The Definition Of Forever (Inked Hearts 1)

Twenty-one

AN:
I know I just posted a few minutes ago but I thought I'd be nice and post the ready of the "day" as it were.

Enjoy!

Diana first person pov:

I really don't know how I got here.

After stretching and warming up with Jake, I went to get a drink of water with the boys, who all seem nice, when Hosek (the guy who my cousin Ara calls her sunshine baby) asked me to teach him to do contortion chest rolls. So I showed them, but it didn't stop there, no. They actually wanted to learn.

Now they don't look like the type of people that "have what it takes" to be contortionist if you know what I mean. So I don't expect to get anything out of them.

I start them off with some stretches to see how bendable they are. Apparently their method for when a pose is hard is to drag one of their Hyungs over and make them try it.

I'm starting to feel bad for Yoongi, who the others like to tease the most about his non flexible body. I manage to get some decent back bends out of some of them, but don't get me started on their attempts at splits: "OOOWW!" "MY LEGS!!" "THE PAIN!" although Jimin is able to do a decent spilt.

I've also noticed Jimin's soulmate tattoo: a rose circling his ring finger on his right hand. Though it's surrounded by whiter skin, I realize that the rings he wears aren't just a fashion choice. A clever way to keep it hidden.

AN: (Photo above, imagine it rapping around his finger instead.)

We've just finished the basics of my first warm up when Cheol calls us back into the smaller room.

"So we've done some thinking of what you should be doing when we add in clips of just you." He talks to you in Korean, and Jake translates when I don't understand something,

"Jake thinks that you can handle harder levels of contortion, trapeze, but first we need to test that, so you and Jake will be trying out all kinds of moves and levels of difficulty."

I look to Jake and ask: "So we're just going to be trying out a bunch of stuff to see what works for the video so you guys can create actual choreography?"

"Basically. You ready?"

"I'm good." I reply and walk back into the gym with Jake. Now you might not know this about what I do but, when you're working with a partner, you really have to be able to trust them.

The only person I've really done this with is my friend Thomas from LA. And now I have to learn to trust a whole bunch of other people for this job. You could say I'm worried and you'd be right. But I'm not going to let that stop me, so far everyone here has been really nice.

I follow Jake to the large gymnastics mat and he turns to look at me: "let's start with some basic flips and balancing exercises, then hop right in."

"Ok. You lead, I'll follow." I say nodding.

We walk to the edge and he kicks up to a handstand and walks to the middle of the mat, turns around and goes the rest of the way backward.

I take a breath and kick up after him. After years of practicing, it's easy to find the balance point on my hands and walk upside down.

Have you ever taken a good look at the horizon over an ocean? And I mean a Good look. The way the water almost leaps to the sky as the waves brush the fine line.

Being upside down for long periods of time is like that: you're steady, in balance, but there's always the pull of gravity to knock you off balance and tip to the floor.

Next we walk the whole way still on our hands, but this time moving our legs as if we're running. This time though he waits so we're walking next to each other and he starts to talk to me: asking about me, my life, my likes and dislikes. I return the questions and find that we have a lot of things in common.

Remember what I said about trusting each other? Well the first step is to learn more about each other and build a relationship.

After we jump straight into different flips and twists, then we start to get into more tricky moves: me standing on his head, him spinning me around while I'm in a standing split, balancing on his back, rolling on his back, all while chatting and learning about each other.

We move from station to station like that: bars, ropes, hoops, and finally trapeze (we don't really talk much during that one. I think you can guess why) but by then we'd both gotten a lot more comfortable with each other.

Flipping through the air, trusting each other to not let the other fall.

***

Jungkook third person pov:

They'd just finished the song. All of them were on the floor breathing hard. But that's nothing unusual. Jungkook looked over, through the open double doors and gazed at what they behold:

Diana and Jake were in the air on two different trapeze bars, suddenly Diana let go and flipped in the air before Jake caught her and the two swung a few more times before releasing, and flipping to the net below.

He watched as they landed on the floor and high fived before walking over to them in the other room. Jake walked over the Cheol to give his report but not before giving Jin a pat on the shoulder. Diana on the other hand walked straight up to the boys and joined them on the floor.

"Is this what it's like everyday for you?" she asked no one in particular.

"This is one of the better days." Yoongi answered, still lying face down on the floor.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, besides rehearsals we have photo shoots, Run episodes, recording, song writing, fan meets, workout sessions, and so on."

"What about you? How are things going?" Namjoon asked her.

"We're still on step one." She replied letting out a laugh.

"That was step one!?!" Hoseok asked with wide eyes as he pointed at the gym referring to the tricks that she and Jake were doing earlier.

"Ohh, no that's not what I meant." She said, shaking her head. "I meant the whole process"

"What do you mean?" Jungkook asked her, leaning up on his knees.

"Well, when you do the type of work that I do you have to go through a certain routine every time." She answers but Jungkook angled his head in confusion so she continued in Korean to the best of her ability.

"Gymnastics, trapeze, contortion, for all of those, when you're working with a partner, you really have to build a relationship: Trust. You have to... to.... Oh what's the word in Korean?" she asks Namjoon in English and he translates: Put in effort and make friends.

The boys all nod and she continues:

"Every time. It gets tiring, but it's just part of the job. That's why trapeze artists all have such good friends." She says and the boys laugh.

"What about you guys? What's it like being in a k-pop?"

"I get endlessly teased by these idiots!" Yoongi says exasperated, but it only leads to more teasing from the boys.

"No, It's really cool to have so many people like our music!" Namjoon says after the boys calm down.

"It gets hard sometimes, but there's nothing quite like the feeling when the audience claps and cheers for you." Jungkook says and looks back at Diana to find her smiling and nodding at him.

"Army is everything."

***

Hours later Jungkook was lying on his bed trying to sleep.

She was amazing. Not just her talent, and she really was talented AF. No, he thought he knew her from the YouTube videos, but seeing her today. No. He realized that there was so much more to her, and he really wanted to learn.

Tomorrow. He'd see her again tomorrow.

AN:

🥰🥰🥰
-Leia