THE SADDEST GIRL SINCE THE SONG DYNASTY

RATHER BE PLAYING CONSOLE - PART III

One hour later, with the time coming up to ten, having had the uplifting company of Spring's diverse friends to cheer him, Ander was feeling significantly better. So why did he keep turning around just before he was due to leave to see if the two ladies he had noticed conspiring and pointing at him (or at least towards him) were still doing so? If they were so particularly unattractive, so high-level skank, in his opinion, why did he care, why was he so irritated?

The first easily avoidable error Ander made of the night was to say farewell to Spring and his small group of friends, and go over to the booth in which his to-be-confirmed tormentors sat. He planned, for a start, to establish guilt, and then, his assumptions proved, tell them off for discourteous behavior.

He should have just left.

They turned his accusations into hypotheticals on the cusp of his grasp of the language, suggested he make himself better understood by improving his sentence structures, and ultimately neither confirmed nor denied whether he had been the subject of their gossip and occasional raucous cackling over the past thirty minutes.

One of the two excused herself, and Ander, more infuriated now from their continued sardonic performance and his own seriousness, sat down when beckoned to listen to some spurious confiding.

"Itwas to get your attention," the girl named Gra whispered. "My friend has fallenin love with you, but she's too embarrassed, she thinks she's so ugly," Grasaid with a catty laugh. "Don't you dare tell her I said that! Actually, I amher cousin. Her father owns a big karaoke chain, you know. Very rich, very fat.You want to go there? We can get in for free, and the bar is unlimited forfriends of ours."