A Year to Change Your Lives

Chapter 4

Reader found that after a couple of weeks, she was better able to handle each day in its entirety without being reduced to tears every couple of hours. She thought this was more because she knew what to expect than because the workload had lessened.

She worked with each of the boys individually for about 5 hours each day depending on everyone's schedule which they were accommodating her into and which didn't include the every-morning punishing runs that she took with Jungkook. The amount of time she spent with each was varying though, mostly because Jin still didn't have much to go through with her and because Namjoon and Yoongi had all but given up on her career as a rapper.

"It may be that when we get the song, there'll be a place for it but without practicing it's very hard." They had concluded in not as many words one day. Instead, her time with the two rappers and Mr Worldwide Handsome was spent at either end of the day, during her other lessons, or teaching them English over lunch.

Jin in particular seemed keen to generally hang out and he said this was because he needed to get to know Reader for when she had her formal introduction to ARMY. Reader though this particularly dedicated of him but said nothing. When they were together he was more interested in speaking Korean with Laura.

Most of her rehearsal time was spent with J Hope in a dance studio, working through different parts of different routines. Hoseok had told her early on that for the concerts they performed together, rather than replacing one of the other seven, their routines would be re-choreographed to suit a cast of 8 and similarly she'd be pitching in with vocals but would likely only solo on the new stuff. Reader had tried to look as though these were normal sentences for her to hear.

She was becoming used to working in front of the mirror and rather than avoiding her reflection at all costs, she'd focus in on different body parts, learning to control each joint individually. By the time she'd been with them for about a month, she and he could work through Dynamite without too many errors. Although watching them together in the mirror was still like watching a gazelle next to a jellyfish.

Many of the nights when she was released with Laura to be taken back to the apartment by the river, the BTS members would not join them. They had various engements well into the evening, and for the sake of not blowing her identity just yet, she didn't joint them for anything. She supposed they also had social lives to speak of, so it was rare that they were all at their home. Rarer still that they all spent time as a full group. But there'd often be two or three around, in the kitchen or in front of the television. Sometimes they all ate together, sometimes it was a free for all.

"It must have taken them a long time to get used to each other." Reader mused one day when she and Laura were finishing putting the kitchen back together. Reader thought it was important to make a contribution by doing the chores and the kitchen was always in a state of chaos. She suspected some of the boys of leaning into hers and Laura's willingness to help out but she didn't mind. It was clear form the outset how hard they all worked so she could cheerfully do a bit of housekeeping for them.

"Actually, I think it's the other way around." Said Laura, drying and stacking the plates. "They've lived together for so long, I don't think they'd know how to live with anyone else, or without each other."

The personalities that she experienced when they were at work, in individual lessons, were exactly the same as those at the house. RM, or Namjoon, as he'd insisted she call him and Suga were thoughtful and calm. Hoseok and Jimin were physical and playful and Jin and Taehyung were cheerful and silly. They were all nice to her, treating her the same way you treat any foreign guest. Overly polite and accommodating, but with the language barrier a constant problem, they didn't often speak directly to each other.