I CAN SEE YOU

sixteen

"Noooo!" Pierre shouts as we walk in to the room, with Yuki in front of him and Max and I trailing behind begrudgingly, making it clear they neither of us particularly like all of the media hassle.

"What, scared that the clothes will clash with your impeccable sense of style." I nudge his side with my shoulder jokingly, walking across to the racks of drindl's that are clearly for me.

Part of me wants to wear the lederhosen like the boys, knowing that I'll definitely be able to pull it of better than them, but at the same time I like being a little bit different so maybe the dress won't be too bad.

I block out the boys who are arguing over the choices, taking my time to flip through all of the different colours. Through the reds, the greens and the yellows, eventually landing on a navy blue one that's held together with red ribbon. Deciding that this is the one for me I lift the hanger off of the rack, turning to get changed behind the curtain only to be met with all of the boys in their underwear

"Oh my god!" My hand flies up to my eyes, shielding me from the horrific sight that was Yuki and Pierre getting changed directly in front of me. "Have a bit of decency and modesty would you!"

I hear their laughs as I begin to shuffle around the room, trying to find the curtain completely blind and helpless as one of my hands are covering my eyes and the other is holding up the dress.

"You're asking us to be modest? You wouldn't know what that is if it hit you in the face." I hear Pierre laugh somewhere to the left of me, followed by Yuki joining in.

"If I knew where you were you'd be getting slapped across the head for that comment." I call back, tripping over something on the floor, almost crashing to the ground.

"Okay." A set of arms wrap around me just in time, helping me to stand properly before gently guiding me around the room, both of his hands being placed softly on my hips. "Let's get changed before they need to find new drivers due to injuries." The voice of the arms belong to Max. He guides me using baby steps and softly turning me at times with his hands slowly moving up to my waist. "That's us here. I'll leave you to get changed." He whispers in my ear, removing his hands and leaving a cold gust instead.

I take my hand away from my eyes just in time to see his back move around the side of the curtain. I take a deep breath, considering what I'm about to do. It's nothing deep, I mean, Christian and Helmut would be proud of me, and it could help us be friendlier with each other.

"Thank you Max, glad to see there's someone in the room with self respect." I shout across.

"I hope the cameras caught that!" Pierre shouts back. "You being nice? Did someone poison you last night?"

"Pierre?"

"Yes?"

"Shut the fuck up!" I launch a spare shoe that's lying nearby at him over the curtain, thinking it successfully hit him when I hear a loud klunk.

"Ooww!"

"Sorry Yuki!" Today is going to be a long day.

•

I didn't think the hardest part of my day would be getting in to a boat, but it seems I was wrong.

"Let us help." Pierre comes forward holding his outstretched hand to me with a small smile emerging on his face as he watches me struggle. I've got both of my arms holding up my dress, which doesn't help my balance as I'm trying to step down off of the pier in to the very unstable and shaking wooden boat.

"I'm fine, I can do this." I try to act confident, knowing that the cameras are already filming and the last thing I want them to see is some damsel in distress.