chapter two

THE PRESIDENT’S FAMILY restaurant was called BBQ, and when we stood there on the terrace, just before the entrance, I briefly wondered why they hadn’t thought of a more unique name before the opening, or why it said “the cafe” on the logo when it was actually a restaurant. I asked Myungsoo about it, who stood next to me, but he just shrugged his shoulders.

We entered through the glass doors, and were immediately greeted by the President’s father. He looked young, and was probably taller than my Dad, but not as tall as his son. When he smiled, the wrinkles by his eyes would deepen, though that couldn’t hide the fact that he was quite a good-looking man. He seemed really friendly and approachable, and I doubted that the President’s father would ever talk about human excrement the way my own father did.

He led us to a room in the middle of the restaurant, which was separated from the rest by window walls in grid pattern. The tables and chairs inside were a wooden brown, and the remaining sides of the room were in olive green with an English text in white. The President’s father gave us the menu before leaving us to our celebration. I sat on the bench, above me a rack filled with music records, and Myungsoo joined me.

“Just order whatever you want. It’s on the house,” said Sungyeol nonchalantly, sitting down diagonally in front of me.

Sungjong took the seat next to Myungsoo, and hung his trench coat around the chair. Bomi was the only one who hadn’t sat down yet as she was still standing at the entrance of this separate room, fidgeting slightly. I wanted to call her over to sit on the chair in front of me, but Myungsoo stopped me and said, “She needs time. This is really difficult for her right now.”

I learned not to question such things further.

A waitress came over to place the cutlery onto the table. I noticed, when she was bending over to position the fork in front of me, that her face resembled the President’s father. Her jawline was the same, and they could have been twins, if not for the less amount of wrinkles by her eyes and mouth. I wondered whether the Loser Club often held meetings or celebrations like these at this restaurant. And I wondered if I could always be part of them from now on.

We hadn’t really looked into the menu yet, were too occupied with the seating, so Sungyeol took the lead and randomly ordered something for all of us. When his aunt (Footnote one: I will just assume she was his aunt) left, he turned around and said, “Well, since we have new members, we shall tell you guys about the history of the Loser Club.”

“You don’t need to tell me. I know most of it,” interjected Sungjong, waving his hand in front of him. “But Juhee probably doesn’t.”

It was the first time since I had become freshman that anyone had spoken my name, and I had to admit it was a satisfying feeling to be directly mentioned. I looked at him with grateful eyes, silently thanking him for being the first one, someone I would always remember, and nodded continually. He seemed a bit confused as to why I was staring at him, but before he could decide to bring my behaviour into question, the President spoke up.

“Okay, so, Myungsoo, would you please tell us about the Loser Club? You know, the general things and all. We haven’t practiced this that much, since we never thought we would actually get people to join us, but you will be fine.”

“I’m getting a bit nervous now,” responded Myungsoo, sighing. I noticed how Bomi  eventually moved away from the entrance, and slipped into the chair in front of me. She inspected the cutlery and adjusted its position a few times, her small fingers carefully sliding the spoon to the side and then back. I watched her curiously when Myungsoo started talking. “The first Loser Club members were juniors born in 1981 and 1980. So that means the first meeting was in 2001. And if I can remember properly, then back then you were in third grade primary school.” He looked at me for confirmation, and I was surprised that he was able to calculate that so quickly. Maybe he had been a math genius in his previous life. Without further delays, he continued, “Tablo and DJ T were the first members of the Loser Club, meaning they were the founding fathers.”

“Those aren’t their real names though, right?” interrupted Sungjong.

Sungyeol shook his head. “No, but they want to stay incognito.”

We all nodded, and Myungsoo went on.

“Tablo had always been a bit peculiar in his behaviour. He would randomly slap people on the back for fun, have his difficulties paying attention in class or when people were talking to him, couldn’t sit still for longer than a minute - I’m exaggerating here - and would sometimes interrupt people’s conversations. He could hardly wait for his turn in games, and would change topics faster than someone could shoot a bullet. Teachers and professors always called him a trouble maker, a bad student, but he was actually a genius.”

“Sounds like ADHD to me,” said Sungjong, placing his chin on the palm of his hand, his elbow supporting the weight.

“Yeah, I’m surprised you were able to tell.”

He pursed his lips. “My brother has that, too.”

“Well, at least your family recognises it. In Tablo’s case, not many people around him were able to see that. They all thought he was just annoying and disobedient, were put off by his eccentric behaviour. So you can imagine that he never had friends or people who really cared about him.” Myungsoo looked a bit upset when he said that, but I couldn’t picture why. He quickly composed himself and carried on. “Anyways, Tablo met DJ T in their Law major, and it didn’t take long for Tablo to find out that DJ T was a hardcore outsider.”

“Hardcore outsider?” repeated Sungyeol, amused. “Since when do you use such words?”

Myungsoo shrugged, but his hands were slightly trembling. “I wanted to imitate the cool kidz.”

“Okay, that’s enough. You did a great job. Leave the rest to me, and relax a little.” When the President said that, I noticed how Myungsoo immediately folded his fingers into a fist, then opened his palm, then folded them again. He rubbed his hands on his jeans, and sat back so I could see the President better. “So, yeah, DJ T was an outcast because he was exceptionally smart and his parents were poor. He got a scholarship at Yonsei, and lived on campus. But many people disliked him for no reason.

“When Tablo recognised that and saw how the other students treated him the same way, he decided to befriend DJ T. And of course it was easy to become friends. Both of them were intelligent and had a good heart. Especially DJ T, who wouldn’t even think of talking behind someone else’s back even if that someone hated him with all their guts. Tablo was more of a free spirit. If someone gave him hell, he gave them hell back. But ten times worse.”

“He seems scarier than you,” I blurted out.

Myungsoo next to me chuckled, and Sungyeol stared at me with furrowed brows. “You think I’m scary?”

“Not anymore,” I said.

“Okay…” He rubbed the nape of his neck awkwardly (a word I would never have associated with the President) and mumbled something to himself. But I was too far away from him, and the noises outside the private room were too loud, to catch on to what he was saying. “So, yeah, they became friends quickly and in their third year at Yonsei they decided to establish a club for outcasts, so the latter would always know where to go when they felt lonely. They wanted people like us to have a group to belong to because it is so easy to lose yourself in the crowd of popular people. Tablo didn’t want us to blend in. He wanted us to stick out and become strong.”

“But that didn’t really work out, huh,” said Sungjong matter-of-factly.

“What do you mean?” I asked, leaning over to look into his eyes.

He seemed a bit intimidated by my direct gaze, but answered anyways, “Well, can’t you see? We have five members in this club, and you didn’t even know that such a club existed at Yonsei to begin with. Talk about wanting to stick out. It’s impossible to stick out when people don’t care about our existence.”

“Makes me wonder,” began Myungsoo, “why you wanted to join our club in the first place. You don’t sound like you really appreciate our way of leading this club. Or Tablo’s way.”

“No, it’s just…” Sungjong stared at the table, and he suddenly seemed a bit disconnected from us. “It’s just that I don’t care about sticking out and being special. I don’t care about the other people. I just want a group to belong to. People who accept me. I just don’t want to sit alone at a table or wait alone or stand alone. That’s all.”

Sungyeol looked at Sungjong for a long time, and I worried that they might kick him out for his individual way of thinking, but before I could stop them from doing that, the President said, “Well, today’s Loser Club is different from Tablo’s Loser Club anyways. We don’t want to stick out either, that’s why we are subtle with our invitations. We don’t announce the application period, and we don’t hang out posters and give out flyers. We don’t wait for people to come, but we find them ourselves.”

“How do you guys do that?” I asked, from the corners of my eyes absentmindedly watching Bomi slide the fork to the side and then back to its original position. “Finding suitable candidates, I mean.”

“My brother is a hacker,” explained Myungsoo nonchalantly, and I looked at him. “He can basically hack into social networking sites, your password and spy on your emails. Everything that is protected and safe on the internet, he will find a way to get in. Kind of like this guy.” He pointed at the President who, when I glanced at him, grinned in response. “So whatever the internet knows about you, my brother will know too.”

“But isn’t that illegal?” I wondered.

“It is. But my brother doesn’t do that with ill intentions. It started because he was so curious about how computers work and what things he could do with programming  and stuff.”

“And besides,” added Sungyeol, “we make sure not to invite Law students, so it doesn’t really matter.”

“And my brother only helped me because we needed to find suitable candidates for the Loser Club. And that by subtle means.”

I nodded, mindlessly returning my gaze to Bomi who was now almost lifting her eyes to mine. Then I remembered something, and asked, “So how did you find out about my obsession for American comics?”

“Oh, I will tell you some other time,” answered Myungsoo with a small curve of his lips. I noticed the faint dent in his cheek, and realised he had a dimple. Kind of like my brother. “For now, Mister President, you shall explain the timetables to them. It’s one of the basics in the Loser Club.”

“For now,” returned Sungyeol with a smirk, his gaze fixed on something in Bomi’s direction, “we shall eat some chicken. Then talk about the basics.”

♞ ♞ ♞

Our celebration ended at 9pm, and before all of us went separate ways to get back home, we exchanged numbers. The President said we had to save the numbers in each others’ pseudonyms, and when I asked him what he meant by that, he stated that his pseudonym was LSY and Bomi’s was YB. Myungsoo was known as L, and Sungjong and I would be LS and NJ accordingly. We followed his orders, not thinking about questioning his motives, saved each others’ numbers, and parted ways.

Myungsoo would be accompanying Bomi back to the campus while Sungyeol would stay at his family restaurant. Sungjong and I had to take different subway lines, so I pulled my earbuds out and plugged them into my phone, preparing myself for the best to come. After all, it was time for me to listen to the second audio book of Paranormal Infinities.

Marvel representatives hadn’t spoken yet about giving rights to an author who would publish a novel based on my favourite comic, but in our fandom people already started writing fan fiction about the characters. And among them there was one user called sync who took it upon himself/herself (Footnote two: it is not clear whether sync is male or female) to completely write a novel closely based on the comic itself. He/she used the same dialogues taken from the books, and described the background and the characters straight to the point. He/she was able to accurately convey the heroine’s emotions and thoughts, and even if his/her act was almost like plagiarism, no one in our fandom cared because the novel was great. Besides, he/she had his/her own blog in which he/she published the chapters, and we fans wouldn’t be so stupid as to report it.

Sync’s novel and blog was so popular among the fandom that other fans asked him/her for permission to make an audio book. Of course sync agreed, because sync was just so awesome, and when the fans published the first ten minutes of the audio book, a sample to see whether the fandom would like it and accept the amateur voice actors and actresses, I immediately fell in love with the voice of Horace J Lewis, the side kick whom everyone adored in Paranormal Infinities. Before, I never really had an exact impression of how the PI favourite would sound like, but when they published the first audio book, I decided that I had imagined his voice like that all along. A bit rough and soft at the same time.

During the whole ride back home, I listened to the second audio book, and went nuts whenever Horace’s voice actor started speaking. He gave me chills every single time. Then I stood in front of my house, and paused the audio book to look for my keys, only to realise that I hadn’t brought them with me. So I rang the bell.

As always, I prepared myself to wait a bit longer because my parents were both working and my brother was usually in his room, from where he couldn’t really hear the bell, but someone opened the door just a few seconds after I had pressed the button, as if that someone were directly standing at the entrance.

“Oh, hello,” I said nervously, taking my earbuds out, surprised at the sight of my brother’s friend.

Lee Howon, who preferred to be called Hoya, smiled a little, then returned his gaze to the phone in his hands. I entered and closed the door behind me, slipping off my shoes. Someone in the living room (or kitchen) shouted, “Who is it?” And he answered back, without once looking up, “Your sister.”

I was about to hang my jacket over the rack when Dongwoo, another friend of my brother, emerged from the small bathroom next to the entrance, the one that smelled a little strange, and said, “Oh, Juhee, you are back.”

“Yes, I am,” I said, not feeling so anxious anymore. “Are you guys having a party?”

“Yeah, we’re playing Poker,” answered Dongwoo. He always had this weird habit of touching the nearest person in his perimeter when he was talking. And this time his targer was Hoya's shoulder. But the latter didn’t seem to be annoyed or even present in the current situation. He was just typing something into his phone, not paying attention to the ongoing conversation. “The losers have to down the shot in one go.”

I nodded for no real reason when my brother appeared from the kitchen, his cheeks slightly tinged red, and walked towards us, pointing at me. He grabbed my forearm, and said, “Come, Juhee, you have to replace Hoya for this round. The lover boy needs to call his girlfriend.”

Without hearing my response or waiting for me to agree, he took my backpack off, carelessly dropping my phone somewhere on the way, and pulled me through the kitchen door and into the dining room where I found Poker cards and a bottle of vodka placed on the table, four chairs positioned around it. Kim Sunggyu, my brother’s senior, sat in one of them, and smiled when he saw me. He had very small eyes, but they kind of looked good on him. If they had been cut out from his face and been placed into my brother’s sockets, I doubt they would have made my brother prettier. But in Sunggyu’s case the magic worked.

“Come, join us.”

Woohyun pushed me down onto the seat that Hoya had previously occupied, and returned to his own chair, which was next to mine. Dongwoo slipped into the one between my brother and Sunggyu. I watched Woohyun gather the Poker cards, and inspected the way he shuffled them, before I mentioned, “But I don’t drink.”

“Don’t worry. Hoya will take over the punishment,” explained Sunggyu with a smirk. He was the oldest, but he was extremely mischievous. In a funny way, though. He added, “If you lose, Hoya will drink up. So it’s okay if you lose on purpose. Your life is not on the line here.”

But I didn’t want to lose.

But I did. Because I had no idea how to play Poker.

“Drink it up, you losers,” hollered Sunggyu, holding his hands up. He was the winner of this round and he did not shy away from showing that.

I watched him in amusement, and asked, “Are you drunk?”

“No, but I lost the few previous rounds,” he said, standing up to fill the shots. He grabbed the vodka bottle and went to the kitchen counter behind me. “This is my first time winning.”

My brother called Hoya to come and accept his punishment, and I suddenly felt bad for losing so easily. He wasn’t even the one who had chosen me as his replacement, which would have made it not as devastating for me as it was now, and I was more or less forced to replace him, and because of me he lost, so to speak. I couldn’t, didn’t want to, imagine the look on his face when he returned and found out that I had lost in his stead. 

After a very short while, Sunggyu came back with the three glasses, and I assisted him by placing them onto the table. Hoya eventually joined us as well, and when he walked in, I turned around so that my back was facing him. He stood right behind me and placed my phone, which I had previously dropped on my way to the dining room, onto the table. I looked at him and thanked him, apologising at the same time, but he just kindly shook his head and grabbed the glass of vodka, drowning the content in one go.

“Have you called your girlfriend yet?” asked my brother, his face scrunched up after having emptied his glass.

“No, she isn’t picking up.”

“Lover’s quarrel?” asked Sunggyu.

Hoya shrugged, and wiped his mouth clean with the back of his hand. I looked up and stared at the distinct line across his jaw. Someone at the back said a funny joke, but I wasn’t listening. I just looked at him and watched how his smile would stretch out and push his cheeks up, and how young and boyish it made him look like. When Hoya smiled, no one really could look away. He was the most charming when he smiled.

“Anyways, little sister,” began Woohyun, causing me to avert my eyes away from Hoya to him, “you can go to bed now. It’s almost 11.”

“Oh, okay.” I stood up, grabbed my phone, and politely bowed to my brother’s friends. “Good night, everyone. Have fun, and don’t go home too late.”

Dongwoo laughed, and the sound always made you want to join him. “We’re sleeping over, Juhee.”

“Oh, really?”

“Except of the lover boy. He’ll spend the night at his girlfriend’s place. If she allows him, that is,” added Woohyun.

“You mean, if she picks up his call, that is,” Sunggyu chimed in, looking at Hoya to see his reaction. The latter scoffed, but smiled a little. And then I just wondered. 

I wondered why he only spoke so few sentences (two, to be precise), and why he always answered with nonverbal gestures. I wondered whether he was like that with his girlfriend too, and whether my brother or the others were irritated by his lack of response. He had a really, really nice voice, in my opinion, and it was just a pity to see him not using it very often. I felt like he could come up with the wittiest remarks, with the prettiest sound and the greatest words, but he just wouldn’t do it. He received a gift at birth, but decided not to use it. It was such a pity.

♞ ♞ ♞

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A/N:

You guys are amazing. I'm glad that you like the idea of this story.

On a side note, if you google "Loser Club", you'll find this funny site somewhere. I'll give you the link. Here it is.