A Turning Point in My Love Life

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After the complete failure of the attempted kokuhaku, I was left in pieces. I ran home, curled into a ball on my cold bed and tossed and turned for over 6 hours before sleep finally took hold and mercifully whisked me away from my nightmare.

I fucking hate my life.

I turned to Teddy for help.

His advice?

Go after Sky Blue.

Join K-Hunters.

A term Teddy has coined, K-Hunters refers to going after K-Girls. Just in case you didn’t realize, K-Girls refers to girls of Korean descent and following the same pattern, J-Girls refers to Japanese girls, PRC-Girls refers to People’s Republic of China girls…and no, there are no T-Girls as this classification of women doesn’t trickle down to provincial boundaries (the “T” standing for Taiwan).
But anyway, lately Teddy has been having a ridiculous Korean fetish. I’ve never really jumped on the K-Girl bandwagon despite their stunning good looks and perverted sense of humor because (1) I have bad experiences with dating K-Girls and (2) Koreans hate dating other races…especially Japanese people. I have no interest in them, and they have absolutely no interest in me.

But looking at my depth chart, I couldn't help smirking at the irony…besides HKW, the three other pitchers in my “go-to pitchers” zone were three Koreans…Sky Blue, Iron Face and Nerdy K-Chick.

But HKW was still my main pitcher.

And then, in one of the strangest twists in my love life, something ridiculous happened.

I woke up on Friday, went to Japanese class and as I started looking around for a pen…my hand hit some strange cylindrical object. About an inch tall and a quarter inch in diameter, it was definitely a foreign object in my bag which usually contains loose change (that I never use), pens (that I rarely use), notebooks (that are filled with doodles), spare condoms (that are of course, never used) and random wrappers of things I do use.

I pulled it out and it was a small piece of paper rolled on itself held in a roll by a gold ring.

I rolled it open:

In order to love simply, it is necessary to know how to show love.

And then some random Hangul beneath it. (see photo)

Ok, assuming this isn’t a mistake (I would later determine it wasn’t a mistake…I had received an empty, or what I thought was empty, envelope earlier and it was probably fell out of it when I threw the envelope into my bag), who sent it?

I don’t know many Korean girls (assuming it' was sent by a girl), and other than three Hangul pitchers I mentioned before, I only know Kang 2.0 (highly unlikely) and Yusaku’s Korean girlfriend (extremely unlikely).

So which of the three pitchers?

None came to mind.

Then which would I go after?

I briefly tried persuading myself to go after one of them:

Sky Blue: The hottest of the group and the best to date. Like me, she’s one of those Asians born and raised outside of an Asian community and thus, doesn’t quite fit in with other Asians…but neither does she fit in with other races. Asians considered her too Americanized, others considered her too Asians. We bonded over this sense of being insider/outsiders in two communities pretty easily.

I was convinced she liked me (and so were a few others)…but it was recently revealed she’s trying to get back with her ex-boyfriend…

She’s also HKW’s best friend.

Two huge no-nos.

Besides, considering her Americanization, she is the least likely to have done this.

Iron Face: Good looking, but as mentioned in previous entries, she’s a real tight asswad…but only around others. When in one on one situations, she’s really easy to like. But I’d be afraid of her public self seeping into her private self…I don’t want a relationship which will become one-sided, or one in which the two parties fight over supremacy…

She also is not the type to send this message...

Making dating this girl even more awkward is her best friend is S-Jess…of Sexual Waterfall fame…

Nerdy K-Chick: One of the strangest girls I’ve ever met. I don’t think she’s good looking as she’s not my type at all, but her wackiness makes her cute. Everyone is convinced she likes me, which I don’t disagree with, but I have had been largely ignoring her because she was one of Teddy’s targets.

If only baseball trades actually worked in real life, I would’ve dumped her affections to Teddy for a few prospects in return.

But alas, trades don't really work and so if she does like me, I'm stuck with it. However, if she did like me, she's someone who probably doesn't have the mental capacity to organize letters onto a page, so she also couldn't have sent this message.

I came to the conclusion: whoever Mystery Hangul Poet Lover was, I couldn’t determine until they made further moves. Plus, like I’ve mentioned before, I have no intention of joining K-Hunters despite Teddy’s fierce campaigning.

I think I’ll stick with HKW.

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At Friday, it was my friend Pearl’s birthday. Pearl is a Hong Kong chick who I’ve almost made out with twice this semester due to excessive amounts of alcohol. Beside the dangerous pitfall of making out with her (she’s good friends with HKW and has a boyfriend), Pearl has the killer combination of being exceptionally talkative, extremely ditzy while being uproariously funny. She’s one of the best girls to hang with.

So even though I had slept only 3 hours in the past 48, and my throat was burning like a Nazi oven, and my head was splitting like an Olympic Gold medal winning, preteen, female Chinese gymnast, I went to her birthday party.

I drank half a glass of a weak ass shooter and I was already tipsy. I didn’t even want to drink. I was sick.

But I couldn’t go home 10 minutes after I had arrived. Stay for an hour and then bounce became my gameplan.

I sat around nursing the other half of my weak ass shooter talking about random shit with the Princess, Yusaku, Pearl and a few other friends. Like every other birthday party, everyone was getting trashed and egging each other on in a raucous display of college aged inebriation.

I sighed, head bowed into my drink.

More than anything, I just wanted to go home and curl into bed.

But I had a social contract to uphold…it was my friend’s birthday party. I wouldn’t drink, but I had to at least make an effort to be happy. I couldn’t party poop my friend’s party.

Yeah, I know it sounds ridiculous considering I could’ve easily explained I was sick and sleep deprived and tired and cold, but I hate people who bring down people who are having fun. No matter how depressed I am, no matter how fucking bad my day is, I never drag down anyone else with me. Unless you explicitly ask, I’ll try my best to hide my shitty day behind a façade of cockiness, humor and arrogance.

So I took a deep breath, readying to launch myself into the boisterous crowd.

Exhale, look up and I’m staring straight into HKW’s eyes, across the length of the bar.

Like usual, she was late and I had caught her eyes just as she was coming into the bar, a good 20 feet from where I was seated. She was wearing an all white coat, white gloves and a white scarf.

She was probably searching for our group through the dark haze of the bar, when she had found my face at the exact instant I had looked up.

In the half second our eyes locked, I read everything. Everything.

Even through the haze of alcohol, sickness and sleep deprivation, I clearly saw it.

She quickly downcast her eyes, but it was too late.

It was over.

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Don’t ask me how I knew.

Like any other male, I suck at reading hints, clues, signs, whatever the fuck girls use to try to convey their feelings instead of directly communicating them.

But I knew. Call it a flash of intuition, or just a raw, gut feeling. I knew.

It was confirmed, when she walked the rest of the distance to the table without once looking in my direction (though I was directly in front of her), and heading straight to the opposite end of the table.

I sat there, staring at the now empty entranceway amid the boisterous revelry flowing around me.

Yusaku came by a few minutes later and whispered in my ear, “I think it’s better to forget about HKW cuz—“

I cut him off with a wave of my hand, still intently facing the vacant entranceway.

It was a drunk Princess who finally snapped me out of it.

“Gen…Geeeen…Geeeeeenn, what’s wrong? Drink!”

I blinked twice and remembered where I was. Pearl’s birthday party.

I looked down at the glass I had been trying to crush.

I drained it and turned to the Princess with one eyebrow cocked.

“Yo, let’s get fucking wasted!”

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After getting “fucking wasted” I found myself in a club with the rest of the group with one hand wrapped around a champagne glass and my other hand wrapped around a slim and bubbly girl.

I turned the girl around and realized she was Miss Lucky, one of my friends and Pearl’s best friend. I drained the rest of the drink (why the fuck am I drinking champagne…in a club?), mumbled some excuse to Miss Lucky, stumbled over to the bathroom, drunk dialed Teddy (“Teddy! Come to Club Light!”) and then nearly passed out.

I was drunk. I was fucking tired out of my mind. And still ridiculously sick.

I needed to go home.

I left the haven of the bathroom and went back out to the club to say my goodbyes.

But “Low” by Flo Rida was thumping and due to my reputation for “getting’ low”, everyone in my group pushed me into the center.

I can say no to making out with girls if they have boyfriends (most of the time). I can say no to drugs (some of them). I can say no to peer pressure (since I’m the one doling it out). But even with the promise of a warm, good night of sleep promising to end my hell, I can’t say no to being the center of attention.

I stayed in the club for another 3 hours.

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I was finally able to get home after my neighbors Princess and Cristal Champagne (mentioned once before in passing…a random, skinny ass Hong Kong girl) also got tired. We went home together and at 3:10 am, freezing cold from the -5C weather (the coldest day so far), I stumbled into my house.

My bed was even colder as my house is centrally heated and the cold front had appeared before my landlord had set the heat (it was 5C a few days prior).

I knew I couldn’t sleep in the cold less I aggravate my sickness even more. So though sleep beckoned, I stumbled out of bed and down my hallway.

I turned the hot water to the limit and stepped into the shower.

I let the hot water envelop me…and with the sobering effect that comes with showers, I remembered HKW after I had drank my memory of her temporarily away.

I couldn’t stand.

I leaned against the wall and slowly slid down until I was hugging my knees at the bottom of the tub.

I stayed that way for what felt like hours.

My head must’ve been tilting as it hit the release and suddenly the gentle drizzle of the shower was replaced by the violent gushing of the faucet.

I felt around for the tap through the wall of steam and turned it off.

I must’ve stayed like that, one hand encircling my legs, the other on the tap handle, for another hour.

Finally all the steam disappeared and coldness once again creeped onto my skin.

I need to fix myself up and set my life back on track. Fix this depression, get myself warm and get my ass to sleep to fix this sickness.

I finally pushed myself up, trudged to the sink and swiped the steam off the mirror.

I wiped the tears--scratch that, shower water--out of my eyes and gave myself a hard look.

Fix this depression shit…

But how? I’ve haven’t been like this since Chiaki. How the fuck do I fix this? Last time it took close to three months to fucking get over it…how the fuck was I supposed to mend my emotions in a few hours?

So I gave it my best shot…in the only way I know how to do.

My reflection suddenly lifted his chin, tilted his head to the side, crossed his crowbar arms over his scrawny chest, widened his stance and shot his eyes straight forward.

“Fuck HKW. Gen, you’re the fucking man! You get mad bitches! You’ll rail someone tomorrow!”

Then Reason crashed the party.

Reality set in.

Logic reared its head.

“Gen K-----, Welcome to K-Hunters.”

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Photos

Sky Blue
K-Hunter Rotation #1 Pitcher

Nerdy K-Chick
K-Hunter Rotation #3 Pitcher

Pearl and Miss Lucky
Note: Miss Lucky's eyes are open

Me and Sake Bomb
Wearing a scarf indoors is not some hipster fashion statement...I was fucking sick that night.

Christal Champagne and the Princess
The Princess tries to hide her face...

Me and Sake Bomb
Mimicking the Princess

Christal Champagne and Sake Bomb
in the club bathroom...apparently skinny HK girls throw up the East Side when inebriated