In the Club

CHAPTER 1

"5, 6 ,7, 8!" Arm up and around, left left right and tap. Lean back, and left leg straight. Taeho is looking good. Whoops! Walk forward between Sang and Taeho.
"Come on Ungjae! Get the choreo right this time!" Leader shouts at him. "You know that you are supposed to move forward on the 7 and you keep moving on the 8. If you are still moving forward how are you supposed to do the next move on center on the 1?"
"Sorry. I'll get it right," I gave a small bow and went back to my spot. I had gotten distracted. Of course all the members knew that I was a little questioning in my sexuality. But recently I had been finding guys more and more attractive. One guy in particular.
Taeho turns around in his spot.
Speak of the devil.
"Don't worry, you got this." He putts a supportive hand on my shoulder. As I turn my head to look at his hand he lets it slide off and turns around.
I place a hand over my chest, every time he does something like this my heart skips a beat. Focus, Ungjae.
"Alright again, 5, 6, 7, 8!" Arm up and around, left left right and tap. Lean back, and left leg straight. Walk forward, now! I did it right this time. Bend down, arms up. Rap time. Yeah go me. Keep the rhythm. Turn and go back. 3 and 4 and hips and smile. Whew, I look at the clock. Its 3 am. My legs feel heavy and I plop myself down on the floor.
I turn to Jeup, lightly touch his leg and nod at the clock in hopes that he'll tell Leader that we should head back to the dorm and I won't have to say anything.
"Look, we did it right and its quite late. Maybe we could stop for now and get some rest." Jeup suggests to Jian. Thank goodness he knew what I had been trying to say.
I lay back, spread eagle on the floor. Someone gets down and lays down next to me. I peak my head up to see who it is. Jeup is now sitting next to my feet and lying next to me is Sang. I see Taeho come over to join us. My heart does a little jump. Keep your cool Ungjae. I put my head back down and close my eyes.
Taeho sits down next to my side and then lays down, putting his head on my stomach and letting his legs stretch out. Our hands are almost touching. Without opening my eyes I can feel it. A feeling almost like my hand got shocked. I decide it might be best for me to put my hands under my head. Or in Taeho's hair. No. Behind the head it is.
"I want us to do it a couple more times." Says Jian, who is the only one not collapsed like a pile of goo on the floor. Four groans rise from the collective goo. "I know we are all tired, but doing it a couple more times without a break will solidify it in our brains before we go to bed."
"I hate it when he uses logic against us." Sang whispers from beside me. "It always makes so much sense." He rolls on to his stomach and then pushes himself on to his knees.
Taeho lifts himself into a sitting position, "Before we agree to anything. I gotta know, how many times is a couple times? Two? Five? What am I agreeing to?"
"It would only be three more times." Jian heads over to the stereo to start up the music again.
"I smell lies and deceit." Jeup says to everyone quietly so Jian couldn't hear.
He was going to play it again so we all quickly got up. Ugh I felt exhausted, but with a clear end goal I felt I could push through to do it.
"5, 6, 7, 8...."
—————•••—————
I look at the clock as we finally finish. 5 till 4.
"Honestly the floor is looking like a pretty comfortable bed if you ask me."
"No one asked you though," Said Jeup.
"You're not wrong," Sang acknowledged.
We had ended up doing it way more than three times. I hear the others talking but I just head over to the door to put on my coat and grab my phone. My thoughts on the shower back at the dorm and the warmth of my bed. Taeho is in front of me as we leave the building so I throw my arm around his shoulders.
"I feel like this happens every night. Don't you?" I say to him.
"Oh yeah, and every night we believe him. Only three times he promised!" He shakes his fist in the air and we both laugh.
As we walk in silence my mind starts to wander.
"Don't you ever wish that we lived someplace where we could see the stars?" I asked looking up past the skyscrapers into the dark sky. There was an orange haze close to the buildings.
Taeho looked up at the sky as well. "Yeah I do. Sometimes I feel like I am so small when I think about how big the universe is. I am just one person in the entirety of time and space."
I turned to look at him. Seeing his eyes wide, looking up to the sky. Wow he really was quite handsome. I feel a small grin at my lips. His hair was greasy from practice and sticking up everywhere. Bare face, yet he still could make my heart stop a little. He must have felt me staring and turned his face to look at me. Suddenly our faces are inches apart and I feel such a strong pull towards him. Our eyes focus on one another before I glance down at his lips and then move away. I can feel myself aching to move closer but I can't do that. I shove my hands in my pockets and look ahead.
"Yeah I guess I know what you mean. What is our purpose? Can we really make a difference in a universe so big?" I wonder out loud. "But of course there is no answer to that, and we'll never know." I shrug my shoulders. Tonight has been such a long night and I don't feel that my thoughts are the clearest. I should hurry to get back to the dorm and go to sleep before I get myself into trouble.
"Let's go. If we hurry back we can beat the others and steal all the hot water!" I start to walk faster and I feel Taeho keeping pace beside me.
—————•••——————
"Hey Ungjae, want to go drinking?" Sang yells from the hall.
"Yeah give me a second!" I jump down from the bunk bed and try to decide on a coat to wear.
I hear Sang come in but I'm trying to decide between a long grey fleece or red leather jacket so I don't look up.
"We are going out for drinks, pick a coat and let's go!" When he doesn't see me pick one he decides he has to pick one for me and puts the one closest to him away.
I look at the grey fleece in my hands. "But I kind of wanted the red one."
"To bad. We are going out now. Taeho and I have been waiting in the living room forever. Mostly me because Taeho wanted to go fix his hair. We are leaving and that's that." He pulls me by the arm as I struggle to put the grey fleece on.
"Do you guys want to go to a club or just for bbq and we can get soju?" Taeho asks as we all put our shoes on.
"Both! I'm feeling hungry and after we can go to a club!"
Taeho and I look at each other. We both know Sang is a Lightweight and we'll both be carrying him home before he gets anywhere near a club. We both shrug.
"Alright. If you say so," says Taeho.
"Can you guys believe Jeup got asked to go on king of the masked singer? How lucky is that. Plus Jian went to cheer him on."
"Tell us why you aren't there to cheer him on?"We ask curiously.
"If there were to many of us there they would have known that jeup was preforming." Responded Sang as-a-matter-of-factly.
We all laughed at him as he strutted ahead. After that we walked in silence with little comment here and there about how we thought jeup would do before we arrived at the BBQ place.
All to soon we were quite buzzed and while Sang hasn't blacked out yet he was very drunk. I could feel myself slipping past the relm of a nice buzz into a dangerous place.
Sang who was staring across the room at a couple getting cuddly gave a big sigh. "Stupid dating rules. I just wish I had a woman in my arms," he grumbled then puckered his lips into the air and closed his eyes. Probably kissing the imaginary girl of his dreams.
Taeho who was sitting next to me reached across the table and gave him a light slap on his lips. "Stop that. You are acting weird. Keeping doing that and Ungjae and I will take you home right now."
"Noooooo. We still need to go clubbing! Hey!! More soju!" Sang pouts at us.
"I don't think you need any more soju Sang. I'm cutting you off." Says Taeho.
I'm watching this whole exchange in silence and I can feel a stupid silly grin across my face. I look over at Taeho and he looks more handsome than he usually does. I can't tell if it's the alcohol or me, but I suddenly really want to tell him how good he looks.
"Taeho...." something stops me as I feel a rock slide into my stomach. I feel my mind clear up. I was just about to tell Taeho that I thought he was 'really hot'. That would have been bad. He would not have appreciated that.
"Yeah?"
I realize I need to say something else and quick. "Umm... don't worry I'll drink the soju." I poor the soju into my own glass and drink it up before pouring myself another and drinking that one. Probably not the best idea.
"Yeahhhh! And on to the club!" Sang stands up and goes to the counter to pay.
"I guess we gotta go at least keep an eye on him." Says Taeho with a sigh.
"You're right. Who knows how drunk he is." We both scramble to follow Sang as he is already out the door and walking down the street.
We both take an arm and hope that Sang knows how much soju he can take. He did have a lot of food so maybe he'll sober up soon. Preferably before the club.
As soon as we got to the club sang was off like a bullet. Dancing in the middle of the crowd.
"Do you want to dance?" I ask shyly.
"Not really, I need to make sure Sang doesn't get into trouble." Taeho was looking around for a table to sit at but they all seemed to be full.
"Yeah me either." I adjust my jacket. Then I gesture upstairs across is a place against the wall where we can go that also has a good view of the dance floor if we look over the banister.
Going up the stairs I see Taeho stumble and I automatically reach out to steady him. Suddenly I have a realization. Taeho is almost as drunk as Sang. Wow the three of us should have really gone home. How drunk am I?
As we are up at the top overlooking the dance floor I look over at Taeho. And man he is super hot.
"What was that?" Taeho asks looking at me?
Omg. Had I actually said that out loud? But why is that a bad thing? My drunk brain has obviously turned off all signals of what I should and should not do.
"You look really hot," I repeat. And before he or I have a chance to think about what I just said I lean in and kiss him.
OMG IT WAS EVERYTHING I HAD IMAGINED. Fireworks and roses. I pulled back. As I looked at Taeho it took me a moment to focus on him. His eyes were opening. Something about that should be peculiar but I'm in such bliss from my kiss that I couldn't be bothered to figure out what it was.
"I could do that allllllll day," I say as I look out onto the crowd below. We look on in silence. It doesn't take me long to find Sang and realize that it was time for him to go home.
"We gotta get Sang and get out of here," I say as I turn to go down the stairs to fetch Sang. Not turning to look at Taeho.
Sure enough right after we took Sang out of the club he vomited on the sidewalk.
"Don't worry buddy, we'll clean you up when we get home."
—————•••——————
I stretch my limbs as I wake up and think about the nice dream I had of Taeho and I going to the club and kissing. WAIT. I run over the events of last night on my head. BBQ, drinks, club, kiss.
OMG I KISSED TAEHO!