5 Pieces is half-dead on the flight to Sweden, taking the chance to sleep after being on their toes and cheering for Maria’s Inkigayo win. After the win they had gone backstage, their food had gotten cold and they had cheered some more with EXO before actually eating their dinner; Maria did some interviews before they went home to do some final packing and head to the airport, where they just cheered some more.

During the super long flight, Hannah has a trick to make it seem less super long; she sleeps half of the time. The other members seem much better at that trick because they sleep for two hours more than Hannah; beside from Emelia who never seem to sleep. Hannah had dreamt of Maria being a princess and actually winning awards because no one is as good as the princess, and after waking up she smiles because Maria is sitting next to Manager Lim with her foot up on the backrest for the seat in front of her, her is resting between her seat and the one in front, she has a pillow under her head on the armrest and another pillow held in her arms to hug and one arm is stretched up along her own backrest. No one sleeps like Maria, definitely no one. But Hannah doesn’t take a picture of the weird position; Emelia tends to do that instead.

Towards the end of the flight to Sweden, Hannah is sitting with her leather jacket around her, yawning tiredly and looking at Maria coming up to her. The leader has just eaten something and she is more awake than the youngest whose stomach is feeling weird after eating too much this past week. Maria takes Emelia’s seat as soon as Hannah’s flight buddy goes to the toilet, and Maria looks really comfortable with a pillow in her arms and wearing a cosy cardigan.

“So here I am, doing my usual on Tumblr where everything is so fascinating and fun when I find a post with these GIF pictures of us painting Ji Young Manager’s nails – you know, when we were in Thailand for the tour, they aired it on Life of Pieces the other week or something – and I had apparently said in the show that I got no clue at all who made the decision that colouring nails is for girls. Because he didn’t want his nails painted, you remember, right? Ji Young Oppa is too much of this boring man who thinks the world is black and white, and in this post on Tumblr that I came upon, someone had commented ‘if 5 Pieces manages to change the world, I will not be surprised’. Do you have ANY idea of how amazing it is that my one comment (and the action where we by force paint our manager’s nails pink) can make a person think like that?”

Hannah isn’t sure if Maria is expecting an answer, but the youngest only caught up with half of the things the leader said for some unknown reason. And to her luck, Maria doesn’t expect an answer as she just spaces out and takes in what she just said.

“We can change the world, baby.”

Though Hannah doesn’t really think the same, she quietly nods to the leader because Maria is still in the clouds after her solo comeback and Hannah has no desire to ruin that mood or feeling at all. Maria sighs happily, smiling and she is in some other thoughts, just looking out the window on Hannah’s right side and Hannah isn’t sure if she should say something about Tumblr, her comeback, or change subject or just be quiet because if a lady is right up in the clouds she will either want to talk all about it for a long time or just stay in the clouds by herself. Hannah isn’t sure what Maria’s choice is.

“Ya,” Emelia comes back from the toilet, her small eyes staring at Maria from behind as Maria is turned towards Hannah.

“Yo, waddup sister!” Maria just looks happy and even Emelia can’t say one of her infamous nicknames to the leader but instead chuckles and pats Maria’s back for the leader to get up. Maria moves to change place with Emelia. “Hey, baby, Emelia said that Hyekyung is excited for the song we are recording later this week. You probably didn’t hear because you were faaaar away in Japan, but it is apparently a really nice song.”

“Yeah,” Emelia nods in agreement, coolly taking her seat. “He says it will be the ‘next big hit’ or something.”

“I’m so excited!” Maria laughs and jumps away to repeat the same thing to Manager Lim, who is half asleep and half nauseous over at his seat. He isn’t used to travel; most of the time he is the one staying in Korea when 5 Pieces have promotions abroad, but he went this time instead of Manager Lee to let the younger manager get some rest. Hannah giggles when Maria has left, leaning towards the rapper to giggle and comment that Maria is excited about everything during this flight.

“It’s nothing compared to how she was on M Countdown; she was insane, running around backstage, not caring about anyone else and she kept screaming in excitement and jumping around… Onew didn’t want to get near her, it’s true,” Emelia tells her in a telling-voice, nodding calmly over their crazy leader.

“Is that why the juniors were terrified?” Hannah jokes.

It takes forty minutes before they are landing, and the girls are glued to the windows, so excited to finally arrive in Sweden, their home country. They were here just 2-3 months ago for a festival, but Hannah always gets this certain feeling in her stomach when they land in their home country. In Sweden it’s around 10AM when they land and the girls are flocking around in excitement when heading out to the airport, giggling and hearing people speak Swedish and being just randomly happy to be in Sweden even if it is only for tomorrow morning.

Julia’s mother is with them, also happy to be home but she is more excited because she will be able to spend the rest of the day with the group even if the ladies are here to work.

A group of policemen in the same dark blue uniforms and bright police vests are waiting by the luggage at the airport, standing by the wall and looking serious with arms crossed over their chests and looking at 5 Pieces and their crew coming over. Hannah giggles with Maria’s arm around her, the two of them almost singing happily together in excitement that there are so many policemen there for one reason; to guard 5 Pieces out of the airport safely.

The reason 5 Pieces need help out of the airport is because between them and the doors is a massive amount of people crowded inside the airport waiting to welcome the ladies “home”. Reporters and a bunch of fans are there, and the police say they did try to direct a free passage line from the luggage to the front-doors, but they have decided to walk in a circle and lead 5 Pieces out with the policemen moving safely in a circle around them through the crowd. Maria is just giggling because she love men in a uniforms, and when they after fifteen minutes are finally moving, she got no idea of what the plan is even if Hannah tries to explain it.

It is a good thing the policemen forms the circle around the ladies before they walk out, because the moment 5 Pieces are spotted, the deafening screams almost paralyzes the ladies in surprise and Hannah automatically holds on tightly to Maria’s arm. The policemen were not joking that the airport is crowded out in the entrance area. Hannah can only see people, and a lot of people, and since they are outside Asia, these people are actually pretty tall. Several of them stand out with bright coloured hair, others hold up different colourful signs to either welcome 5 Pieces or express how much the Swedish fans love them, but no matter how fans dresses or stand out, Hannah can’t see much of it because in the midst of screaming the crowd just pushes towards the circle and the policemen uses their dark base voices to tell the fans to back off. Mostly it is just pushing. Maria and Hannah stick closely together, knowing all ladies probably do the same. Hannah is wearing a cutaway-shoulder sweater in ivory to the leather jacket she got from Jonghyun, covering her bandage in the matching long-sleeves from her sweater and she is holding tightly to her bag and Maria’s arm when slowly following the policemen that they trust. Over on Maria’s side, a fan stretches out her hand between two policemen and is inches away to grab Maria’s hair or something before one of the policemen pushes the arm away and is responded with a wild cry from the fan.

They are crazy!

Hannah ends up looking down, not knowing what else to do and she is pushed against Maria when some fans pushes against the policemen growling at them and it is chaotic. And in the middle of fans and policemen, it is reporters trying to get any useful footage of 5 Pieces’ arrival in Sweden, but not that anyone beside from them seems to care about that. Hannah just want everyone to get out of there safely; she feel like a prisoner with crazy people chasing after her, wanting to grab their own piece of her body and by screaming destroying her ears and though she has experienced this many of times before, it is different coming to your home country and experience the same thing you have experienced in Asia. All five members of the group are shocked over the pushing and screaming and how desperate the fans seem, and though the ladies just ten minutes ago were excited to be back, they are suddenly terrified in wonder of what have changed the past months since their last visit.

Or was it this crazy at that time?

Hannah can’t remember. But she thinks she should remember if they were welcomed this big in Sweden.

Out of safety, Julia’s mother had walked with some of the crew earlier, just to not be part of this craziness, but the managers stick with 5 Pieces to make sure they are safe too. After coming out, it is a big van waiting for them. It is actually two, but one is for their crew; Julia’s mother is sitting in the one where 5 Pieces get in, and in the same 11-seat van as 5 Pieces is in follows Manager Lim and two of the filming crew from SM Entertainment.

Coming along to this journey is three managers, two stylists (because 5 Pieces can fix their own make-up), one photographer and four people for the filming crew – the five last mentioned are all from SM Entertainment to document for the agency, where pictures of 5 Pieces’ trip will be uploaded on Facebook and in a while a special video of the trip will be uploaded as well. Divided in two vans, they both have their own driver that will be with them until tomorrow when they go to the airport again and as soon as they are now out on the road; Emelia introduces herself to the driver and begin to ask basic questions to get a little familiar with him.

The youngest ended up sitting in the row almost at the back, sitting in the middle there with Maria on her right side and Manager Lim on her left, behind her are Julia, her mother and Carolina while at the seats in front of them by the slide-doors are the two staff from the filming crew and sitting on the passenger’s seat is of course Emelia.

The first few minutes leaving the airport, 5 Pieces is just trying to sit correctly and breathe out after the not expected welcome, exchanging the craziness feelings with each other. But then Emelia points out that several of cars are stalking them, out in the rainy Sweden on the big road. It’s funny how the girls are turning around right and left to see the cars following them, driving by them, and somehow knowing which of the two vans 5 Pieces is in – Emelia figures out they checked the plate number before they left the airport.

“Bab-Boo!” Carolina bursts out in the back.

Hannah looks confused. Bab-Boo? But within seconds they all bursts out laughing, not understanding why she said it and Carolina just comments that there is a bus following them too (but the buss isn’t following them at all) and the girls are suddenly more relaxed, because when Carolina makes no sense, everything is like it should be.

After another few minutes, Hannah is looking through the schedule for today: they are now going to the hotel to wash up and get ready for their promotions as well as eat something, go do some interviews and then do their event before they will eat dinner and do more interviews before they will go to the hotel and sleep. While she is looking through the schedule with Manager Lim, Maria bursts out a cheer that they are in Sweden and by just hearing the voice she knows the cameras are filming; the crew sitting in front of them are holding up the cameras to film from two directions and managing to film Maria, Hannah, Julia and Carolina in the back and one camera will turn to film Emelia whenever she comments something. Hannah glances up, wondering if they can see her and she leans a little towards Manager Lim to whisper if they will eat at the hotel for lunch or go out to eat. She can ask so many questions about the schedule because they will apparently do an interview for Danish TV, but she sticks to the simple question about food.

Maria and the other ladies are loud, but she can hear the manager whispering for answer. “We are ordering food to eat at the hotel while getting ready,” he answers right before Maria puts her arm around Hannah’s shoulder to pull her in, and Hannah brightly smiles at the camera without knowing what is going on.

“WE HAVE JUST LANDED!” Maria shouts wildly and when Carolina begins to sing in the back the other girls starts singing along right away because the song is Maria’s [Princess] – of course they all sing along to it! Hannah laughs at how they are fooling around, singing loudly and Maria won’t be still so Hannah leans away from her but as soon as they stop singing Maria pulls Hannah close again with her arm around her. “Right now we are going to the hotel, here in the capital of Sweden. If you look out the window you will see it is raining, but we are soon … you can soon see the scenery changing when we get in the city.”

“Say something to the Swedish fans that came to the airport for you,” the camera-woman suggests. Maria hugs Hannah closer and the youngest keeps smiling, not saying a single thing as this is probably Maria’s moment.

“Jag älskar er alla!” she cheers (I love you all), throwing out her free arm against the window and waving with the hand that is next to Hannah’s face and the youngest just pulls through with it – because it is Maria. “5 Pieces is in Sweden just over the day for an event but like always we are excited to come home… And we can’t wait to meet our fans! EXCITEMENT!”

“WHOAAA!” the girls join in loudly and Hannah shakes her hands in the air, shouting too.

 

“Let’s go, Pieces, let’s go! Clap, clap! Let’s go, Pieces, let’s go!” Carolina is chanting while jumping up and down in the bed with Julia, both of them chanting, laughing and jumping. Julia jumps on her legs, too tired and laughing too much.

The girls are filled with energy. Hannah is laughing, sitting around the table in the hotel-room they all are in to eat dinner where also Maria and male stylist Yong Hyun are sitting; the two on the bed keeps jumping up and down while Emelia is in the bathroom and Julia’s mother is standing on the side, not sure if she should take on the motherly role to tell them to not jump in the bed. The girls are eating, fixing make-up, changing clothes and letting out their excitement for this European Samsung event tour. Hannah thinks they are extra excited from yesterday where Maria won on Inkigayo (they haven’t melted it yet), but she isn’t sure; it could be the clear air in Sweden making them go insane too. They are being filmed now too, but Hannah isn’t sure if they will let this be shown anywhere.

Hannah still has the bandage, because she isn’t sure she should take it off yet (she think her fingers will need it some more), and to hide it with her outfit she wears this boxing wrap that they mostly used during [Black & White] but it could fit with [Daze] too. The girls eat before they change clothes, just to not mess it up, and they do calm down a bit before they leave for the first interview that actually is in the very same hotel they are in at the moment.

They are wearing distressed clothes; Hannah is wearing a beige distressed v-neck sweater with a long black tank top underneath, a pair of faux-leather trim leggings and high heels. Maria is wearing a pair of distressed jeans (almost completely ripped, they look really good on her model long legs) and a little bigger sweater and boots. Emelia is wearing a pair of wet-look metal studded leggings to a pair of knee-high boots and print ¾-sleeve sweater with some distressed parts and some cool accessories. Julia is wearing a pair of zipper point ribbed leggings and a thin loose brown shirt, just simple with a nice necklace and knee-high boots. Carolina wears the same kind of sweater Emelia wears but in a different colour, a pair of leggings and a pretty skirt.

It’s awkward meeting the Swedish staff that will film and interview them. Maybe just for Hannah, but whenever she tries to say something she says like the first two words in Swedish and then comes speaking another language and for that she stays quiet, the whole time, for as long as possible.

The interviewers are for some TV show/radio show, a woman and a man interviewing them and they sit down in two sofas with the interviews in one and 5 Pieces in one; Emelia sits down on the floor, either posing coolly for her image or just sitting there casually, still being cool.

“Just a few hours ago you were on the plane, but now you are here, in Sweden. You just arrived but a few minutes ago when we talked you said you have already felt a big difference in your arrival here compared to your previous times… What do you mean with that?” the male interviewer asks and holds out a long weird microphone towards the ladies

“I’m not sure, but there were crazily a lot of fans at the airport when we arrived. During the years we have seen more and more people wait for us at the airport here in Sweden, but this time it was … crazy, just crazy,” Maria answers, relaxed and laid back but still expressing what she says.

“Fans from Asia aren’t like that?”

“Oh, yes, they are,” Carolina nods with a laugh and Julia turns to Hannah with a giggle, just because fans in Asia are crazy too.

“Yeah, but when we are in Asia it’s like … something we are used to. You know, we have performances and concerts there all the time-”

“You mean you are still not used to the fame you have here in Sweden?” the female interviewer wonders and the girls agree on that.

“We haven’t been in Sweden that many times promoting as ‘5 Pieces’, which I think makes us surprised to see such a big difference because each time we come home, the crowd gets bigger,” Carolina says.

“Something that a lot of our listeners and viewers seem to be curious about is if you travel as much as some people say? I’m not sure about this one… Is there some kind of rumour saying you travel a lot or… …?”

“Travel where?” Carolina wonders and this time Hannah chuckles with Julia (Hannah and Julia sit next to each other and they always turn towards each other for reactions).

“Anywhere – are you often on airplanes? In one month, how many times do you travel from one country to another?”

Hannah just spaces out; her face literally just spaces out. That is hard! She just feels her jaw drop when trying to think how many times she has been travelling this month…

“That’s rather impossible to bluntly say,” Maria giggles and points at the other members. “We have a lot of different schedules at the moment. Just the other day, Hannah was in Japan, filming a commercial and such. And we have been travelling a lot this month for our Samsung events…”

“But just mention some countries you have visited this month then, alright?”

“Sure… well, we are in Sweden now; we have been in Korea and Japan…” Maria starts before turning to the others for them to continue – with the little harder countries that they don’t visit that often.

“We were in Shanghai… had a concert in Hanoi; Vietnam…”

“Istanbul too,” Carolina remembers.

“Beijing…” Emelia continues as she remembers it the best. “The Philippines… I think we were in Indonesia too-”

“Last month we got to go to Greece and the US as well,” Maria fills out.

The two hosts just gapes at them, and Hannah nods, thinking she didn’t go to all those places because she has been filming her drama in Korea – but they do travel a lot back and forth between Korea and Japan. “So travelling to Sweden is no big deal for you at all then? It’s like eating a meal for you or something?”

“Yeah… We have actually figured out that this time, we are going from Sweden to Germany to England in two days before going back to Korea, and most of the time we are on the plane.”

“What do you do during long flights? You have any tips and tricks?”

“We… Because we work most of the time wherever we go, we tend to sleep on the plane. Otherwise we can do different things to relax or we are going through our schedule. If we are going to China or Japan, we usually practice the language for greetings and the basic things to remind ourselves of it,” Maria kindly answers very well.

“I sleep,” Emelia says, “because I get nauseous very easily.”

The two interviewer both nods, then moves in on the next question. “You all are professional performers, aren’t you? In Korea, you have been performing for ……”

“Five years.”

“For five years, and your first single here came out two-three years ago. And now you are having a concert in THE Globe here in Stockholm. Do you have any pressure to do well? You make it big in Asia, you reach the US and Europe and your song is just a part of it all because your performances are what make history at the moment. Do you feel a pressure because of that?”

This time Maria turns to look at the members, and that means she wants someone else to answer. The leader don’t like it when the focus is all on her since they are a team, and Hannah smiles as Julia is the one answering. “I think we always have some sort of pressure to do well, but it isn’t because of what we have done before but more of what we want to do in the future,” she is answering well in Swedish.

“So your fame this year hasn’t affected you anyway?”

“Um…” Julia doesn’t want to answer and Hannah leans back in the sofa as the lady is trying to put it on someone else.

“I’m not sure it has. Because we are just following a train, where we always work and we always have something going on that I think we are still little girls trying to send a message that we love music and we haven’t really gotten far from that though we would never have imagined coming to Sweden and have Swedish fans greeting us the way we met today,” Carolina is warmly answering. “We grow and notice the difference, and we do take in the attention we get but somehow I don’t think we get affected by it. And that is part of our charm, with us being the same fun girls we were five years ago but we just have more experience.”

Maybe it’s just that Carolina is saying it, but Hannah can’t stop smiling. The mascot is always saying the weird things ‘part of our charm’…

“After your performance on Eurovision Song Contest, your fame has really bloomed in Europe. But 5 Pieces still lives in Asia, right? Do you notice any difference at all that you are getting more popular in Europe this year?”

“Actually,” Maria begins with a finger up in the air and she leans a little forward to look at the ladies, look like she remembered something and trying to make the others remember the exact same thing by looking at them. Maria laughs awkwardly that no one reacts on her and she turns to the MCs. “They don’t know what I mean. But … about the question, we actually get a lot of requests from Europe. Especially after our performance in the Song Contest, we received a lot of requests from people commenting that they saw our performance and have started to like our music after that and asking when we are coming to Europe the next time.”

“When we have fan-signings somewhere in Asia, there is always someone from Europe there and we get impressed that our European fans keep track on our Asian schedule to come visit and at times they even bring a lot of gifts and letters from other fans from that country to show that there are more European fans,” Emelia answers coolly from the floor.

“Is there a difference living in Korea to living in Sweden?” the female interviewer wonders, and she is the first one saying ‘Korea’ instead of ‘Asia’, which Hannah notices.

“I want to say that the food is the biggest difference – our taste buds have changed completely from living in Korea – but it is like two completely different countries,” Maria answers but Julia remembers something and continues;

“In Sweden, you take off your shoes when walking inside someone’s house, right? Yeah, and in Korea you do the same, so that wasn’t a big change for us, but whenever we go to the US… Once we went inside the producer Melissa Allen’s apartment, and we were about to take off our shoes (because that’s how we do) but they were like ‘no, no, no, what are you doing?’ and we walked inside with the shoes because that is how the Americans do.”

“So you meet a lot of culture differences when you go abroad?”

“Yeah, definitely,” the girls all nod in agreement. Maria says; “But it is these small things, that foreigners often miss out on and after visiting the country a few times we kind of take notes on it and don’t do the same mistake again because with time, people won’t accept your apology for making a mistake.”

“This is our last question; 5 Pieces, the biggest star from Sweden at the moment, tell us about the concert coming up in two months.”

“Oooooh…”

“That’s a good final question,” Maria nods, showing that she is excited just like the others, and then moves her hand to the ladies, “Someone tell them the delicious things about our concert.”

“5 Pieces is coming to Sweden!” Carolina cheers and they laugh because they already are in Sweden, so Emelia quietly says they are coming back.

“We are currently doing our BLACK & WHITE tour that we have done in Asia for the past two-three months, and on November 19, our tour will reach Stockholm, Sweden and on November 30, it will be in Paris, France. It will be a lot of fun with our best songs and really a concert you do not want to miss with all kind of styles of 5 Pieces,” Julia says to the cameras.

“You could say we are bringing the Korean kind of concert concept to Sweden, for this concert, and it will really be something to look forward to – I know we do, but we really love performing too,” Maria is joking.

Finishing up the interview, they sign some pictures for the show before 5 Pieces has to get going. They have many interviews to do, so the girls go to the hotel room to just use the bathroom or whatever to ten minutes later meets down in the lobby. Like always, Hannah and Emelia are first, and it feels like when they were in New York last time but with younger people; a lot of fans are outside the hotel – it doesn’t rain much at all now. In New York the fans had even managed to be inside the lobby because they were staying at the same hotel, but here it is children standing outside and Hannah think it is the first time in her life she has seen such young fans for them. There are teenagers too, but the height of the little ones gives away their age. Right when Hannah and Emelia get inside the lobby from the elevator, those outside the hotel begins to cheer as it is clear windows instead of a wall to make it look classy, and Hannah at first seconds isn’t sure it is towards them. Are they still in Sweden?

“For how long will you wear that thing?” Emelia wonders and grabs Hannah’s wrist just lightly to let the youngest know she means the bandage she is hiding.

“I’ll try to see how it is tonight,” Hannah shrugs her shoulder. Manager Kim is with them, also she has told Hannah to not take off the bandage until she feels her fingers have healed enough – because she has been filming all week she has had to remove it most of the time and her fingers for that haven’t healed like it should – and Emelia nods at the answer, reminding the youngest that they will see The Fast & The Furious tonight. Hannah laughs at it.

“You always laugh when I bring it up,” Emelia comments and hits her on the arm. “It’s the freaking best six movies we have ever watched together and you are just laughing at me.” She hits Hannah on the arm again and Hannah really can’t stop laughing at Emelia for a bad imitation of Maria. The diva Maria is in the spotlight and that is probably why Emelia imitates her and Emelia chuckles evilly when Hannah falls down on the floor from laughing.

“Don’t ruin the clothes,” Manager Kim is fast to comment, though Hannah is sitting on her heels laughing and the fans outside are screaming wildly over the two friends interacting.

Emelia continues with her diva-imitation; “Are you laughing at me, baby?” and sits down on her heels in front of Hannah to lightly annoy her by reaching out her tongue at the youngest who has entered this nonstop laughing session that she can’t get out of. And Emelia just makes her laugh even more.

Julia comes inside the lobby, just looking at the two of them sitting there and laughing without even trying to realise what they are doing, but she do hear the screams from outside and gives them a pretty little wave while walking by the two weirdoes to come up to Manager Kim.

“Maria wants to know if we will get more milk later,” Julia mentions to their manager and she smiles when Hannah and Emelia both laughs even more at her comment.

“Milk,” Hannah giggles at Emelia who has started to laugh with her. Emelia then hits Hannah again on the arm before she gets up on her feet, pulling Hannah with her and the youngest keeps giggling when hugging Emelia and talking to the others.

“Are we getting a chance to buy things later too? Or are we doing that tomorrow morning- But no stores are open tomorrow morning,” Emelia continues to say to their manager. “I bet Hannah has to buy chocolate for her boyfriend.”

“He doesn’t eat chocolate,” Hannah giggles and laughs when they all teases her for even commenting on it.

Aware of the fans outside shouting to them, Hannah turns the other way around when Maria and Carolina come, and it is so fun to see both of their reactions when the fans begin to shout louder at the whole group being there. It takes fifteen more minutes of them waiting in the lobby before they can actually leave, and the girls begin smiling when reaching the doors to hear the crowd outside getting louder and louder. This time it is security guards who are there to help the ladies reach their van waiting outside, but it isn’t many at all, so the three managers know what their work will be.

The doors are opened and the guards hold fans on a distance for the ladies to be the ones approaching them instead of the fans pushing them back inside in the chaos.

“Hi!” Hannah brightly turns to her right where a bunch of girls and boys between the ages of 7 and 16 are reaching out hands to get a picture or an autograph or just wanting to touch her. It was planned when they were indoors to sign some autograph because it is seriously a lot of fans outside the hotel; Hannah has no idea of how this happened. Swedish kids! And it is so weird hearing them all speak Swedish to her, tell her this and beg for that, and to Hannah’s surprise she answers automatically in Swedish; normally in Swedish interviews she stays quiet because she tends to come with English or Korean words in the middle of a sentence, but it goes better to speak Swedish with the fans for some reason.

One girl who is maybe 12 years old begins hyperventilating when seeing the boxing wrap around Hannah’s left hand (it is a weird boxing wrap because it is supposed to hide her bandage underneath) when Hannah gives her autograph in the girl’s notebook, and the girl freaks out because it reminds her of 5 Pieces’ [Black & White] – she tells Hannah while hyperventilating. Hannah just smiles and takes the next person’s notebook to sign.

“Don’t you guys have school?” Hannah wonders, because obviously children in this age have school on a Monday.

“I took the day off!”

“Me too!”

“What?” Hannah laughs and reaches her hands up to sign someone’s book being reached over from the back. “Are you doing well in school?”

She get differences answers on that and Hannah tells them all that they can’t take a day off from school unless they have good grades/are doing well, and she walks a little further away to continue signing. She smiles at the fans, seeing such a big height difference in them all (which isn’t something she is used to, since some are 130cm while others are 170cm tall) and she turns around to take a sel-ca with one girl, then poses for another picture and she write her autograph on papers and pictures and even their own singles or albums, either released in Sweden as an international single ([Daze]) or from Korea and Japan. Julia is next to Hannah when they are doing this, one time they even stretches over each other to sign for fans on the other side of the lady and they giggle while conversing lightly to the crazy fans. The girls are really crazy, and the boys are pretty much arrogant.

“I got Maria’s autograph, I need yours too!” one boy called out with a paper held up in the air as he didn’t manage to get up at the front. Hannah was too busy to sign for a little girl, and then their manager wanted the girls to wrap up because they can’t get late.

“I love 5 Pieces!” two girls shouts out together when the ladies are heading to the van and Maria puts her hand up in the air, proudly waving in that direction and she throws them all a kiss when they cheers and that just makes them scream even more.

Surprised by the young fans, 5 Pieces still get energized by meeting them. They always get energized meeting fans, even if it is young Swedish fans they didn’t even know they had until today, and for today’s interviews the ladies talk about that, how surprised they were to see such young fans and that there are so many Swedish fans even if the girls haven’t really done real promotion in Sweden or actually released anything big here. They have three international singles, two that were released in the past year ([Black & White] and [Daze]), which the latest one is probably the only one people really remembers and know of. But most fans that the ladies met now outside the hotel (and that appear during the day wherever 5 Pieces are for their interviews and radio appearances) admit they have found a completely different music style with 5 Pieces’ Korean songs; Japanese songs too. Some are K-Pop fans who have big crushes on SNSD and EXO, and one time outside a radio station during the day when a fan says she loves EXO since their debut, Hannah actually gives her a high-five – loving Korean artists is a plus somehow, because that is where 5 Pieces started off.

“Another Swedish artist is Yohio, who is very popular as a visual kei artist in Japan, and also is from the same hometown as 5 Pieces… He said that Japan is completely different from other countries when it comes to what is beautiful and how women and men can dress. 5 Pieces is popular in Japan as well, first off, do you know Yohio?” they are asked at a live radio program.

“We don’t know Yohio personally, and we had never heard of him before he started to perform in Sweden,” Maria is answering. “But I did go to the same high school as him – as I have heard… – though I was never there.”

“Is it true what Yohio has said about how women and men can act and dress in Japan?”

“Japan is exactly the same as every other country, especially within pop, I think. But Japan is alone with visual kei rock, which I think he probably would mean because even if Japan is a lot into men having this feminine beauty, women should still be cute and wear bikinis…”

“But 5 Pieces is popular there?”

“Yeah… But we went for the cute concept when we made our debut in Japan, because we wanted to take it slow there. Our image is more charismatic than what Asians overall are used for girls, so when we first went to Japan we showed a cute side first. Our cutest member, Hannah, was the most popular in Japan just because she is the cutest, but I mean, our fans all around the world seem to know that we don’t just have a cute side but that we are just everywhere and that I think is why we are popular.”

What Hannah kept cracking up over was that the ladies admitted to be popular in Japan. In one interview the girls begins to cheer because the interviewer brings along some Swedish food and milk and typical Swedish things for the girls to eat, and though the ladies at that time just have eaten dinner, they eat and drink while doing the interview, talking about how much they miss milk most of all – it is weird, but it actually is milk they all miss. Beside from Julia, who doesn’t drink milk, but the other four are insanely missing milk.

 

The day has come to an end. 5 Pieces has been in Sweden for nine hours, and they are still filled with energy when they are heading back to the hotel. They are in the van, happily singing to Miley Cyrus’ [Wrecking Ball] on the radio and in between the choruses they are talking about what to do. The plan to watch a movie is for tonight; they have too much energy to sit down and watch a movie now. They have even gotten the chance to go buy chocolate and candy and whatever it is they now wanted, so that is all done too.

“Could we walk to the hotel?” Emelia asks from the passenger-seat. “I know the way, and it will be fun to just …” she stops herself to chuckle when Maria burst out singing the chorus of [Wrecking Ball] again even if the song has ended.

With Emelia suggesting them to walk the rest of the way, the van pulls in on the side and Emelia jumps out before she opens the slide-door behind to ask who is coming. Hannah hurries out with Maria and Carolina, only Julia deciding to not come along as she want to spend some time with her mother instead so the two of them are going to the hotel to just hang out; stylist Yong Hyun decides to come with them on the street too.

Hannah pulls on her leather jacket over her sponsored clothes that she has been wearing today, looking around on the street. It isn’t that dark outside, but it is at the time when people have gone home so the streets are pretty empty – and it’s Monday, no fun on the streets like it would be on a Saturday – but it is so free with the fresh air, it hasn’t rained in three hours and Hannah just stretches her arms out and twirls around, laughing when seeing the photographer from SM taking pictures of her. All day they have been taking pictures and filming during the schedule, Emelia too has taken up her own big camera to take more of a personal pictures of the ladies, like she always love to do.

Maria begins to walk, her arm linked with Yong Hyun’s. The staff are filming and taking pictures (it’s only two of them, the other two stayed in the van), Manager Lim and Park is with them and Hannah hurries up to join them all to walk, only to have Carolina trying to take her hand. Hannah doesn’t want to hold hands (she has never liked it) and with Carolina trying to entwine their fingers, Hannah even shrugs her whole arm wildly to get loose, whining at Carolina who asks why she doesn’t want to in this nice city but eventually the mascot gives up when Hannah runs away.

“Which member is the most familiar with the Swedish capital?” one of the staff wonders at the front; asking Maria who is still into her own world where she sings [Wrecking Ball].

“Definitely not me,” Maria laughs for answer, hugging their male stylist’s arm. “Hannah has cousins in Stockholm, and she visited them a lot when she was a kid, but Julia was often here when she was younger too.”

“I never walked around like this, we just used to go to the amusement park,” Hannah admits from behind Maria. The leader turns around, waves Hannah in under her arm to walk the three of them together, being filmed from the front.

“5 Pieces will one day go to a Swedish amusement park,” Maria promises the camera, “and we will have so much fun there. But tonight, we are heading to the hotel to watch …”

“THE FAST & THE FURIOUS!” Emelia answers from the very back. Hannah laughs at it; Emelia is right, Hannah laughs whenever she says that for some reason.

“Oppa wants to see it too,” Hannah tells Maria and their stylist Yong Hyun nods.

“I want to see Vin Diesel, he is so hot in those movies,” Yong Hyun admits and the girls laugh at his Korean way to say the name.

Walking to the hotel is simple; they are relaxed and just joking with each other; the whole walk they are just laughing together. Hannah always enjoys hanging out with them, her members and their managers and stylist. They are close because they have worked together for five years, and to hang out in the ladies’ home-country out on the street without people turning heads because they are foreigners or 5 Pieces is really nice. It’s always a good feeling to freely walk and be in a good mood, just laugh and being silly with your friends. She isn’t the only one being surprised by the young age of the fans they have met here in Sweden, but at the Samsung event (the reason they are in Sweden) they met more K-Pop fans and fans that went to their concert last year, some were in their twenties and somehow it felt more like the kind of fans that 5 Pieces is used to meet.

“Woah!”

They all can see fans outside the hotel, not the big crowd that were there during the day but just a few of them, a little older or from 14 and up. The fans shouted in light voices, surprised to see the ladies approaching without a van, just randomly walking to the hotel.

“HELLO!” Carolina happily waves to the fans; the girls giggles and jumps a bit as 5 Pieces comes closer while there are some boys that tries to confidently shout a greeting back, but it is the boys keeping a bigger distance while the girls walks up to 5 Pieces first.

“Is it possible to get a picture with you?” one girl asks, her friend the one holding her cell phone out.

“Yeah,” Carolina answers and when she looks at her right to see where the ladies are, Emelia pops up on her left side. Both girls actually get to take a picture with the four ladies, Manager Lim takes the picture, some other fans approaches right after that to ask for pictures and autographs.

Hannah turns to the side when one girl with super bright pink hair and a little overweight ask if she can take a sel-ca and get an autograph, and with this turning out like a little fan-service session, Hannah gets next to the girl to take the picture.

“Hi-hi, thank you,” the girl giggles in a low voice after taking the picture and she begins struggling to get out something from her bag for Hannah to sign in a notepad. “Would it be bad if I ask your stylist for a picture too…? I am a big fan of 5 Pieces and I have seen all your shows and he is always part of it, isn’t he?”

The blonde lady actually laughs, because in her five years being in 5 Pieces, a fan has never asked for their stylist’s picture: Maybe because they don’t go out on the streets like this together just everywhere. “Sure,” Hannah answers and looks over her shoulder to look at their gay male stylist. “Yong Hyun Oppa, come here.” She waves him over and in Korean explains the girl wants a picture with him and he looks utterly surprised when shaking hand with the fan-girl at first.

“I’m a big fan,” she tells him in Korean and Hannah laughs happily, both at the girls’ Korean and their stylist’s reaction.

Hannah takes the picture of them, asking the girl at the same time if she has studied Korean for long.

“No,” she answers shyly, speaking in Swedish now. “I know some basic phrases that I have practiced because I want to go to Korea one day… I actually know of K-Pop because of you guys; I saw your music video [I CRY] last year because the song kept playing on the radio and I looked up more things about 5 Pieces and … I’m really happy to meet you.” The girl gets all teary at the end and Hannah gives her a pat on the arm. Yong Hyun asks Hannah what the girl cries for and Hannah simply says the girl is happy. “I feel proud over who I am thanks to 5 Pieces, and … I am bullied in school because I am biual, but whenever I listen to your music I can get through the days.”

“You’re bullied for that?” Hannah is shocked, and her voice gets a little too loud. The girl quietly nods. “No way! That’s too mean.”

“My friends won’t even talk to me because they think I like exactly every girl or something, and since they know I like 5 Pieces they say I have a crush on you… - and it’s not like that, I respect you like an artist, you make great and meaningful music…”

“You can’t call them friends then,” Hannah tells her, pouting at the girl who actually is very pretty behind the heavy eyeliner.

“I know,” the girl sighs and then smiles at Hannah and Yong Hyun giving her the attention. “They actually stopped bothering me as much since you got so popular in Sweden, just a little. I just … wanted you to know how thankful I am.”

Hannah just smiles at her, touched that this girl stayed outside the hotel for 5 Pieces and getting to open up her heart to complete strangers – or, well, not complete strangers but it is their first time meeting. Hannah hugs her, just because she is touched by this girl, and Yong Hyun joins in the hug to make the girl laugh. She never think she is a person who has experience or is wise enough to give other people advice, but she think she should say at least something to people she can recognize herself in, those who somehow are hurt.

“There is absolutely nothing wrong to like whoever you want, so show your classmate these pictures with us and say that getting out of the box is like entering a new world,” Hannah whispers to the girl who nods against her shoulder. “And that is what 5 Pieces told you, alright?”

It’s not like Hannah just bluntly says things; 5 Pieces talks about these kind of things within the group often. They don’t understand why people are so within the old box to do things like everyone else and just because it was a bad thing for a girl to be in love in a girl many years ago, it isn’t kind to tell someone you can not love the person you are attracted to – whether it is a boy or girl. Some people are just too mean. Hannah let the girl take a picture with all girls together (too bad Julia isn’t here!) and the girl starts to cry afterwards, thanking them and then congratulating Maria on her Inkigayo win (which the girls didn’t expect to hear here in Sweden so they laugh and cheer with her, both in excitement that Maria won and to make the girl stop crying). Hannah admits she puts more focus on this girl than the other fans outside the hotel during the twenty minutes they are there, but she do write autographs, take pictures and talk a bit with the other fans before the ladies head inside because once again their managers tell them to.

But their short trip to Sweden has been worth it. The ladies are excited to go to Germany and England tomorrow, and then go back to Korea to continue their fun schedules everywhere.

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Monday, Headline 23rd: Hannah’s ‘Joe – Under Seoul’s Street’ Is On The TOP5 Books In Korea For 60 Weeks!

Headline 23rd: Singapore Joins The List For BLACK & WHITE Stops

Headline 23rd: 5 Pieces Promotes Samsung In Their Home Country Sweden At An Event In Stockholm

 

Headline 24th: 5 Pieces Continues Their Europe Samsung Event Trip In Germany’s Berlin & Hamburg

Headline 24th: London Goes Crazy For 5 Pieces

Headline 24th: 5 Pieces Talk About Fans, Travelling, Japan & More In Swedish Interviews

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X. devonalias

HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!! December 31, 2013 - tomorrow it's 2014! Any New Year plans or wishes? I know I always wish the New Year to be better than the previous one (it will be hard this time, bc 2013 was surprisingly good..) Have a great beginning of the New Year <3