“I think you should stop deluding yourself,” Woohyun said one morning when the butterflies were poking their wings from spun straw cocoons and I was trying to scribble down each detail of their renaissance into the margins of a coffee stained literature essay.

I was already late to biology by fifteen minutes. Professor Qian would be sure to yell at me in Chinese in front of the entire class even though she and the two Chinese exchange students would be the only three people to understand. Wouldn’t be the first time. Struggling to write and slip my feet into my boots at the same time, I ignored him. Woohyun never had anything decent to say. At least not this early in the morning. He was only trying to correct me when I didn’t need to be corrected. When he stopped me by the door as I was shoving my notes into my backpack and reaching for my car keys, I told him to stop worrying. He never had anything decent to say but was always worried. Always.

Woohyun tried to hold me back. He latched onto the open flap of my backpack and yanked me away from the door. I tried to tell him I was late for class and if I was marked absent again my grade would drop, but he looked at me with that impatient stare where his eyebrows knit together and he sort of looked like a caveman. I had no choice but to wait.

“Be home for dinner,” he requested. It sounded more like a command to me.

I asked him why this couldn’t have waited until after my class ended. He never gave me an answer, just asked me to promise him I would be home for dinner and so I did.

I didn’t get to class until ten minutes before it was over.

My favorite part of biology was the guy who sat to my left. He was funny and often made sarcastic comments about Professor Qian as she lectured about things no one cared about. Sometimes his hand would find mine under the table and he would link our fingers together like a woven basket. He would lean into me and I would angle my shoulder and he would kiss underneath my jaw. It was never special. It was never anything to alert anyone who would have a problem with his lips on my skin or our hands folded together. The kisses were always quick, almost invisible even. As if only we knew about them. Like secrets.

Woohyun knew about them because I told him all of my secrets. I told him about the time I poured sesame into this kid’s locker back in high school because he tripped me. I told him about how I prank-called Daeyeol on his eighteenth birthday pretending to be from a phone- hotline; I gave the kid nightmares for weeks. I told him about the touches and the kisses and about how I was a little bit in love with the guy who sat next to me in biology. The guy who never remembered my name and called me Sunggyu or Sungjong despite all of the times I told him it was Sungyeol. Even though Woohyun and I only knew each other for six months, I told him everything. Somehow, the short sociology major with the smile of gold and a habit of singing too loud in the shower wormed his way into his life and became my most trusted friend.

After I was chewed out by Professor Qian for being tardy for the billionth time, I found myself in the student lounge. I had another class in an hour and there was no point in going back to the apartment. There was little to do amongst the studious atmosphere and I sat there playing Temple Run on my cell phone to waste time. I wasn’t expecting the arm that dropped like deadweight across my shoulders or the kiss pressed to the underside of my jaw but I recognized the lips. They were the ones I dreamed about at night, hoping the kisses would trail from my jaw and up to my lips where they’d linger sweetly.

“Myungsoo,” I whispered, eyes wide and disbelieving.

He shook in silent laughter. Nodding his head at the exit, he wrapped cool fingers around my wrist and dragged me from the lounge and out into the hallway. I was shocked. For as much as I liked him, we had very little interaction outside of biology. I never expected to be approached outside of class.

“What are you doing later?” he asked, moving his hand from my wrist to the small of my back as soon as we were out in the hallway.

I wasn’t so shallow as to forget dinner with Woohyun just because I was in the presence of the person who held my heart in the palm of his hand. But before I could question how much later he was talking about, his lips caressed the swell of my cheek, softer than a horsehair brush. They trailed up the side of my face, along the curve of my ear, and he whispered that he wanted to take me some place. He told me to not ask questions, to just follow him blindly, and I wondered if he knew that I would chase him anywhere — to the end of the universe where we could create new beginnings and keep going. I hoped he didn’t. I said I had a prior engagement that evening and he said it was okay; we wouldn’t be gone long. I said okay.

In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have. He left me there in the hallway, with my heart on the verge of exploding, without another word and without another kiss. I walked around the perimeter of the floor to stave off some of the adrenaline he stirred up inside me. All excited, twitching fingers and grandiose smiles, I gained plenty of odd looks from some of the other students heading to class. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t have anything to take my mind off of Myungsoo or his words or the feeling of his lips. I considered calling Woohyun because I knew he was free but decided against it. For some reason, his mood soured whenever I talked about Myungsoo and pouring my enthusiasm out to him would only leave me feeling like a ripe lemon as well. Momentarily distracted by the thought of my flatmate, I wondered what was so special about dinner tonight that I had to absolutely be there. He could be cooking that night, but that was ordinary. He cooked all the time because I wasn’t that great at it (though I thought my egg soup recipe was immaculate). Maybe we were going out to eat. We didn’t do that often. And maybe he was going to pay. He never treated me to food.

I was so high strung with unanswered questions that I sat outside of my next class for forty minutes, thinking about Myungsoo and butterflies and Woohyun.

My beloved met me outside of my Statistics class. I couldn’t stop the grin that spread like an epidemic across my face at his slender form leaning against the wall, looking as if he could wait for me forever. I called out to him with a shy curl of my fingers, feeling sweat gather in the center of my palms. He flashed me a smile of ninety percent runway model charm and ten percent pure, unrefined perfection. I brushed my moist hands against the front of my jeans, hoping he couldn't see the way I was shaking in anticipation, fear, and affection. He trailed gentle fingers across the bones of my wrist, gesturing that he wanted to take my hand. I refused. I didn't feel like clasping our hands together in such an intimate fashion. Not when my sweaty palms would ruin it, ruin everything I was wishing for. The butterflies in my stomach were fluttering their paper thin wings out of control. I thought I was going to be sick. I hoped I wouldn't get sick.

Woohyun always made fun of me when I got like this, said I was too sensitive, too emotional and that he was afraid that one day I would dissolve into a pitiful heap of epileptic fits and gurgled nonsense. He made fun of me often. I only let it go because he didn't understand. He didn't understand what it was like to be so in love it hurt. I wondered if who Woohyun's first love was. We never talk about those sorts of things. I made a mental note to start up a round of twenty questions over dinner.

Shrugging, Myungsoo opted for slinging his arm around my shoulder, pulling me into his slightly shorter but still stockier body. I uneasily wrapped my own arm around his upper back. He didn't protest. I asked him where we were going and he told me to not ask questions, that he wanted it to be a surprise. I told him I didn't like surprises. He just laughed that beautiful laugh of his.

I could confess. I could stop him at some point in the day, maybe later, before I made my way back to the apartment and the butterflies and Woohyun for dinner, and pull him aside to tell him of all of the feelings I was keeping hidden from him. I could tell him of the months I spent rolling around in my bedsheets, imagining what it would be like to wake up to my scent of summer breeze laundry detergent and lavender mint shampoo mixed with his own natural smell. I could tell him about the butterflies -- I could talk forever about the butterflies -- and how I asked to start the research project just for him, because of what he made me feel. All kinds of things I could tell him as I pulled myself apart from the inside-out and bared my soul to him. That sounded pathetic, though, and the last thing I wanted to be was pathetic. Woohyun told me I was pathetic all the time. I didn't want his jokes to become reality.

Wrapped around each other, we found the exit of the building. He led me down the street to where there were a few sparse parking spots down by a couple of the less attractive residence halls. Apparently, that was where he parked his car every day -- right outside the freshman dormitory known for housing the student athletes. He drove a new two-door car with a shiny navy paint job. It was a birthday present from his parents, he said. I wish my parents could afford to give me lavish gifts like that. All I got was a pair of briefs that were a size too small and a card with a picture of a cat on it for my last birthday. I told him this and we laughed together as he unlocked his door and we slid into the soft seats. He said he would get me something fantastic on my next birthday and that if I didn't like it I could beat him. If this didn't mean we were going to be (at least) friends for the next year, I didn't want to know what it meant.

I stared out the window at the expanse of grass and beautifully paved walkways. The park. To be frank, it was a lame surprise but I didn’t dwell long on that thought. He took me out and that was all that mattered.

Telling me to stay put, I made a face as Myungsoo jumped out of car and ran over to the passenger side door to open it. He bowed and waved his hand, motioning for me to exit the vehicle as if I was some kind of European princess. Rolling my eyes, I hit him in the chest but I could help the small tug at the corner of my lips. He was cute like this -- completely different from the mysterious boy in my class and the one who haunted my dreams. The disappointment of my love being imperfect was overshadowed by the joy that I was not totally out of his league. He was still normal. Unlike anyone I've ever met before, but still normal.

He reached out for my hand again and this time I reached back. There was something about my heartbeat that fell off course and it thumped out of time, skipping beats it should have caught. He shifted his hand, lacing our fingers together before smiling at our joined hands and then at me. My heart skipped again. I wondered if all of this was just a very elaborate dream. It would if it was.

We spent the next two hours walking around the park, talking about everything ranging from Professor Qian to my butterflies to his upcoming internship at the lab downtown to the weather. Eventually we found ourselves in the grass, lying on our stomachs with his arm tossed lazily over my back. I decided to pick up a game of twenty questions before we drifted into silence. I was too afraid we would lapse into awkwardness neither of us would be strong enough to cut through.

"Favorite color?" I asked.

"Black." He took my hand that wasn't playing with sharp blades of glass and traced the wrinkles with his pointer finger. Hopefully, I didn't start to sweat. "Favorite food?"

"I don't discriminate."

We both laughed at that.

"Craziest thing you've done?" I took my eyes off a particularly pretty bunch of wildflowers when I felt his lips against the pads of my finger tips.

"Cliff dive ," He answered simply, as if cliff-diving was nothing special.

I grinned. "I didn't peg you as the sort of guy who would go cliff-diving. Let alone do it sans clothing."

He attempted to shrug his shoulders the best he could while laying down. "It was a family vacation to Italy two years ago. I figured 'why the hell not'? The part was coincidental though. I forgot to bring swim trunks with me but I wasn't going to let it stop me."

"Aren't you just a regular ol' exhibitionist," I joked and he nudged me with his shoulder. I nudged him back. We did that a couple more times and he decided to knock me over with a hard shove. Caught in a mix of surprise and anxiety as he crawled over me, initiating the worst (and when I say the worst, I mean the best) tickling session of my young twenty year old life.

He only stopped after I threatened to accuse him of cheating on our next Biology exam and he leaned back on his knees. Breathing heavily with my cheeks stinging, I was sure I was red all the way down to my collarbones. I tried to catch my breath. Myungsoo decided to continue our game of twenty questions despite our uncomfortable positions.

"Do you like someone?"

The question caused my breath to hitch. I swear I could have died.

"Yeah," I replied, all shaky syllables and burning cheeks. "Do you?"

He blinked twice before a gentle smile crept up on his face. "Yeah."

“Woohyun, I think I can die now,” I sang as soon as I walked in our apartment, unable to help myself.

“I’d rather you waited until after dinner,” Woohyun said, sauntering out of his bedroom. He looked rather nice tonight, dressed in a cleanly pressed black dress shirt and pair of matching slacks.

I asked why he looked so unlike himself; usually he threw on any clean shirt and jeans and called it a day. He paused on his way to the kitchen and I could see him swipe his tongue across his lips — his only visible nervous habit. He never answered me. He always did that…ignore me when it was convenient for him.

“Why can you die now?” He pulled himself out of his temporary stupor and continued on into the kitchen. I started to follow him but he told me to stay as far away from the kitchen as possible, that he was afraid I would ruin his dinner plans just by breathing the air in the kitchen.

I should have never said anything and kept my mouth shut. But instead, despite my better judgment, I rambled on about my outing with Myungsoo, not leaving out one detail about our time in the park. That meant I also told him about how Myungsoo, with his charming smile and surprisingly odd personality, pressed his lips to my chin in the middle of the park and asked for help with confessing to the guy he liked. The guy named Lee Sungyeol. Me.

Standing outside the kitchen, I waited for any kind of response. Just a simple congratulations or an ‘oh, really?’ would have sufficed. But there was nothing. There was silence. I felt my high come crashing down so quickly I thought I was on a rollercoaster. Maybe I was. I turned to walk into the kitchen but then, finally, he spoke. He said that he would call me when dinner was ready; I could wait in my room. And so I did. I went back to my room with my beautiful baby butterflies, newly awakened and clinging to the mesh walls of their artificial habitat. One of them died since this morning and I scooped it out of the habitat and into my hands; cradling it, I sung to it the song my mother used to sing to me to put me to sleep as its dying requiem. When Woohyun finally called me for dinner, I brought the lost soul with me to share my loss with the other. He stared at the broken wings before patting me on the shoulder. (It felt much too stiff but I didn’t want to say anything to him about it).

A valley of blues and violets greeted me at the trashcan. Staring at the flowers, I picked up the small card lying in the pool of ripped petals. Will you go out with me? I asked Woohyun if someone asked him out today, chuckling the whole time because how old fashioned was it to give your crush flowers? High school kids didn’t even do that anymore. He shrugged. There he was again — ignoring me. I told them he should have given them to me, he knows I love flowers. He said he forgot, that he wasn’t thinking about it at the time, and if I still wanted them I could easily dig them out of the trash. Rolling my eyes, I tossed the card and my poor butterfly back into the bin.

“Why so fancy tonight?” I asked, swirling string and strings of pasta noodles around the teeth of my fork. I hated Western utensils. They always made me feel like a penguin trying to learn how to fly.

Woohyun looked up from his plate and tapped his fork against the side of the stoneware. His neutral expression faltered but he regained himself too fast for me to read the hurt that dulled his eyes. “Just thought I’d spice things up a bit. Don’t expect this to happen again anytime soon.”

I swallowed a mouthful of noodles. “That’s cool. This is kind of awkward anyway. Like we’re having some fancy dinner or something. Too bad there’s no wine. I’d think you were trying to court me.”

“Yeah, that’d be weird.” He chuckled dryly.

I was in the middle of Biological Chemistry, four days after the flowers and the dinner, when my phone vibrated suddenly against the front of my thigh. It was Woohyun. He sounded tired as he told me news that would have my thoughts adrift for the rest of the day. Half of my butterflies died.

yeahhh, i don't know what i'm writing. oh well, here's the first part :D