"Hello, Anna."
"H-hello?"
"Boys, I think Anna needs some calming down before we start. What did you say to her?!"
Taehyung, who was sitting nearest to where Anna was standing, pulled the shaking girl into his lap and held her tightly. The sight of the CEO had only solidified her fears that something serious must have happened. However, slowly but surely, she started to relax. She loved cuddling with all of her soulmates, but Namjoon, Taehyung and Jin in particular always made her feel small, in the best way.
"When you are ready Anna, we will start."
"I'm ready. Sorry."
"It's okay."
Anna tried to move from Taehyung's lap, but the cuddly bear would not let her go.
"Tae!"
Flustered, she glanced at Bang PD, but he just smiled and waved off her apologies, used to the boys' antics, before gesturing to Namjoon to begin.
"First, we just need to check. Have you been out by yourself recently?"
"Umm, yes. Yesterday I went out for lunch... was I not supposed to?"
"No. Of course, you can go out whenever you want. That's not the problem... Just show her."
One of the staff members Anna didn't know turned their laptop towards Anna so that she could see what was on the screen. It was a picture of her leaving the housing complex where BTS lived yesterday.
"Why...? How did...? That's me!"
Anna pulled the laptop closer and studied the photo. It really was her. Why was there a photo of her, who took it and how did Bang PD get it? She recognised the page the photo was on as a news article. Although she couldn't understand the title, she recognised Bangtan Sonyeondan.
As she scrolled down the page, she discovered that there were more photos. There were photos from every time she had been near BTS in public: the first time she visited their company's building, with their staff at the airport, at their concert in Japan.
Anna didn't want to believe what she was looking at as she continued to stare at the screen, flicking back and forth between the photos. As much as she had known that going public would happen one day, she had thought that it would be planned, and she would be prepared beforehand.
"It's not unusual for Dispatch to linger around our neighbour in hopes of catching something. It seems they recognised you from the other photos and, well..."
"Big news."
"We can't deny who you are now and then reveal you as BTS's soulmate later. So, although it's rushed, we would like to make an official announcement introducing you as BTS's soulmate."
"As well as our soulmate bond with each other."
They had obviously talked this all through before Anna had arrived, as although Namjoon and Bang PD had been speaking in English to her, the others didn't look confused at all. She stared down at the table as her mind tried to process what all this would mean.
They hadn't actually talked about revealing her to the public a lot. There had been many other things that felt more important to settle first. Yet, Anna knew how much the boys wanted to. They didn't want to hide anymore. They had been waiting to find their final soulmate before they revealed their bond with each other, and it had been a longer wait than they had anticipated.
"What do I need to do?"
Namjoon and Bang PD shared a glance. They had expected more reluctance from Anna but were pleasantly surprised by her reaction, as this meant they could proceed with their plans.
"Okay, first our publicity team will work with you and prepare you for the press conference we are holding tomorrow morning."
"Wait, you sure this what you want Anna?"
She looked around, making eye contact with each of her soulmates before answering Jungkook's question.
"I'm sure."
The rest of the day was a whirlwind of activity for Anna. She was taught how to answer questions and was given mock interviews. The stylists took her away for a fitting to figure out what her look would be. They even gave her some practice at posing for photos.
She was very grateful for all the lessons. Although, some of her soulmates had some interesting suggestions for photo poses, namely Jimin and Taehyung, while Jin made sure to give her some practical tips. Anna wasn't sure what she was more worried about: answering questions or being captured on film.
While she had never liked having her photo taken, Anna also found answering questions difficult. One of the reasons she worked as a freelancer was because she could never pass an interview. She was praying her professional soulmates would handle most of the questions and not many would be aimed at her. However, there was no way she could avoid having her picture taken or being filmed.
"Are you ready?"
Anna looked up at Namjoon as he stood beside her. Her immediate response was no but seeing the crease between the leader's eyebrows, she decided to give him one less thing to worry about.
"Yep!"
She winched slightly at her overly enthusiastic response and Namjoon raised an eyebrow at her. Since he obviously didn't believe her, she gave him an equally unconvincing smile. At least she distracted him for a moment as it made him chuckle at her.
"You'll be fine. I got you."
Before she had a chance to process his words, an arm was resting on her shoulders, and she looked to see Hobi's reassuring smile. Then she felt a hand take hers and inlock their fingers. When she turned, she saw Yoongi on her other side providing silent support.
Each of her soulmates provided Anna with a gesture of comfort and encouragement before they took their places in front of the camera. Jin gave her a kiss on the forehead, and Taehyung and Jimin a hug. Jungkook approached last and took one of her hands, lifted it up and kissed the back of it.
"I love you Noona, and ARMY will too."
Anna tried not to get tearful at her youngest soulmate's words as she watched him join the others. She hoped he was right. She stood to the side out of frame while the members started the V Live.
"Hello!"
"Hi."
"ARMY!"
"Yo!"
"Hey, guys!"
"What's up ARMY?"
"Hello ARMY! Sorry we're doing this so late, but we have a press conference first thing tomorrow morning and we wanted to tell our ARMY first."
"So, as you might have guessed we have some news to share with you."
"Yes, and we're really excited to share it with you."
"The first bit of news we have, well, we are sorry that we have kept it from you for so long."
"Honestly, we are surprised you haven't figured it out yet."
"I bet some of you did, or as least you had your suspicions."
"So, ready? One, two, three..."
All seven members held up their left hands in front of the camera and gave ARMY a few minutes to process what they were seeing.
"We're all soulmates!"
"We realise this is big news and you probably have a lot of questions for us. I imagine one of them is why didn't we tell you before now. Well..."
The boys went on to briefly explain how they found out they were each other's soulmates and that they had one more to find. They also mentioned why they didn't announce anything before and why they had been hiding their marks publicly.
"I know a lot of you were worried about Jin and Suga finding their soulmates before they turned thirty. So, that's why we decide to proactively look for our final soulmate."
"We found them!"
"And we hope ARMY will be happy for us."
"We know ARMY will continue to love and support us, but we hope you will welcome our eighth soulmate."
"ARMY, would you like to meet them?"
Yoongi, who was holding the tablet, looked over the comments as ARMY answered.
"Woah, it looks like they do."
"Are you sure? Shall I go get them?"
Jimin, who was sitting on the floor, got up and went off camera to where Anna was standing. He took her hand and led her into frame. She felt herself start to panic when Jimin let go of her hand, but instead, he held the tops of her arms and guided her to sit down between him and Namjoon. Once she was seated, Jimin rested a comforting hand on Anna's knee while Namjoon casually wrapped his arm around her shoulders and whispered in her ear.
"Introduce yourself."
"Hello. I'm Anna. It's nice to meet you."