Guess it's true, I'm not good at a one-night stand
But I still need love 'cause I'm just a man
These nights never seem to go to plan
I don't want you to leave; will you hold my hand?

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Since his childhood in America, Hansol had been aware that he was different from his peers. He didn't look quite like them, speak like them and even his name was different. No one really bullied him, per se. In fact, having Korean heritage had made him "the cool kid" in elementary school: teachers encouraged him to share his father's culture with the class when it came time to give presentations about family or other countries and every September, his classmates were eager to hear about his summer vacation spent in Korea. Despite the generally positive attention however, sometimes all he wanted was to be like everyone else. But even though his mother came to pick him up every day from school and even though his father was actively involved in his school activities, making it clear that he was just like anyone else in the country, Hansol never seemed to be "American" enough to completely fit in with his schoolmates. 

When he and his family moved to Korea before he turned thirteen, he soon found out that he wasn't "Korean" enough to fit in with anyone there, either. 

Kids at the private school he attended weren't as positive towards his differences as his classmates in America had been. While no one was outright mean to him either, some poked fun at his Korean, certainly fluent enough so that he could understand his lessons and do well on his homework and exams, but clearly rusty from disuse and even a little accented, as he mainly spoke English at home with his parents and little sister. He didn't understand a lot of slang expressions that everyone his age used, had no idea what television programs his peers were talking about and struggled with using proper honorifics. His father had taught him how to use them, but he'd never had to address family members with such formality and other than family, there was no one else with whom he'd ever spoken in Korean. Most of his teachers would kindly remind him to use honorifics, understanding that he'd spent most of his childhood in a different country. But others were less tolerant and he'd sometimes get scolded for failing to use proper titles. The real trouble came from his peers in middle school, who seemed to think that respect was automatically given and need not be earned. Some would bully him for being a "teacher's pet" while others claimed that he was showing off in English class when really, where Korea and Korean culture had been what gave him confidence and a positive sense of self in America, in Korea, English had become his safe haven from the very country he'd thought he'd known and belonged to. As he worked his way from middle school to high school, English class became far more than an academic exercise for Hansol: he needed to speak, read and write in English. It gave him a break from the headaches he'd get when someone spoke to him in Korean too fast or when the text they had to read was too long or the derisive tone that his classmates sometimes directed towards him. English meant home; his mother, his grandparents back in New York, his teachers praising him for the detailed projects he'd handed in about landmarks in Korea, his friends asking him what a hanbok was and if men could wear one, too...

He'd made it through high school without any real friends, but never said anything to his parents. As young as he was when they moved, he knew that his parents worried that he and his sister wouldn't handle such a significant change very well. He also understood why his father had wanted them to move: he was only thinking about what was best for all of them and what would keep them safe. He didn't want to add to their concerns and so strove to do his best in school and keep his complaints to himself. 

His sister had had an easier time adjusting to the new country, as she had just started school. Hansol also couldn't help but to observe with the clarity of a child's perspective that people were nicer to his sister than to him simply because she was a girl. Ever a protective older brother, he was genuinely glad that his sister hadn't any problems fitting in, but that didn't stop him from wishing that he could find it a little easier, too. Even as he turned eighteen and started university, he couldn't quite work out the complicated gender politics that still seemed to govern Korean society, which somehow privileged freedom for men in professional society, yet made it so that men, and only men, were expected to lay down their lives for the country should the decades old stalemate that paralyzed the border between the South and North erupt in a bloody war. Military service didn't make a man. Hansol thought that the fact that such service was necessary was only proof of how blind men could be, in that political leaders would rather send citizens to fight their battles rather than be the first to attempt peaceful resolution. 

Not that he would ever share his thoughts with anyone outside his family. People either would laugh his opinion off, saying that he didn't understand Korean culture and politics, accuse him of being a coward, as his dual citizenship ultimately gave him the choice to serve or not serve when his time came or react with anger. 

University was just as lonely as high school had been, if not more, even though Hansol eventually discovered a passion for English literature and was accepted in a vibrant and well-reputed institution for the arts. Most of the students on campus were studying fine arts, -- painting, dance, music and theater -- making Hansol with his double major in English literature and philosophy an outsider. In truth, Hansol had a good voice, an ear for accents and a natural intuition for portraying a character onstage. But even though he liked to sing and act and was decent in both, he knew that his talents as they were wouldn't earn him a place in a world class music or theater program and as such, he didn't dare risk making a fool of himself by talking himself into a jam session with a fellow student majoring in music theater. 

Not for the first time, his physical appearance set him apart, too. By the time he began university, he was just as fluent in Korean as he was in English and he'd even go as far as to say that his spoken Korean was at times better than his English. But project and class mates would always react with surprise when he spoke to them in perfect Korean, as they'd thought he was a foreign exchange student. At first, Hansol enjoyed their reactions: especially because he could easily go an entire day at school without speaking to anyone but his professors, he appreciated the positive attention. It felt good to impress people with a skill that he'd worked hard to improve and his fluency in English and Korean, as well as his work ethic and drive made him a student in which his professors wanted to invest. 

But after a while, Hansol liked that he stood out less and less. Even after he'd explained to his peers that he was half Korean and half American (feeling like a broken record the more he did so), he noticed that they still treated him differently. They didn't mean any harm and weren't mean to him. But they noticed that he was different and some even seemed a little intimidated by him. Admittedly, Hansol had never been a particularly outgoing person and had become more introverted in university, preferring to keep to his books and working on a rap or a maybe-one-day audition for a part in a play at home than going out with friends. But he just couldn't seem to penetrate any social group whatsoever, even when he tried. 

When he thought too hard about what it would be like to have friends to share lunch with or a boyfriend with the slight androgynous features that he'd realized he was attracted to and that seemed unique to his second country of residence; with visible strength and muscles that made Hansol feel safe; who was attentive to his appearance and yet cared about the same deep thoughts Hansol had and always made time to care about others, the private motto he'd developed as a child to describe his social situation often played in his mind: not American enough to fit in with the Americans and not Korean enough to fit in with the Koreans.

He knew that ethnicity, language and culture shouldn't matter and they didn't when it came to treating others with respect and recognizing humanity in everyone. But somehow, they seemed to matter when it came to more intimate things like relationships. 

These thoughts and realities didn't bother Hansol too much at first. He took a more intellectual approach to matter, observing others and the way they reacted to him. Afterall, he had his books to keep him busy and the hours he spent sharing his ideas and discussing topics in literature with his professors seemed to be enough to buffer his lack of actual friends in his life. He was safe, he was comfortable as he was and he didn't need friends to be happy.

Then he met Jisoo. 

Like many who met him for the first time, Jisoo had been surprised to see that Hansol was fluent in Korean. But then he'd asked Hansol where in America he'd grown up, because he was from America, too. In fact, he'd just come to Korea for university and ironically, it was he who had an English name, Joshua, while Hansol hadn't one. When they first met, Hansol was just glad to have finally met someone who didn't see him differently and with whom he shared more in common than anyone else he'd met while living in Korea. But as they got to know each other more, as Hansol realized that he liked how Jisoo smelled like fresh linen, how he looked at him with the kindest eyes, how he made Hansol feel special, as though everything he said was worth listening to, how he liked that Jisoo was taller than him, how Jisoo's smile made his heart beat faster and the flex of his forearm, his stomach flutter, he realized that his feelings for Jisoo were deeper than just friendship. 

For the first year of their friendship, the prospect of having a future with Jisoo made Hansol happier than anything ever had. He found Jisoo very attractive and Jisoo was just as kind and polite a person as he was handsome. A popular music major, he didn't have the same intellectual understanding of the philosophy and literature that Hansol pored over, but he always listened and somehow contributed to their discussions. He always seemed to be there when Hansol needed someone to talk to, to share his frustrations over a class or uncertainties about life. 

They found out more about each other, walked to and from classes together, studied together and started hanging out after class. The year he met Jisoo was the first year Hansol spent time with someone other than family for winter break: they went shopping together and had lunch and no matter how common the ou