After the meetings have ended at the agency on Tuesday evening I know I should go practice, but since my sister is here and she has tried to contact me all day, I decide to head home for some quality time before Wednesday’s schedule will come. Even the agency had recommended me to take some time with my sister. Because I told my fans at the concert that my sister is here we have expected an article to come out about it, but no article is out but fans are asking if my sister is still here and if she is enjoying Seoul – so SM Entertainment wants me to update SNS with a picture together. So I head home, I shower and pull on my sweats and sits down in the sofa where Maria is lying with her quilt around her – Ace sleeping on top of her – and Jen is sitting there watching some romantic movie. It is a lazy hangover day for the ladies; only Julia in the other house has been effective today. Emelia and Milo are both in the other house too, but I guess they aren’t doing much there. “I got the evening off,” I comment when I sit down, looking at my sister. “What do you want to do?” She gives me a glare – surprising me completely as I thought she has wanted to hear that all day. “You know that interview you did yesterday?” she asks me. “Emelia said what it was about.” My sister had kind of tried asking me about that interview I did where I was crying, she asked it at the party yesterday but I got suddenly busy calling for someone else. I have avoided telling her that I talked about our grandparents in an interview, mostly because it feels wrong to tell my sister that I was sitting and talking about our grandparents while she was standing there, I cried and told my fans they have passed away. It feels wrong, but she hasn’t lived these past seven years like me. “How dare you talk about them in interviews to promote your album?” Jen bursts out at me. Maria looks up at us. I thought she was sleeping but it seems like she is awake. “I can’t believe you did that!” “Jen, listen-” “No!” she says in a dark voice, surprising me because I am not used to talk face-to-face to my sister. “I wanted to be nice to you by telling you about grandpa and you … you go around talking about it in interviews? Is life a joke for you or something?” “A joke?” I gasp. I know Maria would want me to handle family issues like this on my own, especially face-to-face, but she must hear how the air just leaves me at those words. “Jen and Hannah, don’t fight about this, let’s talk about it in low voices,” Maria mumbles with a hand to her head. She has a hangover. Is life a joke, is she serious right now? I have been lying on deathbed; life is far from a joke for me. Jen gives Maria a glare before she gets up on her feet with a dramatic move with her hand. Has my sister always been this dramatic? “You are having a blast here, Hannah,” she tells me. “You don’t face reality because you are constantly having cameras up in your face and doing these fancy things with photo shoots and concerts and parties! Do you even care that grandpa is dead? Or is it all just a way to-” “Of course I care!” I interrupt her, tears burning in my eyes but I am not giving her that. I am not going to cry. “You think this is easy? You think it’s just to walk up on the stage and smile? It’s nothing like that!” “I never said it is! But- but you’re living this life and it’s like nothing touches you! I have been here for a week but all I see is you working and working. You ask me about my life but you don’t ask about mom, or how grandpa’s last time was. You don’t go in for the real stuff, Hannah!” I glance at Maria, maybe hoping she can save me but Maria’s face-expression is half-dead and the other half is saying I haven’t put much focus on my sister. I stare back at my sister, speechless. “Mom was right about you,” Jen scoffs, “You are the same old, same old Hannah. You are just putting on an act pretending you are something here. I booked the flight; I’m going home on Thursday.” She storms upstairs to the room she has been living in, Kyung Ho’s room. Slamming the door shut after her, I just stare at where she just stood. I haven’t focused on my sister and I told her I wouldn’t because I have to work. I don’t take it to my heart, her words, I know I am not the same Hannah as I always have been, and I know that nothing about my life here is an act. I have felt happy today, I have felt a bit proud over what I have accomplished – to release my own album. I give another glance to my left, at Maria who is looking at me. “She is partly right though,” she comments. “I know…” “She was wrong about a lot of things though,” Maria mumbles while looking at me. I nod as I know she is right, Maria knows that I am not the same old Hannah, and though I know that already I have to lean my head back to not start crying at Maria confirming it. “Tell your sister how you feel, Hannah. I think it would be good for you to talk to her. You know … at the concert, she was very moved, but I don’t think she understood it. She doesn’t know the lyrics you have written, Hannah, she doesn’t know the reasons everyone were crying at the concert.” I grimace as I cry, knowing Maria is right like always and I appreciate that even when having a hangover she is taking care of me. “What would I do without you, Maria?” I ask with a smile. “You would do just fine,” she answers and pats the sofa’s empty space between us. “You wouldn’t be as awesome as you are now though.” I stay in the sofa for a few minutes, thinking of what Maria said and what my sister said, and to calm myself. Jen is a person I grew up with, side by side for fifteen years, yet she is a stranger for me now. I think I have tried to pretend life is okay for us both, that everything is okay between us for this past week she has been staying here, while I haven’t really wanted to admit that she is a stranger to me because I haven’t had a real conversation with her for a few years. It’s been four years since I graduated; the last time I really spent time in Sweden with my family. I know I have wanted to show off my life for her this past week, to show how great it is, but maybe she only sees the outside of it. Quietly I walk upstairs. Tiger rushes up the stairs after me, tripping and making noises before she runs around upstairs where the doors are closed. I knock on the bedroom, waiting for her to answer before I open the door. “Can we talk?” I ask with just my head looking inside the room. “Sure… it’s your house,” she mutters. Jen is sitting on the bed with her back against the wall and she is sitting with her cell phone, looking to have no interest in me. It is strange seeing her in this room, the room Kyung Ho uses – the room that has Spiderman on the wall. It looks like a boy’s room, not suited for my sister. But I don’t talk about that. I walk to the end of the bed to lightly sit down on it, having as much space between us as possible because I don’t want to be too close – it would be uncomfortable, more uncomfortable than what is already is. Okay… I need to talk to her. But what do I say? “Do you remember how I was like in school?” I ask in a low voice, looking everywhere else in the room but at her. “Sure. You were always with Maria and the others, wearing black clothes and being weird,” Jen mutters. I grimace as I think back to when we all were in the same class. Seventh, eighth and ninth grade was when we grew extra close, Maria, Emelia and I were in the same class, Jen too. I wore a lot of black clothes at that time, I still do, and I think we were weird because we didn’t try to fit in with everyone else. “How was I at home?” I ask her. “I don’t know,” Jen rolls her eyes, “You were loud and annoying, always listening to your music.” I think she is right. I was talkative at home even if no one was listening, so I would shut my door and listen to music. “I had suicide thoughts at that time,” I say. No going back now. I swallow when she glances up at me, but I look down at my hands. “I used to take walks from time to time…” “I remember that,” Jen says, and I can feel her eyes on me. “Whenever I did that, I would cry so much and I would imagine how it would be if I stepped out on the road. I saw the cars driving by, trucks at times, and I was thinking if I should do it. By the river I thought of jumping in, hitting my head on the rocks or- I had those thoughts every single day, Jen. What every one of you at home have been calling weird or unhealthy; those things were why I never stepped out in front of the cars. The friends you call weird, the music you always told me to stop listening to – those things were the only reasons that kept me breathing.” I glance up at her to see her stare at me. She didn’t know this? “In the album I have come out with now,” I start to say and it’s like a switch in her body language, she doesn’t take me seriously. Is this another act for her, the way I am? I look at the wall to not get furious at her. On the desk there is a framed picture from 5 Pieces’ first concert of me and Kyung Ho. I looked like a baby at that time, he too. It sets my mind straight, seeing the smile on his face even if he was sick at that time. “I wrote lyrics for this album, Jen, I wrote down words that I have never spoken before and I felt so free doing so. I wrote this song called [Breakaway], and I wrote it in eighth grade. I wrote it because I wanted to travel and see the world, I wanted to meet people and see different cultures. I wanted to leave home so badly.” “And you did,” Jen mutters angrily. “I did,” I say and look at her, “I left home because I wanted to become much more than what could be offered there. I want to matter to people, Jen. Did you see my concert?” “Of course I did, I was there, wasn’t I?” she asks in a high tone, angry at me. “I know you were there, but did you see it?” I ask, hoping I am keeping my calm. I don’t know if she understands the way I talk, if there is a communication problem between us. Maybe I need to change the way I talk to her. “Did you see people go crazy at my concert – did you see people cry because I cried? Did they cry when I sang? You know which song is [Breakaway]?” She mumbles something I don’t understand before she rolls her eyes at me, “The one with all those pictures of us.” “I sang it in dedication to our grandparents. The thing I want you to know, Jen, is that I have been performing for those people for seven years; seven years, Jen, and they have supported me for so long, they have worked their asses off to get money to buy my ticket, and they have probably spent more time on me than what I have. They understand the songs I sing because I sing it for them and I am telling them to do well. I tell people to cry their hearts out and take on the next challenge with braver steps because that is what it means to be a singer. I inspire people. I sang [Breakaway] because I want to tell my fans that I was stuck at one point in my life, I wanted to kill myself and I wanted to travel. If I didn’t run away from home when I did, I might have killed myself. I tell my fans to not give up on that, can’t you understand that?” I don’t know if she wants to answer me, she can’t raise her head and I sound like I am crying but there are no tears in my eyes. “I thought I lost it when I saw grandma’s grave last year,” I tell her, the tears suddenly coming as I remember how I didn’t want to leave my grandmother’s grave after I had found it. “I went home to see the only person who has ever showed my any support. And I saw a grave, Jen. A few days later I had to show myself in front of cameras and pretend I was okay while I couldn’t do anything without thinking of her. All I could think of was the concert in Stockholm, where I kept looking for grandma, and you were in the audience knowing she was dead! Not once did I talk about her to my fans, the people who have showered me with love and support, and they are the people that I feel closer to than my own family because they do care about me. I am ready to talk about my grandmother for the people I care about and just because I don’t decide to tell you, that does not mean I am not being touched. I cried so hard after the concert because they cried with me. I am broken, Jen, I know that, but this life that you think is fancy and unreal, is the reality I live in. I am spending every day hoping I am able to put a smile on a random person’s face today. I am working so hard for this album because this is something I have dreamt of doing for so long, and I wanted to make it the most personal thing I have ever done and that means I will talk about the family that actually once have said they are proud of what I am doing.” I have so much I want to tell her, to try get her to understand that I am not hiding from reality – this is my reality. I stare at my sister, wondering if she will understand. “Almost five years ago I was in a car-accident that put me in a coma,” I say and she nods, mumbling that she knows about it, and I know it hurts in my whole body as I tell her this, as I open up for my own sister for the first time in my life. “The doctors said I would never be able to perform again.” She frowns when looking at me, and for a second our eyes meet. I have never seen her look teary before. “All odds were against me, they said,” I mutter and look down at my hands. “I couldn’t move my body and I was told that I should stop what I am doing. I didn’t stop, Jen. I fall apart at times and each time I do, I get terrified that it will be the last time I fall. I love this life, this life right here, right now, and no doctor can tell me to give that up. It is the life I have dreamt of having.” “What happens if you fall?” Jen whispers. I glance at her, wondering so much what she is thinking off. “I mean…” she breathes out, her head low too. “What do you mean with that, that you fall at times?” “I collapse,” I simply say and behind her hair I can see her biting her jaw together. “I end up at the hospital after fainting or something because at times I work too much so my body can’t handle it. It’s stupid, isn’t it? I have a personal doctor coming with me for concerts, just to make sure I am doing okay. Last night was one of rare times I can even drink alcohol. I’m a mess, Jen, but this life is worth it. I would give up a lifetime of living a different life to one day like the life I have now, I would always give that up.” I expect her to ask me something, to make me talk more, but she doesn’t and I find myself getting quiet. After some silence when I notice she isn’t going to say anything, I find the words come out of my mouth again as I still have things to tell her, to make sure she understands; “A few years ago, I wrote a song called [I CRY]. It is a song about wanting to end your life, about suicide. When the song came out, I got thousand of messages from people that never before had listened to our songs before. People all around the world wrote to me, through twitter or other ways, to say that they felt the same. They … there was someone who wrote that even with the knife in hand, ready to strike, he put the knife down because he heard that someone else understood. If that isn’t reality, then what is? I make a difference, Jen, in a way I don’t understand myself, but I am getting so much out of doing what I do. I get to do so many things I never thought of doing and I am meeting incredible people. What is so hard to understand with that?” Jen leans her head back against the wall. “I cry,” she says in Korean. It takes a few seconds before I realise it is my sister I just heard say something in Korean, I wonder what language I have been using when talking, scared I might have shifted language somewhere and that she hasn’t understood a thing I’ve said. “That song is imprinted in my head,” Jen mumbles. “A friend of mine started crying so much when she saw some performance of that song on YouTube.” I am taken back by her words; I don’t really understand myself why I am reacting like this. Is it because she is almost smiling or the fact that she sounds so … calm? “I have never understood you, Hannah,” she tells me. She is like me in the way that she avoids looking directly at me. “I don’t think I have ever understood the things you do either. When we were at the concert you were so different, at the … rehearsals, you were not the sister I know. You were like ‘here, here, here, here’ telling people all these things and … you were in charge. I have never seen that before. Then yesterday, everyone was looking at you. At the interviews, people were so interested in you. Even the people across the room, I don’t even have to speak the language to know they were admiring you as you spoke. At the party you were so open, you were singing and dancing while just walking fro