Honestly, Beautiful -- Amber Liu and Eric Nam FF

2. Super nice and slightly crazy

Eric scratched his head and muttered to himself, "What should I cook? What do you want to eat today, llama?" He put away the huge bowl of salad and began opening a can of kidney beans.

He began singing the "Amber is a llama" has he chopped tomatoes. He decided to make vegetarian nachos because both of them loved Mexican flavours.

His mobile phone sang. Amber was Facetiming him.

"Hey is dinner ready? I've just finish my shoot and on the way."

"Yup, almost done. See you soon. Oh, Henry and Kelvin called, they can't make it. It's just you and me I'm afraid."

"That's cool. I'll bring Ben and Jerry's."

"Really. Did you bring some from the States? It's hard to find it anywhere here."

"Tell you when I get there. Soon."

"Okay, let's speed this up," muttered Eric to himself he had cooked under extreme conditions before.

Both of them were currently working in two countries. Going back-and-forth got confusing and frustrating sometimes because when it was seven or eight in the evening in the States, Asia was waking up and texting. Only then Korean group chats began buzzing. When they were in Korea, they got texts really early in the morning or had to wake up really early in the morning for conference calls from America. Without any joint projects they had been flying past each other for months. Finally, they were both in Korea at the same time.

The doorbell rang just as the cheese melted and turned a golden colour. Eric rushed to the door gave Amber a quick hug and then quickly took the food out of the oven. She put the ice cream in the freezer.

"Smells amazing. I'm starving," she said, sitting down. She knew he was an amazing cook.

"Me too. Let's eat."

"Oh, we're missing the wine," she said jumping up. She dug in his kitchen cupboards for the wine glasses. She knew where every thing was. His place was a favourite hang out for all their friends.

"So how did the whole "friends in business" thing work?" asked Eric after savouring his first cheesy bite.

"Eh, it was brilliant...really hard work but so much fun. Actually, at first I wasn't sure if my friendships could withstand the stresses of making music and then going on tour together. I had to give it a go. Just that, I hate touring solo. How do you cope with the loneliness of touring alone?" said Amber between bites.

Eric nodded. On tour, he was always taking selfies of himself chatting to the camera. Having no crazy team members to film or weird conversations or parties, made his Instagram post appear rather solitary. Sighing, he stood up and poured them each a glass of wine.

"I just wanted to do stuff with a group of friends I can trust," she continued. "Also there were opportunities to test out some of my own solutions. You know problems like delays, crossed communication lines and other technical and logistics issues. Some ideas worked better than others."

"So your idea is bunch of friends helping each other put out the best music possible as a gift to my fans.... almost for free. Hmm, sounds like a possible disaster. So many people with so many opinions," said Eric frowning as tasted the pasta. He got up to pepper their food.

"No, no it was a great project. I learnt heaps through that whole process. Only difficulty is that now I'm exhausted," she said. Her eyes lit up as she grinned.

"Are you still friends?" he asked laughing. He had been around kpop groups long enough to know the tensions and strained relationships that came from working together under pressure."

"It's not like kpop. There wasn't that need for everything to be slick, over-rehearsed and perfect. And we made what we could, and we're definitely learning to make our content always better. The whole point is that it means everything to me, just for the fact that I did it with my friends," Amber stared at him earnestly.

Eric grinned and patted her shoulders.

"You really look like llama, glaring like that and chewing on your salad. You're a good friend to many. Kind llama," Eric said heading to the refrigerator.

"Can you not bring up that whole prank thing again?" she said finishing off the last nacho chip.

"I wasn't going to. Good friends always bring rare brands of ice-cream," he said smirking.

"You're a super nice and slightly crazy friend," she said grabbing the bowls.

"Awww... no, you're a super nice and plenty crazy, friend."

"And if you're really a good friend. You would agree, we should do an album together and go on tour together too. I know Henry and Kevin are keen. Come on say yes....." nagged Amber.

"What are we going to sing then?"

"I don't know. We'll write some songs about friendship. Most of the friendship songs at the moment are sappy," urged Amber.

"Nah. Let's just sing a cover for the Pokemon song," said Eric spooning ice cream into his mouth.

"Come on, you wrote about the emotional labor of de-coupling and breaking ups. So, what about writing about ethical, sincere, tender and lovingly friendships," she coaxed. He raised his eyebrows. "You know how to be...be a little more careful with our friends especially through our actions ... Huh, deep right? Come on, Eric..."

"Okay, okay. Let me think about it. I'm picky about my projects because I have so much on. Just because I'm drawn to a very diverse range of music and enjoy experimenting with musical styles, doesn't mean I'll do just anything," he warned.

"But think about the theme. Surely you agree, romance can't be the ultimate standard of relationships. How many songs and stories have there been about unrequited love, being friendzoned and looking for the right one that would make all of life problems fade away?" Amber said lifting up Eric's right hand high above his head. He stopped eating. 

"On the other hand, there is hardly anything written about friendship," she said putting his left hand way down towards the ground. Then pointing to his hands, she said, "This isn't real....it isn't artistically honest. Come on you agree with me right?" Her ice cream was melting in the bowl.

"Right. Okay. I agree. Friendship can be beautiful, healing and more accessible than finding the one true love. Let me think about it, okay?" said Eric clearing the bowls and putting them in the dishwasher.

"Yay. Now to ask the other guys at the ASC special talk show. If they say yes, you have to join us. Promise?" asked Amber grabbing her cap.

"That's the car's downstairs. Let's go. No nagging in the car, otherwise you're catching a cab," said Eric grabbing his bag and dragging her arm.

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The longer version of the talk show "A Song for You."

and Amber answers questions while eating mangoes.