My schedule this week was packed with DB commitments, but there was no way I was going to miss the chance to present my line at the grand opening of Lane Crawford’s new Shanghai flagship store. It’s normal to miss things because of personal projects sometimes—like when Sunhee missed the multigroup concert because of the radio awards show, or another time when Mina had to do some reshoots for When I Loved You and missed the seven appearances we had booked for that day. But with the LA concert coming up, I didn’t want to miss any of the group promotional events we have planned. So, I told DB I could make the trip to Shanghai and back in a single day. Now I just have to try to survive it.

When we arrive at Lane Crawford, Jongseok leads me to a greenroom to get prepped. There, Celeste runs me through the event schedule while my hair stylist tries to wrestle my hair into a sleek, complicated twist. Then, I’m whisked out onto a stage they’ve constructed in the middle of the store, under a sparkling glass atrium. Cameras flash in a sea of fans sporting Girls Forever T-shirts and glowing headbands. I present my six bags to the crowd, explaining the inspiration behind them, and sending extra love to my groupmates back home. After the presentation, I get half a minute to down an espresso shot and some fried pork dumplings before I’m back in the greenroom to do some one-on-one interviews with a handful of news outlets, effortlessly switching to greet each one in either Mandarin, English, or Korean. And then, in a blink of an eye, I’m back at Pudong Airport, boarding my flight home.

I wake up just as we’re pulling up to Umma and Appa’s apartment.

“Good night, Rachel,” Jongseok says as he drops me off. “See you tomorrow.”

But his words barely register. I’m already half-asleep again as I trudge up to the door and board the elevator. My bed is calling me like a siren song, but before crawling into it, I sit down at my bamboo desk to compose a thank-you email to Celeste for organizing today’s event. But before I can even open my laptop, sleep finally overtakes me.

Once, when we were in our debut year, Girls Forever had to take a five-hour overnight bus ride from Seoul to Jeonnam on the southern coast. Normally we would have flown, but there was a pilot strike grounding all planes, and there was no way DB was going to let us miss our fansign. When we finally arrived, every picture I took featured my head tilted at an awkward angle—my neck totally bent out of shape from trying to sleep against the bus window all night.

This morning, the crick in my neck is ten times worse.