Lies We Tell ✔

The Eighteenth Dance

Despite the university's current state of chaos: hate crimes, cancelled classes, and general mid-semester misery, Parker Jeong was an unstoppable force. Our dance team leader apparently did not catch the memo that it was a week for mourning, analyzing our racial identities, and pretending to be upset about our halted educations. Instead of cancelling dance practice, he sent out an email explicitly asking--more like demanding--us to show up for our regularly scheduled rehearsal that evening.

Jessica and I walked over to the auditorium together. She was just as disgruntled as I was, so it was nice trash-talking Parker and his excessive enthusiasm for dance.

"I mean, don't get me wrong," Jessica was saying in her quiet voice as we wandered through the halls of the empty building. "I love dance as much as the next person. But I'm starting to think there is such a thing as loving dance a little too much. Like wanting to practice in the middle of a campus-wide crisis."

In a way, though, I was kind of glad our team leader hadn't cancelled dance practice. The stress of adjusting to college life, on top of dealing with a criminal running loose in West Tower, had me itching to strap on my converses. To dance until I dropped. Literally dropped.

Parker had drilled the opening sequence of BTS's "Not Today" over and over, until we were so perfectly in sync that even the students in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps would've been put to shame. Unfortunately, my apparent inability to dance along to K-pop had resulted in me accidentally stomping on the feet of the unfortunate victim who was dancing next to me, Tim. Neither Tim nor Parker appreciated my new habit.

"Did I do something to offend him earlier this year?" I sighed when Jessica and I headed outside to find the water fountain during our ten-minute break.

"Well, you keep suggesting Beyonce songs at five-minute intervals," she pointed out. "Maybe he's not a fan."

"How is that possible?" I cried out. "And, okay, even if it were--which it isn't--there are other, perfectly good American songs that we can dance to. That boy is such K-pop trash."

"While I'm flattered to hear your kind opinion of my musical tastes, I would be much happier if you two stopped dawdling and hurried back into the auditorium." Parker's terse voice caused me to choke--again. "We're starting again in two minutes, and the both of you can't afford to miss a single second of rehearsal."

My friend's eyes went wide as Parker swept past us with his usual K-pop-y swagger, leaving Jessica and me blushing from embarrassment in his wake.

"Where did he even come from?" Jessica squeaked.

"No idea. His lair down in Hell?"

Unsurprisingly, our comments about Parker did not help warm him up to us. He was in a foul enough mood that he ended rehearsal ten minutes late, when everyone was sweaty and half-dead with exhaustion. But not before concluding with a reminder of all the events we had coming up in the next two weeks. All five hundred million of them.

"Is this dance group usually this much of a commitment?" Jessica asked worriedly after Parker had run through the schedule.

"In past years, no. This year, yes. We're accepting all the gig requests we can get. Especially the multicultural ones." Parker raised his eyebrows. "Is there a problem with that?"

Jessica swallowed hard, her head sinking down a little under our dance leader's cool gaze. "N-not really. It's just...I declared a forensic science major, and I'll have a lot of projects due soon. I just don't know if--"

"So? I'm pre-med. Rachel's a triple language major and a residential advisor. " Parker nodded his head toward the long black-haired girl who was taking a swig of water from her bottle. She slid us the thumbs up. "We still make it work."