“What is it that you need, Hannah?”

The female psychologist is sitting with her right leg crossed over the left during the ninth meeting with Hannah on Wednesday evening, a writing pad in her lap with the pen resting between her fingers. Hannah has her head lifted up but her eyes are looking down at her own hands that are nervously on her fingernails on her left hand. The day has been spent filming for the drama, but the evening and night will not be spent filming as she instead is supposed to prepare for tomorrow’s trip to Japan where she will continue to film the drama during the weekend. The question she is given makes her glance up at the plain wall briefly before looking down at her hands again, the bandage around her fingers is rough under her skin when she caresses her hand up and down. She removes it whenever she is filming, but has to put it on when she isn’t filming. it’s nothing serious, the nurse on set thinks she can remove it at the end of the week; Hannah just want it gone so fans won’t notice it and think she has hurt herself while it isn’t anything at all.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” she says in a low voice.

Hannah is still tired from the latest schedule, and Julia’s mother was talking nonstop between the breaks yesterday at the set so whenever Hannah was supposed to relax, she had to be social with Julia’s mother who was there for several hours. Hannah is eating a lot too; the sudden amount of food fills her up and makes her tired; she doesn’t like it at all.

“What do you need in your surrounding to feel that your life is not wasted?” the psychologist asks and writes the question down as she found it a good question to remember. Hannah blinks while thinking of the question she has been given.

“Um… Isn’t the life I have now good enough?” She don’t think she understand the question.

“What things in your life right now do you think makes you feel like that?”

Hannah wet her lips with her tongue, breathing out slowly when thinking about it. At times she isn’t sure what these meetings are useful for; she finds them just waste of time as she could do hundred of other things instead of sitting here for 50minutes. “5 Pieces, I guess…”

“The members… or the music… or….?” The psychologist wants to go deeper. She always wants to go deeper.

“Most of it all when it’s about 5 Pieces,” Hannah answers, not having a trouble answering this question, “the members; our friendship and shared passion, with us doing music together, performing together… Our fans; all of their support to us, everything they do, the thought of performing in front of them is … it’s amazing, it makes you feel that you are alive and that you are doing something for someone.”

“What do you get out of acting in this drama then? Does it satisfy your fans as it do in your music?” the psychologist wonders and Hannah leans back in the small armchair, feeling nervous by where this is going all of a sudden.

“I’m not sure if it satisfies my fans that much. It challenges me in things I’m insecure in, lets me face things I didn’t know I would ever dare to face,” Hannah answers, then pouts for herself as she continues; “By acting I am able to face things I don’t normally do being a singer. I am in front of the cameras in a different way, I get to learn how to speak and move my body by living out a character written out in the script – the character is a challenge too. By studying the script and my character I am able to practice my brain in a wider way than before.”

The psychologist keeps looking at Hannah after scribbling something down. “That sounds rehearsed,” she comments.

“The first time I acted,” Hannah starts off, deciding to ignore the comment and continue; “it was four years ago, in a Japanese drama to help 5 Pieces grow outside Korea. I had no intention to act again though it was a fun and different experience. I felt that I grew when I had acted in Japan, and I know I grew a lot doing it without my members because I was in a different country. In 2010, around this time of the year, I was in a car-accident (which we have talked about). I got hurt badly, but I was able to perform again even if they told me the chances were small. The doctor suggested me to do things that I am not used to, to help my brain improve and grow from the accident, to be able to learn anew how to remember things. I got no problem to remember lyrics or a dance routine, it is no difference from before the accident, and since that comes naturally in my daily routines… …. Acting is a way to get better. It is something different from what I do with 5 Pieces but at the same time not too far from it.”

This, the psychologist hasn’t heard before and she is showing a frown in her forehead while Hannah is talking, and even when Hannah takes several seconds of silence in hope the woman will comment or say anything, when the seconds get longer, Hannah keeps talking.

“I really love the things I do and I think that makes life worth living to me,” Hannah continues with a deep sigh as the psychologist doesn’t comment. “Last week we got an award for Women’s Voice and I felt proud performing the whole evening there because the audience was enjoying it. Isn’t the feeling to send joy to other people something that you just crave to get one time in your life? Then to be able to do it as part of your work every single day… nothing is wasted as long as you think you are making a difference. I’m getting really into this so you better say something or I’ll begin talking about the world’s people unfair treatment to each other…”

Knowing she was just randomly talking to fill out the silence Hannah had to remind her psychologist that it is just a mess of words coming out in the end, and the woman in front of her smiles a bit at Hannah’s last sentence.

“You speak what you want to say,” she tells the tired blonde girl, “I just wanted to hear what you had to say.”

Hannah pouts down at her hands. At times she just can’t be quiet. If she reveals one thing she just keeps talking in hope that one reveal will be forgotten in the many words.

“Tell me… I have never heard that the doctor told you to train your brain…?”

“It’s not anything serious,” Hannah mumbles. After the car-accident it was tough because she made mistakes all the time and she even forgot certain people that she actually knew really well, but that was quite some time ago now.

The psychologist nods as she notices Hannah will not say anything more; the blonde girl doesn’t want to go in deeper on just that subject. She is wondering what time it is, and though she is wearing a watch on her left wrist she don’t want to seem rude and look at it.

“Is there anything more you would like to talk about?”

It’s the question the psychologist asks when they have a few minutes left or the session and one subject has just ended; Hannah isn’t sure if she asks to be polite or if it is she want Hannah to bring up, either way Hannah shakes her head and shrugs her shoulders in one go, secretly hoping she can leave. Maria is doing her final practice for her comeback performance on M Countdown tomorrow (the official comeback as she last week just performed the pre-track on two music programs) and Hannah knows the leader will spend half the night in the practice-room two floors below where Hannah is doing her session. Hannah wants to go see how it’s going. SHINee is in the building too, practicing for their own comeback that isn’t just yet but according to them not far away at all, and if Hannah is lucky she might be able to meet both parts before she has to go home and get a good night of sleep. Her manager has been on her back all day to make sure she will catch up on the sleep tonight.

“You told me at the beginning of the session today that you are considering inviting your family to the concert you will have in Stockholm in November. I am curious about that,” the psychologist mentions. She wanted to bring up a certain subject. Hannah takes a deep breath through her nose; her chest rises as she takes the time to breathe in to think of what to say.

“It’s nothing more to know…” Hannah shrugs her shoulders. She wants the session to end. “I haven’t really thought about it… I don’t know… I thought of inviting my aunt and her family, but if I invite them and my grandmother it would be weird to hold out my own part of the family… so I am thinking of maybe inviting them all and then they can take the next step to come or not.”

“Would you want them to come?”

Hannah is staring down at the floor; she doesn’t even know she is doing it because she is imagining her family sitting in the audience during 5 Pieces’ concert. In her imagination she can see her own twin sister and younger brothers scream in surprise to see everyone sing along to Hannah and her friends on the stage; her mother just sit there and look angry. Hannah bites her lip, not liking to imagine it, and she looks at the plain wall with a sigh. “I don’t know,” she answers in a low voice. “Maybe that’s why I’ll give them tickets. It will be their decision to come or not…”

“Do you think you will be able to solve the issues with your family if they come to watch your concert?” the psychologist asks in a tone that shows she has wanted to ask the question since the subject was brought up.

“No.”

“Why not?”

Hannah really want to go now, not knowing what time it is but she don’t know what more to say and she don’t want to think deeply about this as it will ruin her mood completely. “I don’t know…”

“Could we do like this; our next session together is next week on Thursday. By then, could you have thought through about what you think would be solved by bringing your family to the concert, why you would want them to come and what you will expect of them if they come? I am curious to know what you think about this, and I am very impressed that you are even considering inviting them after what you have told me before. Could we do it like that? So you will think it through to next week?”

Hannah nods, waiting to stand up until the psychologist stands up and they shake hand before Hannah is out the door. The first thing Hannah does when she is out in the corridor is to look at the time, then she picks up her cell phone to see missed text messages and she doesn’t slow down her steps until she reaches the stairs.

Not knowing she did it, she finds herself sitting on the stairs, leaning her shoulder against the wall to her left and just breathing with the cell phone held in her hand resting on her knee. She is really tired, and for some minutes she is trying to think of when she has to wake up in the morning (counting the hours she could get to sleep depending on when she comes back home). She wonders if Jonghyun will be able to meet her soon, or if they have to do it another day… Their relationship feels so strange lately. Whenever they get time to meet they fight and cuddle, they get one night together and then talks through texts for a whole week if not more before they can synch their schedules and meet again. She misses him more than she will ever admit, and though she doesn’t admit it, her ladies seem to see right through her. Maria has been busy with her comeback practices lately but she is always taking notice of Hannah spacing out the window, thinking of her boyfriend.

Hannah never knows what she is supposed to do with this life. She just goes with the flow at times, letting things in her surrounding guide her, and she is still annoyed at Emelia for constantly pushing Honggi towards her or speaking in a way as if they are secretly having a crush on each other. She don’t like the way Emelia makes it seem that Hannah is having secrets for her boyfriend, and she don’t like that Jonghyun before has only shown jealousy towards Honggi because he do know that Hannah had feelings for him.

For a long time she sits there with her own thoughts, taking it as a rare moment for herself. Eventually she hears someone come up the stairs, and she holds on to the cell phone with both hands to pretend she is texting someone while she in fact is just looking through random texts messages.

“Oh, it’s the Bunny!”

She looks up when hearing the smiling voice and she responses with a weak smile to SHINee’s Onew who he is slowly coming up the stairs step by step. He has a huge smile though he looks to have been practicing so hard that he is sweaty.

“What are you up to sitting here by yourself?” Onew wonders in a friendly tone, his voice echoing in the staircase.

“Just waiting,” Hannah shrugs her shoulder and look up as he is about to slowly walk by her. He won’t stay to chat, she is a little glad for that, but she still need to be polite; “How is your practice going?”

“Oh yeez… you have no idea how difficult this song is. I get to do a helicopter dance – my arms are about to be thrown off!” Onew laughs as he answers, she smiles in response. “But it’ll look good. I went to see Maria’s practice earlier too; I have never seen her being this quiet before. She must be nervous for the album release tomorrow.”

Hannah just nods. She knows her member is nervous about the album release tomorrow as well as the comeback performance. The reaction to her music videos has been awesome, fans are looking forward to her comeback but Maria is really nervous to release a full-length album without the group. Hearing Onew tell Hannah that the leader for once is quiet and not talking nonsense that she usually does, Hannah head downstairs when he has left to go check on her friend. Her own issues can wait; Maria is more important.

The practice room is hot from all the movements. There are some people standing outside the room to get some better air, while those inside are busy practicing and Hannah slinks inside, walking on the side by the wall to sit down on the floor and watch the practice of the song [Princess]. For her comeback performances this weekend, Maria will perform another track from the album called [Never Give Up], a very usual pop song, but at the moment they are practicing for the main track. Hannah sits there, quietly watching without interrupting anything and she begins to smile how the song is so typical focusing on Maria. This is Maria in a nutshell; the song is selfish, confident, it is diva in a princess tone, it is perfect for the leader’s image. The song [Princess] is actually about being treated like a princess because you deserve it, for Maria it is that everyone should treat her like a princess because she basically is a princess.

But while watching the practice, Hannah sees Maria’s face-expression. The leader is focused (like she is during practices) but she looks nervous. Hannah wonders if the leader is thinking about tomorrow, if she is nervous for the D-Day of both her album release and comeback performance. ever since January, Maria has been talking about that she is going to make a solo comeback and it has been so much talk of how she will promote and what special she will do; she was so excited for it, as she has only released one single before and it gave her a different sight of being a singer, but with only a day left before the full album will come out, she is nervous. Hannah understands it; she has been in the same situation (maybe not with a full-length album) and it is quite fun to see a nervous leader.

Hannah smiles widely from where she is sitting when Maria comes over to her once the music has been paused. The leader is sweaty, wearing sweatpants and a small top, her hair up in a tight bun to not have her hair in the way.

“Are you sleeping? Is it that boring?” Maria wonders with a trembling voice and Hannah can just keep smiling.

“I’m not sleeping,” she giggles. “You look so nervous, Maria.”

“I AM nervous!” Maria answers with huge eyes, then leans closer to whisper in a light voice; “The whole ay tomorrow I am doing interviews and the pre-recording for M Countdown, also a live performance on M Countdown because I am performing two songs – duh, you know that. But do you have any idea of how nervous I am? I know you have done a lot of solo promotions, but I am the first lady to release a FULL album. What if my voice tires them out? What if the songs, song is… songs maybe aren’t what they expect? What if I disappoint everyone? There are so many worries! And I will mess up completely during tomorrow’s interviews.”

“You know the album is great and you never mess up during interviews; not even when you mess up you mess up because it always turns out great,” Hannah says, she can not stop smiling. It is fun to see Maria this nervous, and though the leader has confidence in her songs and thinks they are really the best, she can’t help but to wonder if it is enough from what fans will expect from her.

“I know,” Maria says. She hasn’t lost the confidence in herself and it makes Hannah laugh. “It will be a great performance, won’t it?”

Hannah nods. Maria can make any song good; even Maria knows it but even as a great person, she has her worries coming and going as well. Maria smiles when looking at the youngest.

“You came with my confidence, baby,” Maria hits her shoulder happily and head back up to continue her practice, and loudly for everyone to hear she tells; “I’m back in business, toys, let’s get moving!”

Hannah smiles when one of the dancers what she is saying and another dancer says they never know. Hannah laughs to see how they joke with each other, that the dancers knows Maria well enough to not take her strange words seriously. They don’t even try to understand what she means with her whole sentence and instead they just begin to practice again.

She sits there and watches them practice for some more minutes before Hannah is hurrying out the room to take a call. “Hello?” she answers, walking by those standing outside the room with a sweet smile until she gets further away to make her call more private.

“Nabi, where are you? Jinki said he saw you.” Jonghyun sounds like he is in a hurry.

“I’m with Maria; she is practicing for tomorrow. Why? Did something happen?”

“Meet me on the roof.”

Hannah is frowning the whole way up in the elevator, going to the roof just as he told her and she walks up the last floor of stairs to the rooftop where she steps through the heavy door that she has to push open with her shoulder. In the summer, the door is often open on the sunny days, but since it’s September, the door is often closed and if you come from the outside of the roof you need a code for it to unlock. She can’t guess why he sounded the way he did, if something has happened and what that something could be… Being outside on the rooftop in the dark sky and night air, Hannah glances around and sees him sit on a bench that before hasn’t been there; but Hannah hasn’t been on the rooftop in quite some time either. Its dark outside at this late hour, but with the lamp from the wall next to the door the light reaches the bench where he is sitting in his glorious presence.

“Hi,” Jonghyun smiles softly at her.

She walks up to the bench, takes a seat next to him in silence and trying to tell from his face if there is something serious. He just looks back at her first, both his face and body language is tired and she knows his text messages haven’t exaggerated with this past week’s work, and when he smiles with his hand going up to her face she thinks he is going to remove a lock of her hair but he takes his finger across her forehead to sort out the frown in her face.

“Did something happen?” Hannah wonders. is dry. He seems tired, just smiling at her with his head now resting on her head.

“Nothing has happened,” Jonghyun chuckles and takes her left hand in his, his other hand goes down to hold her hand with both of his while he looks at the bandage she has on her fingers. Hannah is frowning again. “Do you remember … it was a long time ago, when I told you … in the future, I would like it if my girlfriend just wrapped her arms around me?”

She doesn’t remember that. Hannah isn’t sure if he is talking about him or her, but with a few seconds silence seeing his attention on her hand she puts together his words and gets her hand out of his to put her arms around his shoulders and pull him in for a hug. She rests her head on his shoulder and her hand at the back of his neck where he feels sweaty from practice, though she doesn’t care about that. Jonghyun has his arms around her, breathing out in a sigh with his face in her hair and Hannah stays quiet while holding on to him, her fingertips touching his hair; it is too short to play with but she keeps taking her fingers over it, through it. Nothing has happened, he told her; maybe he too is just tired with all the work, all the going back and forth between countries. Secretly she wonders if he maybe misses her, like he writes in his text messages. Hannah don’t ask him about it, she feel better hugging him too, so she understand if that is all he wanted; someone to hold him. No questions, just to know that there is someone there. He smells good, the familiar scent of his cologne and sweat, something she misses during the days being surrounded by all kind of smells on the set or on the plane; anywhere where he isn’t.

Jonghyun breathes in before he releases a low sigh after several minutes of sitting there and hugging each other in silence.

“I like it when you do that,” he mumbles in a sweet voice.

It twitches in when she smiles, continuing to touch his hair the way he likes it. She has it as a habit, she noticed when they first became a couple, and she noticed that he likes when she does it too. After finding that out she has never hesitated to touch his hair. “I don’t like it when you make me worry on the phone like that,” she tells him, feeling him chuckle in her arms as his body jumps a little.

“I’m sorry,” he smiles against her ear. His smile is so obvious. “I needed you.”

What is it that you need, Hannah?

She lowers her head against his shoulder, her breath sounds annoyed by the psychologist’s voice repeating that question in her head but before she thinks Jonghyun notices she hugs him tighter to let him know she needs him too.

It’s the truth. She needs him. Even when they weren’t a couple, he was always there when she ran away crying during practice, he would give her advice even if they most of the time couldn’t understand each other because of the language barrier, but most of the time he would just sit next to her. It is like what they are doing now; comfort each other, the only difference now is that they hug each other for comfort, while at that time they wouldn’t sit that close to each other, but just to be in the same room in silence to let the other one know someone is there. Hannah can remember one time when her group had been taken to SHINee’s practice-room to see how real rookies practice (this was way back in 2008 when 5 Pieces hadn’t debuted yet and SHINee were working very hard on their promotions). She can’t remember exactly what happened (the lack of knowledge in the language made most things at that time just leave her clueless), but she remembers following Jonghyun to another room where he sat down and cried in a towel, and she had sat down by the door to just keep him comfort. It was awkward to hear a boy cry in front of her, she didn’t know what to do other than just sit there, and it wasn’t like she could say anything in her bad Korean either. She sat there until he stopped crying, he said something but it wasn’t a question and he didn’t expect a response, and once he felt ready they walked back to the others.

That was five years ago.

If she felt that she needed him then, what should she say about now? That she gets happy every day for his text messages (after receiving forty texts in one day, she does get a little tired at times) and all the things he tells her, the way he looks at her, touches her, just the way he speaks to her. He can send her one text message when she is feeling really down and she is back up on her feet feeling strong. Its unbelievable how one person can make you feel, that you are needed and loved by someone who even after three years into a relationship still hasn’t gotten tried of her.

“I have to go back,” Jonghyun whispers.

He doesn’t loose the grip around her, and Hannah smiles over his shoulder. “And I should head home and sleep,” Hannah mentions, her eyes are closed when breathing him in another time before they let go of each other. She keeps smiling at him, her adorable boyfriend. Jonghyun smiles back as he stands up with her hand in his to head inside together.

“I am still invited to stay over tonight?” he wonders. It was planned he would sleep over tonight before Hannah heads to Japan in the morning, and she nods cutely to him. Jonghyun chuckles and suddenly hugs her, giving her a quick peck on the cheek and laughs when Hannah giggles before he holds on to her hand again and heads inside the building. “Don’t stay up waiting for me; you need to sleep.”

“Don’t leave me waiting for too long,” she tries to flirt but ends up just laughing at herself, hugging his arm to hide her face. Jonghyun’s face smiles easier now than when she first saw him sitting on the bench; Jonghyun has gained energy to go back to practice.

 

She stayed with Maria just briefly before going home to where Julia’s mother has been showing baby pictures of Julia to Carolina (who is loudly talking about memories from when she went to school with Julia), to 5 Pieces’ female manager Kim Sung Young (who is exclaiming how extremely cute Julia was with her brown curly hair and huge cheeks) and female hair stylist An Mi Young (who is laughing at each adorable picture). Julia is sitting tailor with them in one of the sofas on her own, smiling with a cup of tea warming her both hands and wearing a pyjamas. Whenever Hannah comes home these days, everyone seem to have changed into their pyjamas – because she comes home around midnight. Today she is home quite early though.

“Hi,” Hannah smiles at the guests they have. Mi Young tends to drop by now and then, so Hannah is not surprised to see her, though she is a little surprised to see Manager Kim sit with them and look through the pictures.

“Hi, Hannah, how was work?” Julia wonders, smiling up at Hannah who tiredly steps by her to sit down next to her.

“Like usual,” she shrugs her shoulder, looking across the living-room table at the other four sitting tightly together to look at the pictures and leans a little towards Julia. “Are they that amused by your childhood pictures?”

Julia smiles and leans a little closer to Hannah too when answering; “What amuses them is my hair; you know it was all curly like afro when I was a kid. Mom brought almost all my childhood pictures with her, mostly copies for me to keep here – Mi Young Unnie likes the one of me and mom when I was just a baby.”

Hannah listens to her friend talk, looking at the others listening to Julia’s mother who is reveal stories behind some of the pictures when Carolina isn’t interrupting. The puppies had both greeted Hannah when she came inside the apartment, now lying comfortably together on the floor and when Julia says something you can hear Michin’s tail hit the floor as he for some reason get happy each time she says something.

“Where’s Emelia?” Hannah eventually wonders after hearing some funny stories about Julia’s pictures.

“Upstairs,” Mi Young is the one answering, and they laugh at how fast she was. “By the way, I heard Jonghyun was staying over the night?”

“Yeah, where’s the boyfriend?” Julia laughs and nudges Hannah on the arm, no one caring that the youngest is blushing.

“He’ll come once his schedule ends,” Hannah whispers and shyly picks up her cell phone to see what times it is and if she has gotten any text messages. “Did Mrs. Yu buy melons?”

Julia nods and to not be teased for having a boyfriend, Hannah gets up from her seat and hides in the kitchen to see what their housemaid has bought. Seeing the two halves of melons, she takes out one to prepare for tomorrow’s breakfast that she will eat on the way to the flight – melon, apple, a few strawberries, grapes and berries. She cuts and peels the fruit before placing it all in a lunchbox that she once got from a Japanese fan and puts the lunchbox in the fridge where she puts a yoghurt-drink on top to not forget it in the morning. It takes about fifteen minutes to prepare it and she cleans up after herself before she heads upstairs.

Emelia is in her bedroom, lying on her bed with her cell phone and low music playing on the stereo she has when Hannah takes a look inside to just say hi.

“Jonghyun isn’t with you?” Emelia mumbles, busy texting someone that she barely glances up at the youngest.

“He will come later.”

Emelia has been a little cold about Jonghyun because he was late when Hannah had prepared the event, but Hannah think Emelia always finds a reason to be cold towards Hannah’s boyfriend – which means Hannah doesn’t care about it now. The youngest goes inside her own bedroom, leaves her bag on the bed and goes to use the bathroom and she comes back to her room to take out some clothes before she goes to take a shower.

Half an hour later, Hannah is standing by her bed wearing a hooded print tank dress in black; it is long and cosy with bare arms and legs where she has just put on lotion to smell nice and keep her body smooth and she is currently packing a bag to spend the weekend in Japan, mostly using her right hand as she has put on a new bandage on her left because her fingers haven’t healed enough yet. Some things she always brings with her is a writing pad, a book to read (at the moment she isn’t reading a book because she has the drama script), body lotion and hand lotion, the usual clothes depending on weather and for how long she will be there, she brings with her a tablet that is connected to her new cell phone including chargers for both, pens for all occasions (pencil, ballpoint pen and marker pen), the usual toiletries such as toothbrush/toothpaste, deodorant, comb and hair ties, tissues (she always bring tissues, wet and dry ones), a small bag of make-up that always seems packed and ready to bring along and more.

The best part that she will spend the whole weekend working is that she doesn’t need anything more than underwear, pyjamas and one change of clothing with her because the stylists for the drama will bring along all the clothes she needs.

She fits it all in her tasselled pulltab shoulder bag (hand-baggage). After five years of travelling, Hannah have tried to keep it to just one bag and rarely it doesn’t work but with a big bag it seems to work now; she packs lighter than some of the other members by not bringing along extra pair of shoes or too much clothes and tons of movies/books and a lot of electronics. She knows what she need and what is unnecessary; make-up is probably unnecessary too, but you can never know on that front.

Hannah has everything for tomorrow prepared; what to wear from top to toe, her bag packed standing right by the door, she has breakfast and she has taken care of her body – all she need now is to take care of her mind by getting some sleep.

With the cell phone on the bedside table and the door just a little bit open, Hannah lies down under the quilt with a sigh of comfort and her eyes closes right away when her head hits the pillow. Before lying down comfortably she does some simple exercises with her eyes still closed. She doesn’t even twitch when Mi Young shouts from the floor below that she is heading home now, but Emelia runs down the stairs to say goodnight to both Mi Young and Manager Kim. Hannah stays in bed, noticing that Emelia doesn’t come back upstairs and soon se falls asleep thinking about her drama character fighting her way through in a small corridor in Japan; dreaming of the weekend’s scenes that so far is just in her imagination.

 

Two hours later, Hannah wakes up by someone crawling inside the bed behind her, and she turns her head on the side, half-asleep she smiles as Jonghyun puts an arm around her and gives her a peck on the cheek before he holds her tightly from behind and cuddles his face into her hair when lying down comfortably. She hadn’t heard him come inside, neither when he undressed (his bare upper-body is pressed against hers as Hannah had taken off the tank dress after just a few minutes lying in bed), but she lies still with a smile knowing he is there.

Jonghyun smiles too, because she smells really good and he slowly drifts into sleep with the surrounding scent of her shampoo and lotion.

He had gone home to take a shower before he came over (he didn’t want to smell sweat when sleeping next to her), and the first thing he sees when being let inside the apartment is Carolina, who had first called out “who is it?!” before she had opened the door, smiled at him and said, “Hello, Jonghyun; Hannah is upstairs, please come in”. Like always she was in such a good mood, surprising him for some reason. On his way to the second floor he had bumped into Emelia who was carrying around the puppy Michin, and Emelia had given him such a glare that made him think he had done something wrong, but when walking inside the bedroom where Hannah didn’t move a single bit from sleeping, he could not think of anything that could be wrong and he just undressed and went to bed.

It feels strange in a great way to just go to bed together, come home and just lie down, wrap your arms around someone who cares for you and loves you. Jonghyun wonders if they will have their own place in the future; share the same bed every night and wake up together in the mornings. He doesn’t think Hannah knows how seriously he thinks of a future together with her, but at the same time he does know that she loves him. Maybe he doesn’t understand why she freaks out every time he mentions the future, of a family and marriage, but he do know that he has brought it up many times talking about the future (in 5 or 20 years from now) and she hasn’t run away from him; he can wait until she is ready. He is happy he can lie down in her bed and just hug her, and fall asleep together. Many times he wonders if she knows just how much he misses her when they barely can meet once a week.

 

The hours pass by all too quickly, and after a good night of sleep, Hannah wakes up lying with her face pressed against the pillow, flat on her stomach. She has slept really nice even if the tiny pain in her fingers have been annoying her from time to time, she feels relaxed and like she has gotten more sleep this night than she has gotten in weeks. Blinking, she slowly wakes up and she puts up her hand to her face, just about to rub her face to wake up a little more when her blinking eyes spots who’s smiling in front of her.

“Good morning,” Jonghyun murmurs.

Hannah giggles out of embarrassment while he puts a big hand on her head. “Why aren’t you sleeping?” She hides her face in the pillow, for a moment wondering when he came here but remembering faintly when he put his arms around her last night. She rubs her face with her hands when hiding in the pillow for him to not see how she tries to wake up from this really good night of sleep and Jonghyun chuckles when moving closer to kiss her shoulder.

“I went to use the bathroom and when I came back you were too cute for me to fall asleep again,” Jonghyun answer her questions, giving her butterfly soft kisses on the shoulder. “Have I told you that you snore?”

Hannah throws up her head so he falls down next to her, him laughing and Hannah bursting out that she does not snore.

“You don’t snore,” Jonghyun laughs, his laugh getting louder when she hits him on the arm.

“That’s mean,” she whines, “None of the ladies have ever said that I snore. It’s not fun.”

He keeps laughing at her pouting by his joke and he apologizes again when hugging her, kissing her on the chin and changing the subject to ask if she slept well.

“What time is it?” Hannah wonders lightly giving him a morning kiss on the cheek, not answering his question. She did sleep well, but now when she is awake she needs to know if she is early or late in her morning schedule. She smiles at Jonghyun, who is not pleased that she avoids his question, and she lies down on her stomach again with the quilt over her, looking at him with a hand on his muscular arm.

“It’s early,” Jonghyun still answers her question, staying on his back looking at her, “One of the other ladies just went downstairs.”

“It’s probably Maria,” Hannah whispers and kisses him on his arm, moving to lean on her arms and look down at him while Jonghyun just looks at her with a messy blonde-dyed hair and a white smile in the newly-woken face. She could stay looking at him for a long time, but thinking that Maria is awake, she should get up too. “Her album is released today.”

“I know.” His voice is low and husky.

“Is it okay to go downstairs and wish her good luck before she leaves?” Hannah whispers. She don’t really want to get out of bed, but she is going to spend the weekend in Japan and Maria is having her comeback performances this weekend; she feels bad for not being there.

“Can I stay here?” Jonghyun chuckles for answer, looking to really be comfortable in her bed, “I could keep the bed warm.”

Hannah smiles and gives him a kiss before crawling over him to get out of bed, grabbing her hooded print tank dress to put on in the dark bedroom and she takes her cell phone along before leaving her boyfriend along in the bedroom while she tiptoes down the stairs and follows the sound of paws to the kitchen where Maria is almost lying over the table and Ryo is awake, waving his tail and probably waiting for his breakfast.

“Good morning,” Hannah mumbles and sits down across from Maria by the table, checking her cell phone at the same time to turn off the alarm.

“My album is released today,” Maria says. She is laying there, her head resting on her arm stretched out over the table and her eyes are just staring out in nowhere.

“I know… The whole crew from the drama looks forward to it.”

Maria sits up, saying in a dry voice that she looks forward to it too. Hannah holds back some laughter over how Maria seems like a zombie. “By the way, I know that Jonghyun did stay the night. Is he still sleeping?”

“Mm…” Hannah doesn’t even open , resting her chin on her hand while smiling behind her fingers. “He was looking at me when I woke up – saying he couldn’t go back to sleep because I looked cute.”

The leader smirks by the words. “I would love to wake up to that too if I had a boyfriend – a real one, you know. That reminds me; we are filming We Got Married today. Hyunsuk is really weird; I think he forgets that we are just an on-screen couple at times. He actually texted me the other day and asked why I didn’t contact him when I had the time – it was like in the middle of the night, I was practicing (which he knew) and he thought I should call him or something… It’s really weird, Hannah. Was he weird when you shoot the drama together last year? I should’ve been…”

Actor Kwon Hyunsuk is Maria’s on-screen couple on the program We Got Married, where they have been for almost a year now. Last year, almost a year and a half, Hannah and Hyunsuk played in the same drama Midnight Dream as good friends and a little side-crush on his side. It was a fun filming and Hannah remembers it as if it was this year; she learned a lot, got new friends and she had so much fun with the cast. It was awkward when Maria began filming We Got Married with him because they didn’t know how to act with that, but it has worked pretty well and Hannah often finds herself as the middle-one between them as she knew both parts before this on-screen couple relationship began. He wasn’t weird during the drama filming, but Hannah isn’t really a person who can tell those things. No one is normal; Hannah doesn’t even know what that word means when describing a person. What defines the word “normal”? How do you dress like normal people, or talk like normal people? Hyunsuk is tall and skinny like a model, he likes to express himself with fashion, his personal fashion is what some people would call “emo” (in the 2000s it is a young person who is considered to be over-emotional or stereotypically emo) and for Hyunsuk it means eyeliner, dark clothes and … strangeness. He is a really nice guy and in his acting he is very “normal”.

Hannah pouts while looking at Maria, wondering if the leader is again thinking of the album release now when she has gone quiet. It is a special day for the leader, and Hannah is sad she can’t be there.

“I’m sorry I can’t come along today, Captain.”

“What? But you will come on Sunday, won’t you? You said you’ll come…”

“I can on Sunday – but not today or the next two days because I’ll be in Japan.”

“Ah, but that’s okay,” Maria smiles and waves her hand to say it’s nothing. They can hear the front door open and a manager call out in a low voice to see if anyone is awake and Maria tells Hannah; “The other ladies said they’ll come, so I’ll try to imagine you being with us too. And you can make up for it on Sunday. We’re in the kitchen!”

Both girls look at Manager Kim when the female manager comes inside the kitchen with a brown box, smiling widely at the girls. “Guess what I got for you.”

“No way!”

“Oh yeah!” Manager Kim laughs and puts down the box on the table to let Maria open it. Hannah stands up to see, all of them knowing that it is Maria’s album. Excitement between the three of them as they smile at the box, each one of them grabbing their own album to look through it and the colourful album of Maria will today come out for everyone to see. Hannah looks at Maria’s happy face, at their manager’s proud face, and she can only imagine how proud she looks too.

“This is so exciting!” Hannah exclaims and laughs when Maria jumps on her place.

“I gotta throw this at the others,” Maria laughs in excitement. “This album is my precious!”

With Maria dashing out from the kitchen, Hannah hurries to follow with her own copy of the album in her hand. Maybe she can ask Maria to sign it for Jaejoong, so he will be happy when they are in Japan – or maybe the drama stylist will like a personal gift. The two girls hurries up the stairs, Hannah doing it quietly while Maria sounds like she really want to wake everyone up. She turns left right away when they reach the next floor and dashes inside Emelia’s bedroom to sing her new solo song [Princess], jump on top of the bed and wave the album of the same name as the song in front of Emelia’s face. Emelia wears a sleep mask and because of that can’t see anything but she groans and complains while struggling to get the mask off her face and begins shouting at Maria for waking her up and at the same time congratulating her for the album but not being interested in it at all when turning around on her stomach with the pillow over her head to go back to sleep while Maria keeps jumping in the bed singing the song in tones Hannah isn’t sure sounds all that good.

Maria gets satisfied with that, as she gets out of Emelia’s room and dashes off to Julia’s to do the same thing – waking up Julia and her mother when jumping on the mattress on the floor where Julia is sleeping and singing just as happy as before – and Julia’s mother looks terrified up from the bed at what is going on.

Hannah laughs and gets inside her own bedroom, closing the door after her and she walks up to her bed to fall down over Jonghyun, laughing and telling him why it is so much noise and he laughs when she shows the album to him. He laughs because she is happy and Hannah kisses him four times before she gets up to go to Carolina’s room (she leaves her cell phone on the bedside table first) where she can hear Maria singing the song even louder with two puppies barking along in excitement with no clue of what’s happening.

The mascot didn’t wake up even when Maria was jumping on her bed and singing loudly, but she do wake up when the two dogs are in the room barking and Carolina almost begins crying to what they are doing, terrified waking up to singing, her bed bouncing and dogs barking right next to her bed. Hannah giggles and moves along to Maria’s singing while picking Ryo up in her arms to not let him jump in the bed.

Out of nowhere, Emelia runs by Hannah and tackles Maria down on the bed and there are shouting and screams and singing and struggling and Hannah is just staying on the side, laughing at the three of them. Carolina is stuck under her quilt while Emelia is giving back on the leader for waking her up in a horrible way.

“What’s happening?” Julia mutters when coming through the door, rubbing her eyes with a sigh. She couldn’t grasp why Maria woke them up because just as she was about to hear the reason for Maria happily singing and jumping, the leader had left the room.

Hannah holds up the album for her to see. “It’s out,” the youngest answers and Julia takes the album to look through it, looking impressed that the album is finally out after all this talk about it and that it looks really great; the cover and the pictures inside are really gorgeous of their leader with a close-up on her eye with the pretty make-up, her bleach blonde hair in the profile looks gorgeous and in pictures she has her own unique style to show the way Maria is a princess – no princess dresses in pink or big dresses at all, just simple fitting dresses or shorts with high heels in bright colours from top to toe. Maria really looks like a princess in the album, in her own kind of way.

Without joining the mess on the bed that is calming down, Hannah leaves the album with Julia to head back to her own bedroom again, closing the door once again and smiling at Jonghyun who is lying where she left him; on his back with one hand behind his head resting on the pillow, with a crooked smile looking at her and the quilt is down by his hip to show off his well-trained, bare upper-body. It’s like he knows how y he looks with that body, face and messy hair. But that crooked smile makes Hannah roll her eyes and lean against the door, just smiling at him.

“Has the storm calmed?” Jonghyun jokes about the ladies crazy wake-up call by the leader, and Hannah giggles when walking up to him.

“Wouldn’t you create a storm if you had a full-length solo album come out?” she wonders, and she know the answer to that and she doesn’t expect him to answer either, and she keeps smiling at him when he waves his finger for her to come closer. Hannah crawls over to lie next to him, his arm pulling her to lie a little over and she giggles again when he begins to hum on the song Maria has been singing outside the room. She takes her hand down his body, touching his skin when kissing him.

She is fast to roll away when her bedroom’s door is opened and in a reflex she grabs the quilt and pulls it up to cover her boyfriend rather than herself.

“Good morning, turtledoves,” Maria is shining over by the door and with Jonghyun saying good morning back to her, the leader comes inside the room, too up in the clouds to see Hannah take a glance of Jonghyun. Maria shows him the album. “I know you have said – your group have said – that you are all coming to cheer me on this weekend. And I will prepare an album for you then, so this is just a quick-see what the result is. It’s good, right? You’re a guy, not our gay stylist or our fatherly manager; just some guy. Give me your opinion on it.”

“It’s bright.”

“Duh…”

Hannah hides under the quilt to not laugh at Maria’s ‘duh’ at his obvious answer and at how Jonghyun just blinks at the album she is holding out in front of him. “I’m sure Key will comment really well on every picture and song and colour in this album, Maria,” Jonghyun tells her, “but for me, I’m good to comment on the music and the music only.”

“So my pictures aren’t good?” Maria grimaces.

Jonghyun gives Hannah a glance and notices how she is hiding her laugh, and while Maria for some reason talks about her insecurities in the album (her worries if people will like it) Jonghyun pinches Hannah on the arm under the quilt. Hannah takes his hand away and sits up, still smiling at the whole scene. “Maria,” the youngest interrupts the leader, “if you want a guy to say that you look gorgeous in the album, please don’t ask my boyfriend.”

Only when Hannah comments on it Maria looks to realise why he was so dull in his answer and Maria chuckles when hitting them both on the leg and she gets up on her feet, her whole face-expression shows that she knows she is on their private-time or something and she leaves with a charming wave of her fingers before closing the door and from the other side she can hear Hannah laugh, not knowing that Jonghyun has rolled over her to mimic Maria’s words in her ear and kiss her repeatedly.

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Headline 18th: Emelia Wrote The Lyrics To Maria’s [Back Home]

Headline 19th: Maria’s 1st Full-Length Solo Album [PRINCESS] Released!

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X. devonalias