“Guys, we already have a fancafe!” Bara exclaimed after a while. Yuntue immediately looked up from the TV screen upon hearing these words and Hotaru's as well as Tiao Ning's eyes also darted into her direction. The Lead Vocalist scooted closer so that she could look at the small screen of Bara's mobile. The fancafe had a violet and dark green layout. On the top of the page was a large banner of a photo they shot last week for Vogue Korea and below were nine little square spaces with each members faces. Under that there were topics like 'Favorite Member' and 'Style Appreciation: Aimee', some of them marked with 'Hot'. And at the right side there was an advertisement for donating for birthday presents, since both Yuntue and Seulyong would have their birthdays in July.

“So soon? I thought we wouldn't immediately attract fans with our debut," Hotaru surprisingly said and left her spot on the sofa to join the two.

“What is a fancafe?” asked Tiao Ning, putting her mobile aside. She didn't know what the others made such a fuss about.

“You don't know what a fancafe is?” Yuntue asked and gave her a disbelieving look.

Bara who sensed that the two could start fighting because of that, was quick to explain. “It's a website, run by and for fans of a specific group. Every Kpop group with a fanbase has at least one, often even more. Everything, schedule, airport fashion, tweets and interviews get posted there and fans usually use the fancafes to discuss and spazz about their idols. Their members also do donations to the idols or welfare organizations and voluntary work together.”

“That's awesome.” Tiao Ning jumped excitedly off the windowsill and sat next to Hotaru, looking at the small screen. “There's written the number '68', does that mean that 68 people are registered?”

Although she lived in Korea for a few years already she still struggled to read the characters from time to time. It wasn't that bad but she read kind of slowly and so she preferred to listen to someone else reading the words instead.

“Exactly," Bara nodded and touched the square with Yuntue's picture and suddenly they were linked to Yuntue's profile.

“Yun, real name Song Yuntue, position Main Composer, Lead Vocalist, favorite food... come on, we already know this all by heart. Let's get back to the Main page," Tiao Ning complained.

Bara clicked onto the banner and they were re-directed to the first page. She scrolled down until she found a topic she was interested in.

'Who wore it better?'

Under the caption were two pictures, one of Hotaru and one of Sori wearing the same red scarf. While Hotaru combined the scarf with a red pair of jeans, a navy blue and white striped sweater and black boots, Sori was wearing a moster of a toxic green ballon dress with many colorful flowers and a neon green poncho.

“My poor eyes!” Tiao Ning exclaimed, covering her eyes.

“Please tell me this is photoshopped.” Bara commented, not really wanting to believe that any of the members would seriously consider that outfit a good idea.

“Why is she wearing my scarf?” Hotaru muttered, in a mix between confused and sulking because Sori wasn't allowed to wear her clothes without asking. “But I'm surprised that she got the idea to combine these clothes at all.”

“Surprised is the right word. It's a really horrible surprise, everyone who comes across this picture after registering in our fancafe will leave faster than we can say Sound.” Yuntue chimed in.

“She was even brave enough to go like that onto the streets. I don't know if I could have done that without inwardly cringing." Tiao Ning added in a teasing manner.

Bara scrolled down to the poll, clicked 'Hotaru' and voted.

Hotaru – 93%

Sori – 7%

“Who in their right mind would choose Sori? Especially since Hotaru looks really nice in that picture," Yuntue commented on the results.

“Maybe former Blackjacks?” Seeing that the other girls were giving her incredulous looks, Hotaru shrugged uncomfortably. “Her dress kind of reminds me of Jeremy Scott.”

Bara was meanwhile browsing the fancafe, searching for more interesting posts. Her eyes skimmed the page until a particular word grabbed her attention and she tipped against the title of the thread.

“Fanfiction," Hotaru read out loud. She tried to sound disapproving but although she was hesitant a part of her was actually a bit excited on the inside. What were the fans writing about them?

“'Unrequited'. Pairing: Seulmin," announced Yuntue.

“Is Hotaru even allowed to read this? She isn't twenty yet," Bara frowned like a mother.

Yuntue tried to reassure her immediately, “I don't see any rating, it can't be too bad.”

“Start reading! I want to know what fans write about Unnies," Tiao Ning gigglingly urged, excited at the thought of reading a romantic story about Seulyong and Sumin. Yuntue cleared and started.

A small tear rolled down Tiao Ning's cheek as she thought about the confession of the leader she witnessed only a few hours ago on broadcast. It ached, so badly that she thought her heart would stop beating and her chest would explode. Too deep was the pain since Seulyong revealed she had someone else she was happy with, her doe-eyes crinkled into a beautiful eye-smile as her pouty lips saying those words Tiao Ning wished so desperately to forget. Seulyong didn't knew that she shattered Tiao Ning's greatest dreams with this simple sentences.

“Wh-what?!” Tiao Ning screamed at high-pitched when she processed the words she just heard.

“Oh," was the only thing she could say when she remembered that her stage name was actually 'Hyemin'. So the story wasn't actually about Seulyong and Sumin but...

The three others were sprawled on the sofa, Bara and Yuntue laughing amused while Hotaru also had a small smirk gracing her lips.

Her eyes went wide as she tried to wriggle the mobile out of Bara's grasp. “No no no no no! This can't be true!”

But Yuntue quickly snatched the mobile and hold it out of her reach while continuing to read.

Bitter tears streamed down her face and in the mirror of the dressing room she could see her reflection, red eyes and quivering underlip, as she bit down the tears, trying to stop them from flowing so freely but to no avail. She knew she had to met the others soon but she wanted to delay that moment for as long as she could. Tiao Ning's love was completely one-sided.

The real Tiao Ning squealed in shock and disbelief. Even when she covered her ears she could still understand every word. She refused to think that her tiny fandom was already writing such weird stories. Poor Mir, she didn't even want to know what kind of fanfiction about him were floating around the web.

“I already love this story," Bara managed to say in midst of an laughing fit. It wasn't really the fanfiction that was so funny but rather Tiao Ning's embarrassed reactions. She was flailing with her arms before dramatically falling onto the carpet in their living room and hiding behind a vase, hiding her face with the leaves of the bush. Bara was a bit worried but then she reminded herself that this was just a harmless prank. And Tiao Ning's expression was so funny that it was almost a crime not to continue. So Bara took her mobile back and read.

Tiao Ning heard to door opening and quickly hid her tear-eyed face behind her bangs, hoping that nobody would see her tear-swollen face.

“Tiao-baby, everything okay?” she heard Seulyong's angelic voice calling her nickname. How much she wished that everything would have indeed been okay! Her heart hammered fast in her chest but Tiao Ning didn't dare to look up, “N-ne?”, she answered instead with trembling voice.

“Hey girls, I'm back!”

Tiao Ning immediately startled at the familiar voice. Sensing her rescue, she ran straight downstairs to Seulyong, who was removing her shoes in the hallway. The leader gave her a friendly smile but Tiao Ning didn't even notice and instantly started with her complaints.

“Help! Save me! The Unnies are making fun of me," she wailed while grimacing.

Seulyong looked dumbfounded for a moment before walking straight into the living room with the intention of lecturing her dongsaengs for scaring their Chinese member that much. Tiao Ning looked as if she had seen a ghost and even though she was sure that her members wouldn't try to harm her intentionally, it was still her job to keep everyone in check. She rounded the corner, determined to give a lecture, while Tiao Ning went right away into the direction of their room. However, once upon arriving there she solely saw Hotaru, Yuntue and Bara attentively watching a cooking show on TV.

“Everything allright?” she asked, just to make sure. The three of them smilingly nodded and Bara as well as Yuntue also greeted her with an almost-too-friendly “Welcome home!”

“Have you any idea what could have scared our Tiao Ning like this?”

They shooked their heads, still innocently smiling. Seulyong frowned, their behavior was so nice that it seemed suspicious. But she couldn't really say anything when they were that well-mannered so she went over to Sori's bedroom. The Lead Rapper was still a bit rude and unfriendly to the others and when Tiao Ning told her about 'Unnies being mean', she would have bet that Sori had something to do with that.

Opening the door she spotted Sori on her bed, watching a movie on her PC while munching on chocolate chip cookies.

“Sori, I understand that you are a bit hostile towards some of your members and that you feel like you need to compete for popularity in our group but please, could you at least try to be friendly? You scared the living daylights out of Tiao Ning, I don't even-," Seulyong started but Sori interrupted her.

“I didn't do anything to Tiao Ning!”

“Sori, we've been friends for so long, I know that you sometimes come off as a bit ruder than you actually planned to so you have to-”

“But I didn't do anything," Sori protested again, outrage in her voice.

Seulyong let out an sigh. “I usually don't comment on your actions since we're almost the same age and I don't think I have many rights to criticize you but please think about your behavior towards Tiao Ning. Words can really hurt sometimes, especially in her case since she lives in a foreign country without her parents by her side. We should all be a bit kinder towards her.”

With these words she closed the door and left Sori upset and sulking by herself. Seulyong thought that she heard a faint snicker from the living room after shutting Sori's door but when she passed the three others again, they seemed totally absorbed by the cooking show. Not knowing what to do in that situation anymore, she went to check upon Tiao Ning again.

She found her in their shared room, looking into space.

“Tiao Ning, everything okay?” she asked sceptically. Tiao Ning blinked and slowly turned her head into Seulyong's direction.

“I'm fine.”

“Really?”

“Yeah...”

There was a silence for a few seconds.

“Just...just promise me to never give me a nickname, okay?”

Seulyong blinked twice, not really knowing why that request just came seemingly out of nowhere before she shrugged.

“Okay...”

“What about you? I checked the Top10 in the last week and I haven't seen your name," Jongdae changed the topic.

"Solibaljeon is also doing pretty well for a rookie group, we have been in the Top20 on the Melon and Gaon chart for about a week.” Aimee nodded while taking another spoon of her lemon ice.

Sumin looked slightly jealous at the huge masses the maknae could eat without gaining weight. Hyehyun and Aimee were the skinniest members and Sumin belonged with her 54kg to the slightly curvier members. While preparing for their debut, Hyehyun and Aimee had barely any restrictions of their food while Sumin herself had to live off of nothing but small portions of sweet potatos for days.

“C-could I take your orders, please?” One of the waitresses stuttered, her eyes cast downwards to the small block but her flushed face and nervous expression showed that she recognized and also liked the EXO members in front of her. Or she was a huge Solibaljeon fangirl, Aimee thought, which would be rather unlikely since they had only debuted two weeks ago and while they had already a small fanbase, it was nowhere near as solid as Aimee would have liked.

Baekhyun gave her a small smile but she didn't seem to notice this in her nervous state. Sumin noticed it instead and quickly looked away. It wasn't her business if Baekhyun was smiling at the girl, he could smile as much as he wanted, it's not like she would care, she thought to herself while biting her lip subconsciously.

“Enjoy your time while you are still unknown," Jongdae said after the waitress took the orders and this time he didn't even look like he was joking. “Someday you won't be able to walk down a street without anyone asking for your autograph.”

“I'm really grateful for all of our fans and I certainly don't mind anyone asking to take a photo with me from time to time. I'm glad about the support we received, it's just that some people just overstep boundaries.” Baekhyun calmly said, rubbing the back of his neck.

A group of girls caught Hyehyun's attention, probably middle or high schoolers because they looked only a bit younger than Aimee. The group entered the cafe shortly after EXO and stayed in a corner of the room, not ordering anything. They were looking in her direction, a few of them seemed to be recording them with mobile devices and some seemed to be even angry and glared at her with jealous eyes.

Hyehyun immediately tightened the grip of her entwined hands. She was sure that they couldn't see them holding hands from their angles but a sudden wave of annoyance ran through her. She was sorry for her best friend who was pestered by these girls. Fortunately they weren't following him all time since she often met him without anyone stalking but Suho had to be observant because there were times he had to shake off girls that were following him before they could met.

Fifteen minutes later EXO's orders arrived, too. The waitress smiled at Baekhyun and blushed when looking into his direction but while he said thanks and acted respectfully, he didn't smile back. They kept doing a bit of small talk and told each other about their schedules, the EXO concert and discussed about pro and cons of different kinds of microphones but none of them touched the subject of Kris' departure anymore.

Hyehyun and Suho kept their hands entwined until Aimee accidentally dropped her spoon and went under the table to pick it up. In that moment they both retreated their hands instantly. Hyehyun's gaze met Chen's and she saw how he raised an eyebrow at her questioning. She slightly shook her head and took another sip of her tea quickly. This made her a bit annoyed because the way their hands retreated so quickly looked like they had to hide something when they clearly didn't. Since she was a trainee she always had to assure everyone around them that no, they weren't a couple, and she still got these curious glances once in a while. It was irritating.

However, besides Chen, no one at the table made any attempt to ask about their relationship status which Hyehyun was really thankful for. Aimee talked without ends and even Sumin warmed up and started to give her thoughts on lipsynching and stage outfits in the end. They totally forgot the time and although they knew that they had to get up early at 5:00am the next day, it was already past ten when they left the cafe and the Solibaljeon members got a taxi to get them back to the dorm.