Warning: This scene features underage drinking.
Hwoarang tramped down the stairs and headed for the door, whistling and twirling his keys on his fingers. As he passed by the entryway room, he spotted Julia curled up on the couch with a book and had an idea. "Hey, Julia!" She looked up. "My friends and I are gonna meet up at the beach. Wanna come?"
"Hwoarang, I don't want you to feel obligated to be nice to me if you don't want to."
"Oh, good," Hwoarang said in relief, causing Julia to glare at him, ". . . 'cause I want to." Julia laughed. "Besides, I want you to meet my crew. Come on! It'll be fun!" Julia sighed.
"Alright," she consented, "Just let me get my stuff." She dog-eared her book and set it on the coffee table. She stood and quickly scampered up the stairs. Five minutes later, she came back down wearing a completely different outfit, plus sunglasses, and carrying a bag packed full of stuff. "Ready to go?"
"Sure am, Ms. Quick-Change Artist," Hwoarang responded in wonder.
"That's me," Julia jibed playfully.
"Let's roll." Roll they did, climbing into Hwoarang's car and speeding all the way to the beach. It was a beautiful day, the sun deciding to favor its last few days of freedom.
They drove around the parking lot in circles for about five minutes before they actually found a spot to park in. They jumped out of the car, and Hwoarang led Julia to where a convertible Jeep with its top down which had to be illegally parked, surrounded by a large group of teenagers who could not have possibly all have fit into said Jeep, was stationed. One of the guys called out to them.
"Hey, Hwoarang! Where you been, man???"
"Oh, come on, Byong! It's not like you guys couldn't start without me! It's just water; it won't bite, I swear."
"You wish! Where's our booze???" chimed in a second guy who seemed to be of a somewhat lesser intelligence than the first. Hwoarang tossed his keys to the guy.
"'T's in the trunk." With the guy (who, Julia later found out, was named "Tetsuya") gone, the whole congregation started to move towards the water except for a prickly-looking girl with lifeless black hair and mismatched eyes.
"Come on, Pipe!" summoned a girl with green streaks in her hair. Pipe simply waited for Tetsuya to return.
"Everyone, STOP!" shouted Hwoarang in an almighty, commanding voice. Julia found it simply miraculous how every single one of them stopped what they were doing and turned back to Hwoarang. Even Tetsuya, who had been greedily unloading Hwoarang's trunk full of beer, stopped what he was doing to look at Hwoarang curiously. Hwoarang smiled slightly, relishing his power. "Everyone, this," he said, motioning toward Julia, "is Julia. Julia, this is everyone."
"Well, then," she said, raising her hand in a slight wave. She removed her sunglasses and stuffed them in her bag. An echo of greeting ensued his less- than-helpful introduction. Tetsuya mozied up, carrying an already-opened can of beer. "'Julia'? Your name has too many syllables."
"Tetsuya, you couldn't spell 'syllables'."
"Let's see you do it, Hwoarang," challenged Tetsuya. Hwoarang sighed.
"S-Y-L-L-A-B-L-E-S, syllables," Hwoarang recited with lightning speed. Tetsuya growled. Hwoarang smirked.
"Oh, don't be so cocky, Mr. I-won-every-spelling-bee-in-elementary-school!"
"When are you going to stop forgetting that Hwoarang is a bonafide genius?" asked a plain-looking girl who had snuck up behind Tetsuya and wrapped her arms around his neck, slightly strangling him.
"You can stop worshipping him now, Aiko," Pipe snarled icily.
"Back to my original point," directed Tetsuya, who had managed to remove Aiko from his neck.
"You had one?"
"Ahem! Back to my original point!" Tetsuya restated louder, glaring at Aiko. "Your name is too long. We should just call you J . . ." He turned to Hwoarang. "What's her last name?"
"Good question. What's your last name?"
"Uh, Chang."
"'Chang'??? That's perfect! We'll call you J.C.!"
"'J.C.'? Are you kidding me??? That's a horribly uncreative, lame excuse for a nickname, if you ask me," Julia replied in disdainful indignation. Tetsuya (and the rest of his posse) was taken aback. Not being one to stand for being called "horribly uncreative", Tetsuya shot back:
"Let's see you come up with something better!"
"Oh, but coming up with your own nickname is no fun!" protested Julia.
"Ha! You're just not creative enough!" accused Tetsuya. "You've left me no other choice. Nuna!" From the beach, a skinny girl came running. Stopping short and standing at attention, she answered:
"Yes?" She was pretty, but her hair left something to be desired. It looked like it had been an ugly strawberry blonde, but she had tried to dye it gray by splashing black ink in it.
Tetsuya put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer to him. "This is my girlfriend," Tetsuya gloated, showing her off like a trophy.
"And your dog," muttered Aiko who was glowering at them.
"In any case," Tetsuya continued, completely ignoring Aiko, "Nuna, what do you think her name should be?"
"Casper!" Nuna instantly exclaimed.
"Casper it is!" Before Julia could say a word of either confirmation or disapproval, Nuna ambushed her.
"Hi, Casper! My name's Katrina, although these guys mostly all call me Nuna, and I'm, um, not exactly sure why, but Tetsuya just has this thing about renaming people with long or boring names so I would just go with it 'cause, as far as he's concerned, your name is Casper now so, like, everyone's gonna be calling you that, but it's not that bad once you get used to it 'cause, I mean, it's just a name, and it could be worse 'cause, I mean, Casper isn't that bad, right?"
"No way! Casper the Ghost was, like, my favorite cartoon when I was a kid anyway, and, you're right, it could be so much worse 'cause, oh, my gosh, did you hear what he wanted to call me before you came? J.C.! I mean, what kind of a name is 'J.C.'??? It's okay, though, 'cause, I mean, you people seem alright and pretty fun to hang with and s--- so . . . yeah."
"So you came from America, neh? That is really cool, I mean, I lived there a couple times, and it was really fun 'cause, like, me and my parents moved around a lot, but when we came to Korea I kinda got integrated into the gang, and I seriously didn't wanna leave, and, like, it was super cool because the Doo Sus, you know, Tetsuya's parents, they offered to take me in, and that was so awesome of them 'cause, I mean, they already had four kids of their own, plus, they had already taken Byong and Kieran in so it was totally packed, but I love it, and they're really nice so it isn't that bad, and . . ."
As the two talked animatedly, they headed for the beach. Once they had made it past the concrete parking lot and the sidewalk and the patch of prickly grass and started walking on the smooth white sand, Julia broke away and did two cartwheels and a round-off. "You are such a little show-off!" cried an astounded Katrina. Julia began laughing hysterically and started running for the beachiest part of the beach. "Hey, wait up!" Katrina called to Julia, running after her.
The giggling girls finally stopped to catch their breath. "Hey, Mok! Aren't ya' gonna go in the water?" Mok, an attractive girl with dyed bronze hair, was lying on a towel and appeared to be tanning herself. She looked up.
"Maybe later," she sighed, giving the impression that she probably wouldn't, but she did not wish to have Katrina bug her about it.
Julia pulled a towel out of her bag and laid it in the sand, next to Mok. She set down her bag on the towel and pulled her jeans and T-shirt off, revealing a skimpy tye-dye bikini. She left her clothes in a heap and flew towards the water.
Soon, she and the other girls were laughing and splashing and swimming around in the subzero water, having the time of their lives.
Hwoarang, Byong, and Tetsuya, who, through their combined efforts, had finally managed to drag the huge ice chest full of beer all the way from Hwoarang's trunk to their little encampment on the beach, were now lazily sitting on the beach, drinking beer, and idly watching the girls' fun.
"Dude, that Casper chick is hot," commented Tetsuya. "She's a pill . . . but she's hot. How long's it gonna take you to get that one into bed?"
"What are you talking about?" Hwoarang replied defensively .
"Oh, come on, man! You cannot tell me that you haven't even thought about it!"
"Whatever, man. Not everything is about sex, you know. Most things . . . but not everything. Julia and I are just friends."
"Sure you are," Tetsuya retorted slyly. He waited for about thirty seconds, until he saw that look of consternation come over Hwoarang's face. "It's eating you alive, isn't it?"
"Now that you said something!"
"Dude, you should totally go for it! I mean, the babe is already living with you, your battle's half won!"
"Shut up, Tetsuya," interjected Byong. "You know Hwoarang's never done it before."
"You shut up, Byong! I still haven't forgiven you for f---ing around with my sister!"
"After we'd been dating for three years! And what about you??? Maybe I still haven't forgiven you for f---ing around with my sister when you already have a girlfriend!" Ignoring Byong, Tetsuya turned back to Hwoarang.
"Man, if you're not gonna go for it, maybe--"
"Don't even think about it," Hwoarang ordered. The conversation pretty much ended there.
About five minutes later, another car came rolling up, honking its horn obnoxiously. Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to watch the vehicle. The driver had slick, obviously bleached hair that made him look smug and would-be impressive. To contrast this, a skinny guy with glasses and hair that stuck up sat next to him in the passenger seat. The moment that the car stopped, a wild, redheaded girl lunged from the car and loped all the way to the water. She lay down in the sand, right where the waves would lap against her, stuck out her hands and feet, and twiddled her fingers, crying: "Look! I'm Fish Girl!"
Julia leaned in towards Kieran, who's hair had been curly until Katrina had dunked her under the water several times. "Who is that?" she whispered, indicating towards the redhead.
"Who? Crazy Kori? That's Hwoarang's sister," Kieran answered conspiritorially.
"Really??? No one ever said anything about Hwoarang having a sister."
"Yeah, well, that's not surprising . . . He doesn't like to talk about her . . . She went bonkers years ago . . . Lives in a mental institution . . . Some kind of psychopath genius . . ."
While Kieran continued to shamelessly gossip about Kori, Hwoarang and the guys went to meet the newcomers. "Jie Wen!"
"Hey, guys. Why'd ya' start the party without me?"
"You're late!" shouted Byong.
"Yeah, yeah, keep your shirt on," muttered Jie Wen, rolling his eyes. "We would've been on time if Yuhi here hadn't been going obsessive/compulsive over sunscreen."
"If you wanna get sunburnt, that's your business, but I prefer not to be a red, rubber ball."
"And, by the way," added Jie Wen, who chose not to respond to Yuhi's logic, "Who designated us to pick up Sister Psycho?"
"Sorry, guys," excused Hwoarang. "I probably should've done that . . ."
Suddenly, they heard someone shriek: "J.D.!!!" All five of them twisted to see Katrina scamper out of the water as fast as her little feet could carry her and fly into Jie Wen's arms.
"Hey, Nuna." Tetsuya's glared disapprovingly at them while Jie Wen gave him a self-satisfied smile.
There was only one person that Katrina was more loyal to than Tetsuya, and that was his little brother Jie Wen.
------
The rest of the day passed in relative harmony, as harmonious as you get with a large group of teenagers partying at the beach. Julia seemed to fit in right along with the rest of them. She was exceptionally talkative with everybody, and everybody seemed to accept her into their group.
The gang slowly began to break up and go home some time late in the evening. As Hwoarang and Julia drove back to the dojang, Julia was again uncharacteristically silent. However, she seemed very contented and peaceful, not wary and axious like the day before. Hwoarang found the combination of her long strings of mindless chatter and these peculiar silent stretches to be quite interesting.
Or quite charming. He wasn't sure which.