When Myungsoo met Sungyeol for the first time, it was during his orientation at college. They were both a part of the same department. Myungsoo was in his first year and Sungyeol in his second. They were at a drinking party which was supposed to be a way for everyone to loosen up and get to know each other so that they’d have a congenial atmosphere all year. But one second-year decided to start off his year on the wrong foot and got inordinately pissed. He then joined the first-year girls at their table and made them feel uncomfortable with his comments that were toeing the line of decency.

Up until college, Myungsoo had only gone to an all-boys school, and he was already shy by nature. So he was already far outside of his comfort-zone, drinking with a throng of strangers and girls and trying to be as inoffensive as possible, which meant that he barely said more than two words since the party started. But seeing the girls being harassed at the other end of his table didn’t sit well with him. So he stopped sitting and stood up. He then walked over to the other side of the table and asked one of the girls, “Can I sit with you?”

“Oh, of course,” it wasn’t just the girl he asked who answered but her friends too.

Once Myungsoo sat down, he wasn’t just outside of his comfort-zone; it was almost as if he was in a different universe. He was at a loss as to what to do now. He’d wanted to shield the girls from this drunken sunbae, but how? He was having a hard time keeping up a conversation with the girls and didn’t want to say anything disrespectful to his senior, who tried to jump into the conversation whenever he felt like the girls were ignoring him. In response to that, all that Myungsoo could do was smile and bite his tongue. He felt like he just made this situation even more awkward and uncomfortable. However, he did manage to swoop in as a black knight, whenever the guy was trying to get the girls to drink whatever concoction that he was making, all of which were horrible and made Myungsoo’s throat burn and stomach churn. He was nearly drunk himself now. And the situation was threatening to spiral out of control.

But there was someone who knew a bit better about how to handle the drunken man. It was Sungyeol. Of course, Myungsoo didn't know who he was at the time, but this incident left quite the impression on him. He wanted to know who this guy was. And how things unfolded after that led Myungsoo to think that Sungyeol felt the same.

“Hey, man! I've been looking for you!” Sungyeol exclaimed as he squeezed himself next to his classmate. “I have something that I'm dying to tell you, in private. Over there. Come on, let's drink over there,” he tried to urge his friend and tugged at his shoulder, hoping to get him to move.

“Can they come with us?” his friend asked and then attempted to gesture at the girls, but when his hand swiped across the table, he knocked over several glasses. Beer was spilling everywhere and all over Myungsoo, soaking him through.

“Aish,” a curse slipped through his lips. “Control your friend!” That too came out before Myungsoo could register what he was saying. He just snapped at his senior. The first words he’d ever said to him were spoken out of annoyance and raw nerves. Myungsoo looked up at the other with wide eyes, ready to apologize.

Sungyeol’s face twitched. That was ingrained in Myungsoo’s mind even all of these years later. He’d already gotten his drunken friend to stand up, and his arm was wrapped around his. “I am,” Sungyeol spoke through gritted teeth and then dragged his friend away.

Not all impressions are good.

Once classes got started, the impression grew deeper, wider, ripping the two of them apart. The girls seemed to be incredibly grateful towards Myungsoo for helping them out that night, even though Sungyeol was the one to take his friend away. It wasn’t Dongwoo’s fault. Well, it was to a degree. Dongwoo shouldn’t have drank that much, not in front of new students like that, but he was grappling with some weighty issues in his life, concerning his family. Also Dongwoo was a naturally “high” person. High energy, high excitement, highly emotional. The only thing low about him was his sense of self restraint, which was further lowered by the alcohol. Sungyeol knew that Dongwoo just tried to be welcoming to those girls, who were barely even talking to each other during the party. He wanted to foster a sense of camaraderie between them. Dongwoo didn’t know how scary and intimidating he came off as.

And after that night, those girls were actively avoiding Dongwoo and sticking to Myungsoo’s side. Dongwoo wasn’t a person to be avoided. He was a person to embrace. Especially at that point in his life he needed to be. Sungyeol could see the avoidance affecting Dongwoo.

Control your friend.

While Myungsoo was being treated like a real black knight by those “damsels,” he was also receiving praise from their teachers. It had only been a month since school started. There was no reason to believe Myungsoo was such a stellar student just yet. But suddenly he’s made to be the exemplar student because he came to class with an extra pen to give to Dongwoo who’d lost his somewhere even though he’d been holding it just a moment before. Excessive praise, unworthy praise, for something so simple. And to Sungyeol, Myungsoo appeared as being average, completely average, except for one thing, his looks. After another month of observing the first-year, Sungyeol was certain: everything that Myungsoo received in life was thanks to his handsome face.

It looked like Myungsoo never experienced a hardship in his life. He was a golden child.

Control your friend, that line rang clear through his mind when he looked upon Myungsoo’s face when they passed each other in the halls, and Myungsoo had looked away first. Control his friend? Sungyeol couldn’t control himself anymore.

They were assigned to a group project together. Sungyeol let out a snide remark once Myungsoo joined their group meeting, a bit late too, that they’d be fine because Myungsoo was on their team. Myungsoo seemed flustered (and flattered) by that, but then Sungyeol added, “His face alone will get us an A.”

“What?” Myungsoo muttered.

“Professor Kang obviously favors you because she thinks you’re cute,” Sungyeol explained even further and distractedly too, as he flipped through his book.

“Why would you think that?” Myungsoo muttered. He was still standing by the table and hadn’t joined the group yet.

“Sit down, Myungsoo,” Bora, their other group mate, urged him. “Come on, let’s get started.’

Myungsoo turned to her. “Do you think that too?” Bora looked back up at him, pretending to be clueless. “You agree with Sungyeol-ssi, don’t you?” he reiterated.

“Just sit down, Myungsoo,” Bora avoided the question, but Myungsoo got his answer anyway. It wasn’t the first time that people though his looks earned him all of his achievements in life. Could they not see the dark circles hanging from his eyes right now from studying late in the night? Probably not because right now Sungyeol wasn’t even looking at him at all.

“Sungyeol-ssi,” he called out to the elder and waited for Sungyeol to raise his head before he continued. “Are you talking about me behind my back?”

“Yes,” Sungyeol bluntly replied. “We all do.” He gestured around himself.

Myungsoo’s eyes followed where Sungyeol gestured and kept circling around the room. “Really?” he muttered. He felt his face grow hot, then his neck, and then it consumed his whole body.

“Sungyeol,” Bora hissed at her friend through gritted teeth and shoved him.

“What? I’m only telling him the truth,” Sungyeol defended himself. “He’s probably used to people talking about him.”

“No,” Myungsoo interjected. “No, I’m not used to it. I...can’t...It’s uncomfortable...I can’t get used to it,” he bumbled through his words. “I’m s-sorry. I have to go,” Myungsoo stammered and walked out of the classroom.

He went straight into the bathroom. The heat, the embarrassment, he had to get rid of it. He had to cool himself down before he’d say something he’d regret. Myungsoo splashed cold water on his face a few times and then patted his neck with his now cold hands. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, his hands wrapped behind his neck. A few more minutes, just a few spent like this, and he could go back into the room, to his group, and continue the project like nothing happened.

But it didn’t pan out like that. The group came to him.

“Here you are,” Sungyeol announced when he laid eyes on Myungsoo again. The younger lowered his hands to his side and looked over at the other out of the corner of his eye, still not ready to fully face him yet. “Come back into the room. I didn’t mean any of it. I was just joking.”

Myungsoo scoffed, “Liar. You meant every word.”

“Who are you to say that? You don’t know me,” Sungyeol spat back. That was followed by a sigh. “This all doesn’t matter. Just come back. We’re wasting time.” He then reached for Myungsoo, laying a hand on his shoulder. “Come on, let’s…”

“Don’t touch me!” Myungsoo shouted. He meant to only shake Sungyeol’s hand off of him, but he’d jerked too much. His elbow connected with Sungyeol’s face. And when Myungsoo saw Sungyeol clutch his nose and whimper in pain, he couldn’t say he was sorry. He didn’t want to. At that moment, he thought Sungyeol deserved it. “I told you not to touch me.”

Myungsoo went into the bathroom to cool his body and his mind, but he ended up getting more heated and saying something that sent Sungyeol lunging at him. The two of them fought. They yelled at each other, saying every last word that was on their mind. And eventually, one of them stopped yelling and started listening to the other.

“You think I don’t know? You think I don’t know what people think? I do!”

The two of them were on the floor wrestling with each other now. Sungyeol managed to pin the younger to the ground, Myungsoo’s collar gathered in his fist. But he loosened his hold, just a fraction. Myungsoo’s face was so red that it was deepening into purple. His eyes shined with emotions that Sungyeol was just beginning to understand.

“People think that I can get a free ride in life just because of my looks,” Myungsoo was still shouting even though his voice was cracking. “But if I really wanted to do that would I be studying...accounting!”

Sungyeol sputtered and then laughed, heartedly. He let go of Myungsoo, patted the spot that he was holding so tightly moments before and sat up (although still on the younger). This kid, he was so worked up, wound so tightly, but in a moment like this, Myungsoo still couldn’t curse? He swallowed it. Sungyeol saw Myungsoo actually swallow the swear down. Because in this particular, little first-year’s mind, it was better to punch his senior than to say “ing accounting.”

But Myungsoo had a point, and Sungyeol finally saw it, clear as day. And just like that, the old impression that he had of Kim Myungsoo was caving in.

“What? Why are you laughing?” the kid sounded more confused than irritated. “What’s so funny?” had a bit more bite to it.

“This whole situation,” Sungyeol answered and finally got off of the other. “It’s so...ridiculous.” He was about to swear but decided against it, especially after seeing what he had just seen.

“I don’t get it,” Myungsoo mumbled as he sat up too and scooted a good distance away from the other. But he was still on all fours, ready.

“I was wrong about you. I see that now,” Sungyeol was a big enough man to admit that. “Sorry,” he apologized casually and then chuckled again, only because Myungsoo looked so dumbfounded.

Myungsoo blinked a few times, staring off at a distance, as he plopped his down onto the tile. “Oh, me too. I’m sorry,” he said but it sounded like his mind was still somewhere else. “I didn’t know that Dongwoo was having such a hard time.”

Sungyeol raised his eyebrows. So it seemed like some of his words during the fight had sunken into Myungsoo’s head too. Sungyeol began chuckling again and looked down at his hands. “How were you supposed to know? Dongwoo doesn’t really tell anyone about it. He doesn’t want anyone to worry,” as Sungyeol reasoned it out, all of the sudden his grudge against Myungsoo seemed so petty. Why was he being like this? What was he so unfair to Myungsoo? Was it because of jealousy? Yes, it probably was. Some deeply hidden jealousy that Sungyeol didn’t even know that he had. It just fired out of him, instinctually.

But at that moment, seeing Myungsoo dab the sweat away from his purple face and wincing when he touched his split lip, there was nothing to be envied at all.

After a few more minutes in the bathroom spent tidying up themselves, they went back into the classroom and to Bora. She immediately asked if the two of them had fought, and they both denied it in unison.

“Then why do you both have cuts on your lips?” she challenged.

“We do?” Sungyeol touched his lip and acted like it was a new discovery. “Huh, when did that get there?” That tickled Myungsoo and the younger was chuckling to himself as he sat down. Sungyeol smiled too, even though it hurt. “Let’s just start the project.”

Myungsoo always thought it strange that his one-sided love was born out of a bathroom brawl, but that was what happened. Before then, he thought Sungyeol was some haughty second-year that looked down on him, but after that fight, they were finally seeing eye to eye. And there was something about the way Sungyeol apologized then too. Even though he had laughed through it, it was sincere, and it moved Myungsoo. And Sungyeol’s smile then too, moved his heart. Myungsoo sat himself down then, listless, thinking “What is this? Why do I feel like this?” A bit later, he realized that that was the exact moment when he fell for Sungyeol.

It didn’t take long either for Myungsoo to see Sungyeol falling for him too. After the fight and the group project, they sat by each other in class, and they sat by each other at lunch, and they just sat by each other all of the time, whether it was outside on the quad before class or at their school’s soccer game. They were together constantly and almost talking constantly too. But those were marks of their budding friendship, not of Sungyeol’s affections. What were marks of that were how Sungyeol’s eyes used to light up when they say each other for the first time that day, how easily Myungsoo used to render him speechless after doing something simple like saving him a seat, how happy Sungyeol used to be in his presence, like he couldn’t get enough. But Sungyeol was only falling, falling deeper, falling slowly, but he never fell completely.

There was a marked difference one day, in his behavior. It started out as just a sour mood, but it never sweetened to the extent that it once had been.

But for Myungsoo, his love continued for a good while longer. It lasted for so long that being in a one sided-love just became part of his daily routine. He brushed his teeth, ate breakfast, went to school, and thought of Sungyeol. It was just what he did, what he was used to doing.

Often he’d catch himself saying “if only he’d love me back,” but every time it had less heart in it. It was like someone saying that they were hungry when they weren’t or that they wanted to go home when they were already there. They were just words that he used to mean but now were a habit to say.

I guess it would be inaccurate to say that Myungsoo had completely fallen out of love. Since it was so ingrained in him, a tendril always remained, a tendril that would pull him back in and under the other’s spell. So it came in waves, this one-sided love. Sometimes it would last a month, sometimes days, sometimes only for a few hours.

Myungsoo couldn’t understand why he was like this. This wasn’t how he imagined love would be. But it was how his love was. And now, after returning from the army, he’d been pulled in by the undertow and was awashed in this wretched love again.

Maybe because he was always left with this burning question: what would it be like to date Lee Sungyeol?

He’d soon find out.

Sungyeol couldn’t believe that he was doing this. It wasn’t like he didn’t have a romantic bone in his body. He had a few. But never did he think that he’d want to romance Kim Myungsoo, again.

That’s right, he wanted to make Myungsoo his when they first met all of those years ago. He hadn’t expected the younger to be so grounded and mature yet so innocent at times. Sungyeol had always liked puzzles and piecing together Kim Myungsoo brought him joy. But when Sungyeol had finally put the last piece in place, figured him out, Sungyeol saw that they were incompatible, at least then they were. He was a little too innocent. Back then, Myungsoo believed in an end-all and be-all love. He had yet to have his first love. And Sungyeol, he didn’t want to be that. First loves never lasted, not in Sungyeol’s experience. And he wanted to be by Myungsoo’s side for a long time. He liked his companionship. He wanted to preserve it. So although it was mean of him, Sungyeol was cold to Myungsoo for a while, letting his heart cool along with his attitude. He made an effort to pick out everything that Myungsoo did that irked him and irritated him. He made a great effort to do so because it was hard. They got along so well. There were few things for him to pick at. But there were things: Myungsoo’s excessive shyness, how he’d zone out while other were talking, what foods he liked and didn’t like, and even the cologne he wore then. And after a few days of this, it worked. Sungyeol only saw Myungsoo as a friend, no, as a best friend.

Myungsoo changed over the years. He had his first love and his first heartbreak. And Sungyeol saw him through it all.

Sungyeol changed too. He became more skeptical about some things, but love wasn’t one of them. No, Myungsoo actually had him buying into the end-all and be-all love crap and had Sungyeol buying a bouquet of balloons and a packet of rose petals. An event, Sungyeol was going to do an event for Myungsoo and confess his feelings that resurfaced three months ago (or maybe even before then).

It would be an understatement to say that Sungyeol missed Myungsoo the year that they were apart. He yearned for his dear old friend. He yearned to hang out with him, to talk to him, to play with him once more. And they did, whenever Myungsoo was on break, but it only lasted for a few hours before he was gone again. And Sungyeol wanted him to stay. Every parting then was harder than the last.

Finally, three months ago, Myungsoo was discharged. And Sungyeol was over the moon. Soon he was more than just that, he was head over heels when he really saw the changes in Myungsoo. Those few hours during the break weren’t enough for Sungyeol to realize how much the service changed Myungsoo. They say that going into the army makes you into a man, and well, Myungsoo didn’t disprove that. The younger had bulked up a bit, with both fat and muscle, and it looked good. His manners were always a bit rougher. He still didn’t curse, but words came out shaper, louder. He also wasn’t as shy as he used to be. He could easily converse with strangers, like Woohyun when Sungyeol introduced his new friend to his best friend. And Sungyeol was proud to see this change in him, exceptionally proud when Woohyun had that dazed look in his eyes when he first met Myungsoo. It was like Woohyun didn’t believe that this Myungsoo was the Myungsoo that Sungyeol had been talking to him about for a solid year. And Sungyeol could hardly believe it too.

Sungyeol could hardly believe that he was falling for Myungsoo again. So he did what he did last time and waited for it to pass. He waited a month and the younger still made his heart flutter. So he waited some more and more, until it had been three months and Sungyeol had spent another restless night with Myungsoo on his mind. So he ed it all and finally accepted it. This wasn’t going to pass. He was genuinely in love with Kim Myungsoo and he was going to confess.

And he did the very next day, unable to wait any longer.

He invited Myungsoo to his apartment. There was candles on the table, a red wine breathing in the decanter, and a decently Sungyeol-cooked meal on the stove. Sungyeol was quite proud of the set up and even prouder of the curtain of balloons he had blocking the front door. It was worth it just to hear Myungsoo giggle out a “What is this?” after he entered in Sungyeol’s passcode and opened the door. The younger giggled his way through the balloons and it caught in his throat when he noticed the dimmed lights and candles flickering on the table. “What is this?” he repeated. This time he sounded almost scared. And Sungyeol knew why. Out of all the changes that Myungsoo had been through, this one was going to be the biggest, changing from friends to lovers.

“Myungsoo, shoot me.”

“What?!” Myungsoo wasn’t scared anymore, just confused.

“Just do it,” Sungyeol urged him with a warm smile.

Myungsoo did as he was told, morphed his hand into the shape of a gun, and “shot” the other with a soft “bang” slipping through his lips.

“Ah,” Sungyeol clutched his heart and then collapsed onto his knees, groaning all of the while. He then pulled his hands away from his chest, letting the rose petals that he was holding into his hands drip onto the floor. Myungsoo laughed. “See what you do to me?” Sungyeol asked in a shaking voice, still pretending to be dying. He then “threw up” the rest of the rose petals that he had and fell onto the floor, dead.

“I make you bleed rose petals?” Myungsoo joked.

“Yes among other things,” Sungyeol’s voice was back to normal as he stood up. “That,” he pointed to the mess of rose petals behind him as he walked closer to Myungsoo. “That was supposed to be how you’re ‘killing’ me.”

“How nice?” Myungsoo retorted and snorted. He was grinning widely and staring down at the petals, every so often casting a shy glance up at the other and smiling even wider.

“It is!” Sungyeol insisted. “You’re doing a number on me, Myungsoo. You make my heart race. You make me smile, just being with you. And you make me want to do these cheesy things just to bring a smile to your face.”

“Really?” Myungsoo asked, barely moving his lips. His eyes weren’t on Sungyeol’s either. They were on his chest. There was a petal stuck to Sungyeol’s shirt and Myungsoo plucked it off and was holding it tenderly in his hands, as if it were really a part of Sungyeol.

“Yes,” Sungyeol paused and swallowed down his fear before he continued. “But most of all, you’re making me fall for you, Myungsoo. So will you just let me make you my boyfriend?”

Myungsoo finally looked up at him and smiled, so wide that his lips were threatening to tear. But he reined it in enough to say, “I was starting to think that you’d never ask.”

After years of being best friends, how will Myungyeol handle the transition between friends and lovers? Will Sungyeol "bleed" more rose petals? What about Woohyun? How will he take this inevitable turn of events? And just how sticky is this double-sided tape of love?

And where the Hell is Kim Sunggyu? Still not in the next episode! But stay tuned anyway!