Once we were in karaoke, we got a relatively big room that was sufficient for eight people. We ordered lots of snacks and drinks and everyone was in a good and talkative mood.
"So, Jenn, what are your hobbies?"
A boy named Minsu asked me probably the most typical question to kick things off - I thought this way because with me having zero experience in this kind of setting this is what I would have asked too if I was forced to open a conversation. Not that this Minsu boy was forcing it though, he seemed keen to get to know me.
"Nothing special. I just surf on the Internet and stuff..."
"Right"
Ok, that reached a dead end pretty quickly, but I wasn't sure how to continue from here.
"Oh, Jenn is really good at sports. Even our PE teacher was super impressed", Jihee chimed in to keep things going.
"Wow, really? What kind of sports do you like?"
Another hard question. I was good at sports only because I was Jenn. I was never a sporty guy to start with.
"Nothing in particular. I'm just... good at them, apparently...?"
Now I sounded like a bit of a weirdo but Minsu seemed to have found the way I talk funny, but not in a bad way.
"I used to play football in middle school and I liked it a lot, but once I got to high school I realized the level of those guys on the school football team is so high. Casuals like me didn't really fit in"
"You can still play for fun though?", nice going, me. I finally asked a question, proactively.
"That's true, but football is a team sport and you need other guys to play with. I'm thinking of trying new things like learning to play an instrument or something"
"Jenn's really good at the piano too", Jihee added to the conversation again.
"Wow, heh. You are really good at many things, aren't you?", Minsu's smile showed he didn't mean it in a sarcastic way. Well, it wasn't like I was showing off myself. Can't help that Jihee was doing what she could to get people to talk to each other more.
"Well, Jihee's just being nice. She's exaggerating a bit"
"That's Jenn for you, a modest girl from South East High"
Damn, Jihee, I didn't want to mention that.
"Wow, you are from South East High?"
"Erm... yes, I was there only for a short time though. Things happened and I moved school"
"What happened?"
"It's a long story and probably not interesting. Let's leave it at that for now", I shut him down with a smile of my own. Well, I was doing my best to be talkative too, but I wasn't gonna be like a vending machine that keeps on spitting out answers just because people press the buttons.
"Sure", Minsu took the cue and just let it end there too, a sensible guy.
"Yo, Minsu, aren't you gonna sing or what?"
While other kids had been trying to talk to each other and stuff, Jiho had been singing a few songs just by himself. He wasn't particularly good but he seemed to enjoy it and that made the room's atmosphere more uplifting. Jihee and Jiho are really good at these things, I thought.
"Sure, I'll sing a song"
Minsu opened up the booklet containing song lists and flipped it through for a while. It seemed he was familiar with how things worked at karaoke.
Well, everybody probably was except me since it was my first time here.
"Right, here I go"
Minsu input the code for his song and when the song title came up on the screen and the opening part started to play, I immediately recognized what it was - the opening theme song of one of my favorite animations, Magical Mystical Mamoha!
"Lol, Minsu you really have no shame", another boy called Saeyo made fun of Minsu for picking what can be called a legit otaku song, but Minsu just laughed and shrugged it off.
As Minsu was singing, I was sinking deep into my own thoughts. I searched for and practiced popular songs from the singles chart yesterday. Songs from idols and bands that I didn't really feel anything for. I quickly learned to sing them for this particular occasion because I did not want to look out of place. If my turn to sing came, I would have just sung one of those songs and be a normal girl who didn't stand out too much, maybe except for the looks.
Listening to Minsu sing the theme song of Mamoha passionately (but horribly), I remembered the time Hechan caught me checking out some Mamoha fan art on my phone and made endless fun of me, which inevitably ended with him throwing my phone on the floor and stomping on it. That was during one of the early days of school and things got progressively worse from there.
Yet here, this guy had no issue showing off his love for a mahou shoujo anime, and other guys were laughing in amusement but nobody meant it in any nasty way. It was all for good fun as it should be.
I don't know what took over me, but I just followed my sudden urge and grabbed an extra mic lying on the table. I tapped it to check it was working and could feel that other guys were looking my way in bemusement. Then without hesitation, I stood up from my seat and joined the singing of the chorus part with Minsu. I knew the song well, I knew all the words, and I knew all the scenes that went together with this part of the song. Minsu looked at me surprised but as we sang together he was all smiles, and everyone was cheering loudly.
Although I continued to sing happily, deep inside I was also overwhelmed with emotions.
I'm no longer who I was. I am Jenn now. But I could finally be myself.