Amber leaned her head back against the wall of the practice the room. Her fellow members had gone out for their break, but she didn't feel like going anywhere.

"Hey Stitch." Henry opened the door. "Where's the rest of f(x)?" he asked in English.

"Out," she answered in the same way. "I just didn't feel it."

"Tired?" He sat down next to her.

"I'm always tired," Amber joked, then turned back to the front.

"Then what is it?"

She didn't know. It started with a phone call home on New Year's Eve, and hearing everyone's voice. Mom's worried questions, Dad's quiet listening, and Jackie's teasing. She was...

...homesick. Lonely.

It hadn't been this bad before, never been this bad since her debut. She didn't know why this year it threw her off so much.

Maybe it's because she actually went home twice this year, that she could hear their voices more clearly than before, see everyone's faces.

"I miss everyone," she finally said. "I miss home. I miss talking in English and hearing Chinese, tasting my mother's cooking, driving on roads with familiar signs, almost everything. I know there's nothing I can do but wait, but I can't stop thinking about them."

"I know."

Amber heard the same tone of longing in her friend's voice. Was he missing his family as well? Clinton and Whitney, his parents, his dog?

"But hey man, we have each other." Henry turned to her, and she did the same. "We've got everyone else in this building, and we have our music. We'll never be complete without home, but can you imagine life without this?"

Could she?

Amber closed her eyes and tried to imagine not being a member of fx.

Would she have gone to college, like all of her other peers? Would she have been enrolled in tedious amounts of courses, during homework late at night instead of sweating each day, being smacked in the stomach for pronounciation, and singing her heart out?

Would she have found her own family, as she had found hers here in SM?

Would she have been happy?

"I don't know."

"I don't know either." Henry sighed, then clasped her shoulder. "But listen, you're not alone in this. I'm always here to talk to, okay? You've always been there for me. Don't think you'll be asking for too much, because you won't."

"Arasso hyung," she teased.

"Take care of yourself Stitch."

"You too Snoopie."

It was my mission to make you whole, but instead you're the one who's pulling back to stable ground.

[A/N] My sister went back today, and I somehow found myself listening to "I Would" again.

You guys do expect this to end soon, right?