☆ First Star

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My name is Ahn Anjell. Single. Living in an apartment down Gangnam. My cat is a hybrid. I like the colour dark blue and stargazing is my favourite thing to do. When all the lights turn off and people return to their beds, I sit at my window sill, draw the curtains back, and look up. And I see sparkling little dots adorning the whole night sky. And I see companions. Protectors. A past. A friend. I see stars. And that's all I need to forget my worries. That's all I need to keep breathing. Some people believe in God, and I believe in stars.

Our story, a past I've countlessly tried to bury beneath my present, began way back in middle school where we had met each other for the first time. He was my seat neighbour, a cute boy with a funky hairstyle. His black fringe always stuck to every direction possible, his cheeks round and chubby. He used to love wearing weird, oversized necklaces, but despite all that, his weird sense of fashion as a middle schooler and his stupid and sometimes unfunny remarks, we became friends. We became friends because we both loved the stars.

We entered the same high school, and it was the time when he and I first started dating, experiencing our first love. We didn't date each other, though. He started dating this cute girl from class 1 - 4, and I was asked out by the school's bad boy. But Lee Howon wasn't actually a bad boy. That term, or rather stereotype, was coined by someone who liked putting people into categories. I don't think there are really any bad boys out there. At least not the kind that people would associate with that word. It's just that all too often people believe we are flat characters in a story. With only a few character traits. Without contradictions. But human beings are complex. Too complex to understand.

Lee Howon was complex, too. He was vulnerable and weak. He was sometimes insecure and far too big-headed and stubborn. He might have seemed like a tough guy, the way he shaved the sides of his hair, but it was just a mask he put on, a mask he grew used to. Lee Howon felt unloved. He thought his parents didn't love him, for they never paid much attention to the trouble he caused or the good deeds he tried to do. He cried a lot during our dates, especially when I asked him about his family or when we watched movies in which one of the parents die. In reality, he just wasn't a bad boy, but simply a person like you and me.

The bad boy image, I found out after dating him for a few months, had been given to him ever since someone from school had caught him smoking behind the playground. But it wasn't really Howon. They had mistaken someone else for him, staining him with a mark that didn't rightly fit into his palm, and when I asked him why he wouldn't come out with the truth, he told me that his image helped him more than it did any bad. He liked it, for some reason. And at the end of our story, we broke up. He had to move back to his hometown, Busan. And we never contacted each other after that.

☆

"Anjell, you are doing it wrong."

I looked up, throwing a glare at his direction, my eyebrows furrowed with annoyance. I slightly felt the dried paint on my face crack a little as I glanced down at my hands, that were covered with a dark blue, and looked back up, to the guy who had just spoken up, spotting not a single drop of paint on his face or his clothes or even hands. Lifting the paint brush and pointing it at him, I said, "Why are you complaining? I don't see you doing anything."

"I'm supervising," he answered back, having that victory grin on his lips. At his response, I shook my head and resumed filling the blank spots on the canvas with the dark blue. He knelt down in front of me, trying to have a look at my face. Then he said, "'Okay, okay. Let me help you."

He inched a little closer so that our foreheads were almost touching when our homeroom teacher walked past, and said, “Woohyun, Anjell, no flirting during class."

At the sudden call of my name, I felt my heartbeat throb against my chest with an increased speed. But then I composed myself and nonchalantly pulled back, not caring to be responsive to the elder's remark, and admired my work, tilting my head to the side. I didn't feel like glaring at my homeroom teacher for teasing us. I didn't feel like arguing that a guy and a girl could be friends without having anything mutual between each other. According to a lot of people, self-proclaimed love experts, it is impossible not to be dating when two people of the opposite gender are close. It was a statement I couldn't understand. For once, we weren't really that close. He did come over last Saturday, and my parents were aware of him, but as often as I might have visited his place, there were always people tagging along. We never met each other in private, for he had a girlfriend, and we both knew where to draw the line. And there was also this classmate of ours who fancied him.

"You can count yourself lucky," said Woohyun suddenly, bringing me back to focus on the task in front of us. He took the paint brush from my hands and started drawing on the canvas. I looked around the classroom, glancing at our classmates preparing for the cultural festival.

"Why, Mr. Nam?"

"Because you are the only girl I talk to whom Soyou actually accepts," he answered, focusing his eyes on his work, a slight smile creeping onto his lips, displaying his satisfaction. He seemed a bit too proud for his own good.

"Am I not the only one you talk to? Or do you consider What time is it talking? Besides, you should start wearing a watch. Or at least, make the efforts and look at the big clock on the wall." I ended my lecture with a scoff, took the white paint tin, and placed it to the side before one of us could knock it down and ruin our hard work, the blue canvas that was supposed to be our banner.

For a long while, Woohyun just looked at me. And then he suddenly yelled, "Please keep some distance, people. Anjell is having her period. Thank you."

"Nam Woohyun," I hissed, grabbing the paint tin as a sort of warning.

"Wait, don't ruin my pretty face."

I put the tin back down, staring at him without words. Granted, he was good-looking. He was pretty. He had small eyes that were neither slanted upwards nor tilted down, but just straight. And whenever he smiled, they would suddenly curve into this shape that I truly found endearing. His nose was not too narrow, but quiet defined. There was a faint line going from his philtrum to the tip of his nose. His fringe was swept to the side, his ears revealed because of the short hair cut. And he had slimmed down a lot, almost to the extent that he looked too skinny. But I refused to give him the satisfaction of acknowledging his good looks. I would, and could, never tell him he was indeed handsome.

Woohyun looked at me again, after we had somehow managed to calm down from the uproar from before, and said, “I have good news.” He put the brush aside, taking my hands so suddenly that I almost withdrew by reflex. "My grandfather allowed me to use his telescope."

"Really?" I asked, unable to conceal the excitement in my voice.

"Yeah, but I'm thinking, you know, with whom to share this experience."

At that, I felt a big lump of disappointment sinking into the pit of my stomach, my heart stabbed with a dull pain. Woohyun knew how much I wanted to see the stars from up close. He was the only one who truly understood my attraction towards the galaxy and its mysteries. He was the only one who shared my hobby. But he had a girlfriend. He already had someone else to share such an experience with.

"Go with Soyou,” I said. “You guys should have a romantic date under the starry sky."

But then again Nam Woohyun was never someone whose actions you expected, so when he said, "Let's meet at 9pm. Playground down your neighbourhood,” I knew some things were going to change, some things I would have to define as good and bad at a later time.

☆

Why he chose to share the experience of seeing the stars with me remained a secret. I never doubted his love towards Soyou. They had been dating for awhile now, as far as I was concerned, and he seemed really happy with her. Maybe she wasn't an angel, and maybe she and I would never have become best friends, despite her “accepting me”, as Woohyun had phrased, but she was okay. She knew how to act like a girlfriend, and she always knew the right timing. But everyone has a dark side. Even Woohyun and me. And sometimes that dark side just peeks out from underneath the layers of lies.

I never spoke to Woohyun about it. Not once. I never tried telling him what he didn't know. Because I didn't see myself in the position to interfere with their relationship. I didn't care all too much. Or maybe I just didn't know how to do it without hurting him, without making me look like a jealous friend.

"Have you waited for long?"

I turned my head to the direction of the voice, expecting a smiling Woohyun, expecting a smiling stargazing partner with his grandfather's telescope in his hands. I turned my head and expected a playful grin on his lips, maybe a sparkle in his eyes coming from excitement, but I didn't see any of it. No trace of happiness on his face upon being closer to our dream of meeting the stars. No rusty telescope that was our ticket to a wonderful world filled with hidden secrets. Just Woohyun and a can of beer.

"Are you drinking?" I asked him, partly confused and partly angry.

"Well, humans need liquid to stay alive,” he said.

"Yeah, liquid as in water. Alcohol is poison to your body."

"Love is poison," he said, plopping down onto the bench next to me, "to your heart."

I tried to reach for the can, but he pushed my hand away and gulped down the remaining drink without hesitation. I felt the greatest urge to slap him for drowning his problems in alcohol, for acting before thinking, but his strong gaze startled me. He looked peaceful, he looked calm. There was not even one hint of sadness in his eyes. Something I didn't understand.

"I hate drunk people," I mumbled under my breath, looking away from his face.

"I'm not drunk. This is too little to make me drunk." He looked at the beer brand, squeezed the can in his fist, and pulled his head back, leaning against the bench, gaze fixed on the stars. "Look, Anjell, the sky is beautiful."

I glanced at my watch instead. It was 11pm. "I'm sorry, but I need to go home."

"Are you leaving me now?"

"Yes, because I have a comfortable bed waiting for me at home, and I need sleep, Woohyun."

"Can I join you?" he asked with a playful grin on his lips. His eyes glistened under the moonlight as they reflected the moon with gentleness.

"Only sober people can join me on my bed," I replied nonchalantly, not thinking much about my words and their effect.

"I'll remember that."

His name was Nam Woohyun. Single as of that day. Living at his parents' house in Daegu. His dog was a Korean Jindo. He liked the colour red and stargazing was his favourite thing to do. At our last year of high school, he opened a door to my heart that I am still desperately trying to close.

☆