A Year to Change Your Lives

Chapter 26

Once everyone was seated round, the found the video easily enough online. At first it was thought to be club CCTV but it was definitely a handheld camera. They all agreed that because the security team had been handling the unfolding situation, no one was looking at the crowd.

For the start of the video, Laura and Reader were both in the toilet and so the film was mainly just panning around the boys. It seemed that there was no sound or the quality wasn't worth showing because it had been backed with generic music making It seem more cinematic than it was.

Laura moved back into the view of the camera and sat with Jungkook, gesturing over to where they all knew, Reader was stood at the bar.

Laura, who was unaccustomed to seeing herself on camera the way the others were baulked and hid her head behind a cushion. Namjoon looked too stressed for anyone to joke with her at this particular moment.

When the disturbance started and Jungkook, Namjoon and Jin leapt up, whoever was filming didn't seem to know what had happened and it took the swivelling footage a bit of time to broaden out until it was focusing on Reader at the bar. It was clear that these guys were creeps, but neither Reader, nor the audience of this footage had seen why the boys were overly concerned.

As followed, Laura arrived next to Reader, tried to pull her away and the girls listened to their over-bearing apologies with obvious discomfort.

The frame moved slightly towards where the three members were still standing, now with Tae and Jimin, all of whom were half looking at the girls and half looking at Jungkook.

There was another jerky movement of the camera back to Reader and Laura which just caught the first man, who'd tried to kiss Reader staggering back holding his balls and then his accomplice reared his hand back and clipped her around the cheek. It was horrible to watch, as violence always is, and all the boys pressed in a little on her murmuring their discomfort at seeing her assaulted. Jungkook held her to his chest and swore under his breath. She held his hands around her, squeezing their fingers together.

In the next frame, Jungkook was there, from nowhere. Filmed from the side, you couldn't see his face but his arms were flung across the girls who were now holding onto each other, Laura encapsulating Reader in her embrace. As she had remembered, in a matter of a second, Jungkook was joined by more of the members and the security team who filled up the frame, but there was a clear view of him extracting Reader from Laura's arms and embracing her desperately while she huddled against him. It only lasted a moment before Yoongi helpfully, if inadvertently, moved across the line of site and Reader knew by the time the camera found them again, she'd be equally wrapped up by Jimin as well.

Indeed, there she was again, being spoken to by Jin, inspected by Laura and had a smattering of boys around her, Jungkook just one of them. The footage cut off abruptly as someone stepped in front of the frame, presumably to tell her to stop filming, although on what authority they'd done that, she could guess.

When it cut off everyone remained silent for a moment.

"Go back a bit." Namjoon said and Jimin scrolled through the progress bar to where they all knew he was talking about, to the second after Reader was hit, and everything between she and Jungkook in the 6 seconds that followed that. They all inspected it tensely now. Exactly how much ahead of the others was he? Did Reader reach for him or he for her first? Where did he put his hands on her? Did he press his lips into her hair as he calmed her?

Hoseok spoke and Laura who'd slipped comfortably into a professional translator gear murmured next to Reader, "I think it shows they're close."

Everyone nodded just a little.