“ARE YOU READY?!” Today’s excitement backstage is over the top. After yesterday’s rehearsal we got a few hours at the hotel to sleep and today’s finish up have passed by too quickly that my adrenaline will probably have passed by the time the concert actually begins. My own scream fills the corridor as I run through it, followed by a camera-man filming for our movie and I cheer happily to every person I see, thanking them politely for their hard work without wondering if the camera-man is keeping up with me. “Ya, Hannah!” I jog over to Yong Hyun who does not look pleased when putting his hand on my back to lead me inside the room. “Don’t run around in your stage outfit, didn’t I say that?” “I’m not running around,” I smile and stretch my hands up in the air, stretching my back. “Do not move around too much then,” he mutters and lifts up the back of my cardigan. If I hadn’t known it was him, I would’ve reacted. Under the cardigan I am wearing a stretchy crop tank featuring an angular racer design and an all-over grid-inspired print, a matching pair of waist-high pants are on too and though it looks like it is a very uncomfortable outfit it is the pattern that makes it look tight but it is stretching material so even squatting isn’t impossible even if my stylist wouldn’t recommend it (for me anyway) because the pants would drop from high-waist to low-waist. Typical pants. To my surprise Yong Hyun just places his hand on my back, making me laugh because I thought he was going to make sure it sat correctly. “Do not move around so you’ll sweat already,” he points out, “I told Emelia the same as she was putting on two layers of clothes on top of this. Remember that you will wear if for 14 concerts.” “14 concerts,” I repeat and nod. We will have 14 concerts for the LABYRINTH tour this summer. Tonight is the first one. I squeal out of happiness, butterflies fills my stomach as the days have turned into hours and we have seen the fan lining up outside and showing their excitement too. Yong Hyun laughs at my squeal and I look next to me to see the camera-man filming us. “I got tons of butterflies in my stomach.” “You always have tons of butterflies in your stomach,” Yong Hyun chuckles behind me, putting down the cardigan again. “I got an extra ton today,” I tell him. “It’s like when we did NEW ME and the album hadn’t been released yet, and I was so nervous that no one will like it…” As I say the words I remember how terrified I was in Busan to perform not just new songs, but my own songs, before the album came out. A grimace comes out in my face as I remember the feeling, as today is exactly the same. “Just don’t start singing [New Me] or something, baby, that would be fun but not correct for us,” Maria mutters when coming inside the room, “Oppa, could you help me with the heels? Hannah, we decided to go through [Close My Eyes] before the press-conference, so we are like going through it in a few minutes.” “Okay,” is all I say to let her know I have understood – we’ve got practice to do once she is done fixing her high heels. I watch her when she tells Yong Hyun what is wrong with her shoes, admiring her posture and her current calm. Maria’s skinny and tall body suits the outfit perfectly; no matter what she wears, it looks great. That we have to wear the same outfit, fitting and all but different sizes, is never making you feel good about yourself. When Maria is ready we go together to our dressing-room to gather the ladies and practice the choreography for the new song [Close My Eyes] that has microphone stand choreography. On the way to the dressing-room though, Maria puts her hands by her chest, glancing at me. “It’s the first time we are wearing clothes like this,” she says in English, because of the camera filming us, “Showing off our differences.” I laugh at her words, embarrassed both at what she says and the way she looks from me to her. I am wearing a cardigan but I guess Maria imagines how it looks underneath. “Hannah got a really nice figure,” Maria suddenly says and I get such a surprise that I push her with my mouth hanging open. “What?!” I gasp at her. “And Hannah likes my figure too,” Maria points out, grabbing my arm to pull my close to her. I grimace at a staff member walking backwards next to the camera-man. “That’s what I think is interesting with the way we look at each other; Hannah admires my height, while I admire her chest.” “Oh my…” I sigh and actually cover my face, lowering my head in embarrassment. They better not use this footage. “It’s true,” Maria seriously tells me, “People look after others what they don’t have themselves. We, as human beings, do that. Not many are able to admit it though. And while I am admiring Hannah’s body at times, she admires mine too because we look so different.” “Please stop talking,” I breathe out at Maria in a low voice and she laughs. “It’s nothing to be embarrassed over. Something that everyone has is a body, that’s nothing to be ashamed of.” I don’t response, instead I spot a dancer so I slink out of Maria’s grip and ignores her words telling me to be confident and speak up for what I got. I hurry over to Kimura Koko, taking a deep breathe once she sees me. “Save me from Maria,” I tell her in Japanese. “What is she doing to you?” Koko wonders, raising her hand to greet Maria from a distance and probably seeing the leader speaking to the camera-man while walking past about three meters away from us in the corridor. “She is explaining how beautiful it is to admire other people’s bodies,” I answer and give her a grimace. Koko is one of the oldest in our crew, maybe she is the oldest; 34 years old. She is amazing in all kind of ways and she has the most patience in a person from what I have witnessed. She is the captain of the dancers, so I guess she is the oldest. “If it isn’t work, that is all I hear Maria talk about; bodies and bodies and bodies,” Koko comments and nods for me to walk. “But she talks about both men and women, by the way. I like when she talks about men. I have never met a person who has loudly said she wants to bite a man’s thigh.” I laugh at her words, agreeing completely when in Japanese I say; “She does that way too often.” “Maybe if you live with her,” Koko laughs. “For me who only meet when we work, it is quite funny.” When it comes to Maria’s Japanese language I would say she has improved a lot. All of us improved a lot in 2013 when we had over half a year of promotions in Japan, then we haven’t really promoted in Japan in two years so for Julia and Carolina they have forgotten mostly everything while Maria has kept herself busy learning certain things she can have use of, like a sentence such as “I can see myself bite that man’s thigh, oh so y”. Very useful sentences to learn. I am just about to enter the dancers dressing-room when someone calls for me and I remember we are having a practice for [Close My Eyes]. I excuse myself to the dancers and tell them “FIGHTING!” with my biggest smile before I run off. “Don’t run!” With a pout I slow my steps by the door when Yong Hyun caught me and by the door the camera-man from earlier stands so I give the camera (the camera, not the man holding it) a happy v–sign by my eye when walking by. “Did Koko help you push away that shame, baby?” Maria loudly asks from across the room, still speaking English. “I wasn’t ashamed,” I mutter for her. “What did you two do?” Emelia asks, giving me a glare and then looks at Maria. “Who did you do it to?” Maria frowns and I grimace. “What do you think we did?” Maria asks, sounding hurt by those words. “I said I love Hannah’s body and she got all ashamed and ran off to Koko.” “I was embarrassed,” I tell Emelia and then I point at Maria to blame her, speaking in Swedish for no one to know what I say; “She was talking about how we admire each other’s bodies and mentioned my chest and we were being filmed-” “It wasn’t embarrassing,” Maria says. “You said that in front of the camera?” Julia suddenly turns around from the make-up table, holding an eyebrow pen in her hand. “It was not an embarrassing moment,” Maria repeats to me, ignoring the others. I pout in response, walking over to my bag to check my phone. “Poor Hannah,” Emelia teases, glancing after me and just as she is about to say something more, our manager makes her quiet down by saying it short and very simple; “Language, ladies” “Yeah, language, ladies!” Maria bursts out in English and throws a napkin over at Carolina, who has quietly been sitting with her tablet in hand. I can’t help but to smile at her acting. “How dare you say those words in front of all these people?” She stands up and walks around in a circle with her hands out, her whole tone says she is just kidding and her eyes are big to tell us she is just acting like she usually does. The dressing-room is big, we got stylists and managers and crew members in here but she still has space to do that. Maria smiles when she is done and she steps over to me. “I’m sorry if I was embarrassing,” she quietly says and gives me a hug. Maria with her long and skinny arms put around my head to show off her height. “I didn’t think it was embarrassing.” “Among us it’s not, but in front of the camera, it is,” I mutter without hugging her back. That I don’t hug her back is mostly because I rarely do hug back; unless it’s Jonghyun or if I am the one who hugs first. I don’t know why I find these things awkward. Maria doesn’t sense it though and when she stops hugging me she brings up the reason we were told to gather; which I had forgotten about, again. We practice a few of the songs briefly, step by step, not really dancing them, before we freshen up and look over what to say at the press-conference. On the way to the press-conference, I hear Emelia sing a bit from the ballad [Letter], the song she said she has trouble learning the lyrics for and a song we have practiced together a lot too. I move my head side to side, enjoying her sing and I fill out some of the words because it is a nice ballad. “How is the greeting?” Carolina asks, not interrupting Emelia’s singing as our rapper is much focused but I stop filling out the words as I am not as focused on singing. “In Japanese,” Maria answers before giving a sudden smile to Carolina. Maria waves her hand out at us. “How do you say ‘my outfit is for your satisfaction’?” Manager Lee repeats her strange sentence in Japanese and Maria repeats it before asking me if it is correct; she wants to know if Manager Lee is not playing a trick on her and I nod, though I am not going to say that. “Why do you want to say that?” I ask Maria, grimacing and looking at her clothes, knowing all five of us have the same outfit. “To please our love-lovers,” Maria simply answers. “I still don’t remember the greeting,” Carolina mutter. We do go through the greeting, and Manager Lee ask some basic questions to know if we are alright while I am told to get my cardigan off and we do a final check on how we look before it is time to enter the press-conference. It’s crowded and I get blinded by the strong lights and flashes from cameras and pictures taken and those minutes it takes to stand up for pictures I feel so nervous, I feel like I got no idea what we are doing and where we are looking and who to listen to as a lot of people are quietly saying ‘look here’, ‘left side, please’ and ‘this side, please’ in mouth on each other while we actually have a person telling us exactly where to look and how to stand. It’s a very awkward place for me, all this focus on us and demands coming from different directions while one head voice is telling us exactly what to do, and then I have Carolina next to me repeating every word. It’s quite annoying and awkward. Even sitting down, a blanket over our legs and microphone in hand, I am still a bit unsure of where to look and who to respond to. Emelia leans a bit forward, looking like she is going to put something behind her back but she smiles at me at the same time. “I’m nervous,” she tells me quietly and I burst out a smile, nodding in agreement. That’s right; it is five of us sitting here, not just me. For some reason my stomach calms down a lot by that thought. I’m not facing this attention alone. We start off with a greeting before I introduce the arena tour and album and sharing the talk to exchange some information with Emelia too as the two of us are the Japanese representatives. We are asked about the album and how it feels to come back to Japan, we talk about our Korean promotions and international promotions, what to be expected tonight (without giving away too much) and eventually it gets a little bit more comfortable to sit in front of all these people. “It has been some time since your last Arena Tour, did you prepare this tour differently from the previous one?” a journalist asks and Emelia is moving her hand to me, for me to take this one as the others have been answering some questions now. “What’s different?” I quietly ask Emelia, holding the microphone up but not all the way to my mouth as I remember halfway that I am asking Emelia and not answering the question. But I ask her in Japanese and the journalists laughs as they heard my question. “Um…” Emelia starts to think and puts the microphone to her lips, answering in Japanese; “What I find different with this tour is that we have more experience from the previous tour and learned a lot from then, and since … we have done the first one, we look forward to get up close with our fans this time too.” I nod eagerly at how well she speaks. “It’s like a reunion from the first tour, I guess,” I add, chatting with Emelia and the journalists, “We got the same dance crew and band that we have worked with before, it has been a lot of fun preparing for the tour together and now we can’t wait to let our fans hear the new songs and most of all to meet our fans who have waited two years for our return.” “Hannah was in Japan a few months ago for her solo concert,” the journalist comments, and I nod, saying I was. “How is it to come back so shortly after with an Arena Tour?” “I love it,” I am quick to say as that was what came to my head when he started asking ‘how is it’. I smile when he laughs at my answer. “I visited Yokohama for my solo NEW