[TAO POV]

I wave goodbye to my university friend Sehun and check my phone.

5:13 pm

I stare at my cute lockscreen for a while before locking my phone. It’s a picture of the sunset view back in my hometown, Qingdao. It’s truly beautiful. I just love my hometown. One of my dreams is to have the love of my life visit my hometown and walk around the seaside with me. I want to share the best things I know of to my one true love. I smile, thinking that that may happen in the near future.

Its almost 5:30 and I jog through the campus, heading to the humanities building where he works. Wu Yi Fan, my bestest best friend, my perfect hyung. He’s an assistant professor in English in our university, which makes me laugh because he couldn’t even spell beautiful correctly and had a phase where he would keep on saying babe. He may be buckets of weird, but I like him all the same, I’m pretty weird too anyway.

“Hey babe, you’re right on time.” Yi fan says as he pushes his timecard in the receiver. “5:30 pm, exactly as always.” He flashes me a gummy smile and I die a little inside. He never fails to make me happy, even with just a few words and a smile.

Yi fan poses like my older brother and I look up to him so much. When I turn 23, I want to be just like him. Be like the good man that he is. The good brother that he is.

When I first went to Korea for university, I was really weak in speaking the language. I had a really hard time communicating with people and even said “oppa” to a hyung one time. Sadly, no one dared to befriend me (Yi fan says I look intimidating) and I was pretty lonely. Then I met Yi fan, who was a senior at the time.

He was the perfect hyung. We lived close to each other and would usually leave for the apartments at the same time. He would listen to all my complaints. He would buy and cook me some ramen if I did well in university.  He would take me out to play basketball together. He would ride a bicycle with me even in the bad weather. He would take pictures for me to upload on my sns. He would hold my hand as I walk through ledges. He would wait for me outside my haunted shower. He would take my side when no one would. He gave in to all my selfishness.

He was the perfect hyung.

I mentioned this but he is weird. He frequently says he wants to go to the galaxy and we just pretty much laugh at him. He would often joke that he’s a dragon and that he can fly. If he had the power of flight, I would believe. Because I feel like I can fly with his wings.

As we walk by our usual route I notice something. His forehead creasing, his slight pout, the tiredness in his eyes. Though I tell him everything, he never tells me anything. His troubles, his worries, I’ve never heard of them. And as we walk on by, something in his eyes change.

“Yixing!” I heard him say. And the way his face changes completely shocks me. There was another one. Another one like me. A gentle looking, slightly depressed man. And at that moment, there was a seed of evil planted in me. The wish to monopolize. To make him mine, only mine.

He’s my hyung. Mine only.

So I started to be more selfish. To drag Yi Fan along even more. “Ge! I need to go home!” I tug at his arm. He doesn’t budge and I yank at him more.

Then he looks at me. For the first time, he looks at me with some annoyance in his eyes.

I say sorry and run back home. I fiddled with my keys and promptly shut the door closed. I slump down the floor in agony, tears running through my face. I feel betrayed. But deep inside, I know I shouldn’t be.

Then I see baby. My dog stuffed toy. Remembered that we had each both bought one, saying that they would protect our doors. Saying that we were a family.

So much selfishness. So much childishness.

I curse at myself.

I look at my phone, it’s the calming scenery of my hometown seaside. Knowing that the person I planned to go there would probably not leave with me… would not have the same feelings as me, I change my cellphone lockscreen to a picture we took together sometime ago. The picture of the night sky. A scenery I know I can never attain.

I’ve looked up to him for such a long time, but I guess he’ll never see me. There are too many stars in his galaxy.