Sukyi’s POV

            Yoseob told me about Donghae’s broken family and I couldn’t help but feel like I was violating their privacy just by listening, yet I didn’t have the heart to tell Yoseob to stop. A part of their story fascinated me. The fact that after all these years they still sulked over their lost family member amazed me and I felt… jealous. I wondered if my family back in America even missed me now that I was all the way in Korea. I bet Soohyun couldn’t even care less if he tried.

            “I think… I said enough for today.” Yoseob ended his story telling with a sarcastically awkward cough and then sat up straighter and glanced at the time on his cell phone. I nodded with a thankful smile, glad that he could be open with an introvert like me. It wasn’t often that people cared to talk to me because of how unresponsive I always was. Honest to God; I was really working on it, but an introvert doesn’t just become social over night. I was still trying to feel more comfortable around Hyeyeong despite how long it’s been.

            “Thank you for sharing with me…” I mumbled, voice trailing off as I wondered whether this was even something to be thankful about. Yoseob probably felt guilty for telling me about Donghae. I could tell even without knowing him for too long that he respected Donghae incredibly and would follow him to the ends of the earth.

★★★           

            “The sky’s really clear tonight.” Hyeyeong commented as she followed my gaze out the dining room window. Most of us had just finished breakfast but I insisted it was my turn to wash the dishes, so I sat as Hyeyeong’s parents finished up so I could take their dishes.

            “It’s pretty.” I agreed, searching for my Polaris in the dark sky. On nights like these, it was hard for me to imagine that winter was quickly approaching. The temperature was still fairly high and I felt like it would be a good time for a walk. When Hyeyeong’s parents finished, I snatched up all the empty plates and bowls and filled the sink with soapy water. Hyeyeong graciously helped me rinse as I scrubbed off the food residue.

            “Let’s go to the park later.” I suggested, imagining how nice the night breeze would feel against my cheeks as I sat swaying gently back and forth on a swing—star gazing. I never got a chance to do this in America. Night life there was just too dangerous for a girl to be out anywhere alone, and Soohyun obviously would never me. Korea seemed a lot safer and in some ways, a lot more like home.

            “You mean like today? It’s almost 9 and it’s dark.” Hyeyeong shuddered, expressing her immediate disinterest. I wasn’t offended though, in fact, I felt embarrassed for asking so boldly. She probably had a lot to study and I on the other hand, had way less load due to a cancelled lecture.

            “It’s okay; I’ll just go for a few minutes by myself and come back before lights out.” I concluded, draining the sink and watching the gunk at the bottom get caught by the strainers. Hyeyeong quickly rinsed and dried the remaining plates and stacked them on the drying rack.

            “Are you sure? I guess I can come if you really want me to.” She offered, but her voice was uncertain. I could tell that she was still trying hard to act like the perfect host instead of a friend, and it would take a lot more time for the two of us to let go of those personas and just me ourselves. Shaking my head, I gave her a smug smile and assured,

            “I’ll be fine on my own. I won’t get lost.” She nodded back at me, and I left to get my jacket. It hung on the railing by the stairway exactly where I left it when I had come home from school. When I opened the door, I was surprised that the wind was chillier than I expected, but I continued to make my exit knowing that Hyeyeong was watching me from the end of the hallway. They entrusted me with a house key that I always kept in my left jacket pocket. Because I didn’t have mittens, I used my pockets as a hand warmer and felt the cold metal keys warm up against my palm. The park I had in mind wasn’t far from their house, just one block down. There was a cement path at the corner intersection that I followed through a bunch of trees until I reached an opening. In my eyes, it was a perfect spot for star gazing.

            There were two swings swaying slightly from the breeze and I sat on one, hands clinging to the metal as my feet kicked gently off the ground. I loved swings when I was a kid in America, but I never had many opportunities to sit on them. During recesses, the more outgoing kids would always beat me to them and they only let their friends take turns. I wasn’t one of those friends. Now that I was older, I could go to playgrounds and swing all I wanted, except doing that in broad daylight alone just made me seem more like a loner.

            After a few seconds of picking up momentum, I anchored my head up to get a good view of the night sky. The sky in Korea didn’t seem much different than it was when I was in America. I had to admit, the lesser amount of pollution on this side of the world made Polaris seem even brighter than I remembered. Either that; or my memory was just getting rusty. When had I developed this fascination for outer space? Surely I didn’t just wake up one day and decide that I liked the night sky, yet the furthest memory I had was coloring one in Kindergarten. I could only remember that I liked it, yet I couldn’t remember why.

            I never learned about stars or the cosmos in school, nor did I have friends to share with me their knowledge on it. I never conducted my own research, so I didn’t even know how I knew the brightest star’s name. Why did I like Polaris so much? I stared at it until my eyes felt dry, and then looked back down to rub them. This familiarly beautiful star shone ever so brightly, as if trying to tell me something that I couldn’t understand. I liked to wish that there was a bigger, deeper meaning behind this interest but it felt too surreal to be reality. Maybe this was all in my head. Maybe Polaris and everything else didn’t mean anything at all.

            I kicked at the small rocks frustrated, reflecting on how unaccomplished my life had been in America. I felt like a typical teen, complaining and being dissatisfied with every aspect of how I lived, but after being in Korea for only a short time I only felt like my life in America was more and more superficial. I didn’t know if it was just my excuse because Korea was my get-away from it all, I just knew that I could be happier here than there. I needed to be.

            “…Sukyi?” A familiar voice called out from the trees by the path I had followed here. At first I felt alarmed and almost fell off my swing. By instinct, I looked around for any branches or twigs I could use for self defense and then mentally cursed my mom for never allowing me to take martial arts. As the shadow moved closer, their figure could be illuminated by the distant streetlight on the other side, mixing with the faint moonlight above and I could tell that it was Yoseob. My heart which had begun beating faster was now calming back down again.

            “Oh! It is you. I thought I was hallucinating.” He laughed a little and then took a seat on the only other swing in the small playground. I wasn’t sure what he was doing here, but I was certainly curious. This was my chance to break the socially awkward boundaries while I still had the courage. It was strange, because at night time I felt a whole lot confident about who I was and what I was capable of.

            “Why are you here?” I said in a soft voice, not meaning to offend him. Thankfully he wasn’t, and instead grinned; swinging quickly and going much higher than my swing did in the many minutes I’d been here before him.

            “I come here once in a while. I guess you can say that this is my place for thinking.” He explained straightforwardly, continuing his strong kicks off the gravel until his swing went as high as his weight and gravity would allow. He passed me like a pendulum, and I could hear his breathing every time he did.

           “Oh,” was all I managed to say. I felt a little disappointed that this magical place had already been claimed. Perhaps tomorrow I would have to find a new location to make my own.

            “It can be your place too.” He quickly added, still swinging at the same pace. I stopped swinging altogether, placing my foot firmly on the gravel which had turned to dirt from my kicking and digging and turned to look at him. His dark hair almost blended in completely with the night sky and the moonlight bounced off his cheeks making his skin glow almost angelically.

            “Thanks,” I smiled, and he smiled back. After a few minutes of silence apart from the creaking of rusty chains rubbing against the metal that kept the swings hung securely, Yoseob decided to speak.

            “Any particular thought bring you here today?” He asked, staring up at the sky. He had a kind of entranced look that would have reminded me of myself whenever I got preoccupied with star gazing. Maybe that was something we had in common.

            “Particular thought?” I felt idiotic to have mumbled that, after all, his question was already clear as it was.

            “Yeah, you know, like a kind of thought that you wanted to explore in peace and quiet. Or at least that’s what I come here for.” He shared, slowing his swinging pace enough that the chains no longer made rusty creaking noises. Originally I hadn’t come here with a specific thought. I came here because I wanted to just star gaze, but it seemed like my mind had pushed out a thought anyway. I just assumed that as people, we can never really be free from our thoughts.

            “How far can you remember back to?” I sighed before asking, avoiding eye contact with fear that if I didn’t, I would lose all the courage I had to talk to him. I heard him breathe in and out deeply once before answering,

            “I’m not too sure. Maybe back to when I was two? Or around the time I first learned how to walk. You know some people say that that’s when we first start developing memories.” He educated, and I could tell why he was a psychology major. I wanted to believe his little fact he had just shared, but what if I was the exception to that rule?

            “Is it like that for everyone?” I continued, raising my interest.

          “There are exceptions to every rule,” He chuckled a little, “But memories usually trail back to around then.” My shoulders slouched a little more as I sat on the swing and I let out a depressing sigh.

            “What if I can’t remember that far? What if my earliest memory was way after then?” I felt immediately embarrassed for voicing those questions out loud and wanted to pinch my mouth for not keeping it as a simple, unspoken thought. Slowly, I turned to Yoseob and saw that he looked back at me in utter awe. This was it—the moment that he would label me a freak and never talk to me again. He continued with his surprised stare for a few more seconds and then looked back up at the sky.

            “I suppose it’s possible.” He rationed, and it was now my turn to be surprised. He didn’t think I was strange, and he wasn’t scared away. This was probably another charm about psychology majors—they could understand and sympathize with human behaviours. We sat like this in silence for a while after that, both staring up at the same bright star—Polaris. I could only hear our deep breaths and the small breezes that blew past us every now and then, but I didn’t mind it.

            Suddenly, he coughed twice to break the silence, and in unsteady English he recited,

            “Star light star bright, the first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, please grant the wish I wish tonight…”

A/N: I guess I haven't had enough inspiration to make a long fanfic in a long time and since this fanfic had really scattered planing it probably won't last too long (because I don't want to drag out a plot that has no details planned). Anyway, I hope it'll still be an exciting read (and I'm sorry if It's not LOL... definitely not 1 of my best works). Thanks for sticking around, readers (: