The flight to Sweden is long, but the ladies are used to it and sleep most of the time so when landing at the airport on Tuesday evening they are well-rested and hungry. Waiting for their train they sit down at a restaurant to get some food, and they are enjoying the Swedish dinner deeply. Julia keeps making a sound at each bite she takes, and though there really isn’t anything special about the Swedish food it is the bland taste that she seems to like compared to the spicy or hot food they have in Asia, the taste they all grew up with.

Hannah is sitting with a black ¾-sleeve sweater and elastic-waist skinny pants in black, she is smiling while talking with her members about all the things they wish to do when coming home, all the relatives they wish to see. They are here without their managers; just 5 Pieces secretly going home, and for some reason it is relaxing. They aren’t 5 Pieces for now, just girls missing home.

She guesses her members’ excitement is reaching her, she is also talking about her coming home; about her grandparents, the place they live in, and the memories. All of them are smiling widely talking about their homes and soon all of them are talking about the memories they share, of their school lives, of annoying people and teachers and jokes they used to do, talking about how they usually feel before and after going home, sharing more and more stories with the time passing by as if ten minutes is a minute and before they know it they are rushing to their train.

Maria and Julia are acting like big stars, wearing sunglasses underground where they wait for the train to arrive. Hannah and Carolina are giggling at it, Julia just saying she is tired and hides her eyes from the strong light. 5 Pieces are celebrities, and they are worried people will recognize five girls standing together in public even if it is Sweden, so somehow they are standing with some distance. Hannah and Carolina are standing up and trying to keep track on the trains while Julia and Maria are sitting down a few meters away on a bench and Emelia is standing all by herself repeating each time they speak to her that she does not know them. Maybe they bring more attention to them by standing so far away and exchanging words more often than necessary, but the few people around them does not seem to care; everyone are too busy listening to the music on their earphones or talking on the phone and so on.

Hannah smiles when their train arrives and the ladies are a mess finding their seats. Four seats with a table between, but three ladies will sit there with a stranger while the other two sits behind. Hannah sits with Emelia behind, having Maria and Carolina in front of them and Julia gets to sit next to a businessman. Julia decides to sleep almost right away, just because Carolina takes up a pad to start drawing by herself and Maria is her unsocial self by turning on music in her big headphones and closes her eyes to sleep. Hannah isn’t sure what to do at first. Five hours on the train before they will reach their hometown: She will have time to read, sleep and write if she wants.

“You haven’t changed your mind, right?” Emelia asks after a while.

“About what?” Hannah asks; too busy trying to look out the window on the night scenery. Trees and land for as long as the eye can reach, from time to time you can spot a house and they ride by a small city, but most of it she can only see trees. The beauty of Swedish landscape is something she always will enjoy.

“About staying a few hours in my parent’s house; you can stay the whole first day if you want,” Emelia says.

“We’ve talked about that,” Hannah sighs, about to yawn but holds it in when Emelia rests her head on Hannah’s shoulder. “I got to take the bus in the morning.”

“Yeah…” Emelia mumbles, also tired, “Mom just wants to be some with you too, you know … not just to have you sleep for a few hours and then leave.”

“I know that,” Hannah nods.

“You’re not planning to meet your family at all? Not Jen or … anyone?”

“Just my grandparents,” Hannah nods again. “I threw my cell phone away so I can’t contact them either, so … well, I don’t care.”

“Okay. But you have the number to my home,” Emelia says. Emelia’s home is her parent’s home.

Hannah smiles this time. She sits stiff, not wanting to move too much since Emelia is resting on her as they both have been watching the scenery. “I have known your home number since third grade.”

“Yeah,” Emelia chuckles, “Those were times indeed. We called home almost every day after school to ask if you could go home with me…”

“I don’t even remember what we did every single day.”

“I remember…” Emelia says, sounding like she dreams back in time when they were innocent kids living with the use of their imagination. “We would play with my little toy horses-”

“Ah, you had named all of them,” Hannah laughs lightly.

“All twenty-three of them,” Emelia nods proudly, “And then we would play games on the computer, a lot of time by the computer I think… We spent hours writing too! We ran around on the yard…”

“Are you seriously going to count up everything we did?” Hannah smiles, not minding it because she can remember a few of the things they did growing up together.

“You even held up my hair once when I got sick,” Emelia remembers. “You said you didn’t care that I was sick and still came over to watch a movie.”

“You gave me a ride home on your back when I had hurt my foot, remember?” Hannah giggles, happy she remembers it.

Emelia laughs at the memory. “You were always the one giving me a ride, it was horrible reversing that.”

“The first and last time you ever did it too,” Hannah whispers, continuing to giggle.

“Good times indeed,” Emelia sighs when she is done laughing. “I always remember these things when heading home. It feels like decades ago.”

Hannah nods. It really feels like that. Yeah, some of her childhood was probably spent at Emelia’s home, with Emelia’s family. She will have to hug Emelia’s mother tightly again, to show how thankful she is.

Hannah hasn’t packed much at all to the trip, a suitcase is enough. Spending time with her grandparents won’t need a lot of clothes; her most important items are laptop and chargers – all things needed to stay in touch with her members and those in Korea such as her managers, Kyung Ho and Jonghyun. Though she sent an e-mail to her grandmother, she hasn’t gotten an answer. Hannah isn’t sure if she should expect one after not being answered in months no matter how much she wrote, but she hope her grandmother will like the surprise of her visit.

Five hours on the train, they reaches the familiar hometown at two in the morning, and meeting them are three cars – Carolina’s mother in one car, Emelia’s parents in one car and Julia’s mother in another. Not in the cars, all of the parents are standing outside their cars waiting for their daughters.

“Oh,” Emelia’s mother says as she wells up in tears when Emelia starts to run towards them as soon as she sees them standing there, a family reunion.

Hannah is just smiling widely, not able to stop smiling at the familiar faces, and she walks the slowest with Maria up to the families to hug them all. Emelia’s mother hugs Hannah two times as she does with her own daughter if not more to them both, looking at their faces and eventually asks if they are tired, saying they should go home and got some sleep. Hannah walks over to Carolina and her mother, hugging the gray-haired mother, skinny and smiling. Maria is hugging everyone too, all of them are hugging everyone, greeting and warmly being welcomed by each other’s parents. Maria will surprise hers; therefore she will ride with Hannah and Emelia as no one is there to welcome her, only her sisters aware of her visit but they are restlessly waiting at home.

They drive through the city at night takes maybe five minutes (it is a very, very small city), and though the streets are empty and the lamps shows nothing but night, Hannah and her members can’t stop smiling at it. Their small hometown. She doesn’t miss it often when she is away, but each time she puts her foot back here, she realises she loves her hometown. To hear Emelia’s parents talk so much is familiar too, to hear Emelia’s bright voice telling her parents of their lives… Home

They drop Maria off, both Hannah and Emelia steps out to hug her and say they will see each other in five days to go back to Korea, and even if Maria tells Hannah to come visit, Hannah says she isn’t sure she will since she will be with her grandparents forty minutes outside the city but tells Maria to hug all her family members for her. There are only smiles when parting, going from her sisters to her family and Maria gladly walks inside the apartment building where her family is sleeping.

The whole place, this part is where they grew up. A line of apartment buildings where Maria grew up, Hannah lived there for seven years too before moving a little bit further away by the church, and going the other direction lives Emelia’s parents – the same house Emelia grew up in. their parents doesn’t move, they are comfortable with their homes. Julia’s mother lives in another city, not far away at all, it is in a driving distance of maybe twenty or thirty minutes, while Carolina’s home is out in nowhere in an old ruckus. Their families do not move even when receiving money from their daughters, instead they use money on cars, food, payments, trips, hobbies and joy.

They head to the two-floor little house and goes to bed to sleep, and after five hours Hannah is sitting in the tiny kitchen around the four-seat table to eat breakfast.

It’s Wednesday, and that means Emelia’s father has to go work – he won’t work all day, just because his daughter is here this week. They are early risers knowing the father goes to wok and Hannah will take the bus. They prepare their own breakfast, and Hannah loves it. It isn’t the overly hospitality with a table filled with food that takes two hours to prepare; that’s not Sweden. You get to prepare your own breakfast, sandwiches. Hannah looks at the newspaper Emelia’s father is reading by the kitchen table, and he finds it funny to see her so fascinated by it. He asks about how her days will be like here in Sweden, other than that he stays quiet – he is a quiet man, a great man, but quiet. Emelia’s mother is different; asking if she needs this and that, reminding her that she can always come here for a day or so, standing up by the kitchen worktop instead of taking a seat. Hannah likes them all. It is a small family that she visited a lot as a child, and she spends half her morning there looking at the pictures on the walls and how different it is from when she was a child.

Emelia is still in bed when Hannah is going to leave, so Hannah walks inside the old bedroom of her childhood friend and lies down next to her in it.

“You haven’t left yet?” Emelia jokes, putting her arm over Hannah’s face, being in a good mood from being home. Hannah giggles and puts the arm away.

“In one minute. Just wanted to give you a hug first,” Hannah smiles at her friend. “Have fun, Emelia: don’t sleep it all off.”

The rapper smiles, she looks so happy just by lying in her own old bedroom. The walls here are only of horses and cars; her desk is covered with pictures of herself with her family and the ladies. “The same goes to you, cry-baby; we’ll all get back to Korea a little stronger after this, prepared to take the world in a storm with our comeback. Give a call if you want some friends over at your grandparents house; I would love to see it.”

Hannah just nods and happily hugs her friend, now actually able to say she is excited to meet her grandparents because of the happiness her members have. Hannah hugs Emelia’s mother too before leaving with the father, their ride quiet and Hannah is too busy seeing the city in the morning light to really find any good subject to talk about. She gets a ride to the bus station, knowing where to be and all of that and twenty minutes later the bus takes off; Hannah is on her way to see her grandparents.

As a child she took the bus there only once, other times she was in the car with her family. She can not remember the details of her bus trip that time, all she knows is that she went with her older sister there, she was so young at that time, spending the weekend with her sister and grandparents, taking care of the horses they had at that time. Now her grandparents are in such a bad shape they sold their horses years ago, but they still have the same house and stall and everything.

Whenever her father couldn’t take care of the twin sisters in the weekends, their mother would send them off to the countryside where grandmother and grandfather lived with three-four horses. Their older sister used to spend every summer and holiday there too, having her own horses. If Hannah thinks of her childhood, half of it was spent there, a bit of it was spent at sea, some was spent with Emelia in her house playing every day after school and during holidays, and the rest she can’t remember much of other than playing with friends. This can be the best trip Hannah can ever do at home; come home with some money and just visit the place she spent a lot of time as a child.

She has simple foundation on, wearing leggings and a long sweater, being comfortable on the bus and enjoying the scenery of trees and lakes and fields. She remembers visiting her grandparents many times as a child, the drive there felt really long while the way back was fast. She can’t remember everything on the road, but she likes it. The air is always fresh in Sweden, wherever you go there, and she loves it. She kind of misses Jonghyun already though, texting him on the bus and also taking a picture of a lake and mountains in the background that they drive by to send him, to let him know how beautiful her home is. Growing up she always loved the nature, which is weird because she now lives in a huge city. Being in Sweden feels like freedom, so many trees and so much space, so little people – no wonder the ladies miss home. She sends a picture to her members too, letting them know she is on her way to see her family too and that the view is beautiful, wishing them all to have fun.

She can feel it in her stomach when it is nearing. The best part is that the bus stops right outside the house too. She waits for it, ready for it, wondering how they will react. She can’t wait to hug her grandmother, wondering if her grandmother will stand by the window, having it open as she is smoking, always standing there.

Getting off the bus, she stands on the side of the road and stares at the bus, waiting for it to move so she can look at the old stone house and yard of her grandparents. She had seen it before getting off, and she is so excited, wondering if her grandmother will look out the window like she always does and spot Hannah coming.

The bus moves and everything is the same. Besides from the car on the driveway. The house is so old, the garage on the side looks like it will fall down if you touch it, on the other side of the house she remembers the stall also looking old far at the back and there used to be a fence for the horses there but now it is just a small meadow. It all smells of memories from her childhood.

Hannah hurries up to the house, getting up to the door and sees that the backside of the yard is filled with things. Are they renovating? She frowns and knocks on the door, taking a step back trying to see the back that is filled with things. Are they going to build out the house? She wonders what that is about but everything is still so familiar for her, the old things surrounding her. The old front door, she remembers having trouble closing it as a child. The porch, she remembers running up and down on it whenever she was playing at the backyard, huge as it is. They fed squirrels too one summer.

Opening the door is a man, a man in his thirties who she has never seen in her entire life, and for seconds Hannah just stares at him. She has never seen a man other than relatives in this house.

“Um… Hi,” she forces a polite smile, “Who are you?”

“Hi… I live here, who are you?”

“Oh…” She takes a step back, her mind slowly getting blank. All her life there has only been one pair living here. “Where… are those who lived here earlier?”

“The Martens?” the man asks, resting his weight on one foot when telling: “That old man is at the pensioners’ home up the road; his daughter took care of everything for me, selling the house and emptying it after the old woman passed away. I have lived here since October already. You know them? I can give you the address to the home if you want-”

“She died?” Hannah asks, not sure she heard much after that. She is sure she heard wrong, maybe it is an entire different family.

“Yes, out of cancer, last year,” he nods. “I’m sorry, but are you…?”

“I’m no one,” Hannah shakes her head, taking another step back. “Um… You know … um…” She waves her finger in the air before covering . “I’m sorry. I’ll leave. Thank you. Bye.”

She bows in a reflex, not even aware of that it is not something you do in Sweden, and she stumbles down the stairs with the man just looking after her.

They moved, Hannah thinks, it’s as simple as that. They must’ve moved. They would’ve told Hannah otherwise, right? She keeps walking the street, thinking about it. Since October – if he has lived here since then, and 5 Pieces’ concert was in November, Jen would probably have told her if something had happened. Hannah nods at herself.

She walks to the pensioners’ home where she knows her grandfather should be, just in case, not having a clue of where she walks in but she tries three different doors until she has come to the right place. She talks to a nurse who lets her know he is still there.

“Um… Do you perhaps know about his relatives?” Hannah asks in a low voice, wanting to hold her breath so badly but she just breathes so loudly. It could be echoing in the corridor. She isn’t sure. Her whole body is freezing.

“His daughter comes to visit once a week, at most. His wife passed away in cancer last year…”

“She did?” Hannah whispers.

“Yes. It came so suddenly, she had the summer out to live… Passed away in September… It took badly on him; his memory isn’t so good anymore. He keeps talking about driving to get the horses and a lot of old things…”

Hannah nods, just biting her lip holding in her tears.

“Hey, are you okay?” the nurse steps up to her, grabbing Hannah’s arm when she starts crying, opening and then closing it and the nurse helps her to sit down on a chair, apologizing for saying it so bluntly while Hannah is just gaping out at nothing, crying without knowing it.

The nurse gets her tissues and Hannah sits there for several minutes just crying, each time trying to say something she just starts crying again. The nurse sits next to her, waiting, and eventually Hannah can talk.

“Is he in a bad shape?” she asks.

“He barely recognized his own daughter last time she was here, it comes and goes. One moment his mind is clear, next it isn’t. He hasn’t been up walking for two years…” the nurse says. Hannah’s grandfather had a heart attack a few years ago, and like most members of this family he is too negative to lift himself up afterwards. “Do you want to see him?”

Hannah shakes her head. She knows his daughter is her mother, and if he doesn’t recognize Hannah’s mother he will definitely not recognize Hannah.

“Do you… Do you know where she is buried? His wife…” Hannah breathes out. The nurse nods, looking like she feels really bad for saying these things that happened so many months ago.

She can’t believe it. Not until she sees it. Her grandmother is not dead until she has proof of it. And no one told her!

But when she is told where her grandmother is buried, she should know it is real. It is the graveyard right above the house her family lives in, the same graveyard Hannah used to walk around on as a child when she wanted some time alone. It’s where they grew up. But even when knowing which church it is, Hannah just shakes her head leaving the pensioners’ home. She has to get back to the city, she has to go to the church, to find the grave…

It is two hours until the next bus, and Hannah just sits there, waiting and staring out in nowhere.

She does the same on the bus, not aware of the beautiful scenery they drive by. How could she be dead? How can her grandmother have died in cancer? How could her family not tell her any of this?

The more she thinks the more she cries, and the less she cares about her surrounding seeing it.

She takes the bus back to the city, takes another bus to almost reach the whole way to the church and then walks the final part, even walking by the house her mother currently lives in – unless they have moved.

It feels like hours passes until she is on the graveyard, just looking around on each stone she finds. She walks around for a long time, thinking she will look through every single corner of the graveyard until she finds it and if she doesn’t find it after looking everywhere, she will know her grandmother is not dead.

She reaches another line, sees the name Martens written on a cross. No gravestone put on this row yet, and Hannah holds her breath seeing the name – but the first name isn’t right. She can breathe. It’s not her grandmother. She steps to the side, going over to the next one. And this one makes her fall down on her knees, crying so hard she can’t even take a new breath.

“Oh my god!” she cries out, “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!”

She covers her face with both hands when panicking, not able to stop giving the worst crying sound ever. She can’t believe it. Even when seeing it, she can not believe it.

“You’re NOT dead!” Hannah cries at the grave. “You can’t be…”

Hannah gives out a whine, lying down on the wet grass. The only family member who she came here to see, the only family she has left, the only one does not blame her for going to Korea, is dead? How could she not know? How could they not tell her? How can her grandmother be dead?

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“I’m so sorry,” Hannah whispers.

Her eyes are red, her face is filled with traces of tears, her sleeves are wet from wiped tears and the grass she is sitting on has gotten warm after the long hours she has been sitting there, crying. She keeps moving at times, just feeling insane holding on to her thundering head, rubbing her itching eyes, her body shaking uncontrollably. She can’t stop it. She can’t stop crying and looking at the grave she is sitting by, she wants to scream at someone but no one is there and she can’t understand why her family hasn’t told her anything of this. How could they avoid this? HOW could her own family just ignore to tell her the fact that her grandmother is DEAD?

The phone in her pocket vibrates, giving off an annoying sound to let her know she has gotten a text message. With a blurry view she sees the text message from Maria, asking how her grandparents took her appearance, adding a bunch of weird emoticons.

She can’t call her members – they love the time with their families. They have missed this, wanted this so badly; if Hannah calls them, she will just ruin it all. But she still gives someone a call, just to turn it off before a signal is heard.

How can she give anyone a call? What should she say? That the only family member she actually cared to see is dead?

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Hannah whines, the tears rolling down her cheeks again.

That’s why no one has answered her e-mails, and Hannah just thought her grandmother was tired of her. But she was dead. She keeps whining over it all, using the bed of grass to lie down, really not sure of how else to react.

Her cell phone starts to vibrate, a phone call this time, she has no idea of what time it is or for how long she has been here. Seeing who is calling, Hannah knows why it’s a phone call; she had hung up too late, it must have been shown on his display.

“Hi Nabi,” Jonghyun greets her brightly over the phone when she answers.

“Mm,” she gets out of her, staring up at the gray sky.

“How is it at your grandparents?”

And she can’t hold it in. She cries badly, and she cries even more hearing him trying to calm her down.

“I don’t want to be here,” Hannah cries.

“Why not? What has happened?” Jonghyun is panicking, only hearing her cry in his ear. Her head hurts so badly, the tears just keeps rolling even when she stops making the weirdest noises. “Nabi, tell me.”

She cries again. As soon as she is about to get it out of her lips, it just gets stuck and comes out in tears instead.

He has no choice but to be patient. It takes minutes; it takes so long time until she can tell him what happened. She starts off telling about the house, a stranger opening the door, she need to tell it from there, just to not burst out crying right away. It takes time to tell him. She has to take breaks in between just to breathe and calm herself from starting to cry wildly again.

It takes an hour to talk to him. Jonghyun’s idea is to tell the ladies; to have someone there with her but Hannah just wants to go back to Seoul, crying it out. She just wants to leave this place, not finding the beautiful home so beautiful anymore. Her grandmother is dead.

She stays by the grave for almost another hour before bearing to leave, promising her grandmother to come back soon.

Hannah heads to the closest store in the area, hoping her eyes aren’t too red but she has made sure her face looks okay. She has only two reason to go in there; flowers and something to drink. Coca Cola and a bunch of flowers that she needs bags to carry. Reaching the cashier, she sees the man standing there; an old classmate. He gives her a smile when her turn comes, she smiles back weakly, nervously, until she realises he does not recognize her.

“A lot of flowers,” he comments, giving her another smile.

She remembers in seventh grade how he for wearing braids in her hair, asking if she thought she looked pretty in it. He wasn’t a bad guy, he was just childish, and now he seems to have grown up. “Yeah…” is all she says, ready to pay with her card.

“A special occasion, perhaps?” he wonders.

“Grave visit,” Hannah mutters, writing in her code.

“Oh. I’m sorry…”

“Me too,” Hannah whispers, finishing up the payment, “Thanks.”

She has barely left the store when Jonghyun calls her, his worried voice wanting to know if she has called the ladies. When she hasn’t contacted anyone, he does not hesitate to change his worried voice into more a more serious one, ordering her to call them. Hannah doesn’t want to call her ladies, explaining that they are enjoying time with their families. It is their first day in Sweden, they only have a few days here before they have to leave again, and who knows when they can come back. Maria is probably trying to meet as many relatives as possible, maybe even having a huge family gathering, and Julia has gone to her older step-sisters to visit with her mother. She tells Jonghyun all of that, even getting a hiccup when holding in her tears to not start crying while walking back to the grave. She used to walk here all the time, back and forth from school. Her sister used to take the bus; a fifteen minute walk compared to a two minute bus ride. Jonghyun loosens up when she is just babbling a lot of excuses, telling her to calm down. He can’t talk for long; it’s midday time in Sweden, which means it’s midnight in Seoul – Jonghyun has to hang up for his radio program.

Hannah doesn’t call anyone else. She walk back to the grave, carefully placing out the flower she has bought, covering almost the whole grave with it, and then sits back with her bottle of Coca Cola in hand, just staring in front of her.

She missed the funeral. Hannah starts crying again thinking of it, wondering how it was like, if a lot of people came, if her whole family was there…

A phone call makes her phone vibrate in her pocket. Emelia. Hannah answers it after several signals to try calm down a bit, and just like with Jonghyun she answers simply with an ‘mm’.

“Where are you?” Emelia asks; her voice strict.

“He called you,” Hannah breathes out, closing her eyes and lies down on the grass, watching the grave from there with the tears blurring her sight.

“Of course he called. Where are you?”

“I didn’t want to ruin your trip,” Hannah cries on the phone.

“You’re not ruining it if you tell me where you are, Hannah. We’re sisters, it’s what family do,” Emelia answers, doing her best to not have Hannah hang up on her wanting to be alone.

But Hannah keeps sobbing and crying at her words. “My family is in a grave,” Hannah cries so much, sitting up to lean forward, sobbing on the grave. She can’t say she is dead, she can’t say those words. “I’m at the graveyard.”

“Don’t move. I’m three minutes away,” Emelia says.

She is at home, Hannah understands that. With a car it takes minutes going here and there between their homes, but if you walk it takes at least fifteen minutes, usually more than that.

It takes minutes, because Hannah only said it was the lower graveyard. Emelia comes running, alone, and as soon as she reaches Hannah she falls down on her knees, grabs on to Hannah’s arm to pull her up in a hug, hearing the youngest cry even more once again.

“Have you been here all day?” Emelia asks, shocked to see how Hannah looks like, moving her arms around Hannah as if wanting to warm her or make sure she is whole.

Hannah spaces out looking at the grave, silent tears rolling down her cheeks. “I don’t know…”

“Have you eaten anything then?”

She gets another hiccup, pouting. How could she possibly think of eating when her grandmother is lying right there? Right under in the dirt.

Emelia lets her sit there for just a few minutes before telling her they should go. Hannah shakes her head; her body is lifeless so Emelia can’t even try to help her get up. “Hannah, you can’t sit here,” Emelia says in a low voice, looking like walls are being built up between them, scaring her. Hannah doesn’t move, just looking at the grave. Emelia tries to help her up again, and this time Hannah slowly finds some strength in her legs.

They don’t leave. Hannah mumbles that she wants to go to the church, and Emelia walks with her. They passes the car waiting for them, Emelia’s mother sitting in it and she nods when Emelia points up the hill at the white church they are heading to. It’s open; the two girls walk inside and sit down in the middle. Emelia has never been comfortable in the church, she doesn’t believe in God, but she has visited this church a lot of times growing up – every occasion the school had with Lucia celebration, graduations and so was taking place here – and she do know that this is the sanctuary for Hannah. Like that they are really different. Emelia doesn’t even like the graveyard even if she has such a tough and scary image, while Hannah basically used to spend many late evenings walking around here.

Emelia sits there, awkward in church, but stays because she doesn’t want Hannah to sit there alone. Hannah can’t be still. She stares to the front, leans forward to rest her forehead on the bench in front of theirs, she cries, she mumbles, she makes weird noises… Emelia isn’t even sure if she is praying or what she is doing, and she has no thought of asking either, letting Hannah do what she does.

“No one told me,” Hannah eventually mentions when she leans back in the bench, looking forward at Jesus hanging like a huge golden man on the wall, surrounded by angels looking like babies with wings. “It- No one told me.”

Emelia nods, for once speechless to what to say. Hannah looks down at her hands, tears dropping down on her finger.

“I didn’t even know,” she whispers, closing her eyes hardly. “I didn’t know something had happened… I didn’t know a thing.”

“You couldn’t have known,” Emelia says.

“Why didn’t they tell me?”

Now that, Emelia stays quiet for. She has no answer. She can not believe how Hannah’s family didn’t say anything about this; that her grandmother has passed away. How could you not say such a thing?

“I even sent her tickets for our concert…” Hannah mumbles. She leans her head back, starting to cry badly again.

They sit there for a few more minutes before Emelia quietly says they should go, that her mother is waiting for them – she adds in her mother in it in hope Hannah will move.

“I want to leave,” Hannah says, staring at Jesus. “I want to go back to Seoul, Emelia.”

“We can talk about it later-”

“No,” Hannah shakes her head, biting her lip as her eyes tears up again. “I can’t stay here.”

Emelia doesn’t say anything about that, she just reaches out her hand and Hannah takes it, thinking the rapper agrees with her. How could she stay? She will ruin the visit home for the other members, and for herself there is nothing left here. The only person left in her family is buried, the only one she actually talked to without being judged of hurting this family. Her grandmother maybe didn’t say much at all, but she did show she was proud.

“She took me here once,” Hannah says when they slowly leave the bench to head out, Emelia holding her hand tightly. “For graduation. The rest of the family had gone abroad, only Jen and I were left behind with our grandparents. Grandma braided my hair really badly, I remember how much I hated it but didn’t dare to say anything so I ended up going like that; she went with us for graduation here.”

She can’t remember what year it was, maybe first or second grade, before she met Emelia, but she do remember her hair and the white knitted cardigan she was wearing, and she remembers her grandmother waving among the crowd of families standing by the benches when the students came walking down the aisle. It was also the only trip their family had done abroad, to Thailand; Hannah and her twin sister Jen was not invited, only their mother, step-father and older sister.

Emelia hugs on to her hand, again not saying anything. Hannah wouldn’t hear if she said anything either. She can remember how they used to sleep too, in the double-bed out in their grandparents house; the twins on each side of the bed and their grandmother in the middle, snoring loudly. Hannah remembers it so well because she would wake up because of the snoring. Not once did it annoy her. She just smiled and went back to sleep. Hannah hugs on to Emelia’s arm when she can’t hold back the tears again, just the snoring of her grandmother she misses. It’s hard to realise she will never hear it again.

She will never see her grandmother again.

The evening is awful. Emelia takes Hannah to her home, lying her down on the bed because Hannah is nothing but a zombie. They ask what she wants to eat, give her a lot of different options, but Hannah just turns around to face the wall, ignoring them completely. No one forces her. Emelia gives Maria a call, just because Maria is much better at this, and Maria starts crying over the phone when hearing what has happened. Twenty minutes later, Maria is sitting next to Hannah, trying to talk to her and crying with her.

It’s eleven in the evening when they give Manager Lim a call in Seoul, letting him know what has happened the latest hours and asking if he can prepare a flight back to Seoul for Hannah. Maria and Hannah have been talking for over three hours, and Maria just nodded and agreed when Hannah said she wants to go back. She can’t say she wants to go home, because this is their home, it is, no matter what history they have, Sweden will always be their home so Hannah says ‘back’ or ‘Seoul’ instead – anywhere but home. Maria can understand it unlike from Emelia; Emelia wants Hannah to stay, to spend the days with them instead, but with Maria on Hannah’s side, Hannah gets her way.

The next flight is tomorrow at four in the evening, but since the train takes about five hours to get there, Hannah is booked to leave their hometown in the morning.

One thing Maria doesn’t listen to is when Hannah says she can go back to her own family waiting.

“You’re leaving in the morning, so I’m staying until then,” Maria answers, crowding with Hannah in the bed to fit. “Now try to get some sleep.”

Emelia is there too, sleeping on the bed as well, but in the end it is just Hannah who stays awake. She can’t possibly sleep now, and neither can she cry because she fears she will wake up the two ladies.

It’s the longest night in her life.

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Headline 23rd: Third Version Of Hannah’s Japanese Chocolate CF Is Out

Headline 23rd: Inkigayo Reveals 5 Pieces’ [Girls Power] Won This Past Sunday As Song Of The Week

Headline 23rd: With Only Digital Release Of [Girls Power], 5 Pieces Still Number One On Music Charts

Headline 23rd: Julia Shares Pictures With Her Sister’s Dogs On Instagram

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X. devonalias – I have thought so much for months whether to write this or ignore this, but it ended this way when the ladies went to Sweden. Sorry for all the depressing parts, should try to make up for that in the future ^^,