[5 Oct 13] I know the story’s moving slow, but I wanted to show what Hye Mi’s and Baekhyun’s lives are like. Some of you might wonder why Baekhyun is so easily able to see her disguise, and the answer(s) comes later. Hooray for plot twists~

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Chapter Two: The Star

“Who was that girl?” Baekhyun asked, his elbow propped on the rim of the window as he bit lightly on his index finger, his eyes focusing on the passing blur of cars and trees. Kyungsoo took a glance at him from the driver’s seat, a brow perked in confusion and a scoff leaving his lips.

“What girl? There were a billion girls, Baekhyun. You gotta be more specific than that,” the younger scolded, a teasing smile on his face, and the latter only laughed, his face scrunching up softly as he shifted his gaze up to the dark sky.

“The one you smiled at.”

“Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo started with an irritated sigh, “I smiled at a lot of girls.”

“Well aren’t you such a flirt?” Baekhyun pretended to coo, reaching out and pinching the shorter male’s cheek. “I bet your mommy would be so proud.” He slapped harshly at his clearly annoyed friend’s cheek, almost like how an overly affectionate grandmother would to her grandchild—only this grandchild was a lot more irritable.

“I’m about two seconds away from throwing you out of this car if you don’t shut up,” Kyungsoo threatened half-heartedly, trying to sound all cool and scary like a big bully, but Baekhyun knew the younger male was joking; he was too kind to do that—and also too physically weak, but he would give the younger the benefit of the doubt.

“That girl standing next to Chanyeol,” Baekhyun said more specifically, settling back into his seat, but when the drunk Kris in the back seat started kicking his chair, Baekhyun leaned forward more in an unspoken annoyance that Kyungsoo didn’t seem to notice, his eyes too focused on the road ahead as he sighed irritatedly.

“Baekhyun … Chanyeol stood next to a lot of gir—”

“The one with the pink blouse for ’s sake!” Baekhyun cried out, laughing as he fell back into his seat, and Kyungsoo took a moment to think about it. Baekhyun knew he remembered when he saw the boy’s eyes widen, a short, deep gasp leaving his lips.

“Oh! Hye Mi?” He grinned upon having said her name, stealing a glance at the older whose lips twitched into a gentle smile. “Why do you ask? Do you like her?” he teased, and the person in question only laughed, throwing his arm out the window again, his fingertips moving against the fast wind.

“I just think she’s pretty.” And pretty was the understatement of the century, Baekhyun knew, but the embarrassment was already hot on his face as he tried to maintain a nonchalant attitude with a small shrug, making the latter scoff at the answer.

“You think a lot of girls are pretty,” the younger retorted. “But you might not want to mess with this one,” he added thoughtfully. To that, Baekhyun’s brow shot up as he turned his head to the driver.

“Why not?”

“Hye Jung would kick your .” Kyungsoo glanced at him briefly, shaking his head in amusement when he saw the latter’s eyes grow a little.

“You mean she’s—”

“Yup.”

“Oh God.” Baekhyun immediately understood and burst out laughing, Kyungsoo following soon after.

It wasn’t that they hated Hye Jung or anything. It was that they knew she was far more than capable of beating their asses—something that would surely happen if they messed with her precious little sister whom she would babble on continuously about whenever she had the chance, but would never allow any of the EXO boys (except for her own boyfriend) to meet, saying her younger sibling was too “precious” and “innocent” to be involved with “twelve hormonial bastards.”

Which was so not true in their opinions. They preferred the term “healthy young men.” Either way, though, most of them had girlfriends anyway, so Baekhyun didn’t see why she’d be so worried they’d go and flirt it up with her sister. No, they liked their heads attached to their bodies, thank you very much.

He always said she used that as an excuse to keep all the boys to herself—which may or may not have been true, Hye Jung never directly admitted—she only slapped his arm whenever he said that.

“I don’t blame her though,” Baekhyun said, grinning to himself as he watched his fingers lightly tingle through the wind. “If I was friends with twelve hot girls, I wouldn’t share them either.”

“Eleven,” Kyungsoo corrected, using the face he had learned from Kris. “You’re not as hot as you think.”

Despite the insult, Baekhyun still burst out laughing not because of his friend’s witty remark, but because of how Kris—still all drunk and crazy in the back seat—started tugging wildly at Kyungsoo’s hair, yelling “Giddy up, horesy! Giddy up!”

“Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo started off slowly, his tone dull, but the frustration in his voice was as a clear as a crystal as the Chinese-Canadian started yanking at his ears this time. “How about we just dump this guy in the Han River and go home?”

As much as he wanted to say yes, Baekhyun felt that was too mean.

Instead, they dumped him in front of his girlfriend’s house.

They did drive all the way to his apartment complex, shoved him into the elevator, dragged him down the hall to his apartment, only to find out that he didn’t even have the keys on him. So as if they weren’t already sweating enough, they had to drag him all the way back down the hall and down to the car on the ground floor.

Since neither of them wanted to take their talkatively drunk friend who reeked of alcohol back to their own shared apartment, they just drove a few blocks down and left him in front of his girlfriend’s doorstep.

If Kris wasn’t already dead from all the times they’ve let his head hit walls and bumps while dragging his body around, he’d surely be dead when his girlfriend finds him drunk in front of her door.

“Do you want to get ?”

Baekhyun nearly choked on his saliva upon having heard the blunt question. He took his headphones off quickly, his eyes wide as he looked up at his friend, whose brows were raised. Baekhyun only stared at him, blinking a few times, before the corners of his lips quirked up in a small grin. “But that doesn’t make sense. To be means to be forced into ual intercouse. If I wanted to get , then that would be consensual , which means it’d no longer be ra—” Kyungsoo shoved a muffin into his mouth, and he choked as he violently pounded his chest.

“Shut up, you stupid nerd,” the shorter grumbled as he plopped down onto the delicate grass. Baekhyun laughed at the irony in his friend’s statement, his muffin—the one he nearly died because of—in one hand while his other rubbed sleepily against his eye. Kyungsoo’s back arched uncomfortably against the rough trunk of the tree they leaned against, but the older seemed relaxed against the oak despite its thick, bumpy surface.

“You really shouldn’t fall asleep on campus like this,” the doe-eyed boy said, a frown on his face when he saw the older male only give a small, gentle smile in response. “It’s dangerous, Baekhyun, really. People will see you and draw on your ugly face; or take pictures of you to blackmail you for how ugly you look in your sleep; or steal money from you; or you,” he nagged on and on like a worried grandmother, listing the various dangers of falling asleep in a public area and yadda yadda yadda.

Baekhyun only laughed, taking a large bite into the chocolate chip muffin his friend had gotten him from an on-campus café. He knew that these long and repetitive lectures—despite the offensive comments about his face—were given out of genuine care and concern, though the latter would never admit it.

The next day Baekhyun found himself laid out next to the same tree rather than against it. A few other college students were spread out rather randomly but comfortably on thin blankets, books and papers splayed out all over their territory.

There hadn’t been that many students out here on the field lately, especially since the early winter breeze spiked at their skin so harshly, forcing them to find refuge in cozy cafés or libraries. Baekhyun had never minded the prickling sensation given by the cold air. Rather than being in a crowded, stuffy café or an awkwardly quiet library, he always preferred to sit on the grass with the gentle breeze tousling his hair.

He sighed out in content, his eyes closed to enjoy the serenity of the moment, his shoulders lightening up against the soft body of grass beneath him. A soft, quiet ballad whispered into his ears through his headphones, calming the powerful waves of thoughts running through his head after a long (but interesting) lecture in class. He threw an arm over his eyes, his chest heaving up and down at a slow, relaxed pace.

He knew he shouldn’t again fall asleep in such an open space with strangers around—especially since he didn’t want Kyungsoo nagging at him for the billionth time—but the soothing music quickly lured him to sleep, the grass acting as a soft pillow and the wind caressing his cheeks like fingers of an old lover.

When Baekhyun woke, the bright sun had already began to disappear, slowly hiding itself behind the vibrant horizon. As soon as his tired eyes had adjusted to the dimming lights, the first image he locked on was the shadowy colors of a big, fat tree, its branches thick and strong, but its dying leaves being illuminated by the sunset behind.

Breathtaken, he almost reflexively reached for the sketchbook he carried literally everywhere, flipping it open to the most random white page he could find. Simultaneously he fumbled blindly through his organized backpack for his pencil, his eyes too mesmerized by the fleeting sun in front of him to look away. He had to get it down before the lights died.

With his pencil ready in his hands, the young male hurriedly yet easily sketched a rough image of the seemingly glowing tree, copying perfectly the placements of its branches despite the passing breeze trying to throw him off track. A quiet sigh almost dreamily left his lips as his eyes closed, his ears listening to the subtle rustling of leaves surrounding him as they fell to the grass—or, in some cases, were carried off by the wind.

Coming out of his trance, Baekhyun started drawing again, a gentle smile tugging at the corners of his thin lips as he lightly shaded certain areas of the sky in his sketchbook.

Minutes later, the picture was finished, a beautifully large tree bringing various shades of grey to the once-bland sheet of paper. Although this was merely a rough draft—one he would consider too rushed and not precise enough—the drawing was far more beautiful than any other “rough draft” anyone else could do. Despite the lack of colors, Baekhyun made use of the one pencil he had, the sky shaded perfectly with lead and smeared faintly across the page with his fingers; the tree placed perfectly as the grand centerpiece of the page; its branches nearly exactly in the same positions and angles as the real tree.

Looking at it, though, Baekhyun fought the urge to frown, pressing his lips together in a thin line, his eyebrows creasing. It had been a while since he had drawn pictures of natural sceneries like this one, so he felt like this picture lacked in the fact his drawing skills were a little rusty. He looked back up at the tree, wanting to re-draw it, but waves of disappointment crashed in him when he realized the sun had fully set, changing the lighting around the tree, and it was no longer illuminated the way he wanted it to be.

Huffing out in regret, Baekhyun fell back onto the grass, his head getting gently cushioned by the softly sharp grass. An exaggerated sigh left his lips as he gazed up at the sky, no longer having to squint his eyes like he did before his nap.

Nap, the word echoed in his mind, and he blinked a few times as a feeling of nostalgia swept his body. If the sun had just set, it was most likely around six thirty p.m. The time repeated a few more times in his head, settling comfortably into the bottom of his stomach, and he gasped out in realization. ! He sat up abruptly, letting his sketchbook fall off his stomach and to his lap, its pages being slightly crinkled and bent, but he was too caught up in his mini anxiety attack to care.

He quickly grabbed at his lame old phone, clicking the power button, and the screen lit up, greeting him with the time of six twenty-four p.m., four missed calls, and seven text messages. He quickly unlocked his phone and sent a text telling his friend he’d be there soon, before slipping it back into his jacket pocket and quickly but carefully shoved his sketchbook into his backpack.

Zipping it as he stood up, Baekhyun flung it over his shoulders and wasted no time in bolting down to the parking lot for his car.

Soon enough, Baekhyun reached the designated high school, parking at the first empty spot he could find, and rushed to the library where he was to meet the students he was supposed to tutor today. His breath came short and quick, but he didn’t mind, panicking desperately as he fumbled through the corridors. In his rush he nearly forgot which way the library was, but eventually he followed in step with the small groups of students chattering as they walked to the library for studying.

Some girls threw glances his way, and he knew they were giggling over his good looks. It wasn’t that he was conceited or anything, but that was simply almost always the case. Girls would so often pretend to be stuck on a math problem just to get him to help them, or they’d sometimes slyly ask for his number, using the excuse that they might possibly need help later. It was kind of scaring him how bold girls were getting nowadays, and he honestly would have dated a few of them if not for the fact that they were still minors.

Chuckling sheepishly, Baekhyun ruffled his hair, getting out of some the grass that got tangled from when he was lying down earlier. When he finally reached the crowded library, he held the door open, waiting patiently as various pairings and trios took their time walking through, most remembering to politely say thank you to him. When there was no one left coming except for the students so far down the hall, the male huffed out in relief, stumbling tiredly over to his friend.

“You’re late!” Suho cried, laughing at the younger whose face was red and glistening with sweat in the bright lighting. Baekhyun only grinned, again sheepishly ruffling at his hair.

“I fell asleep.”

“Well. Maybe,” Suho started in that matter-of-fact tone, and the latter already knew what he was about to say. “If you had slept earlier last night, you wouldn’t be so tired.” He clicked his tongue, shaking his head in disapppointment at his friend.

Baekhyun frowned, though it could have so cutely been mistaken for a pout at the same time. He didn’t try to deny it, though, because he knew full well it was his own fault for going out to another smaller party with a few other EXO boys. Instead, he shifted the focus back to the students at the table adjacent to them, all shouting his name and waving with grins on their faces.

Baekhyun had been tutoring this group of high schoolers for nearly the whole school year already. At first, he only became a tutor simply because it was an easy part-time job and it earned a heck lot of money, but he had to admit, despite the fact that the students he tutored were so much younger than him, he really got along well with the boys—they were like the little brothers he always wished he had.

“You really need to stop doing that.”

“Doing what?” Baekhyun blinked innocently, feigning ignorance as if his cuteness could get him out of any troubles—which was true in all cases except when it came to his best friend slash roommate.

“Drawing pictures of random people you see on the streets,” Kyungsoo retorted absently, his eyes almost mesmerized by the next sketch of a girl whose scarf was wrapped all the way up to her chin, her hands holding a warm cup of hot chocolate and her eyes gleaming as she laughed. Although it had no colors, the different shades of grey made by lead brought life to the picture, making almost an exact, colorless copy of the real life model.

Baekhyun glanced at the picture, blinking a few times before a cheeky grin lit up his face. “Technically, though, I saw her at the café, not on the—”

“Baekhyun!” Kyungsoo cried, smacking the latter with the heavy stack of pictures in his hand. “No matter where you see these people, it’s still ing creepy that you draw pictures of them without their permission,” he emphasized the last part, shaking his head and clucking his tongue. Baekhyun subtly made a face, grumbling random words under his breath as he crossed his arms and fell back into his seat. He didn’t bother denying it because, heck, he knew it was true.

Admittedly, yes, it was creepy that he drew pictures of complete strangers without their knowledge, but he honestly couldn’t help it. He couldn’t fight the urge to grab at his sketchbook and pencil. He couldn’t resist the need, the desperate craving, of needing to capture the moment. He couldn’t help it. It was like—whenever he saw a beautiful person or a beautiful scene—his hands would react before his brain, and he’d come back to reality with a picture in his lap and a pencil in his hand.

Wouldn’t it be such a waste to let such a beautiful moment pass by without a picture to remember it?

Yes, it was a little strange he drew pictures of random people he saw on the streets or on campus or at the park. He’d always draw them right on the spot, as soon as he saw them, which was easy because he literally carried his backpack of art supplies everywhere with him. Usually he’d sketch beautifully detailed pictures of nature, like trees or the sky; or even couples—but only rarely would they ever notice they were being drawn, as they were always too distracted by one another to notice him.

“Is this me?” Kyungsoo’s eyes widened in shock when he turned a page in the sketchbook, revealing a picture of one of the dozen couples in this sketchbook—only this time the sketch was more creepy than heart-warming because, one, he himself was in the picture and he didn’t even know; and, two, he and his girlfriend were both asleep.

Kyungsoo remembered this moment very clearly, just as he remembered every moment with his girlfriend of three years. This was the night they had spent writing a song together for the winter talent showcase at their university just a few weeks ago. They both ended up falling sleep, their heads on their notebooks, their arms stretched out, and their legs tangled underneath the table.

Seeing that memory in an actual picture in his friend’s sketchbook, Kyungsoo realized he had never been more creeped out in his whole entire life.

“Oh. Um. Yeah…” Baekhyun awkwardly reached for the sketchbook, trying to take it back, but Kyungsoo was gripping it so tightly out of shock that he couldn’t pull it away.

“You drew us while we were sleeping?” Kyungsoo squeaked highly in surprise, looking up at his friend, his eyes big and round and glistening like an eager child’s. Baekhyun looked obviously flustered, only slightly relieved when he managed to get his sketchbook back, quickly closing it and shoving it back into his backpack.

“Well, when I got back, you guys were asleep, and I thought it was really romantic and cute, so I—”

“—drew us?” Kyungsoo finished, gawking at his roommate, who sheepishly ruffled his hair, an awkward, hesitant smile on his face.

“Yeah, pretty much…”

“Oh God, Baekhyun.” Kyungsoo banged his head on the table because slapping it with his hand was just not enough to show his embarrassment. “Yeah. Okay. You really need to stop drawing pictures of people—or at least tell them when you’re going to!” he scolded, smacking the older’s head, and Baekhyun half-yelped, half-squeaked in surprise.

“Sorry!” he apologized, laughing shyly as he rubbed at his scalp. “I just thought you guys would find it weird if you found out I drew you guys while you were sleeping.”

“Who wouldn’t find it weird?” Kyungsoo gave him a look, and he waved his hands dismissively.

“Okay, okay, okay. I won’t do again,” Baekhyun promised, holding his hands up in defeat when the shorter gave him a look of depseration and disbelief. “Don’t you trust me?” He pouted a little, trying to act cute even though he knew it would never work on the latter.

“Are there any other pictures of me that I should know about?” Kyungsoo retorted teasingly, but even though his tone was in a joking manner, his words were meant seriously. Baekhyun gave him a sheepish grin.

“Weeell…”

“Byun Baekhyun!”

“Why does the maknae have a girlfriend, and I don’t?” Xiumin pouted out, pouting as he watched Hye Jung sitting between Sehun’s legs, both of them sharing earplugs as they shuffled through the music on his phone. Chen looked at the couple, then back at Xiumin, then back at the couple, then back at Xiumin.

“Maybe because you’re so ugly that—”

“Okay.” Suho slapped a hand over his mouth, grinning and shaking his head when he saw Xiumin’s face fall in disappointment. “Don’t worry about this idiot,” he said to Xiumin, much to Chen’s annoyance. “He’s just as jealous as you are.”

“Jealous?” Chen almost snorted at how ridiculous that sounded. “Why would I be jealous? I already have a girlfriend!” he boasted proudly, his nose stuck high in the air as if sniffing it.

“Not for long,” Baekhyun retorted lightly, grinning that mischievous and creepy grin he always grinned. Chen blinked, clearly confused, but the latter only nodded to a certain direction. Dazed, the male turned around, only to have his jaw permanently dislocated from his body.

“Hey! Babe!” he shouted, pointing an accusing finger at his girlfriend who seemed too busy feeling up Jongin’s abs to notice him. “Stop touching him! He’s younger than you, you cougar! And I have way better abs than him, you know! … H-hey! Don’t roll your eyes at me, young lady!” Flustered when his so-called friends started laughing, he quickly marched off to his girlfriend, increasing his pace when he saw Jongin show off some of his y dance moves to her (only to piss Chen off more because he found Chen’s jealous reactions quite amusing).

Baekhyun, Xiumin, and Suho couldn’t stop themselves from doubling over in laughter. “He sounds more like an over-protective father than a boyfriend,” Baekhyun pointed out, and the three boys took a moment to cringe and laugh at the oddity of their relationship.

Chanyeol, Baekhyun, and Kyungsoo were all in the backyard, sitting with their feet dipped in the pool and cans of soda in their hands. (They never really liked drinking that much, especially Baekhyun—but that was mostly because he’d get red in the face after just one can of something as weak as beer.) Baekhyun was really the only one talking, rambling on and on about his vacation to Beijing last month while the other two just added input here and there. He had collected almost fifty pictures and drew almost ten different sketches of the Summer Palace, all of which Kyungsoo and Chanyeol were both looking at, awestruck by the healthy green of the trees and the intricacy of the palace and just the overall beauty of the place.

“I’m surprised you didn’t take any stalker-like pictures of people this time,” Kyungsoo mocked, giving his roommate a crooked grin. Baekhyun only ruffled his hair, laughing shyly. He actually did take some pictures of a young, bright couple he saw randomly at a book store once, but of course he wouldn’t let his friends know that; they’d find him even creepier than they already did. But, apparently, he didn’t even need to tell them for them to know.

“I really worry for you, Baekhyun,” Chanyeol said, his tone soft and sad with pity.

“Shut up, you giant.” Baekhyun jokingly pulled a face at the taller, punching at both of his friends’ arms when they started laughing at him. The doorbell rang before any of them could say another word, and they all exchanged confused looks of curiosity.

Baekhyun was the first to shrug it off, finding it not his business who comes in and out of this house, and he continued on talking with Chanyeol. Kyungsoo, however, being the curious little guy he was, found himself dragging his feet back inside.

“Is anyone going to get that?” He blinked in surprise when the doorbell sounded loudly through the house again, yet no one made a move to answer it: Chen was too busy trying to impress his girlfriend by battling a barely trying Jongin in an arm wrestling contest; Xiumin was in the bathroom, he guessed; Suho was on the phone with his mommy; and Sehun was too busy planting kisses all over his girlfriend’s neck.

“Really, dude?” Kyungsoo scoffed, rolling his eyes at the younger who made no move to answer the door despite this being his house and he should be the one to let the guest in. Taking duty into his own hands, Kyungsoo shuffled over to the door and opened it without question.

“Kyungsoo-ssi.” The girl looked pleasantly surprised to see him, remembering her manners and bowing. Kyungsoo returned the gesture with a small dip of his head. He opened the door a little more, and she walked, immediately being noticed by her older sister.

“You’re here!” Hye Jung beamed, holding her hands out, and Hye Mi laughed. She quickly pulled her sister up, much to Sehun’s displeasure when the warmth of his girlfriend disappeared. “Oh, don’t be such a baby,” she joked, poking at her boyfriend’s leg with her foot, and he made a face at her, hopping up to his feet.

“But he’s so cute!” Hye Mi cooed, ruffling the younger boy’s hair and laughing when he pulled an irritated face.

“Stop treating me like a kid.”

“But you are one.”

“Oh, c’mon.” Sehun rolled his eyes at her, pouting at how she always treated him like he was a little baby who couldn’t do anything on his own. He was really only four days younger than her.

Even though she came only to give Hye Jung her phone that she had forgotten at home, Hye Mi ended up staying for the next hour, unable to pull herself away from the eager EXO boys present at the hang-out. She learned all their names easily: Xiumin, Chen, Chanyeol, and Baekhyun—as well as Kyungsoo who she sort of, kind of, knew. She found herself answering question after question ranging from whether she had a boyfriend or not, if she wanted to have a boyfriend, what her ideal type was, and so forth.

Most of the questions came from the lonely and single Xiumin.

Eventually, though, they moved on past her personal love life, and one other particular question made her chest tighten (though she didn’t show any physical signs of discomfort):

“Are you hungry?”

She hated that question. She hated the way it reminded her of the emptiness in her stomach that she tried so hard to ignore, that she tried to so hard not to think about.

Nevertheless, the smile still stayed plastered to her face as she turned to her older sister, finding that Hye Jung was again situated between the legs of her boyfriend, his arms around her as he held his phone, boredly scrolling through it.

“No.” Hye Mi shook her head, gently rubbing her cheek with her hand. Her sister’s brow raised in suspicion. “I ate before I came,” she added shortly thereafter, rubbing at her earlobe as she faked a laugh which seemed so natural and bright. She glanced around at the other people in the room, giving them reassuring smiles, but—when she looked at Baekhyun—he gave her a smile different from the ones all the others gave her. Not different as in it gave her butterflies different, but just … different. She couldn’t exactly decipher what kind of different it was, nor did she have time; the doorbell rang.

“Well we ordered a lot of pizza!” Chanyeol insisted, grinning widely (and creepily to her) when the doorbell rang. They all laughed when they saw how the boxes of pizzas towered up so high that they couldn’t even see the delivery boy holding them, only his trembling arms. Hurriedly, Chanyeol and Suho took the boxes from the short, young boy, leaving him to breathe out in relief.

“Thank you,” he said just before reciting the bill.

When all was done and paid for, the door closed, and the the tops of the pizza boxes were flung open, hitting them all hard with the smell of grease and meat. Hye Mi watched as they all reached for slices, shouting and calling dibs on the biggest slices with the most toppings. She bit down hard on her lip, ignoring the quiet grumbling of her empty stomach.

As she watched them all eat the unhealthy pizzas so eagerly, it grew harder and harder to resist the urge to grab a slice for herself; her eyes were glued on the food for so long, that she almost jumped when a hand grabbed her shoulder.

“Are you okay?” the male asked nervously, a brow raised, and she laughed brightly, easily hiding the nervousness in her tone.

“Yeah. I’m fine.” She smiled, absent-mindedly playing with her earring and rubbing her earlobe. “Just a little tired.” Of not being able to eat. Of starving myself. Of envying everybody else. Of wishing I was like her, she added desperately, almost angrily—most of the frustration directed at her own pitiful self—but the smile on her face stayed.

“Oh.” Xiumin blinked. He looked at the table with pizza boxes stacked before shrugging and suggesting, “Well maybe eating will give you energy?”

And also the urge to throw up. “I’m not hungry.” She laughed, tuckin her hair behind her ear and rubbing at her earlobe. “I ate before I came, remember? But why aren’t you eating?” she asked, changing the subject, and almost sighed out in relief when it worked.

“I’m on a diet,” he admitted, shrugging a little. She nodded in complete and total understanding.

Although she tried hard to avoid looking at the food, busying herself by talking with Xiumin, her eyes went against her will. When he left to get a drink from the kitchen, she found herself turning back to the boxes of pizzas.

When she looked at the table, though, she found that Baekhyun who was standing near it had been staring at her rather intently.

She blinked in surprise, a little taken aback.

Usually, when people were caught staring, they’d immediately look away in shyness, or pretend that they weren’t staring in the first place.

But Baekhyun.

He didn’t look away. Even though he was caught red-handed staring at her, he still didn’t look away—nor did he smile, or blush, or anything of that sort. hung open in surprise, not knowing what to say or do, but when she realized how ugly she looked with her lips parted, she quickly closed and tore her gaze away, a blush creeping up her skin.

And I thought Chanyeol-ssi was creepy, she mused, though she couldn’t help but bite back a worried frown. She wasn’t scared by the fact he was staring at her with such burning intensity. She was scared by why he was staring at her like that. Why was he staring at her? It wasn’t the mesmerized gazing she’d so often see other males give her. Hell. He didn’t even smile.

Feeling a little uneasy because of him, Hye Mi decided to go out, the greasy smell of the pizza making her feel nauseous and jittery, hardly having the control to resist the temptation of pizza. She went by unnoticed, all of them too busy eating and laughing and arguing for a certain slice. All of them except Baekhyun, who raised a brow at her as she made her way out of the living room, almost as if asking Where are you going? She looked away, though, purposefully ignoring his questioning gaze, and rushed out to the backyard.

She couldn’t help but sigh in relief as she sat on the softness of the grass. Her heart seemed to lighten up, and she no longer felt suffocated by the large amount of people. It wasn’t that she was claustrophobic or anything, but she simply did not like being around people. She didn’t know exactly when she began to feel that way, but all she knew was that she preferred to be alone; she tried to avoid her friends as much as possible, but in order to prevent them from growing worried of her sudden “anti-social” personality, she reluctantly urged herself to continuously hang out with lots of people like she normally did in the past.

Despite her attempts to prevent suspicions directed towards herself, it seemed like a person was still beginning to grow suspicious of her—a person she didn’t even know, for that matter.

Sighing out in frustration, Hye Mi lied down, resting her head on the grass. Her gaze inevitably found the sky above, and she smiled the most genuine smile she had shown in a while. Her eyes slightly burned with tears threatening to fall, her face slightly flushed from the night air, her body shivering lightly with coldness—or perhaps the fact that her blood pressure was too low because of how conservatively she ate, which would inevitably lead to a lack of vitamins, but she would always deny that to herself and blame it on the weather.

Another frustrated sigh leaving her lips, she shook the topic out of her head and gently kicked one foot over the other. As she gazed up at the sky, she found another smile spreading on her lips, and a tear finally trickled down her cheek, falling to the thin grass below her.

Stars. They were so beautiful, weren’t they? They twinkled just so brightly, bringing smiles to people’s faces as they gazed up at the sky, pointing out shapes and constellations.

In a way, she was like a star, too, wasn’t she? According to others, she always shone brightly. Hye Mi didn’t even have to try to get people to look at her, to get people to notice her, to get people to like her, to get people to love her. They just did. Because she twinkled. Because she just naturally shined, just like stars did. She just glowed with potential. God had created the first perfect being, they said. Beautiful. Smart. Athletic. Funny. Kind. Wasn’t she so wonderful? So perfect?

No.

No. She wasn’t. She really wasn’t. But only she herself seemed to know that, everyone else always gushing over how “humble” she was for denying it. But it was true, whether they believed her or not,  it was true. She wasn’t perfect. She knew that. She knew that all too well, like how she knew about stars so well, too.

To her, it was ridiculous how people could even dream to catch one—as if they could just easily reach up and grab one straight out of the sky. But, in reality, they were a million light years away—they were unreachable, no matter how much one would try.

Just like her, right? Perhaps, physically, people could touch her, they could grab her and hug her and hold her. But emotionally? No. They couldn’t. They couldn’t touch her. They couldn’t reach her. They couldn’t understand her. They couldn’t understand the pain she felt inside—the reasons she’d wake up with at night gasping in her own cold sweat, the reasons she’d run to the bathroom with tears her eyes, the reasons she’d plunge her fingers down .

No. They couldn’t understand because they didn’t know. They didn’t know the truth. Nobody did. Nobody knew that every single visible little star in the sky had died already, or was dying. Nobody knew that—despite the bright, twinkling surfaces—every little star was slowly burning away on the inside, suffering alone with no one to ease the pain, no one who even knew about the pain.

Nobody knew.

Nobody knew, because they were too busy looking at the surface—the surface that seemed so happy, so content, so bright—the surface that was so deceiving—the surface she called her mask.