“He was sick and didn’t attend school. He didn’t have many friends, so I was his best friend…… I thought…… I thought I could keep seeing him like that, but one day he disappeared. When I asked my mom, she said he wouldn’t come back. He went to America to cure his illness. We parted without even saying goodbye.”
And Yumyeong let out a deep sigh. It was a sigh mixed with emotion.
“Even though I was young, I really thought my heart was being torn apart. For a while, whenever I thought of him, this place would tingle.”
Having said that much, Yumyeong placed his hand on his chest.
“Oh, it still does this.”
He looked at Hakyoung with a silent smile. A breeze brushed past and disheveled Yumyeong’s hair. Watching that scene, Hakyoung inexplicably felt a tingling in his heart.
“Yeong couldn’t speak.”
“……”
“I wonder if he can now. I wanted to hear him…… talk.”
Once again, the wind blew. The sounds of insects chirping and leaves rustling against each other from all directions warmly embraced the two.
For a while, Hakyoung remained silent with his eyes lowered. He just quietly steadied his occasionally surging breath and tried to calm his strangely churning heart.
Yumyeong yawned softly and snuggled close.
“I’m cold.”
“I gave you a blanket……”
“You’re nice and warm.”
Before he could finish speaking, Yumyeong clung to him with perfect timing. Hakyoung couldn’t push him away. His heart inevitably beat for Yumyeong, who acted so casually.
Hiding this, Hakyoung asked quietly.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“What?”
“That I like men.”
At those words, Yumyeong retorted as if asking what nonsense he was talking.
“Didn’t you say everyone except the person you like is all the same? And you already have someone you like.”
Watching Yumyeong return exactly the words he had said earlier, Hakyoung looked at the sky again and sighed.
“Anyway, there. That’s the end of my first love story.”
“……”
“Hey, you tricked me. There are only a few stars. I could see this much from the dorm room.”
“You have to wait with patience……”
“Wait for what? I’m sleepy……”
Yumyeong, who didn’t finish his words, yawned softly. Knowing this, Hakyoung looked down at Yumyeong clinging to his side.
“Are you going to sleep? If you’re going to sleep, go inside the pension.”
“No, I’ll sleep here for a bit. Wake me up later when lots of stars appear.”
“There are stars even now.”
“Wake me when you find them and it’s good. Got it?”
After saying that, Yumyeong blinked his half-open eyes and soon fell asleep.
The sound of breathing began to be heard. Hakyoung couldn’t move for fear of waking him and helplessly offered his shoulder. He covered him with his own blanket as well and watched the sky alone.
As he fell deeper into sleep, Yumyeong burrowed a little more into Hakyoung’s embrace. Fine-textured jet-black hair rubbed against his clothes, giving off a subtle shampoo scent. At that small action, his heart undeniably beat harder.
They were lying alone together on a bed of grass with the black sky as a ceiling. The only things watching them were the night birds chirping somewhere, blinking their eyes, the insects, and the stars floating above their heads. The stars twinkled very occasionally.
Looking up at the sky, Hakyoung thought ‘What should I do?’ Like a fool, only the same words spun round and round in his head.
What should I do?
What should I do?
What should I do?
Here, no one would know. Whatever happened.
Hakyoung tightly closed his trembling eyelids.
Regular breathing sounds were coming from beside him.
After confirming that Yumyeong was deeply asleep, Hakyoung carefully turned his head. When he slightly brushed back the somewhat long black hair with his fingertips, Yumyeong’s sleeping face with closed eyes was revealed. He could see neatly refined eyebrows, closed eyes beneath them, and cheeks that glowed white even in the darkness.
Hakyoung carefully lowered his head.
While he held his breath, his heart seemed to stop as well. The hand pressed against the ground was trembling miserably.
He was about to commit a despicable act right now. Knowing this, his head was dizzy. But he couldn’t stop in the middle either.
When his straight nose touched the cheek, a subtle fragrance wafted up. It was a fresh, nostalgic, sweet scent. Realizing that he had smelled this scent somewhere before, Hakyoung was engulfed in gentle shock.
Yumyeong’s cheeks still smelled like apples.
When he carefully brought his lips to that cheek, intense emotions rushed in along with the sense of smell. At the secret kiss on the cheek, Hakyoung’s closed eyes trembled.
I like him.
The moment he acknowledged this, his heart shook violently.
The complex and multifaceted feelings of expecting as much as he liked and resenting as much as he expected had already taken on a clear form again. It couldn’t be called just remnants of feelings continuing from the past.
Right now, having met the eighteen-year-old Yumyeong again, he had fallen for him once more. Truly.
He was someone he couldn’t help but like.
These lips were still annoying, and when his eyes opened, he would throw jokes around without knowing his heart, but…….
Then, without warning, Yumyeong’s eyes slowly opened.
Hakyoung’s heart, which had been looking at his face from very close, dropped with a thud.
Unfocused black eyes, the brightest star shining in the darkness, wandered as they traced Hakyoung’s face.
In front of Hakyoung, who had even stopped breathing for fear of being caught for what he had just done, Yumyeong muttered in a drowsy voice.
“……Star.”
“……”
“Your eyes are like stars.”
“……”
“Pretty.”
Yumyeong’s eyes, which had muttered in his sleep, slowly closed again.
The word ‘pretty’ endlessly echoed in Hakyoung’s ears.
***
“Yumyeong, Shin Yumyeong.”
“……”
“Wake up.”
“Mmm……”
Someone shook his shoulder, so Yumyeong groggily opened his eyes. Right after waking from sleep, he couldn’t even realize why he had woken up.
Gentle hands were softly shaking his shoulders, and realizing that those hands were very warm, Yumyeong unconsciously leaned his cold cheek against them.
“I’m cold……”
“……It’s 17 degrees. It’s not cold. You’re such a whiner……”
The hand that was about to flinch and pull away soon came close and wrapped around Yumyeong’s cheek. As he leaned on the warmth and closed his eyes for a moment, the fog retreated from his mind and a sense of reality slowly approached.
Every time he blinked in the darkness, his long eyelashes scratched the dry palm. Hakyoung, who was holding Yumyeong’s face, held his breath every time Yumyeong’s eyelashes stimulated his palm. Strangely, even his spine tingled so he couldn’t move.
“Move your hand. I can’t see anything.”
“I’m only covering one eye.”
“What? That’s a lie.”
“That’s how dark it is. Now, look.”
Hakyoung turned Yumyeong’s head to look at the sky.
“Wow……”
An exclamation burst from Yumyeong’s mouth in an instant.
The deep indigo night sky was full of stars. Countless stars disappeared and appeared intermittently, so he could finally experience the expression that stars twinkle. Occasionally, he could also see meteor showers crossing between them. The night sky spread wide and roundly covered even the ground where the two were lying.
“I’ve never seen anything like this. Are there originally this many stars?”
“Yeah. When the atmospheric conditions are better, they shine really dazzlingly. They float so densely that you’d think it’s amazing they don’t collide with each other. When I was young, I once saw stars in a desert and then it really felt like stars were pouring down on me.”
Lying beside Hakyoung as he continued speaking softly, Yumyeong was immersed in the night sky for a while. It was amazing that this scenery unfolded in the night every day while he was sleeping soundly, oblivious to the world.
“How do you see constellations?”
“The easiest to find is……”
As he said this, Hakyoung raised his hand and continued explaining calmly. However, even though his finger drew pictures to show him, Yumyeong’s eyes couldn’t see anything at all.
“Isn’t that totally arbitrary? With so many stars like that, you could connect anything and insist it’s all a bear.”
Hakyoung burst into low laughter and agreed, saying ‘Actually, I think so too.’
The surroundings were pitch dark and occasionally a breeze blew. Leaning against the human radiating warmth beside him, drowsiness came over him again. Hakyoung’s monotone voice sounded like a lullaby.
He continued his lecture about stars, but none of it was input into Yumyeong’s brain and it just flowed back out. His unfocused eyes were blankly falling back into sleep.
“Are you sleeping?”
“I’m not sleeping……”
After saying that, in less than a few minutes, Yumyeong’s breathing returned to its regular pattern. Seeing him exhale deeply and evenly, Hakyoung smiled faintly and opened his mouth.
“Yumyeong. This is what I like.”
Yumyeong was completely asleep. Hakyoung, who carefully stroked his forehead, said with relief.
“You always asked. Yeong, what do you like? The reason I didn’t answer wasn’t because I couldn’t speak. When I was young, I didn’t really know what I liked.”
“……”
“When I was twelve years old, when I first saw the night sky filled with stars, I was amazed and at the same time thought of you. I thought I wanted to show it to you too. I realized then that when you have something you really like, you want to share it. To that kid who showed me generously what he liked, someday…… I wanted to do that for him too……”
“……”
Hakyoung swallowed many words. There were so many things he wanted to say, but it was sad that these were words he could only say when the other person was sleeping.
He quietly muttered.
“Sleep well.”
