SG-89 stars were supposed to be the most difficult stars to find, nevertheless to capture, and Nam Woohyun was ordered to get one. It was the last one on his list to obtain, and after capturing every single type of star on the list into the jars that were given to him, he’d finally be able to become human again and return to his family on earth.

It kind of that he had to get the stars and trap them in the little jars that were provided to him when he was given this task, but it was his only ticket home, and it wasn’t like he knew what these stars did for a living anyway. He didn’t know whether they had a family, whether they liked tea or coffee, whether they had actual lives, because he was too busy trying to get back his. He actually knew almost nothing about the stars he was to capture before he had opened up the lid of the silver mason jar and enclosed them in it, transporting back to his temporary home in Altersia.

Woohyun had spent, probably, seven months on this torturous task. There were just six stars on his list: DW-90, SY-91, MS-92, SJ-93, HW-91, and the notorious SG-89. Whether or not the Star King actually had any reason to want to capture these stars, he had no idea. He just knew that he was to find these little sparkling people of these certain colors and put them inside the transparent silver jars.

DW-90 was one of the hardest for him to capture; that pink-haired, giggly star with the green aura did nothing but jump and fly around. It took most of Woohyun’s energy trying to get the star and not get caught by anyone in the star community (even though he later realized that the rest of the stars don’t really care about what’s happening around them). The last thing he wanted was a bunch of angry, colorful sprites coming up to him and attacking him. He had no idea what the stars could do (though he later found out that they really couldn’t do anything in their current small form). Although he typically could’ve gotten any star with a green aura into the DW-90 jar, he did have sort of an attachment to the pink-haired being after having chased him through the entire span of his mushroom-shaped home. Woohyun was just so excited to have finally found a star the color of the ones on his list that he didn’t realize that there were many green-aura stars around the city he had traveled to; it was just that none of them had pink hair like this one did, and by the time he had realized that there were easier DW-90’s to catch, he had already promised himself that he’d catch the one with pink hair. No one was going to lead Nam Woohyun into a mud puddle and get away with it.

The MS-92 and the SY-91 were a little easier to capture. The star with the black aura (MS-92) was always following the tall SY-91 star with the pink aura, so Woohyun figured that if he could capture the tall one he’d be able to hit two birds with one stone (more like two stars with one jar). Soon finding out that this certain SY-91 star seemed to be wherever the smell of coffee was, Woohyun simply put a couple of coffee beans inside a silver jar and waited behind a tree for the star to come and eventually the MS-92 star with it before he dropped the lid on top of the two stars. Whether they ate the coffee beans or just sat in there smelling the strong aroma that came from them, Woohyun didn’t really care. All that had mattered to Woohyun was that he was halfway done with his task in less than a week. However, it was the next two stars that took the seven months to capture.

Traveling city to city, cloud to cloud, and comet to comet, he had searched for the HY-91 star, only to find it hidden inside a petite pool of water inside the rest building he had stopped at four months later. It turned out that the HY-91 stars liked water and it was all Woohyun’s fault for trying to find the stars as quickly as possible and skipping the rest spots along the way.

The three months it took to obtain the other star, the yellow aura SJ-93 star, were all due to the fact that they had annoyed him so much. They all gathered in packs and whenever Woohyun had managed to find a group of them, they started to disperse in all directions but Woohyun’s. The first time he had come close to getting one, he could’ve sworn that he had heard giggles when another one had suddenly showed up and knocked the jar out of his hands. He had almost given up on getting the yellow aura star before finally he had found one alone, and there were no bells or giggle or incessant jingles that signaled that there were any others around. The look of surprise the star had when Woohyun had showed up and captured it was so similar to what Woohyun thought only humans had (though Woohyun’s not so sure he’s even a human anymore with the amount of time he’s spent off of earth) he was a little shocked and felt a little guilty that he had trapped the SJ-93. It was then that he realized that maybe, just maybe, the stars that he had obtained actually had feelings, a family, and someone that they were supposed to come home to.

Maybe that’s why when he had randomly stumbled across the rare SG-89 star, he was so reluctant to capture it, even when it was so willing to be trapped.

The pretty star with the silver aura and soft-looking chestnut brown hair had shown up while Woohyun was on his way home after having captured the yellow aura SJ-93 star. He was kind of pouting, kind of slumping, and kind of depressed after seeing the face of the cute little star he had just captured look up to him with eyes of betrayal and sadness. Woohyun didn’t even know where his sudden sympathy and compassion for these stars had come from, but he had guess it had sprouted from his many months being surrounded by them. He had been surrounded by stars of all kind of colors, but he had still not found a grey one. After dropping off the SJ-93 star on the shelf in his temporary home, he was going to try the other side of the universe, where time wasn’t really a thing, and he was going to try his chances at finding the grey star over there. However, when he opened the door after setting down the SJ-93 star, there was the star that was supposed to be the hardest one to find. It was waiting for him right at his doorstep.

Except it wasn’t shining like every other star he had seen was. It had a lackluster kind of shine, and despite that, Woohyun thought that the star was one of the most beautiful ones he had seen.

“Uh, hi?” Woohyun had offered.

It was his first time actually talking to a star, and he wasn’t even sure if they could actually talk. He was actually a little scared to talk to the star afterwards though, because following Woohyun’s first words to the star, the SG-89 star had fainted and the soft grey sparkle had disappeared, only for a figure similar to the size of a human to fall into his arms.

So, one thing that the Star King hadn’t told him was that the only reason that SG-89 stars were hard to find was that they could shape shift and mask themselves as humans (why he hadn’t told Woohyun that, he had no idea either, he had seen so many humans on his journey he had actually gotten mad when the SG-89 star—no he said to call him by his name—when Sunggyu had told him that he turned into a human quite often).

When Woohyun had brought the star, um, Sunggyu, into his temporary home, he was a little wary about it, the star had literally just turned into a human and fainted on him. However, the star/human had woken up immediately after he had been set down on Woohyun’s couch, a little scared and worried about what had happened as he only remembered seeing the star collector.. Woohyun had placed a cup of water on the table in front of him. He didn’t really know what to give to a star/human; he had never met one before. It turned out that stars were pretty much like tiny humans, except they had a little aura around them that told what kind of star they were, and they could, you know, fly.

The star and the star capturer had ended up in a long conversation after the star had introduced himself. Sunggyu was one of the last stars of his kind; the humans that Woohyun had met along the way were actually humans, which made Woohyun sigh loudly in relief. He actually had come to Woohyun to give himself up—to which Woohyun had choked on his water upon hearing. Sunggyu no longer wanted to be a star, and he was looking for a way out, a possible reason to why his shimmer was a little more dim than the other stars. However, even though Woohyun did have the last jar in the back of the mini house, he didn’t feel an urge to go get it and capture the star like Sunggyu had so wanted.

After Woohyun had ended telling his story of how he had ended up in their land, how he ended up having to collect stars, and how Sunggyu was actually the last one on his list, the star eventually fell asleep, much to Woohyun’s content. Woohyun found that it was much easier to look at the star when his cute little everything wasn’t looking at him back.

Did this mean that he could go home now? He did technically have all six stars inside of his abode; he just needed to get this one into his jar. But, Woohyun wasn’t really sure if he wanted to do that anymore. He no longer felt a need to trap the star into a jar; he didn’t want to do so. Woohyun actually found himself wanting to watch and listen to this star/human more and more. He wanted to be there when the star woke up and he wanted to hear more from Sunggyu about his past, because there must be a reason why Sunggyu wanted to give up his life. He also kind of wanted to have the star for himself, not trap in inside the universe he had inside of the jar in the back of his room.

When Sunggyu woke up, he found himself wrapped in the star collector’s arms and pressed against the man’s chest. He remembered how irritated he was after he had read Woohyun’s mind and found that he didn’t want to capture Sunggyu into the next universe in the jars like he had arrived to do. Wasn’t he supposed to do his job?

 However, after listening to Woohyun’s story and after listening in on what Woohyun had thought about him, he kind of just blushed and forgot about being angry at the star collector. Though he wasn’t really sure about what he was going to do now, there wasn’t going to be another star collector around for a long time, Sunggyu had forced himself to sleep, listening in to Woohyun’s thoughts again.

Sunggyu chuckled softly to himself as he thought about how ironic his situation was. He was a star who had left his home without a heart, but here he was, in the arms of a star collector who’s given him his own heart.