Pop Star || Yoongi x Reader

60. Perfectly Legal

You take deliberate care to avoid looking at DK when you reenter the conference room. Instead, you give your mom a reassuring nod before resuming your seat. Now that you know what you have to do, you feel quiet on the inside. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't. But panicking won't help anyway.

The moderator for today's meeting is Dr. Anita Kumari, a marine biologist and professor from the University of California - and the most influential opinion across the table. If she came to your side, enough people would follow. After your mother is done making a case against keeping DK as the ED, Dr. Anita motions you to take the floor next.

"I believe you more to tell us, Y/N?"

Before you can respond, the secretary from earlier walks in and whispers something in Dr. Anita's ear.

"Is it necessary?" she asks. He whispers something else. "I see."

"Can I request you all to submit your phones for the duration of the meeting?" he says and starts giving everyone a recycled paper bag to put in their devices. It is not a request at all. A round of murmurings goes around the table. This has never happened before.

"Which paranoid person's idea is this?" DK cuts in, refusing to part with his phones.

"I'm afraid I'll have to take those," the secretary says, taking out a slim metal detector to frisk him for any hidden devices.

You smile inwardly. This was Monica's move.

"This is a sensitive meeting, DK," Dr. Anita answers. "What do we have to lose, let's follow protocols, shall we?"

He is pissed, but antagonizing her won't help his cause, so he submits.

You wait for the secretary to leave before taking the floor.

"Before I begin, I would like to thank you all for taking out time from your other commitments to be here - that too on such a short notice - and at the behest of someone who has stayed away from this room for so long."

You pause, giving a tiny bow. It's a habit you've picked up from your time in South Korea. You wait until you have all eyes on you. Time to do what you came for.

"As Mr. DK has so succinctly put, you all are well-equipped to judge the truth and to judge what's better for Prakriti going forward. With that in mind, I have prepared something that I'm sure will be of interest to this gathering, and perhaps provide a less - antagonizing - solution to our present issue."

DK isn't looking at you, but he is hanging on to every word of yours. What the hell had you planned? You weren't supposed to be going ahead with such confidence. And the indifference - he knew he could affect you, so why weren't you affected now? How could you not care? Whatever it was, he needed to act now. Curiosity, however, keeps him tied to his chair.

"At Prakriti, we have one simple goal - for humanity to coexist with nature so that we and our children can have a peaceful life. It's a goal that unites all of us, that drives us, and our passion has brought us to the forefront of change - sustainable, positive change in 17 of the world's biggest cities, affecting the lives of at least 37 million people."

The secretary from earlier plays a video by the same research team that had contacted you earlier. The lights of the room dim as the projector lights up a screen behind you. You wait for the minute-long video demonstrating their latest project to get over. You glance at your mum, she gives a tiny nod. So far, so good.

"As we have just seen, our research team has only gotten better and better at finding solutions for issues that plague urban settlements. And their success has brought us more and more attention of the people who share our goals and have the means to see them achieved. I am truly pleased to announce that funding for our projects is at an all-time high."