A Year to Change Your Lives

Chapter 50

Looking back at it all now, Reader knew where the time had been eaten up, but it seemed to her that the better part of a year had passed in the blink of an eye. Now her time, which had started as faraway sounding and measured in the months, was nearly over, and the climactic performances were just days and then mere hours away.

The preparations building up to their performances had intensified right up until the last minute. Reader assumed there had to be a deadline at which point no one was allowed to have a new idea or make new changes but it seemed not to be the case and she didn't know if this was usual or if all the stops were being pulled out because of the special significance of this performance for BTS and their fans.

Either way, things were still altering into the very last week and Reader could feel that she and the others would soon run out of steam. The boys told her that it wasn't like this before a tour because the tour is when you got tired. In this case, they only had to keep this energy up for three performances and for the subsequent interviews set up for the week afterwards.

Reader both dreaded and dreamed of the day after the final show. She couldn't imagine waking up and not having eight different hard tasks to accomplish that day. Although, the way that she would spend the week following the concerts would depend almost entirely on the reception they all received. If it was very good, or even tentatively accepting, then there were a host of media engagements which she was contracted to attend or not as the company saw fit. There was another world in which ARMYs – present and around the world – decided to punish them for their collective statement and they would all have to go to ground.

"How will you know?" Reader asked them on the way back from the studio on the last Monday before the shows. "If the audience are angry at us, there and then. Will they boo? I can't imagine anyone booing you."

The guys who weren't otherwise absent or absorbed in their phones all glanced at each other, twisting round in their chairs. They seemed to be silently debating whether to answer her. She shot Namjoon a look.

"They might do a thing called a black ocean."

"A black ocean?" Reader repeated.

"Yes, it's where they turn off all their light sticks and they go silent. It turns the audience into a black ocean."

"What, no? Not really!" Reader was astonished. K-Pop idols were loved in the same way that Elvis, Michael Jackson or The Beatles were. Their fans would never stand in front of them and what, just flatly reject them. It seemed impossible.

Jungkook, who had been fiddling with his phone handed it to her, open at a list of videos. A quick look at the first shot showed a girl group Reader didn't recognise, surrounded by a sea of silent, still fans.

"Why?" She asked, outraged, handing the phone back.

"Usually, because fan's get into fights with other fans. That's what happened to us." Answered Namjoon, who seemed decidedly less disturbed than Reader by this idea.

"This has happened to you?" Reader cried, astonished.

"It wasn't so bad. It was because ARMYs were fighting with EXO-Ls, but of course we don't like it."

"But sometimes they punish their idols." Added Tae grimly. "If they do something wrong."

"So, this is a real possibility?" Asked Reader, aghast. "All the lights go off and they just watch the whole second half in protest."

"Maybe the first half as well, if they don't like the photos!" Teased Namjoon, raising his eyebrows at her in mock terror.

"You know, I think you could have just not told me about this for the next six days." Reader grumbled, knowing full well what tonight's anxiety dream would be about. The rest of their journey home was spent with all members pondering the possibility that the released photographs would summon enough ill-will to plummet their concerts into darkness.