"It's been so long that we've all been here!'' Soojung spins in her pair of short jeans and oversized plain blue t-shirt tucked into it, the wind blowing her auburn tresses as she skips around the meadow-like grounds in her sandals. Same old Soojung who dislikes the idea of shoes, thinks Seokmin.

Somehow, Soojung had approached him in his house, bringing a group of distinct teenagers from one to another, a guy with a pair of circle lens glasses who turned out to be Wonwoo, another with hair covering his ears with dark rings around his eyes and he turned out to be Soojung's cousin, and then same old Seungwan, and t-Seulgi. Amongst the five of them (placing out Soojung's cousin out of the equation, Ten, his name is said to be), he almost couldn't recognize Seulgi. She looks drained, that's the word that suited her when they met at the front porch of his house. Her golden locks didn't make her look any brighter, and the piercing on the right side of her nose made him flinch. That must have hurt, he thought. 

Back then, as they walked to their some kind of a basecamp in the past, he approached Seulgi. Wait, a sanctuary. Wonwoo's room was more like a basecamp to them.

"Wow, Seulgi, you changed a lot," she flinched when he skipped to her side. But when he held out his fist for their ridiculous fistbump, her lips broke into a huge grin as they did their trademark fistbump; dancing fingers, bumping shoulders and headbutts and the final is the fistbumping part. 

"I missed you, man," Seulgi gave him a big hug while laughing, making him laugh also. Seulgi with piercings and blonde locks didn't faze him that much after knowing that she was still the same. "Look at you, you're so tall right now!" his smile grew even wider when her hand reached out to pat his head. 

"You still remember that ridiculous fist bump, seriously you two?" Wonwoo's voice echoed behind them, and he turned to look at him walking beside Seungwan.

"Of course, how could I forget?" they uttered in unison. Realising that, they guffawed out loud then jumped into a high five. "Jinx!" Wonwoo cracked his jaw while cringing and Seungwan giggled, perhaps finding their unchanging behaviour to each other heartwarming and touching and adorable. Seungwan seeing him as something related to 'adorable' might sound weird since he is firm and manly now. But if she thinks that way, it doesn't sound too bad for him.

"Jeez, so childish," Ten, the supposed cousin of Soojung with his rash words and a lousy disposition of yawning lips and dragged feets mumbled out loud with a scoff and a light toss to his hair, revealing matching three set of ring-like piercings on his ears. 

Soojung, seemingly used to it just shrugged it off. "Ignore him, he's also like that. But, he's still bitter than he e-"

"Nuthead, you-"

"Chittaphon-"

"Okay, okay. I'll shut up," He had put up his head in surrender before Soojung smirked victoriously. He seemed to dislike the idea a lot of being called by his middle name, and Seokmin snorted a bit at that. 

Now, they are together and scattered around the sycamore tree like non-existent dead leaves with spring wide awake in their time. Six, but still incomplete. Mingyu isn't here and Ten's existence is only there to be merged with Soojung's.

"Don't you miss this, Seokmin?" Seungwan muses from beside him, brown waterfalls over sky eyes and lily smiles. "Us, more whole than we used to be?"

He doesn't smile and lies on his back, crushing the fresh green grass coated in raindews. It smells like earth, water and past morning drizzles. "Mingyu isn't here, it's still different," he crinkles his nose in denial at her words. She only nods back cordially, like what Seungwan is all about-understanding and mature with sprinkles of fantasy and flower petals. She stays seated in his left side, and his eyes follow where her gaze lands.

They have accepted since long ago that Mingyu is already tied into something they can't cut.

It falls into Seulgi laying in Soojung's lap as she sits by the sycamore tree, youthful and jovial smiles drawn along the thin lines of her lips as Soojung spouts some stories she didn't get to tell her about. It seems surprising to him that they are still able to be that close, to shrug off that awkwardness of separating for a long time.

"You were too quick to judge her, Seungwan. Look, she's still the same," Seokmin has his eyes closed after taking a good look, palms in the back of his head as he enjoys the calmness and voices of the nature blending naturally and willingly. It's been days since he spent his time out in the open like this.

He can hear Seungwan's steady breathing, Soojung's voice a few steps ahead of them, Seulgi's laughters at something Soojung just said, to Wonwoo's deep voice resonating subtly from afar as he lightly converses with Ten. He wonders how can Wonwoo get along with Ten so fast. Perhaps, because they are pricks in a sense? Like how birds with the same feather flock together? Perhaps. He doesn't like the way Ten just acted carelessly in his own way, just because he is Soojung's cousin. He doesn't give him a good impression also, seemingly famished with whatever things that hasn't started between them all.

She heaves a painful sigh, something he rarely hears unless it's about her parents unable to come home during Christmas, her grandmother falling sick or some words coming out of her friends' mouth able to sneak into her heart and hurt her. "I didn't judge her, Seokmin. How could I? I said that something bad happened to her. And something bad did happen to her," her voice is low as she turns to face him, not wanting Seulgi to notice.

His eyes crack open now.

"Her father sort of abandoned her, making her attend this school full of-horrible, horrible people. I felt so angry hearing it for the first time from Soojung," Her fingers clench on the hem of her skirt (because Seungwan is sixteen and she loves wearing skirts to any place and anywhere. This is a silent reminder that Seungwan will always remain as a girl in his mind and in his eyes) in frustration, throwing her gaze away from him. 

"Let's just accept the way she is now, rather than making her feel uncomfortable about it. She seems pretty happy about meeting us all," Seokmin rises and bounces his body of the ground with his tanned arms. He peers down at her who seems to be waiting for him to continue his words. Seokmin with his limitless and brilliant light shimmers amongst them all with his belief at their friendship like some sort of a religion. 

"People can never stay the same, Seungwan. Things change, you should start accepting that fact," is his reply before he marches to Seulgi.

"Kang Seulgi, you still run?"

Her head snaps, and she only leans back further into the ground now, pushing on Soojung's legs, her head touching the ground. Her movements seem inhumane to him as she stretches her body. "Not so often." Soojung stares at them curiously. 

"You know what? Let's see who is the fastest runner now-"

"I'm not feeling it, Seokmin," contrary to her words, Seulgi is already up in a second. She rubs the back of her neck off the sweat supposedly covering it. "Like-"

"The one who gets to that tree right there and get back here first is the fastest runner here," Seokmin persistently points at the far tree behind him. He might sound ridiculous, but he doesn't mind being ridiculous with Seulgi. They have always been foolish and nonsensical together in the past.

She crosses her arms, looking up at him with a challenging look. Now, there it is-the Kang Seulgi who always wants to be in the first place in the running competition, who runs everyday just because she said it was needed for her feet to get used to dashing and bolting in a speed of light. "You must be getting cocky when I wasn't around, Seokmin. I will always be t-"

"1, 2, 3 and run!" When Seungwan cheerily counts for them without notice, Seokmin grins widely as she is able to catch his intention somehow and he bolts away.

"Seungwan, that's unfair! And Lee Seokmin, you cheater!" Seulgi shrieks in anger and he can hear furious padding of sandals brushing the grass behind him. With longer legs now, Seokmin has managed to get faster in running, also with his good stamina by staying in the taekwondo team in middle school. 

Seokmin swims in his own thoughts, thinking that this is it, even though they are not complete, they are more than what they used to be before the three of them all came back. Seokmin is more than just the boy who claps first in the class as others will follow, the boy who follows his parents' words well, because for him nothing is better than to make his parents proud of him. He is more than just the boy who gets along well with everyone.

There is this undescribable feeling whenever he was with them, like he is a part of something unreal and magical as the cosmic children were a bunch of children, one different to another with different backgrounds and dreams and hobbies. Now, they are still growing up. Looking at the changes before him, he can't believe Soojung has managed to stick them back together.

Mingyu still isn't here even though he wishes that he will appear magically out of nowhere. But Seokmin thinks he won't. He is now one of the suave, cool kids who likes to travel to places too old for their age, too cool for anything heartfelt and touching like them now. He belongs to them, and even if Mingyu still greets him whenever they walk into each other, he no longer has time for him and Seungwan. 

Seokmin is hopeful but there are times when you just have to focus that hope into something more important and sure and possible. The five of them together now is real and happening in front of his eyes.

Soft skin brushes past his t-shirt, and he catches a glimpse of Seulgi sticking out her tongue with eyes glinting as if she has won her last battle with the world. "The light will always beat the wind, Seokmin!"

She smiles and it burns the sleeping trees with the flames rising to the edge of her lips. The smile she gives him right now is the kind where her eyes are menacing with a little upturn in the edge of her lips. It's a beautifully painted arrogance and satisfaction and rising passion in her blood attempting to kill him off to fall before reaching the finish line. That glint of danger in her eyes make Seokmin falls a little bit behind her, and he ends up struggling to catch up to the finish line back in the tree now.

Her lanky white legs paddle back towards the tree where their friends stand on their toes, loose blonde tresses dangling messily on her back as her hair is up in a tight bun. She doesn't seem like a girl with the way she dresses herself up in sleeveless blue shirt and black shorts. She doesn't move like one too, her moves too swift and fast like lightning.

It's expected of him to lose to her. He planned to lose to her intentionally, after all. But now, he is in his maximum speed and he can't catch up to her. He slows down when Seulgi jumps to Soojung's embrace, them skin to skin spinning around as Seungwan is still clapping and shouting for him to continue. And also Wonwoo, but Ten's eyes linger to the two girls in each other's embrace. 

"Come on, Seokmin! Finish what you have started!"

"Don't lose to this little one!" now it's Wonwoo, and he ends up breaking into reckless guffaws while reaching the finish line as Seulgi pulls on Wonwoo's ear.

"What did you say? Little one? You're getting big-headed cause I treated you nicely these days, huh?" Seulgi taunts him and Seokmin can see him trying to hold back any urge to push her away, like what he used to do in the past.

"Hey, it's enough, Seulgi. Wonwoo is probably joking," Seungwan touches her arm and she immediately let go, leaving his ears red and Wonwoo crinkling his nose in pain.

"Damn, Seulgi. You almost made me deaf there."

"You're exaggerating."

"Like you're--"

"What the hell, you are all too old to be arguing over things like this!" It's Ten with his Metallica black t-shirt and brown cargo pants, mumbling curses under his breath with an annoyed look. "Krystal, please fix your two friends here, the blonde one seems like a tryhard hipster to me," Ten snaps to Soojung in a language she speaks to her parents, a language he learnt in school with quite a satisfying marks yet no deep understanding to apply it in real life. It's English, and from the look on Soojung's face, she doesn't seem satisfied by it. She pulls Ten away from their circle harshly, and they stand and watch as Soojung admonishes him in a languange foreign to their ears.

"This thing got big for no reason," Wonwoo takes off his glasses and pulls out a small velvet box containing a cloth used to wipe his specs. It comes out from the pockets of his pants.

Wonwoo and hygiene has always been a pair that can never be separated, so this is not a surprise to him. He wipes the glasses of his specs thoughtfully. "Soojung's cousin seems to have a lot of baggage in his shoulders, but he's actually decent."

Seulgi is silent as she redo her bun, tight locks falling like silk to her shoulders then brought up again with her fingers carefully combing it straight. Seungwan's eyes are focused to the back of them, not hiding the fact that her head is turned inquisitively towards the arguing cousins in an attempt of comprehension. His hair is still tousled up in a disheveled and careless way girls would find breathtaking under the yellow sun in the colour of Seulgi's hair. Seokmin wonders if Wonwoo styled it that way or it's just a result of so many frustration he expressed by messing his own hair for most of the time.

Head bowed while focusing to wipe his glasses, Seokmin catches the way his eyelashes flutter to the skin of Seulgi's neck, through the lines from her jaw to the nape of her neck and returns back right before she looks up and fixes her t-shirt, flapping it in an attempt to avoid more heat fusing to her skin.

He also notices the way his eyes steal another glance while he puts on his glasses, now to the falling tresses being tucked inside of her hair, slim fingers running through the lines of her hair. Then it fleets to Seokmin's eyes, whose gaze is steady despite meeting his unreadable eyes. Seokmin wiggles his eyebrows comically and the guy before him just raised an eyebrow questionably. That would hide the fact he im just observed him.

"I don't really mind him, he just seems to be pissed off about lots of things," she crosses her arm and another hand of hers play with the piercings on her ears. Her movement creates contact between her elbow and his arm and Seulgi steps a little bit to the side. "He is Soojung's cousin, he couldn't be that bad."

"He's quite similar to you," Wonwoo's gaze bores to the top of her head and she only nods, not looking at him and rubbing the edge of her jaw thoughtfully. Seokmin assumes that he is waiting for their eyes to meet as he still waits for her.

The way Wonwoo just said it is calm, like it's not meant to be an insult but as a statement with some truth in it. The him now is different to the him minutes ago, and he can't recognise the expression in his face, it doesn't look familiar for Seokmin.

This expression of him is still strong and piercing, yet there is a certain tenderness emanating from his eyes. It affects his whole face to turn a little bit softer and more gentle, as if his lips is ready to curve into a smile. The cause is a mystery to him, and Seokmin already has his own assumption back in the depths of his heart, but the idea seems impossible and almost illogical. It can't be that. 

"Just because he is Soojung's cousin, doesn't mean he will be like her. You can never be so sure of anything," Seokmin expresses his underlying dislike subtly, because even though he doesn't want to hate the guy, a sense of dislike already skulks to his heart.

"He seems a little bit lost. He's new around here, maybe he's a little homesick?" it's Seungwan mumbling her words under her breath, but Seokmin can hear that. 

These girls' hearts are very soft compared to how they act, Seokmin thinks.

"I'm tired of standing," Seulgi ends up lying on her back instead, earning giggles from Seungwan. 

"You're going to fall asleep, Seulgi. It's getting breezy now!" Seungwan's sweet voice lulls Seulgi to sleep even more perhaps, as she gets into a sitting position, rubbing her eyes off any signs of sleep. She seems to be in a dire need of one with those dark rings below her eyes, too visible to not be seen.

What Seulgi does the next strikes another surprise to h-

 Δ

"Let me borrow your lap for a while," when Seulgi suddenly requests this from him, his eyebrow is raised instantly. He's not sure which one is raised, but one of them surely does. 

He still moves for her. "You're strange," he unfolds his crossed legs and straightened then before him. Her head plops to his lap softly then, her back facing him. 

"This image is so strange to look at," Seokmin states in furrowed eyebrows, his fingers frame them in a square. "Seungwan, tell me this doesn't look strange."

"No, it does seem strange."

"Wonwoo is right beside me, so it's normal if I ask him first. If even one of you is in his place instead, you would be in his place now," from this distance, he can look down on Seulgi properly and look closer to her face, but he wouldn't dare.

Not like she will let him.

So he gazes to the nape of her neck as he leans back, his body propped by his hands by the side. Today, her collar is not loose and her wound of a tattoo is kept as a secret between the two of them. Soojung hasn't even noticed this.

Secretly, he wishes that none of them will ever know except of him. It's unfair and it doesn't feel right, but Wonwoo is not quite right in the head either by contradicting himself and surprising people out of their wits. 

He can feel her breathing in a constant pace above his body, shifting now and then on his lap. He seriously begins to regret doing this as his legs begin to get numb.

He also wants to stop replaying that moment in his head when he touched her tattoo. It makes him feel sentimental and a little bit pained. It makes him want to do it again, to touch her again. This idea sounds maddening in his head, truly. 

"Aren't they done yet? Why are they fighting for so long?" His mind flies back to the cousins pointing and jabbing into each other's body, atrocious words spoken out of his lips. Wonwoo is able to make out some of the words as he understands a bit of the languange. Rebels, your father, piercings, hair, change, friends, Seulgi, scarred, love.

"They are cousins, you know. They're probably arguing into a more personal level now. We can't touch that," Seokmin cordially states, wiping the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. 

Seulgi is sleeping soundly in his lap, and she unconsciously turns her body to face him, giving him the sight of the front of her neck with her head tossed to the right, exposing him her side profile. He see lines of bones and grey shadows carved on her neck to her jaw then to her ears and her half-parted lips. Her lips are thin and in the shade of pallid pink. 

This is the first time that he sees her in a distance this close and he is able to see a birthmark below her left ear from his side. It's in the shape of a heart and he is sure this one is a birthmark and not a tattoo, since its colour is a little bit transparent and a match to her skin.

Seulgi is a fallen star who is no longer burning and hurting somehow, smelling less and less of cigarette sticks and more of a girl who belongs to the sycamore tree. She stopped bringing them whenever Soojung was around, feeling that her thoughts are important for her. Wonwoo doesn't think about it deeply that her thoughts are more important than his. Because to be honest, he doesn't deserve that for their kind of connection in the past.

Everything that pops into his mind is maddening and he keeps chanting to himself to never, ever, ever touch Kang Seulgi again because it gives him so many dangerous thoughts and impulses to do something that either will make them closer or even stray even farther from each other.