Corentin scoped the club; the group of six men advanced like Musketeers. No one looked at them in any particular way as everyone estimated being a celebrity. Therefore, no one drooled or laid like a doormat for the players.

The waiter took them to the VIP square and fetched the bottles the footballers left for keeps as reservations.

The Rimbaud, just as Da Stuff was the hype place of the moment. Unlike clubs where the lights were dim, here people came to be in the limelight. The spot was bright and full of mirrors from the floor to the ceiling one had to have an immense amount of love for themselves to support their reflection bouncing off every corner.

Designers wear paraded everywhere, making it seem as though everyone was brand ambassadors. If there was some fast fashion ready-to-wear, it was only on the cloths that wiped the tables.

“So, how does it feel?” Marco asked Dominque, who had been silent for a while.

“Feels like the old days,” Dominque gave one of his old school players smiles, reassuring Marco as they took a seat in the square.

The bottles of champagne began to pop. Thomas added some ancestral whiskeys with prices so high they didn’t even appear on the drinks catalog. All these visuals allured the preying eyes of women who flaunted their best profiles.

“Come on, Dom, let's toast.”

Dominique stared at the table; there were no soft drinks to be seen or water. Like a teen, the man felt embarrassed to ask for a cocktail without alcohol.

He grasped a glass of champagne, and Corentin toasted, “to the new era.”

Marco, who observed him, felt relieved. Up till now, Dominque’s withdrawn attitude left him perplex, but Marco preferred to put it on account of change. Back in the days’ guys like Corentin just as Marc mimicked him, style, women, and sports followed Dominque like little boy scouts wanting badges. Now the man who took the lead of everything was the guy who tagged along.

Dominque examined his surroundings; Instagrammers, Youtubers, small screen comedians, and other athletes filled the place. The man’s heart skipped as he dreaded encountering Hye Ju. The still healing-heart man wasn’t ready for it at all. Dominque prayed she would spare him. In no time, the group was on the dance floor, fooling about on some Petit Biscuit, followed by the weird but genius sounds of Gesaffelstein.

Dominque watched until Bastien came to fetch him, “dude, come show us your moves. We all know you are dying to show off.”

It wasn’t a secret; he loved music. Dominque’s eclectic taste allowed him to dance on anything, yet here he refrained himself. The man didn’t desire people to notice him. Still prompted by Bastien, he got up and went to join the group. Unlike his friends, for Dominque, dancing was a serious matter where one connected with others.

It was not long before diverse women approached him to dance. A Megan Fox Transformer era lookalike grinded on him when he spotted a woman in a bodycon white one-sleeved dress.

Tall and slender, if the lights were dim, Dominque could have mistaken her for Hye Ju. From where Dominque stood, he could tell the woman played with the resemblance. Friends and family probably said the woman Dominque watched how striking and close her traits were to Hye Ju, and she cultivated the doppelganger effect with her gestures.

Dominique couldn’t take his eyes off her, and the woman knew, and she acknowledged it with a smile. Without taking a leave from his dance partner, Dominque made his way to her.

“Hi.”

The woman gave him a corner smile, “I saw you watching me.”

“A was about to say that.”

Up close, she was more than a copy. Dominque wondered if all was natural on her face. The man didn’t have an Asian fetish his love for the women began and finished with Hye Ju, yet here the man found himself enthralled.

“My name Lee Han.”

“Dominque, are you alone?”

The woman shook her head and pointed to another girl who danced with Marco. Dominque felt nostalgic, as like in the old days, the men picked up women who were friends.

“Care you join us? Your friend is already having fun.”

Lee Han grabbed her purse and went to sit in the VIP square.

Dominque leaned to whisper, “so, you come here often?”

“Often enough to know, I’ve never seen you around.”

Dominque ticked off the clubber box in his mind.

“Yeah, it’s my first time.”

“Where do you come from?” The woman was interrupted by a camera flash.

They both looked in the camera’s direction, and the photographer took an avalanche of snaps before asking for their Instagram accounts and giving them a name card with his. The man then moved on to the other people in the square, and Dominque resumed their conversation, “why do you ask?”

“Well, everyone who is someone comes here.”

Dominque shrugged, “I guess I’m no one.”

“I doubt it, you know all these guys,” Lee Han said as the footballers and Marco came to sit down.

Dominque ticked off the fangirl box.

“What will you have to drink?”

“I’m okay, with Dom Perignon.”

Dominque picked one of the bottles and filled a glass for her. From then, the man became silent; he contented himself by watching Lee Han interact with everyone. She and her friend knew all the guys Dominque suspected the woman of leeching on the men like parasites.

Lee Han returned her focus to him, “you didn’t answer my question earlier; where are you from?”

“Here, actually, I’m french.”

Lee Han ran her fingers through her hair, “I thought you were Mediterranean or South American.

“My mother is Spanish; my father is Puerto Rican.”

“I see, and what do you do?”

Dominque ticked off: The I hope he has the dinero box. They hadn’t known each other for an hour that the woman already asked.

“Let’s say I’m part of national security,” the sentence was senseless, but the interlocutor was not receptive, so it didn’t matter.

Dominque looked at his phone; it was three am he got up.

“Dom, what are you doing?” Thomas asked.

“Guys, I told you I’m dead.”

Marco looked at Corentin, who got up to say goodbye, “it was good seeing mate. We should do this again before we start training for the next Premier League season.”

“Yeah, we should.”

After a few farewells, Dominque grabbed his jacket from the cloakroom and left. He ordered an Uber on the sidewalk in front of the Rimbaud. Someone came and stood next to him.

“Your place or mine,” Lee Han said with a smile.

“Where do you live?”

“Bastille.”

“Yours, you’re much closer to here.”

The proposal was decent. Dominque had no reason to decline.