“That smells nice…”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Maria smiles brightly and shows the lotion. “It’s called . Very nice. Do you want to try?”

Hannah holds out her hand and instead of being given the bottle, Maria squeezes out a click of the lotion on Hannah’s palm. Their schedule has ended this Friday evening, finishing off the radio appearance on Kiss the Radio after their comeback stage on Music Bank, but before 5 Pieces went home the ladies went for a beauty treatment with the tanning saloon and massage.

Going back home, Kim Kyung Ho is sleeping in his bed and the apartment is filled with cameras for Good Sister that they have been filming during the day. The ladies wash up and head to bed almost right away, and you can see the pets run in to the bedrooms as well to sleep with someone too.

And three hours later it is movements in the apartment anew. One by one, 5 Pieces’ members make their appearances in the apartment; first coming out of their bedrooms in pyjamas to go to the bedroom and head back to their rooms before coming back out dressed in comfortable clothes, one by one the ladies gathers downstairs. Hannah has written a note to Kyung Ho; first one on his bedside table and then one in the kitchen as well, and then she joins her members in the hall. Well, only Emelia is there to begin with.

“Ladies, hurry up, Oppa is waiting,” Emelia calls out in a low voice to the others while Hannah puts on the leash on Ryo.

With Julia and Maria coming to the hall, they bring Michin running by their feet and Maria is casually holding Ace under one arm, busy talking when coming to put on her shoes and ask where her things are. Maria isn’t even awake, running around for ten minutes to find her cell phone and other things, not finding anything that Hannah ends up helping her while Julia and Emelia brings the puppies with them to the van. Hannah hugs on to Ace while searching with Maria, to not let the cat go off some where. They spend three minutes waiting for Carolina before all five ladies have finally left the apartment to go begin their work.

Yesterday for Music Bank, Hannah changed her hair from pastel blue to pastel green while the other members were at the saloon dying their roots. 5 Pieces get ready to pre-record their performance of [POWER UP] on today’s Music Core, pre-recording in the morning to then head to the agency for a meeting about their up-coming concert in about two months and then change for their second performance on Music Core – [Girls Power]. When going to the music program this time, Kyung Ho is with them. With the pets there as well, Kyung Ho is staying occupied as 5 Pieces does their rehearsal.

While 5 Pieces isn’t in the dressing-room, someone stops by outside the room and begins to greet everyone with a white smile and bowing politely to the ladies’ stylists and managers.

Kyung Ho is polite as he is fast to stand up and bow deeply, hearing SHINee’s Minho laugh as he says how polite he is.

Minho is the MC at MBC Music Core, and though Good Sister belongs to SBS they are allowed to film a bit backstage; Minho sits down on his heels to play with Kyung Ho and the pets.

“This is Michin,” Kyung Ho says at the dog lying on his back as Minho is patting his stomach.

“Ooh,” Minho nods, playing well with both pets and Kyung Ho. “Have you learned to make them roll around yet, Kyung Ho?”

Kyung Ho gives out a hum to answer as he goes for the bag to get a dog candy, and with the dogs attention right away thanks to the candy in his hand, Kyung Ho does as Hannah and Julia have taught him to make the dogs lie down and roll around. Kyung Ho gets a serious tone when motioning his hand with candy in a circle, telling the dogs to roll around. Ryo is first to do as told and Minho cheers at how good the boy is.

“He has been training a lot,” stylist Mi Young comment with a laugh, watching them play.

“Hannah told me to be strict,” Kyung Ho says with a frown pretending that is how Hannah taught him and Minho laughs, looking up at the cameras as if checking if they caught Kyung Ho’s cute expression. Kyung Ho keeps trying to make Michin roll around too, but ends up making Ryo roll around two more times – receiving candy each time while Michin wants candy without doing anything. Minho gets to try too, and they cheer when Michin turns his head along with his hand but doesn’t roll around.

Hannah and Emelia enters the room first, and the staff gets a surprise hearing them laugh seeing Minho sitting on the floor and turning his head to the side like Michin who he is trying to make roll around on the floor.

“What are you doing?” Hannah laughs Minho as she walks around them to sit down.

“Kyung Ho is teaching me some tricks,” Minho answers with a smile and hand pointing to Kyung Ho who proudly smiles up at Hannah.

“He is a natural,” Kyung Ho jokes and Minho laughs.

“I’m a natural,” Minho laughs happily, charmed by 5 Pieces’ little brother and he repeats it again when the other ladies enter the room. Maria looks to not understand at all what he is a natural with but she is happy to see Minho in the room. Kyung Ho tells Julia that Michin won’t roll around no matter how much they try, so Julia sits down between Minho and Kyung Ho to show them how a real dog owner does it. And of course, Michin rolls around on Julia’s command and receives his candy happily, making both Minho and Kyung Ho cheer with impressments before they both want to try again.

Minho stays in the room, mostly playing with Kyung Ho and the pets while talking to the ladies, until his manager comes to get him as he has his own duties as the music program’s MC. The ladies get ready to record their second performance; they could perform it live if it wasn’t that the ladies have other schedules. Only Julia and Maria will attend the actual Music Core show, while after the recording Hannah gets Kyung Ho and the camera-crew to leave; Emelia will go practice for her driving license and Carolina has some business at the agency to take care of.

Hannah is in the van with Kyung Ho, Manager Lee and being filmed by the SBS crew. Most of the time she looks at her phone, but she is talking with Kyung Ho and smiling at his cute attempts to say things in Japanese.

When doing the solo interview on her own, Hannah is smiling in her green hair while the staff asks who they were going to meet for Kyung Ho to be practicing his Japanese like that, and Hannah answered; “During my first year in Japan, I met her a few times. The producer of my drama at that time introduced us at first and then we met up a few times afterwards to go out and eat. When she called me to say she has a few days off and wondered if I had some time, I invited her over to Seoul – we get along because she has a calm personality which suited me when I first was in Japan; we used to quietly hang out.”

The van stops outside the airport, and Hannah is now on the phone. Kyung Ho looks fascinated like always when Hannah talks in Japanese.

“Mm, we are right outside, can you find out?” Hannah asks while removing her seatbelt and opening the slide-door from her side to step outside. Those in the car get curious as Hannah raises her hand and starts waving, laughing and saying a final word on the phone before hanging up, instead her voice greets the pretty Japanese actress coming their way with a suitcase dragging behind her. “Welcome to Seoul,” Hannah greets her friendly in Japanese.

“What’s up with your hair?” pretty Horikita Maki laughs when being greeted by the green-haired Hannah and Hannah laughs, embarrassed when saying it is for promotions. Maki looks pretty and feminine wearing a black drawstring-waist skirt to her knees and a white patterned t-shirt tugged in, to a pair of short high heels. Hannah is also dressed prettily in a pink number print boxy t-shirt and blue high-waist shorts to white sneakers. Maki smiles at Hannah’s hair. “It’s pretty.”

Hannah and Maki put in the suitcase in the van before taking their seats, and Maki gets a surprise when seeing the cameras put up in the van – she was prepared to be filmed, but to see how many cameras covering the inside she is a bit taken aback.

“Kon'nichiwa,” Kyung Ho nervously greets from his seat with a bow as soon as Maki has taken her seat in the van. She smiles at him, repeating the Japanese greeting to him before Hannah sits down to make the introductions between them, looking to be proud to introduce Kyung Ho in Japanese as her little brother. Maki smiles seeing how proud Hannah looks, and then says that a lot of people she knows think Kyung Ho is cute as they have seen him in dramas and in pictures as Hannah’s brother.

During the ride they talk about what they have heard of each other, Maki’s pretty smile keeps showing and Kyung Ho is the quiet little boy who doesn’t want to try the Japanese he has been practicing.

The plan is one word; shopping. When Maki had called to ask if Hannah has time, Hannah had asked what she wanted to do in Seoul and with Maki being a very simple person she said she wanted to go shopping when she arrives.

Maria had given some advice of where to go shopping and stylist Yong Hyun joins up with them when they start wandering the shopping streets. Hannah and Maki are walking with their arms linked, in Japanese talking to each other, and Kyung Ho is holding Hannah’s hand while quietly walking along, interested in the stores and people they walk by. It might sound boring for a boy to go shopping with two girls in their twenties, but Maki and Hannah are the same; they don’t stay long in the stores, they are quick with their decisions if they want to buy something or not and they go from clothing stores to accessory stores to toy stores – matching all three of their tastes. They are in the toy store for probably five times longer than at any other store, Maki looking for toys for friends’ children she knows; even pointing out things she think would be fun for Kyung Ho. Hannah talks to them both, whispering to the staff that she rarely has to talk this much, grimacing with a smile.

She hasn’t met Maki many times at all, but because Maki helped Hannah out during her first year in Japan, mostly just hanging out with her when the girl couldn’t speak Japanese, they are friends that aren’t good at staying in touch but even when meeting it doesn’t get all that awkward between them. Maki is a famous actress in Japan, many Koreans know about her too, and the SBS staff got a shock when hearing that Hannah knows her – is there anyone that 5 Pieces doesn’t know?

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

Meanwhile, Julia has gone with Maria to the agency but is sitting alone in one of the conference-rooms, talking to her mother over Skype with a bunch of papers around her. Hannah is with her brother, Emelia is preparing to get a driving licence, Carolina is in the recording studio and Maria is probably sleeping somewhere. The ladies are all doing their thing, getting more and more at home in Seoul.

“Maybe I should just ask us all to move together?” Julia asks her mother.

“Are you sure they would want that? Your place now is very nice,” her mother says on the other end, the video call lets the two look-alike relatives see each other from across the globe.

Julia knows her members like the apartment they have now. Two floors, they have their own rooms and space, a good kitchen, enough space for five young women to live together. But Julia wants more; she wants her mother to move here. Her mother had a boyfriend who made it easier for Julia to be so far away, but since they broke up her mother has been all alone. Julia’s older sisters live far away from her mother and are busy with husbands, children and pets themselves that Julia’s mother rarely gets to meet them, and it has been troublesome for Julia thinking her mother is lonely all by herself there. Julia wants her mother to come to Korea, to live together, but no matter how much Julia looks around for a place the best ones are ones she can think her whole group can live together.

She does enjoy living with 5 Pieces, she keeps telling her mother that, but she also wants to live with her mother.

“This is troublesome,” Julia whines and leans over the table.

“Oh-oh, are you thinking too much about your friends now, Julia?” her mother lovely laughs. “Maybe it is about time you bring it up to your friends after all, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, but I’m worried of how they will react,” Julia pouts and rests her head in her hands. “Mom, do you have any idea of how tired we are these days? They will probably not even hear me talk-”

“How would you know if you haven’t even tried?”

“Mom…” Julia pouts even more.

“How are your friends doing?” her mother changes the subject for now. “Is Hannah feeling okay after everything that happened? Maybe I should just come for a few days to check up on you all… Are you helping Emelia out too?”

Julia looks troubled as her mother asks questions. She knows her friends are tired, she knows how Hannah has trouble with her back and that her legs get all stiff when they have been sitting in the van because she always stumbles out of the van when forgetting to stretch out her legs, but that is how Hannah’s body is doing from this schedule; Julia has no idea how Hannah is mentally doing after her grandmother’s death and mother’s visit, it’s not really a subject Hannah wants to bring up. About Emelia’s driving licence, Julia does help out, not that Emelia needs it as she was the one helping Julia getting her driving license a while back. The ladies all seem to do well, that is what she tells her mother, but her mother knows the ladies all too well to know that they get exhausted both mentally and physically being surrounded with the image of 5 Pieces every minute of the day.

“I found this great place,” Julia tells her mother, “two villas right next to each other, a shared garden and everything. I think I can convince our manager that it would be a great place for us to live at. It fits all of us and our pets would be able to run around freely…”

Julia knows she has to talk to her members about this, how badly she wants to live with her mother. Would her friends even want to have a mother living with them? They are after all five girls in their early twenties, Hannah has a boyfriend, they are all working… But she wants her mother to live with her, and she wants to live with her friends too.

She stays on Skype with her mother until her manager comes, and though Manager Kim pretends to not be interrupting, Julia knows she has to go now so she says goodbye to her mother, saying they will talk tomorrow and closing off the chat.

“Are you ready to leave?” Manager Kim calmly asks.

“Sure,” Julia answers. She is upset she couldn’t talk longer with her mother, and now she has to face four friends about what she wants to do. “Where are we eating today?”

“Hannah will eat out with Kyung Ho and the Japanese actress. Emelia is joining them. The rest have thought of buying food on the way home,” Manager Kim answers.

Julia had earlier thought of going out to eat with some friends, but she wants to urgently talk to her members. Can she bring it up with just Maria and Carolina there? Maybe it is better to tell them without all of them there. Julia nods following her manager out. Telling the ladies all together will probably create a ruckus with noise and talking in mouth, but to talk to them two and two will be easier.

“Yo!” Maria happily greets when Julia finally shows up. “Did you have a nice chat with your mom? My sister was working so I’ll give her a call later. By the way, Appa said we can go shopping for a bit before heading home.”

That’s why Maria is smiling so big, Julia sighs, but she do want to buy a few things as well so she just silently comes along. Carolina is the only uninterested one, sleeping in the van while the two girls go shopping for an hour. Maria couldn’t let Hannah go shopping by herself; Maria has to buy something too. The fashionista of 5 Pieces can’t let the chance slip away.

And neither can Julia; that Carolina stayed in the van, leaving Julia alone with Maria and their manager makes the chance better for Julia to bring up her mother.

Quietly, Julia walks up behind Maria to look through the clothes on the same clothing rack. “You know how I have been looking through apartments lately?” Julia brings it up, glancing up at Maria’s face.

“You have?” Maria asks, not looking back and looking like she really hasn’t seen Julia’s obsession lately. Julia sighs at the question. “I like looking at it once in a while too. I once looked through a site filled with gorgeous places in New York, it was huge and every apartment had a Jacuzzi… absolutely out of our league but I still had fun dreaming of living there.”

Maria is not thinking on the same page as Julia, making the short-haired girl only nod her head distantly.

“Um, the reason I look is because I want to move,” Julia quietly says.

The hand that was about to take out a pair of jeans shorts stops halfway and when Julia looks up she gets quite the surprise to see Maria look at her as if she was just slapped in the face. Julia will have to explain before Maria freaks out.

“I want my mom to move here, she is lonely and I thought it would be an annoyance to live with the rest of you,” Julia is fast to say what she prepared on the way here, “I found this great place that could fit everyone of us, two villas right next to each other, but it is really bad to ask of you to move-”

“You don’t want to live together or you do want to live together?” Maria frowns with confusion.

“I want to live together, but I don’t want it to be an annoyance for everyone that mom lives with me which is why I have thought of getting a different place,” Julia calmly answers while looking dumbfounded at Maria, not sure what that face-expression of the leader means.

“Then- What? … I am honestly not following you here, Julia…” Maria ends up sighing, only hearing move here, not move here, her mother, and that she wants but doesn’t want to live with her members…

“What is it you do not understand?” Julia sighs too; never did she think it would be this hard to explain what she wants to their leader.

“I honestly don’t think it is an annoyance if your mother lives with us; it would be more of an annoyance if you move away from us because we are still working together every day, right? So why not just have your mother move in and stop making it so damn complicated?” Maria says.

“What??” Julia looks at her with big squirrel eyes. “Why are you taking it so lightly?”

Maria smiles at her. “Your mother is always welcomed to live with us, Julia, don’t be so worried about that.”

“But our place now won’t fit her as well,” Julia comments and Maria’s face drops.

“Oh…”

“That’s why I have been looking at places.”

Maria gets doubtful at the idea of moving: To move everyone just to fit Julia’s mother? Their apartment right now is spacious and has everything the ladies want, and on top of that, they have lived there for only a year. Last year when moving the ladies thought they would spend at least two or three years here, hopefully more if they don’t mess things up.

“Did you tell…?” Maria asks and nods over at Manager Kim who is looking at clothes in the corner, glancing at Julia to see her shake her head. The two girls are standing closer to each other than they usually do, but Manager Kim doesn’t seem to notice.

“Appa have heard a little, but I haven’t really talked to anyone because we are all busy, right?”

The focus on shopping doesn’t go as well as planned and the two girls ends up only buying underwear and a belt before going back to the van. Carolina is sleeping, and for some reason no one seems to care that she is in the van as the talk about Julia’s mother and apartments continues. Julia gets to show the villas she is interested in, and she is looking at Maria to see the leader’s reaction. Maria loves it.

Back in Sweden, Maria is the only one who has always lived in apartments. The idea of having your own yard, a real house without strangers living below or above you… Julia likes the reaction of the leader who already is planning who can live where and how they can have things there, and Julia is also planning to show the villas to the others as she tells them about what she wants. With the food eventually filling the van, Carolina wakes up, and as she hears the conversation about the villas she is curious to know what is being said – she doesn’t seem to care at all other than asking if they can have a tent on the yard. Julia isn’t so surprised at Carolina’s reaction; you can never be sure if she will freak out in a few hours or not though, only then understanding the words Julia and Maria said.

“Hannah wonders if Kyung Ho can sleep over another night,” Maria says when they are sitting down in the living-room to eat dinner, putting her cell phone down on the seat next to her in the sofa; Ace lying there with her. “The filming ends tonight but she asks if he can sleep over an extra night, is that okay with you?”

“Yeah sure,” Julia shrug her shoulder, seeing Carolina not wanting to answer. “Carolina doesn’t mind either.”

“I wonder if he will come along to the photo shoot in the morning…” Maria mumbles. She has already answered Hannah’s text message before even asking the ladies, saying he can sleep over. “He could play with the babies again, right?”

Maria pats Ace on the back with her last question pretty much directed to the ‘babies’ also known as their pets before telling Carolina to fix the TV for them to watch something while starting to eat.

That their schedule has for once ended early is something the girls takes good care of; they watch TV when eating and after that Maria goes to take a long, relaxing bath. In other words, they don’t do anything at all. Carolina and Julia stays in the living-room, watching TV and chatting a bit. Carolina can’t stop talking about music.

Last year Carolina was getting prepared to make her solo debut, she was so excited and cheering all over the place about it. But when she hurt her ankle during their concert in Japan, she couldn’t do it and Julia was put in that schedule instead. Julia made the solo debut in place of Carolina, but the red-haired girl is working hard on music every day, imagining either her self or the group performing it on the stage – Carolina’s dream to produce music is getting bigger and bigger as well as better, and she wants to record her music when she has the time for it; which was just briefly today. And that is the only subject she finds interesting. Julia is happy the first ten or fifteen minutes, but then she is just zapping through the channels and nodding along hoping her friend will change the subject soon.

“Hyekyung Oppa said he will talk to the agency so that my solo debut might be a song I have made myself, and I really would love that but … I’m just not sure I could do that, you know…” Carolina keeps talking and talking without anyone listening.

It is a wonder Julia is still pulling up with Carolina’s chattering by the time the others come home; without cameras. Manager Lim comes to see if they have eaten and starts telling them right away to not just leave the dishes on the kitchen table – that was their way to clean up, by taking the dishes from the living-room table to the kitchen table – and Julia is fast to join him in the kitchen to clean up, and to tell him what she talked to Maria and Carolina about.

Hannah and Kyung Ho runs around with the puppies at first, Kyung Ho gets to try making them roll around once again and then they go upstairs to prepare for bed by changing clothes and brush their teeth – really, they both do it together – and after fooling around getting ready upstairs they come back to the living-room to check on what everyone’s doing.

“Appa said we can go out if we were fast,” Hannah smiles when taking a seat in the sofa.

“Go out and do what?” Julia looks confused and she gives a jump when Kyung Ho pops his head up around the sofa after playing with the puppies.

“Ride the bikes!” he shouts excitedly. You can hear Manager Lim laugh from the kitchen as he comes inside the room. He always finds something to do in this apartment; something to clean up.

“Your bicycles from their advertisement arrived earlier, and these two wanted to go on a test run around the block,” he tells the ladies, smiling because Hannah and Kyung Ho looks like two children who have been given the best toy in the world and they are eager to go try it. Why they had to brush their teeth before is still a question that no one hears Julia ask because Emelia comes down the stairs asking if they are ready to leave, and everyone rushes to the hall – beside from Julia and Carolina.

Hannah, Emelia and Kyung Ho are all dressed comfortably; Hannah is wearing a cap to hide her green hair, and Kyung Ho has to wear a helmet, and Manager Lim walks them out while talking about safety and whatnot along the way.

Meeting Maki was fun and they are planning to meet tomorrow as well for lunch, Kyung Ho had fun being given advice from a senior actress and to have Hannah and Emelia translate between them. Going from dinner and shopping with a pretty Japanese actress to going out in the dark to ride a bicycle – completely different from when Maria, Julia and Carolina came home as they just wanted to be still.

Yet Julia wonders if Hannah’s body isn’t tired. She might be in a good shape and all, but with her health issues it is a big question whether Hannah’s body is in much pain or not. Julia knows she does it for Kyung Ho, that doesn’t make it stop Julia from worrying.

“Are you ready?” Hannah happily asks Kyung Ho when they are outside the building, three city bicycles and three excited riders. It is already dark outside but the city lights make it look like Christmas, and the night air is nice compared to the humid and warm air during the day. This is the best time of the 24 hours.

Kyung Ho laughs in response, making Emelia laugh too at how excited he sounds, and the three off them take off on new bicycles to go a little further than just around the block.

It feels so nice to be out on the bike, the air and the open space, to have Kyung Ho talk even if both Emelia and Hannah says they can’t hear him and Hannah is honestly smiling so her cheeks hurts that he keeps talking to himself. They reach the river and ride the bikes along it, Kyung Ho being far away until he waits for them and begins racing with Emelia; they stop by a small convenience store to buy some snacks that they sit down to enjoy in the dark where no one can take notice of them and when heading back home they decide to race along the river where there won’t be any surprises with turns and stops. Kyung Ho wins, Emelia is last – Emelia’s excuse is that her stomach is tired after eating. Hannah and Kyung Ho only laugh at the bad excuse.

He goes to bed as soon as possible after coming back to the apartment, which means forty minutes after coming home because he has to calm down from the exciting ride and he keeps talking to the ladies.

But when Kyung Ho has finally gone to bed, Julia is super nervous as she wants to tell Emelia and Hannah about what she has been talking to the others about today. She doesn’t know that Maria asks Hannah to stay a little longer as Hannah was about to go to bed as well.

Hannah is tired when sitting in the sofa, stretching out her legs and yawning with her eyes on her cell phone where her boyfriend is sending text messages. Her adorable boyfriend.

When Emelia takes a seat with her bowl of ice-cream in the living-room: completing the room with all five members. Manager Lim is long gone to his own bed at home with his wife, and Julia looks like she will shake uncontrollably if she doesn’t open soon, looking at her members with the tablet nervously between her fingers.

“So…” Julia starts to say but is interrupted by Maria asking Emelia why she took so much of the ice-cream, and Julia gives an awkward glance around at the members that didn’t hear her start to try say anything. She looks back at her tablet as the ladies keep talking about ice-cream and what time it is, mostly Emelia and Maria having their typical argument about food which Carolina trying to come in with comments once in a while. With a glance at Hannah, Julia wonders if she is even aware of that she isn’t in her own room because of that silly I’m-in-love smile stuck on her face and eyes stuck on the cell phone.

She sighs and leans back in her seat. She doesn’t want to be in a relationship like Hannah, she doesn’t want to argue about ice-cream when the time is close to midnight, what she wants is her mother to help them out with pets, house, to live as a family without being a bunch of immature girls living in a daze-like world on the stage… She loves this life, but her heart hurts each time she is reminded that her mother is always alone waiting for Julia to call.

“I want to move,” Julia says in a strong voice, so unlike herself and she takes a big breath as four heads turns to her. She did not expect them to do so and she moves her lips nervously. No one says anything, and Hannah almost looks back at her cell phone as if she had heard wrong so Julia takes the word again in a strong voice; “I want the five of us to move to a villa so my mother can live with us.”

“What?” Hannah frowns, a small smile is about to come out in a laughter and Emelia smirks too.

“I’m serious. I have looked up the perfect place, and we can all pay for it so it won’t belong to the agency – our own real place,” Julia desperately tells them while looking straight at the table.

“Aaaah,” Emelia starts nodding, putting down her ice-cream (which Carolina glances at), “That’s why you have been obsessed with house-searching lately?”

“You noticed?”

The surprise in Julia’s voice makes Emelia laugh. Just because no one else noticed Julia’s recent obsession doesn’t mean Emelia doesn’t notice, Julia should know that. Hannah did notice, but at the moment she can’t remember it and she sits up to stare at Julia and the ladies, her head gathering questions but not one manages to get out .

“What kind of place did you sort out for us then?” Emelia asks, sounding like she is in on it right away when Julia hands the tablet for her to look at the villa and Hannah just gapes at her.

“Seriously?” Hannah asks. “Like, are you all serious?”

“Definitely serious,” Maria smile.

“But we have just moved here…”

“Almost a year actually,” Emelia answers while scanning through what’s on the tablet. “This place is too nice to be true…”

Based on Hannah’s face, she does not favour this decision at all and when Julia notices that, Maria is already starting the best speech about Julia’s mother, family bond, about sticking together instead of having only Julia move out to live with her family, the good and bad about the villa-move and so on. And she speaks fast in Swedish, making Hannah frown and Carolina looks like she begins to realise what is being said as well.

In the end, Hannah mutters she is going to bed and head upstairs as she has nothing to say and she knows her opinion can’t be spoken out when her eyes can barely stay open. Maria shakes her head when Julia wants to go talk to her.

“We’ll talk in the morning,” Maria comes to the conclusion after her big speech – the reason she is their leader. “Let’s all go get some sleep soon.”

Maria goes upstairs next, stopping outside Hannah’s room to hear the youngest is whispering, probably being on the phone with Jonghyun, and the leader hesitates if she should peek in and tell Hannah to not be on the phone for too long or if she should just keep walking to her room. She ends up going to her room, wondering what complaints Hannah will say to her boyfriend by the thought they might be moving again. Nothing has been decided, they have just talked about it, and Maria knows that the ladies are comfortable in this place – it is a great apartment. But she does also know that if one lady is unhappy, they all will feel it.

With a sigh she comes back out of her room and walks straight inside Hannah’s, not surprised seeing the youngest curled up in her bed with the phone by her ear, completely shocked to have someone come in but Maria walks right over to sit on the bed.

“If Julia’s mother can’t move in with us, Julia will be devastated. Please accept that we are more than five ladies to satisfy in this household, that her happiness makes us happy and that nothing has been decided at all but whatever happens, Julia would love it if you supported her,” Maria says in the moment of passion, Hannah just staring with wide eyes at her. “What bad could come out of it, Hannah? Yes, we will have to move – again – but what difference does that really make?”

“Mm,” Hannah responses to something Jonghyun says on the phone before she puts it down, hanging up. Hannah looks vulnerable like this, without make-up, her face young and eyes clear, tired and wide, and Maria would just want to put her in her arms and tell her life isn’t that hard, the way you talk to a child. “I’m just tired, Maria, I can’t think about that now.”

“You’ll have to. Julia has been terrified to talk to us about this and when she finally dares to open up Carolina doesn’t seem to give a damn, I don’t know how to communicate with her and you only walk away. We’re a group for a reason, are we not?”

Hannah can’t help but to think she is taking this too seriously. She has no idea why her members have to take serious matters when Hannah wants to sleep.

“Fine,” Maria looks annoyed, getting up, “Call your boyfriend and tell him how annoying the rest of us are for wanting to move when we just a year ago almost cried to stop moving around so much, tell him how badly your best friend wants her lonely mother to be surrounded by love and people, and see whose side he will take.”

She storms out the room, almost bumping into Julia who was eavesdropping around the corner, and Maria leaves while Julia just stares after her with huge eyes.

Hannah is taken back too, not surely aware of what just happened but she doesn’t call Jonghyun; she sends him a text message to let him know she is going to bed and that Maria was just … a sensitive Maria, and after assuring him she is okay, she lies down in bed with her door shut and stares at the pictures of her group on her bookshelves.

We’re a group for a reason, are we not?

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

Headline 14th: 5 Pieces Performs Double On Music Core & [POWER UP] Wins Second Time

Headline 14th: Hannah, Emelia & Kyung Ho Seen Riding Around On Bicycles After Nightfall In Seoul

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

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

X. devonalias