“Do you know what monkeys love to do?” I ask kindly to the children sitting on the floor with me at a kindergarten in Seoul. Those that answer are shaking their heads and saying they don’t know. “They really, really love to jump on the bed.” “No they don’t,” a four-year-old girl laughs, others doubting my words too. “It’s true. Do any of you jump on the bed at home?” I wonder and several of them say they do, reaching their hands up and laughing with each other. I am sitting in a room with children of the ages three and four. They are restless but I think they are nervous to have me and Kyungho here with them today because even I can see they are laughing a little bit too much. “Is there anyone who knows a song about monkeys?” I ask the children, my legs stretched out on the round carpet on the floor and I am not surprised when hearing the children answer and start singing and showing on their hands. They know [Five little monkeys jumping on the bed]. “Let’s sing it together,” Kyungho suggests. Kyungho and I have been promoting our [Little Star] album by visiting two kindergartens a week between 9:00-12:00, and today is our sixth kindergarten visit after a few weeks of promotions. Before coming inside to sing with the children we have been outside playing for about an hour, I even helped to change diapers when we got inside before sitting down to sing and talk. We sing a few songs, especially the songs from the [Little Star] album and we teach them to sing in English too a few songs, after singing we will help out with lunch and after that Kyungho and I will play with the children until noon. It is fun spending time at kindergartens because the children are so bright and honest and they can not be still at all. Both Kyungho and I are running around with them, teaching them fun games and we are singing so much. I think the funniest song to sing is [Head shoulders knees and toes] but the one all children know is [Twinkle, twinkle, little star]. The teachers are very kind too, and every kindergarten we have been at we have taken pictures with either the teachers grouped together or with the whole group of children and teachers, for them to put on the wall or something and maybe tell parents that their kindergarten was recognized by celebrities. After today’s kindergarten visit, Kyungho is sent to school and I am sent to practice. It is June now, a month full with adventures and new challenges. It is D-20 and counting down to our Japan Arena Tour opening in Osaka (we only got 20 days left to practice!), it is Tuesday today and on Saturday we will be performing in London for Summertime Ball with hot star of the world, at the end of the month we will attend a music festival in Sweden, ah, our Japanese album will be released too and next week it is Maria’s birthday. We got a lot to do this month. Manager Lee drives me to the agency for me to join in the practice that should have just started. The weather is hot and humid and I have brought a change of clothes for the practice, as my leggings and long tee I wore at the kindergarten is too hot (which I realised around nine this morning when we were outside playing with the children). The agency is like it usually is; a few fans are outside, no one too close to the entrance but they seem to have spotted someone when Manager Lee parks the van. I like it when fans aren’t too close to the entrance because it is easy for them to make it difficult for us to get inside. I see Ana come walking to the building with her manager; maybe they have been at a restaurant nearby to eat lunch since they come walking and not driving. Seeing Ana, I open the van’s door in the same move as I take off the seatbelt, just for her to see me. “Hi!” I happily say when she spots me. “Hannah!” Ana cheers and runs a few steps up to my van, not stopping when hearing the fans suddenly squeal behind her. “Are you going to practice?” I get out of the van just to have her give me half of a hug. “Mm,” I nod, liking that she is speaking English, so I answer in English; “Where have you been, did you eat?” “No, we went to a store nearby,” Ana answers and she gives a grimace towards her manager. With my arm put around her I feel she is indeed hearing the squeals from the fans watching us though it is not seen in her confident and cute face. “I met Maria earlier for pizza, so I ate then.” I take a look at the time on my phone, grimacing at Ana when closing the door for us to walk inside. “You ate pizza with Maria?” She nods eagerly. “Yes. My manager told me not to, but Maria actually tricked him by saying we were going to a café while we in fact went to eat pizza.” “That sounds like her,” I admit, nodding too before I hug on to her a bit warmly. “You’re going to practice now?” When stepping inside we keep talking, the sound of fans disappears once the door closes behind us. I actually walk with Ana to her practice-room just so I can see who she is working with and like a senior wish them to take good care of her even if they have worked with her for the past two years, and then I head to my own practice-room. Comparing Ana’s practice-room to mine is like comparing white with a rainbow. Her room was calm and polite while my room is loud and chaotic. We don’t have any dancers in the room but my ladies are screaming out that I have arrived and our dance teacher is trying to make the ladies focus. It seems like she has tried to make the ladies practice, and with my arrival they take the chance to delay practice a little by greeting me as if we haven’t seen each other in years. By their happy greeting though I am smiling widely and I hesitate a bit to close the door after me, in case they will attack me for hugs and I need a way out. “Hello…” “Now practice will begin!” our teacher calls out, clapping her hands for our attention. With all pieces gathered we focus. A bit, after a while. While I change my leggings into shorts and change the long tee to a large top big enough to cover my shorts, the ladies are chatting and relaxing to not begin until I am ready. I am too fast apparently but we continue to talk and I share stories from today’s kindergarten visit. Maria wants to come along to those visits but she is not allowed to as it is just Kyungho and I who are allowed to (SM Entertainment’s rules). “Are we ready to begin now?” our teacher wonders, a hand on her hip as her patience is outside the room. “I’m ready,” I answer. “I’m not,” Maria says, holding her phone in hand. “Come on, let’s begin,” Carolina is already standing in position. I smile and grabs Maria’s arm to take her into position. “We’re going through [チェイス] from last time, to see how much you remember from yesterday,” our teacher says and moves her hand for me to know where to stand. Maria puts her phone away and we get into position to start practicing the choreography for the Japanese song [チェイス/Chase] that we started to learn yesterday, and we have gotten quite far on learning the choreography though we started just yesterday.  The reason is because just like today our practice started after lunch and it continued until after midnight, so we had quite a lot of hours learning it. Though we fool around a bit we are serious when it comes to practice. Why? Because this is for our own tour, we got to do well. We practice other songs too but [Chase] is the one we are still learning. After a few hours we have taken a break and the five ladies sit down in the practice-room with a bunch of papers in hand. “Do we have a set list yet?” Maria asks, just like me she finds no structure in the papers we have received. Manager Song is officially in charge for our Japanese promotions and he has arrived with the song lyrics for all chosen songs we will have for the arena tour, but right now we have just gotten a mess of lyric sheets without any order. “Um… there is a set list,” Manager Song says. Looking at him I think he has just as much order with his papers as we have, and it makes me frown. “[Moon Child] first,” Emelia says and shows the lyric sheet. I look after mine too. “I don’t know what the next one is,” Maria comments before covering to cough. Waving her hand as if waving away the coughing she shows a lyric sheet with the other hand. “What song is this?” I lean forward to see what it is. “[When There Is No Tomorrow],” I answer her question when seeing the Japanese name. “Ah… It’s from last year, right?” “Mm…” “We got [labyrinth] on tenth place,” Emelia says as she is still focused on sorting out the lyrics, and it seems she has found something on her phone to look at. “How do you know that?” Julia asks and gets up to lean over at Emelia. “Oh, that’s smart.” Emelia turns her phone for us to see when Carolina and I ask what she is doing; Emelia had taken a picture of the current set list at a earlier practice. “Ah-ah, we moved [Secret Touch] to the beginning,” I spot on her phone. Creating a set list is probably the hardest with a concert. It tends to change during every practice, but at the moment we haven’t gotten that far; we have a set list our agency have prepared and a few days ago we changed pretty much everything in it as nothing were like we wanted it to be. The set list we have now will probably change twenty times all until we take on the stage in Osaka for the second day concert. We don’t finish the order for the lyrics as we soon enough get up to continue practice, to make sure we can move in synch for the new songs. There is just dancing and moving and we bump into each other both out of accident and on purpose and we point out things for each other that we see, making sure the choreography takes out the charm of 5 Pieces. Hours in on the night we decide to wrap up our practice with worn out bodies longing for a cosy bed. “I’m planning on a Harry Potter marathon soon but I can’t decide when,” Maria tells us when we leave the practice-room. “For our arena tour, or maybe when we go to Sweden, or even at my birthday? But I’m not sure if I want to have a marathon on my birthday-” “Can’t we have another marathon?” Carolina grimaces and though I don’t really want to glare at her, I for sure turn around to gape at her. “You don’t want to watch Harry Potter?” Maria is looking as surprised as me. “It’s not that, it’s just…” Carolina starts to mumble but her voice fades out before she clears . With an awkward laugh she scratches the back of her head and smiles at us. “We can always have a new type of marathon. Like … chick movies.” “Chick movies,” Julia suddenly laughs towards Emelia, and I smile when Maria laughs too. The best part is that no one answers Carolina’s suggestion, we just head outside to the van. Maria puts her arm around mine as we go outside the building. “Should we order pizza when we get home?” she whispers to me, “Without anyone knowing; just you and me, and maybe Emelia if she wants but if Carolina finds out, she will tell on us for sure. Are you in?” I grimace at the suggestion, though pizza sounds delicious. “Didn’t you eat pizza earlier?” “Ha?” Maria leans away from me with big eyes. “How did you know?” “Ana told me.” “And when did you meet her?!” Maria bursts out, pushing my arm away from hers and I laugh at the push she gives me. “Earlier, on the way to practice,” I laugh. She grabs my arm to pull me back, her arm friendly holding around mine. “We can ask Anna to join us with the pizza,” Maria secretively tells me, her whole face tells me it is something we are not allowed to do. Her face-expression up close is pretty creepy actually, and she feels even closer when we round the front of the van to reach the doors, just to see Manager Lee stand there with raised eyebrows and arms crossed over his chest. “I’ll take both of your cell phones if I h