A Year to Change Your Lives

Chapter 3

The next morning Reader tried not to hear the persistent knocking that was at her bedroom door. For a moment or two she thought this might work but when it came again, louder, she shook herself awake and scrambled for her phone and the bedside light. Sitting up in a daze and making sure she was decent she called. "Yes? Yes!" and the door opened. With the light cast in from the hallway Reader could see that Laura wasn't in the other bed. It was just her and her awakener. She recognised the global sensation of Jeon Jungkook standing silhouetted in the doorway beckoning at her.

She glanced at her phone's screen; 6am! She got up without complaint.

At the doorway the rest of the apartment was quiet although Reader could hear city sounds all around her.

"Get dressed." Said Jungkook matter of factly and then mimed a sort of running on the spot. He gestured back and forth between himself and her and said "I'm running."

Err. Right. She nodded bleakly at him and returned to her room behind the closed door to change groggily into a pair of leggings and sweatshirt. She had been prepared for exercise. She just hadn't known it would be quite this soon or that it would be a wintry 6am jog!

She met him at the door and looked around her in the living room. "Where's Laura?" she asked him clearly and hopefully. He seemed to neither know what she meant nor wanted to take the time to find out.

She only had her phone and her ear buds but she didn't even have a key to the apartment. She assumed he did as it was his home. Without so much as a backward glance at her he strode off, already making selections on his own phone for music. He called for the lift and they rode down in silence. She had wondered about the wisdom of she and he being seen together outside but realised, as she looked around the street lit labyrinth, that this gated community was only for the elite and that the residents were likely used to seeing the likes of Bantang Boys out and about.

"Okay" he said, his breath turning to steam in the crisp air. And he set off at an alarming pace.

Reader tried for about five minutes to keep up but then called him name and halted, putting her hands on her knees and panting. He wheeled back to her but kept bouncing from foot to foot.

"You go." She offered, not wanting to disrupt him routine. Her jetlagged body was protesting and she longed for a cup of tea and some toast. Not likely.

"No." He replied sternly, still jogging on the spot.

"Okay." She said, regaining her posture. "Then slow." She mimed slowing with her hands. He nodded once sharply and offered her to go ahead so that she could set the pace. She went as slow as she dared and was pleased to find that she could keep up a steady, if unimpressive speed for about thirty minutes before she nudged him and slowed down to a walk.

Jungkook, who looked in exactly the same condition as when they set off observed her sweaty and red-faced form woefully. He pointed up ahead and Reader recognised the entrance to their building. He must have planned to be back in thirty minutes. She nodded, still trying to catch her breath and matched his pace all the way back to the door. Once back inside the flat, he turned and walked away from her as though nothing at all had happened and she fell against the door putting her cold palms to her boiling cheeks.

An hour later she was washed, dressed, reunited with Laura and back in yet another car on her way to the studio. Where the rest of them were, who knew.

She was first taken to a big dressing studio where a short woman, who made no effort to talk to her even via Laura, stood her on a pedestal and started wrapping a tape measure around various parts of her body. She'd yelp out little instructions to a table of silent sewers who would rush away and come hurrying back with a roll of fabric which they'd drape around her.