☆ Sixteen Star

_______________________________________

I stood at the top of the stairs in front of the Yeungnam University Hospital station, my back leaning against the railing, eyes fixed on the changing numbers of the clock in my phone, when Woohyun appeared, and kissed the corner of my lips. His nose was slightly tinged red and his hair ruffled by the wind. There was a backpack slung across his shoulders. He smiled at me, and said, “We need to hurry.”

As we raced down the stairs to the subway, his hands firmly holding mine, I asked him, “When does the train arrive?”

“7:42.”

I looked at the clock of my phone; it was 7:40. “Can we manage?”

We arrived at the ticket barrier when he gave me this convincing smile before placing his ticket on the small screen of the turnstile, and he did not let go of my hand even as he walked through. Then I pulled my own ticket from the back pocket of my jeans with much difficulty, swiped it across the gleaming surface, and followed him downstairs to Line 1.

The train was just coming to a halt when we left the escalator and ran towards the vehicle with uneven breaths. The doors opened, and as we entered, a few people going to work mindlessly stared at us for a moment, then resumed reading a book, or the newspaper, going back to take a short nap before having to go to work. Woohyun whispered to me that it was going to take 15 minutes until we would arrive at Jincheon, and then he nodded towards the empty seats at the back of the wagon, and turned me around, pushing me towards them.

When we sat down, he asked me whether I had already eaten something, and I told him that I had, and then he nodded, and said he just wanted to make sure, which I didn't quite understand and which I didn't further ask him about. The train was quiet. Everyone was occupied with their own thoughts, so when Woohyun talked, his voice was always a whisper.

“What did you tell you parents about today? Since you haven't told them about us yet.”

“I said the others were coming, too.”

“Hm.” He pursed his lips slightly, then sank down in his seat, and said, “I'm a bit tired, actually.”

“Why?” I asked him.

“Because I couldn't keep those excited voices down in my head. They kept telling me how I can't mess up today and how I have to wake up early and how I can't come late and how I have to look good and how my hair can't fail on me. Things like that.”

“How many hours did you sleep?”

Woohyun tilted his head to the side, glancing at the upper corner of the train with narrowed eyes. “Maybe four to five hours?”

“Just like me then.”

“Okay, so let's sleep those fifteen minutes and leave the rest to the alarm.”

We didn't really sleep, though. We both just closed our eyes, and he placed his head on my shoulders, and I placed mine on top of his, and the scent of his hair crept into my nose, and it lingered there for so long that the smell of smoke from the person sitting next to me vanished eventually.

I almost fell asleep for real when the speakers announced that we were arriving Jincheon shortly. I softly nudged Woohyun, but he wouldn't budge. So I shook him harder, and when he grumbled in response, he also opened his eyes.

“What a beautiful view to wake up to.”

We exited the subway station in Jincheon, passing by people who seemed to be wondering about their lives in a more mature way than we did, walked to the bus stop a minute away, and checked the bus plan. According to it, we had another 15 minutes to kill before the bus arrived. Woohyun asked, “Shall we order some coffee to go?” And I nodded so we entered the coffee shop behind us.

After buying our drinks, we went back, but the bus hadn't arrived yet. Woohyun opened the plastic lid of his cup, and blew into his drink to cool it off. Then he took small sips, and distorted his face whenever the hot liquid would burn on his tongue.

“Are you cold?” he asked me, putting his weight from one leg to the other.

I shook my head. “No, I'm okay.”

“Is your drink still hot?”

“No, it already cooled down.”

“Can I?”

I nodded, and held my cup right under his lips. When he drank from my latte, I spotted Bus 600 from afar. Looking back at his lips, I said, “Woohyun, the bus is arriving.”

And he looked back to confirm. “Yeah, finally.”

Then he put the lid back onto his cup, and took my hand. The bus stopped in front of us before opening its doors. When we entered, the bus driver greeted us with a smile and a nod. We showed him our tickets. He glanced at them and told us to walk in.

For some reason, Woohyun loves sitting at the back of vehicles, be it the car, the train or the bus. I'm not sure whether he still loves the coziness of backseats, but back then he used to love them a lot. Some people get dizzy sitting at the back, but he was different. He would always drag me to the end of the bus, and I couldn't help but follow him.

When we sat down, with me sitting at the windows and him next to the aisle, he said, “Let's sleep for real now. This will take an hour or so. A good amount of time to catch up with sleep.”

My eyelids felt heavy when he suggested that to me, so I nodded and closed my eyes, and it didn't take long for me to fall asleep with my head against the windows and my arms crossed in front of my chest.

☆

When I awoke after what had seemed like minutes, I spotted Woohyun sitting upright, his backpack on his thighs, with an indefinable expression on his face. His eyes looked empty, his lips paler than before. The tip of his nose looked droopier and sadder. His hair almost covered half of his face, and when I couldn't help but wonder whether he had even closed his eyes for a second, he noticed me, and turned around, smiling. He didn't leave a single hint of the expression from before on his face.

“You're already awake?”

I rubbed my eyes. “Uh-huh.”

“We still have half an hour left, though.”

“What about you?” I asked. “Were you able to sleep?”

He shook his head. “Nah, I'm not that tired anymore.” And after a moment's pause, he added, “Are you hungry?”

“Slightly.”

“Then what do you want to eat?” He ped his backpack, and exhaled contently. “Sandwiches, kimbap, ddeokbokki, water, some snacks, kimchi, japchae or,” he made a suspenseful pause before adding, “me?”

I scoffed in response, and asked instead, “So that's what's in your bag?”

“Yup, yup.”

“And you made all these? By your own?”

“Of course.”

“Isn't that normally the girl's job?” I asked, slightly confused and slightly in awe.

“Well, my girl can't cook, so I'll be responsible for this.”

“We could've eaten there.”

He shook his head with a smile. “The restaurants and cafés are closed until the official opening of the museum.”

“You've prepared then, huh?”

“Of course.”

My eyes lingered on his smile for a while longer before I said, “I would like to have some sandwiches.” He nodded once, and pulled a rectangular shaped object out of his bag, which was wrapped in aluminium foil, before unpacking and revealing two triangles of tuna sandwich. His gaze was lowered to his hands, waiting for me to take the sandwiches, but I just looked at him. I just looked at him until he looked back.

There was something stunning in the way he didn't understand why I was looking at him, why I couldn't glance away from his eyes. It was almost hilarious how he had no idea why I was staring at him, moving only my hand to gently grab his right wrist. He might not have realised it himself, for many people in question wouldn't be able to see what outsiders saw, but to me he sincerely looked too beautiful. And I wasn't talking about his face. It was the way he treated me, the way he treasured me so much as a person, a sensation I felt through the look in his eyes, through the little things, that had me staring at him without uttering a single word.

But before he could question my behaviour, I loosened my grip around his wrist, and took the sandwich from his hand. “Thanks,” I said to him, referring to so much more than he would believe.

☆

After twenty minutes, we finally arrived at Daegu's National Science Museum, and it was beyond just plainly beautiful. Outside, it looked like a modern hospital, the building cut down to three floors and one basement, glass windows lining most of the left side. Woohyun told me that if you looked from the aerial perspective, you would notice that the museum was actually shaped in an L, the ends narrowing down to a tip. In the middle, somewhere in between where the two of the alphabet met, was the entrance.

Entering through the glass doors, we walked towards the information desk, joining the end of the queue. Woohyun said we had to reserve seats for the planetarium before we could go around the museum as if we had all the time in the world. I didn't object since a huge part of me was only excited because of the stars.

When we left the information desk, with the tickets in his pockets, he asked me what I wanted to look at first. According to the print of the ticket, the planetarium was going to open in an hour, so we had enough time to visit other areas in the museum before the highlight could take my breath away. I said we should just go with the flow, and that was what we did. We followed a group of people who guided us to the Permanent Exhibition Hall 1, where you could learn the relationship between nature and the people living in this universe, where you were even presented with ways to explore the world through the eyes of a scientist. Woohyun seemed really interested and eager to learn all this, especially since he was always good at physics, understanding the relations between matter and energy better than I did, allowing him to quickly pick up on scientific topics. He had a knack for science. While I understood the fascinations around the English language, as he had phrased it a few weeks ago, he was the one who knew the ways around science. And for a moment I stared at him longer than I wanted to, admiring the way his eyes sparkled with curiosity.

Next was the Permanent Exhibition Hall 2, where the focus was on science and technology and its development and relation to our lives. We held hands the whole time, and some people glanced our way, but they soon returned to their own affairs, minding their own business. I also noticed how Woohyun wouldn't even once look at other girls, although some were really pretty, and I believe he did that because he was so considerate of me, because he didn't want me to think he was interested in other girls when I had already agreed to be his girlfriend. For some reason, I felt like he was straining himself, doing things he usually wouldn't do, resisting urges I wouldn't know about, so when we sat down somewhere to have a small break, I said to him, “Don't overwork yourself.”

And he smiled in return, and said, “I have endless stamina.”

After leaving the Permanent Exhibition Hall 2, we had somehow managed to while away the time when we heard people saying how the planetarium had opened its entrance. We looked at each other with excitement across our eyes before heading towards the location, a smile playing on both of our lips. And there it was again. The electricity surging through my body. The weakness in my knees. The throbbing of my heart. There it was again – the feeling of desiring more than I already had. I had Woohyun, but I wanted the stars. And I felt really selfish because Woohyun wanted me more than he wanted the universe.

There was already a big queue of people lining up at the entrance to the planetarium dome. A lot of couples. No, mostly couples and some families with their kids. But mostly couples. Woohyun and I stood right behind a tall and stylish woman with short hair and her bearded man, both of them seeming to be in their mid 20s.

“Are you excited?” Woohyun asked.

I nodded, not once trying to suppress the grin on my face. “Of course.”

Woohyun smiled gently. “You know, I've heard that someㅡ”

He was interrupted by the sound of my phone, a signal that told me I had received a new message. I would usually set it on mute, but since I was worried that my mom would call and I wouldn't be able to notice the vibration in my bag, I had unmuted it, hoping it was a good decision. Only, maybe it was not.

I pulled my phone out, looked at the screen, and was surprised to read Sunggyu's name.

“Is it your mom?” Woohyun asked me.

I shook my head. “It's Sunggyu.”

“So you guys text each other?”

“No, we don't. We never do.” Which made it all the more surprising to receive his text.

I felt Woohyun staring at me, and I was kind of scared to see his expression, so I didn't look up. He asked, "What is written in there?”

I opened the message, and read aloud: “Hey Anjell, sorry for bothering you but I'm having a real bad stomach ache right now. What should I do?"

"What?" Woohyun asked in disbelief. "Let me see it, please.”

Giving him the phone, I finally looked up, and noticed the furrow between his brows. He didn't seem angry, nor did he seem disappointed or hurt. His eyes were slightly narrowed as he was rereading the text message, and the corners of his lips were twitching, as if they were ready to fully display an amused smile. But still, there was something uncomfortable in his expression.

"Why would Sunggyu send you something like this?"

I shrugged. "I really don't know."

"He is being random."

"Yeah."

Woohyun gave me back the phone. "You should answer him."

"Yeah, but what do you suggest someone who has a real bad stomach ache to do?"

"Tell him to lie down. Or to take medicines or something. He has a big sister. She would know what to do." He grabbed my free hand and looked away, gaze fixed on something in the distance. It might have seem like an act of jealousy, the way he held my hand and the way he didn’t even glance at me, but I doubted Woohyun was jealous of Sunggyu. I suppose, he just didn't like the idea of someone who wasn't close to me randomly sending me a text because of something as trivial as stomach pain.

We were finally at the front when the stylish woman and her bearded man showed the museum employee their tickets before walking into the planetarium dome. Woohyun took ours out from the back pocket of his jeans and gave them the collector. He smiled and returned them to us, telling us to go in.

The front and middle seats inside the dome were mostly taken, but it didn't really matter because the whole ceiling above us was a projection screen, and you would always have a great view of the night sky as long as you looked up, so Woohyun led us towards the back. The room was so dark, I almost tripped over someone's bag, which was lying in the middle of the row. We had to be extra careful to not step on the shoes of strangers, but Woohyun's firm grip on my hand managed to take away my worries. He seemed so reliable the way he walked in front of me.

When we finally found two unoccupied seats in the middle of the back row, I relaxed a little and pulled my phone out, lowering myself into the dark blue cushioned seat. I hadn't replied Sunggyu yet, but I figured the current timing wasn't right at the moment, so I decided to send my answer later. For now, I muted my phone.

"I'm too excited, Anjell," said Woohyun, leaning towards me, a smile on his lips. He carefully placed his hand on mine, and I noticed for the first time that he was wearing a watch today, around his left wrist.

Turning his hand around, I gently my thumb across his palm, and looked at our hands. "Me too."

"We should have brought some popcorn with us."

"Why?" I asked absentmindedly, intertwining our fingers.

"Look to your left," he whispered. So I did, and I found an adult couple next to me making out. I quickly averted my eyes away, back to Woohyun. "And now to my right," he continued. Leaning a bit forward, I saw how the girl and the guy next to Woohyun did the same, snuggling close to each other and locking lips without considering how awkward they made me feel with their overly affectionate behaviour. I looked back at Woohyun, and he was grinning. "Killing two birds with one stone, huh. One ticket for the planetarium and a chick flick. Where's just our popcorn?

"Instead of popcorn, we have sandwiches."

"How right you are."

Then the show finally began, and everyone quieted down. They had closed the entrance so you couldn’t hear the people outside talking anymore. Woohyun squeezed my hand a little before letting go. I placed my hand right back onto my lap, and released the breath I was holding. It seemed like forever until they allowed the stars to show up, but when they finally emerged from the darkness, it was like someone took all the words from my mouth, even my voice, as if I were possessed by someone who could only stare and be in awe. I forgot everything else around me. The fact that the stars were not real, that I was in a dome, that I was here with someone. I was taken into a different place, into a different world. And in that world there was only me and the stars and no one else.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Surprised, I turned my head to the voice, and saw Woohyun looking at me. He was smiling and he looked really satisfied and content. I had this weird impression that he had been looking at me for a long time, and I wasn’t sure how to react to it. I just said, “Yeah, it is.”

He nodded slowly, letting his eyes wander from my nose to my lips. The dimple next to his mouth dented into his skin, and I unconsciously stared at it. When I looked back up, his gaze had changed, and he seemed to be contemplating something. He wasn’t even glancing at me anymore, only biting his lower lip, as if he were having an internal conflict. So I took his hand, with that simple gesture telling him that whatever he was debating about, it was okay with me. And Woohyun must have understood my message, the way he was always capable of reading me, because he returned my gaze and leaned in, placing his lips onto mine. I kissed him back and squeezed his hand, my heart feeling like it was about to burst. He cupped my cheek with his right hand, turned his head a little to the side, and kissed me more intensively, more passionately. And I think right then I started to like him a little more than before, a little more than yesterday, but a little less than tomorrow and the days that were about to come.

☆

We were holding hands when we left the dome, and for some reason I felt so much closer to Woohyun. I realised the more I gave in to him, and let him kiss me, the more I would fall in love. I was still not sure whether the newly found intensity of my feelings was enough to compensate for all the affection he held in his two palms for me, but I decided not to compare each others’ love anymore. For I shouldn’t be so obsessive over calculations and evening everything out. Woohyun liked me, and I liked him. More didn’t matter.

We took the bus back to Jincheon, and when we sat down, I almost immediately fell asleep on his shoulders. The sun was already setting in orange and purple colours, but I was too tired to admire it. The last thing Woohyun said before I nodded off was about the stunning sky.

In Jincheon, we transferred to subway Line 1 and exited at Yeungnam University Hospital Station. We walked a little, and for the first few meters it seemed like he was going to walk me home, but then he crossed the street and turned a corner, and I found myself in a familiar neighbourhood. But it wasn’t my neighbourhood. Nor was it Woohyun’s.

“Where are we going?”

“I want you to see the place where I grew up.”

“Are we going to break into forbidden buildings?”

He chuckled. “No, it’s my grandparents’ house.”

I recognised the street name, and suddenly felt reluctant to keep on walking. But Woohyun was holding my hand, leading the way, and if I told him out of the blue that I didn’t want to go, he would start asking questions to which I didn’t have plausible answers, or worse, he would think I disliked meeting his family, so I endured and prayed to the stars that we weren’t going to run into Hyomin.

She was living somewhere here, and I remembered it so well because there were plenty of times in the past when I had been invited to go over and play. We used to cross the very same street Woohyun and I had crossed, and we would spend a lot of time asking ourselves why the name of her neighbourhood sounded so funny, and then we would buy something from the convenience store, which was just five minutes away, so our parents never really objected the idea.

“You never told me that you grew up at your grandparents’ place,” I spoke up, intending to put a layer of oblivion over my past.

“Oh, I didn’t?”

“Was it before we met?”

Woohyun nodded, and I briefly wondered what I would do if I indeed ran into Hyomin today, if she suddenly asked me about her text message, why I hadn’t replied to her. I sincerely wondered what I would do if Woohyun met her, how he would react. I looked at him, and he said, “We lived with my grandparents in this neighbourhood before my father got the job at the company. So yes, I think, that was in primary school.”

“Then did we attend the same primary school?” I asked, suddenly piecing everything together. It would make sense since Woohyun used to live here, quite close to Hyomin, and Hyomin had gone to the same primary school as I had, the one near this neighbourhood.

“No, I don’t think so. I went to a primary school far away from here.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “I never asked.”

We were approaching Hyomin’s house, and the closer we got, the higher my heartbeat rose. I really didn’t want to run into her, and I think I was almost shaking with fear, but I couldn’t let Woohyun notice. I couldn’t tell him about her for that would involve too many things I didn’t want to talk about.

But before my fear could branch out into my limbs, making them tremble and shake, we already came to a halt in front of a high wooden fence. Woohyun said, “We are here. This used to be my home.” The fence wasn’t locked up, so he just opened the latch and pushed the wooden door open. “Come in.”

He let me enter first, then followed behind. I spotted Nurungie lying in front of the doors to the house, and when he awoke from the sound of the fence, he saw us and sprinted towards Woohyun, his tail happily wiggling behind him. 

Woohyun bended down to his dog affectionately, and I just stood there and watched him, feeling my heart squeeze at the sight. I liked Woohyun, and I liked watching him. And when he was with Nurungie, he was so gentle and so endearing at the same time, and I just liked him.

“Okay, Nurungie, we need to greet my grandparents now,” he said, patting his furry friend on the back one last time. “Let’s go.”

We entered through the glass doors of the house, leaving our shoes by the entrance. Nurungie nudged me by my legs, so I petted him a little as Woohyun walked forward without me, calling his grandmother. She then emerged from what seemed like the living room, and beamed with so much happiness upon seeing her grandson that I couldn’t help but smile. They hugged for a long time, and I knew they must love each other a lot.

I followed them to the living room, and there I met his grandfather. He was sitting on the couch, watching TV, and he didn’t react much to our sudden appearance. He seemed mostly dazed, but I was able to see a faint smile on his lips when Woohyun introduced me as his girlfriend. His grandmother had taken a liking to me, I think, because she immediately grabbed my hand affectionately and told me to take good care of her grandson. Her eyes were gentle and she really meant everything she said.

When Woohyun was with his grandparents, I realised, he was a different person. He was obedient, listened to them well, and you were able to tell that he really loved them a lot. Even as his grandfather made him repeat his question for the fourth time, he didn’t seem annoyed nor bothered by it. He was patient with his grandparents, and I think I caught a small glimpse of a mature Woohyun at that day.

Later on, he led me to his old bedroom in the second floor, and when I entered it, I figured out his grandparents must have missed him and his brother a lot because they let all their stuff untouched in the room. The old posters of cars and superheroes were still hanging on the wall and the bunk bed didn’t seem like it was moved a single inch. I spotted a childhood photo of Woohyun on his drawer, and I approached it. I took the frame into my hands, and smiled.

“I was a cute little boy,” remarked Woohyun, standing behind me.

“Was it during primary school?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

I gently ran my thumb across the photo, still smiling, and wondered just when I had started to like Woohyun so much, when I had realised that I wasn’t just fond of him because he was my closest friend. I felt him squeezing my shoulders, and asked myself whether he was even aware of my realisation, of my feelings, and when I would be able to confess everything to him. He gathered my hair, his angular fingers tickling the back of my neck, and combed it to the side. My heart was racing, my knees trembling a little. He then placed both of his hands on my shoulders and ran them down my arms, squeezing once. I let out a shaky breath when he kissed the exposed skin on my shoulder.

“I wanted to tell you something,” he said, turning me around so that I was facing him. Woohyun searched my eyes for a moment, and I just hoped he wouldn’t be able to see how nervous I was. He continued, “We haven’t talked about our university choices yet. And I think it’s important that we talk about it.”

He was right. The only time we had talked about it was before the entrance exams, and after that we never once mentioned which university we had applied for and which course we were aiming to study. I think we both didn’t really feel like discussing such an important topic of our future because we were both so uncertain about things. We were just at the beginning of our relationship, a critical phase, and neither of us wanted to ruin it.

“Yeah, you’re right. Our results will be up in a few weeks, after all,” I said.

He nodded. “So, what course did you apply for?”

“English Language and Literature. And you?”

“Science Education,” he answered, smiling a little. “And I’ll be staying in Daegu.”

“Really?” I asked, surprised. But for some reason I wasn’t convinced of his smile, so I said, “What about your wish to study astronomy in Seoul?”

“I thought about it a lot. Whether I really wanted it, whether I would be able to accept the distance between us, and I realised I was a bit too eager and overestimated myself.” Woohyun leaned against the drawer, his arms crossed in front of him. “I never could’ve gotten into those top universities.”

“You should’ve tried, though,” I remarked.

“Nah, I’m fine with only stargazing and not knowing what I’m staring at.”

I grabbed his wrist, and asked, “Are you sure?”

“I am, Anjell,” he said, chuckling. “I really am. And besides, I like it here. I like my old bedroom. Too many posters and the bed is too small, but I like it.”

“Wait, you’ll be staying here? In this house?”

“Yeah, my father got a job transfer, so he’ll be moving to Seoul with my mom. Boohyun and I decided to stay here with our grandparents and Nurungie.”

Woohyun smiled at me, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. There was something wrong in the things he told me. And as much as I wanted to, I just couldn’t believe the lightheartedness he faked regarding his crushed dream to study astronomy. It didn’t seem right for him to not care about it, to not feel sad about this outcome. And there was also this thing with his parents. I couldn’t say the same for his father, but I knew Woohyun was close with his mom, and not going with her seemed too painful for me to imagine. And yet, he pretended to be fine with it. So I decided to do the same, hoping it was a good decision. Only it wasn’t.

☆

A/N:

Sorry for the late update ;;

From now on, this story (and any other of my stories) will be in British English, since my new writing programme won't allow me American English lol

Anyways, it took me so long to update because I wanted to edit the earlier chapters, but then my old laptop broke and then I couldn't save the files (one which was the edited version of Chapter 6) and I was waiting to get it fixed.

So yeah, excuses, excuses.

I've missed you. Have you, too?

Oh, and there is a trailer for this story in the foreword. Check it out ;;