“Maria,” I say quietly and a smile reaches my lips when Maria looks up at me, pretty with her short blonde hair, red lips and smoky makeup for her eyes. My Japanese comes out simple; “Wow… You’re y.” She laughs and throws her hair over her shoulder (the short length barely manages that but she makes it work). “I know,” she confidently answer. I remove my thumb from the button on my phone to stop filming and I look through it with Maria. “Ya, this is good,” Maria compliments it, “I really look y… Unnie, this lipstick is really nice on camera.” I keep smiling as Mi Young and Maria talk lipsticks. Today is the third and last day concert in Osaka and we are currently backstage waiting. Today, we have been filming each other with out phones to upload on Instagram, we have been silly the whole day doing these short silly videos of pretty much nothing but it is still fun. The short video I just took of our y Maria is uploaded too. We are a lot more relaxed today. Our album was finally released and we have spent the morning doing interviews and tomorrow we are doing a performance in the morning before we are heading to Korea to pack our bags and head to Sweden for a music festival. I’m not sure if I look forward to that or not. “I keep messing this part up,” Julia mutters and throws a paper on the table I’m sitting by. She is eating something but my focus is on the paper, though I do take notice of her sitting down on the table, lifting her leg up to face me. “Which part?” I ask her in Japanese. “This one,” she answers in Japanese, pointing at the verse she has with Carolina in [Girls Power]. Going from Korean to Japanese is harder than learning a completely new Japanese song, mostly because the flow you have in the Korean version changes in the Japanese version. I read the verse for her, line by line, and Julia repeats after me. From across the room Carolina repeats it too, practicing while getting her makeup done. I practice my own lyrics too and soon we have four of the five members singing the Japanese version of [Girls Power] in the dressing-room. I go through most of the songs while we wait for the concert to begin, it is still some time left for the last concert in Osaka to begin so there is enough time to go through both lyrics and choreography. Emelia is the only one not in the dressing-room. She is either hanging out with the crew or meeting Ryo-kun somewhere. She only comes back when our manager enters the room later. “Did anyone see the tables outside?” Emelia asks. She has a lollipop in , holding it with her hand to move it around in . “The tables that have been standing there all the time, you mean?” Julia jokes with her. “The two added tables with gifts from our fans, is what I mean,” Emelia answers. All week we have had staff filling tables in the corridor outside the dressing-room with gifts from our fans; snacks and delicates from Osaka that our fans want us to try, other gifts too of course, all from drawings to cell phone cases. “I’ve got a big basket of lollipops,” Emelia happily says and holds out her lollipop at Mi Young, “Polka flavour.” I do get curious when she says they have added two more tables outside and I go out the room with her and Julia to take a look. I guess we have been stuck in the dressing-room for too long to not notice how the tables are filled compared to when we walked inside the dressing-room earlier. “I haven’t heard a thing, when did they prepare this?” Julia laughs and walked over to a table. There are things under the tables too. A lot of gifts. “When did you prepare this?” I ask a staff member in Japanese. “We just got it set up,” he answers with a laugh. “There are more things coming.” I smile widely when stepping up to a table too, watching what kind of gifts we are given. “Our fans are truly great, aren’t they?” I comment. I think I have adjusted to the Japanese language again, I am comfortable speaking Japanese and even with my members I speak more to them in Japanese these two days just because we have been surrounded by cameras and for the ladies to learn better. Today we are surrounded by cameras too, though I mix them up because we are filming for both Good Sister and for the tour DVD (one in Korean and one in Japanese) so every time I spot a camera I have to look at who is holding it and take time to know what language to use. Now too, while we look though the gifts there is a set of cameras for the tour DVD filming us. Most of the gifts have a name on them depending on who it is for. We even receive gifts for our pets. Milo is given a really cool necklace I see on the table, and then there is a basket of toys for Tiger and Ace next to it. Our pets are more popular than us, I think. A lot of drawings are of our pets too, given to us with messages on the back. I lift up a drawing of Tiger that is absolutely adorable and framed at the size of my hand and on the back it is a nice message that I read, it says that I can watch this drawing during the tour whenever I miss Tiger. Stepping up in front of me when I read the message is the camera-man, asking what the gift I’m holding is. “This is…” I start to say in Japanese and I turn the drawing around to see Tiger at the front, then I show it to the camera, “A precious gift from a precious fan. It is a … um, how do you say it in Japanese? Paint?” “Drawing,” the camera-man says in Japanese. “It is a drawing of my cat at home,” I answer and look at the drawing again, knowing I must look proud showing it. “I’ll go home tomorrow and play with her.” “Your pets are in Korea, right?” the camera-man asks me and I nod, glancing at the table. I am very curious to see if I have gotten something more. “We are going home for a few hours tomorrow before we are going abroad again, so I think we are planning on playing a lot with them then,” I tell him and pick up a snack box, my eyes focused on it. “It’s pretty big.” “It is a candy box,” the camera-man tells me and I look up at him, knowing I shouldn’t be so surprised he knows what it is. “It is very popular these days.” The box is wide but not that deep, when I put it down to open it I reveal colourful bags of different candies inside. M&M’s, Hello Kitty marshmallows, it is some ice cream cone candy of different flavours, gum, and yogurt tablets and chips and other things. It is all small bags so the box fits a lot. “Whoah…” I breathe and move the candies around to see all its contents. There is also a fan-written letter and the first thing I see is Carolina’s name. I giggle and look up at the camera when closing the lid. “It wasn’t mine, he-he.” But there are four more boxes so I open the lid on them until I find my name and I happily show it to the camera. Just as I am about to go back to the dressing-room with the box (before a manager can snatch it from me), I spot my name written widely on another box that is bigger than the one I’m holding, but it doesn’t look like candy will be in it. The second I touch it, I gape over at Emelia who is picking up another lollipop. “This one is heavy,” I breathe and put the other things down so I can lift the new one, just to know it is a lot heavier than expected. With my name on it I can open it on the side without regret. “Woah-ha-haha-!” My impressed ‘woah’ turns into laughter and I look over at Emelia again. “It’s a laptop,” I tell her in Japanese and I lean forward over the table while laughing. “A real one?” Emelia asks and glides over to me, trying to take it from me. I end up letting her take it and watch her open the box. “Oooh, it’s a nice one.” I can’t stop laughing and Emelia finds a letter that was stuck on the outside that she gives me to read. As I read I find out it is not one fan but a few that have saved up money to buy this laptop together (teenage fans) as they wish for me to be able to write more books wherever I am in the future. I bring some things with me to sit in the dressing-room and I am stuck for an hour with the laptop. Turns out my fans have already installed things; the wallpaper is a charismatic picture from our [labyrinth] album, one of the pictures that were released online as a tease for what will come. I like it because all five of us are standing next to each other, there are maps on the laptop filled with pictures like a picture diary of how the fans had planned and prepared the gift, it is all very cute and thought through. Then it doesn’t take long that we have to prepare for the concert and we take some pictures for the last day in Osaka. Something we noticed already on the first day that our fans like from the talk segments of the concert is the Food Song we have come up with. We planned it a few weeks ago during a practice with the band and started to fool around; on the stage in Osaka we have been talking about the city and ending up talking about what we want to eat. Then Carolina starts singing *I~* and the rest of us follow for an acappella, which sounds really nice and we sing *I~ want~ some* and it does round really nice as an acapella with the five of us, then Emelia suddenly starts to rap and the crowd has liked it a lot on the first and second day, and today is no different. They laugh at the sudden rap about Osaka food; *kitsune udon, kushikatsu, all that sushi, yum, I’ll eat til I drop, and we can’t forget taiko-manju, okonomiyaki* and I quickly added “takoyaki” as planned when hearing okonomiyaki and Carolina interrupted with “negiyaki” before Emelia continued to mention different Japanese food with her rap. It was probably a highlight from the concerts, one of them. ++ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + -+ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + -+ - + - ++ After a rough night celebrating the three concert days in Osaka and a morning of work we are back in Seoul in the evening briefly to repack our bags and go to Sweden for a festival performance. At the house we are filming Good Sister, as we did yesterday too. Kyungho has been sleeping here while going to school and working, the crew filming has been with him and a few have been with us too and though it is just for a few hours, we manage to be out in the yard playing with the pets and play some games too. I play for as long as possible that when we almost have to leave I pack my bag quickly, almost throwing things in and close it to leave. On the way to the airport I am holding my phone in hand. I have been talking to my book publisher a lot this week, but now it is Jonghyun I am texting with. “What are you going to do with him?” Maria asks me, kicking her feet up on my legs, leaning to the side on Yong Hyun who is sitting in the back with us. “Yes, what am I going to do with him?” I sigh, asking them the same thing. “Love is a difficult thing,” Yong Hyun tells us as if he is a man full with experience. “You fall in love and can’t stop loving each other but something is troubling you both…” “Oppa, your voice doesn’t suit that tone,” Maria interrupts his ancient story telling. “Baby, I told you last week to write down what is good and what is bad about getting back with Jonghyun. Did you do that?” She knows I have started on that but with a pout I say it didn’t work out. “The two of you don’t even take the time to get over one another,” Yong Hyun suddenly points out, “You still meet him, it’s not how things should go.” It isn’t that we meet when working, it is those secret moments what friends don’t have. I sigh, missing him. Jonghyun wants to get back together, but I don’t know if he really means it or what it is he is after. “Has anyone ever gone to a festival in Sweden?” Carolina wonders from the seat in front of mine. “Never,” I answer. “We have,” Maria slaps my arm, “In our hometown, we even performed there once, remember? We went several times when we were younger.” “Is that a festival?” I grimace. Oh, it probably is. “Not the kind we are going to now,” Emelia answers from the front in the van. “We will perform at a weekend festival with a bunch of drunken teenagers that wish graduation won’t come too soon.” “Or those that have graduated and wish they don’t have to get older,” Julia jokes. We are going to a music festival in Sweden where Sweden’s most popular artists are performing for three days. None of us have gone to that kind of a place before, the festival we used to have in our hometown was mostly filled with older people sitting down to drink beer under a tent. This place is more about drinking and partying. On the flight I sit with my new laptop, working and reading reviews about our Osaka concerts. The five of us talk a lot during the long flight going from Korea to Sweden. It’s hard to push the thoughts of Jonghyun to the side, but after a long flight we arrive in Sweden to go straight to work for a few hours before we get to take in to hotel, and in the morning take a long drive to the festival to chill, get ready, meet people, do backstage half-weird interviews and just feel out of place among all drunk Swedish people that surprisingly are our age. It is all weird, all strange. We have met drunken people before but I think a festival with hundreds and more hundreds of drunken people between 18 and 40 years old… it is the weirdest moment I have had in my life. Among us we get high backstage, dancing and jumping and singing without a trace of being 5 Pieces (meaning we do not dance good, we don’t sing good and we are jumping so much that we loose our balance) but it suits the mood of the festival so we have fun like that. Though we are all nervous to perform for almost two hours in both Korean and English at the festival, once we get up on the stage the time just flies by and we all comment afterwards that we could perform for another hour. The drunken crowd is amazing, they are constantly dancing and screaming, singing along to many songs while to others they are just dancing but it turns out we got some really nice songs to dance to. It is fun. As soon as we get off the stage, Maria has a bottle of cider in her hand, and the night in Sweden can continue before we will take the flight to Japan tomorrow. What I think makes the party after our performance so incredibly fun is that our dancers (the Korean crew) are the best company to have when you are partying. Going out in the crowd is no problem either, because even those that recognize us are so drunk that they just want a picture and say how great we were or ask us to sing for them, and then they move on. Maybe drunken people are easier to handle than fans that follow you around. The sickest thing about the night is when I meet Henrik. I didn’t expect it, I had just been mad at Jonghyun when I said I was going to meet him again but he showed up when we were dancing to some club music, drunk and knowing I was there he was looking for me when hearing 5 Pieces was partying. He is as good looking as before, just drunk. The thing that bugs me the most when seeing him is that I can’t stop thinking of Jonghyun. Instead of being close to Henrik tonight, I avoid him, I really don’t want to be near him because he reminds me of Jonghyun and I even grab Maria’s arm to ask her for help. I haven’t been drinking much, a glass or two, but it annoys me that all I think of now when the performance has ended is Jonghyun. I can dance and jump and have fun with our dancers and the crew and my members, but the second a guy from outside our circle enters I am being pulled away by myself to not be too close. And it is not because Jonghyun begged me to not be near any other guy, it is because I get uncomfortable around them. What’s up with that? It’s three in the morning when the car heading to the hotel stops at a gas station for a break and I get out of the car to give Jonghyun a call. I have been thinking of it for hours now and I can’t stop thinking of him and it makes me furious, especially since the other ladies have had a blast – Carolina too – and my head has only been thinking of Jonghyun. He answers the call right away, and in the background I hear he is working. Just as I hear his voice at three in the morning I remember it is Sunday noon in Korea. “I HATE YOU!” I still call out angrily at him, staring at the road with a hand on my hip. “Why does it matter so much that I’m not perfect? Why do I have to be perfect to be with you when you have said love is all that matters?! I don’t get it! I’m far from perfect and I will always have my issues, and even if I don’t tell you everything in my life I will always love you, but why won’t that work?” “You have to be in Sweden to tell me this?” I take a second to think of his question and I hear his background quiets down as if he leaves the room. “No…” “Do you trust me, Hannah?” Jonghyun asks calmly on the phone. He sounds completely different from me, whose chest is rising in frustration. That’s the word he has mentioned before. I grimace as he brings it up. “Alright, I got it,” I strongly say and hang up, turning around and I head back to the van to look inside