Trust

Pole Dance Classes

The guy with the cute butt is in my first class of the day. After being dropped off by his girlfriend and the other two guys at room 514, he takes out his phone and leans against the wall, probably waiting for the teacher. There are at least thirty other students also standing near the door.

"So..." Juhee swallows and throws the cute-butt guy a glance that he doesn't notice. Then she turns back to me. "That's it. Room 514."

I've already seen the sign next to the door. "Thanks", I tell her. "I would've been pretty lost without you."

"Don't mention it." Her eyes flicker over to the guy, who's still on his phone, one more time. "Have a nice day, Wooyoung."

"You too." I watch as she walks off to her class.

As if he had sensed me staring, the cute-butt guy glances up from his phone. His face looks even more stunning than I thought it would. I blink.

"Hey, are you new here?", he asks. "I haven't seen you around before."

Blonde hair, a slim face but squishy cheeks as he smiles at me – this guy is so my type. I could totally see me going over to flirt with him. If I was lucky, I could even hook up with him by the end of the day.

But I'm not lucky – he's in a relationship.

Sometimes the world is just unfair.

"Yeah, I'm new." I walk over to him nonetheless, just leaving the flirting part out.

"Nice to meet you then", he welcomes me with an awkward chuckle. Like me, he doesn't seem to be a fan of small talk, which makes me like him immediately. Plus his ass...

"I'm Yeosang."

I nod curtly. "Wooyoung."

"Are you studying performance as well?"

"Uhm, yeah." The class we're waiting for is called Theater of the Body. I doubt that other people than dancers would take a seminar like this. "Isn't this seminar only for those who study dance?"

"Fair point." He blushes and busies himself by playing with the necklace around his neck. Plus, he's cute. I shake my head to snap out of it. Probably his girlfriend has a similar necklace. Cheesy couple-y stuff.

It only takes me ten more minutes though to figure out that Yeosang can be very far from cute and downright mean when he feels like it.

"That's Mrs Yi", he whispers in my ear as the arriving teacher unlocks the classroom's door, and we take out seats in the back of the class, "she's unbelievably boring, so you better bring something interesting to do for next Monday. I've had her in Epochs of the Twentieth Century last semester and fell asleep twice. Listening to her is basically like sitting next to a semi-defect ventilation system: It's humming most of the time without much effect and you don't know how to turn it off."

I bite on my lip, desperate to suppress a giggle. I have this tendency of laughing too loudly too often – my fellow students don't need to find that out already.

"You're mean", I whisper back after I've calmed down again. Mrs Yi writes something down on the board without introducing herself.

Yeosang just shrugs. "Am I? It's just the truth. And it's not my fault if some people don't like to hear that."

Oh my god, he's so blunt. I'm starting to really like him.

"What class do you have after this?" I gesture to the board that reads The Body as a Stage. What the fuck. Why did I sign up for this seminar?

Yeosang frowns, thinking. "Dancing? As in actual dance training, I think?"

"Me too!" I try to not sound too excited, but I fail. "Modern Dance?"

"Pole dance", Yeosang replies with a straight face – and through my head flashes a surge of unbidden, undeniably erotic pictures of Yeosang swinging elegantly around a dance pole in a stripper's outfit.

Yeosang breaks into a fit of giggles, setting me free from my temporary trance. "You should've seen your face, Wooyoung! Pole dance..."

"Jeez", I mutter, my face burning, "you almost made me believe you."

"You did believe me", Yeosang corrects.

"Pah. I didn't." I absolutely did.

"You looked shocked", he tells me gleefully.

Yawning, I turn my head to the windows showing a sunny blue sky outside. "You're so funny..."

"Yah", he nudges me into the side, "I am."

"You're not."

Yeosang opens his mouth for a reply, but he gets interrupted by Mrs Yi's voice that makes us both flinch: "Kang Yeosang. Could you contextualize today's topic with another literary work that you have read recently?"

"I- I", Yeosang stammers. He shares a blank look with me.

After five very uncomfortable seconds of silence, Mrs Yi sighs. "So you didn't you read the lecture I assigned as compulsory for this seminar." Without waiting for an answer, she fixates her gaze on me. "What is your name?"

Oh no. Please don't – I'm new here! Although being new annoyed the shit out of me just fifteen minutes ago.

"My name is Jung Wooyoung, Mrs." I bow my head and hope that I sound polite enough for her to not ask me about contextualizing some shit. Mrs Yi frowns, so I add quickly: "I just transferred here." So please have mercy with me and don't expose me to my fellow students already.

I should've stuck with dancing, not added some theoretical shit on top of it. I hate theorizing, contextualizing... whatever non-practical stuff, you name it, I hate it. People shouldn't care about how many essays I've read in my life. They should only care about if I can dance. And I can. So what's the matter?

"Welcome at Seoul university then." Mrs Yi gives me half a smile, so that I almost expect her to drop the topic and move on to the next student. But she doesn't. "Could perhaps you contextualize today's topic with a work you have read before, maybe something from your old uni?"

I didn't read much at my old uni – it was mostly the teachers recommending some literature and me jotting down the titles but never actually reading the books.

I do remember a few of the titles they mentioned though, so I blurt out the first one that comes to my mind: "Displaying Identity, Mrs." Mrs Yi still looks at me expectantly, so I add: "By Walter."

"Walter who?"

"That's, uhm... that's his surname, Mrs." It's not. But I seriously can't remember anything about the authors name – I'm glad I came up with Walter that quickly. Also, judging from the surprised look on Mrs Yi's face, she hasn't even heard of this essay before. Lucky me.

"Could you give us some information on the text and summarize Walter's main points for us?"

Well... or not.