Broken Promises

            Yesung headed out of town for his chorus ensemble on Friday and I begged Heechul to come out to the club with me to drink that night.  I desperately needed to vent to someone.  Everything was turning into a mess with Kyuhyun, Yesung, Ryeosuni, and me.  The worst part of it was, the real me didn’t seem to play any part in it.  Kyuhyun was never going to get to know me if I always acted like Ryeosuni.  But I was also afraid of how he’d react if he found out that she didn’t exist at this point.  He really seemed to like her and, to him, Ryeowook didn’t exist at all. 

            Heechul insisted that we dress in drag when we met up for drinks—for practice—since Yesung’s parents were coming into town the following weekend and I couldn’t argue against him.  I still felt a little unsteady in high heels and clubbing was the perfect reason to dress up.

            Plus, I didn’t have to buy any of my own drinks at the club when dressed as a woman.  The bartender kept handing me drinks that guys had bought for me and I just smiled and waved at them.  If that kept up all night, I was going to be completely trashed by the end of it.  But perhaps that wasn’t a terrible thing.  I needed a break from my problems.

            “So, what’s the deal?  You said that you were having an existential crisis!”

            “I am,” I said, trying to speak over the loud music.  “I think I’m falling in love.”

            Heechul was beaming.  “Why is that a bad thing?”

            “Because he thinks I’m a woman!”

            Heechul waved his hand at me.  “Sometimes they are much more flexible about that than you’d think.  I slept with many men that claimed they were straight before I started dating Siwon.”

            “But he’s gay!”

            Heechul shook his head.  “Kyuhyun is already crazy about you!  It won’t matter.”

            I suddenly froze.  “How did you know I was talking about Kyuhyun?”

            “Everyone knows that you have a thing for Kyuhyunnie.  Everyone!  Except maybe him because he’s convinced that you love Yesung.  The entire rest of the school thinks the two of you are dating because they’ve seen the way you two act around each other.”

            “The only reason his guard is down around me is because he thinks I’m his roommate’s girlfriend,” I told him.  “He’s convinced I’m not trying to rope him into dating me like all the other women on campus.  If he thought I was interested in him, he would avoid me like he does everyone else.”

            “He wasn’t avoiding you yesterday,” Heechul pointed out.  “He seemed pretty damn desperate to find you, if you ask me.  I think you owe me for texting Henry while I had Donghae’s phone in my hand and asking him to come rescue you, by the way.  I still haven’t heard a thank you for that!”

            I took a deep breath to settled myself down.  “Thank you,” I responded, taking a sip of my liquor.

            Heechul leaned on the counter and looked over at me.  “Wook.”

            I glanced over at him.

            “You should just tell Kyu the truth.  Let Yesung figure out how to handle his parents by himself.  He’s a grown man and he needs to learn how to face his own problems.”

            “I made a promise.”

            “Keeping your promise to him isn’t worth the price it’s going to cost you.”

            I downed the rest of my drink.  “I think it’s too late for that.  Kyuhyun is already going to hate me once he realizes that I’ve been lying to him all this time about who I am.”

            “He will probably get mad at you,” he conceded.  “But someone who really cares for you would give you the chance to explain.  And if he loves you, like I think he does, he would eventually forgive you.”

            “I wish I had your optimism,” I told him, standing up and heading for the dance floor.  I only felt buzzed, but it was enough to let the music carry me off a little.  I began dancing with the crowd, but many of the men on the floor were trying to monopolize me.  I had to keep moving around the dance floor to avoid them.  But for the most part, I could handle it.  Whenever they would get a little too aggressive about it, I would just join a group of women for a while.

            But then, after a long stretch of dancing, I noticed a guy moving closer out of the corner of my eye.  I glanced over and recognized him from a party I’d gone to at Eunhyuk and Donghae’s place the year before.  He’d been rather aggressive about trying to monopolize me and kept following me around until one of the older students cut in told him off.  Guy by the name of Kangin, I think.  He’s one of Leeteuk’s friends.  They ended up throwing him out of the party early for being drunk and disorderly.  I think they called him Hyungsik.

            “Ryeosuni!” he said, walking over to me and wrapping his arms around me.  “You’re back in town!  Do you remember me?  We met at Eunhyuk’s party!”  I could smell the alcohol on his breath and turned my head away. 

            I glanced over to where I’d left Heechul, but I couldn’t see him there anymore and began looking around the room.  There were so many people around, it could be hard to track one person down.      “Nice to see you again, but I’m actually here with someone and I should be looking for them.”

            “Don’t be in such a hurry.  We should dance for a little while first,” he insisted, pulling me closer.

            I picked up my second glass of beer and took a sip, smiling as the taste hit my tongue.  It would take a lot of glasses to begin to numb the trauma of the last week though.  The table was going to be full of glasses by the time I felt any relief and Changmin was going to have to drive my car back to the campus.

            Changmin rolled his eyes.  “Kyu, I didn’t bring you here so you could sit around at the table all night and drink beer.  This is the busiest club in town.  Aren’t there any guys that you find attractive?”

            I pointed to a shorter guy with dark blond hair down to his shoulders, dressed in black, with a white apron tied around his slim waist.  “That one is super y!” I told Changmin, loud enough for the man in question to hear me.

            Taemin walked over and wrapped his arms around me, kissing my cheek.  “Why, thank you, Kyuhyunnie!” he said, heading over to another table to take orders. 

            “I wasn’t talking about our server—and I’m totally telling on you to Minho—I’m talking about dancing with single guys that you could hook up with because you keep complaining that you’re lonely.”

            I just took another sip of my beer.

            “Or…” he said, taking a sip of his own beer, “are you going to start talking about your new girlfriend again.”

            I looked over at him, confused.  “What do you mean?”

            “You tell me.”

            “Do you think I talk about her a lot?”

            Changmin shrugged his shoulders.  “You were telling me about the new shoes she bought the other day, when she stopped by the dorm before her date with Yesung.  Must have been Monday or Tuesday, before the rumors started up about the two of you.”

            I could feel my face heat up.  “Well…they were cute.”

            “I have never heard you say that about an article of clothing in my life and Victoria even showed you a picture of her baby cousin dressed as a frog recently.  You said it looked weird to see three-month-olds dressed as animals.  Even I thought she looked cute and I use that word sparingly.”

            “The shoes had flowers on them,” I defended myself.

            Changmin stared at me a long time.

            “What do you want me to say?  What are you waiting for?” I asked him.

            “Do you get excited to see her? Are you happy when she comes over?”

            “Sure.  But I also get excited when you come over.”

            “Fair enough.  Do you like to touch her?”

            “Are you trying to make me out to be a ert?”

            “Just answer the question, Kyu.”

            I thought this over.  The other day, when she came over, I did touch her.  I helped her off with her rain jacket and hung it up for her.  It seemed so insignificant, but I’d purposely answered the door so that I could be the one to greet her instead of Yesung.  It was raining out and I assumed she’d have an umbrella with that I could take from her.  Perhaps I could briefly touch her hand when I took it from her.  I didn’t realize she would be wearing a rain jacket.  I remember brushing my fingers down her arms as I helped her off with it and the way her arms shivered.  Was she cold or nervous?  Then she stepped closer to me and asked me to look down at her new shoes, asking me if I liked them.  And as I crouched down to get a better look, I could feel her fingers lightly touching my shoulder.  And then I shivered too.

            “I do.”

            “Do you get angry when you see Yesung touching her?”

            I refused to answer that one. 

            “What are you getting at?  Just tell me.”

            “Is it possible that you’re falling for Yesung’s new girlfriend?” he asked.

            “Of course not,” I insisted.  “I’ve never been interested in a woman before.”

            “Just because it’s never happened before doesn’t mean that you aren’t interested in one now.  Every time I’m on the phone with you, you mention her.  You have rarely ever done this about any of the men you’ve liked.  Just because she’s not a man doesn’t mean you don’t have feelings for her.”

            “If I started to like a woman, I wouldn’t even know what to do,” I told him, revealing my deepest fear about what had been developing.  “I have never taken an interest in a woman before and they have different personalities than men—and different body parts—which I’m not sure that I can handle.”

            Changmin patted my hand sympathetically.  “You are always up for new challenges.  I have faith in you.  But Kyu, you can’t keep going like this.  Even Yunho thinks you’re completely lovesick and distracted by her.  Either tell her that you have feelings for her or avoid her, so you can get over her.”

            “She’s dating Yesung!” I reminded him.  “It would be completely wrong of me to go after my friend’s girlfriend.  How would you feel if I chased after Victoria.”

            “Our friendship would have to come to an end, I’m afraid,” he informed me.

            “You don’t have to worry about me.  I’d strangle her before I ever agreed to date her,” I said, drinking another sip of beer.  “Especially right now!  I think Ryeosuni is mad at me about the rumors going around about us.”

            Changmin’s brows rose.

            “Don’t take that the wrong way and, for God’s sake, don’t tell Vic I said that!  She’ll never invite me over to your apartment for dinner again.  I appreciate her as your girlfriend.  She just isn’t my type.”

            “I never thought you had a type of girlfriend until the other day, so it really is an interesting development,” he agreed.

            “I just…I can’t stop thinking about her…” I explained.  I looked around the club at all the other y men and women, dancing to the beat of the music.  There was nothing wrong with any of them.  It’s just, none of them were her.  “What do you call that?  When you can’t stop thinking about someone all the time?” I asked, running my hands though my hair in aggravation.

            Taemin stopped by the table to pick up a couple of our empty glasses.  “It’s called love, stupid,” Taemin answered me.  Then he looked over at the dance floor and pointed over to the corner.  “By the way, did