“Hello! My name’s Tae Wonhye. What about you?”

“Min Yoongi.”

“Not much of a talker, are you? Anyways, nice to meet you! I hope we could be friends.”

Some say that love is the most beautiful feeling in the world. In Yoongi’s opinion, it was probably the most painful feeling in the universe. Elephants could die from a heartbreak; humans were not that different. They would do things that would gradually lead them to death, be it from abusing substances or a pull on a trigger.

During the seventh grade, due to Wonhye’s incessant nagging and convincing words, Yoongi found himself confessing his crush towards a senior on Valentine’s Day. For a seventh grader, he made a brilliant preparation – he had his eighteen-dollar cologne on, chocolates in a heart-shaped box wrapped with a fancy red ribbon and he even made a confession note cards which he memorized the night before. Unfortunately, Senior Joeun had someone she already liked. She turned Yoongi down with the gentlest smile he had ever seen, but it was still painful to get rejected by a girl he really liked that he swore to never fall in love again.

Not having your feelings reciprocated hurt. If Yoongi was an elephant, he would have already died the moment the word ‘sorry’ slipped from Senior Joeun’s chapped lips. Senior Joeun just happened to be a girl Yoongi had a crush on – she was kind, she smelled nice and she always smiled to everyone. Liking her was not a mistake. She was meant to be liked.

But imagine getting rejected by a person you trusted the most, the person who understand you like the back of their own hands. Even the thought made Yoongi shudder.

Yoongi decided, that the worst tragedy of all, had to be being in love with his own best friend.

He was unable to recall the exact moment when he realised that he was developing feelings towards Wonhye. Feelings that were not platonic. He shoved the ridiculous idea far, far away and have it locked inside a safe inside his head. He can’t be in love with Tae Wonhye.

He simply can’t.

They had been together since elementary school – before Wonhye could even write and spell his name properly. Back then, Wonhye would never fail to have her raven hair braided beautifully. Unlike the other boys, Yoongi have no urge or whatsoever to pull on it. From his observations, girls tend to cry or, if they had a tell-tale mouth like Jung Yeri, they would have reported it to the teachers. And the last thing Yoongi wanted to do was make girls cry and have the teachers scold him.

Perhaps, the reason why they were stuck together was because of their apparent differences. If Yoongi was winter, Wonhye would be summer. If Yoongi was the moon, Wonhye would be sun. But these dissimilarities brought them closer together – as if they were made of different pole of magnets – and somehow, without fail, always found themselves next to each other.

It will only take him three words with intimate meaning to ruin the friendship they have built for nearly eleven years. Yoongi was a ed up individual, there was no point in denying the fact that he was quite a mess at times and he knew, he realised it a long time ago, that the only thing that was not ed up in his life was Wonhye.

At fourteen, Yoongi convinced himself that the feelings he felt for Wonhye would disappear any time soon. Now, at almost nineteen, his heart seemed to beat faster than he was at fourteen, and impulses to bring his fingertips to touch Wonhye’s sunkissed skin only grew stronger and stronger rather than waning into thin air.

He cannot fathom how a small curve on Wonhye’s lips managed to turn his mind into a raging hurricane; how her calloused fingers grazing against his could release vicious butterflies to flutter vehemently against his chest down to his stomach and how she could make him feel ineffable emotions, all at once, whenever her contact ID appeared on the luminous LED screen on his phone.

This time, however, he heaved a sigh when her picture came onto his screen.

He knew what was about to come – it had been going on for weeks now. He attempted to ignore it at first, to let the ringing of his phone echoed in his small, dull room. He sat on his desk, flipping open whatever textbook that he could reach, only to let out a groan and answered his phone.

He cursed his weak, fragile heart.

Sighing again, he pressed the green button and answered, “Hello?”

There was only silence from the other line, which was a bit odd than all those times Wonhye would answer cheerfully as soon as he picked up. Yoongi cocked an eyebrow, growing worried when Wonhye was still quiet. Panic began settling in his bones, making him stiffen up and eyebrows furrowed.

“Wonhye?”

“H-hey.” It was barely audible, but Yoongi felt glad that she finally spoke. His breath hitched when he heard a sniff.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I am.”

Yoongi made his way to his bed and sat on the edge, foot tapping against the wooden floor rather warily. Wonhye was not a crier; other than frustration, anger and cheerfulness, she rarely made her sadness perceptible. At times, it made many thought that she was incapable of feeling melancholy.

Chewing his bottom lip, Yoongi murmured, “You wanna talk about it?”

“Nah.” She let out a soft giggle; it sounded nasally and heavy, almost forced but Yoongi’s lips quirked at the sound. “I just needed a distraction. You up for frozen yoghurt?”

He was already standing before he could answer. With a chuckle, he replied, “You know I am.” He heard another giggle from the other line as he grabbed his jacket and car keys. He glanced at the wall clock on his blue wall and thought: it. It’s only one ing a.m.

The thing about going on a late after midnight journeys was that, there was not any frozen yoghurt parlour open for service during this ungodly hour. Yoongi’s head was filled with ideas and hopes of enjoying the sweet treat with the girl he liked, that there was no space in his brain that reminded him of the fact that most shops are closed after eleven p.m.

Wonhye was already sitting on her front porch, her knees were brought close to her chest, arms wrapped around her legs when Yoongi arrived. She beamed, no suggestion of dry tears on her cheeks and her eyes were as clear as the midnight sky. She scarcely looked as if she had cried. And even if she had, the only evidence was the way she kept on sniffing and how her voice sounded more nasally than usual.

“Where to, my lady?” Yoongi could not help but grin, hand already shifting into the first gear and feet ready on the pedals. “It’s past midnight, I reckon your evil stepmother is looking for you?”

Wonhye rolled her eyes at the Cinderella reference. “Wherever that’s not here. I need something sweet.”

“Double chocolate with extra chocolate syrup?”

“Double chocolate with extra chocolate syrup.”

Yoongi chuckled, “Then off we go.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“You’re a liar, Wonhye. If it’s nothing, you wouldn’t be crying.”

“So now that I’m crying, you’re finally talking to me, aren’t you?”

“I’m just worried.”

“Nice to know you have a little bit of feeling in you, Yoongi.”

Yoongi found a good spot by accident one day, when he went on a hunt for flowers as one of his projects. There was a place, covered by thick trees, that will lead you to the other side of the hill where you can see the vast sky and the town underneath. Yoongi did not know there was such a place – a place where he could just sit, look at the birds as they glided across the cerulean firmament or just look down where people were busy being people.

When realisation dawned to them that it was one in the morning, and the only shop they could go to was the 7-Eleven (bless the founder of this store and the workers who had to stay on late night shifts), they managed to get their hands on slushies and three bars of Hersheys.

Yoongi almost tripped on a vein he did not see on their way to the spot, if it weren’t for Wonhye’s fast reflexes to hold him. But in turn, she dropped her slush and watched as the red iced drink spilled all over her favourite shoes.

“,” she muttered. “This is what I get for saving your life.”

He chuckled, taking a sip from his purple slush before handing it over to her. “As a gratitude, I’m giving you mine.”

Even in the dark, Yoongi could see her rolling her eyes towards him. “You know I hated the purple slush. What a way to show your gratitude, you could’ve given me something better than a half-empty cup of slush.”

He chuckled again.

“Come on then, time waits for no men,” she murmured.

She exhaled loudly from her nose, taking out a bar or Cookies ‘n Cream Hershey and tore the packet open as she carefully dodged low branches of the tree. Yoongi only drank his slush quietly, eyes glued to her back as he followed her.

When they have arrived, Wonhye made herself comfortable on the ground, midnight eyes staring up ahead at the night sky. Yoongi sat next to her, placing the now-empty cup beside him on the ground. The stars seemed to be brighter tonight, as if they had known that Yoongi and Wonhye were coming here. Yoongi knew Wonhye loved the stars. He loved them too. But both of them never really bothered learning anything about the stars.

Wonhye attempted to, once.

She joined the astronomy club and quit after only being in the club for an hour.

“Stars aren’t diamonds in the sky, Yoongi. They did not wink or whispers secrets of the universe to each other. They don’t shine for someone. They’re ing spheres of plasma,” Wonhye groaned when asked why she made the abrupt decision to leave the club. Wonhye would never make any rash decision, but this time there was an exception.

Yoongi shrugged. “What do you expect?”

“Sure, they’re plasma or whatever they are really called. But that’s not why I loved it. Maybe I loved it because I believed that every star sacrificed themselves, to become atoms, to become human.”

“Bollocks,” Yoongi chortled. “But that sounds romantic, I give you that.”

To Wonhye, stars were beautiful. There was nothing beautiful about luminous circles of plasma, really. But Wonhye believed that she was made human for a reason – she was human because human were small creatures on Earth, and they were meant to look up at the sky to see the stars that were lightyears away. Stars were meant to be admired.

They did not speak for a moment. Yoongi barely noticed that they were just breathing quietly next to each other, until Wonhye spoke:

“If you see that star, and connect it to the other star, you’ll see a constellation.”

“You can’t see it, can’t you?”

It was a well-known fact that Wonhye, certainly cannot read constellations. She had always looked up to those who can, envy even. According to her, they were magicians. How can you see a person with a crossbow in cluttered stars? All she could see were millions of twinkling lights.

“No, really, if you just make the effort to look at it, you’ll see a constellation named Wonhye’s Screwed. This constellation tells the story of how my life is ing over,” she answered. There was a lilt of humour in her voice, but Yoongi did not laugh.

Yoongi teared his eyes from the winking neon blue lights and gazed to his side. Her head was slightly tilted to the left, mouth chewing her only-god-knows-how-many Hershey. Yoongi solemnly believed that god had installed a Wonhye Feelings Detector when he was creating Yoongi. Wonhye might look like she was calm right now, but he could see the raging battlefield inside her head.

“Is it Seokjin?” Yoongi could almost taste the bitterness in his mouth. He never really liked Seokjin. He never really liked anyone Wonhye had a crush on anyway. “He’s a pretty boy, sure, but if he hurts you, I swear to god—”

“They’re getting a divorce.”

Yoongi halted. The fire in his eyes died, only ashes left waiting to be spilled. Wonhye sniffed as she brought her knees close to her chest. She was staring determinedly ahead, tears were already forming at the corner of her eyes and from the way she was biting her bottom lip, Yoongi knew she was trying her hardest to will the tears not to fall.

“They’re giving up on me. Should’ve known it was coming,” she whispered, her voice so gentle as if they were butterfly kisses.

Yoongi’s eyes darted from her shoulders to her hands, wondering if he should wrap his arm around her shoulders or hold her hand. Suddenly, Min Yoongi was lost. How do people comfort each other? Do they say encouraging words? Yoongi opened his mouth to speak, but it was a fact that he was never really good with words. He opened up his palm, lifted his hand to hold hers but her fingers were threaded together. In the end, he only uselessly stayed beside her.

“I thought they’d finally work it out, you know,” she chuckled, but there was no trace of humour in her voice. A small crystal fell from her eyes and she abruptly wiped it off with the sleeve of her shirt. “I thought it’ll be fine this time. They weren’t yelling at each other. It was a total silent treatment, yeah. Nothing was broken, there were still nine plates the last time I counted.”

Yoongi only remained silence, feline eyes never leaving Wonhye’s feature. She was not looking at him the whole time she was talking. There was just something about looking a person right in the eyes when you’re sincerely pouring your heart out; she was afraid of the flood that might come with it, the unstoppable sobs and trembling lips.

“Maybe screaming at each other was their way of saying that they are still willing to fight for each other. That they were still willing to work it out. It was foolish of me to think everything is okay just because they stopped shattering things. Should’ve known the silence was the end of the war,” Wonhye murmured.

Yoongi wanted to comfort her desperately. He wanted to say words that will make her smile again, but it would be no use if he did not mean it at all. She will be okay eventually, even he knew that she knew that but now, there was not any other way to make her feel less like .

“Weird, isn’t it? The whole time they were fighting, I wish they would stop. But now…” she took a deep breath, bottom lip trembling as she spoke. “Now that they’ve stopped, now that they decided to end it all, I wish that they’ll start screaming at each other again. Who the cares if it kept me up all night? Now I’m gonna be passed around like some property, unable to sleep because we’re missing a person in the house.”

Yoongi blinked away the mistiness he felt in his eyes as he tried to catch his breath at the sight of Wonhye so upset and unreachable. She was just a fingertip away, yet she felt so distant.

“It would never feel like home again.”

Then, she broke.

Her head hung low, shoulders visibly shaking. Even with her messy hair acting as a curtain to hide her face, it was evident that she was crying.

And just like all those times Yoongi witnessed Tae Wonhye crying, he only stayed beside her.

“How are you and your girl?”

“She’s not my girl, Seokjin. How many times do I have to say it?”

“You wish she was your girl though, am I right?”

“Piss off.”

Someone needed to edit the dictionary and add ‘Min Yoongi’ as a definition underneath the word ‘idiot’. He had gone through this path for so many times, but it did not mean it hurt a little less.

No matter who it was, no matter how attractive or intimidating they were, Wonhye would still come back to Yoongi. Not that she ever left him in the first place, but when one of two friend found themselves a lover, one would feel a little bit left out. Because Wonhye having a boyfriend meant that she had someone else to tell how her day went to. It meant she had someone else who could comfort her in ways Yoongi could not.

However, it was different this time. Seokjin may not know what Wonhye had gone through inside her head, the battles she fought and the wars she had lost, but Seokjin managed to piece her scattered heart altogether, with hushed words and soothing touches. He tried convincing himself that it would be over, just like her other short-lived relationships, but when he saw Wonhye’s head buried in Seokjin’s chest, he hoped he was the only one who could hear the sound of his heart breaking into tiny millions of little pieces.

Yoongi could feel the anger, bright red flames, burning inside his veins. He was not angry at Seokjin, although he was completely certain that the bloke was well aware about the feelings he had kept hidden for Wonhye. ing asshat. He was not angry at Wonhye. Why would he? She never knew of all the times he spent thinking about her, whether it be at night or in the morning.

He was angry at himself.

Angry that he was being a coward.

Three words. That was all it took for him to make her realise. But these three words were so powerful – he could lose her. The last thing Yoongi wanted was to lose someone who understood him, who would still stick with him through ups and downs despite being shoved away for countless of times.

He managed to get himself in one-piece back home. Breathing heavily, he let himself collapse on his bed and stared at the wall.

Exhausted, he let his eyelids dropped.

“Wait, wait, Wonhye, don’t hang up yet.”

“What is it? I’m sleepy. This better be important.”

“Well, it is.”

“Okay then, Min Yoongi. What is it?”

“I…”

“Yeah?”

“I…”

“Mhm.”

“You know. Well, I…”

“What is it?”

“Forget it. Have a good sleep.”

Yoongi stood underneath the floral arch, lower lip swollen from biting on it too hard. Anxiously, he wiped his palms on his tailored pants. It was at this exact moment when all the past negativities he thought he had buried far, far away in his mind came swarming back like angry bees. He had not met Wonhye’s parents in years, and despite knowing they ended in a bad term, they were sat on the front row of the pews together.

He felt the corners of his lips quirked slightly at the sight of the divorced couple. It would be an understatement to say he was glad to see them pretending to be alright just for their only girl’s big day. He brought his hand up to his chest, just to check if the velvet box was safely stored in his pocket. He exhaled rather loudly through his nose when he felt the protuberance.

The murmurs of the crowd died when Taehyung started pressing the keys of the piano. Weeks of assuring himself that he was strong wasted the moment the wooden door was opened, revealing Tae Wonhye in a white dress. Wonhye had always been beautiful to Yoongi, even the times when she bawled her eyes out with snots all over her face. It had been years and it only seemed as if she grew more and more lovely as years passed.

It was as if someone had pressed the mute button when she gracefully entered, leaving only the sound of his accelerating heartbeat pounding vehemently against his chest in his ears. Wonhye stared straight ahead, to where he was. She gave Yoongi a small smile, and he felt like he was falling in love over and over again.

For a moment there, Yoongi finally understood why some people described love as a wonderful feeling. For a moment there, he felt it.

He let out a breathless chuckle at the sight of his best friend. A sight he would only see once. Tae Wonhye in a wedding dress, looking as if she stepped out of his dream, for the first and the last time. He pressed his lips in a straight line and took out the velvet box containing a ring that worth three months of his salary.

Wonhye might have walked down the aisle for less than fifty seconds, but it felt like hours. For once, Yoongi wanted for the moment to never end. He could live with endless loop of Wonhye walking down the aisle, the translucent veil not covering the beauty she had.

He stared longingly when Wonhye stopped next to Seokjin. She gave Seokjin a huge grin, all teeth and crescent eyes and Yoongi did not know it was possible for a broken heart to break even more. There was a mortifying ache in his chest, the butterflies threatening to break his ribs as he felt his throat being constricted.

Suddenly, it was hard for him to breathe.

Somehow, he managed to get through the ceremony. When they exchanged their vows, he was the first person to let his tears drop to the carpeted floor. Crying must be contagious during wedding ceremonies because soon after, the others were crying too.

Yoongi sniffed, covering his mouth with the back of his hand. He tried to focus on how glad he was to be alive at this times, the exact time where Wonhye glowed as if she owned the whole universe and create all the stars that accompanied lonely souls at midnight. Tears were forming at the corners of her eyes, along with a smile so bright it rivalled the sun.

And it hit him.

Good god, it hit him hard.

This would be the first and the last time he’d seen the expression on her face. And it was not because of him; someone who had been beside her for nineteen years, someone who would be willing to spend sleepless nights to drink slushies with her.

The pure happiness on her face was because of the guy who was brave enough to say those three words Yoongi never dared to say. The same guy who held her and whisper promises whenever she felt like she was not enough.

Yoongi’s lips began to quiver then, the warm tears spilling from his almond eyes without warning. They had probably kissed, Yoongi was not really paying attention by then. He was wrapped with thoughts of how weak he had been, of how scared he was of his own feelings. He heard a breathless giggle, a beautiful sound emitted from a girl he loved, before being engulfed in an embrace.

Unconsciously, he leaned into the touch, let his head hung low and rested his forehead on her shoulder. He heard her laugh again, probably because of how it was so uncharacteristic of Min Yoongi to show his feelings to the world, before he felt her hand caress her back.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Yoongi stayed where he was, lips clamped shut, afraid that his voice might betray him if he chose to let it out.

He felt an arm wrapped around his shoulder, a bit muscular. He surmised it was Seokjin’s.

“Didn’t take you for a wedding type of person, mate,” Seokjin laughed.

Yoongi finally looked up, face red as a tomato at the realisation of what an embarrassment he was being. He swiftly took out the handkerchief he kept in his tuxedo and wiped his nose with it before lying, “Didn’t know I had it in me either.”

Seokjin smiled and Yoongi just wanted to curse Seokjin’s parents and even God, for letting such handsome creature exist.

Wonhye pulled away, laughing again as she saw Yoongi’s red face.

‘This is it. Seokjin’s gonna wake up every day to see her face beside him. He’s gonna wake up every day and hear her laugh. He’s gonna be the reason she smiles and the reason she cries.’

“Are you an alien? Did you kidnap my best friend Yoongi?” Wonhye cooed, wiping the tears away from his cheeks.

He rolled his eyes. “Shut up.”

Wonhye opened to say something, before her mother came up to embrace her. Yoongi sighed, turning to Seokjin when he felt the man patted his shoulder.

“Thank you,” Seokjin murmured. Yoongi wanted to hit him. Yoongi wanted to punch his face, to make a messy art on the canvas. “Thank you,” he repeated, even more sincere than he first uttered it.

Yoongi rolled his eyes again, shrugging Seokjin’s hand off his shoulder.

“You’ll come to the after party, will you?”

Yoongi forced himself to smile, gazing towards Wonhye’s female friends who approached her like birds being fed crumbs. “Nah, mate. I’ve got a plane to catch.”

“She’s looking forward to dancing with you. She’d even pick a song for the both of you,” Seokjin said.

Yoongi scratched the back of his neck. “S’alright. Party won’t stop just because I’m not there.”

Seokjin sighed. “You know how much you meant to her.”

But not to the point where she’d give all the stars for me.

Because Yoongi knew, if Wonhye really did own millions of stars, she would give them all up just to put up a smile on Seokjin’s face – just like how he would easily give up the sun, if it meant to see her happy.

Wonhye found a home. It was not that small bungalow house with red roof. It was Seokjin.

note: you might want to curse me now and whatnot but honestly i just wanna focus on yoongi suffering from one-sided towards his best friend. i purposely leave a few blank spaces there so it is up to your imagination to fill in the blanks. let me know what yall think - i hope you enjoyed it. thanks for reading!!