Watched: Sirens

      February 2nd, 2010

February 2nd, 2010

Tiffany, Sunny, Hyoyeon and Echo sat patiently in their personal makeup chairs, their stylists flitting about trying to make sure their visuals are perfect for the TV show.

"Knock knock."

Echo turned around, an amused smile on her face. "You know, you're just supposed to knock you're not supposed to say it."

Yonghwa shrugged, walking further into the dressing room. "That takes too long."

"I heard about your marriage," Hyoyeon spoke up from her chair, wiggling her eyebrows.

The CNBLUE member looked bashfully away. "You're not going to haze me are you?"

The girls all laughed, some longer than others.

"You'll just have to wait to find out~" the dancer continued, being way too entertained by the males reactions to stop.

The singer nodded, still looking uncomfortable. "Anyway, Echo-ah, can we talk for a moment?"

Said girl shared a confused look with her members, but her makeup artist prompted her with a pat on the shoulder saying her makeup was done anyway.

With a slow nod she rose from her chair, following the man out into the rather desolate hallway.

"How are you feeling?" his face now melted into one of worry.

"I'm fine, why?"

The man took a deep breath before continuing, "Jonghyun-ah told me how he had to pick you up yesterday and he told me about your uh… break."

To be brutally honest Echo doesn't know how she feels about the current 'break' that is her and Jonghyun's relationship. For the longest time she thought she was genuinely in love with him. That nothing could come between them, not even her members when they were giving her the cold shoulder out of being mad that she kept their relationship a secret from them.

She knew she should be sad, should be running into his arms and telling him that they belong together and nothing can keep them apart and how she's just been a stupid lately.

For the past six months they've rarely seen each other, and Echo has responded minimally to any of Jonghyun's text messages. They used to constantly be in touch, texting each other, calling each other when they had a rare spare moment and planning to have a secret date together.

She simply felt nothing. She wasn't sad. She wasn't wondering what she could have done. She wasn't missing love.

If anything, the hole in her chest grew. Echo doesn't know when the feeling of love disappeared from her heart, but she does know that she has none of it left. Not for Jonghyun, not for her members, not for her sister, not even for herself.

She doesn't feel any positive emotions, and yet she finds herself physically enacting those emotions. She still claims to love her members and enacts upon affection to those that give it to her. Everything but her heart is in it.

"Really, I'm fine. I saw it coming a mile away," she shrugged, trying to smile in order to lessen the others worry for her.

"Wait," she raised an eyebrow, "how did you know about that? Did you just say Jonghyun told you?"

The singers eyes widened at that realization. "Oh, yeah. We, uh… Jonghyun-ah and I are friends?"

Echo literally stepped back in her shock. "What?"

He awkwardly ruffled his hair, looking away from the female idol. "Well, we learned we actually have a lot in common, and he's a cool guy, so ya' know, we became friends."

"You guys are friends? The guys who were ready to rip each other's throats out, are friends?"

"Well, actually, Jonghyun-ah was ready to rip my throat out. I didn't have that urge."

A lone staff member yelled through the hallways that idols were needed on set in five.

The female idol just made a blank face, as if she couldn't process any more.

"Sorry that I didn't say anything before," Yonghwa bashfully added. "I didn't realize you would react this way…"

Echo shook her head in defeat. "Let's just… let's just pretend I never discovered this information. We have a filming to do."

Without another look, the female idol twisted on her heel, and walked straight backed to her waiting room.

"The nation's top stars participate in a fun brain game, Star Golden Bell!"

Echo clapped along with her fellow members, charmingly smiling at the camera.

"Tomorrow is New Years Day. Why don't we say hello to the new year?" the MC suggested. After the whole panel wished the viewers a happy new year he continued, "SNSD have finally made their comeback!"

"This time we came back with our new song, 'Oh!'," Tiffany explained, gesturing to Echo, Sunny and Hyoyeon behind her. "So we made a New Year's greeting to it. 1, 2, 3, 4-"

"Oh, oh, oh, oppa, I love you!

Ah, ah, ah, ah I love you a lot!

Unnie, dongsaeng, chingu, samchon, I love you all!"

The crowd and panel clapped for the SNSD members performance.

Echo has a push and pull relationship with these kinds of variety shows. It isn't solely focused on her and her members, so she feels she has to smile more than usual and look more interested so viewers don't think lowly of her. Sure, there was a general script everyone has to follow. However, the female idol knows she will only receive a few minutes of screen time per episode causing her to grow bored.

When Sunny opened up about how she wanted the country to forget her chasing and catching chickens she barely held back a snort. The occasional real laugh did come out every now and then.

"So I want to be careful and create a lady-like image," the shortest member finished.

Even as Hyoyeon sang a weird version of CNBLUE's Loner and explained why she would want to introduce Yonghwa, she stayed silent.

Echo believed she was in the middle of her time to shine due to her higher position in the group in the public's eye by her previous drama, but she didn't want to overdo it. She wanted to make sure the members that needed that spotlight would get it when they needed it. Also, the idol didn't want netizens thinking her growing fame was getting to her head. She silently decided previously that she would only speak on shows with her fellow members when spoken to.

It was nerve wracking how much she felt the camera's red light positioned towards her reactions. Her cheeks were hurting by widely smiling so much.

"I pick Echo-ssi."

Wait, what?

The SNSD member nodded at the acknowledgment, on the inside freaking out that she has no idea what was going on due to going into autoidol mode.

"Oh, he's sincere," the MC spoke.

"No, as a fan!" Yonghwa tried to save himself.

"That's how it always starts out."

"Echo-ssi also likes Jung Yonghwa," Sunny proudly pointed at her fellow member. If she could Echo would've turned around and murdered her. Her brain was trying to come up with a good explanation. The world didn't know the two were actually good friends, simply because SM warned her that whenever she gets close to male idols to keep it quiet to prevent dating scandals.

"Really?!" the MC asked, excited.

Nervously, she flicked her tongue over one of her canines. "I've always been a fan of his singing. From one singer to another, he has a very soothing voice."

"Shake hands, since you're colleagues."

The two easily twisted towards each other and politely shook hands.

"As fellow colleagues, I hope you two will pursue a good friendship."

Echo could hear Hyoyeon barely containing her laughter at the MC's words.

"Continuing with this atmosphere, we'll listen to SNSD's new song today." The crowd immediately cheered at the announcement. "Will this became a national dance? Applause for SNSD!"

They danced to a very short part, Echo barely holding in laughter when she noticed Tiffany made a mistake.

"SNSD is already on their third year. Compared to their first album, this member has been chosen as the person who improved the most, Sunny-ssi-"

Echo nervously smoothed out her white hot pants for the hundredth time. She felt like she was going to be sick.

"The 2010 winner of the daesang is… Girls' Generation, congratulations."

The female idol awkwardly remained sitting as her other members quickly jumped up, either to clap or hold their hands over their mouths in shock.

She didn't even twitch until she felt a large hand clamp down on her shoulder. "Congratulations."

Brown eyes looked up in shock, seeing a proudly smiling Jonghyun, his hand slightly tightening on her thin shoulder. Both were scarily aware of the cameras positioned towards them, knowing that this was the only physical response they could have.

"Thank you," she softly responded, standing up to follow the rest of her members towards the stage.

That's when it hit her.

Omigod we won. We won the ing daesang.

A wide eating grin spread on her face. Tiffany happily looped arms with her, the two sharing wide smiles and giggles. Neither believed what was happening right now.

She looked back to see a still shocked Jessica standing behind her. Holding out a pale hand, she felt a warmth spread through her when the elder girl entwined her long fingers in her own. She nudged shoulders with Seohyun, briefly brushed hands with Yoona, hugged Taeyeon, literally swiped Seohyun off her feet in a hug, playfully tugged at one of Yuri's long strains of hair, poked Sunny in the back, and wrapped an arm around Hyoyeon (while sneakily tickling the girl underarm) as she finally rose onstage.

With an arm wrapped around the main dancer and her hand still snuggly in Tiffany's, Echo believed she began to feel a warmth in her heart she hasn't felt for a very long time.

The words filtering through the speakers and her own members mouths on the microphones went unheard. She briefly remembers graciously bowing to both MC's as they walked by, but other than that it was a blur. It was a rush.

She felt happy.

Echo seems really light lately, I think she's dating~

Did anyone hear about Echo going to Ari's school? Does anyone know anything?

Am I the only one noticing that Echo is really quiet whenever she's onscreen with her other members? When she's by herself she's always so happy and talkative, I like that Echo more!

I apologize for the fact that I hadn't updated the past three Friday's! I hope this update helps a bit. I'm not sure if I will update this Friday simply because I'm busy 24/7 all week... I'm working on the chapter but I'm not sure if it will be done in time.

The Star Golden Bell episode.