~ROSÉ AND SPIN~

Remember those dramatic as entrances in retro spy movies?  

You know, with the slow-mo strut and the flashy music. Enters man: armed and dangerous, caution to the wind, suit flapping, and everything. And pause.

Pause for that groundbreaking hey-mama one liner that’ll have the ladies swooning and the men recreating their aspirations around this one dreamy motherer.

Or well, questioning their uality.

But times have changed ladies and gentlemen, indeed they have! It’s 2017 and women are empowered as hell! They are no longer seen as the prize to be won, or the damsel in distress, oh no! They are tough! They are beautiful! And they are armed with sweet desserts because this is not a federal investigative base. Or a retro spy movie.

“Pizza. Wine from mugs”.

“Expensive mugs”, Tao interjects in my ear.

“Messy house. I want you to explain what part of this is formal Wang Lie”.

Aw, my darling Sekyungiee.

An hour of dodged calls and fashionably late, but also strictly regulating “dress code” and social conduct with her suit and tiramisu. There’s sweat dripping down her tired face, so I’m assuming she never went home to change.

I make a feeble attempt to lighten the mood.

“Um, your suit? Ehehehehe”.

But Sekyung is not fazed. Girl cracks an eye roll though.

I elbow Tao.

“Great suit. Suit suits you”, he perks up with the obligatory pun, and the eye roll intensifies.

I look at Lay pointedly.

“Nice ”, Lay adds, to more eye rolls and much to the apparent dismay of Jiah, the girl he’s cuddling. Sniffling, she blinks her eyes dramatically as though batting away tears at the face of treachery.

“Don’t worry baby, her may be nice but your is out of this world”, he winks at her, quickly saving himself.

Even I’m rolling my eyes at this point.

Luhan bursts out laughing but quickly gets a hold of himself, realizing he’s the only one. The poor boy retreats back to his wine mug and seems to look at everything but anything as Sekyung marches over and sandwiches herself between him and a mostly absent Renée, who’s too occupied with her own beloved mug to really pay attention to Sekyung’s grievances.

I feel a hint of annoyance at everyone’s lack of presence.

Kids flirting to my right, child complaining up ahead to another who doesn’t really wanna be here if not for a mug, and another kid trying to either virtually immaterialize, or perform telekinesis on his mug.

Tao chuckles in my ear, “Chill baby”.

And then he gets up and leaves.

What the hell? See, now, this is why you can’t trust men. They tell you they love you and then before you know it, poof!  Vanish! Au revoir!-

Hey, we have pink wine!

My eyes land on the wine selection, and I’m filled with a childlike excitement that floors my grumpy me from seconds ago. In a hurry, avoiding any possible person sitting or standing on my way, I crawl over to the coffee table to pour myself a mug.  

The bottle reads Rosé! Which basically translates to Pink! How cute. I can just picture it.

Sir Antoine: Hugo, my boy, check this bad boy out. It’s pink. I wonder what we can call it.

Hugo: How about Pink!

Sir Antoine: Broooo you blow my mind.

Hugo: Broooo.

I laugh aloud, startling a confused Jiah and Lay, who are simply trying to get it on, ugh, how rude of me. I take a sip of the cute stuff, which seems to cue a symphony around me? Wow, this is powerful stuff!

Everyone’s staring at something behind me, so I whirl around as well, almost toppling over in the process.

Tao is grinning.

“In the spirit of formalities”, he bows.

Oh, how silly of me. Boy played the symphony. Ahahaha. Boy is so cute.

“I love you”, I giggle, pulling him down to the ground beside me.

“Uh huh, but is it enough to let the pizza thing go?”

No, no it’s not!

“I gave you one task. One. Simple. Task. One. Simple. Order. And you order Hawaii on a pizza. WHO DOES THAT? PINEAPPLES ON PIZZA? PIZZA? AND PINEAPPLES? We like pineapples, Huang, we like pizza, but pineapples ON pizza? That’s gross. That’s absolutely disgusting. Picture my dad on my brother. That’s what this is. I mean, I like them both individually, but together? On each other? Mushed against each other? WHAT I’M TRYING TO SAY IS, no”.

Ah. Oxygen.

Tao just stares at me, and I at him, much to everyone’s amusement.

“I feel very strongly about pineapple pizza...”.

Silence…

“It’s okay baby”, Tao shushes at me and whispers into my ear, as he rocks me back and forth in his arms. “We can get through this-”.

“….y, what else do you do in your free time?”

Lay’s mostly concealed flirtations come to the foreground in the brief silence, catching everyone by surprise and leading to even more awkward silence.

“I do photography. Sometimes Lei. But I could save some time for you, baby”, Tao says aloud, winking while smirking at me.

Trust Tao to make the best of an awkward situation.

Lay gets up. He flicks his head to the bedroom, and even takes it up a few notches by winking and throwing out kisses into the air…

…Trust Lay to make it worse.  

Winking, nodding, blowing kisses… As if that wasn’t enough, Tao swoops Lay off his feet, throws him on our bed and locks the bedroom door. Is this some kind of competition or what?

“So two of the most important men in my life are gay now”.

“Issokay, you’re already gay for me baby”, Sekyung winks and kisses the air with loud exaggerated kissing sounds, mimicking the boys. Pretending as though I’m catching her kisses, I fawn.

“Aw, you must be drunk!”

 “Ugh, I love you!”

“I love you too!”

“Can you bring me a slice of pizza?”

Sekyung bats her eyes at me, waiting for me to move.

“Get it yourself!” I bat my eyes back at her.

Sekyung sighs, dropping to the floor.

She crawls over, pouring herself a mug of wine and loading her plate up with “one” pizza, as Jiah perches herself beside me, looking despondent.

“Man same. I went to this formal party today. It was pretty sophisticated. This cute guy was hitting on me, right, but I guess he thought I had a ”.

“That’s awful”, Sekyung offers Jiah her sympathies.

“Come here baby ehehehe”, I hug Jiah.

“Hoe we literally just established our love for each other”, Sekyung shakes her head dejectedly.

“Aw that’s awful. Come here baby”, I throw my arms around her too, in attempts to drown out her despair with my love.

“No you-”.

“Shhhhhhh”, Jiah cuts of Sekyung as she elatedly motions over to Renée and Luhan who seem to be engaged in a conversation.

That’s right. Renée and Luhan. Luhan and Renée. Not Renée and a mug, and Luhan and a mug, but actually them and each other.

This is so exciting!

“Oh my, my, my”, Sekyung whispers so we can eavesdrop on our friend.

“I don’t know man, sometimes it keeps me up at night”, Luhan says.

“So LuLu, what keeps you up at night?” A slightly buzzed Sekyung perks up, raising her eyebrows suggestively.

Renée and Luhan stare at her, confused.

“You don’t get me”.

Dejected, Sekyung looks over to us constantly repeating “they don’t get me”. Just to clarify, this is not really something we would often see from her when sober.

A dejected and slightly buzzed Sekyung is definitely cute.

“Aw that’s awful. Come here baby”.

Being unable to resist the cuteness, Jiah and I hug the resistant Sekyung, who gives in halfway because our love is aggressive and hard to resist, obviously.

“Okay since you and I have hugged now, I believe our relationship has surpassed that point over to where I can judge you and speak freely”, Sekyung declares solemnly.

“You may…” Jiah squints her eyes.

“You’re not actually taking Lay seriously are you?”

To her surprise, Jiah and I laugh.

“Nah man, I’m just playing along. I’ve Lay-ed with a lot of Lays”.

“Pun acknowledged”, Sekyung smirks. “It starts off as playing along though, but then before you know it you’re digging a hole deeper and deeper and then whoops, you’ve dug a hole you can’t get out of”.

“Which is funny because apparently they prefer the deeper hole”, I perk up.

We chant in unison, finger gunning each other like a bunch of lightweight cringe kids, only interrupted by the opening door.

“Ooooh, look who’s out of the deeper hole”, Jiah laughs as a confused Lay and Tao strut over, tugging at their zippers.

“Is there anything I should be concerned about?” I ask Tao, only to be handed even more winking- Tao at Lay, and Lay at Tao as he sets himself down beside Jiah.

“That’s a secret”. Tao says playfully, motioning me over as he claims the now empty arm chair.

Accepting his invitation, I walk over and set myself down on his lap, wiggling around as I kiss his cheek on the journey to find myself a comfortable angle.

“Aw, come on, tell us!” Jiah perks up.

“Why? Jealous, honey? We could create some secrets of our own, you know”, Lay winks, clearly working some “unknown” angle.

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