It was a while before the black haze cleared up and the world came into focus. Skye was leaning over me, her eyebrows furrowed in worry. She was so… pretty yeah. But that was it. I vaguely remembered being madly in love with her.

Harper was busy humming something. I groaned, stretching to get up.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Skye asked in that sweet voice of hers. It was sweet yes but hearing it now, it was as if it lost its flavour.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said. I looked to my left noticing light filtering through checkered curtains and the copy and paste street below. “I’m sorry that I barged in and…”

“Is that the only thing you should be apologising for?” Harper asked, her voice muffled. She was facing a long table littered with vials, flasks and tubes all twisting and turning into each other. A reddish liquid bubbled in a few of the flasks.

Harper turned around. She had a face mask on covering most of her mouth, she wore a checkered red and black T-Shirt over a white shirt and jeans. She stood in stark contrast to Skye. The features on her face were strong. Broad nose, wide brown eyes and bushy eyebrows. Her hair was cut short and dyed a faded yellow and combed over her forehead. Her body type was also drastically different. She was built like a farmgirl. Big in a muscular kind of way compared to Skye’s more delicate build. I bet she had carried me upstairs all by herself.

“C’mon Harper,” Skye said. “She couldn’t help it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Harper said. “It’s the butterflies I know.”

“The butterflies?” I asked. “What are you talking about? And why is my arm so sore?”

“Vaccine,” Harper said. “Open your mouth.”

“Vaccine?” I asked. “Did you just administer a vaccine in my body without my…”

“It’s okay,” Skye piped in. “It’s not a big…”

“Open your mouth,” Harper said.

“Is the vaccine even approved,” I asked. “What…”

“Guys,” Skye whimpered. “Can we please just…”

“For a student you seem to know a lot about medical procedure,” Harper said. “Can you please…?”

“Can we stop f-fight…?” Skye tried pitching in.

“I’m studying medi…” I stopped myself. “I want to study medicine. And also, what’s this about being a student… you’re the same age as…”

“Just open your damn mouth!” Harper snapped.

I groaned and opened my mouth. Harper placed a thermostat in my mouth.

“Your temperature is fine,” Harper said. “No spikes around Skye…”

“What kind of disease is this?” I asked.

“Harper will explain it to you,” Skye stammered. “Just wait.”

“A contagious one,” Harper said, placing a stethoscope around her neck and placing the earpieces in her ears. “Roll up your shirt…”

I rolled up my shirt. She placed a stethoscope not on my chest but my…

“Stomach?” I asked. “Why the stomach?”

“To look for butterflies,” Harper said.

“She’ll explain it,” Skye said, placing a small hand on my back. It almost sent shivers down my spine, making me…

“Please avoid touching her Skye,” Harper said. “Remember what we talked about.”

Skye took back her hand, but I wanted her to linger there just for a bit…

I caught myself. What the heck was that sudden burst of emotion?

“What the heck…?” I mumbled. “What was…?”

“The number has reduced,” Harper said in a monotone voice. “But there’s still a lot of them.”

She took out her stethoscope and placed it on the table.

Harper let out a sigh of disappointment. “The vaccine’s working but… still needs an adjustment before I can develop a cure.”

Skye’s expression was blank, her eyes turned downwards.

“So, are you going to explain what’s going on?” I asked. “Or are you going to keep me in the dark like a certain someone in my life?”

I side-eyed my bracelet before turning to Harper.

“Well, it’s a long story,” Harper said. “But long story short Skye here has a sickness that makes people fall in love with her.”

“I’m going to need details,” I said.

Harper sighed. “You sure you have the time. Don’t you have homework to do?”

I shrugged. “I already know the answers so… lay it on me.”

“Sure,” Harper said. “Though I’m not comfortable doing it at the place I work at everyday so… what are you in the mood for? Tea… coffee?”

…

We sat in the living room. Harper decided to open up the curtains, lightening up the dark house. There were three navy blue sofas and one armchair surrounding a coffee table.

“Damn you really don’t like getting any light in here, huh?” Harper asked Skye.

“I was napping,” Skye said.

I decided to sit on the armchair while Skye and Harper sat on two couches opposite each other. Harper placed a tray with three cups on the table. Coffee for herself and tea for Skye and me.

“So, what’s this about Skye?” I asked, taking a sip of my tea. “And butterflies.”

“You say you’re studying medicine,” Harper said. “So, I hope you don’t mind the jargon and Skye, you don’t mind if I tell her?”

Skye shook her head.

Harper sipped her coffee. “Alright,” she said, pulling the word. “Well, a while back, when we were in middle school, her parents took her on a trip to Central Africa, deep in the Congo jungle. There was a tour and she got separated from them and lost…”

“It was terrifying,” Skye admitted. “I didn’t where to go.”

“And she was deep in the forest,” Harper said. “Like the part of the forest where people say you can find dinosaurs.”

“Did you find dinosaurs?” I asked, finding myself suddenly excited.

“No,” Harper said, disappointed. “But she did encounter another never seen before creature.”

“And that’s…?”

“Heart-shaped butterflies,” Harper said.

I was confused. “Heart-shaped what…?”

She went through a file that was sitting at her side and pulled out an X-Ray of my stomach. Inside was what looked like hearts. Like those hearts on cards or that you see in cartoons dotted across my stomach. Attached to them were little dots that I recognised as legs and another line that spread outwards like antennae.

“Those are…”

“Heart-shaped butterflies,” Harper said. “Or Animus Rhopalocera.”

“I…” I was dumbfounded. “How the hell do they work, how did they get…?”

“Well, they’re actually not butterflies,” Harper said. “But a type of bacteria that increases pheromone activity in a human, but it’s spread through a butterfly that enters through your mouth, breeds there and spreads through other humans by touch, saliva, sweat or even breath. Once it grows up it leaves your body through… well, puking.” 

“So, it’s a butterfly whose caterpillar stage isn’t an insect but bacteria,” I sat there trying to take it in.

“Rainforests are wild,” Harper said.

“Truer words haven’t been spoken,” I said.

I paused, my fingers twirling around my cup of tea. “So, you said that it increases pheromone activity, does that mean…?”

“Yep,” Harper said. “That’s why your natural instinct when you saw Skye over there was to make out with her.”

Skye reddened.

“So those weren’t my feelings for her,” I said. “It was a bug. A love bug?”

“A very scary one,” Harper said.

“But wait if it spreads from person to person in the ways you said and I got it so fast,” I said. “How come you’re not effected?”

Harper shrugged. “I’m ace.”

“But I’m straight,” I said. “How…?”

“It seems it effects anyone who can feel romantically and physically attracted to someone,” Harper said. “I don’t fit the criteria. Also I might be immune.”

She pulled out another X-Ray, this time of her stomach and in it I saw no butterflies.

I nodded. “Makes sense.”

“So, it took a while for the disease to germinate,” Harper said, starting to grin. “But once it did well people started doing stuff for her, they wouldn’t do. The disease affected her parents differently. Her parents started doing whatever she told them to do. And I mean whatever, we once took their car at midnight and got into trouble with the cops…”

Skye started to redden.

Harper laughed. “They both let us go. It was fun until…”

“Valentines at the end of middle school,” Harper said. “It was wild. Kids and teachers were beating the shit out of each other just to give her chocolate almost to deat…”

“Harper,” Skye hissed. “I don’t…”

Harper understood and stopped talking about it. “Either way, that’s when I realised it was a problem. I stayed with her and her parents as we tried to find a cure but after a while her parents had a disagreement about something and…”

“So, you’ve been working with her since middle school?” I asked.

“Yep, just trying to figure out what the hell this disease is all about,” Harper said. “And trying to help her get rid of it.”

She stared at Skye and even though she said she didn’t ‘love’ her, the concern and love I saw for her friend was on full display. At that moment I noticed the dark bags under her eyes. Her body was bent over and she looked as if she could collapse at any moment. It showed even in the state of her ‘lab’, flasks scattered around, notebooks filled with wild equations dotted haphazardly around with chemical stains on them. Harper was barely holding it together for her friend but despite all that, the glimmer I saw in her eyes, the glimmer of friendship and concern. When I saw that I knew what was carrying her through all this.

“You look like you can carry yourself well in a lab?” Harper asked. “You wouldn’t mind helping us out, would you?”

I looked at her and then at Skye. When Harper asked me for help, she perked up a little, looking at me expectantly.

I gave Harper my best smile. “I’m sorry,” I started. “I’m really tied up at the moment.”