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Quentin glanced at Yunie. I prepared to get blasted in turn by a judgmental frown, but instead he gave me a saintly smile, which was worse.
“Regardless of the circumstances, this is still your night out, and I’m being unfair by impinging on it,” he said. “I’m gonna go.”
“Where?” I scoffed.
“I’ve been invited to some more get-togethers. Fraternities and sororities, that sort of thing.” He paused, oblivious to how popular he was and why. “Kind of a lot of sororities now that I think about it? Eh, whatever.”
He went over to the nearest window and opened it. “Ladies,” he said, nodding to us before rolling gracefully over the side like a scuba diver off a boat.
“Bye Quentiiiiin,” Yunie sang, still draped over her cousin’s shoulders.
“So that’s your boyfriend?” Ji-Hyun said once he was gone. “He seemed nice. And hot. Like, damn, girl, there isn’t a high-five big enough for you.”
“You don’t seem concerned that he jumped out your window.”
“Nah, everyone does that in this building. Lets them avoid the walk of shame.”
Ji-Hyun tilted Yunie onto the beanbag. “What’s with this graveyard?” Yunie said. “We need some tunes going!”
“How much did she have?” I said.
“Just the one sip from before,” Ji-Hyun said. “I guess tolerance doesn’t run on that side of the family.”
I watched Yunie head bang, supine, to some heavy metal song that only she could hear. I didn’t know she was a closet air guitarist, because she was miming chords and arpeggios and everything. Transferable genius, I guess.
This had been one of the most frustrating nights of my life, and that included all the times I was in mortal danger. I’d been exposed as a big fraud. I didn’t know what I was doing when it came to college, Divine Guardianing, or my boyfriend, whom I was supposed to have an actual spiritual connection to.
I snatched the last cup of liquid red grossness from the nearby kitchen counter and slumped onto a pile of laundry. Why I was able to do that without taking any steps in between the counter and the laundry was a mystery known only to my host and her equally slovenly roommates, but for the moment I didn’t care. I took a big gulp from my cup and waited to feel buzzed.
After a few seconds, something became clear to me.
“I can’t get drunk,” I said out loud.
“Sure?” Ji-Hyun said as she plied Yunie with water in a manner that would not have made it past the Geneva Conventions. “No one’s going to judge if you want to be a teetotaler.”
That wasn’t what I meant. I meant I literally could not get drunk.
The invulnerability and healing power of the Ruyi Jingu Bang had become a lot stronger in me these days, ever since my fight with Red Boy and Erlang Shen. Apparently it also applied to chemical attack now. I could feel my insides identifying and nullifying the alcohol like a toxic agent, which I guess technically it was, leaving behind nothing but painful lucidity.
Great.
I was now the entire world’s designated driver. Woo indeed.
12
“Not Hungover?” Guanyin said to me.
If the next World War were to be fought with passive-aggression, Guanyin would be left standing alone in the crumbling ruins of civilization.
“I’m fine,” I said, not bothering with an explanation of my newfound alcohol immunity. I’d snuck out of Ji-Hyun’s apartment in the early morning, performing my own walk of shame of sorts. I left Yunie an email explaining that I was running a supernatural errand, and that she should stay away from the pool at all costs.
Guanyin had brought Quentin and me to an office park near the college. It wasn’t a branded bank-like tower of glass and metal like the ones off the highway. Nor was it a swoopy modern campus designed by big-name architects around the latest principles of human behavioral science. This building, like the many others that made up the unobserved dark matter of Silicon Valley, was a single-story plop of concrete allowed to spread over the ground without being wiped up. It shared the same aesthetics as a drive-thru restaurant.
It was day two of the already ill-fated long weekend, so no one was there as Guanyin, Quentin, and I walked up to the front door. I could tell because a number of the walls were made out of glass, exposing meeting rooms to the outside in what seemed like an unwise privacy move.
Quentin and I occupied ourselves with not looking at each other while Guanyin jiggled the door handle. It was locked.
“What are we doing here?” I said.
