EPTBrazil + Oldboy = Awesome.
I should mention that Rina knew me better than I knew myself.
That Wednesday, I went home on the last bus from the libary out to the Parkway Suites. It was close to 10PM when I got home. In the lobby of the Parkway, I spotted an anxious Jimmy pacing back and forth. Apparently he'd left his room key and laptop bag in Shin's room, he said, and he had no way to get to his apartment in the other tower. So I buzzed him up.
When I first stepped into the elevator, I only pressed 36. He looked at me a little strangely, and then pressed 35 for me.
"You don't want to go to Shin's place right now," he said.
"Why?"
"Just don't go. We were playing 'Winning' and he lost. He's a little pissed right now."
"How many goals?"
"Twenty." I cringed a little in response.
"Winning" was their nickname for Pro Evolution Soccer, a game which Shin was a little obsessed with. Him, Jimmy, and Teo had a betting system going where every goal in Winning was worth one "Phoenix", or one instance of picking up the opponent's dinner bill at a pretty decent Canto restaurant. Each bill averaged 25$ per person. I never played because I knew I sucked at sports video games, but it was always entertaining to watch them and count the number of broken Playstation controllers that would be added to each Phoenix bill.
So I stayed home that evening. Popped open a beer and chatted with my roommate about Lehman going under, then started some BW UMS (high five if you played Evolves). About thirty minutes in, I heard a thump.
It came from directly above my head, and it was loud enough to overpower my headphones. I thought nothing of it until I heard another thump thirty seconds later.
I remembered that Shin lived above me and did some two plus two. More out of curiosity than anything else, I quit the game and stepped into the elevator.
Shin's door was ajar when I stepped out onto the 36th floor. I opened it and felt something crunch beneath my foot. It was the remains of a champagne glass. As the door fully opened, I saw a chair on the floor, against a wall. In the wall were four neatly spaced holes caused by the legs of the chair. The was an odd buzzing noise about.
The apartment smelled... wierd. My nose felt overloaded with smells. It was then that I realized there were random brown, red, and yellow streaks across every conceivable surface--the carpet, the walls, the ceiling, the kitchen countertop, the $2500 white Italian leather sofa.
"Soy sauce." I jerked my head towards the interior hallway. Teo stepped out of his room and carefully closed his door, making sure it was locked. "The brown stuff is soy sauce. Or maybe it's rice vinegar..." Teo's voice drifted off a little. I remembered that Teo loved to cook.
"Shin took all my supplies and threw them out. The red stuff is wine. The yellow stuff is probably whiskey." One of the living room windows cracked, pieces of a playstation controller resting at its base.
More crunching beneath my feet. Threading my way past an empty milk carton, I gingerly approached Shin's bedroom door. "It's okay, you can open it, he's not home. Neither is Mike." And with that, Teo disappeared back into his fortress of solitude.
I peeked inside the bedroom. The bookshelf was knocked over; it now lay against the bed at a 60-degree angle. The door couldn't open fully because Shin had thrust a halogen lamp through the vanity mirror opposite the door. Pieces of glass sat in the bathroom sink; he'd destroyed that mirror too. The bedroom window was shattered. I picked up a brick-shaped, glass object on the windowsill; it was still intact, except for a chipped corner. Inside the glass brick, floating as a sea of laser-etched bubbles, was an impression of Shin and Elise's faces, and the words "爱不释手 2007" (Forever Love 2007).
I felt a little awkward for going through Shin's private stuff so I backed out of his room fast. Then I walked back out. The crunching of glass underfoot felt almost natural now. What wasn't natural was the sizzling sound I heard from the kitchen.
On the stovetop, it looked like something was in the wok. I didn't recognize what was in there at first--it looked red and white, like a diced radish. Whatever it was, it was overcooking fast. I knocked on Teo's door. "You making something? Looks like it's about done". Teo responded in the negative.
It was then that Shenzhen Mike rushed in. He looked at me with a panicked expression on his face. I stared back.
"Oh shit oh shi--" Then he disappeared into his room. I heard rustling noises. Then he rushed out, face blanched. He looked at the wok and screamed "DIIIIUUUUUU" at the top of his lungs.
I heard half of the story from Mike. Apparently Shin was losing at Winning to Jimmy. After going up 10-0, Jimmy took pity on his friend and let Shin down a gulp from the Black Label every time he was down a goal. Once the score got to 18 or something, Shin apparently stood up and began pounding on Mike's door, screaming canto obscenities at the "little snitch". Mike then took advantage of a piss break from Shin to gather up all his valuables and beeline for a friends' apartment, also in Parkland Suites... but he'd left behind his passport and car keys.
Mike reached for a pair of chopsticks and fished out a badly discolored and burnt chunk of his mugshot. I looked back at the wok. I could barely make out the golden emblem of the People's Republic of China floating in cooking oil.
Teo walked out and said that Shin and Jimmy were coming back and that Mike should probably go. So he did.
Shin and Jimmy walked in. Shin kind of looked at me funny, so my hand instinctively went for the handle on the wok of hot oil. Shin laughed at a not-very-amused Jimmy, then proceeded to grip my hand in his and stare at me, then bellow "You didn't tell Elise, did you?"
I shook my head. He kept asking. "C'mon, it's okay if you told Rina. I understand." I kept shaking my head and mouthing no.
Then he laughed and said to Jimmy "GOOD! Then by process of elimination, the only guilty party is Bernard." Shin immediately drew out an eight-inch chef's knife. Jimmy and I backed away. "It's okay, I only go after Bernard 'cuz he's so annoying... keep talking shit about me... cost me Elise... *sniff*"
Then he went into the bathroom, and emerged with a hand towel and a bottle of liquid bleach. He put the towel and knife on the counter, then proceeded to dump bleach all over both and wrap the blade in the bleach-soaked towel. "My dad taught me this. To keep the knife clean of blood, and keep the blood from becoming solid," he so cheerfully explained. Jimmy and I stood there, a little mortified. Then Shin fished Mike's keys from his pocket. "Let's borrow our Chinese comrade's car for a bit. Pay Bernie a visit at his dorm."
I put my hand on Shin's arm. "If you want us to go with you, then you leave the knife here." So he did.
Jimmy called Neptune and the three of us accompanied Shin. When we got to Bernie's dorm, Jimmy killed the engine and we all sat there. Shin wanted to go up to Bernie's dorm and "teach the fucker a lesson". Neptune, Jimmy, and I took turns persuading him not to. Midway through our attempts, Cecilia showed up--apparently Shenzhen Mike had just told all the Hong Kongers that Shin took his car, and she recognized the vehicle. So the five of us sat in the parking lot, and slowly the conversation drifted to general relationship troubles. I heard Neptune's story about how his girlfriend at Columbia cheated on him, and he found out when he paid her a surprise visit and she left him to wait outside her dorm in the rain while he could see her fucking another guy through the window. Cecilia shared how she found out her dad had another wife in China when she was 10, complete with multiple other half-siblings. Jimmy and I talked about all the times we'd gone through nasty break-ups. After about an hour, we finished, Shin felt better, and we drove back to Shin's apartment in peace.
Three days later, I went up to Shin's room again. It was spotless. Completely fixed, complete with a leather sofa, this time in black. Shin's parents had wired over about 10 grand to cover the cost of apartment damages and new furniture. Shin was planning to throw a party for the weekend again. He asked me if I wanted to come.
I shook my head, said I other commitments. That night, I called Rina. We talked for a while. I told her the story of the past two days, and that it was okay if she wanted to break up with me; I didn't want to hold her back from a good life in Hong Kong.
She replied with two things which I still remember to this day:
"There are many ways to be a somebody, but only one way to be a nobody, and that's to try and be something you're not."
and
"Though we come from different places and we're going different places, let's at least enjoy the time in which we can be together."
I sat there for a while, a little dumbstruck. She laughed. Then I agreed.
Rina and I spent the rest of the school year together. She left, we broke up, but we're still friends. Elise broke up with Shin, and stayed single for the rest of her third year before graduating early with Rina. Shin went to Singapore, trading for a British bank. Bernie and Grace made up.
Mike got a new passport. I bought his car when he left. Sometimes, when I drive in it, I wonder what would have been had Shin not taught me that I could never be like them, and they could never be like me.
Hands down the best mashup I've ever seen. Also, the song Rina and I had our first kiss with.
Now I have nothing to read! 
