While putting in the songs, there was a knock at the door. Seulgi got up and answered the door. The snacks and drinks had arrived. She signed the receipt for the goods, brought in the goodies, and set them across the table for everyone to reach for whatever they wanted. Everyone, except Soo-young, agreed that additional alcohol would be a bad idea. So, various sodas were given to everyone. Even the increasingly grumpy Soo-young accepted her drink with more ill grace than could be normally justified.

  Somehow, Soo-young acting like a petunt five year old became even more adorable. And this made her fall into the vicious cycle of her becoming progressively more and more cute. And this just made her even angrier. She was getting dangerously close to becoming seriously grumpy. Adorable, but still grumpy.

  Seulgi, while absolutely enamored by this girl, managed to break the cycle by asking her about the song she chose.

  Like a flipped switch, she brightly started chattering about her favorite song. While looking at Seulgi, she missed Katie making a calcuted look for future use. That she missed Katie was both a blessing and a curse for Soo-young. This was going to be a rge basis for their future interactions and reactions. The first bullet in the oncoming prank war has been chambered.

  Soo-young blithely chattered on about the song of choice in ignorance of her impending doom, while Seulgi gave a warning gre to Katie whose Teflon skin shrugged off the warning with the arrogance of youth. Seulgi sighed internally. This was about to get both ugly and bloody. As well as highly amusing to anyone on the side.

  Seulgi knew that if she developed grey hair early, it would be Katie’s fault. Seulgi was far from being the first to think this. And she would not be the st. There would be an entire lifetime of people bming this child for their grey hair.

  Those people would not be wrong, either.

  Katie’s mother often said that she will be the death of her. Often accompanied by a heavy sigh and a weary head shake. This would always bring an insouciant grin in response.

  One day, her mother would get her slipper in hand and would beat the snot out of her daughter. If she can be caught, that is. But this is not that story. Back to the karaoke song selection.

  Soo-young was enjoying talking to Seulgi about the musical selection. Wendy got into the conversation and discussed the highs and lows of the songs chosen. They were all happy that they all knew enough music theory that they didn’t have to dumb down how they were speaking to each other. Seulgi made the Seulgi-level dad joke of it’s nice that they all knew that musical scales were not for weights.

  Both Wendy and Soo-Young politely smiled at her attempt at telling a joke, no matter how badly it failed. Both Wendy and Soo-Young also nodded in understanding that while Seulgi’s jokes were not very funny, she herself was hysterical. So they can ignore her attempts at jokes, for everyone’s sake. They would both politely respond to her attempts without encouraging her to ever keep trying.

  Jackson and Yeji would be ughing themselves stupid at the two trying to keep a straight face (as opposed to an open grimace). They knew how hard people would try to not hurt Seulgi’s feelings with the truth. They also knew that if the people were someone that she cared about, there was no way to offend Seulgi.

  Many people over the years tried, and failed, to get her mad. With very few select subjects or actions, it was basically impossible to make Seulgi offended or angry. Wendy should have figured this out already, but they were still fairly new friends.

  Seulgi knew what they were doing and thinking but didn’t care. She was amusing herself as much as trying to amuse others. All three of them were sharing one brain cell because they were thinking about comparing Seulgi to Lt. Steven Hauk from the movie “Good Morning, Vietnam”. And not in the most complimentary sort of way.

  This amused Seulgi and mortified the other two.

  The two were afraid of Seulgi’s potential consternation about their opinion. Seulgi had a slightly sadistic side that enjoyed them being uncomfortable. She was also unaware of just how many people would be surprised if they found out about this particur aspect of her personality.

  Once everyone was topped off with drinks and snacks, JooHyun programmed the songs into the DJ controller. She still had not told anyone what her song was going to be. She had a slightly evil grin that she hid quickly and quietly. Katie almost caught her, but just missed it. If she had seen the smirk, she might have been warned that all of the things that she was thinking about the potential for pranks would be considerably harder to pull off.

  The first queued song came on, and Katie popped up and grabbed a mic. Then she sang a near perfect rendition of a recent popur song. She sang it with such gusto that it was actually better than the original. She managed to harmonize with the recorded background singers better than the first singer! She managed to actually impress Soo-young with near zero hesitation from the first to the ending notes.

  It was rare for anyone to impress Soo-young when it came to singing. Especially someone younger than her. Katie was maybe one year younger, but it still counted in her book. But, the night was young and there were two more unknown people in the queue after her.

  Soo-young decided to go a completely different direction with her music of choice. Since she was a clown that liked to ham up her performances, she decided to go with an old Rolling Stones song. She did a very credible impression of Mick Jagger, strutting around on the tiny stage. Her English was not quite up to being able to do the song credible justice, but it was good enough to be understood.

  Everyone knew that today was not meant to be taken too seriously. So, the clown was clowning around. If anyone was asked, no one would be especially surprised. Besides, it’s too difficult to be taken so seriously in such a tacky color scheme as this cheap karaoke bar seems to revel in.