“Look who I found!” a tall young Swedish man laughs loudly and points with his drink at the table we are sitting by. I look at my friends sitting around the table, each one of us with out own drink, and they look as confused as me at first. My sister, sitting next to me at the end of the sofa is the only one showing a reaction of recognition of the man. It is a good sign because the man is opening his arms for a hug by my sister. “It’s been a while,” she says happily when greeting him. My sister knows a lot of people, and our hometown is small that it is obvious she knows people. We are of the age where we are supposed to spend every, every other weekend at the club. I don’t, but my sister does, and I guess a lot of people do. “This is my sister!” I hear Jen say and I find myself forcing out a smile to the stranger when my sister moves her hand to me. “Wow seriously! I didn’t recognize you,” he says and leans forward to hug me. I lean back a bit but the alcohol makes him not notice that as he still hugs me. “You look so different!” “Ha, it’s Erik!” Emelia remembers and gives out a laugh, pointing a finger at him. She too is drunk, “Haven’t seen you since 9th grade, Erik.” “Woah!” he says and starts laughing when recognizing not just Emelia but Maria too. “Hey, it’s 5 Pieces, right? Ha-ha-ha-ha! Do you know how much I laughed when I saw your faces on the TV? Oh, wait…” He remembers something and walks away, and I am the only one among us ladies who apparently do not know (or remember…) who Erik is. He went to school with us? “He was our classmate for three years,” Emelia tells me with a laugh from the other side of the table, as if my clueless expression told her I can’t remember him. Erik comes back, I notice him because he is moving his body a lot to reach our table, and he has brought three other guys with him. What’s up with their height though, and don’t they eat? They are all tall and skinny, and drunk. “It’s them! HA!” one of them laughs loudly and shortly. They talk to us, ask us about how it came that we five weirdoes from school have their music played everywhere. They are loud and talkative, they laugh and they constantly bring up their view of us from school; how ugly we were and how weird we were. They try to sit down with us, but our table is crowded already and I know that not one of us want to listen to them. Maria gets angry even, hearing them talk. “If Jen wasn’t with you now, I would never recognize you,” Erik comments, smirking as he looks at Maria up and down. It’s noticeable even if we are sitting down. “Excuse me, we are the same as we were then,” Maria tells him, her tone saying it all. “All that has changed is our status.” I smile thinking it is our status as singers that makes the old classmates sit and talk to us. “You did not look like this in school,” Erik’s friend laughs. “I want to dance,” Maria says and stands up. I am fast up on my feet to let her through. Maria gets out after me and she link arm with me, and we start to go downstairs to the dance-floor. No one go with us. “I’m still a weirdo.” Maria sounds deeply annoyed when saying that, and I smile, hugging on to her arm. “We all are,” I tell her. She laughs happily at my answer and she agrees, and we enter the dance-floor, raising our arms and making our way into the crowd before finding a spot to dance on. It takes a few seconds before Maria’s sister joins us, Shiwon and Haneul too, and we are dancing. This night is so much fun. We have been talking by the table for some time, drinking and cheering, taking a few shots (I know I will have a hangover in the morning, but I also know that I am having a lot of fun at the nightclub – and I am sweaty, unstable and I keep moving on the dance-floor. I dance with Maria’s sister; we move ily the two of us when Maria is dancing with a stranger, and when Shiwon starts dancing with a group of drunken girls younger than me, I can’t help but to laugh. He always enjoys the party life, especially if girls are involved. Haneul dances with me and Maria’s sister, not that close though but he is there. The song they have been playing has been popular on the radios, even in Korea, but they remix it so much for the club that only at times you can hear the chorus. Most songs played are like that though; popular tracks the DJ in the booth makes into a remix that you barely recognize. A new song begins to play and we continue to move, bouncing and I throw my hair around. In the remix a female vocal says ‘aow’, drowning in the remix so what comes before and after is not heard. It’s something familiar with it though. I don’t know what it is, I try to know where I have heard this song before but the remix makes it hard to hear it. Until Maria stumbles out of the stranger’s grip, and she stumbles over me with her bony arms around me. “YOU HEAR IT!?!” she shouts, sweaty and bony I feel her arms around me. I frown at her and she is looking the brightest when taking a step back, randomly dancing. At least that is what I laugh at when she starts, and then I laugh more seeing she is dancing to my solo song [New Me], just for me to hear that my choreography suits the remixed song. “It’s my song?” I ask, pointing at me and I grab on to Maria for her to stop dancing, “What song is this?!” She laughs and sings along for the chorus, and I scream before I start to sing and dance too. They are playing my song. It’s unbelievable. It’s amazing. It’s in Sweden! I lean my head back with a laugh as I hear my own solo song play as a remix on a nightclub in our hometown. I put my hands up in the air and I move along in joy, recognizing my voice slightly in the remix and I laugh looking at Maria dancing too crazily for the stranger to approach behind her. We go insane for this remix. Maria, her sister, Haneul and I are dancing, we do the choreography or club dancing, Maria grabs my hands one time to say our music is for the world, we keep dancing and we are too wild for anyone to approach. I spot our old classmates who spoke to us earlier, they are also at the dance-floor but like everyone else they can not get close to us because of Maria and her sister’s wild dancing. Shiwon is dancing quite crazy too. I feel crazy with them. We dance through some more songs, Jen comes by and leaves, to go be with her friends, and I get exhausted from dancing. When the others decide to go back upstairs I go to the toilet next to the bar on this lower floor. I dance my way through the crowd, feeling light and drunk and I am smiling my way inside the toilet to do my business. The music is so loud at the club that my whole body is bouncing to the beat. In the toilet I look in the mirror when washing my hands. I’m sweaty from all the dancing, the makeup around my eyes was never strong so it is pretty intact still so I don’t need to fix that before I step outside again. Instead of taking another drink I order some water, worried of how I will feel in the morning. While waiting for my water to come, a man crowds into standing next to me even if it is crowded around the bar counter. I wouldn’t take notice of him for doing that if it wasn’t that he is facing me, one arm on the counter and he looks down at me with a smile. “Hi,” he says. He is absolutely gorgeous, tall and handsome. He looks like your typical Swede, not too muscular but not slim like the ones from our old school, he looks gorgeous with those playful eyes and wicked smile, light brown hair styled up and shorter on the sides, and he hasn’t shaved today. “Hi,” I say back, smiling a bit before receiving my glass of water so my smile is turned to the bartender. “Are you going easy on the alcohol tonight?” the man next to me asks and he reaches my height when he has both his arms on the counter and leans against it, still looking at me. Man, he looks hot. I didn’t know anyone could look that hot in my hometown. “I haven’t been easy on the alcohol tonight, that’s why I’m taking this,” I answer and lift my glass, but I don’t drink. I just look at him; no, correction, I am smiling at him. “Where are you from?” The question comes out of me without me thinking it through, and I smile when he looks surprised. “You don’t think I’m from around here?” I shake my head. “What makes you think so?” he wonders, leaning in a bit closer to not have to speak too loud. Or maybe I speak too low so he has to be closer. “I don’t know,” I answer and shrug my shoulder, knowing I am smiling too much. I want to ask him again but instead I take a sip from my water. He smiles at me, his lips lightly before leaning in a bit more. “I’m from Örebro. Right now I’m visiting some friends here. What about you?” “I grew up here,” I answer. I think it is the alcohol making me so charmed by him, because his skin is pale and based on his neck I think he goes to the gym, but his shape says he is on a diet too perhaps. I don’t know what it is, he is charming and gorgeous but there is something about him that makes me wonder. “And you go out a lot?” he asks with a smile, interrupting my thoughts. “Since you knew I wasn’t from around here.” I smile widely, mostly because I haven’t been in Sweden in a long time but also because I guessed he wasn’t from around here based on how he looks. I shrug my shoulder and tell him I don’t go out a lot. “I saw you dancing,” he comments, changing the turn of the conversation and he nods out to the dance-floor, he shifts to let his body face me again. “It’s not a lot of women dancing like that.” “Maybe you haven’t seen that many women dancing then,” I point out. “I have seen quite many, actually,” he answers and I think he is joking with me somehow. “But no one dances like you.” I’m not sure if I am smiling or studying him when he says that but he laughs at my expression. He has a nice smile, a really gorgeous smile: he reminds me of a mix between the actors Jake Abel and Cam Gigandet – it is a great mix. “How old are you?” I ask him, tilting my head as I can’t grasp his age. “I’m 26,” he answers. “And you?” “22,” I say and when he smiles I smile back. “I know you just ordered water, but would it be alright if I bought you a drink?” he asks. I don’t even know his name. For that question, I bite my lower lip and look at him while wondering what to answer. “Maybe another time,” I say and take my water, about to step away when he holds out his arm to stop me. “What’s your name?” he asks. “I’m Henrik.” “Hannah,” I answer, feeling my cheeks blushing by his fingers lightly touching my arm. Man, he is gorgeous! “It was nice meeting you, Hannah,” he warmly says and leans forward. I stand still, a bit frozen by the thought that he will kiss me – kiss me? But his lips touch my cheek lightly. Is he a gentleman? I hurry back to my friends by the table and when I am telling them about the gentleman, I am giggling behind my hand. Maria hits my arm, saying I should have let him buy me a drink if he was a gentleman. “Once in London, I tried to hook up with a handsome lad,” Maria starts telling the others, “I had to place his hand on my because he didn’t touch it. He was too polite.” “Different from the ones here,” her sister points out. “The one I danced with earlier almost put his hand inside by ,” Maria comments and rolls her eyes. “In public, while dancing. Silly boys.” I sit there with the others, barely drinking from my water and while a part of me is thinking of the gentleman, another part is listening to my friends. While they continue to talk I lean back with a smile thinking of the gentleman, watching a bartender coming our way with a tray of drinks in hand. “We didn’t order this,” Maria’s sister says when the bartender puts down the tray on the table. The bartender smiles at us. “I was told to give it to you, it is sent from Henrik.” I glance at my friends before looking behind the bartender to see as far I can to the bar, but I can’t see him. Maria nudges my arm, gladly accepting the drinks. Is it the same Henrik who I spoke with downstairs? I watch the bartender leave and see him walk downstairs and I wonder how he knew to give the drinks to us. He bought a few drinks, not enough for us sitting around the table, then I think of what he said; he had seen me dance, so I wonder if he bought for me and the friends I was dancing with. “Go,” Julia says from the corner, waving her hand at me. “Yeah, go!” Maria remembers and pushes me. “Go thank him or something.” She keeps pushing me until I stand up and I sigh. “Do you want to get rid of me?” I ask her. “Well, either you go thank him or I go. Because if a guy you met two minutes ago pays for our drinks, he is definitely worth a second glance,” Maria answers while Julia keeps waving her hand for me to go. I reach my tongue out at them but still leaves, hearing them laugh and I think someone makes a dog sound. I turn around with a confused glance at them, seeing those around the table laughing and cheering me on from afar. I shake my head at them, knowing the people around the tables nearby are glancing at the noise they make. It makes me smile though, they are acting silly. I walk down the stairs to the dance-floor, glancing around before walking over to the bar, looking at the people around me. It’s easy to spot him. He is standing exactly like when I left, just the other way so he sees me when I come. He smiles at me. Man, his smile is such a gorgeous smile. His teeth are straight and white, he has dimples, and his eyes are really cute. “Hi,” I say when I have come up to him. I lean my arm against the bar counter probably not looking as relaxed as him but I am smiling at this gorgeous man. “Hi there,” he responds. “Didn’t you like the drinks?” “My friends liked them,” I answer. “You didn’t have to do that.” “I know. I didn’t want to leave without buying you that drink,” Henrik says and he his lips lightly. “Thank you,” I say, knowing I haven’t thanked him. “For the drinks, thank you.” He shrugs it off, but not with his shoulder, he does it with a wink. He is charming. “Are you here alone?” I wonder. “No. My friends are somewhere.” He looks around, pouting his lips when it seems like he can’t see them. “Somewhere. I hope they haven’t left without me, that would be sad.” “It would,” I nod. I laugh when he looks taken aback at my answer and I cover my mouth behind my hand when he leans in closer, looking at me. “What do you do for a living, Hannah?” he wonders, resting his chin on his hand, looking interested and his eyes are focused on me. “I’m…” I start and I chuckle. “I write books.” “Ooh, that’s interesting. Any I might have read?” I like that he doesn’t know me as 5 Pieces’ Hannah. It makes it fun, but it also makes me lie, kind of. I do write books, but that is probably not what I should’ve answered. “Probably not,” I tease with a tiny grimace. He his lips again. “It’s enough to live, right?” “Yeah, it is,” I answer, feeling how close we are. He smells nice, I wonder how I smell. “But I live with some friends, so we share the expenses.” “That sounds nice. You live in the city?” “Um, no… What do you work with?” I ask, smiling when he laughs at how I change the question to him. “Smooth,” he laughs, but he laughs so gorgeously. “I do carpeting for a living, back in Örebro. But I got some days off to attend a funeral up here.” “Oh…” “It’s my childhood friend’s father who passed away…” Henrik breathes in. “I hadn’t met his father in some time, but he always congratulated me on Facebook on my birthday. He was a good man.” “I’m sorry,” I pout. It feels awkward when I put my hand on his arm, but it is to comfort his sad face-expression that I do it, caressing lightly up and down. “My grandfather passed away a few days after his birthday.” He looks at me as if he wonders what to say after my comment. I thought it was alright to mention it, as he mentioned death and birthday, and I mentioned my dead grandfather and his birthday. “Was it recently?” he wonders. Maybe he didn’t know how to ask that question. “In … January,” I answer. I don’t know if that counts as recently or not, for me it feels both like it just happened but at the same time that it happened a long time ago. “I gue