Chapter.08 Better Than Luxury Su Noraebang In Hongdae!

Eight: Better Than Luxury Su Noraebang In Hongdae!

"Dear God, how did you end up with that? Do boys like this exist? Do you perchance have some sort of magic potion or cast a spell? How'd you find this gem of a lad?"

"Indeed. And the answer to your question: black magic!"

"Then give me the recipe, I need some of this." Rachel handed me my phone back, turned on some music, and picked up the curling iron.

Rachel inquired more about Kayden, and I told her everything about him and how considerate and understanding he was whilst showing her my recent conversation with him. She couldn't believe her eyes when she read them and wondered how she could find a bloke like that.

Just when I opened my mouth, Black Magic by Little Mix played in the background. I grinned, and Rachel's eyes met mine through the mirror.

"All the girls on the block knocking at my door

Wanna know what it makes the boys want more?"

I sang the intro, wiggling my eyebrows at her.

"You have got to be bloody joking!" She laughed.

"What are the odds?" I joked as we both continued to sing together.

Take a sip of my secret potion

I'll make you fall in love

For a spell that can't be broken

One drop should be enough

Boy, you belong to me

I got the recipe

And it's called black magic

(And it's called black magic)

"Sit still!" Rachel hissed. "Unless you want your boyfriend to think someone hoovered your neck."

I froze, barely managing to stop myself from getting my ear burned by the curling wand. "Shut up!"

But after two minutes of sitting still, I began bouncing in my seat again because the song was coming to an end.

"Oh, for God's sake, stop moving around, or I'll burn your face!" Rachel growled.

My eyes snapped to hers in the mirror. They were coloured with irritation as she busied herself with the task of taming my hair and curling it. It'd become frizzy and full of knots after I'd let it air-dry, and Rachel had to run a comb through it and I admired her resilience because my hair was not easy to tame, also she had one goal in mind and nobody could stop her.

"The date is on Saturday, and today is Thursday. I don't understand why you're trying to do my hair today when we still have plenty of time. Also, I'm dying to get out of this bloody chair," I whined. "Please don't curl my hair. Just straighten it." I requested her.

After she'd finished yakking off, she'd offered to help me do my hair and makeup. I'd agreed, and that only led her to get started right off. And in a matter of time, she had become my hairdresser. So now here I was, subjected to Rachel's torture, because she wanted to experiment on me after watching a YouTube video on various hairstyles.

Rachel let out a very exaggerated dramatic sigh. "I'm trying to experiment so that I can have an idea of how I'm going to help you get ready for your much-awaited date. It's for your good, I don't want to have to do a botch job on the big day." She gave me a pointed look through the mirror. "Do you want to look beautiful or not?"

"Fine," I grumbled, "Fine! Go ahead and experiment on me."

She smiled in satisfaction and continued to work on my hair. Her eyebrows crinkled in concentration, and as she took a strand of my long brown hair, applying some sort of hair product, she picked up the straightener and carefully straightened my hair as per my request.

The song switched to Billie Eilish, and it got me thinking that I should get a haircut or maybe dye it at the tips.

Or I could do both!

Mhmm, red or blue? I was bored with the same old look. So, I wanted to be a little rebellious and try something new.

Or I could go Billie Eilish and dye them green?

I cried out when I felt the sting on my scalp. "Ow, ow, ouch Rachel!" She'd pulled my hair, I shot her a glare.

She, in return, shot me an apologetic look through the mirror. "I'm sorry, your hair's all knotted in this section." She messaged the area and picked up the straightener again.

My scalp still stung from her trying to detangle my hair, I'd had enough of this. "That's it, I'm getting up before you pull out clumps of my hair," I announced and tried to get up, but she held me down with a pointed look.

"Sit down, will you? I'll just straighten this section out, and then it'll be even."

I grumbled but obliged to her demands and relaxed my body until she finished with my hair. But my phone chirped out a series of notifications, and my hand slowly lifted to reach for it.

"Don't even think about it!" Rachel warned behind me, and I pulled my hand back.

After waiting for another excruciating five minutes, she finally let me go.

"There! All done!" She exclaimed.

I looked at my reflection in the mirror and smiled. My hair was silky smooth, straight as a pin, and now reached my waist. It looked gorgeous.

"I love it!" I beamed and thanked her. Then, I grabbed my phone to check who the notifications were from and saw a series of them from Charlotte.

"Who is it? Is it lover boy?"

"It's Chars," I informed her.

She was by my side immediately hovering behind me like a vulture. I opened them, and two of them were of her telling me how grateful she was for those 5SOS live concert tickets that I'd given her as a present for her birthday. The concert was taking place in the USA, her and Sebastian were there right now. The others were a series of snapchat and Instagram stories of her tagging me in a thirty-second video of the concert.

I'd sent her a quick text informing her that I'd be going on my very first date on Saturday. She was cheerful and unhappy at the same time because she wouldn't be there to witness me get tortured, whilst I get to on that date with Kayden. I rolled my eyes at that, but she made me promise to tell her every single bloody detail about the date after I came back home. I'd agreed of course, because I'm a very good friend.

"I miss living in America, the people, my friends. I miss so many things, but I've never felt like I belonged there," Rachel spoke softly as she stared at the phone with some sort of nostalgic expression.

"Awww, Rach!" I put my arm around her to provide some sort of comfort.

"It's fine." She waved her hand dismissively, but added, "I'm glad for the one good thing my dad did: was by sending me here to study because I feel more at home here than I have ever in America or my parents' other than my grandmother's of course." She gave me a side hug.

"I'm so happy you feel that way, and I'm grateful your dad insisted you study here." I hugged her properly.

"Thank you, Rebecca!" She swayed me sideways.

I responded by patting her back. Before coming to London, Rachel studied in the USA, she did have that American accent, but it isn't as heavy as it was when she'd entered university, and now she's picked up on the UK slang and she uses it all the time. Finally, she let me go, and we both plopped down on my bed.

"You know," she began as she tucked her hair behind her ear, "I've been working on some original songs and rap both in Korean and English. It's always been my dream, now I'm finally able to rap, and I've written some down. Maybe we can use them during the competition?" She looked a little nervous as she met my eyes briefly.

"Oh my god, Rachel! That's lovely," I said in awe. I'd known that she wanted to rap and she'd told me that she wanted to write songs, she had the talent and I was so happy for her. "We most certainly will include your songs and rap for our next set. That way, we'll be unique and original." I gushed enthusiastically and squeezed her hand.

Her dark brown eyes looked so hopeful and delighted. "Really? I mean...well, I'm glad you aca-approve. I appreciate it, Rebecca. We could go over the songs right now if you want to?" She asked meekly.

I smiled and nodded my head. "Let's do that since we need to finalise the set for our next competition and dominate this year's ICCA!"

We reviewed some of the things we were going to do for our set for the competition and thought of some songs for the next half an hour whilst also listening to Rachel sing her original song.

"These are aca-amazing!" I exclaimed.

"Thank you. I'm still working on the tune."

"May I make a suggestion?"

"Of course! Anything," she said.

I suggested she sing an E flat for this one part in the song because it would have that proper effect and impact. And even sang to demonstrate it for her.

"That's brill! It sounds better now." She beamed and made some corrections. We continued for some time.

There was only so much one could talk about the competition, we watched some of the choreography videos on YouTube for our set hoping something would catch our eyes so that we could use some of the moves for our set.

"Ugh! I'm going to take a break and come back to this tomorrow or whenever Charlotte comes back." Rachel groaned.

Understandable, because we'd been at it for three hours deciding and watching video after videos that made my eyes tired and cramped my neck.

"Indeed, I reckon this much is adequate, we've done our part, so let's leave the rest to Chars to decide and make a choice." I agreed, and she let out a muffled grunt in response.

As we were laid down on the bed, an idea struck my mind. "Hey, do you want to check out my karaoke room?" I got up and stared at her.

She lifted her head and stared at me, eyes wide in amazement and surprise. "Aca-scuse me, you have a karaoke room?!" She didn't look convinced. "I don't believe you!"

"Aca-believe it!" I rolled my eyes.

She put a hand on her chest, closed her eyes, and , on the other hand, fanned herself. "And I am finding out about this now? What other rooms do you have in your residence? And to answer your question, yes, let's go!" She said excitedly and jumped to her feet.

I chuckled. "My apologies for not informing you beforehand. There isn't much, but let's go." Rachel dragged me by the hand eagerly.

As we were leaving, Carter poked his obnoxious head into my room, a huge grin on his face, the silver brace on his teeth glinted. My eyes narrowed in suspicion as he entered my room. He was quite tall. Taller than I was, he stood around 5'10, he played football, and was basketball for fun and had an athletic physique. He also went to kickboxing classes with my dad on the weekends. We were so different in our appearance. He had light blue eyes whilst mine was brown, but the only similarity we seemed to share was the wavy brown hair.

"Hello, brother!" I greeted.

"Hello, hello, are you girls having a moment? Where're you off to?" He questioned with curiosity as his blue gaze flickered from Rachel and I, grinning boyishly.

Rachel glanced at me with a look that said: What is wrong with your brother?

Because he'd beamed at her widely and stared at her for a little longer. They've met before, and whilst he normally ignored her, today was the first time he's acknowledged her. So, I entirely comprehend why Rachel would feel that way.

I shrugged my shoulders. "Evidently, the destination of our decisions. North of inception, south of demise." I retorted back.

I saw him roll his blue eyes at my sardonic reply, Rachel laughed and snorted at the same time. Ordinarily, Carter never spoke like this, nor did he come out of his room. He'd either play football with his mates or be on his video game.

"No need to be so snarky, Rebecca," Carter said in a low voice as he pushed his slightly long curls back.

"What do you want?" I sighed.

He looked hurt and turned around to leave. "Forget it!"

"We're going to the karaoke room. Why do you ask?" I questioned him.

He stopped and turned around, and his eyes shone with happiness. "Really? It's been a while, and I was wondering if I could accompany you, two ladies?"

I stared at him for a few seconds to comprehend what he had just said. Did he want to spend time with us? That's strange, he never wanted to before and I wanted to question his motives and something wasn't right, but instead of asking him what his ulterior motives were, I just concurred when he looked that hopeful.

"Why not! But if you want to spend time with us, you're going to have to bring something for us to nibble on."

He looked as if he wanted to contend but just nodded his head. "Fab!" Turned around and went downstairs.

"Your brother is weird," Rachel muttered as we made our way to the karaoke room.

"Tell me about it!"

We entered the karaoke room, I flipped on the light, the dark purple room illuminated the velvet facade, the décor was extravagant with comfy cosy dark velvet couches, carpeted floors, large coffee table, a huge flat screen mounted on the wall, a cabinet off to the side, further in separated with a door there was a billiards table and dartboard as well. It was a huge room that was well equipped.

"This is bloody gorgeous! Reminds me of the time I went to Luxury Su Noraebang in Hongdae!" Rachel gushed as she entered and admired the interior. "I take it back. It's even better than the Su Noraebang!"

I smiled, feeling a bit chuffed. "Oh, darling, the interior is going to get even more chaotic, just you wait!"

I turned on another set of lights, and just as I promised overly flashy lights came on, making the room gaudy, whilst a selection of costumes were displayed that we could use. The sound-proof room was also fully equipped for singing, boasting microphones, and a large video screen, we also had a mood décor such as disco lights and tambourines.

I turned back to look at Rachel's features, and the flickering lights illuminated her shock and awe.

"No freaking way!! You have costumes and tambourines?!" She let out breathy laughter.

"Indeed. My dad wanted to have the whole experience, so he went all out!" I let out a wee chuckle myself.

"Well, from now on, we're going having karaoke night every weekend." She announced.

I shrugged. "I'm not opposed to the idea." And proceeded to open the mini-fridge, I got out tubs of ice cream, disposable wooden spoons, and Pepsi cans and set them on the table.

"You have ice cream as well?" She grabbed a tub of strawberry swirl.

I turned on the screen, a soft tune played as the logo appeared, and a song list was displayed. The list had a book feature. It contained the titles of available songs and their numerical codes.

"We have a wide range of songs, and yes, we have K-pop as well!" I spoke to her over my shoulder and caught a glimpse of her shoving a spoonful of ice cream. "But expect to see plenty of pop and rock especially from the '70s, '80s, '90s, and 2000s."

She gave me thumbs up. "Fab!"

Whilst much of the selection was English in particular, there are plenty of Korean and songs from other languages, too.

Carter came back with plenty of noshes for us to nibble on. There were some crisps, chocolate chip cookies, that I'd baked, biscuits ranging from hobnobs, bourbons, jammy dodgers, and wafers of both chocolate and strawberry flavours.

"This should keep us happy for a while." He laid them on the table and breathed a sigh of relief. He then walked towards the screen and picked up the giant remote-like device.

"Let's begin, shall we?" Carter rubbed his hands together and grinned. "But before we begin, those brave enough to take up the mic are judged on the pitch and accuracy of their singing, which creates for a nice competition between friends, although that's only half the fun of singing. You'll still score easily even if you shout the wrong lyrics."

"Although the number's meant to show your accuracy, it'll quickly become obvious that there are no criteria for scoring. You can scream random words into the microphone and score a 100, or land a 60 if you hit the notes better than Beyonce or Adele. So, don't take it personally." I added.

Carter snapped his fingers. "Exactamundo! So, once your score has been announced, the machine will advance to the next song in the queue -"

"We know! I know, I've been to the most luxurious karaoke bars, and I know how it works to get on with it!" Rachel interrupted.

Carter twisted his lips to the side. "The first rule when I'm talking don't interrupt me. I am the host, and I suppose you know that it's considered rude to interrupt your host. You should know that better than anyone." He sneered.

I gaped at his rude response. "Oi belt up and get on with it! For your information, I am the host, so you're being rude right now!" I put my hair up in a ponytail because I was tired of pushing it away from my face and eyes, and now it looked even longer courtesy of Rachel, straightening it.

"Bugger off!" He rolled his eyes and picked up the giant remote since it was his turn to sing. Although I was supposed to begin, I let him start. He punched in the corresponding number on the giant remote-like device and pressed the start key. He added some songs to queue as well and grabbed the mic, and got ready!

The countdown began indicating when he should begin singing. Carter had chosen a slow number, Naked by James Arthur. The letters appeared on the screen and it changed colour as he began singing. Whilst most of the songs were in the original key, we had a feature that enabled us to change it to the key to our preference, and Carter had done that.

There was background melody that accompanied by visuals as well, normally they were quite simple like it had the original song, but sometimes it had random clips from the nineties and other times it had completely unrelated ones playing in the background which was fun and hilarious. It was always a surprise!

The look of pure shock and surprise on Rachel's face was priceless, I shrugged my shoulders. Carter, too, had a very nice voice, a trait which we'd inherited from our father. Dad was in a rock band when he was in university and he was the lead vocalist and guitarist, he was a rebel back in those days, but now he's toned it down a bit because he had to run the company and my Grandad was strict after dad finished uni, although he allowed my dad to have fun and sing until he graduated uni.

When we were younger, Dad, Carter, and I danced and sang together. Hence the karaoke room, so that we could sing together every weekend, but he got busy as the years passed by. But Carter and I always found time to come here and sing. We were like Sharpay and Ryan Evans, we were inseparable.

But, we've hardly spoken to each other after I returned from Scotland, he's been quite busy with his football, singing competitions and playing with his mates and I've been busy with uni and singing, we've drifted apart and aren't as close as we were, and I haven't spent time with him in a very long time and today is the first time we've come here in this room. I felt a twinge of pain when I reminisced about our childhood.

But, I didn't have time to dwell on it because I heard loud applause and cheer. I drew my gaze at the screen, Carter had finished singing, so after singing, there would be an applause effect for an ego boost, and the monitor displayed a numerical rating.

Rachel whooped. "You sang well."

Carter only smiled. "Thank you."

It was my turn to sing, so that's what I did, I sang and tried to forget about our sibling squabble. The countdown began for my turn, and I sang Skyfall by Adele in the original key. Rachel sang Tambourine by Eve, whilst using the tambourine throughout the song.

We took turns each and as time progressed, we sang like loons, Rachel and I sang a duet and whilst I was twirling, my hair smacked her in the face and this happened a lot, we made use of the costumes and tambourines and even turned on the echo effect, because why not? It was a soundproof room, after all.

Carter and I sang a duet as well for Stay by Rihanna, and after that, whenever he came on, he had different sunglasses for every performance. I had no idea how many we had stashed here in the first place. After Rachel was done with Hips don't lie by Shakira. She sat down when we applauded her as her score was highlighted on the screen.

"That'll be the last round. Winner takes it all and will be crowned Karaoke Champion of the week," Carter announced, "Time to look at the scores, Rachel has a total of 300 points, I cannot believe Rachel's leading by five points while we're both tied." Carter huffed as he stood up to perform.

"Awww, it's fine, we know the scoring system is flawed." I simpered.

He picked up the mic and the song Gangnam Style by PSY came on, I met Rachel's eyes and we both had the same expression on before both of us jumped up to our feet and started singing and dancing alongside Carter.

Carter said he'd be PSY, Rachel, and I were the cheeky dancers behind him. We picked up different sunglasses and put them on and twerked a bit here and there whilst also doing the iconic dance step since the original clip played on the screen.

This was the most fun we've had us, siblings, I didn't want it to end when I caught sight of Carter laughing and singing. A thought crossed my mind, that perhaps I should go talk to him after Rachel left, to have a heart to heart with Carter. I was hopeful that it would make us go back to how we were before. So, I didn't worry about anything else and focused on having fun.

We were so engrossed that I didn't notice someone opening the door and taking a video of us singing and dancing our hearts out.

When I turned around, I did a double-take when I saw two people standing in shock and amusement. A familiar pair of gorgeous blue eyes stared at me in amusement. I hadn't seen him in three years.

The man I despised was here, actually standing beside Luke.

Blimey! He's here, and this isn't going to end well.

Was all I thought as they approached us.

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OOOOH, who do you think is standing beside Luke?? Comment your thoughts. Hope you like this chapter!

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