Hannah can’t think of a night longer and more gruesome than this one, staring up at the ceiling Emelia must’ve looked up at growing up.

She can’t think straight, her head goes around in circles that she gets dizzy even if she is just lying in bed. Her head hurts so badly, her eyes feel swollen, and whole body is in pain as if she has been in an accident where each part of her body got hurt. In the end she goes to the bathroom downstairs, sitting there and crying to not wake anyone up, washing her face over and over again. Time seems to have slowed down just to hurt her even more.

Maria had asked if she has contacted her family to ask why no one told her about her grandmother passing away, but Hannah doesn’t have their number, and she doesn’t want to see them; she doesn’t want anything else but to leave. Why would she talk to the family who doesn’t even tell her something like this?

It’s awkward in the morning, everything is bad, Hannah barely aware of anything. She is being hugged and they say a lot of things for her but Hannah just looks away, barely aware that they are saying anything. Before going to catch the train, she visits the grave one last time. Maria and Emelia goes with her but leaves her alone at the grave, just standing ready by the car when she returns to hug her.

Before parting by the train station, Maria tells Hannah to answer every text message she will send or she will come after her. Maria wants to be kept updated, to know if Hannah is still heading to the right place and that she overall is aware of her location at all times.

What Hannah didn’t know is that both Maria and Emelia texts her every hour, even calling to make sure she is eating something. Hannah says she eats, to make them believe it she says she eat a small sandwich, even saying the price of it just to live up to the lie, because she doesn’t eat anything. She drinks, but she doesn’t eat. Jonghyun calls her too; he is probably the worst of them. He doesn’t leave her alone at all, wanting to know the flight schedule, who will pick her up at the airport in Korea, what she is doing now, if someone is looking at her, if she has gotten any sleep… He has endless of questions. Whenever he calls, Hannah asks him to sing for her. Without hesitation he does that, going from pop songs to ballads, just because he doesn’t want her to stick to one mood. It doesn’t help though. When she is about to board the plane, she texts them to let them know the conversations ends here, until the middle landing in Qatar for two hours that she spends finding the next flight and to hear Emelia’s voice on the phone.

The time difference gives Hannah a worse headache than she had before she got on the flight. Almost 17 hours in total are spent with the flight and middle landing, yet when she lands it is four in the evening on Friday, 24 hours after leaving the airport in Sweden. But time differences are the least on her mind. She doesn’t keep an eye on the time when they are on the flight, not when landing in Korea either. All she knows is that when she lands, she gives a call to her manager; he is already waiting for her.

Manager Lim puts a heavy arm around Hannah’s shoulders when she comes up to him, she doesn’t let him take her luggage and she just keeps walking, wanting to get out from the airport and she doesn’t dare to open afraid she will burst out in tears again. No one is there to take paparazzi pictures of her, but there are people recognizing her even if she has a cap and sunglasses on. She doesn’t want to be recognized, she doesn’t want to be seen by anybody, she just wants to go hide and cry.

Her manager keeps looking at her in the car, his mind going through all things to say but he isn’t sure if any of it is worth saying out loud. Hannah looks out the window, she hasn’t said a thing to him, and she doesn’t remove her sunglasses where her eyes are red and swollen from lack of sleep and from crying too much.

“I asked Miss Shin to buy some groceries for you,” he ends up saying, staring straight ahead to focus on his driving. His voice is of a father; caring and manly, yet weak of worry. “She bought some chocolate and strawberry ice-cream for you too; she says it is your favourite.”

Hannah doesn’t really have a favourite ice-cream what she knows off, but whenever their housemaids buys ice-cream, Hannah and Emelia like the sort she buys with chocolate and strawberries. She doesn’t react to his words at all though, and Manager Lim spends more minutes trying to figure out what else to tell her.

“Are you hungry?” he asks. “We can stop to get some fast food if you want. Hamburger?”

“I’m not hungry,” Hannah mumbles and turns more towards the window.

It’s his final attempt to talk to her in the car, for the rest of the way just listening to the radio on a low volume. He stops one time to buy pizza, telling Hannah it is for him self and for her if she wants to. The smell fills the car and Hannah’s stomach growls badly. She ignores it, happy her manager can’t hear it. Four times during the drive [Girls Power] is played on the radio. Hannah only hears it two times, not reacting to it though.

Coming to the apartment, Hannah lies down on the floor with the pets, closing her eyes and looking like she has just shut down completely. Manager Lim walks in too, not asking her if she wants him there because he knows she will just say no, so he stays without asking, deciding to eat the pizza and watch some TV, for Hannah to join him if she wants to. He keeps a distance but is around in case she needs him.

“Where are you going?” Manager Lim asks when Hannah heads towards the stairs though.

“Bath,” Hannah mutters, dragging her bag up the stairs loudly.

She hasn’t showered since she left Korea three days ago (it’s just been three days?), and she has no strength to take a shower – instead she decides to fill up a bath and just drown her sorrows. She throws a towel on the sink in the bigger bathroom, closes the door after her and undresses while the water fills up, sitting down in the tub before it has been filled. Leaning back, she just sits there, staring at nothing, blinking when her eyes stings, and sobs when remembering the grave. She didn’t even leave the money she had prepared; who would get them anyway? Her grandfather? He is too lost to use them, would probably spend it all on snuff. Her mother? That person thinks Hannah is a disgrace and wouldn’t even let her know her grandmother has died. There is no one there to send the money to, and its not like she can give it to her members’ families, they would never accept it. But what does it matter, where her money goes? Her grandmother should’ve been alive to use them, to treat herself to some luxury, to maybe go on a last trip or … anything.

It has been knocking on the door for a few seconds without her hearing it, but she only reacts when the door is opened by looking up at it, her senses dull sitting in the water. She was sure she had locked the door, realising she hadn’t when seeing Jonghyun step inside the bathroom.

“Why weren’t you answering?” he asks in a worried voice, closing the door after him and walking up to her. “I thought … I thought something had happened.”

Hannah grimaces when hearing his voice so close, seeing him there, she is about to start crying again and Jonghyun is fast to hold out his hand, touching her face.

“I’m here,” he tells her, a silken smooth voice.

She can see how he turns off the water, the tub not filled but he seems to think it is enough, and she watches him in a blur as he undresses, maybe thinking she does not want to get up from the bath and decides to join her instead. It feels like he just came inside the room when he steps inside the tub, she has no idea of how he could undress so fast, and she feels like jelly in his grip when he pulls her to him. She rests her forehead against his chest, not having the strength to put her arms around him while Jonghyun is the one who holds her so she doesn’t fall down like jelly in the water. It does feel nice to have him there, but her head can only think of one thing; her grandmother.

He sits there with her, slowly moving his arms when cupping them one by one under the water and lift it up to put it on her back, letting the water fall down like a waterfall, like the tears rolls down her cheeks. Its silent tears now, he wouldn’t even know she was crying if she wasn’t shaking so much. He can hear her sob when he holds her back up straight with a hand on her arm, she lowers her head even more trying to hide her face, but he focuses on her right arm. Holding on to it with one hand, to make sure she sits up, he washes it slowly, carefully with his other hand, long strong fingers gliding around on her arm. She thinks he does it with just water, maybe trying to calm her, but even if she gets the scent of body wash she can’t seem to get it that he is using the green bottle of body wash that was on the side. Cucumber and green tea scent. She is even foolish enough to think he is the one having that scent, mixed with his real one.

She closes her eyes when he starts washing her left arm; his hand goes up to her shoulder, then down to her hand, his fingers wrapped around her when gliding up and down washing her. He can hear how her breathing has calmed by now, how she is focusing on how he takes time to wash her. It’s not ual this time, even if they are sitting in front of each other, it is a relationship that has been going on for as long as they have known each other, it is comfort.

Jonghyun washes his hands in the water when he has taken both of her arms, and Hannah blinks at him when he takes a hold of her face, his eyes not meeting hers when he wipes the tears that have fallen and dried, fallen and dried, cleaning her face from sorrow.

“Is it helping?” Jonghyun whispers, his fingers go into her hair, following to the back and it makes her lean her head back.

“Mm.”

His hands disappears, just to come back up with water, his focus is now on her hair. He keeps her head back, continuing to slowly wash her hair. It feels like massage, therapy massage to sit in a bath with your boyfriend and to have his fingers massage her head.

“You know…” Jonghyun starts to say in a low voice, massaging in the shampoo in her hair and making sure he wipes it off if it starts dripping down her forehead, “I have always wanted to do this. In a different situation though, but I have fantasised about the two of us washing each other like this… It’s intimate.”

Hannah opens her eyes slowly to look at him, seeing Jonghyun purse his lips into a smile.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles.

“No, I didn’t mean it like that,” he whispers, smiling when giving her a peck on the lips, continuing to wash her hair. She knows what he means; she just doesn’t have the heart to talk about it.

She lets him wash her hair, rinse it. She does anything he tells her, too numb to think herself, having him guide her to lean her head back, to stretch out her leg. He does everything; from time to time he places a soft kiss on her skin – on her lip, on her shoulder, on her hair, on her hand… He does it so softly that she wakes up from her trance, and she blinks at him, then she disappears again. She isn’t even awkward being with him, not covering her self at all, not aware of anything. He doesn’t like it, but he does like how she stops crying and calms down in the bath with him. And she didn’t stay with her ladies in Sweden; she came back to Korea, and he think she did it because she knows he will be there with her.

Hannah wraps a towel around her body when getting out of the tub, whining when Jonghyun starts to rub it to make her dry.

“Are you going to do it yourself?” he asks her.

She gives him a pout, taking the towel away from her to put around him, but instead of drying him up with it she just hugs him. With a sigh he puts his arms around her, pecking her wet hair. It is just for a few seconds, because Hannah steps away from him, her head low when leaving the bathroom. He hurries to the door, looking to see where she goes, but she disappears into her room and he guess she is just getting dressed. He stays in the bathroom to empty the bathtub and get dressed himself.

Hannah opens the door to her wardrobe, seeing the nice collection of clothes mostly chosen by her stylists since 5 Pieces need to have a good style. She grabs a big sweater that she puts on, she takes up her wet hair in a loose bun and the whole time she is not really aware of what she is doing, it’s something she does in routine. Except that she forgets underwear. She sits down on the bed, just spacing out until she notices she is missing something.

She gets up on her feet and walks back to her wardrobe, but can’t reach for the underwear.

Her grandmother has been dead all along. For all these months, she has been dead, and Hannah hasn’t known it at all, she hasn’t felt it or guessed it. No one told her. She tears up again, her head hurting so badly, constantly. She takes the underwear, angry at her family when putting them on, and she glares at her wardrobe filled with clothes. Not once in her life has she thanked her grandmother, she has thanked for the food and presents, even if it wasn’t much, but she has never thanked her grandmother for being alive, for supporting her, for being proud…

With a scream she grabs a hold of the clothes hanging in the wardrobe, pulling in it. She throws clothes out in the room, crying loudly while ruining her wardrobe, and she keeps screaming when grabbing a hold of the drawer next to the wardrobe, tipping it over so all the things on top of it crashes down on the floor, the lamp on it hits the side of the bed and breaks into pieces. It sounds so loud that several apartments around should hear it.

“Hannah!” Jonghyun runs inside, and he doesn’t even care that a drawer is between them he runs right up to her, grabbing her arms to make her stop waving them.

Hannah cries so much, covering her face with her hands when he holds on to her arms, her hair has fallen out.

“It hurts,” she cries loudly at him, hitting a hand to her chest, not knowing that she is stepping back and forth even if he holds on to her.

“I know, I know,” Jonghyun whispers at her, hushing her while grabbing the back of her head with one hand to hold her against him. He sits them down on the bed, hushing at her just as Manager Lim reaches the door, staring at the room more than them.

“What are you doing?!” he bursts out, gaping at them.

Jonghyun just shakes his head, having to look over his shoulder at the manager while holding on to Hannah who tries to lean against the wall. She almost falls off the bed too, not shifting further in either so it is Jonghyun’s arms that holds on to her. Manager Lim just gapes even when knowing Hannah did it.

“I’ll take care of it,” Jonghyun tells the manager. He turns back to Hannah when she starts waving her arm, using her strength this time so he worries she will try to punch him or something else, but she just cries so much that her strength disappears. When glancing back to the door, Manager Lim has already left, maybe knowing there is nothing he can do. “Hannah,” Jonghyun says repeatedly while taking a hold of her face, trying to make her focus on him. She shakes her head when she is about to look at him, and she falls down on the side, lying down in the bed crying and Jonghyun’s grip of her disappears.

He lies down next to her, both lying on their side, and he keeps rubbing her arm, quietly hushing her. It doesn’t help much at all, she hides under her hair and hands, and when he takes away the hair her hands are still in the way. She is shaking so much, crying hysterically.

Of minutes trying to calm her without success he starts humming on a song, moving further up to rest his forehead above hers, for her to hear him, feeling how warm she has gotten from crying when caressing her arm slowly. He doesn’t sing anything; he just hums on a melody, his heart racing in fear for her but his humming comes out soft and smooth.

Hannah’s head is pounding so badly, her whole body is warm and she has cried so tears are covering her face. She has cried so badly that she even has started to sweat, her feet feel cold though. Listening to the soothing humming she slowly, very slowly calms down, getting hiccups when trying to stop crying and it just makes her cry more. After a while she takes a hold of the hand caressing her arm, holding on to it, and instead of thinking of why she cries she thinks of him. Sobbing, she looks at his abs in front of her. He didn’t have the time to put a shirt on, his jeans aren’t even buttoned and he is barefoot. She looks at it, focusing on her boyfriend; on his body, on his humming, of how he takes care off her even if she far from deserves it. Should she feel bad for wanting to get in other thoughts? Her head hurts so badly, she can’t really focus and the crying hiccups keeps coming, her mind keeps travelling back to the person she is supposed to sit with now, to talk memories and for Hannah to tell her all the amazing things she has been doing. Hannah is supposed to tell her grandmother of the perfect man she has found.

“Sssh,” Jonghyun whispers, his hand leaves hers to touch her cheek.

She has started to cry again, knowing she can never tell her grandmother about him. “It hurts so much,” she mumbles, sighing at how horrible she must look even if she just took a bath. She can’t get out another word, and Jonghyun gives her a light kiss on the forehead.

With a teary face, Hannah moves her head to look up at him. Jonghyun moves his head back a little to look at her, his face in pain but not even close to how painful she looks. He takes her hair away from her face, though it really wasn’t anything in the way, and Hannah just looks at him.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

“For what?” Jonghyun asks, his hand goes to hold hers.

“I’m horrible.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I didn’t even know that my own grandmother-” Hannah stops herself, frowning and she lowers her eyes. She can’t say that. “I didn’t know it. I’m horrible.”

“You’re not horrible,” Jonghyun whispers. “Nabi,” he says and lifts up her head to look at him again, his voice serious; “You are not horrible for not knowing that when you are so far away from home. Your family should have contacted you. If you should blame someone, it’s them.”

He can see in her face, in her eyes, how she tears up again. He pulls her to him, hugging her and repeating in her ear that she is not the one to blame, his hand hugging on to her head. She hugs on to him too, not wanting to let go.

“Please don’t leave me,” she whispers, not knowing she says it out loud. She wants to beg God to not let her loose her family. She has no family left in Sweden, and she knows her ladies would never abandon her, all left is Jonghyun. She doesn’t want to be without him.

“I’ll never leave you,” Jonghyun whispers in her ear and it sound so real the way he says it. He kisses her ear, caresses her hair softly. “I’ll always be here with you, Hannah, you know that.”

“You can’t know the future,” she whispers to him.

Jonghyun leans back, grabbing her head with both hands and sits up on his elbow, staring at her. “I know that I love you. I need you. And because of that, I will never leave you. Nothing in the future will change that.”

“My life has told me different,” Hannah whispers, but she still holds on to his hands to not let him take them away from her face. “I love your confidence, I love your words and the way you say it, and I would love to think the same way.”

“But you can’t,” Jonghyun fills out.

She looks like she will tear up again and Jonghyun kisses her cheek. “It doesn’t work that way for me,” she whispers.

“I get that. Hannah … its okay. I’m not leaving you.”

“She did,” Hannah whispers.

“Who? Your grandmother?”

“All of them,” she whispers. “Everyone, eventually … leaves. I thought… years ago, that if I left, I wouldn’t have to care about it anymore. What if someone else dies? What happens when my grandpa dies? Will I know? What if it takes years until I find out? What does that makes me? No one told me she- No one at home told me and what if I hadn’t gone home this time, how long would it have taken?”

“Hannah, Hannah, ssh,” he hushes her when she starts to cry too badly for him to hear what she says. “Stop thinking of that, please.”

“I can’t,” Hannah whines, and she starts crying with the tears rolling down on his hand, Hannah is freaking out. “She’s dead and I didn’t know it, Jonghyun.”

He has nothing to say. He didn’t know Hannah’s grandmother; he has no idea of what to say to calm her. He can’t say anything about it, he just lets her cry. All until she looks to be in so much pain that he can’t take it anymore. He lifts her up, making her sit up, and wipes her tears while she rests against the wall.

“What have you eaten today?” he asks her, not sure if the jelly body she has is lack of food, sleep or from crying too much. Hannah leans away from him with a whine but Jonghyun holds on to her. “Don’t do that, Nabi, you need to eat.” He caress her cheek, his voice softens; “I will take you downstairs. We will turn on a movie, sit in the sofa and eat the pizza waiting for us. Okay? It’s okay to eat, Hannah, you need to eat to live or it will be difficult for us, okay?”

She keeps pouting but when he nods, she nods too, putting her arms around him, weak arms around his neck.

“I’m going to stand up now,” Jonghyun whispers, wrapping his arms around her waist so when he slowly stands up, she comes too. She rests her head on his shoulder, the only part of her body that actually leans on him now, the rest of her don’t have the strength for it.

She hasn’t really eaten anything at all since breakfast at Emelia’s house two days ago, that’s why she has been shaking so much when crying. All her energy is gone; she is dizzy, but holding on to Jonghyun she couldn’t care less.

++ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + -+ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + -+ - + - ++

Life takes a lot of sudden turns that you find unnecessary, those kinds of turns that make you want to stop as you see the cliff nearing in front of you. The question is if you can stop or if you will fall off the cliff. Hannah finds herself in many of those situations. Now is one of them. Her mind is messy and her heart is broken from being betrayed and for loosing a person she thought was the only family member left in her life. To suddenly find out your grandmother passed away several months ago – half a year ago – has broken her heart, to know that your own flesh and blood who you grew up calling ‘family’ haven’t told her about it makes her feel betrayed deep into her bones. Her bedroom is a mess, things thrown down on the floor with a lamp shattered into pieces, her room looking like she feels. What she felt when she found the grave that confirmed her grandmother has passed away, when she was standing on her toes at the edge of the cliff feeling a wind preparing to make her loose her balance and fall, the one who made her lean back and gain that balance is the same one who hugs her with so much love that a little bit of her heart stays unbroken.

She is sitting in the sofa in the living-room. The sky resting above Seoul is dark, the streets are wild this late Friday, but the apartment that 5 Pieces lives in is quiet other than the TV showing a loud action movie. Hannah is in a big sweater, a blanket covering her bare legs, and she is resting her head on the shoulder of the man she often describes as perfect. Jonghyun is fully dressed, only his socks missing, but he still covers his legs under the blanket that he shares with her. Like always it is Hannah who has the attention on the TV, her face blank and red from crying but for the moment she has no tears rolling down from her eyes. Jonghyun has a plate in his lap, filled with slices of pizza that they had warmed up a few seconds in the microwave when coming downstairs to watch a movie, and he looks focused on the food when holding up a slice with one hand.

Manager Lim was here when they came down earlier, but he has just left after making sure Jonghyun really does handle her. Jonghyun has promised to call if there is anything. Now they are alone, puppies lying in the corner of another sofa and Ace sleeping upstairs.

Jonghyun turns his head to look at Hannah, holding up the slice in front of her. She gapes and takes a small bite of the pizza, her eyes has moved from the TV to his face when he puts the slice to his own mouth, taking a bite four times bigger than the one she took. She rests her cheek on him, trying to look over at the pizza but her eyes are too tired for that and she gives up. The pizza is delicious. It is filled with cheese, ham, shrimp, tuna, mushroom – Jonghyun has been eating off the mushrooms of the slices, off his fingers before feeding Hannah.

This is intimate too.

He takes a glance at the TV, chewing with his mouth filled with food, and Hannah slinks a hand to his lap to take a slice of her own from the plate. She lifts her head, trying to ignore it when he turns his head to look at her, seeing her eat on her own.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” Jonghyun asks, taking another huge bite of his own slice.

“Don’t know,” Hannah mumbles without any interest in talking, looking at her pizza slice more than eating it. She looks like a small animal eating a big piece of food, taking tiny bites of it. It’s better than nothing so Jonghyun pretends he doesn’t see it.

“Just stay here?” he asks.

“Probably…”

“Do you want some company? I have to leave for my radio in an hour; I can come back after that and spend all night and day with you,” Jonghyun suggests, sinking down in his seat a little to be the one leaning against her arm.

“Mm,” is all Hannah says.

Jonghyun smiles, looking up at her, “Are you getting your humour back? Because it sounded like it wasn’t a ‘yes’ coming out of your mouth,” he jokes with her, smiling softly at her grimacing at her. He looks back at his pizza slice, finishing it this time and at the same time Hannah puts her slice back on the plate – barely eaten. When he isn’t looking, she manages to give a soft smile to him. They aren’t really focusing much on the movie, Hannah doesn’t even know what they are watching though she has looked at the screen more often than he has.

Whatever mess she has going to inside her, all the mess happening in her life, all the mess she creates and imagines, he still makes it better. She have broken up with him and even if she was feeling like a huge part of her was lost for those weeks, he is the one who took her back, he accepts her problems; her messy mind. He is perfect for everything he does, for the way he looks at her and the way his lips curls up into a smile while eating his pizza because he knows she is looking at him. Whatever she says, all the wavering she has, and he never wavers. He is always so confident, so filled with love that she has never seen in a person before. It makes her frown. It confuses her. She grew up with love, no doubt about that, but her family has a different kind of love; an angry love where you complain and scold each other, push each other down. Jonghyun is so much, he compliments, his whole face and body shows what he feels, what he says, what he does… Hannah has never met a person like that before. It has scared her, but she knows it is wrong to do so; she tried pushing him away but that didn’t work. She should accept it too, she should accept the way he is because he accepts her for being the way she is. At times it is just overwhelming.

She wonders what her grandmother would have told her if Hannah had gotten to tell her how perfect he is. Would her grandmother be proud that she has found love?

Her grandmother never said much about Hannah going to Korea, about her becoming a singer or spending six years so far away. Last year, Hannah really knew her grandmother was proud after receiving an e-mail after 5 Pieces performance on Eurovision Song Contest – Europe’s biggest music program. It was the first time Hannah felt someone at home was proud of her, that she was doing something good. Hannah was never close to her grandmother. They never bonded in a special way, but at the same time no one in their family really bonds. They grow up while fighting, parts while fighting, and spend holidays together while fighting. That’s how Hannah grew up. Mood wings have been part of her daily life since she was born. But still, her grandmother has never looked at her in a way her mother does. Her grandmother has been nice. Hannah remembers the confusion in her grandmother’s face the first time Hannah told her she listens to Korean music – “what’s that?”

To know that the only family member who has ever been the slightest proud over you is no longer here, it really hurts. Hannah wonders if anyone has been reading the e-mails she has sent to her grandmother, or if they are all unread.

She blinks when loud gunshots are heard on the TV, waking up from her thoughts and sees that Jonghyun has leaned his head back, looking at her. He doesn’t react to the TV at all like she did. He looks serious, as if he has been watching her for a while, and Hannah is fast to look at the slices of pizza on the plate, considering if she should eat something more.

“You smiled,” Jonghyun mentions.

“No…” Hannah nonchalantly says, shaking her head.

Jonghyun smirks. “You did. What did you think of?” he wonders. He had seen her face, how it went from one expression to the other while her mind wandered off, and for a second he saw the hint of a smile in her face, barely visible but he knows he saw it.

Hannah sighs, lightly tearing up. It’s easier to think, it’s hard to say it out loud.

“My grandmother… she wrote to me a year ago, after Eurovision,” she tells him, and she finds out that the small smile returns in her face even if she tears up. “She is the only one in my family who has ever said she is proud over me.”

He smiles to hear that. “I wish I had met her,” he whispers, smiling wider when seeing her grimace. He has only met her mother and brothers before, and her mother frightened him.

“You wouldn’t have liked her,” Hannah mutters, “She was smoking all the time, very quiet but when she talked she was complaining over something.”

Jonghyun keeps smiling at her; he even shifts in his seat to face her, resting his body to the side at the backrest, and he takes another slice of pizza in his mouth. “Tell me more.”

“About her?” Hannah sounds surprised, a little taken back.

“Mm,” Jonghyun nods, “About your memories of her.”

Hannah looks down at the slice of pizza she has taken in her hand, pursing her lips. “I don’t have much to say…” She shrugs her shoulder.

“Sure you do,” Jonghyun whispers, “What did you like the most about your grandmother?”

The question makes her think about it hardly, remembering a few things, and he smiles when seeing the corner of going up when she remembers something. “It’s silly,” she warns him, “but she snores a lot. … … We used to sleep over at my grandparents; me and my sister, a lot when we were really young, and she was snoring so much… I don’t know why, but I liked it. One time, she came to our house to sleep over. I can’t remember when or why, but she was in the room next to mine, and I remember just smiling when I woke up in the middle of the night of her snoring…”

Jonghyun laughs. “Yeah, it is silly,” he chuckles.

Hannah pouts at him. “I liked going there during the winter,” she tells him, sinking down a little too to get on his level, her voice gets lower as if she is telling him a bedtime story. “In the morning she would have made rice pudding; every morning. We loved it. It was the highlight of going there in the winter. We would ask our mother when coming back home if we could get it in the morning, but she never had time to do it… Maybe that made it more special when we went to our grandparents…”

She sighs and looks at Jonghyun, once again looking sad.

“I wish I had known,” she whispers to him, blinking as her eyes tears up. “So I could talk to her one last time, like Emelia got to talk to her grandmother.”

“What would you tell her, if you had the chance?” Jonghyun wonders. It’s different to hear her talk about good memories from her childhood. Hannah has never said she had a bad childhood, she is happy over the way she grew up and she think she was raised well, but most of the things Jonghyun has heard have not been good. And his encounter with Hannah’s mother some years ago is the worst picture he has ever had of anyone’s mother.

“If…” Hannah mumbles. Her eyes distant as she thinks of it, “If I had the chance… I would… … thank her. Let her know how much I love her.”

“I think she knows that.”

“I don’t,” Hannah shakes her head, her lip trembling at the tears she is holding in, “I have never said that before. We weren’t that kind of a family. I don’t think I ever told her that.”

“She still knows,” Jonghyun smiles softly at her, liking how silly she is. “I think she knows you love her, Hannah, the same way you know she loves you, even if you have never openly said it.”

It’s too late to say it anyway, Hannah thinks, no matter what she tells him she can never really make sure her grandmother knows it. She leans towards him, putting her arms around his neck and hides in him with a sob.

When Jonghyun leaves later for his radio, Hannah doesn’t know what to do. She consider staying in the sofa and turn on some movie, but with a glance at their movie collection and seeing what is on the TV she has no interest in any of that. Her second thought is to look what her members are doing, but remembers they are in Sweden, and instead her thoughts goes back to her grandmother.

Out of nowhere she head upstairs, opening her bag in front of the bookcase in her room to take out her laptop (barely caring about the drawer lying on the floor) and she turns on a mix of her favourite songs that she always plays when she is angry or sad. Anastacia and Kelly Clarkson are on the list, mostly songs form five or eight years ago because they are her favourites, but it suits her mood so well when Hannah starts to search for something in the room.

Something that Hannah has noticed she lacks compared to her members are childhood pictures. No, not childhood pictures, but pictures of her family. It’s part of it. the ladies have their own photo albums that they put together at home to bring a piece of their families with them to Korea – but Hannah only has a few pictures of herself and her twin sister from when they were children, no picture of her older sister, her mother or father. She has a baby picture of her younger brothers too, somewhere. What she looks for is a picture of her grandmother. But first she needs to find the little box where she keeps the pictures. She knows how it looks like but she can not remember where it is, which means she reaches the whole room, just walking over the clothes she threw out earlier.

Kelly Clarkson is loudly singing [I Hate Myself For Losing You] and Hannah has to start the song over from the beginning when hearing it, turning up the volume a little more and she starts to sing along; annoyance and sadness in her voice as she directs this song to her own situation. she falls down on her bed, singing along to the song with her eyes closed, taking her hand along the sheet over her bed. She loves to live in to music, but now she just sings out, going from a soft voice with tired movements to loud singing with angry jumping. She kicks the clothes on the floor, throws out more from her wardrobe and just almost gets up to jump on the drawer (which would destroy it completely, which she don’t want) but instead of jumping on it she uses her strength to lift it up on the side, pulling out the contents of it to look for the little box of pictures, though she deep inside knows it is not in the drawer at all. Everything is thrown out in the room. Her floor gets covered with clothes, cords, cards, some blankets, old magazines and writing pads and random pictures of this and that, a few cuddle toys at the same size as her hand, moisturising hand creams, nail polish, a bunch of pens and so on. It is an endless of things she throws out from the drawer, wardrobe and bookcase. Yet she makes sure her books and DVDs are secure in the bookcase, not wanting to step on those things.

Not finding what she searches for in her bedroom Hannah grabs her laptop to head downstairs with her music. She has an office to look through too.

There is endless of papers in that room. Maps and boxes, used for her writing and ideas, information and pictures… A lot of unnecessary things since Hannah is really good at saving everything she writes down – napkins with a sentence written on it or a while writing pad with a certain page shown to let her remember that it is something important written on that page.

Hannah doesn’t throw it all on the floor. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t appear papers on the floor. Suddenly she has started to look through a few papers, not like what she reads and forcing the paper to become a ball she throws it to the corner of the room behind the door, next to where she is sitting, a sign that it will be thrown in the trash later. She put piles on the floor as the desk doesn’t fit all the things she takes out and she looks through some boxes and even finds what she is looking for, the box, just not a picture of her grandmother in it.

Like a bell in her head when she has spent a long time searching for the box and found it, she knows her twin sister for sure will have pictures of it. Barely talking for a few years, Hannah still knows her sister is crazy at taking pictures to upload on her blog and on facebook to get attention from her friends. Hannah has facebook, something she created before going to Korea but never used, and she still remembers her name and passport because she grew up having the same ones for everything. So Hannah goes on facebook on her laptop, singing along to the music she is playing, and she need to search for fifteen minutes just to find out what she is doing on that page.

Eventually, Hannah finds pictures of her grandmother. Three of them, just through her sister’s Facebook. Her favourite is one she has never seen before; her grandmother sitting in an old gray sofa Hannah remembers they used to have a century ago, sitting with the three sisters Martens in her knee (the oldest sitting on her left, barely ten years old, brown short hair, the blonde twins four years younger than their older sister sitting with their grandmother’s arms holding them loosely). It is a picture where you can’t make out details at all, an old picture, but it is precious to Hannah as she can see which one of the twins is her. She sits in the middle in that picture, a boyish haircut, a finger in mouth and the only one looking straight at the camera, her grandmother’s head right above hers, tilted and smiling perfectly for the picture. The second picture must be from last year or the year before, a picture of her grandmother and twin sister, a black and white picture too, and it looks really nice even if it looks like it was taken under her sister’s command. And the third picture is an old picture of her grandmother when she was young, maybe in her twenties, a photograph. She looked the same, just younger.

[I Dreamed Of You] by Anastacia is played, and Hannah is sadly putting up the old picture of the sisters and grandmother on Instagram and twitter, knowing that it might be shallow but maybe her family looks at it. She has no idea if anyone in her family looks up at things Hannah do, but she just wants to hint to them that she knows. But she doesn’t write anything, she doesn’t hint anything else than that picture, writing a heart to it. If her family sees it, they will probably know, while fans (like she thought they would) start to comment right away that it is an adorable picture, guessing which one is Hannah.

The next song starting to play is Kelly Clarkson’s [Cry], a song Hannah always seems to cry to just because Kelly Clarkson has such an amazing voice.

Putting away her phone where she uploaded the picture, Hannah turns up the volume some more and starts crying out to the song in the office, stepping outside to the room connecting to the stairs, hall, living-room, bathroom and the other office. She doesn’t know the lyrics completely, but she knows parts of it and she signs those out with her heart, crying to it. All she needs is alcohol, and her night would be complete.

Getting the thought of alcohol from singing and crying when walking around, Hannah heads to the kitchen while singing along, singing completely wrong and she isn’t even sure she sings actual words, but she probably gets the tone right. She knows where they have alcohol; though they don’t drink often, 5 Pieces still have alcohol in the apartment.

[Since U Been Gone] starts to play and Hannah starts bouncing to it, singing this one fluently, even adding her own adlibs while opening the bottle of beer she took from the fridge. It’s probably Emelia’s, but Hannah can always buy more before the ladies come home.

She repeats the same song four times while finishing the first bottle, continuing to bouncing when starting on her second bottle. All this time, the pets have just been sleeping. They are used to have ladies cry, dance and walk around as if they are restless, even lying down on the floor crying out instead of singing. They are used to it all, though maybe not this sad.

Her favourite song for now is Kelly Clarkson’s [Stronger] though, Hannah nods at that decision when she is on her third bottle, sitting at the desk in her office and putting the song on repeat. She nods her body to the music when Kelly Clarkson starts to sing, her face-expression agreeing to the lyrics, but in Hannah’s head it is sung to her family. Hannah gets up on her feet for the chorus, singing out while crying, through the song her voice almost disappearing from screaming too much. She has thought of the neighbours, but it is Friday night and she knows the neighbours have never before complained; not that she often is jumping around in the apartment screaming to loud music, but so far no one has come to said anything.

Putting the song on repeat again, Hannah really sings the song, angry at her family.

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Headline 24th: Watch 5 Pieces Hunger For Pizza In New CF

Headline 24th: American TV-Show Talks About 5 Pieces’ Japanese Movement PICTURE Reaching Citizens Around The World

Headline 24th: Mnet Announces [Girls Power] As Today’s Winning Song On M Countdown

 

Headline 25th: Japanese Anti-Bullying Movement PICTURE Reaches Out To The World

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