AE

There were never seven members of BTS. There were always eight. Lexie, seventeen, is BTS’s youngest member and the original eighth member. Half Korean and half British-American, she has grown up alongside the seven members since their trainee days. To BTS, she’s never been “the foreign member” or an outsider—she’s their little sister, their youngest teammate and their family. But as BTS begins promoting internationally, Lexie starts noticing something the others don’t. Interviewers repeatedly focus on her mixed heritage instead of her music. Journalists question where she’s “really from,” make assumptions about what she understands and sometimes treat her as though she has to prove she belongs. At first, the members dismiss the incidents as awkward questions. Lexie doesn’t. She keeps quiet because she knows the members have experienced discrimination themselves and doesn’t want to make everything about her. Until one interview finally crosses the line. When one of the members asks why she didn’t answer, Lexie gives him a simple response: “Because you didn’t hear what they were actually asking me.” Suddenly, the seven people who have spent years protecting her begin looking back at everything they overlooked. As they learn to listen rather than speak for her, Lexie has to navigate discrimination, growing independence, the pressures of being a seventeen-year-old idol and seven incredibly protective older brothers who still struggle to accept that their baby sister is growing up. There were always eight. Now the rest of the world has to learn it too.