I giggled as my friends and I clicked through more songs.  Every once in a while, we liked to search online for top songs on various charts back in the States.  Granted, the three of us and our families have lived in Seoul for longer than we’ve lived in the US, we always liked to keep up with the entertainment scene of our birth countries.

          “What the hell?”  I clicked on the number 1 song of this week.

          “Do…what?!” Jordan gasped, reading the title.  “Do it like a dude?!”

          “That’s what it’s called,” Amelia confirmed.

          “Do it like a dude,” I repeated, collapsing back on my bed in a fit of giggles.  “What the hell kind of song is that?  This is why I don’t listen to American music.  Oh, the singer’s British.  Whatever, it’s on the US charts.  Do it like a dude.”  I rolled my eyes.  Do it like a dude, seriously?!

          “Kpop is way cuter,” Jordan mentioned.  Amelia nodded in agreement.  We kind of had to say that though.  In reality, the three of us did like kpop and were known to fangirl over certain y boy bands, but there was a bigger reason for our loyalty to kpop.

          Our boyfriends were trying to become members in one.

          Well, Jordan’s and Amelia’s boyfriends were already chosen.  Along with two other members, ironically, friends of ours from school.  If my boyfriend gets chosen for one of the three remaining spots, life would be perfect.

          He finds out today if he made it.  If he fails his camera test again, I don’t know what I’ll do.  He worked all summer for this.  Secretly.  He wouldn’t even talk to me about it.  Something about bad luck.  Just like Amelia and Jordan’s boyfriends.  They worked on preparing for this since what felt like forever but never talked about it.  Getting up hours before school to work on lyric writing.  Hiding in their rooms for hours late at night to practice dance moves or stretching to get their bodies in prime shape for this.  These boys were dedicated, to say the least.

          And it’ll break Yu Kwon’s heart if all his hard work turns out to be for nothing.  No.  I can’t think like that.  He’s a killer singer and an amazing dancer.  He deserves this.  He can do this.

          And I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise.

          “Ugh,” Jordan groaned, snapping me out of my thoughts.  “I kind of like this song.”

          I cracked up all over again at her reddening face.  Amelia elbowed her.  “You can play this for when you do it with Ji Ho.”

          “Ugh,” she repeated letting her forehead fall on the keyboard of my laptop in front of us.

          “Oh, come on, girlie.  After all the crap you went through to get Ji Ho, there’s no shame in admitting you guys do it all the time…” I trailed off and looked away from my curly haired friend.  “Like rabbits.”

          “Gah!” she whined.  “We haven’t done it yet!” she defended.

          “Seriously?” Amelia and I questioned in unison.

          Jordan lifted her head and glared at us.  “It’s been barely a year since we got together and before you give me crap,” she continued when I opened my mouth to, well, give her crap.  “Just because we were best friends with secret feelings for each other and I lost my mind last year trying to sabotage his latest relationship which only turned out to be fake because he wanted to make me jealous enough to snap and confess my feelings for him while I was…actually doing the same thing, trying to make him crazed with jealousy so that he would confess to me by pretending to be with one of his friends…” she paused to inhale.  “Doesn’t mean we’re going to just dive right into…doing it like bunnies.”

          “That was quite the speech, Jo,” I laughed.

          She rolled her green eyes at me.  She eyed me and then Amelia suspiciously.  “You guys have been with Yu Kwon and Jae Hyo longer, officially, than me and Ji Ho, have you guys…?”

          She was so cute and shy.  I looked to Amelia.  She shook her head defensively.

          “No, Jae Hyo and I haven’t done it,” she admitted.

          “Neither have Yu Kwon and me,” I added.  The girls looked at each other and then at me.  And then burst out laughing.  “What?  Not nice!”

          “Oh, sorry, you’re serious,” Amelia said.  They stopped laughing.

          “Just because I talk the way I do doesn’t mean…”  I sighed and shrugged.  “Yu Kwon says something about wanting it to be special and wants to wait for the right time…or whatever garbage he tells me.  I thought teenage boys had uncontrollable hormones.  This guys has no problem keeping his on a short leash.  Damn it.”  I looked to my friends.  “Yeah, yeah, you can laugh now.”

          The stifled their giggles.  I guess it was a little funny that I was a 17 year old frustrated teenage girl.

          “Man, but he is so y, I’d do it like a dude if he wanted,” I remarked, cracking up when my friends did.  Jordan gasped, catching her breath.

          “That would make him…” Jordan trailed off, trying to control her laughter.

          “Gay,” Amelia finished in a whisper.

          I scoffed.  “Yu Kwon may have a pretty face, but he is so not gay.  I can attest to that.  And I’ll fight anyone who tries to say anything different.”

          “Or just yank out their hair,” Amelia retorted. 

          Yeah, fine, I’ll never live that one down.  So what if I almost got us kicked out of a soccer game where our boys were playing because a girlfriend of the opposing team’s goalie made a snide remark about my Yu Kwon’s uality and I kind of ripped some of her hair out?

          Say something, I dare anyone.

          “Guys, Yu Kwon will be here soon,” I told them, sitting up.  I made him swear on his mother that he’d come right to my house after he meets with the management company.  I will be the first one he sees after they talk to him about his camera test.  That is absolutely and completely 100% nonnegotiable.  “I love you girls, but you have to leave now.”

          My friends laughed, but began gathering their things.  I knew they understood.  This was important.  And Yu Kwon was their friend.  If he passed, then me and him were going to celebrate.  His parents were working, my parents were at the university where they taught English.  Oh yeah, we’d celebrate.

          Not like that, I reminded myself bitterly.  But I knew it wouldn’t take much to persuade him into getting in a little touchy, feely time with me.

          But if he failed, my brain tried to reject the idea even though I knew it was a possibility. 

          If he failed.  I wouldn’t let anyone see him cry the way he did when he failed the first time.  It just about killed me to see him like that.  After all his hard work again…

          “We’re going.  We’re going,” Jordan sighed.  I watched her as she and Amelia put on their shoes.  She had this look on her face.  Jordan stretched her arms, but stayed in place as Amelia headed for the door to my bedroom.  A sneaky grin plastered on her face, Jordan tapped a key on my laptop.

          Do it like a dude blasted out of my computer speakers.

          “Get out.  Get out now,” I told them.  Giggling, they ran from the room

          I put my laptop on my desk, letting more G rated music fill the silence in my room as I waited for Yu Kwon to show up.  He had the key code to my apartment’s front door, so I made myself comfortable on my bed and waited.

          And waited.

          I heard the beep, beep, beep, beep, buzz some time later.  My entire body tensed, but I couldn’t get up.  I could just picture him come into my apartment.  He’d reset the code to lock the door.  He’d take off his shoes and carry them with him.  Up the stairs, his long legs taking them two at a time, and then down the hall until he’d reach my bedroom door.

          Sitting up in bed, I saw him standing in my doorway.  He closed the door and leaned against it.  His face was stone-like.  Hood pulled down low.  He stared at his feet, fidgeting but he wouldn’t look at me.

          “Yu Kwon…” I whispered.

          Shoulders slumped, he shuffled toward my bed and crawled in, pulling his half of the covers over his head.  I stared at the lump his body made under my blanket for a moment before laying back.  Weird visions of hunting down the people in charge of choosing the members of this band and blinding them with a hot poker played in my head.  They obviously didn’t need their eyes if they were going to not use them to see how awesome Yu Kwon is.  He wanted this so badly.  He worked so hard for this.  He loved singing and dancing and aspired to be a boy band member more than anything.  He loved it more than soccer!

          And he and his goofy friends loved soccer.

          I placed my hand on the blanket where I thought his shoulder would be.  He was silent, but he squirmed away from my touch.

          “Yu Kwon…” I whimpered.  Ugh.  I hated it when he got like this.  “Talk to me.”

          I saw the blanket rise and fall with his sigh.

          “Come on, it’ll be ok.  Who cares about some lame band?  Something better will come along!”’

          He moved around a bit more, not uncovering himself still.  I could feel my eyes burning with tears for his pain.  “Please, say something.  Get mad.  Yell.  Cry.  Do something.  Just don’t shut down on me,” I begged him.  Still nothing. 

         Cautiously, I pinched the edge of the blanket over his head between two of my fingers and centimeter by centimeter, I pulled down the blanket.  "Beki..." he murmured, his voice strained and full of pain.  I blinked back more tears, but I continued to lower the blanket to uncover his face.

          He was smiling.

          “You’re so dead,” I growled.