Friday Fix

♚ | seven

I stared it him for a good five seconds until I remembered that he had been asking a question.

"Y-yes." God, I'm stuttering like a seven-year-old kid with a crush. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." His smile was dazzling. "Are you new here? I don't think I've seen you around before."

"I uh, came in just last week. You dance really well," I added.

"Oh, were you in the class? Mr Kim is a great teacher, isn't he?" He brushed a soft strand of hair away from his eyebrow and I could squeal. "Thanks for the compliment by the way."

Shifting his feet, he let out another disarming smile. "Well - I should go. See you around."

"Bye," I whispered at his retreating back. As I watched his shoulder blades shifted under his long-sleeved shirt, I resisted the urge to hop in excitement.

If only I have his photo to send to Hyeong-gon. Then we could both fangirl together.

♚

"A cosplay competition?"

Yugi nodded. We both looked at the poster, which was colorful and large with similar copies plastered nearly everywhere on campus.

"It's sort of an annual thing. Most of the boys here are crazy about anime, and they have a competition to see who can out-cosplay the other. The faculty thinks it's good for us to deal in things outside of our studies, so they try to encourage stuff like this as much as they can, as long as it doesn't go against the rules."

"What exactly do they do?"

"Dress up as a character and show off their skills. Think Miss America but anime. Majority votes decide the winner."

"And what does the winner get?"

"Bragging rights and free cafeteria food for a month."

My eyes widened. "Free cafeteria food? I could live with that!"

Yugi shot me a sly glance. "You want to join?"

I wrinkled my nose. "Nah. What's the chance of me winning? I barely know the stuff."

"Hey, you never know." Crossing his arms, he appraised me with a critical eye. "I could totally see you as Nagisa from Assassination Classroom. Or even Haku from Naruto."

He suddenly stepped closer, and it wasn't the lack of distance but the look in his eyes that made me back up quick. My heart thumped in warning.

"You know," he said almost suspiciously, "you look like a girl sometimes."

I froze, and my heart burrowed deeper into its rib cage. s**t, is this my Judgment Day - ?

Yugi's eyes lit up, and one could almost see the light bulb popping into life beside his temple.

"That's it! You look like a girl - so you could cosplay as one! Bro, this is going to such a cinch; as long as you look and act successfully like an anime girl, you're gonna be the champ. Dudes go crazy for anime girls; you could be Violet Evergarden - maybe not, we usually dig hot chicks . . . Fubuki perhaps?"

I watched amazed as Yugi began muttering to himself. I hadn't known he could get this animated - heck, I hadn't even known that he was into anime culture. At least it's better than him figuring out my gender. Yugi was the closest friend I had here on campus so far, and I thought he'd caught on my secret.

He was still going. "All we need to do is pile on the make-up" - boy, I thought, if only you knew how much make-up I have on right now - "get you a dress and wig" - ha! Guess who's got one of the two? - "fake boobs are a must of course - "

I frowned, casting a surreptitious glance down on my chest.

Yugi snapped his fingers, eyes wide. "Holy moly, imagine if you joined as Rias Gremory!"

My eyes narrowed as all the alarm bells in my head went off. I did have four brothers after all, and I knew enough to know that that was a character from a harem anime.

"Yugi," I began in a guarded tone, "don't you dare sign me up for this."

He paused. The tip of his tongue peeked out cheekily from the gap between his front tooth and incisor, and his eyes gleamed with mischief.

"You know, if you won you could help me get free food."

"Yugi . . . "

He took off in the direction of the teacher's office.

"Yugi!" I shrieked as I hotfooted it after him. "Get back here! "

♚

It was Friday. Again.

Jungkook had been criminally cheerful since the morning, and from the lazy smirk he had on his face I knew he was about to pull the same thing like last week. Sure enough, when the clock struck 5 in the evening, he turned around in his seat and send me a pointed gaze that I could feel drilling into my back from a mile away.

"I got it," I said, irritated. I suppose - a compromise, right? I'll leave him alone to his stuff and he'll leave me alone to mine. "I'm leaving and I won't be coming back until 2 am, alright?"

Shooting him a look of my own, I went on. "In return, you promise me you're not going to do it on my bed."

"Hmm, we'll have to see." His voice was a low drawl. "Like I said, it's dangerous to climb ladders when you're intoxicated."

"Well if it's so dangerous, why don't we switch bunks then?" I'd been eyeing the top bunk since the first day I came in here - it was high off the ground and had a low partition, which offered more privacy. "If you take the low bunk you could do with it whatever you want."

"Sorry, dude" - and that suggestive smirk of his eyes widened - "I like to be on top."

Well if it isn't young Christian Grey.

So I went out again, alone this time. My brothers hadn't offered another outing and even if they had I would have rejected - I knew they were busy, and it wasn't right of me to depend on them so much. Ah, the burden of growing up.

To avoid anyone recognizing me on the street, I reverted back to being a girl with Hyeong-gon's kit. The blouse and skirt I'd worn from last week were the only female clothing I had, and so to reward myself I decided to do a bit of shopping. Not much, not anything expensive - I'd just been wanting a type of dress for some time now.

It was rather fun browsing shops and streets by myself, especially since I had my music in my ears. I wasn't surprised to see that there were quite a number of Ryuk-il students out and about - the period between Friday night until Sunday night was the only time we were allowed to leave campus. Even so, I was pretty sure that students left all the time regardless. Security seemed rather lax around here - I mean, I had gotten in despite being a girl, after all.

A group of Ryuk-il boys from my hip hop class walked past and I kept my face to the front, bold. Part of me was flailing in panic and begging me to turn away, but I had faith in my disguise and wanted to test it out. Our eyes met, the boy moved on without pause and I let out a breath I didn't know I had been holding.

Score.

The perfect dress was found in a tiny boutique squashed between a convenience store and a barbecue stall. It was tight around the waist and flared out below in vibrant red. I changed into it on the spot, and walked out of the shop humming happily.

As I took the turning past an entrance to the underground subway, loud voices caught my ear. I looked to my left. A crowd of people had gathered in an alley, and to my surprise I saw the group of Ryuk-il boys. They were engaged in what seemed to be a heated discussion with a couple. The whole scene was dimly lit and bathed in insufficient light from a nearby lamppost.

I hesitated for a moment, before curiosity got the better of me and I sidled closer. The girl from the couple flicked her long hair and shifted her foot, and suddenly I saw her uniform. She's from Footlights Dance Studio! Footlights was another dancing center in Seoul that I had considered when researching on potential dance academies to enter. The only reason why I had cross it off my list was because it focused mostly on ballroom dances, which wasn't what I wanted.

"Listen here," the girl was saying, "we all know you people over at Ryuk-il are always looking down on the rest of us, alright? Thinking you're all so fine just because you happen to be part of a so-called prestigious uni.

"So we're challenging you to a dance-off, right here, right now."

"But this isn't fair," a Ryuk-il boy argued. "You guys do ballroom. We do hip hop. How are you supposed to compare?"

"Simple. We challenge both." The girl gestured at her partner, a tall, strikingly handsome boy who looked distinctly Italian. "Luca here can do both hip hop and ballroom. So there isn't a problem on our side."

"But - we don't have anyone who can do both on our side."

A smirk from the girl. She looked gorgeous, dressed in gold heels and a simple, elegant dress. The confidence in her posture was unmistakable.

"Well then. I suppose that means automatic forfeit."

"That isn't fair and you know it. When you called us out for a dance-off, you never specified there was going to be ballroom involved!"

"Well then you should have come prepared," Luca's voice was soft, his Italian accent audible in his words. "As you can see, we did."

"What's going on here?" a voice interrupted strongly.

Ack. I drew back further behind the wall. What was he doing here - wasn't he supposed to be busy scoring his Chick of The Night?

"Students from Footlights are challenging us to a dance-off," the Ryuk-il boy said sullenly. "Only it involves both hip hop and ballroom."

Jungkook shrugged, an arrogant wave of the shoulders. "So? Let's do it."

"No one here from us knows ballroom."

Jungkook smiled, almost dangerously. "But I do."

My eyebrows nearly shot off my forehead in surprise. I had certainly not been expecting that statement.

The black leather jacket around Jungkook fell to the floor in one swift motion. He was standing directly under the lamp, and it was as if it had suddenly became his personal spotlight. I could see the lean muscles that defined his shoulders, and the slight sheen of sweat masking his skin from the neck downward. He had on ripped jeans and his Timberlands were a dark brown.

"Come on, then." His eyes sparkled, and his lip caught under his teeth as he grinned. "What are you waiting for?"

❈

Tight waist and flared skirt . . . seems like the ideal dress for a - say - ballroom dance, perhaps?

Yours in seduction,

Lady Godiva.