In the Game of Love by Tofu

Chapter 28

It was approaching 10 o’clock when the car pulled up into the parking lot of a popular night club. Eric shifted the car into parking gear.

“Let’s go!” Andy said excitedly, opening the door.

“But…” Kei started to say. Three pairs of eyes looked at her. She glanced down. “You guys want me to go in like this?” she pointed to her T-shirt and jeans. “Don’t you guys…don’t you guys want to pick up girls?”

“Yeah. What’s your point?” Andy asked.

“I don’t think you guys want to go in with me like this,” Kei softly said.

“Hmmm…I guess she has a point,” Junjin said. “I know! Here!” he took off his black bucket hat and placed it on Kei’s head. Junjin smiled and Andy laughed. Junjin turned to Eric. “Yo, Eric. Give her your jacket. That’ll stun everyone,” Junjin said.

Eric stared at Kei. He then slipped off his jacket and put it around Kei’s shoulders. Kei looked at the three guys. She then slipped into the jacket and adjusted the black bucket hat so that all her hair was in the hat. She zipped up the jacket.

“Good, perfect,” Junjin commented. “Now let’s party! Kei’s gonna be one of the BOYS tonight!”

The four got out of the car and headed into the club, Kei trailing behind in her disguise. As they entered the club, she lowered her head, hiding her eyes under the hat.

“Yo Eric my man!” a voice cried.

“Hey Junjin!”

“Look, Andy’s here!”

“Homeboys are here! The place is going to go through the roof tonight!”

“Who’s the new guy?”

The four made their way to a table and sat down. They ordered drinks and then sat there and absorbed the excitement of the environment.

Two girls walked up to the table. “Oh hey look! It’s Eric, Junjin, and Andy! How are you boys doing tonight?” the tall pretty one asked.

“Just fine Amy,” Eric answered. “You gonna grace us with your dancing tonight?”

“Mmm, maybe. I was thinking that you guys would grace us with your guys’ dancing,” Amy answered.

“Yeah! I wanna see! I love watching you guys!” the short cute one said. “It’s been a week now!”

“We will sooner or later,” Junjin said.

“Who’s the new guy?” Amy asked.

Junjin grinned. “This guy here is better than all three of us combined. Smoked me and Eric the last time we danced.”

Amy’s eyes widened. “Oh really? That’s really something. Name?”

“K, short for Kenny,” Andy quickly said.

Junjin smiled. “Yup, it’s K.”

“Well nice to meet you,” Amy said. “Hope to see you dance tonight. Let’s go Yoori. I think Hyun’s gonna be drunker than drunk soon.” The two girls left.

The guys then laughed when the two girls were gone. “That was pretty funny,” Junjin said.

“Yeah, can’t believe that the whole disguise worked. They really think Kei’s a guy,” Andy said.

“So, K. feel like dancing yet?” Junjin asked, draping his arms over Kei’s shoulders.

“Uhhh…” Kei still felt a little uncomfortable in this new environment, and even more uncomfortable with a guy’s arm around her shoulder.

Just then, the music stopped and all of the sudden, there was cheering in the club. Yoori, the short girl that was with Amy, ran up to their table

“Come on you guys! Everyone’s asking for you guys to dance now!” she said. She then ran back to the crowd.

The three guys looked at each other.

“Guess we can’t disappoint everyone now, right?” Junjin said. Junjin nodded his head to the dance floor and they got out of their seats. Eric turned and faced Kei. He motioned for her to come out.

“Come on Kei. Come watch us. Then you can see who really deserved that dance trophy from high school.”

Kei gave a faint smile and scooted out of her seat. The four then walked onto the dance floor. They made their way to the center of the floor, Kei remaining among the crowd.

“Alright everyone!” Yoori’s voice echoed throughout the club as she spoke into the microphone. “Let’s give it up for Eric, Junjin, and Andy!”

The music started and the three guys went at it. Like toy soldiers coming to life, they danced an intense routine that was in step and in sync with one another. Then they all danced their own solo routine, all amazing. Kei smiled as she thought back to the day of the school festival. Like then, she was amazed by Junjin’s, Eric’s, and now Andy’s dance skills. She felt her own feet start to move a little to the beat.

Eric scanned the crowd with his eyes and spotted Kei. He then walked over to her and pulled her out of the crowd into the center of the circle. “Let’s everyone give it up for my friend K!” he shouted, and everyone in the club applauded.

Kei froze, paralyzed in her spot. Familiar feelings of fear and panic overwhelmed her mind. Expectant eyes looked at her. She looked to Eric with panic-stricken eyes. Eric saw the panic and clapped his hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t be scared,” he whispered in her ear. “Just follow me.” He let go, took a few steps back, and started to dance.

Kei watched Eric for a moment and then breathed deeply. She lowered her head so not only to hide her face from everyone but to also hide everyone’s faces from her eyes. With everyone’s faces out of view, she closed her eyes and started to move to the beat. At first she mimicked Eric’s moves, but soon she started to dance her own moves, and Eric stopped dancing and stood back to watch.

Kei lost herself in her own little world, as always when she was absorbed in dancing. All she did was dance and all the feeling and emotion from within her would come out through the dance.

Eric recognized this. At times Kei would dance a “happy” dance, but throughout most of her routine, Eric sensed different feelings --sadness, loneliness, hurt, and pain. She must be depressed, he thought to himself he was moved. Even though she was dancing steps that he could dance easily, the interpretation and feeling she emitted through the dancing seemed to be more of a natural thing for her to do. At discovering the sadness through her dancing, Eric felt a little pity for Kei.

The crowd oohed and awed at Kei’s dancing. They were amazed at this new guy’s skills. Just then the music stopped and Kei did some final footwork. The crowd applauded loudly. Kei, not bothering to receive the applause, just walked out of the circle and sat down at the table. The people on the dance floor then resumed dancing.

“Hey Kei that was awesome! You pulled some tight moves out there!” Junjin exclaimed as he came back to the table.

Andy followed behind, eyes bugged and jaw wide open. “Was…was that you that was out there?” he asked in disbelief.

Junjin laughed. “See what did I tell you? Didn’t our quiet ol’ Kei seem like a totally different person out there?”

“I’ll say,” Andy agreed.

Eric came up to the table staring at Kei. “Amazing dance you had there,” he said.

“Thanks,” Kei quietly responded.

As Eric took a seat, a group of girls came over to the table.

“HI GUYS!” they chanted together. Junjin, Eric, and Andy waved. Kei just sat there motionless, covering her eyes with her hat.

“That was sooo good Eric!” one girl squealed, placing her hand gently on his shoulder. “Are you going to teach me how to dance as awesome as you some time?”

Another girl sat down next to Andy and started to giggle, while another girl came up to Junjin. “Junjin, you didn’t take off your shirt today,” she playfully pouted. Junjin winked at Eric and Eric rolled his eyes.

“So are you going to introduce us to your friend here?” the tall girl said, eyeing Kei. Kei shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

Junjin cleared his throat. “Everybody, this is K.”

“Hi K!” the girls greeted together. Kei didn’t answer or wave.

“Why’s he so quiet? He was amazing on the dance floor just a few minutes ago,” the tall girl said.

“K’s the quiet type,” Andy answered.

“Oh really?” the girl next to Andy said. “Sounds like my type of guy.” She leaned lower and rubbed her hand on Kei’s arm.

Kei jumped at the touch and instantly scooted closer to Eric, avoiding the touch. The girls laughed. “Hey Mia. Looks like K doesn’t like ya,” the girls said.

“Aww. Are you really scared of me, K? I won’t bite. I just wanna dance with you,” Mia said, edging closer to Kei, while Kei leaned more and more towards Eric, practically hiding behind him.

“K’s just not interested in girls now,” Eric said, defending Kei. “Go bug Junjin. He’ll be happy to dance with ya. Right Junjin?”

Junjin grinned. “Sure. Let’s go Mia.”

“I wanna dance with Junjin thou!” a girl cried.

Junjin grinned even wider. “You can come too!”

“I wanna dance with Junjin!”

“Me too!”

“Me three!”

“Aahhhh!! Everyone come with me! You too, Andy! I don’t think I can handle all of them at once! Muhahaha!” Junjin laughed hysterically and walked off to the dance floor with the mob of girls surrounding him and Andy following behind.

Eric felt Kei let out a sigh of relief. Eric smiled and turned to Kei. “That was pretty close, huh?”

Kei sat up straight and nodded. “Thanks Eric. Thank you for everything.”

“It’s nothing. As long as you have fun.”

Kei nodded. “I’m having a lot of fun. The dance really helped relax me.”

Eric looked at Kei. “You seem to have a lot of stuff that you needed to relax from.”

Kei looked up at Eric with a questioning look. “Wha..what do you mean?”

“I mean that it seems like a lot has gone on in your life stressing you out.”

“What makes you think that?”

“The way you danced.”

Kei looked at Eric with surprised eyes. How…how…how would he know? I mean, how could he tell…through my dancing? He…he…the only one that was able to tell through my dancing…was Minwoo…

“Don’t worry, I won’t ask about anything. Knowing you, if you’re still as quiet as you were in high school, you won’t tell me anything. It doesn’t matter. I just care if you’re happy, alright?”

Kei looked at Eric in the eyes, a pair of sincere eyes. She gave a faint smile and nodded. “Thanks Eric.”

Eric smiled back. “Thirsty? Let’s order some drinks.”

After a little thought, Kei said, “Let’s play a drinking game.”

Eric looked at Kei surprised. “A drinking game? You know a drinking game?”

“No…don’t you?”

“Well, yeah…”

“Then teach me. I want to play.”

Eric eyed Kei. “You…you know how to drink?”

Kei nodded her head. “My mom’s boyfriend let me drink sometimes.”

“I see. Fine, here’s a game…”

Eric taught her a game and they both played at it. Kei picked up the game real fast, but she still lost most the rounds and ended up drinking a lot of liquor. After consuming a good amount of liquor, she lay down in the seat and fell asleep.

After about 10 minutes, Eric got up and searched for Junjin and Andy. He spotted them on the dance floor in the midst of girls. He tapped them on the shoulders and they turned around and faced him.

“Let’s go. Kei’s drunk.”

“What? You made her drunk?” Andy asked.

“No. we were playing a game. Let’s go you guys.”

After saying their byes to the girls, Junjin, Eric, and Andy left the club. Eric carried Kei on his back and carried her out of the club and set her in the car. “Hmmm…we don’t know where she lives.” He got into the car and sped back to the apartment he shared with Junjin.

“Hey you guys, let me stay over for the night,” Andy said.

“Why, just because we have a girl in the house tonight?” Junjin winked at Andy.

Andy rolled his eyes. “Please. Kei seems more like another guy to me than a girl. I forgot my key, and my wonderful roomie is asleep by now, so I probably won’t get into the room since that guy sleeps like a rock.”

“That’s what you get for going to a university buddy. Living in an apartment beats living in one of them dorms,” Junjin said.

“Not my fault. Next year I’ll get my own place,” Andy said.

“Or if you want, you can move in with us,” Junjin offered.

Andy shrugged. “That too. I’ll see what happens.”

They entered the apartment. Eric carried Kei into his room and laid her down on his bed. He took off the hat, unzipped the jacket, and tucked her in, having her sleep in the clothes she was wearing.

“I guess she’ll have to stay here for the night. No use trying to find out where she lives now. She’s drunker than a skunk now.”

“I didn’t know skunks drink,” Junjin joked.

“I didn’t think she drinks,” Andy said.

“You think she doesn’t do anything, Andy,” Junjin pointed out.

“Well look at her! The first time I met her she was like all shy and stuff. And you guys said she’s the quiet person. Who woulda known that she danced and drank and everything…maybe other stuff too…”

“Whatever. I’m going to sleep,” Junjin said. He walked into his room.

Eric came out of his room with some blankets and pillows in his arms. “You and me sleep out here for tonight.”

Andy grabbed a pillow and a blanket and made his way to a couch in the living room. Eric took the other couch. They both stripped to their undershirts and boxers and got under the blankets. Andy then popped his head up.

“So Eric, what do you think of Kei?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the whole night you were the one taking care of her and everything.”

Eric rolled his eyes. “Yeah, because you and Junjin were too busy screwing off.”

“Seriously, what do you think of her?”

Eric looked up at the ceiling. “Well, when I knew her in high school, she was really quiet and I thought that she was really boring and stuff. I never really got to know back then. But tonight, just having her with us tonight, I find that she’s not that bad. She’s cool.”

“Yeah. She sure can smoke up the dance floor.”

“Got that right. So what do you think of her?”

“Me? Oh I don’t know. If she were prettier, I may jock her. I’m not saying she’s ugly. Just if she was prettier, maybe she’d have some more confidence and talk more.”

Eric shook his head. “She doesn’t need to be prettier. And I don’t think she’s quiet because she hates how she looks or anything like that. It’s like, once you get to know her, her looks really don’t matter.”

“Yeah yeah. So sue me for jocking hot girls. I’m going to sleep. Night Eric.”

“Night man.” Eric turned off the lights and lay in the couch.

Lim Kei. Who would have known that we would get to know each other now?

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Silly-girl13: Thanks for the nice review )

folsom: Thanks for the review, and the e-mail reminding me to update. ) I usually have them all already, I just re-read them and edit them and whatnot, and just forget to add them to documents... haha. But, with you, being such a advid reader, sorry for taking so long (. But, its updated now!! haha.