Stars... Can I ask you what they are? Living in the city, I don't always get to see these beautiful blinking fairy lights in the night sky.

A friend told me, they look like fireflies only they burn brighter against the glowing black satin behind layers and layers of serene clouds above our heads. Sometimes, when it is specially dark, stars light up so much their brilliance are mirrored from our dilated orbs.

It's so surreal and it makes anyone wants to reach up for one, keep it in our hands for warmth and pocket it to bring home and keep them in a jar.

I would call them beautiful, but even that wouldn’t do its justice. This is something you can’t describe or tell anyone about to share the experience, not even something you can capture in a photo. You can only know by experience, only seeing them through your eyes will you be able to see the beauty.

Stars are just shiny silvery-blue dots in the sky, so why are they so pretty?

What makes it different than dots of light shining through little holes on a black paper?

I’d never figure it out. Maybe it’s the reality of it. 
The mystery.

She tried to use her tiny hands to catch a handful of stars. “Mummy!” The toddler whined.

The glitter in the sky looks as if she could scoop it all up in her hands and let the stars swirl and touch one another but they are so distant, so far apart that they cannot feel the warmth of each other even though they are made of burning.

“Eunjung look!” Sequin-silver stars like the scattered embers of a dying fire winked down at me, illuminating the atramentous curtain of sky

Some nights, I wished I lived in the country.

Living in the city meant more people were out and about at night, cars drove around with their headlights on, businesses lit their fluorescent signs, I couldn't take it.

I wanted to see the dark blanket we called the sky littered with twinkling stars.

I wanted shooting stars to be a normal thing. The beauty of the night sky is always masked by the artificial lights and airplanes soaring across.

For just one night, all I want to see is the moon and a sky full of stars.

He hugged me from behind nuzzling my neck in process.

“Hi jagi.” He gently kissed my neck.

Eunjung whined.

“Hey baby girl,” He pressed a kiss to his daughter’s cheek.

She was on my hip.

I figured she'd be all sleepy and just snuggled in, but she's more awake than noon-time. Her eyes raised to the stars and she pointed, not knowing what to call them. She's no stranger to darkness of course, and part of me is surprised she isn't afraid, but this cloudless be-speckled night was all new. I would tell her “stars” and she wiggles up and down, grinning like it's her birthday. She can almost say the word too, or at least the start of it...

“What are you doing?” JongIn asked as he wrapped his arms around my waist and rested his chin in the crook of my neck.

“Stargazing,” I smiled and patted Eunjung’s back softly.

The stars hung above us, as if strung in the air by invisible strings. “It’s a new hobby?”

“Not mine but Eunjung’s.”

“Woah. Eunjung you should be an astrophysicist when you grow up,” He laughed as he picked his daughter by the waist.

Kim Eunjung was a starry enthusiast. Nothing would keep her from the stars; they were her relaxation, her obsession, her connection to the universe that fascinated her so.

Recently, she made a lot of drawings on the night sky which made Joonhyuk very proud of her.

I told JongIn and Eunjung all about the constellations.

I recognized the tortuous, tattered band of the Milky Way, with Vega very bright between sun and earth; and Sirius and Orion shone splendid against the unfathomable blackness in the opposite quarter of the heavens.

The Pole Star was overhead, and the Great Bear hung over the circle of the earth.

And away beneath and beyond the shining corona of the sun were strange groupings of stars I had never seen in my life - notably, a dagger-shapped group that I knew for the Southern Cross.

He turned his head to face you. “How do you know so much?”

I touched the tip of my nose to his. “Secret.”

I pulled away from JongIn and turned to Eunjung with a bright smile, “Let’s get you to bed sweetie.”

JongIn pursed his lips together and I smiled at the crinkle between his eyebrows, “Why won’t you tell me.”

“Anyway, you probably won’t like what I’m going to say,” I shrugged my shoulders. “Myexwasobsessedwithstars.”

JongIn’s eyes widened. “Yah. What was that?”

I laughed. “Nothing!”

I gathered my textbooks and laptop and walked towards the bedroom.

“Yah! Jagi!” JongIn quickly trailed after me with Eunjung fast asleep in his arms, “What did you just say!? Who was it!?”

“It’s a secret.” I sing songed.

“Jagi!” JongIn shouted.

“Shhhhh, Eunjung is sleeping!” I hissed.