HE DIDN'T BRING HIS CAMERA. Canon EOS 4000D. It's cheap, for beginners, though it still costs a few hundred dollars. And it's not where it usually lives - in Hanbin's bag.
It's not as if there's an awful lot of things to photograph at a frat party, if you're not counting the sardine tin of bodies you have to manouver through to reach the kitchen, or the couples making out in every available corner, or the various alcohol types spilling from those red plastic cups and staining the carpet. Hanbin thought the red cups were only a thing of the movies, and that college frat parties didn't get as wild as often depicted. He was wrong about that. Turns out, he was wrong about a lot of things.
Coming to New York from Seoul has certainly been an eye opener for Kim Hanbin, and he only touched down a few hours ago.
"Dude, shift," says a guy pushing up the stairs hand in hand with a pretty long-haired girl who gives Hanbin a look of sympathy as she follows.
The English words aren't clear at first, but Hanbin gets the overall gist of the situation when he's pressed against the railing to let the couple pass. He's in a house full of Americans and most of them are drunk, and they slur their words until he can't make out a single sentence. Hanbin knows he should've studied harder before the move. Untouched punch sloshes up to the rim of the cup in his hands, cloudy and pungent and a colour halfway between peaches and blood. He takes a sip and a bitter tang spreads across his tongue. Maybe no peaches then.
Hanbin doesn't even want to be here, and that's easy to admit. He's that guy. The one that hides in the corner and pretends to be busy on his phone to ignore the music and the people and the noise. Except Hanbin's phone is dead. And he didn't even bring his camera to play with.
He's only here because Donghyuk insisted. Hanbin had managed to make it all the way from the airport to the college dorms with the help of his student mentor who, thank God, is also a Korean, and had met him in the arrival lounge with a big sign to greet him spelling out his name in Hangeul. Yunhyeong must be mentoring at least three other international students because the speech he gave on the subway sounded rehearsed and overdone, and as hard as he tried he couldn't make New York City sound the slightest bit interesting.
"So if you need any advice, give me a call," Yunhyeong had finished off when he'd stopped in front of the dorm building, passing back the handle of Hanbin's suitcase, "Other than that, I'll be meeting with you once a week. Any questions?"
Blinking bleary eyes, Hanbin shook his head, fingers curling around the suitcase handle.
"Great," Yunhyeong sighed, switching to a lower-toned slightly-accented English, "You should probably start practicing your English before classes start."
A nod.
"I'll see you on Thursday then."
Until he met his new roommate, Hanbin had been completely determined to crash for the next fourteen hours at least. But the moment he waltzed into the dorm, Donghyuk had other ideas. He'd insisted on giving Hanbin a hug instead of a handshake, insisted on an off the cuff room tour, and insisted on bringing him to a party on his first n8ght in the city. It was his older brother's friend's party, or something along those lines. Donghyuk wasn't the sort of person to take no for an answer.
"It'll be fun!" he'd said, dark eyes lighting up under tousled blonde hair at the thought of alcohol running through his veins. "And you can make some friends."
Unsure of a polite way to say no fuck off and let me sleep, Hanbin had reluctantly agreed and before he knew it he was being dragged onto the subway again and into a frat house. After his first drink, Donghyuk hadn't stuck around. And so Hanbin was left alone surrounded by strangers speaking a second language, and with no idea how to get home safe.
