Butterfly

Pt. 1: Dream

Dream (Noun)

1.a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person's mind during sleep.

2.a cherished aspiration, ambition, or ideal.

The music playing in my head does not stop, in fact, it gets even louder during lessons, especially boring ones like Math. Not too long till the school day ends and I'm finally able to escape fully into my music.

As the school bell rings, I close my planner and start stuffing my books and pens into my bag. Slinging it onto my shoulder, I file out of the classroom, but instead of going down like the rest of my classmates, I climb up to the fourth floor.

The jade white of the piano keys draw me in, and I can't help but to look at it mesmerized by its beauty. It may not look like much, its wood scratched and dirtied, years worth of scars that have left their mark. Placing my bony fingers on the keys, I gently play a chord with my left hand, listening to the delicate harmony that emerges. Slowly lifting my right hand onto the keys, I play the melody, the piece bursting with sadness and melancholy. Swaying slightly to the music, I pick up the pace, and I feel something different. This evokes a sense of rushing, that time is catching up too quickly and there is nothing that can stop it. The melody continues on, faster, faster, faster. Till suddenly, without warning, it stops completely, ending with a single chord. The same sad tune from before makes a reappearance, dragging on and on, building up yet again -- before coming to an abrupt close.

"Not too bad, although I appreciate the gesture, this doesn't save you from the wrath that you have inflicted upon yourself by ditching your best friend for your wooden lover."

I spin around, caught slightly unawares. The face standing by the door of the music room isn't an unfamiliar one. The dark chestnut eyes that I stare into belong to my closest friend, Yoo Jung.

"Oh come on, this isn't the first time you've done this, you owe me about fifteen Milk teas now." She says, grinning at the fact that she won't have to pay -- not like she does anyway.

It's become a tradition for us to treat each other with Milk Tea, growing up, we lived quite a distance away from each other. Instead of travelling all the way to the other's home, we would meet in the middle -- the Milk Tea shop. In order to see each other more often or to find a way to get out of our houses, we would tell our parents that we were going to get milk tea. We would secretly meet each other at the Milk Tea shop, where we would buy a large cup to share among ourselves. We would sip milk tea while walking through the park opposite the shop, telling each other about our day and laugh at the jokes we shared. Strangely, that beverage has become the symbol of our friendship.

"Yoo Jung! Didn't you say that we'd meet at one fifty? It's twenty minutes till then." I whine, turning back around and resting my fingers on the keys once again, ready to take off into another piece.

"I'm doing a good deed, making sure my friend eats and for the record - you are not a plant that can live off music sheets and harmonies. Let's go!" She tugs at my sleeve, and when I don't get up, she huffs and whispers, "Fine, have it your way."

Just when I think she's gone, she charges back into the room with a new found determination and foolishly I turn around just in time to see her grab my leg and pull me out of the room - all while I'm still on the seat. "H-okay! Okay! Hold on, ho-" I start, but she doesn't seem to notice my flailing arms and the shocked expression plastered onto my face. I eventually come to the realisation that she isn't even dragging me out of the room, but is dragging me in circles. " Kim Yoo Jung! Put me down!" I half shout, half scream while giving a half-hearted attempt to kick out of her grasp. She laughs, and doesn't stop. She has the audacity to run even faster, dragging me while I scream. My screams slowly morph into laughter, because I'm imagining a five and a half foot tall girl drag a lanky, six foot tall football player around a room.