second.

"Oh she's already here?" Rabi laughed then she paused looking at Rayne’s colorful hair, "Wow that’s awesome! I was trying to get Jonghyun to get those colors."  As the mention of his name Jonghyun leaned back in his chair, because he wasn't paying attention up to this point.

 "Mwo, Me Rabbit?" Rayne backuped even further into door, her heart was beating uncontrollably fast. Oh my god it’s him! she screamed in her head. Everyone took notice of that movement, and started to tease the shorter idol in Korean. "Deh~ look your bias is here!" They all laughed. Rayne blushed and then there was a loud bang on the door.

"Hey, did someone with bright hair come in here?" Rayne backed away from the door, surely this was the end… of her life.

"No" Rabi piped up "Just us having fun." She winked at the fan girl. Rayne didn't know what to say, Rabi just did a really kind thing... Rayne tried to not sound rude in her next line then, this being the last nice thing she could do toward the girl.

 "uh..dou mo.."

Rabi bowed back, "least I can do for a SHINee fan." A bang on the door was the cue for her to leave. This time, Key spoke up being all diva-like through the door to stall the guards for just a bit. Rayne smiled as she backed away from the door. She knew she had to say this at least "Um, Mianhe, my Korean is very bad but SHINee, I wish you the best! FIGHTING!"

 

"FIGHTING" they all chimed back to her. Her eyes then fell onto Jonghyun's eyes. He pointed to her hair then gave the girl a thumb’s up. Rayne giggled and bowed back, “Thank you.”

 Rabi tugged at her arm, "If you go through this door, it leads to the door outside. Good luck". The main door opened again, Rayne without hesitation ran through the next door, and found her way outside.

She stopped in that same back alleyway, to catch her breath. She was never ever doing anything like that ever again. But she had seen Jonghyun one more time, if she could have died at this moment, her life was totally complete.