Blinded by the cynical belief that his life has ended already, he moved to a remote town in Busan. He wanted to die in a place where no one knows him, where no one cares. He doesn’t want his difficult life to be more difficult. To him, being alone is better than finding hope and getting disappointed later on.

However, irony is Kris’ best friend. While he had become immune to the scornful pain of isolation and solitude, it is – still – his greatest desire to impart whatever he knows to everybody. After all, only his life will end; all others’ will continue.

“If only I can,” he thought.  

So it was beyond his expectation when fate led him to a place where knowledge is in scarcity. There were schools and academies but all were lacking to suffice the incessant demand for updated information which the people in the city were very lucky to obtain. Although dying, Kris couldn’t help but shake his head at the community’s state.

Maybe, hope somehow exists for this land. That was his wish.

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Just as how he wanted, no one cared about Kris’ existence in the area. People would turn to him for second look, but only because he’s new. But no one would dare approach him, because he exudes this cold feeling. He wouldn’t even dare to smile – because to him, smiling is hoping.

And he wouldn’t dare hope.

Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months; his disease was taking its toll on him. He would wake up to severe pain and wouldn’t be able to sleep because of the same thing. Everytime that happens, either he would coil in the small space he considers his home and bite his lips until it bleed – to muffle the screams, and perhaps diver the pain into something else; but when tolerable, he would get out of his house for some air to breathe, as he walk along the dark, cold Haeundae Beach.

One empty night, as he was trying to avert his attention from the recurring pain, Kris wandered off to an unfamiliar part of the place he’s in. It wasn’t exactly a ghost town, but it wasn’t as vibrant as the other places he had been to. Yet, it was by far the most beautiful place he had ever seen in Busan…

…because it has a small planetarium in it.

When Kris was still ‘normal’ and healthy, astronomy was his favorite subject. In fact, he was majoring in Astronomy when he was still in school. His love for the heavenly bodies was as intense as his love for life back then. The stars are his constant reminder that there is something bright and beautiful hidden in the unknown. Their twinkling glory has pushed Kris to believing that even the littlest things can make a difference to the existence of many – even from afar.

His belief about life may have changed drastically because of his disease; but the tug in his heart when he laid eyes on the almost-abandoned planetarium convinced him that his undying love for the stars and all that is outside this Earth, have never left.