The 'Experience'

Taeyeon’s PoV:

As Tiffany and I walked into our school’s gymnasium, we were both shocked by how empty and boring the interior was.

Our large gym was probably only a third filled. People were just moshed-up in the middle, standing. There were a few lights on the bleachers and a few electric disco balls shining randomly. Currently, they were playing some random song by Koyote? I don’t know. It had to be something from 2009.

This was a great first impression.

“It’s so empty.” It wasn’t even loud enough for Tiffany to yell. God, it felt so dead here.

“Maybe the crowd will get bigger later.” I tried to reason. We got to homecoming 30 minutes late, but the crowd looked as if we came once it started.

We knew a lot of our friends wouldn’t show up. The dance team had their showcase last week and wanted to rest up. Our popular Technology and Digital Arts Club was having their own dance the coming Wednesday. Even our basketball team (which the homecoming is for), didn’t show up because they were exhausted from their game the day before.

Not to mention, our winter homecoming was never really popular. My freshman year, it was cancelled due to low interest. It was on the verge of being cancelled my sophomore year, but are class council managed to spice things up with scoring the hottest DJ in our county, which obviously spiked ticket sales within the last 2 days. This year, it was once again on the brink of being cancelled, again. Well, what can you expect? The damn tickets were $20. My Junior Prom ticket was a little over $40.

The first 15 minutes, we went rummaging through the awkward crowd in hopes of finding any acquaintances we could turn up with. We manage to find some friend’s from our past Physics class. One girl was in our Drill team and the other two were considered the brainiacs of our school, but they were able to play along. When things sadly toned down and they decided to go outside and just talk, we went on another search for other friends. We hung out with some Student Body kids, but that didn’t last very long. We decided to take a chance and enter the nucleus the crowd and just dance randomly, but we were constantly interrupted by disgusting couples or people staring at us for being too crazy.

Even with all these efforts, we were in the gym for only an hour before we decided to leave and just talk.

Tiffany and I are the best of friends, ever since the beginning of middle school, but things got complicated our junior year when we didn’t have any classes together and she started dating her boyfriend, Nichkhun. We decided that maybe we could catch up from everything that happened.

“I literally paid $20 for me to say I officially experienced homecoming at my own school.” I sat down at one of the tables in the cafeteria where the coat and purses were being kept.

Tiffany laughed at my remark, but pitifully smiled. “I’m sorry your first homecoming was like this.”

I shrugged it off. Yes, it was my first homecoming at my own school, but my past homecoming experiences at other schools were… pretty horrific as well.

We sat quietly, not knowing what to say. I honestly haven’t talked to this girl in a really long time. I’ve been busy preparing for college and we never hung out at lunch because I procrastinated my homework due to my senioritis. Plus, I didn’t like feeling like a third wheel as soon as Nichkhun came into the scene.

“Do you think it would’ve been more fun if our other friends came?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Remember Junior Prom when we went with the girls?” Tiffany started. We giggled at the sight of how awkward our friends were trying to be cheap and dance like the people in America.

“Seohyun was too innocent.” I tried to defend. “Hey, you gotta admit Sunny acting like a gangster was cute.”

She laughed. “I guess. Do you remember when Sooyoung tried to twerk in the limo?” She smiled with her eyes and held her head in her hands.

“Oh, my goodness, that was catastrophic!” I said really loud. The chaperones taking care of the personal belongings gave us a look, but I didn’t care.

Tiffany laughed because of my loudness. “Jessica wasn’t being very active then. I think she was stressing out over her project in her Computer Graphics class.”

“I think she was just conscious because it was a project about designing clothes and she felt pressured because a legit fashion designer was grading their work. You know how she wants to go in that field.” I reassured her.

“Yoona and Yuri were fun though,” Tiffany started.

“Only in the beginning,” I rebutted. “They were crazy for like the first hour.”

“Yeah! It was as if their dance moves in that hour were the only ones they prepared.” Tiffany covered as she laughed out loud, causing the chaperones to look at us again.

“I was so disappointed at Hyoyeon though.” I slammed my palms against the table.

“I know!” Tiffany did the same. We looked stupid. I was glad none of the student body was witnessing this. “She basically ditched us for Joon Hyung! They even left with some other people and he got arrested for getting in a fight!”

We paused after our reminiscence of the night that actually turned out wonderful.

“But I still feel bad.” Tiffany stated.

“For ditching them?” I asked. I also felt bad, but also happy. We spent about an hour and a half with the girls that tried to fit in. They barely danced and just stood there (kinda like the people now…) and whenever Tiffany and I started dancing, they would just scream ‘Yas!’ or something obnoxious. I mean, the least they could do was join in. We’re all close friends together. I wouldn’t mind looking stupid as long as we were stupid together. But, they had an image to maintain.

“Yeah. But I’m glad we found our friends in Black Illusion.” Black Illusion was a female hip hop dance group in our school. Our friends in there were Hyuna, Min, Hara, Minzy, Bomi, and Bora. Of course, there other girls, like Nari, Seolhyun, and these two girls that go by the name ‘Mint’ and ‘Lime’ (don’t ask me how or why, but they are amazing dancers!). Even Hyoyeon is in Black Illusion. These girls are so talented that their past members, BoA and Kahi, got dance scholarships to prestigious dance schools and were even contracted to be back up dancers for famous idol groups. You can imagine how much fun we had fun with these girls! Sorry! I went off topic in my thoughts!

With our next pause, I checked the time. It’s only 8:45 and the dance ends at 10.

“We haven’t talked like this in a long time.” Tiffany grabbed my hand and played with my class ring.

“Yeah.” I simply agreed. I looked out the windows. I swear it was 20 degrees outside, but about 40 kids were outside. Couldn’t handle that great music and dancing, huh? Speaking of music, the music sort of got better. I could hear muffles of 2NE1’s ‘Do You Love Me?’.

“I’m sorry.” She randomly spoke up.

“For what?” I knew she was going to talk about Nichkhun, but I didn’t understand what she needed to apologize for.

“I feel like I pushed you away so I could be with Khunie.” She sighed. I sighed too. I saw it coming as soon as the few conversations we had in our junior year were filled with the mysterious Thai Nichkhun Buck Horvejkul. I admitted it early. I mean, it stings a little knowing that your best friend would rather hang out with her boyfriend, but it makes sense. I can’t do much, especially knowing the fact that Nichkhun is also Tiffany’s first boyfriend.

“It’s fine. I feel like I’ve been ditching you and the girls to hang out with Sunye.” I admitted. “I mean, yeah, I don’t like feeling like a third wheel, but I can’t control it and I’m not going to stop you. You guys are happy and I need to be there to support you.”

She smiled. “Thank you.”

Our conversation went on forever. We talked about how Tiffany was worried about going to a different college than Nichkhun. I confessed to her about my past, sketchy dating experiences. (She was very shocked to hear that I went very experimental: as far as doing drugs, drinking, and almost losing my ity to a someone named Kim Junsu.) I talked to her about a past secret relationship I was having with another someone named Byun Baekhyun who promised he wanted to provide for our future family, but planned on doing so as a professional pianist. Now don’t get me wrong. I respect his choice, but it’s not ideal. We talk about boys and private feelings and our doubts of the world. We then talked about other miscellaneous stuff, like Senior Ball, graduation, our 18^th birthdays and college.

It was nice. Even after 6 years of friendship, we’ve never shared such an intimate conversation.

I checked the time and it was already 9:30.

“You wanna head back and try to make use of our $20?” I asked.

“Sure, why not?” Tiffany stood up and we walked back to the gym.

The song being played was Big Bang’s ‘Lies’. Back in 2008, this would’ve been my jam, but I honestly wanted to go crazy with the latest Hello Venus or 2PM single. The crowd grew about 10% larger and to my dismay, they were still standing.

Not even 2 seconds in, Tiffany was pulling my arm. “I can’t stand it here. Wanna ditch and go to my house and make some dance covers?”

I shrugged. “Why not?”

And as we somehow maneuvered through security without getting caught, we spent the night pigging out and actually dancing to Mamamoo’s ‘Piano Man’, EXID’s ‘Up&Down’, VIXX’s ‘Eternity’ and many more.

It was a bummer homecoming was boring as it was, but I was very blessed to have spent it with my best friend. We became closer that night and still managed to make the best of the night.

And there you have it~

Not as climactic as you expect, but this literally was my homecoming experience last week... pretty boring, but still an experience.

And yes, 95% of this is actually true. Don't judge me. I've done some wrong things in my life.

But seriously. These people were dancing like this: