Jinki should have known, from the start, that Taemin wasn't like anyone else. 

"Is that why you're so beautiful?" Taemin only laughed, but what a celestial laugh it was. Definitely unearthly. How could Jinki not have seen it?

His skin did glow. His eyes did sparkle. His laugh did sound like angels singing and his smile akin to the sight of heavens gates, but Jinki only thought of these as human qualities - rare human qualities, yes, but human nonetheless. Jinki only thought that he had just fallen for someone spectacular and unearthly gorgeous in every way possible. But little did he know one of those words described him more than perfectly. 

The moon was bright tonight. Nearly full and round in the sky but missing just a small sliver off the corner. Jinki wondered if that sliver was the boy who was sat next to him on the grass. 

"Do you really believe me?" Taemin asks softly, eyes cast away from his home and back to his first and only human friend.

"You've never lied to me before." Jinki replies, looking back at Taemin who seems to glow even brighter than the moon itself. Jinki figures, Taemin's probably more brilliant than any astronomical object, and he'd be foolish to think otherwise. 

Moon child. What a fitting name. Jinki brings this up as he folds his legs and finds said child laying in the cradle of his lap. Taemin dare not look anywhere but the sky, sparking eyes trained on the stars nearly dull in comparison to the boy who lay below them and he explains, "It's not like that." And that what Jinki sees is not a maternal figure but rather a part of Taemin himself - a part of what he had lost, and not on purpose. "I fell."

Jinki considers the answer for a moment. Ponders on the thought that perhaps Taemin didn't want to be here - that it was merely a mistake and perhaps he didn't plan on staying here forever, as much as Jinki would love forever with Taemin. He thinks, as he watches the younger boy obverse stars that now lie ever so far from him they blur into something nearly fake looking, like a postcard souvenir from an observatory, fake and edited for sales purposes. Taemin stares at his home, silent as a melancholic look pulls over his round face - and Jinki thinks, Taemin might miss home enough that his heart aches. And Jinki's heart pumps loud in his chest with sympathy. 

Jinki was only a man. Only human and only capable of earthy promises and gestures that would seem nearly comical in the eyes of someone who once pulled oceans to shore. But if he could - perhaps if he tried with all his strength - Jinki would wrangle the stars from the sky. Steal each light he could find to deliver to the homesick moon drop as a token of his love, as a way to show he could only be the one who deserved to see them. Jinki would steal the sky for the one who first made it beautiful. And even then, it would not be proof enough of his love. 

As a compromise Jinki found wild flowers. Through the summer darkness that lingered around the two Jinki plucked dew kissed forget me nots to tuck into the messy black hair that dusted over Taemin's pale cheeks as he opened his eyes to meet Jinki's. Small blue flowers fell like shards of the fallen sky out of the boys hair and into Jinki's lap but the sentiment was not lost. No, Jinki's gesture was felt deep in Taemin's heart. The smallest proof of Jinki's feelings towards him Taemin felt crash against him like the tidal waves he use to be responsible for, and he sat up to look into the eyes of the first person to show him warmth on this cold, unforgiving planet, and pressed his lips against the pair that belonged to that benevolent soul. 

And for the first time in a long time, Taemin felt at home - with Jinki. 

- END -