Paper Dolls

Chapter 3

1/1/2019

Dear Eun Young,

I know you're used to your fans calling you Dalia. I admit I used to be one of them too, fans I mean. I don't like to refer to myself as your fan anymore. I feel what we have is more, a connection deeper than I've ever felt before.

This will be my first ever letter to you and most definitely not the last. To be honest I feel like talking to you every day. I want to tell about everything that happens to me, every argument, every conversation, every incident worth mentioning. I called you on that vlive the other day but you looked exhausted and you begged the others to stop calling you so I cut the line.

Since then I've decided that I will write to you instead but I know your manager checks all your letters so maybe one day once you're finally free I will send them all in one go.

And then we can finally be together.

I'm patient, I will wait for that day. I know the lifespan of a Kpop idol isn't long and your popularity won't last much longer either. Soon Sweet Poison will be replaced by a younger more energetic version and then people would lose interest in you.

But I promise you I never will because I'm waiting for that very day as we speak.

Till then I won't harass you. I won't invade the personal space that you so obviously crave every time I see you in a crowd. Even though all I want to do is pull you away so that we can be alone.

The closest I've ever gotten to you is through a camera lens and I intend to keep it that way for now. That's why I'm writing to you. Because I can't keep what I feel for you inside anymore.

I can't talk about things like this to my parents or my friends. They'd all think I'm crazy. In fact I don't think I can talk about anything with people who have known me my whole life.

I can sit in a crowded room at a family event and still feel like a stranger. My family has a way of making me feel like that, sometimes even my closest friends but anyway I digress. That is a story for another day.

Today I want to talk about you and how all of this started. It's funny really, I used to like someone else until you caught my eye, until you ensnared my entire heart in that entrancing web you spin with your face and hypnotic voice.

People say you never forget your first and to be honest before you there was someone else I really truly liked. Now it feels childish but then I used to think the world of her. She was your sunbae, from the same company as you. I'm sure you know Kina, the lead singer from your senior sister group Blackswan.

Before you there was the short and tiny, baby faced Kina, main dancer and lead rapper of Blackswan. I used to watch all of her vlives. I immersed myself in all of Blackswan's merchandise and of course every concert they had in both Korea and Japan. I spent every dime I saved on her but then her group went on hiatus and it was the slowest torture I had ever endured.

I have to admit my frustration with your company is immense. I hate that they make their girl groups go through the longest of hiatuses and barely market their comebacks as much as they do with the boy groups. The sexism is painfully obvious and my heart was in pieces when PT entertainment announced that they were launching another girl group.

Blackswan only had two albums and one ridiculously mini album by then. They'd barely made their mark in the world and now another group was going to steal their thunder. I hated it. I hated your group for destroying Kina's short lived career.

I didn't want to support any part of Sweet Poison's debut even though your group's first song blew up the internet. I mean what kind of name is Sweet Poison? It's like your company thought it would be a genius move to come up with an oxymoron that made no sense at all.