Monarch was a fifteen minute drive from campus.  It was an unassuming brick building sandwiched between two other unassuming brick buildings, two stories high.  There was already a line down the block to get inside.

"How is this place so popular?" Taeyeon asked no one in particular.  There had to be some appeal, somewhere, she just couldn't figure it out.  What was so fun about wiggling around in a dark room with too-loud music while some ert rubbed his on your and some drunk puked on your shoes?

"Good music, cheap drinks, and no cover on Thursdays," answered Sunny.  "And the bartenders are really cute!" she added with a giggle.  She leaned across the backseat to whisper into Taeyeon's ear, "Male and female bartenders, FYI."

"Who's our DD tonight?" Tiffany asked from behind the wheel.  "And no Taeyeon, it can't be you, so don't even try.  You're getting plastered, understand?"

Taeyeon deadpanned, stone-faced, her head against the window:  "Are you sure you want that?  I hear I get pret-ty wild when I drink."

Sunny patted her on the shoulder.  "It's cool, I've got this."

Sooyoung, in the front passenger seat, snorted.  "You?  Sunny, you drink more than all of us combined."

Sunny held her hand up in a three-finger Girl Scout salute.  "I solemnly swear to drink nothing but Diet Coke tonight, so that your drunk asses get home safe."

"Woo!"  Sooyoung fist-pumped as Tiffany pulled the car into a stall.  "You're a good man, Sunny."

They stood in line for half an hour, shivering in the late-spring air.  Taeyeon kept trying to pull her shirt down, a useless effort considering it was designed to show off her midriff.  She also kept trying to not stare at Tiffany's chest, likewise a useless effort.  It only worked when Tiffany turned around, but then Taeyeon ended up trying not to stare at her .  Life was difficult sometimes, she thought.

The bouncer spent ages poring over her ID with his flashlight.  He would look at the license, then back at Taeyeon, then back at the license.  She supposed it didn't help that her license picture made her look like a stoned 12 year-old.

"I promise I'm really 22," she said, batting her lashes over wide doe eyes, as if that would help her cause.

After several more checks, he finally acquiesced and placed a blue paper band around her wrist.  Permission to drink, acquired.  Sooyoung and Tiffany's IDs got a mere cursory glance before they received their own wristbands.  Taeyeon felt a bit of schadenfreude when the bouncer took almost as long inspecting Sunny's license as he did her own.

"Obviously discriminating against us because we're short," Sunny said to her when they were out of the big man's earshot.

Finally, they were in the club.

To say that the inside of Monarch was a sensory overload did not do it justice.  The sound hit Taeyeon first, a deep thrumming bass line from the stacks of speakers that vibrated through her chest.  She swore her molars were rattling in her skull.  She couldn't detect the melody, if there even was one.

She had to give the owners credit; the inside looked a lot classier than the outside.  The first level was taken up almost entirely by the dance floor, already occupied by several dozen people, a brushed concrete pit recessed slightly into the floor, with a scattering of small round tables and stools around it.  A dizzying array of lights and lasers adorned the ceiling, washing the floor with swirling lights.  A staircase led to the second floor, which housed the bar and more tables, giving a perfect view of all the shenanigans on the dance floor.

It smelled… entirely unpleasant, Taeyeon decided.  The acrid scent of alcohol layered over unwashed bodies bathed in the latest Eau de Douchebag.  She wasn't sure what she expected; what else was a club supposed to smell like?

She blinked several times in rapid succession as her eyes adjusted to the unsettling combination of dim ambient light interspersed with green lasers and purple strobes.  This was absurd.  Why did she think this was a good idea?  This was not a good idea.  Not at all.

Tiffany felt differently.  "You're going to have so much fun!!" she screamed into Taeyeon's ear, barely audible over the din of the club.  She was almost vibrating with excitement.

Taeyeon looked at her and slowly shook her head back and forth, her expression resembling the look a cat gets when it's dangled over water.  Noooo, she mouthed.

"I love this song!!  Let's go dance!"

"I'm not good at dancing!"  The wave of bodies undulating in the pit was intimidating as all hell.

"WHAT??"

Taeyeon put her face next to Tiffany's and attempted to avoid smelling her hair.  She failed.  It smelled amazing.  Dammit.  "I at dancing!" she yelled.

Tiffany threw her arm around Taeyeon's shoulder and pulled her close.  "It's okay, I at dancing, too!  You just gotta let go and be free!"

Taeyeon caught Sooyoung's eye, the taller girl already at the staircase.  Help me, she desperately tried to communicate with her eyes, for she most certainly did not want to "let go and be free" around Tiffany.  Sooyoung nodded, waved at Tiffany, pointed to the bar and made the universal gesture for taking a shot.  God bless Sooyoung, Taeyeon thought as they ascended the stairs.

The bar was enormous, stretching across nearly the entire length of the floor.  Every variety of alcohol Taeyeon had ever heard of, and some she had not (prickly pear vodka?), lined the shelves behind it, every color of the rainbow.  Sunny was right, the two bartenders working were quite attractive, especially the female one, an Asian girl with dyed blonde hair who looked around their age.

"You should do a shot with me, Tae.  Maybe then you'll want to dance," Tiffany said.  She cupped her chin with her thumb and forefinger and eyed Taeyeon suspiciously.  "You're not a mopey drunk, right?  Or an angry one?  You don't get into fights, right?"

"Not usually, no."  No, she just giggled a lot and sat on cute girl's laps and then woke up in their beds the next morning.  "I don't think shots right away is a good idea, though.  I'm a lightweight, and it's hard enough walking in these heels sober."

"Good idea.  What do you want, then?  First round's on me!"  Tiffany beamed, and her teeth looked extra big and extra white under the glow of the lights.

Taeyeon stared at the endless array of bottles.  She usually stuck with boxed wine and Fleischmann's.  This was some high-class alcohol.  She was out of her depth.

"Is that bacon tequila?"  Sunny squeaked and pointed to a golden flask on the third shelf.  "I want some of—I mean, Sooyoung, you should get some of that so I can live vicariously through you.  Because I'm not drinking."

"Sunny, that's disgusting.  You may live vicariously through my strawberry daiquiri."

Tiffany ticked off their orders on her fingers to the cute blonde bartender.  "A strawberry daiquiri, a Diet Coke for our precious Sunny, a shot of that raspberry vodka right behind you for me, and…  Taeyeon, do you know what you want yet?"

"Um…."  , how were people just supposed to know what the names of these cocktails were?  It was like some super secret drinkers society that she was not fancy enough to be a part of.

"Just give her an ," offered Sunny, and Taeyeon choked on her own spit.

Tiffany was oblivious to Taeyeon's respiratory distress.  "Ooh yeah, I bet she'd like one of those," she agreed.  Meanwhile, Sooyoung was laughing so hard she had to lean on the bar to keep from toppling over.

Once again, as she sputtered, Taeyeon found herself wishing for scientists to discover a new sinkhole just under her feet.

"'Kay, and an for my friend Taeyeon.  Keep the tab open, please," Tiffany told the bartender, who immediately began throwing things together, hands a blur.  Oh, it was a drink.  Of course it was a drink.  Why wouldn’t it be a drink?  Who the hell thought up these names?

As it turned out, the drink was a sweet, syrupy combination of Amaretto, Kahlua, Bailey's, and half and half, garnished with a bright red maraschino cherry.  Carefully taking a sip, she cringed as the thick drink immediately coated her tongue like a sugary blanket.  She made a mental note to never let Sunny pick her drinks ever again.

Still, she nodded when Tiffany asked her if she liked it, not wanting to disappoint her.  They all clinked glasses ("Here's to Taeyeon not being a social recluse!" announced Sooyoung to half the bar; some of the other patrons clapped), and Tiffany threw her shot back with the ease of an expert.  She then immediately ordered a Cosmo for herself.

Taeyeon tried not to flinch when Tiffany squeezed her bare shoulder, her hand lingering entirely too long.  "We're gonna go dance; are you coming with?"

"I want to finish this drink first.  I'll be down in a bit."  Both of those statements were a lie.

Sunny stayed behind as the other two made their way downstairs.  Taeyeon purposely avoided the accusatory stare she knew she was getting, choosing to look at the swirly white-brown mess in her glass instead.

"Are you going to have fun or are you going to sit up here and pout all night?"  Sunny asked, not unkindly.  Sunny always worried about her, like a mother duck fussing over her duckling.

"Sorry," said Taeyeon, and she was.  "I'm not trying to be a drag.  I really don't know why I came with.  This isn't exactly my cup of tea, you know. "

"You should talk to her."  Sunny didn't have to specify who; they both knew.

Taeyeon shook her head.  "Not here, not now."

Sunny shrugged, nonplussed.  "Suit yourself.  I'll be downstairs if you need me."  She left.

Plopping unceremoniously down on what she knew would be her seat for the rest of the night, Taeyeon attempted another taste of her cocktail.  Nope, still disgusting.  But, Tiffany had paid for it, so Taeyeon figured it would be polite to drink it.

The bartender noticed her distress.  "Hon, I can get you something else if you don't want it.  It's not a big deal."  She smiled wryly.

"Oh, thank god.  Thank you," Taeyeon said, sighing with relief, pushing the glass away from her as fast as she could.  "I, um… I don't know what to get, though.  I'm not really big on the bar scene."

"Well, what do you usually drink at home?"  The blonde cracked the top off a bottle of beer, poured it into a mug, and slid it to a man six feet down the bar, eyes never leaving Taeyeon's face.  Impressive.

Taeyeon twirled the garnish pick around in her fingers.  "Uh… I usually just drink Franzia."

The bartender's face crinkled with sympathy.  "Oh, you poor thing."  She threw a bottle into the air behind her back and caught it with her other hand to the sounds of raucous cheering.  "So what are you here for?  You wanna get loosened up enough to dance, or maybe flirt with a guy here, or…"

"I want to forget about my unrequited crush on my straight female friend who made me come here and who won't stop touching me."

The bartender winced.  "Ouch.  You sure you don't want me to just hand you a whole bottle?  Actually, nevermind, I already called an ambulance out here once tonight.  You like apples?"  At Taeyeon's nod, she put together a drink in a martini glass in approximately 2.8 seconds.  "Here.  Appletini."

Taeyeon took a drink.  Much better.  "Thanks," she said.  "I'm Taeyeon, by the way."

"Hyoyeon.  Try and have fun tonight, okay?  This is my club, and I like the people in my club to have a good time."

Though interacting with them was dodgy at best, Taeyeon had to admit that she loved people-watching, and Monarch offered a prime experience in that regard.  In the space of a few moments, she saw six sloppy makeouts, one guy get a drink thrown at him, two catfights, and Sooyoung pretend to drop something on the floor so she could bend over and give the whole club a good look at her legs.  Sunny, social butterfly that she was, already had a cadre of strangers around her at a table, laughing like they were old friends.

She scanned the sea of bodies for signs of Tiffany.  The girl was in a hot pink dress, it couldn't be that hard to spot her.  When Taeyeon finally found her, dead-center of the dance floor, she suddenly felt much better about her abysmal dancing skills.  Tiffany was… Taeyeon wasn't even sure what to call it.  It was like body waves and crumping had a horrifically deformed baby.  Still, she had to admire how Tiffany could move so much without spilling her drink.  Must be all the hours of practice every Thursday.

Time passed; Taeyeon checked her phone every other minute, wondering how long this was going to take.  Her friends came back up periodically to get more drinks and check on her, mostly the former— they had all seemingly resigned themselves to the fact that Taeyeon was a perpetual stick in the mud.  Tiffany and Sooyoung got progressively wobblier as the night went on, and, as she watched them attempt to navigate the stairs, gripping the handrail for dear life, she questioned the design choice of having a bar on the second floor.

There was a girl who had been dancing with Tiffany all night.  At first, Taeyeon paid her no attention.  People were drawn to Tiffany like a moth to flame; it was something Taeyeon was used to.  However, this girl, a pretty brunette in leather pants, wouldn't leave Tiffany alone.  Not that Tiffany seemed to mind at all.  In fact, their proximity had been steadily decreasing, and Taeyeon felt like a voyeur seeing them touch:   the girl pressed up against Tiffany's backside, hand around her waist, Tiffany grinning like she'd won the lottery.  , Taeyeon decided was not nearly drunk enough for this.

Taeyeon closed her eyes.  She couldn't get lost in this kind of music.  It was too heavy, too basic, too… loud.  To her, music was almost akin to a spiritual experience.  The right kind of singer, the right kind of sound, the right kind of lyrics brought her to an emotional level she couldn't quite reach otherwise.  But the sound of the club was like an assault on her ears.  It was just too much.

She opened her eyes to see Tiffany and the girl locking lips.

Time froze.  Taeyeon's breath caught in , her glass stuck in her hand halfway to her lips.  She had blinders on, tunnel vision, the world reduced to Tiffany's tongue in that girl's mouth, a hand gripping Tiffany's , Tiffany's leg wedged between those leather-clad thighs—Taeyeon didn't even notice the hoots of the people surrounding the pair.

She tore her gaze away long enough to punch in a quick text to Sunny:  "We need to go now."  As soon as she sent it, she received one from Sooyoung: "omg we nede 2 go."

The next few minutes were a blur.  She tipped Hyoyeon heavily, Tiffany half-crawled up the stairs to get her card back and scrawl her name on the receipt, and Sunny led them all to Tiffany's car, making sure no one hit their heads on the way in.

"I still don't know why we're leaving," Tiffany protested for the eighth time, her voice 20 decibels louder than it needed to be.  "It's only 1!  I was having fun, we were having fun!"  From the backseat, she smacked Taeyeon on the shoulder.  "You were having fun, right?"

Taeyeon didn't, couldn't, say anything.  She was lost in her head, replaying that scene over and over, not wanting to believe it had actually happened.  Did it mean anything?  Tiffany was straight… wasn't she?  Straight girls kiss other girls when they're drunk all the time, right?  Taeyeon had even slept with a couple of girls who insisted they were straight.  But Tiffany seemed really into it.  Was she into Taeyeon?  If Taeyeon had been the one dancing with her, would she have—

"Yes, Taeyeon had a great time," said Sunny without a hint of sarcasm.

Tiffany seemed satisfied with that answer.  She flopped over onto Sooyoung's shoulder, as much as her seatbelt allowed.  "You had fun, right, Sooyoung?" she slurred.

"I got like… 10 phone numbers.  I'd say that was a win."

Mercifully, Sunny dropped Taeyeon off first, even though it was out of the way.  Taeyeon didn't know if Sunny had seen what had happened, but Sunny always knew when something was up.  She had a keen instinct for Taeyeon's moodiness and did whatever she could do ease it.  Sunny, Taeyeon decided, was a good friend.

After the lengthy trip to her room, Taeyeon flung her shoes off and collapsed into bed.  Tonight was a disaster.