Bloody hell. How am I going to walk up that road in these heels?! There are so many people, and it's not even a bloody holiday!
"You should see it at the Rugby Sevens, in March. Freaking insane. This is just an average weeknight. People'll be here until, oh, 5 a.m., but the majority usually disperse around 3."
This was Dawn, who mistaken Hermione's slack-jawed expression of trepidation for awe.
"Let's go!" Cori shouted, and marched confidently into the crowd, a heeled foot never wavering on the brickwork road, and she disappeared quickly from sight, leaving Hermione with Dawn.
Dawn gave Hermione a pitying smile, as if to say "oh you poor, deprived thing," before grabbing Hermione's hand and shouted something over the din that Hermione didn't catch.
And they were off.
Off to where, Hermione wasn't sure, but she had little chance of wondering, what with attempting to keep her footing on the floor littered with broken glass, and spilled beer, avoiding being stepped on by the people around her, and trying not to touch the bodies that pressed in from all sides, an effort which proved fruitless.
For a brief moment, Hermione looked up and quickly gazed around. She could see men standing around holding beers at a pub further up the street, on her left, three gorgeous young women (they look like models!) stumbled out of a darkened stairwell, laughing loudly. Hermione craned her neck around, trying to get a better look up the stairs, and she caught a glimpse of a set of glass doors in a darkened hallway, guarded by a large bouncer, and an older wiry man. As she did so, she lost her footing slightly, and snapped her eyes back to the ground.
Dawn was still fearlessly pushing her way through the crowd, though on occasion she would shout a cheery 'Hey!' to someone she recognized.
Suddenly, they took a sharp turn to the left, and Dawn hauled her into her first bar. Looking around, the establishment appeared full to Hermione's inexperienced eyes, with no space to sit down. A long bar lined with high seats was taken up by various couples and the small booths, though designed for six or seven, were occupied by smaller groups. Hermione leant over Dawn's shoulder and said, "It's quite full, isn't it? I can't see anyplace to sit down, maybe…"
But she was cut off by Dawn's highly amused and sympathetic look.
"Darling, this is a bar. Not a restaurant. It's full when there isn't any space left to stand. And anyway, those guys over there seem to have met Cori already, and they're giving us the eye, so none of this talk about nowhere to sit."
So, once again, she snatched Hermione's hand, and led her over to the table where Cori was sitting with three fairly attractive guys, who seemed to be only slightly older than themselves. As Hermione walked over to the table, weaving their way between other people, she told herself: 'OK, calm down. This isn't the end of the world, you're just meeting some people in a bar, maybe have some fun.'
When they reached the table, they were greeted with friendly smiles from two of the guys there, the other simply nodding. Looking closer, Hermione saw that they weren't as attractive as she thought in the beginning, just quite average, in fact. Cori introduced them, speaking loudly over the music.
"Hey guys, this is Jason," she gestured towards the dark-haired Chinese teen, who smiled dazzlingly, "Mark," the sandy haired one with pale eyes, the color uncertain in the dim lighting, who gave them a cheesy grin, "and Tony." His hair was quite long, almost obscuring his eyes, and when he nodded again, it fell in front of his face, forcing him to flick his hair in a most arrogant manner.
Dawn leant over the table and introduced the two of them, saving Hermione the task of introducing herself. She was still getting used to the idea of being considered physically attractive, and wasn't quite as confident as the other two around unfamiliar people. So she just smiled shyly, and sat down next to Cori, Dawn choosing to sit beside Tony.
They ordered a few drinks with fancy names, and chatted for a few hours. At one point, Cori asked Hermione to join her in the bathroom, and they had the regular girly talk while primping.
"So. Having fun yet?"
"I guess. Though it's a bit hard to talk with the music so loud and all. It's nice meeting new people, I mean, going to a boarding school in the middle of nowhere, it's a bit hard to do."
"Well, they're not all that great, and there's a huge party we should get to, so we can dump this bunch and head off. It'll be much more fun."
"Oh… Ok then…"
People are so disposable…
So, about half an hour later, just about one a.m. by Hermione's watch, they arrived outside Club Sugar, where a party was in full swing. The line waiting to get into the club was immense, but thanks to connections and a guest list, they breezed up to the front, and had their wrists stamped by the bouncer. Hermione looked down to see what the stamp looked like, only there seemed to be nothing there. Turning to the bouncer she said "I think your stamp is out of ink."
The tall burly man seemed to be just holding himself back from rolling his eyes when he replied "U.V."
"Oh. Of course… I'm sorry…" But before she could get anymore out, Cori snatched at her, and she got going, where, naturally, another bouncer stood, waiting at the foot of an escalator, with a U.V. light.
Hermione could feel the music pounding as they rose up, and it just kept on getting louder, with the bass vibrating the handrail, and suddenly found herself in a rather strange area. She was surrounded by soft, white, geometric shapes that stretched from floor to ceiling, and were glowing gentle blues and pinks. Looking closer though, she could see gaps between the shapes, and following Cori and Dawn's lead, she found that navigating her way through the shapes, deposited her on the dance floor.
Lights were flashing, people dancing in a solid mass, their bodies pressed so close together that they became one giant moving entity. A long bar stood in the center, people clamoring for the bartenders', needing to rehydrate, and continue swallowing down the alcohol. At the back of the room were raised platforms, with private tables crammed with apparent 'VIPs' sipping champagne, and against the other walls were red, oval loveseats where couples twined in each other's embrace were illuminated by gentle lighting.
Hermione stood awestruck for a moment, and was suddenly hit with recklessness. To Dawn and Cori's surprise, she grabbed their hands, barged her way to the bar, and shouted over the din, "Order me something strong!" Dawn raised her eyebrows, and leant over the bar, waving an arm, calling "Brian! Brian! Hey, dude! Over here! Get me a Black Russian!" With lightning hands, the bartender tossed something together, Hermione wasn't sure if she wanted to know what was in it, and slid the glass over the countertop, and immediately started making the next drink.
Dawn took it and gave it to Hermione, who slurped it down, grimacing a bit at the burn on her tongue and throat. She paused a moment to evaluate what she could taste of it, over the alcohol, and said, "Hm. It's got coffee. Not bad. Now let's dance."
Cori was grinning wildly, glad that Hermione had finally let go of herself, and the three got on the dance floor.
Immediately after finding themselves a suitable spot (as proclaimed by Cori) amongst the writhing bodies, the masses shoved them together, making the situation far more intimate than Hermione ever expected. However, this was apparently quite normal, as Cori and Dawn automatically started to dance with one another, while seemingly on the lookout for something, their eyes roving about the crowd, stopping here and there, dismissing people mentally, and moving on. Cori glanced at Hermione, and rolled her eyes.
"What are you looking at? Come on and dance!"
With the shouted final word, she pulled Hermione even closer, and promptly started to wriggle her hips. Even with a stomach full of liquid courage, Hermione was feeling rather hesitant about this all, her earlier confidence vanished. She began to sway a little, even if just to make the situation a little less awkward. Suddenly, Dawn leant over Cori's shoulder, and half-shouted into her friend's ear "Three o'clock, in the black wife-beater and spiked hair. Gwai.*"
Hermione turned around, and looked over to where Dawn was indicating. Indeed, a rather attractive boy was dancing with a few of his friends a few meters away, but in the crowd, it may as well have been a thousand.
"Guys, let's go that way."
"Sure."
And with that, Cori and Dawn began edging their way over to the small group, still dancing, and making it seem like they were just coincidentally next to them. Hermione looked on with interest, and not a little amusement.
I think that drink is really beginning to hit me.
As she watched, still swaying, though it was more pronounced now, and actually with the beat, Dawn began to really put on the moves, slowly grinding her way up and down, shaking her butt in a most Shakira-esque way, and basically drawing as much attention to herself as possible.
This is never going to work.
But lo and behold, the boy looked glanced over, and just so happened to catch Dawn's gaze, and she gave him a coy smile, and then continued dancing with Cori. He leant over and spoke to his friends, and began to approach with another guy, this one a brunette wearing a blue T-shirt.
And so the mating dance begins.
The boys approached Cori and Dawn from behind, both of whom slowly backed themselves into their arms, and quite soon they were grinding with each other, their faces close together, all thoughts of Hermione gone from their minds.
Well, I guess I'm on my own now. Maybe I'll get another drink, and find someone interesting to chat to at the bar. It is open bar after all…
With that thought, Hermione swayed over to the bar, allowing people to jostle her about, and not really noticing that she was already quite tipsy. Finally reaching the island of glasses and half-empty bottles, Hermione waved her arm about, trying to grab the bartender's attention to no avail. After attempting to elicit some reaction from the busy men who were tossing tumblers around, she decided to instead just stand for a while, and look around at the people. There was a surprising mix of faces (in Hermione's point of view, anyway) vying for the bartender's attention: about an equal mix of locals and foreigners, some obvious underage patrons*, and one or two that seemed at least double the average age of everyone else in the bar. She glanced around, seeing several good-looking boys, and more than a few girls eyeing them up and preening. She was just observing the way in which one of the girls who had been discretely watching one of the boys sidle up to him and accidentally on purpose stumbled into him, when suddenly someone slid up next to her and placed an arm around her waist.
"You look like you need another drink."
His voice was lilting as he whispered into her ear, and she was able to hear his light accent. Hermione turned around, and lay eyes on a head of auburn hair and icy blue eyes.
"Hello. I am Olivier. From France. You want a drink?"
*Gwai: short for 'gwai lo', meaning 'ghost' in Cantonese, a caucasian male. The term is also commonly used by local expats, and was once considered derogatory, but now widely accepted.
*The legal drinking age in Hong Kong is 18.