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"Hey Jisung, what are you doing?"

Mark Lee, eighteen years old and a successful rapper walked into the dressing room of his unit, NCT 2018, and found their Maknae sitting in a chair, his earphones in and laughing about something on his phone. 

The smile of the young boy made Mark chuckle and wanting to know what exactly the teenager was doing. He walked closer, seeing Jisung press Pause on his screen. "Oh, Hyung! I didn't see you coming inside. I am watching 'Welcome to Mari-land'! She is so funny I can't with her!" Jisung chuckled and pressed Play once more.

"Welcome to what?" Mark asked and watched Jisung roll his eyes. "Seriously Hyung? Her debut was amazing!" Jisung pressed Pause once more and took his earphones out. "'Welcome to Mari-land'!" Jisung repeated with a sigh. "It's Ahn Mari's, Reality Show." 

With these words, Jisung turned the phone to Mark, took out his earphones and pressed Play. Mark cocked an eyebrow at the weird camera motions until a young girl was shown on the screen, a cute smile on her lips and her hands folded in front of her chest.

⸬

"After this really embarrassing Mission, I want to take revenge on my super adorable Stylist! If you have any ideas on how I can take revenge on Jisung-oppa, feel free to comment it under this Episode or text me on my SNS! Thanks for watching my Debut-Adventure today and I hope to see you all on one of the Music Shows! Don't forget your Tuque! This was Ahn Mari!"

⸬

Mark stared at the screen for a second. "What did she just say?" - "Don't forget your Tuque," Jisung stuttered the English sentence before looking at Mark. "It's her greeting. It's like how we say 'To the World'." - "I know. But why did she say Tuque?"

"I don't know, Hyung! I don't even know what that word means!" Jisung whined and pulled his phone away from Mark's view. He quickly liked the video and turned the phone off. "Her debut album was amazing. I am a fan. I think I ordered her album. Can't remember. I think I asked Jeno-hyung to order one for me as well."

"How was her name?" Mark asked, still hung on the word Tuque, that the girl in the video said. "Ahn Mari. She debuted on April 2nd." Jisung said and Mark nodded, walking to his own phone. "Ahn Mari? That name is oddly familiar."

― 💌 ―

A chuckle left the young girl's mouth, the handheld camera in her hand shaking.

"Ahn Mari, I swear to god!" A woman called and ran after the freshly debuted singer, sighing. "Come on, don't be like that Mari-yah! They're going to edit all this away anyway." Kim Sora, the manager said and watched the young Canadian lass pout. 

"I'm sorry, Unnie. I just wanted to have some fun. Waiting in the dressing room all the time is so boring." Mari pouted and Kim Sora sighed. "I know. We can go and visit Stray Kids and Twice in a minute. We just need to wait for Jisung-ah to get the lip tint from the car." Sora said and walked back to the dressing room, sitting down on a chair.

Mari followed her, whistling her song before disappearing behind the door as well.

It's been three weeks since Ahn Mari officially debuted with the song <X> under Blue Soda Entertainment, JYP's daughter company. She had enjoyed a few fan signings and Music Shows so far and her fan base grew with each day. 

Mari's style of music was attracting fans worldwide and from every age range. 

She had met a fan from Hawaii in one of her fan signings who was twenty-seven years old and even got a tattoo of <X>'s lyrics. Mari was impressed. And thanks to her speaking English she could attract more attention from other countries.

Sora was typing away on her phone, while Mari looked at her reflection in the mirror. Hong Jisung, her stylist, had finished her makeup when he realized he brought the wrong lip tint with him so he went to pick it up from their car. Ten minutes had passed since then and Mari wanted to chat with her friends and colleagues from Twice and Stray Kids whom she trained with.

Being a soloist could get lonely at times, hence her CEO and Sunbae Ok Taecyeon wanted her to have a lot of friends she could depend on. Her best friends were definitely Twice's Chaeyoung and Stray Kids' Changbin who were both in the same age as her. But even GOT7's BamBam was her friend.

And she liked having her Sunbae's around her. Twice's Jihyo always bought some food for Mari as well, when she went to feed Twice. 

But it was still lonely at sometimes.

Mari sat down in her chair, remembering the times when she was still in Vancouver. She had a best friend back then. But things happened and he moved away. Ever since then, Mari felt lonely way faster than usual. She was living her dream right now. She always sang. Even back in the days when she took guitar lessons in Canada.

It was different now though.

Especially knowing that your former best friend was only a few doors away from you, but probably didn't even recognize you anymore.

"I'm back!" Hong Jisung stumbled into the room, a bottle of pink lip tint in his hands. "Sorry, I got caught up by Stray Kids' Stylist. We were ranting a bit." The twenty-five-year-old chuckled and went over to Mari to dab her lips in the fresh color.

"It's a contrast to your dark clothing," Jisung said and looked at the overall picture in front of him. The 167cm Idol was wearing tight black leather pants, an Alexander McQueen leather top with black ankle boots and a choker plus a loose chain necklace.

After Jisung applied the Lip Tint to her lips Mari looked at herself and chuckled. "I look like I could be part of Red Velvet now." She laughed. "Only with more leather." She chuckled and turned to her manager. "Sora-unnie? Can we visit Chaeyoung now?"