A Year to Change Your Lives

Chapter 27

"Well, that was extremely intense!" grumbled Laura who was flopped, back on floor legs up against a wall and panting.

"It was good. Felt good, right?" Huffed Reader brightly, keeping herself upright despite the urge to assume a similarly defeated pose as Laura.

"No. Nothing about that last hour felt good. I think it might be best if you work out on your own from now on. I can take on more of a coaching role." Laura swung her legs down and, looking a little like a beetle who'd rolled onto it's back, struggled to make it onto her front as a stepping-stone to standing again.

"Shut up! It's good for us. Keeps us energetic, keeps us fit, keeps us young and beautiful!" enthused Reader, stretching herself out as Jungkook had taught her to do months ago.

"Listen. Being professionally young and beautiful if your job. My job is to speak Korean and English. Would you like to know how to say 'you're a maniac' in Korean?"

"I would love to listen to anything you've got to say but we have to shower otherwise we're going to be late for the thingy." Pointed out Reader, swigging water from her bottle and throwing bits and pieces into her kit bag then starting to gather Laura's possessions too.

"You go, I'll just stay here and die for a second."

"You're going to be late." Called Reader, already moving towards the showers.

"I'll skip the conditioner!"

In the shower, Reader soothed her aching legs with her thumbs and let the coldest water she could bear take the heat out of her cheeks which were still pink from the exercise. She and Laura had been working out every day since they'd arrived back in Seoul earlier that month. Their sessions had become more punishing over the last two days because Reader was agitating about a very important wardrobe fitting she had the to go to. The pressure to conform had never really left her but she was trying to manage her urges to shrink by exercising and focusing on strength and tone rather than starving herself. The stress of not being with the boys, and especially Jungkook left her vulnerable to slip into historic bad habits, so she was putting herself and Laura through the ringer instead.

The fitting was for an outfit for Reader to wear when attending The American Billboard Awards. BTS were performing and were nominated in four categories. It was old news that they were nominated as the call had come in a couple of months ago and with their phenomenal comeback album, it had been expected. But Reader, who didn't keep an eye on these things the way she maybe should have done, hadn't realised how close they were to the awards, or just how important it was to the boys and everyone around them. When she'd been newly in Seoul, the boys had spent a lot of the autumn preparing for and then performing at various prestigious award ceremonies around the world, leave her behind for a few days. But now, she was being asked to go with them.

She had met with one of the groups managers and the public relations team the morning after they'd arrived back in Seoul to discuss the media strategy for "the club video" as it was now being called. Amongst other manoeuvres they was pulling out, she was told it was being made possible for her to attend the awards, to appear on the circa forty minute video special of the boys attendance and generally to look like a well behaved and virtuous lady. Reader, agreeing to try her best for them, had done a little cartwheel in her head at the thought of attending such a glitzy event. In her mind, she would be sat between Beyonce and Kid Rock and would be hailed as one of the evening's best dressed.

Before that though, there were a couple of other kinks to be worked out.

ARMY were starting to pay very close attention to all of the footage that HYBE had released over the last six months. Anything between she and Jungkook was being re-examined and reconsidered, not just by the media team working with her, but by eagle-eyed fans who were looking for clues as to why Jungkook had behaved the way he had in that tape.