Drift Reality > South Korea > Itaewon 2

We entered the house and I was a bit surprised to find Bill sitting in the kitchen by himself, drinking a beer.

"What the f!#k," he said. "What took you guys so f@#!ing long?"

"Well, it took a while for everyone to get ready" I answered as we took our shoes off and sat down on the floor in the common room.

Robin was in his small closet, cradling a tiny puppy in his arms.
Apparently, the puppy had been a gift from a Korean friend, and shortly after it had come into Robin's possession, it had acquired a bad case of Kennel cough. Robin told us that the veterinarian had simply deemed that the dog had about "three or four weeks to live," and there was really nothing that could be done to help it.

The puppy was so weak that it could barely walk, it spent most of its time lying on its stomach, its chin resting on the floor.
I peeked into Justin's room and saw that he and his extremely beautiful girlfriend were playing a card game with miniature cards.

"Ohh. . .hello there Jiyan." Justin said in his molasses drenched voice. "This is Sojin."

"What's her name? Soju?" This comment inspired a great laughter out of Sojin that morphed into a hyperventilating-like sound.

"Soooojiiiiin," Justin clarified.

"Oh, it's nice to meet you Sojin."

"Hello."

I smiled politely and then turned towards the kitchen, where Bill had begun his latest hate filled monologue about something or other.

Paraphrasing Bill was fairly easy, you just took a neutral statement such as "I went to the store today," and filled it in with one of the following phrases:

1) F#!ing
2) Sh#!
3) Unfucking believable
4) Oh yeah, I've seen it

What you get is an energetic opinion such as "oh yeah, you wouldn't f@#ing believe it, I went to that sh#@!y store today."

Bill was discussing the time that he had spent in State prison for selling drugs. Apparently, he had some friend in the mafia who had gotten him out of prison the first time. The second time, his "friend" had decided that it was probably better for Bill to learn a lesson and therefore left him in prison for three months.

"Oh yeah, you got to watch your back because you never know when someone is going to come behind you and shank you in the back."

Jake was listening intently to the story while Bob was standing towards the corner, looking a little bit frightened. I felt compelled to leave the room, perhaps for fear that I would slowly grow to believe in Bill's incredulous web of fantasy tinged reality, and I headed into Robin's closet.

The puppy was still lying on the floor, its eyes half open, waiting to die.

"He hasn't eaten anything all day," Robin said. "He tried to eat a little bit earlier, but he just threw it up immediately."

The puppy looked up at Robin with its dreary eyes in seeming acknowledgment of his concern. From the kitchen, I heard Bob call out, "Lets go aye?"

I kneeled down and pat the dog on the head and then turned to leave, as I was walking out, Robin called out to me: "Be careful out there."

I nodded towards him and walked through the kitchen, shaking Jake and Bill's hands before heading out the door to Itaewon.

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