A Year to Change Your Lives

Chapter 23

Under Laura's watchful eye, Reader had eaten better than she'd done in months. It was easy to eat fully in Asia without eating badly and all the food she'd had put in front of her was colourful and fresh and beautiful to taste.

"Thank you for this!" Reader exclaimed, tucking into the salmon she'd been brought and thinking she'd never tasted anything better.

"You're welcome! In fairness to you, I don't think I could ever look at another instant ramen again!" grumbled Laura, bemoaning the standard cuisine on tour.

"I know, I don't know how the boys do it!" Agreed Reader.

They ate their dinner jovially and Reader acknowledged to herself and to Laura that she was feeling much more assured and much less delicate after a couple of nights sleep and a few good meals, to say nothing of the fabulous accommodation they were enjoying.

"I feel bad though, the poor boys don't get to recover like this."

"No, but they are more used to it than you are, and none of them are having to learn new skills like you." She pointed out through a mouthful of spinach and rice.

"I think I need to do more to support Jungkook. I mean, I know how important this project is and I sort of feel like there's little left I can do now until we get the music from the boys and the studio. And when all of this is over, I want him to see me more than just a thing he was doing until the end of this year."

"Oh, babe, don't sell yourself short." Exclaimed Laura, "I don't think that's how he sees you at all. I think if I was talking to someone about you, I'd be describing you as like a solid couple." She continued, her mouth full.

"Pretty weird couple." Grumbled Reader. Laura smiled sadly.

"That's just the way it has to be. As soon as you forget that, it's over."

"I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but how can you bear it with Jin. How he behaves?"

Laura shook her head. "When we're alone, he's all mine and he worships me. He won't be doing this – not in the same way anyway – when he's 50 and that's the part I care about. I'm just playing a very long game, hoping he still feels the same way when this is all over."

"God, you are so much more philosophical that I would be." She shook her head.

"We just didn't start out the way you guys did. There was plenty of fire back in the early days but that part just ran its course. Right now I'm just being whatever he needs me to be for him."

Reader, who only wanted good for Laura and had never seen evidence of the 'worshiping-Jin' she was describing continued with her badgering, "And you don't find it just a little... demeaning."

Laura gave her a warning look, "And you don't think I'm the first woman in history to stand behind the man she loves. And by the way, when this is all over, what are you planning to do?" She asked coolly.

Reader bobbed her head, "Fair point."

They agreed to drop it there and Reader was conscious of the similarities she now saw in her relationship with Jungkook and Laura's with Jin, whereas a month before, she could only see the differences.

Later that evening, before she went to bed for the last time in Nikko, she called Jungkook, knowing he'd be off stage and at least on his way back to wherever they were staying now.

"Hi you." She said softly when he answered.

"Oh, hello." He said casually.

"Are you with people?" She asked recognising his indifferent tone for what it was.