Inside a café in Cheongdam-dong, Mae sat on a corner seat on the second floor. The untouched cappuccino reflected her fan-like eyelashes, which slightly swayed as she gazed at nothingness, her head slightly tilted towards the window. After a while, a man in his early twenties wearing a cricket cap joined in the reflection.

Mae raised her head to look at him – Dang Si Kyeong changed a lot over the years: He grew taller, his eyes became bigger and nose became higher due to the procedures he went through; his overall style matured to be more fashionable and sleek; even the vibe he gave off was different from what she remembers – becoming an idol turned him into a walking hormone. 

"Wow, Dang Si Kyeong, you are becoming more handsome day by day!" Mae grinned as she checked him out, finger twisting around a few strands of her hair.

"Oh God, Yeomrim please stop, you are making me uncomfortable, eww." Dang Sikyeong twisted his face to fake disgust and sat down on the seat across her.

Mae shrugged her shoulder, still smiling.

Sikyeong rolled his eyes and threw his phone to her: "Take a really nice picture for me, I need to post it on Instagram."

"So I am your photographer now?" Mae complained but didn't reject him.

Sikyeong smirked and looked at the camera, ready to be photographed.

After making Mae take 800 pictures and updating each other with their lives, Sikyeong finally got to the point.

"I know how talented you are in this, will you make me famous and manage the fandom?" He was blunt and honest while making his offer, "You know how I am just starting out, I need help, I need a good and solid fan base, and I need someone to control them."

"Someone outside the agency I am in." He added, staring at her, trying to read through her expressions.

Mae took a small sip of her coffee, she didn't reply immediately, she was still digesting what he suggested.

After a minute of silence, she asked as she made eye contact with him: "Why me?"

"I don't trust anyone else, especially not someone in the industry. And I don't know anyone else who is as capable as you are." His sincere eyes stared into hers.

Mae nodded and asked: "Just for you or the group?"

"Your wish, I don't mind. But I want back up if things get ugly."

"But what will you do after I go back to Canada?"

"Your influence will remain," His voice imbued with confidence, "And I know how good you are at discovering talents, you will find someone to take your place."

"I'll check your group out, but I am not promising anything." She nodded.

After Mae went home, she searched Sikyeong's agency's Youtube channel. His group, consisting five members including Sikyeong, will debut soon. 

After thoroughly researching, Mae sent a text to Sikyeong saying "I'll do it" and opened a new group on Facebook, a groupchat on QQ, and a Baidu Bar – all naming after their group "Five".

She is not doing all of these for free, Sikyeong will pay her on a monthly basis. She doesn't need money but she wanted to become independent for a long time and this is her chance to at least try to do that. Moreover, this experience might also help her in the future when she enters the workplace. Mae's father is the chairman of one of the top entertainment labels in Mainland China and her mother is the China Branch C.E.O of one of the best selling fashion magazines, even her brother opened a marketing company in Canada five years ago in his fourth year of undergrad. Although she is currently majoring computer science, this runs in her blood and she gets excited every time.

Mae didn't accept the offer just for money though, the members of Five are all talented, their voices and dance moves grabbed her attention and she couldn't stop watching that dance practice video over and over again. 

Mae shared their dance practice video on What the Asian pop - a Facebook page she runs to promote Asian pop. She then sent the Youtube link on the group chat consisting several admins of different kpop pages.

"I just found this, they seem pretty talented." Mae typed and included a heart emoji in the end.

Her message was quickly seen by the members in the group chat, she didn't loiter on Facebook, giving the members the time to watch the video as she worked on planning how to influence more people to fall for this new group who rose her interest.

Within ten minutes, the group chat was flooded with people fangirling over the talented rookies. Most of them even shared the video on their pages within minutes with captions like "Check this out", "This group is so lit", and "Can't wait for them to debut".

The next day Mae woke up to Sikyeong's call at eight in the morning.

"What?" Mae's voice was horsey, she still couldn't open her heavy eyes properly.

"Man you are so freaking fast, the views of our dance practice tripled overnight." Sikyeong was way too excited to share the news that he didn't care about what Mae has to say about him ruining her beauty sleep.

"You can reward me with a limited edition Birkin bag. I know you have the connection to get it." Mae tried to sit up and moved to the washroom.

"I don't actually, my dad took all my credit cards back after I decided to drop out of college to do this. And he is not talking to me now."

"Oh wow, why would you go against his will then?"

"Medicine is not my thing. I'll die if I have to study that much."

Mae sneered as she filled her cup with water.

"Anyways, you free tonight? I want to enjoy being a normal person for one last time before becoming famous. Let's go clubbing!"

"I thought your dad took back all your credit cards."

"I got my sister's card."

Mae became speechless. If this was an anime, you would have seen a crow flying over her head while cawing three times in a row.

After cutting off the phone, Mae checked her Facebook to see the number of shares as she brushed her teeth. She then switched to Weibo to see if anyone posted the video of Five, but there seem to be nothing yet. She sighed internally, the kpop ban in China does have some effects on this. While it didn't bother the A-list celebrities that much, the rookies went unnoticed. There's still a long way to go.

Later that night, Sikyeong brought her to the club where she first saw the other side of Min Cheol. As soon as they entered, the blasting sound of music seemed to have faded and memories swirled through her mind until the DJ changed the song to WT's new hit.

"Min Cheol is so famous now, God knows when I'll catch up."Sikyeong sighed, his eyes coated with mixed emotions that were hard to interpret.

Sikyeong was never the kind to sit still for more than thirty minutes. After a while of chatting and drinking, he went to the dance floor, leaving Mae sitting beside the bar scrolling through her phone.

Mae was wearing a light orange dress from Giambattista Valli haute couture, collocating with a pair of nude patent leather Jimmy Choo pointy toe pump, the soft and delicate material felt airy on her skin and made her look like a Greek goddess. Her brown hair was styled to her right, showing off her alluring neck. The rosy touch of her cheeks caused by alcohol made her even more enchanting.

It didn't take long for strangers to try to strike up a conversation with her, she responded to them inattentively while her mind wandered through time.

She didn't stay single for all these years after leaving Korea, she dated a few men set up by her mother. All of them were born with golden spoons; they were all smart and talented enough to be the perfect match for her – or her family. But nothing seemed right, she would have called them by any cheesy nicknames she could think of – "darling", "honey", "sweetie" – no matter how cringe-worthy they sounded, fearing that she will accidentally call out the name of someone else, someone buried deep inside her heart.

The person beside her kept on blabbering drunken words.

If this was a movie, Min Cheol probably would have dramatically appeared and asked the person beside her to leave. But, unfortunately, she was still stuck here with her gay high school best friend, Dang Sikyeong, who finally came back to sit beside Mae to drive away the person who sat beside her for more than ten minutes: "She's with me, you can leave now."

After the stranger left, Sikyeong turned his head to look at Mae while brushing his mint hair backward.

His eyes lingered on Mae's outfit and her face as he commented: "You are more popular than me in the club I see."

"So you are admitting that you are not attractive enough," Mae smirked but didn't look at him while answering.

"But honestly though, when are you going to stop thinking about him?" Sikyeong narrowed his eyes.

Mae's eyelashes trembled, she didn't reply, her finger kept circling the mouth of the cocktail glass.

"I know you applied for exchange to see him, there cannot be any other reason," Sikyeong kept going on.

Mae tucked her hair behind her ears and interrupted his continuous blabbering: "Are you free this Saturday?"

"Stop changing the topic!" He twisted his face but soon allowed his curiosity to take over him, "Why though?"

"I bought tickets for WT's concert."

"Oh God, see! And I was wondering why you are taking so long to make a move!"

QQ: A Chinese social network like MSN. 

Baidu Bar: A Chinese fan cafe, a mature kpop idol's Baidu Bar often equals to tens and sometimes even hundreds of fan sites. (depends on how popular they are in China)

Weibo: Chinese Twitter.

What the Asian Pop is actually my friend's page. She just opened it a few weeks ago? I'm bad with names, so I'll just use that XD

You guys can go and follow that page, it has some good contents.