he sees the boy making paper stars three tables over and wants to kiss him.

                textbooks strewn about and eyes deprived of sleep, he folds and makes tiny lights with his fingertips, a growing pile over his notes.

                chanhee isn’t good with his hands but he makes a shoddy airplane, uneven presses in paper he gives flight to across the library. it misses the wood of the table and gracefully descends to the carpeted flooring, but it catches the eyes of the other. with those eyes he looks up, questions caught in his lashes and twilight in his pupils.

                “hey,” chanhee whispers, three tables down, “are you studying for biology?”

                he nods, “yeah. mr. choi’s class.”

                “no , me too.”

                the boy blinks. chanhee wishes he could go back to illuminating the sky with fingers instead of blinking and blinking and blinking.

                “do you want to study together?” he clears his throat.

                “sure,” and the boy brightens and shines and ing radiates across the room, across the building, he could shut his eyes and still see sparks. chanhee almost drops his books and trips over the flat surface of the floor because wow, this is happening. he at studying alone and all of his friends take advanced courses and this boy, who happens to be really cute, is taking his class. he thinks if things like this can happen to him they can happen to anybody.

                “uh, i’m chanhee,” he pulls over a chair and sets his things down, keeping them in a corner of the table because he doesn’t want to intrude more than he already has, “you?”

                “byunghun,” the boy smiles again, soft and flowery, like petals and silk, “are you in the third block?”

                “yeah,” chanhee isn’t looking. he’s not looking because this boy is really, really cute. and , he’s so nervous. “i never saw you before, though.”

                paper stars are collected next to byunghun’s hands, in neat little rows. he’s aligning them as they talk and turn pages and chanhee can barely write with a pencil let alone make art with his hands. byunghun notices the staring and stops.

                “i make these when i’m anxious,” he begins and chanhee listens, “i went through a lot of stuff in middle school, and when finals happen, i get a little stressed out, so like. i make stars and they distract me, yeah,” byunghun rubs at his nose and red blossoms on his skin. blink, blink, blink.

                “i’m sorry you went through that.”

                “thanks.”

                chanhee opens his book to the same spot in the book as byunghun, he was a lot earlier back in the columns of text and black and white images but studying with another person helps him think quicker. there’s lines explaining cell division and words he barely remembers from whatever point in the semester. his head hurts and he was still back on the first chapter of notes, he thinks.

                “could you teach me how to make them?”

                the smile he’s met with makes his head hurt a little less. byunghun hands him strips of paper and instructs him where to fold, and chanhee clumsily follows to the best of his ability. he tucks and creases and makes one little star, edges bent inwards.

                “you did it,” byunghun is delighted with the progress his fingers have made but chanhee just feels blisters threatening his existence.

                “i don’t know if these will be relaxing for me,” he admits.

                “that’s ok,” byunghun takes his creations and pushes them to the other side of the table, “it doesn’t work for everyone.”

                hope is a fragile thing but it visits him and doesn’t break, and he smiles back and is so afraid of losing someone to talk to who glows and glows and glows. “i’ll be fine. let’s study,” chanhee cringes at his words and it’s visible and byunghun laughs, eyes disappearing while his smile makes quite the appearance.

                chanhee learns a lot in one hour. he knows byunghun has a good memory, and he names terms like he has bulleted lists of biology notes imprinted on his bones. byunghun doesn’t get good grades because it’s hard for him to focus, or so he says, but once he takes in the information it doesn’t leave. he knows byunghun doesn’t like the smell of mr. choi’s classroom or the quiet of the class during test taking but loves piano music and things that don’t quite relate to biology but they end up going off topic anyways.

                the librarian shoos them off of the campus premises because after-school hours are over, and byunghun goes to throw his stars away.

                “you don’t keep them?” chanhee asks.

                “no,” the other bids goodbye to the fallen stars and they leave.

                byunghun leans against the walls of the school building, “my brother is coming to pick me up, if you need a ride.”

                “sure,” chanhee takes his phone out of his pocket, “can i like, get your number or something?”

                “for what?” blink, blink, blink.

                “more studying, duh. we did well together, right?” he’s blinking back.

                “yeah,” careful fingers punch in digits on both phones.

                with those pretty eyes going blink, blink, blink chanhee loses track of time and order and is in the back of his brother’s car and sitting quietly, hands folded in his lap. it’s a really small car and it perfectly fits byunghun, snug in the front seat and head barely touching the rest, and chanhee isn’t much bigger but he feels claustrophobic and dizzy.

                few words are exchanged and when chanhee gives directions he’s there with another blink, blink, blink of the eyes and he’s almost ninety-nine percent sure byunghun is asleep when he climbs out but there’s a tiny hand catching at his sleeve.

                “you forgot this,” he mumbles, sleepily, dropping a lopsided star in chanhee’s palm, “you can’t lose your first star.”

                chanhee nods but trips up the driveway as the siblings wave him off. he looks down at his hands and his fingers and thinks that maybe, just maybe, he could have the stars work in his favor.

                “hey, niel, do you know a byunghun?” chanhee is playing video games and on the phone; he likes to multitask like that while his mother sighs in the distance about the rotting of his adolescent brain.

                “is he short?” niel is studying and talking; he likes to multitask like that and chanhee doesn’t know how he does it.

                “yeah,” chanhee maneuvers around a curve in the artificial road, digitally racing of some sort.

                “why, do you like him?”

                “maybe,” chanhee spits into the phone and he hopes daniel can feel it through the transmitting cord, “i found him studying in the library today, and we studied together. never met the kid, but yeah, he’s a good study partner for me, i think.”

                “study date, chanhee. this is your destiny.”

                “, niel, why are you studying right now? take a break or something. go piss off your girlfriend or something,” he turns off the console.

                “she’s studying,” niel is whining and chanhee cuts him off by hanging up. niel has been his friend since elementary school, but he studies too much and tries to set chanhee up with literally every potential male specimen on the earth. byunghun is cute and nice and he won’t let niel ruin it.

                he texts byunghun to see if he wants to study tomorrow at his house, and finish up choi’s work. byunghun replies with too many emotes and too many exclamation points.

                over a bowl of potato chips chanhee finds out that byunghun takes honors english and the only subject they have in common is biology, but it’s ok with him. he dusts crumbs from his lap and opens up a textbook that in his mind is littered with dust, he can’t remember the last time he reviewed things like mitosis and it hurts his brain.

                “do you want to make flash cards or something?”

                the smile he’s met with makes his brain hurt a little less. byunghun has handwriting filled with loops and twists and it’s delicate, like feathers and linen. he trains his memory and excels in the terminology of the unit, and they move on and chanhee remembers and he can’t believe it. byunghun is patient and calm and understanding, he thinks in slow motion but makes decisions with the bat of eyelashes and blink, blink, blink. chanhee is not a fast learner but he thinks he can be, someday, and he wants to hold byunghun close and kiss him all over because he gets it. he almost failed his science course last year and byunghun is equipped with all sorts of skills and he likes having someone to teach him.

                byunghun is reading him the bookmarked sections on genetic disease when chanhee just flat out hugs him, knocking over soda cans and bags of chips because he might not fail everything thrown at him.

                he doesn’t know how long his arms are wrapped around the other’s waist but he pulls back before he makes this uncomfortable, and byunghun is redder than sickle red blood cells and he’s picking up soda cans and turning bags of chips upright.

                “wow, that was weird. sorry,” , of course he made it uncomfortable. he’s known this kid for about a day and he’s hugging him like he’s the savior of the human race.

                “it’s ok,” byunghun is moving a few scattered chip fragments into a pile.

                “like. i at science. and you’re really good at it and just for the first time i think i might not fail the final? i know we just met that was so awful oh my god.”

                byunghun laughs, and chanhee meets him with a blink, blink, blink, and he’s blushing and he hates himself but the other is laughing so he supposes it’s alright.

                a break follows the hours of studying, and chanhee introduces byunghun to the racing game on his console and byunghun gets last place. “at least you’re good at science,” chanhee jokes, and byunghun punches him in the arm and it doesn’t hurt.

                his brother picks him up and byunghun sticks his head out the window to wave goodbye, and chanhee waves back and he realizes that he doesn’t have a lot of friends. it’s a strange thought that comes to him at a strange time but he just met byunghun and feels a lot closer to him than he feels to niel sometimes, or to his friends minsoo and changhyun, who go to a different school and he sees on the weekends sometimes.

                people are strange, he thinks. you can know someone without really knowing them, and you can really know someone without knowing them. it hurts his head and he doesn’t study the rest of the night.

                there’s one more night until finals and chanhee contemplates whether to pull an all-nighter or not. it didn’t work last year and he’s been able to somewhat balance his studying, using what byunghun showed him to memorize in the subjects they didn’t share.

                niel texts him that he’s sleeping early and chanhee might agree with him. he may annoy chanhee half of the time but he’d be kind of lonely without the source of annoyance.

                he falls asleep in his math class and calls byunghun when he gets home.

                “i don’t know what i’m gonna do,” byunghun says, and chanhee hears his fingers moving about and wonders if he’s making stars.

                “are you nervous?” it’s a dumb question and he doesn’t know why he asks it.

                “kinda, yeah,” the other folds and bends and tucks. chanhee rips up paper and it’s kinda loud. “are you making your own stars?” his voice is a pleasant hum.

                “mhm,” chanhee replies and byunghun manages a half-hearted “yay,” long and drawn out and chanhee snorts.

                people are strange, he thinks. byunghun is strange because he is ethereal and unreal and is unlike anything he has ever seen or anyone he has ever spoke with. there is something about him that is wholly otherworldly and he wants to see it ignite and catch fire, he wants to see byunghun at one hundred percent and absolute zero, -273 degrees kelvin. he makes stars with his hands and comets with the tips of his toes and chanhee feels himself catch fire and scratch at his skin for ignition fuel.

                chanhee has never been much of anything but he knows and understands his capabilities and respects them; byunghun is too much of everything and he doesn’t know or understand or respect them. it’s not fair.

                “they so far but,” chanhee forgets he’s on the phone for a second, “thanks for teaching me how to make them, ok?”

                “it’s no big deal,” a voice responds, mingled with the sound of moving paper and limbs.

                “byunghun, this is going to sound lame but i think you’re a really good person.”

                “it’s not lame. thanks.”

                about half an hour later they hang up and chanhee throws his stars in the wastebasket. he’s taking a nap when byunghun starts texting him and soon they are discussing theories of the universe and how the days between autumn and winter are the best and chanhee might be in love but he might be following a shooting star that he will never catch with his hands.

                byunghun meets him outside the school, on the last day of eight-hour shifts with his head on cold, hard plastic. he says he thinks he did well and chanhee says the same. there’s dialing on devices and his brother is going to pick them up in fifteen minutes, and he barely manages to end the call before he blinks at chanhee repeatedly like he knows something the other doesn’t, and chanhee is ignited and on fire and delicate and fragile.

                his brain hurts but byunghun blinks, blinks, blinks, and chanhee kisses him and paper stars fall from the sky.