A whole other planet, like nothing you can imagine. Happiness, no, ecstasy bounces through and from every surface. The beat and laughter pulsing through you, clouding your eyes and your judgement along with it.

Normally you’re not one to engage in such foolish affairs. You don’t frequent any parties, despite your friends’ over-enthusiasm in trying to convince you otherwise. You see these ‘social’ events as honestly boring, the music isn’t even good, and no one is actually willing to take part, lest they ruin their public image.

So why you’re here now in this insane ‘fiesta’ is a genuinely confusing. One half of you, the more intellectual side of you, is telling you that you’re an idiot and you should go home right now. But damn it your feet keep moving towards…whatever it is. The beat? No, that sounds cliché.

You look around you, a frustrated and irritated sigh blowing from your lips, you’re just realizing how ridiculous everyone looks, stupid grins on their faces, laughing into sky. It’s like they’ve all lost their minds, you can’t even bring yourself to call those spastic movements dancing.

Join them

No, that’s ridiculous, how could you even think that? That’s stupid. You should go home right now and do proper things like that one assignment that’s due next week, you definitely need to get that done—

Shut up, you don’t want to do that, you want to join them.

Oh, you shut up! You do not want to join. You’re going to go home and clean your house or something that isn’t—Oh, god, you really don’t want to go home. You want to stay and listen to the music.

Come on, just forget it. Stay.

You. Are. Not. Staying.

Dancing, or whatever those other idiots are doing, is not something you do. You don’t dance. Remember the reason you came here? Oh, right, there isn’t one, so you should just go home and—oh no a girl is looking at you.

Pleasedon’twalkoverpleasedon’twalkoverpleasedon’twalkover…

“Hi.”

Damn it.

Her head tilts, her auburn hair brushing her shoulder, “Are you going to dance or just stand there?”

“Uh, no.” You manage to sputter out to her, looking away, you try to laugh, but it comes out as an awkward cough.

A smirk spreads on her face and you feel yourself feel somewhat colder at the sight as she continuously stares at your lips. She’s going to make you dance isn’t she?

She grabs your hand. Yup, she’s making you dance. You don’t even know this girl! She’s tugging you further into the mass of…jumping idiots or whatever and takes your other hand. She starts tugging you into an awkward sway, still grinning.

And suddenly…it all becomes clear. God, why haven’t you ever danced before?

Oh right, it’s because your limbs has as much grace as a brick falling from an aeroplane as the aeroplane crashes into a hospital of screaming orphans.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Did you mention you tended to overreact a bit?

You sigh heavily and the girl laughs, you sway awkwardly for a while longer and you note that the girl actually looks like she’s enjoying herself. Well, that’s weird.

“Uh, do you mind if I ask you a question?” You say, looking at your feet.

“Shoot.” She’s still watching your mouth. It’s kind of creepy.

“Why do you enjoy these dance things? The music’s too loud, it’s way too hot to be comfortable and it smells.” Oh, that sounded kind of rude, didn’t it?

The girl didn’t seem to notice, “Hm…” She tilted her head as she thought, “I don’t know.”

You just nodded awkwardly, contemplating what a stupid question that was. You couldn’t even answer the same question yourself a few minutes before, idiot.

You’re pulled from your pointless self-criticizing when her voice speaks up again.

“It could be…the way it feels.”

“What?” You couldn’t help your response, you just didn’t get it.

She flushed in embarrassment, “The…uh, feel of the party. Can’t you just feel what everyone else is feeling?”

You opened to deny her statement, the only the thing you felt from this shindig was irritation and a slight, but growing, migraine. However, she beat you to the punch with her next enthusiastic statement.

“Like, do me favour right now and close your eyes.” She’s grinning, and you sigh, though you put on a dis-interested façade, you’re actually quite the opposite. You close your eyes and you hear her giggle happily.

“Okay,” She began, “Just, listen, I guess. Wait, no, don’t listen. Pretend you can’t hear anything. Except me, yeah, listen to me.” There was a pause, “So, uh…” Great, this is even more awkward that your seizure-like ‘dancing’.

“It’s kind of hard to explain,” She speaks again, “But, it’s like, everything just evaporates. Like, imagine how you would feel if you didn’t have to do anything? Or like, your life was just awesome.”

You tilted your head again as you pondered this concept. It’s not that rare of a thought, actually. Many times has the idea of not needing to study or go to work was voiced by others, and by yourself too. You could do whatever you wanted and not have to worry at all.

“That’s pretty good, I guess…” You muse with a slight nod. You hear the girl chuckle.

“Right! And uh, imagine that at the same time, something really good happened!”

You frowned at this, “Like what?”

“I don’t know!” She sounded kind of annoyed, “What do you like doing?”

“I like hanging out with my friends…and when they make those stupid jokes and just laugh at everything like the idiot children they are.” You chuckle at the thought of your foolish friends. “And…when it was my birthday, I was living by myself, but when I got to my apartment, they had picked the lock to get in and set up a party for me.”

“You’ve got some cool friends.”

“Yeah, they’re alright. It was probably the worst party ever though, they had one rubbish muffin from a 7-Eleven with a candle in it. It got wax everywhere.”

The girl laughed, “Okay, yeah. So, keep that in mind. All those little things, the stupid things in life that honestly don’t even matter to anyone else and even you don’t know why they make you smile. Like you just found out you’ve won the lottery or something, no, wait, that sounds stupid. Oh well, the point is, is that when I’m here, I can feel the happiness that other people feel, and it makes me feel happy and remember the happiness in life.”

“That’s…surprisingly deep.” You comment, giving her a wry smile.

She actually tears her eyes from your lips to dip her head in embarrassment, “Yeah, well. Life…life is honestly too hard to deal with unless you take the time to have a little fiesta now and then.”

You stop your awkward away-dancing and stare at her. She stops with you and looks at you in confusion, her brow arching in question. It actually sinks in for realsies.

She’s right. You look around again, seeing all the idiots, all so ridiculously happy. But when you think about it, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s actually an envious trait.

Before you know it, you’re smiling widely, and then you’re laughing. A loud throaty laugh and comes from your stomach and seems to echo off the walls like the beat from the terrible music in this damn place. You don’t care. The girl looks at you like you’ve lost your mind, and then she’s laughing too. You don’t even know why. Who cares? You look down at the shorter girl in front of you with a grin,

“May I have this dance? I can’t dance at all and this music is terrible but you know what? I have nothing better to do and you are gorgeous.”

The girl blushes slightly, “Tanya. My name’s Tanya.” She intertwines your fingers with hers and pulls you into another awkward sway.

“I’m Christa, nice to meet you.”

“Hey, Christa, can I ask you a question now?”

“Shoot.”

“Does the music actually sound that bad? I can’t tell. I’m deaf.”