A Boo-tiful Night

At the beginning of this year, I started a dating experiment. I usually meet girls online or at house parties, but this girl I met on the metro, en route to work.

For our first date, I took her to the opening night of the Shenzhen Fashion Week because I knew that was her passion. For our second date, I surprised her with a picnic by the bay. For our third date, I wanted to take her out to a fancy dinner, but she invited me to go to a Halloween party at one of the trendy spots in town. “Let’s meet at the bar,” she said, “and let’s not tell each other what we’re gonna wear.”

I ordered the Game of Thrones Jon Snow cosplay costume online. I thought once I threw on my black jeans and combat boots, bam, I would have the perfect costume. On the day of the party, just after lunch time, someone knocked on my apartment door. It was the delivery guy with a small package. I ripped it open and took out the costume. “WTF!” I said out loud. It was the red Squid Game guard costume from the breakout Netflix series, and it came with a black face shield customized with a white square on the forehead. “Not even a triangle?” I shook my head. At least they didn’t send the red Wanda Maximoff’s costume, I thought.

When I arrived at the bar, I realized I wasn’t the only one who got the wrong package, it looked like we were in Squid Game. This is going to be fun, I thought and looked around for my date, but I couldn’t find her. I pulled out my phone and texted her:

“Where R U?”

“Ghostly greetings,” she wrote back, “find me!”

“What are you wearing?” I wrote.

“I already gave you a hint :)”

What? I thought, and scanned the bar. I noticed a girl in a bright pink bikini top that looked like seashell, her waist tightly wrapped in a shimmering sheet representing a tail fin, I walked up to her, but it was someone else. “This is hard,” I texted her. “LOL who said it’d be easy,” she wrote back. “Color?” I wrote. “White,” she wrote back.

I looked up and my eyes went straight to a girl in a short white dress with fishnets and red stilettos. She was talking to a few people, her back towards me, it has to be her, I thought. So, I walked up to her, and tapped her shoulder, “found you,” I said. She turned around and smiled, her friends looked at each other and then looked at me. “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you were my friend,” I said, and walked away.

There was a really tall person with a white bedsheet draped over their head with cut out eye holes. I didn’t even bother to see if there were any more ghosts out there. That’s not what a fashionista would dress as, I thought. Then I spotted a few girls wrapped in white sheets, gold belts around their waist, shiny gladiator sandals, and lots of gold jewelry. I didn’t want to make a fool of myself again, so I pulled out my phone. “Greek goddess?” I wrote. “Nope LOL. Last chance,” she wrote. “Another hint? Please,” I wrote. “Go get a drink first, that might help haha,” she wrote. “I’m serious!” I wrote. “Hmm…there are two other people wearing the same costume as me, I think,” she wrote.

I went to the bartender, ordered a drink, and told him about my dilemma. “Good luck,” he said, and passed me the drink. I put the tip money back into my pocket, and walked towards the dance floor. Then I saw two girls in short white dresses with pairs of feathery white wings. Angel, she’s an angel, I thought. I went up to the them and asked if they had seen another angel around. They pointed towards the VIP section and there were five more.

I wondered why was this taking so long. Most of the people in the bar looked like me, if she was playing Squid Game with me, I would have already won. “BTW, I’m the guard from Squid Game with a square,” I texted her. “I thought you’d at least put some effort into tonight’s costume, but…” she sent an audio message. “I did!” I wrote back, then sent her a new audio message explaining about the wrong package, and then put my phone back in my pocket. I pulled my mask off and took a sip of my drink, when all of a sudden someone crashed into me from behind. My glass shattered on the floor, I turned, and it was another ghost. “Sorry,” the girl’s giggly voice came from under the white bedsheet. The bartender rushed to the floor with a mop, and looked at me, “I guess you found her,” he said. I looked at the girl ghost once again and then it clicked. The big ghost, the small ghost, and the third one, I thought.

And then someone from behind me wrapped their arms around me, “finally, you figured it out,” she said. I turned and gave her a hug, “this is so stupid, I can’t even see your face,” I examined her ghost costume. “Why do you want to see my face?” She said. “I love your face,” I said. She unzipped her costume from the side, “come on in,” she said. I snuck my head in and kissed her on the lips. “Now put your mask back on,” she said, “the whole idea of the Squid Game costume is to hide your identity.”

A remix of Ryan Miguel Capili’s image.

For the rest of the night, we danced, took some goofy photos with and without our masks and bedsheets, and made some new friends. After a while, the drinks were flowing freely, and the reality was getting a bit blurry, when my date came up to me and asked to borrow my phone. I don’t exactly remember what was going on, maybe her phone was dead or she couldn’t find it. So, I gave her my phone and continued dancing. The next thing I know is that my phone was vibrating in my back pocket, she was twerking in front of me, by the time I picked up the phone the person on the other end hung up. So, I put the phone back in my pocket, held my date in my arms, and said, “babe, let’s get out of here.”

We got out of the bar, got into a cab, and went to my place.

“Why do you still have this hideous costume on,” I said.

“Shhhh,” she whispered, “people are sleeping.”

She had never been to my place before so I showed her the bedroom, and then went to take a shower. When I got back, she was already in bed, the lights were off. “Are you still up?” I whispered. But she didn’t answer. So, I snuck in my bed and went to sleep.

My alarm went off at 5:30 AM because I forgot to turn it off before going to bed. “Fuck,” I sighed. She turned to my side. I put my arms around her and we kissed. “Good morning,” I said. “It’s too early, go back to bed,” she said. “What’s wrong with your voice?” I said. “Nothing,” she kissed me again. But I knew something was not right. I felt dehydrated, so I got up and went to the kitchen to get some water. I heard that she got out of bed and went to the bathroom. I filled a glass of water and waited for her.

When the door knob turned and she came out of the bathroom, the glass in my hand slipped and shattered on the ground. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. She wasn’t my date. She was the other girl, the small ghost. I ran to my phone, picked it up, and there were 9 missed calls from my date.