Watching a dance battle for the first time after getting my wisdom tooth pulled and finishing quickly
The other day, a friend in the DTM industry invited me to watch a Vocaloid dance battle.
It was my first dance battle ever. I knew absolutely nothing about Vocaloid. It was a party full of industry connections I was meeting for the first time. I had to go, right?
However, I had a mission that day. A mission to "pull it out." Pull what out? Even if I say pull it out, I just do a quick flick, three strokes, and then—😩💦—it's all over, gone. It used to feel more like a big splash, didn't it? Thinking about that kind of decline makes me feel like all the resources spent on that one shot were a complete waste...
Wait, that has nothing to do with pulling it out. It's about my wisdom tooth.I'm getting my wisdom tooth pulled.
Why on earth would it start growing after I'm thirty? Is it an erotic club? A demo? A matchmaking site? I'm a grown adult now. There are people who have kids. Heck, there are even people whose kids already have their adult teeth. They exist. Hey, doctor, what on earth is this? As I complained while opening my mouth for the dentist,
The doctor chuckled, "Some people even get four pulled in a single day."
I knew it was erotic after all!
But I couldn't afford to make jokes like that once it was time to actually pull it.
Crunch! Crunch, crunch, crunch! Snap! "Get the scalpel!" "Yes, doctor." Swish, flick, bash! The tooth was out.
It didn't hurt at all despite the sounds, but a ton of blood spread inside my mouth.
It felt like a big splash. The blood was just gushing out. It easily surpassed my peak performance.
Was there that much blood pooled down there? Seriously? This is going to stop, right? My doubts were gushing out along with it. It was like erupting magma.
Though I've only ever seen magma at DisneySea.
Center of the Blood—"Alright! Got it out~"
At the doctor's voice, I said, "Wait, it's already over?"
My honest impression was that I was surprised at how quick it was.
That day, that person definitely said the same thing too.
#WhatAreYouTalkingAbout
"—This. It's big."
"It's impressive. Truly impressive."
Thinking that no one had ever said that to me before, I sat up and looked at the doctor, saying, "Wait! What are you talking about!"
It's huge!
Wait, mine is huge🫣
"It came out cleanly, didn't it? This one."
"Do you want to take it home?"
"Oh, wait a second, bite down on this."
While biting down on the gauze to stop the bleeding, I made a decision. I'm going to bring this big thing with me.
A man's attitude toward everything changes just a little bit when he's carrying something big. My machismo was buzzing.
—Or at least, that was the plan until I started watching the dance at the venue.
Once the battle began, I just stared with my mouth open, completely mesmerized, occasionally touching the big thing hidden in my pocket to confirm it was there and smiling, clapping for the dancers—beyond that fleeting climax, the party and my own macho climax just chilled out.
When the finals ended and the free dance time began, I took the big thing out under the dim lights of the floor. I wanted someone to see it. My big thing, which now felt so tiny in this venue.
My friend's reaction wasn't 'Gross' or 'Are you an idiot?', but just 'Huh.'
A few days have passed since then. The bleeding stopped, leaving only the hole and a sense of discomfort. Every time I eat, two or three grains of rice inevitably get stuck, filling the hole. I have to scrape them out with a toothbrush.
This discomfort is truly rare in the history of my oral cavity. It's bigger and on a different level than the one I had last month, when I was chewing on unwanted sweet bread with discount stickers just to get points for a plate, or yours, where you'd eat super spicy mapo tofu despite having a swollen canker sore from poor health. This cavity that formed in the back is frustrating.
I'm turning 31 soon. I still had the frustration of things I hadn't experienced yet. I still had room to create more emptiness. Perhaps it's possible to live life using the accumulation of discomforts and voids as a metric, rather than just the size of things at first glance.
I heard earlier that my friend has never had a wisdom tooth pulled.
Huh.
Biting down on the gaping hole, I look once more at the wisdom tooth that was under the dance floor lights that night. It's not big at all.
It feels like it's glowing blue, just a little bit.