“She says nothing at all, but simply stares upward into the dark sky and watches, with sad eyes, the slow dance of the infinite stars.” 
― Neil Gaiman, Stardust

As the weeks pass, Luhan and Yoona switch roles. These days, Luhan is the one who's a zombie on his feet, because he spends his  nights cradling Yoona in his arms to make sure she doesn't get seized by the iron fingers of a nightmare in the aging hours of the night.

Sometimes she shivers in the night, too, and his name unconsciously passes through her lips (It's a habit, Luhan, just a habit, he'll tell himself. And she's asleep, anyway, it's not like she would really call you this way). Those are the times when Luhan rolls over and sacrifices sleep to be both her second blanket and her dream catcher.

Then there are the cravings; 4 in the morning, and Yoona's demanding peanut butter and grapes (yes, at the same time, Luhan, on those cheesy cracker things). She actually cries once−damn near throws a tantrum that the Hulk would be proud of−because Luhan doesn't take her seriously.

After that, every word that is in any way similar to a food noun is added to Luhan's grocery list.

On top of all that, there's work. Luhan's managed to negotiate a deal with his boss, Joonmyeon, that (somewhat) works for the both of them. He's been swapping Mondays-to-Fridays for Tuesday and Saturday only, with more work done at home and emailed through by the specified date.

The engineering firm he works at has quite a reputation and Joonmyeon could have brought in someone new to replace him, but he hasn't done that yet, so Luhan tries to be grateful for this compromise.

'Tries' being the key word.

Today's a Saturday and Luhan had jumped under the sheets early the night before to steal as many hours of sleep before the next wave of 'Luhan-I'm-hungry' could hit him. Right now, it's 5 in the morning and he's just thinking that he's doing well (all Yoona asked for was water), but then something shrill interrupts the layer of half-formed dreams currently blanketing his conscious.

It's his phone. Luhan swears under his breath and lunges to retrieve it before it wakes Yoona up. He doesn't bother to check the caller ID and all but stabs the 'accept call' button.

"Hello?" His voice is like glass and rock clashing together in a blender; he's not supposed to be awake for another hour, goddamn the world. "Who is this?"

"It's me."

"Who's 'me'?" Luhan asks, thought processes still too sluggish at this time to identify the voice.

"Baekhyun," comes the reply. "You know, your work colleague? Your amazing, y, totally not short−"

"Okay, okay, can you please just shut up," Luhan interrupts, dragging a hand down his face as he yawns. "God, Baek," he hisses. "Do you know what time it is?"

"Uh, let me see..." There's a short pause as Baekhyun presumably checks the nearest time-telling machine. "It's what, 5 am?"

"Exactly."

"Exactly what?"

"Do you not understand that calling your friends this early in the morning makes you an ?"

Luhan can visualise the pout fattening Baekhyun's lips. "Hey, man, be nice," Baekhyun says. "I was just calling to ask if you're coming to work today."

"Sorry," Luhan says, forcing the word out because he knows Baekhyun will sulk for the rest of the day if he doesn't say it now. "I've just been really stressed lately. And yeah, I'm coming to work."

"Stressed? Why?"

"I just..." Luhan fails with words and decides to sneak a glance at Yoona. All he can see is her back, straight as a rod; he knows it's because she'll have cramps the next morning if she sleeps curled up in a fetus position.  He sighs. "So much has happened over the past few months or so. I don't even know where to start."

"Start from the beginning?" Baekhyun suggests.

The glance isn't so much as a glance now as it is a stare; Luhan's eyes seem to be glued on Yoona's back. He wonders if she's dreaming, and if she is, whether they're good dreams or not. Happy dreams. "I don't know how to start this story, Baek. I'm not sure it has a beginning."

"Well, Lu..." There's a short pause, and Luhan imagines that Baekhyun must be scratching his head in confusion at the maze Luhan is spinning with his words. "You can't have an ending without a beginning. Actually, you can't have a story without a beginning."

Really? a distant part of Luhan's mind asks, though the word that comes out of his mouth is, "Exactly."

"Exactly what?"

This time, Luhan doesn't have a snarky reply, because Baekhyun's words don't merit one.

Actually, Luhan suddenly feels a little like crying, a little like locking himself in the bathroom and burying his face in his knees. It's a horrible feeling, because he doesn't know how to explain what's wrong with him.

"Listen, Baek, I'll tell you at work, okay?" His voice is starting to sound like shards of glass and rock again. Broken shards. "I'll tell you everything then."

Baekhyun sounds like he wants to say something, but in the end, he just says, "...Okay. Are you leaving now?"

Luhan looks at the clock; it's still too early, but there's no way he's getting back to sleep now. "Yeah, in a minute. There's something I have to do first."

***

Less than a minute after Luhan leaves the room that morning (Saturday; good day for peanut butter and grapes, but Luhan isn't here), Yoona stretches an arm out, hand feeling around blindly before her fingers crinkle the paper floating on the head-less pillowcase beside her.

She brings the note closer to her face, eyes still struggling to distinguish anything more than blurry shapes past the bleary screen of sleep. After a few more blinks, she can make out the loops of Luhan's g's and o's in the faint morning light, and the too wide spaces between his words.

Yoona. By the time you read this, I'll probably be at work. If you have cravings, try and wait it out till I get home. Call Yuri or something to distract yourself. Don't die. −Luhan, it says.

Yoona shakes her head, releasing a sound that sounds something between a snort and a scoff. He writes these notes for her every morning, even though there's really no need. She's usually already awake while he writes them, listening to the sound of a pencil, or sometimes a faulty pen, scratching on paper, every Tuesday and Saturday morning.

Not that he knows that, of course.

But they both have a fair share of things that the other doesn't know. Like,  just a few minutes ago, she'd heard that he's 'just been really stressed lately' and 'I don't even know where to start'.

Truth be told, Yoona knows he's right; she really hadn't given him much of a start. The two of them are a story being written by an invisible hand (maybe it had once been hers, but it doesn't belong to her anymore) that knows only complications and the middle parts of stories.

If she was in his position, she knows what she would have done; easy. Yoona would have run, put as much distance between herself and responsibility, and drowned her conscience out with bottles of clear magic (not water).

She would have abandoned Luhan (presuming she was him and he was her, a pregnant woman with crazy cravings), which makes her terrible, and a (probably) and a hypocrite, but she would have done it, anyway.

And that's the thing, Yoona tells herself. Luhan isn't her, but even so, she had expected everyone, even (and especially) someone like him, to leave her.

But he hasn't. Even though he wakes up at ungodly hours for the sake of other people (mostly her) and holds her hair back when she throws up day after day after day, he's still here. Even though he's 'stressed'. (That's probably the most epic understatement in the history of epic understatements)

She's stressed, too, but she would have been more stressed if she was him. But she's not, and he's still himself and despite that, he sticks around, anyway.

God damn you, Luhan, why are you such a saint?

***

"You got married?" Baekhyun yelps.

"Shut up," Luhan hisses, looking around to see if anyone heard his outburst, but only Chanyeol is looking their way; it's nothing new−he's always looking their way. "Just tell the whole office, why don't you."

Baekhyun shakes his head. "That's something you should do yourself," he says, then resumes wringing his hands, as he has been for the last five minutes. "Wha-why... Why didn't I know about this?"

"Because," Luhan mumbles, "it's complicated."

"Complicated how?" Baekhyun's eyes widen when Luhan doesn't answer immediately, and he leans in, moving closer to Luhan's ear. "Is she a fugitive or something? A terrorist?"

"What, no!" Luhan pushes himself away from Baekhyun. "It's not like that, it's..."

"Complicated," Baekhyun finishes, arching a brow. "Too complicated that you couldn't notify the members of your workplace?"

"Well, I didn't want to tell you, because it's..." Luhan struggles to find the right words, something that doesn't involve the word 'complicated'. "It's not really real."

Baekhyun's eyebrows do a weird dance across his forehead and his eyes change sizes as he contorts his face to parallel the level of understanding he is currently grasping. "Not really real," he repeats. "So...this was an arranged marriage? Or are you trying to tell me that you married your imaginary friend or something?"

Luhan scowls. "It's neither of those things, Baek."

"So she's a real woman, and it wasn't arranged, but it's not real," Baekhyun says, checking each point off his fingers. "What the hell is thi−" A look of sudden realisation spreads across his face, and his eyes narrow. "Did you get her pregnant?"

Luhan nods, though it takes a while to complete the action with enough vigour to be visible. "But I didn't mean to−"

"How can you−" Baekhyun throws up his hands. "How can you not mean to get a girl pregnant? You can't just stick your inside someone and−"

"Baek."

"−be shocked when they end up pregnant, because surprise surprise, you're both members of the opposite , and well past puberty−"

"Baekhyun."

"−and it's not like babies are aliens. They're humans, and come from the same black hole that we did−"

"Byun Baekhyun." Luhan drags out his colleague's name in a deadly slow string. "Shut up. Right now. Or God help me, I'll nail your balls to the wall and see how you like it when babies do turn out to be aliens for you, because you won't have the juice to make one."

Baekhyun closes his mouth and swallows. "I'm sorry, man," he says, sighing. "I just don't know what to say. One minute, you're Mr. Wait-Until-After-Marriage, and now you're married, with a kid on the way. It's kind of hard to believe."

"Two."

"What?"

"Two," Luhan repeats. "Two kids on the way."

"Wha−Twins?" Baekhyun's mouth drops open, and Luhan nods. "Jesus."

"I know. But to be honest, I'm not that worried," Luhan admits.

"How can you not be worried?" Baekhyun puts a hand on Luhan's knee. "I'm worried."

"That's just it," Luhan says, kneading his closed eyelids. "You're worried about the babies. Yoona's worried about the babies. But I'm more worried about her."

Baekhyun narrows his eyes once more, losing his drift. "What do you mean?"

"I didn't marry her because she got pregnant. I married her because she's the one person I've ever felt anything for. The only person I've ever fallen for." Luhan sighs. "Except I didn't just fall. I tripped on a rock, fell off a cliff and impaled myself on even bigger rocks. I married her because I love her, and I don't care if it's too early for me to be able to say that, because it's too late and life is screwing me, anyway. I married her for the wrong reasons, Baek."

"You married her because you love her," Baekhyun says. "What's wrong about that?"

"Because she doesn't love me," Luhan answers.

Once the words come out of his mouth, he feels both heavier and lighter; Luhan thinks that if letters constructed hearts and heartbeats came out as words, then he'd just given his last speech.

***

Luhan gets home at around 5, head hidden behind the paper bags gathered in his arms. Yoona (watching reruns of Friends and mutilating the once somewhat organised swirl of peanut butter in her newest jar) catches a glimpse of his face when he turns to lock the door, and he smiles at her fleetingly, the gesture not quite reaching his shadowed eyes.

Unbidden, the memory of the first time she'd seen him paints itself in her mind's eye. His eyes had been really bright then, like infant stars, but now they look a little dead. Burning out. "Is there peanut butter in there?" she asks.

"Yep." Luhan sets the keys on the bench and pulls out a fresh jar from one of the bags. A real smile shows through when his eyes land on the jar in her hands and the sand-coloured (edible) lipstick around (Yoona doesn't seem to be aware, and he chooses not to say anything).

For a moment, the Luhan from a few months ago shines again. Starry Luhan. Yoona's never been stargazing before, but now she feels like she doesn't ever need to.

"I got you some more grapes, too, and those cheesy cracker things−God, I can never remember the actual name for those things−"

Luhan stops mid-sentence, because Yoona's looking at him weirdly. Like he's not there. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

Yoona shakes her head, realising she'd let herself get caught in the notions of stargazing and starry nights. She wonders how she's looking at him right now. "Sorry, I spaced out for a moment," she says, though it's really half a lie.

"Oh." Luhan looks away for a moment before fixing on a smile; another, thin smile that brightens his mouth and not his eyes. "What was I saying? Agh, I've forgotten." He shakes his head, running a hand through those unruly locks of his. "Anyway. What do you want for dinner?"

"I'll cook," Yoona says immediately, though it's not a sane possibility, and he knows it.

Luhan laughs. "Thanks for offering, but I'm not about to let you ruin the kitchen," he says, entering the kitchen to prepare dinner. "You want some soup to go with the crackers and grapes?" Luhan calls over his shoulder.

"Chicken and corn, please!" Yoona shouts back. Then, after a moment (and for the first time), "Thank you." She says it too quietly for him to hear, but the effect on her remains the same.

God damn you, Luhan.

***

The sun sinks and rolls around another day. It's Sunday now, and Yoona's already awake, peering down another empty jar, while Luhan types away furiously, answering emails that he's left for too long in his inbox; Joonmyeon is going to kill him.

"Luhan?"

"Hmm?" he hums, without taking his eyes off the screen. "What is it? No more peanut butter?"

"No, that's not it." Yoona fiddles with her fingers, but Luhan doesn't see, because for once, he's not watching her. "I was just wondering how long that's going to take you."

"What, answering these emails?"

"Yeah," she says. "Will you be finished soon?"

"Depends," Luhan answers. "Why?"

"There's somewhere I want to go."

Luhan looks up now, eyebrows raised, because the only place Yoona drags herself to is her OB/GYN's office, and only when she has to. "Where?"

She manages a smile and pats her stomach gently. "I want to go nursery shopping. We have that spare room upstairs for the baby−babies," she corrects herself, "and it's quite plain right now."

Luhan knows Yoona's right; practically every other room in the house except the living room, master bedroom, and kitchen is a white-walled shell.

He chews his lip for a moment, considering it. The number next to 'unread messages' is currently standing at 37, and Luhan predicts that they'll take a while to answer. But it's not every day that Yoona asks for something like this, and he realises that if he doesn't take her up on this offer, then sooner or later (probably sooner), she'll lose interest and he'll be the one making her go nursery shopping.

"Give me half an hour," he decides finally. "Go and get ready now."

***

The drive to IKEA is painfully silent, and Luhan tries to convince himself that it's because Yoona's fallen asleep, but his mind won't accept the attempted deception because it knows that she's wide awake.

He doesn't know how she can stand this.

There's something that's been nagging at Luhan's mind lately, and he decides that letting it out will be  better than another second of this stifling silence; anything would, really. "So, Yoona." He clears his throat, but it sounds a little too loud. "I've been meaning to ask you something."

She turns to him; he can tell her eyebrows are raised even if he can't physically see her doing it. "What is it?"

"When we met, you were a college student," Luhan says. "My brother said you were in a couple of his classes."

"Your brother says a lot of things."

Luhan snorts. "That's true," he acknowledges, "but it's not my point."

"I know what you want to ask." Yoona sighs. "You want to ask me what I chose to do about school."

"Well, you never did tell me."

Another silence descends on them, and Luhan's just about to prompt her again, when she says, "I deferred. Delayed my studies for 11 months, starting from when I first got pregnant. They wouldn't give me a year."

Luhan exhales a little; he'd been prepared for the possibility of her dropping out completely. "But wait..." He pauses, frowning. "Doesn't that mean that you'll have what, two months after giving birth before you go back?"

Yoona nods. "I have no other choice." He sees her, in the corner of his vision, fiddling with her thumbs and knows that there's something bothering her. "Though, lately, I've been thinking about actually dropping out," she admits.

"What?"

"It makes sense," Yoona says, and even though her tone is clearly meant to sound reasonable, her voice is small. "How am I supposed to pursue a career−and one in law, no less−when I have not one, but two children waiting for me at home?"

"I'll look after them," Luhan says, the words tumbling out of his mouth. "That's what I married you for, isn't it?" He feels guilty the moment he says it, and turns just in time to catch something flash across her face.

But all she says is, "What about your job?"

Luhan clenches his jaw; he hadn't thought of that. "I'll... find a way," he promises. "We'll make things work. Just don't drop out."

"Why does it matter so much to you?"

Because I love you, Luhan thinks. Because I don't want to see you throw everything away, the way I did. Because if I'm going to live my life for you, I may as well give you whatever I can. Even if it means that I have to give up everything else. "Because..." Luhan hesitates, "sometimes, following your dreams is hard and sometimes your dreams change, but you should run after them, anyway. Everyone deserves that chance."

"Dreams, huh?" Yoona's voice is a whisper. She clears , straightening in her seat. "You're so cheesy."

"As I recall, you like cheesy crackers." Luhan reconsiders after a moment. "Actually, I don't even have to recall that fact, because you make sure I remember it at like, 2 in the morning."

Yoona makes a face. "But you're not a cheesy cracker," she says. "You're just cheesy. There's a difference."

Luhan finds himself laughing. "Just cheesy, then."

***

"This is cute!"

By now, Luhan's sick of hearing those three words, but this time Yoona says it in a significantly louder voice (or so he thinks), so he gives her his attention. "What is?"

"This." Yoona holds out a little, orange train and places it in his palm. It's one of those hand-painted things that no one plays with, things made to sit on the mantel and gather dust−fine details, immovable wheels, impressive paintwork. It's less like a toy and more like a figurine.

He wrinkles his nose. "Orange? Isn't that a girl colour?"

"It's a universal colour, Luhan," she says in a slow voice, like he's the only person in the world who doesn't know that. "I think it goes well with this." Yoona s another thing under his nose; this time, it's a pink train, exactly the same as the other train in all aspects except colour.

"Okay, now pink is definitely not a universal colour," Luhan protests. He looks at the trains in disbelief. "You don't actually think babies are going to play with these things, do you? Aren't they dangerous? Something about lead paint or whatever?"

"Well, if they sell them here, then they should be safe," Yoona says, turning the train over in her hands and peering at it closely. "There's no age label on this, so I'm assuming it means all ages."

"The creators of this train didn't put an age label in the trust that you will have enough common sense to know what's right for your child. Or children."

"I do have common sense," Yoona insists. "This is a toy. Toys are meant to be played with."

Luhan rolls his eyes, heaving a sigh; this is going to go nowhere, only in circles, if they keep this up. "Whatever. Just not pink."

"What if one or both of them turns out to be a girl?"

"And what if neither of them are?" Luhan argues. "Get another 'universal' train."

Yoona looks back at the shelf where she got the trains from. "They only have pink, orange and purple. Should I get a purple one?"

"Purple is a girl colour."

"No, it's not. It's−"

"I'm letting you buy these two goddamned trains, so at least let me have a say," he says. Luhan squints at the row of trains on the shelf and realises that she is indeed correct; there are only pink, orange and purple trains. "Get two orange ones," he says finally. "That way, they won't fight over colours."

It takes Luhan a moment to realise that he and Yoona are doing just that.

***

Apparently painting a nursery takes more than just "a few tubs of paint and one of those roller thingies". After a few botched attempts (and a few too many tubs of paint), Yoona plops herself into a chair in the doorway of the nursery, watching as Luhan painstakingly repaints all four walls.

They couldn't come to a direct agreement on the colour of these walls, either (White isn't fine, Luhan. What if it causes the kids to have a lack of imagination or something. Bright green would be better. Then, Yoona, you're insane. I'm not having bright green walls), so the paint on Luhan's roller is a tame orange, almost the same shade as the train Yoona is turning between her fingers. Tangerine, they'd agreed on calling it.

Luhan is too engrossed in his painting to notice that Yoona slips out of the room at around seven o'clock.

It's something like eight o'clock by the time he finishes. There's paint on his overalls and in his hair (he'd forgotten several times that his hands weren't clean and now his hair looks like daytime Halloween), and he turns to look at Yoona, but the chair in the doorway is empty.

Luhan frowns, wiping his hands on the thighs of his overalls before walking out. He rinses his hands quickly under the bathroom sink before heading up to the bedroom, but Yoona isn't there.

He checks the living room and kitchen, but she isn't there, either. Luhan's starting to panic. Where is she?

Just when he's about to leave the kitchen, he notices that breeze in the room is cooler than normal and sees that the door to the back veranda is open. The curtains ruffle a little in the void left by the opened glass, like sea-foam in an ocean of ash.

Luhan sighs, disappearing back up the stairs before returning with a jacket. He slips out quietly, into the cool night air. It's almost November now, and he realises for the first time that the seasons have changed, too; swirls of winter are announcing their arrival, creeping into the spaces between his shirt and body.

Yoona is sitting up against the railing of the veranda, head tilted back and against the metal for a clearer view of the stars. Luhan watches her for a moment; she doesn't seem to have noticed him yet. The only thing that moves is her eyes; like pools of shadows, swimming with thoughts, memories maybe, the shores of which he'll never see.

After a moment (maybe an hour, it seems), she jolts a little, as if shocked by electric hooks, and after her eyes focus again, she finally realises that he's there. Luhan sees that Yoona's staring at him that way again; like he's not really there.

The corner of his mouth jerks upwards in a slight smile (more out of habit than anything else) and he walks over, draping the jacket over her shoulders. "You're going to get sick," he whispers, "sitting out here in the cold."

She doesn't reply at first, letting out a deep breath she'd been holding, as she draws the jacket closer with pale fingers. Then she says, "I like it out here. It helps me think."

"I can imagine." But to tell the truth, Luhan can't relate. He hasn't been out here before, and right now, it's too cold out here for him to think.

Yoona glances at him with those secretive eyes of hers. Like veils of black lace. "You're lying," she says. "You haven't been out here before. I bet you didn't even know that this part of the house existed."

"I did know it was here," Luhan insists. "We bought the house, after all."

For a moment, he considers sitting down, but he doesn't know if he can take the chill of the metal rail against his head, so he lies down on the veranda, his lanky body almost spanning the whole width of the platform.

The cobwebbed ceiling of the outdoor roof greets his vision; Luhan turns away and looks up at Yoona's face. She seems to have retreated into her thoughts again, and Luhan's tempted to raise a hand and her cheek, but he restrains himself.

Instead, he offers her his hand. He knows he's putting his hopes on the chopping block; even though it's been months now, the only physical interactions that occur between them happen at night, and Luhan doubts that Yoona is even aware of those happenings.

As Luhan had predicted, she doesn't take his hand. But just as he thinks that Yoona's about to hide her hand, she offers him her pinky instead.

Luhan looks at it for a moment, slightly bemused, before linking his own little finger with hers.

It's not what he'd expected, but it's a start.

*

"Twenty two."

Luhan turns to Yoona. He's been staring at the stars for the past few hours in silence, following the path that her eyes traced across the sky, in the vain hope that he would be able to see what she saw in the twinkling bodies; read those thoughts she'd probably never say aloud. "What?"

"Twenty two," Yoona repeats simply. Her head is still against the metal railing and Luhan wonders if the blood has rushed to her brain like his. "That's the age I'm going to be this year. I mean, I know you probably know that from the marriage papers, but I realised that I never really told you."

"Well, I'm going to be 25," Luhan says. "I think you know that. Either that, or you're exceptionally unobservant."

Yoona's quiet for a moment. Then, "What have you done your whole life, Luhan?"

Luhan gives a short laugh. This is (somewhat) the proper introduction they should have done months ago, and now that it's been thrown out of its rightful order, what he would have said then is different to what he'd say about his life now.

He decides to keep it simple. "Me? I guess I was a pretty normal child." Luhan considers his past. "I went to school; did alright. I have two parents, and a brother. I wanted to become an engineer, and so I did. Quite ordinary life, I'd say. How about you?"

She's silent for so long that Luhan thinks that she's taken his answer as a dry remark, but then she says, "I wish I was as lucky." Their pinkies are still linked, and he feels the slight tug as Yoona tenses.

Luhan's about to ask what she means, but before he gets the chance, she whispers, "You know what I did in my life?"

He shakes his head 'no'.

"Practically nothing," she says. "Everything was done and predetermined without my consent. My mom died when I was three, and after that, like I told you, I spent 15 years in an orphanage. It wasn't so bad, I guess, because I didn't really remember what it was like to be anywhere else. All I know is what the matrons told me." Yoona pauses, biting her lip. "But when I was eleven, this guy at the orphanage..." she trails off, hanging her sentence and ending it with a shaky breath instead of a full-stop-silence.

No. Don't tell me he− Luhan thinks, just as Yoona says, "He harassed me. Touched me in places that made me... made me feel things no child should have to deal with."

Luhan feels a sudden wave of rage rise in him. "Did he...?"

Yoona shakes her head, but the look on her face keeps him on edge. "He didn't actually me. But he did pretty much everything else." Her entire frame seems to be quivering and Luhan wonders how many times she's told this story; not often, he's guessing. "His name was Minseok. The other kids didn't say anything because he threatened them. Threatened to burn everything they owned, hurt them, do the same thing to them that he was doing to me."

Luhan notices that her other hand is bunched into a fist and he clutches her pinky firmly, as if it will keep her tethered to this world. His world. Where she is safe. "And I remember thinking, " she continues, "that they were all cowards. That they saw with their own eyes that I was being ually harassed, and they did nothing."

There are tears in her eyes now, but Yoona keeps talking. This time, though, Luhan feels like she's talking more to herself than him. "I think it goes without saying that I felt helpless in my childhood. To be honest, I still do."

"What happened to Minseok?"

Yoona shrugs. "He moved out of the orphanage when he turned 18, and I never saw him again."

Luhan is moved by her voice, the way she's speaking to him, and grabs the rest of her hand, his thumb tracing circles in her palm; she doesn't seem to notice. He wonders what it's like, to have little to no control over what happens in your life, as if some sort of invisible celestial body has decided your fate even before conception. Luhan doesn't believe in that sort of thing, but maybe Yoona does.

"When I confessed to my shrink after the first few reckless one night stands that ended badly," Yoona says, voice still detached, as if reciting a monologue, "he told me that I've been using males and dominating them in order to feel in control. Like... to sort of compensate for the times all those years ago when Minseok made me feel helpless." She whispers the next part, and he knows without looking at her that she's crying. "And that's what I did to you."

Luhan's heart seems to have frozen over. That is what you did to me.

He looks at her with new understanding; fresh eyes. Up until now, he hadn't quite been able to forget the cold-hearted, indifferent girl who didn't bat an eyelash at sleeping with him and discarding him afterwards.

But now, Luhan sees that beneath it all, beneath the tough skin and obsidian eyes, she has the bones of a bird, and he realises just how fragile she is. How she's a shattered porcelain doll, pieced together with flimsy glue that's already begun to crack.

She's falling apart again.

Moonlight brings out the shadows under her eyes, and turns her tears into liquid silver streaks. Luhan wonders how something so beautiful can also be irreparably broken.

He  knows he should feel indignant or angry or something, but right now, Luhan really, really wants more than anything to pull her into his arms and tell her that everything is different now, that she doesn't have to dwell on the past, that it doesn't matter what she did to him, but he knows that it's the wrong time.

So all he does is squeeze her hand, with a low, "I'm sorry."

Then when Yoona frowns and begins, "Why are you apologising," Luhan shakes his head. It's okay, his eyes say. You don't have to say anything.

A slow, steady silence stretches between them, and Yoona turns back to the stars, looking for all the world like one of them herself, with her silvery cheeks and inky Monday-night-sky eyes. Luhan wonders what she sees, what she imagines, and tries to picture some of his own memories, sketched out on the empty screen of sky where there should be stars (goddamn pollution), but all he can think of is the now, the present, in which Yoona's pinky is in his, the sound of silent tears their soundtrack.

Her eyes are unbearably sad, like a lone searchlight dancing over empty plains, except instead of an empty plain, she's staring at an unbalanced sea of black and white; and while she does so, the world keeps moving. It's like she's the only stationary thing in the world, and everything else is thundering on at a bullet-like pace, but Luhan thinks that if that's the case, she doesn't seem to notice.

It's terrible.

Luhan feels like he owes her something. Something for revealing a truth that had probably been buried somewhere in that stuttering heart of hers.

Finally, he says, "My life isn't anywhere near as tragic−forgive me for using that word," he adds, "as yours. But I haven't ever told anyone this before." Luhan's eyes turn away from the stars and away from her face, sweeping the cobwebbed ceiling. "Sehun isn't really my brother. He's adopted. My mother always wanted two sons, but my first younger brother died hours after birth and she kept having miscarriages, so in the end, my parents adopted."

"I'm sorry," she whispers.

"About what?"

"Your first younger brother," Yoona says. She looks back at the stars (she never really looked away in the first place), searching the sky with her raven eyes. "He must be an angel now."

Luhan follows her gaze, wondering for the first time if one of the stars is his brother. It's a comforting thought. "Maybe."

"Does he know?" Yoona asks. "Sehun, I mean. That he's..."

"Yeah." Luhan nods. "At first, he wouldn't accept it. He kept yelling that we were lying to him. But eventually, he came to terms with it. And you know what the first thing he said to my parents was?"

"What?"

"He said, "I'll always be your son. Even if I'm not really yours." And I kind of realised, when he said that, that it didn't matter that my other brother was gone. I learnt that family and love can come from unexpected places or people, when you least expect it." Luhan pauses, then laughs once. "It's funny; I never thought I'd admit to learning something like that from Sehun. But it's true."

Yoona smiles slightly and hugs the jacket closer to her body. "Your brother's right," she murmurs, but Luhan doesn't hear it.

***

It's Tuesday and Luhan's at work again. Usually, on these days, Yoona would stay at home and do something sedentary like rewatch her favourite shows and eat (and eat), but today's a little different.

Yuri shows up sometime before lunch and too late after breakfast to call it an early morning visit, catching Yoona in the act of attempting to open a bottle of vodka.

"Yoona!" Yuri exclaims, snatching the bottle away. "What are you doing? You're not supposed to be drinking!"

Yoona makes a face, heaving a sigh. "I don't know, Yul. I'm sick of thinking right now. Drinking always helps."

"Thinking?" Yuri shakes her head, taking a seat across from Yoona and scrutinising her best friend closely. "About what?"

"Everything." Yoona twists and Yuri realises that she'd been crying at some point this morning. She can always tell when Yoona's been crying; the redness never really leaves her eyes until something else lights it up.

"Talk to me."

"There's too  much, Yul," Yoona says. "I don't know if I'll be able to explain everything."

"Well," Yuri says, "I have all day. And I don't care how long it takes. That's what friends are for, right? We sit here and listen to each other when we could be doing something else."

Yoona snorts. "Usually I'm drunk when you have to sit and listen to me."

Yuri looks at her sternly. "Let's not do that," she says. "You don't have to get drunk to talk about your feelings, Yoong."

"But it helps," Yoona protests, her voice almost a child-like whine.

"I know it does, for you," Yuri says. "But you can't always turn to drinking, especially now that you have two kids to think of."

Yoona sniffs. "When did you become so sensible, Yul?"

Yuri laughs a little. "I don't really know," she says. "Maybe when I realised that my best friend needed a little more than herself to stay sane. One of us has got to be the sensible one, Yoong."

"I'm glad that's you."

"I'm glad, too." Yuri smiles, clasping Yoona's hand; her friend's fingers are cold and clammy, but Yuri hangs on, anyway. "Now, tell me. What have you been thinking about?"

Yoona sighs again; she's been doing that a lot lately. "I don't know. Everything. But mostly Luhan," she adds. "I just..."

"Just what?"

Yoona looks up at the ceiling and Yuri knows that she's frustrated for not being able to come up with the right words to express herself; it's obvious in the tear-stained corners of her eyes, her pinched eyebrows. She thinks that Yoona looks a little older, but on the inside, not much has changed.

"When I first met Luhan, I thought he'd be the same as all the others," Yoona finally whispers. "I thought he'd be another guy I'd throw away and never see again. Even when I married him, I thought it would stay that way, but lately, I've been thinking about it and..."

Yuri knows what Yoona wants to say, even though she doesn't actually say it. "What did he do to change your mind?"

"He..." Yoona grasps at strings of thoughts in her spaghetti-like brain. "Nothing, really. He's just been the same person he was. But the thing is, I only just realised that he's like that."

"Like what?"

"Like, almost completely selfless." Yoona her head to the side and Yuri knows that she's not really part of the conversation anymore; now it's just Yoona, lost in the space where her thoughts become her temporary reality. "Luhan does the strangest things. He does whatever it takes to keep me happy, even if it means that he loses sleep or puts me before everything else. And I don't know why he does it. Why he sticks around."

I know why, Yuri thinks. She leans forward and pulls Yoona into a one-armed hug, like she's a mother and Yoona is her child. Sometimes it feels that way. "So, what is this, then, Yoong?" Yuri whispers. "Why is it bothering you so much?"

"I don't know." Yoona shakes her head. "I don't know how to explain it."

"Try," Yuri urges.

A long minute passes and finally, Yoona says, "I think... he's not so bad."

"Not so bad?"

"Yeah." Yoona leans her head against Yuri's chest, hiding her face. Yuri sighs.

"Is that it? He's not so bad?"

"I don't know, Yul," Yoona mumbles. "I don't know what to think anymore. Is it right for me to be looking at him any other way than the way I did before?"

"Does it have to be right?" Yuri whispers.

***

A/N: Hah! I finally updated, omg. Sorry if this chapter went too slowly... I think it's necessary. 

Oh, and yeah, this whole chapter is from the past (like, around 6 or so years ago).