white dwarf 

noun

astronomy: a star that is at the end of its life and is very hot, small, and dense

Walking back through the wet boulevard, with noticeable traces of evening cloudburst on the uneven road, my heart felt heavy against the impending meeting with the awaiting man. The timepiece on my left wrist showed that I was two hours and fifty-six minutes late from the exact time we had agreed upon. Half of this heart had wished that he would had taken his leave before my arrival but the rest of it was praying (a little bit too hard) for him to still be there, waiting expectantly for me.

Upon seeing him sitting on the familiar bench, I slugged my pride and wanted to dissolve within the thin coil of air and disappear without notice. But that was like a momentary flick; a wishful thought as I had no other choice of backing away when his eyes caught mine.  Destroying the idea of another escape I bravely walked forward, nearing him in the process. He was showered with colour of bruised orange, grouted under the dimmed streetlamp that reminded me of a broken home to dwell in. He was wearing a smile that looked so loose on his lips, as if it was waiting to fall like the drying leaves in between of autumn and winter transition.

I took a seat beside him. On a different bench, with a gap that couldn’t be filled with anything but hollow silence. The weather was strange that night. It was a dreary summer evening, stripped of excitement and adoration. All that left to be done was for me to experience a declaration of rejection. I was wondering awhile looking at Woohyun who believably looking at me with the same pain as I was having. Then and there, we were unable to speak even though our heads was filled with loud selfish thoughts. To Woohyun, I want to ask this to him: Why are we ending things that we haven’t started yet?

“How are you?” he said. His eyes were full of sparkles that looked so inviting but barred at the same time.

“I’m fine, and--” I let out a heavy sigh without finishing my lie that I want to feed Woohyun.

“You’re late.” He said after noticing my reluctance of talking to him after given a chance of appropriate silence.  

“I know.”

I know. I always late. I will always be that late-comer even I actually had arrived first. In case for people wondering and silent inquiries, so for all that questions arose: I did met Woohyun first instead of Hanna. But I supposed, being first didn’t make any difference. In our relationship, it definitely didn’t.

“Hanna told me about you. Are you still feeling bad?” I wish the ‘bad’ he was implying was the same ‘bad’ I wanted him to know but I realized I would be off limit by then. So I forced a small smile to form on my face, just so I could feel good for not showing how ‘bad’ actually everything was for me at that time.

“I don’t anymore but –I don’t feel good either.” I saw a glint of change on Woohyun’s eyes, even his expression on his face as whole. So how should I pour out my feelings, my postponed confession when everything I noticed was I could hurt him in a way I would never want him to feel if I ever decided to be selfish.

“I saw you going out of the library this afternoon and so I called your name but you were rushing. Did something happen? It didn’t look like you were having stomach ache but,”

“It’s more like menstrual cramp actually, it just stomach ache sounds better.”

 “Now, that’s not what I imagined it to be.”

I didn’t imagine this too. Not with Woohyun. Where we will actually experience the stillness when we could freely throw lame jokes and we would still laugh at them. But it was hard to do the same now. I began to