Friendship / Love X Confusion = Unrequited Equation

"Parents and friends, the class of 2011!" Our principal cheered into the microphone. All I could hear were the screams of excitement of everyone around me as they stood up and threw their caps into the air. I threw mine as well; happy that high school was over and college life was just beginning. I looked around excitedly in search of my best friends. Damn graduation and it's alphabetical rows.

"Michał! Over here," Bryan yelled. I turned to see him standing with CK, both looking extremely happy. I jogged over to them.

"Boys, have you been drinking," I said jokingly.

"Yes mom" CK laughed.

"So irresponsible" I mimicked a mother-like tone.

"Oh Michał, stop that, it's freaking creepy! You sound just like my mom!" CK joked as he walked closer to me. He wrapped his arms around me in a tight hug, and I hugged back. The butterflies in my stomach were overwhelming, but I ignored them. He released me from his hold and hugged Bryan too. CK was always a happy drunk.

"Come on boys," I said laughing. "Let's go get the whole family-emotional-picture-time stage of graduation over with"

"Finneee" CK groaned, clearly annoyed with graduation day already.

"Let's go" Bryan agreed leading the way.

"Come on CK" I said putting my arm around his shoulder and helping him walk so he wouldn't trip over anything. He wasn't that drunk, but you never know what can happen. At least that's what I tried to convince myself. This was really just another excuse to be close to him.



After we meet up with our families and were forced to take a million pictures, we headed to KRCC. It's the Korean Resource and Cultural Center. We pretty much spent everyday after school since freshman year there. It was like our second home, and Young Sun, the youth coordinator was throwing us a graduation party. CK had sobered up by the time we got there.

"Hey Young Sun!" CK said happily as we walked through the door of our beloved KRCC.

"Hello CK, Michał, Bryan" she said smiling, her Korean accent was strong. I loved Young Sun, but sometimes I could not understand half the things she said. Good thing CK's Korean, he always gets the gist of what she's saying. He's not the best at it though because he was born in Russia, and grew up speaking Russian and not Korean. But after a few lessons, he could manage translation. My Polish and Bryan's English were no good for translating Korean.

We partied for a while until Young Sun finally kicked us all out. She said something like "You don't have to go home, but you have to get out of here," but with her accent she could have been saying something completely different and I wouldn't know the difference.

"Awe Young Sun," I said putting on my saddest/disappointed face. Both Bryan and CK did the same. She looked at us with curious eyes.

"Fine, you can stay, but I am going home. Ck, don't forget to turn off the lights and lock the door when you leave," she said defeated.

"Thank you Young Sun," we said in unison.

After Young Sun and everyone else at the party left, Bryan, CK, And I went into the back room to play ping pong. I was the ping pong master, but Bryan never gave up. CK was our ref and score keeper and I was 7 and 0,Bryan finally gave up.

"Fuck you Michał, I give up," he said in a defeated tone.

I raised my fists into the air and started singing "I am the champion my friends-" and CK stood up from the coach and we high-fived. Bryan flipped me off and walked out of the room pissed. He was always a sore loser.

"Bryan's mad again." CK stated the obvious.

"He'll get over it." I said.

"Yeah i guess so" Ck said looking at the doorway with a sad look on his face. I looked at his face then and admired all the apparent features. He was so cute right now worrying about his friend.

"Ck, I have something to tell you" I began to say. He turned to look at me, his eyes bright and full of curiousity.

"What?" He asked smiling at me.

"I Lo-" I began to say before I was interrupted by Bryan walking back into the room and yelling "Beer!" CK walked over to Bryan and happily accepted the beer. Bryan looked back at me on the other side of the room with an evil looking grin that immediately disappeared when CK started talking to him.

Bryan must have known what I was about to say to CK, but why would he try to stop me? The way he was looking intensely into CK's eyes was bugging me immensely.. Unless..No Way!, I thought, my eyes widened in shock.