Life begins with an explosion, leading to the birth of particles. And somehow, fast-forwarding to billions of years later, humans exist.

Greed was born. So was anger and pain.

Whenever Baekhyun feels like he’s an ant in a whirlpool, he reminds himself that his own existence is so ineffectual—nothing matters.

Sticks and stones, people say. Except he’s become so desensitized to his own needs. He was his very own villain.

Baekhyun likes to think that he came from nothing. Sometimes, he wishes that it was as simple as springing from Zeus’s skin or conforming from sea foam. Maybe then, he wouldn’t feel like this. Powerless.

Sad.

Whether he’d wanted to or not, Noeul’s words urged him to reevaluate whatever the hell he was doing. He went back to the four-year-old boy watching a big, yellow bus from afar. He used to touch the glass on the windowpane, silently yearning that the bus would whisk him away.

Then, he wouldn’t have to be trapped with incompetent parents who forgot his birthday. It even wasn’t their worst offense.

When Baekhyun was three, he vividly remembered the loud bang of their front door as the cops busted in.

A policewoman picked him up, pulling him away from the disgusting scene. His parents, together on the ground, lying unnaturally still—their mouths foaming.

Baekhyun has never cried. In a drunken state, his mother once told him that she made a costly mistake. When he came out of her, he hadn’t cried until the doctors gently pat his bottom. She thought he was mute.

As he grew up, Baekhyun chose to stay silent. He chose to watch others, partly to figure out what was so wrong with him. And eventually, he figured out that the only thing that kept his parents together was drugs. A dangerous combination of intoxication from hard drugs and booze.

There were many times he’d almost died. From starvation. From infection.

He still remembers how it feels to be looked at with pity and apologized to by different people.

He thought that eventually one of those people could make a difference. Maybe save him. But his parents were always a step ahead. They couldn’t work, so they needed him. They used him for welfare checks.

But it was never to feed him. Never to clothe him. Never for him.

Baekhyun always wonders why he was born in the first place. But he figured that out exactly when his mother laughed in his face after cutting his palm open.

For once, he’d just wanted a hot meal. No more scavenging outside or going door to door. He painstakingly learned to cook for himself. He needed to if he wanted to live. It wasn’t exactly a choice he had.

And when the knife slipped, he just knew.

With the cold indifference settling into her irises, he knew that he only had himself.

When he finally went to school, Baekhyun discovered more and more harsh facts. His life was vastly different from his peers.

They grew up with warm bellies, big birthday parties, and loving parents.

Baekhyun had absolutely nothing, but he hadn’t let that deter him. He wanted to get out. Needed to leave.

When he turned sixteen, Baekhyun got a job. He worked and worked, and he saved up until he had enough cash to find another place. It wouldn’t be livable but at least, he wouldn’t have to remain in a place that was no less than hell.

His dreams were crushed. On the same day, he found his father going through his stash. He was beaten to the ground. His skull was fractured when the police found him. His father took the money and left.

Baekhyun was now left to pick up the scraps. He finally succumbed to his life—to that inevitably cruel reality of his. And it made him wonder if there was any meaning to this.

Fighting to breathe, to eat, and to sleep. All to do it again in a hopeless cycle.

Other kids had meaning. His best friend had meaning. All because their parents loved them. They were wanted.

Despite everything, he couldn’t abandon his mother. She had suddenly given birth to his little sister later that year. Hearing the news, his father came back. His parents tried again with proper jobs to raise their two children.

That dreamlike state didn’t last too long. Baekhyun found himself going to bed hungry again. His little sister cried each and every night. To drown out her noise, his parents started the drugs again.

Each day was hard. Baekhyun tried his best to stay focused in school. He’d known that it was his only way out of this. With an education, he could get a proper job—maybe, finally, take his sister away from this environment. He promised himself that he would raise her with every little penny he could get.

But just knowing what he wanted didn’t mean that it was easy. Baekhyun tried so damn hard not to cave. He’d known that if he kept wondering what-if’s, he would never be able to leave.

Little did he know just how difficult things would be. Because nothing was harder than what he had to see.

One night, he’d just gotten home from his night shift. Baekhyun was exhausted. His long shift killed him. He thought of his bed. He was going to pass out when he hit his bed.

As soon as he crossed into the living room, he felt anxious like he was waiting for the needle to drop. When he entered his little sister’s room, she was wailing from her crib. She didn’t stop when he approached her. He could tell from the empty sink that she hadn’t been fed all day. Sohyun was probably starving.

His anger bubbled, rose from the tiny crevices where he kept it tidy until it felt like a block in his throat and he could hear himself breathe hard and fast.

He was filled with rage. Baekhyun could deal with everything as long as it meant he could live for his little sister. Still, this struck a nerve. His expectations were nonexistent; yet, his mother’s carelessness somehow went so far below them.

After he fed and burped her with trembling hands, he stormed into his parent’s bedroom only to see no one. Their bathroom door was ajar, and when he barged into the room, his anger was left to be shoved back in.

Because when Baekhyun decides to confront his mother, he finds her in the bathroom, sprawled on the floor. Across both of her wrists, blood seeped out of the cuts she’d made.

He fell to the floor, unable to fathom what the hell he was going to do. But he didn’t even have time to collect himself. All this time, Baekhyun had been forced to grow up, and there was nothing he could do about it.

###

As irritating as it was, Baekhyun was aware that he needed to clean up his act. Noeul was right. He was on his last written warning. One misstep and he’d be kicked out of school, meaning everything that he’d worked toward would mean nothing.

“No work today?” Junmyeon casually asks him when Baekhyun strolls into his classroom.

Baekhyun shoots him a stink-eye. “You gave me a month of detention, old man.”

Junmyeon feigns innocence, batting his stupid lashes. “And here I thought that you were enjoying my company, you spunk.”

He blows a raspberry, dropping his bag as obnoxiously as he could. “Whatever.”

“What? Did something happen in the library?”

Baekhyun tries not to think about what Noeul said to him. He didn’t know what it was about her. How she could just dissect him with those eyes of her. And despite his better judgments, she intrigued him.

“Let me guess? Noeul said something.” Leave it up to Junmyeon, Noeul hadn’t been the only person who could read him like a book.

Annoyed, he lifts his legs, resting them against the desk. “She’s always saying something,” he grunts.

Junmyeon laughs in agreement. “Oh, please, my fourth period is probably the class I don’t look forward to.”

“I’m sleeping, don’t wake me up,” Baekhyun announces, dropping his leg and resting his head between his arms. He hears an amused tsk before closing his eyes.

Baekhyun isn’t able to fall asleep, so he’s in the place that he despises the most. His head. He contemplates about next week—whether he would have enough to pay the utility bills. He needed to study for upcoming exams.

But he also needed to take his little sister to her doctor’s appointment. So much to do, so little time. His life was so ing full. And just as he pondered that, Noeul pops up in his head.

He thinks about her long, brown hair—how she always seems to smell like marshmallows. Then, he thinks about her mole. The mole that he can never seem to take his eyes off because it’s right on her left cheekbone. Cheekbones that are always naturally flushed.

Noeul was vexing, and she was also just about the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He hated how much he cared about what she thought of him.

Baekhyun tries to convince himself that he had no time. No time to find out why she made him vulnerable. He had no time to apologize for anything he said. Because he knew that she would soften him up, and right now, that was something he didn’t need.

###

Baekhyun comes from school, struggling to open the door with his bag and helmet occupying both arms. But when he does, there’s something unsettling about seeing their unused dining table full of food.

He wonders why his mother decided to cook for him today—when she never would otherwise.

Suspicious, Baekhyun quickens his pace, dropping his things with a thud near the front door. He checks on his little sister who is napping peacefully in her princess bed. Then, he checks her bedroom. Cracking the door open, he catches a whiff of heroin. God, she was probably doing drugs again.

He thought about her words from last month when she promised that she would finally go clean. She lied to him, yet again. Except it wasn’t anything new.

Baekhyun approaches her bed, observing that his mother is lying on her side. Scrunching his face, he tries to make her out in the darkness. It doesn’t take much for it to dawn on him that there’s something very off.

She isn’t breathing.

Panicked, he bends over her, pushing her shoulders until she’s lying flat on her back.

Both of his arms go completely still as they drop to his side. He merely stares at his mother in deaf silence. Then, his breathing picks up. Faster and faster. Is he even breathing?

He can physically feel the panic attack pull him apart, threatening to overtake him.

Baekhyun roughly pats both sides of his jeans, pulling his phone out of his right pocket. He dials 911, hysterically telling them that his mother is gone.

In the first ten minutes after the phone call, Baekhyun loses the strength in his legs. He falls to the ground, slumped against the wall opposing her bed.

He listens to the silence. The echo of nothing. His ears are buzzing. The blood roaring in his ears. His fingers are stiff, but they tremble like every other time—a familiar motif.

Baekhyun is terrified of whatever happens next. After numerous attempts, his mother had promised that she would get help. Baekhyun didn’t know whether he should blame himself, fully knowing that after six times—her life was out of his hands.

After thirty minutes, he’s shaken awake by a paramedic. Realizing that his cheeks are wet, he roughly swipes his sleeves over his face and stands briskly. The paramedic gently leads him out of the dark room. She starts to ask him a series of questions. He’s heard it all before. Baekhyun knew exactly what to say.

I’m alright. My father isn’t in the picture. He’s dead. This is her seventh attempt. No, it’s just me and my little sister. We don’t have any distant relatives.

CPS gets here almost an hour later. They apologize for what he has to see, but at this point, what hadn’t he seen before?

One of them holds Sohyun. She’s awake by now, unaware of what’s really happening. He was glad that she was only one. He didn’t want her to know the true nature of her environment. He never wanted her to find out the bleak truth. The fact that neither of their parents cared about them.

Baekhyun had thought that he felt every single emotion by now and that maybe he could finally be done with feeling things.

The man delivers the news that his little sister is being separated from him. For a second there, his brain stops working. Under normal circumstances, that would be a good thing. Baekhyun opens his mouth, only to close it.

Was there anything he could’ve done? He was only seventeen. It wasn’t like he could raise her all on his own. He’d already known that this was going to happen sooner or later.

He just wasn’t aware that it would still hurt like a even after all this time.

His eyes burn, but he doesn’t cry. He can’t cry. Nodding slowly, he excuses himself. The two CPS staff call after him, but he doesn’t turn around. He could finally leave. But at the cost of what?

###

“Dude, I thought you said you couldn’t make it tonight.”

Around him, the disco lights spin, leaving patterns of color swirling on the walls.

Trap music is blaring, and it feels like the entire house is vibrating from the heavily boosted bass.

Everyone is either drunk or high—maybe a mixture of in-between.

Baekhyun smiles easily. He takes the beer bottle from his friend. “I changed my mind,” he answers, holding up the beer.

Hendery clinks his own bottle against his. “Well, you’re always welcome here, my guy. Enjoy the night, okay?”

He nods, knowing fully that he was only there to get ed up. After a couple of beers, he was feeling a little warm. Chanyeol texted him that he would be late to the party, but it didn’t matter to Baekhyun.

He already had people around him. He wasn’t alone. A quarter to midnight, Baekhyun was so out of his ing mind that he didn’t even know who he was making out with.

tasted like cherry, and he didn’t really have a taste for cherry. So, he pushed her off of him, telling her to get lost. He heard her swear at him before she disappeared down the hallway in an angry blur of movements. His mind was teetering into too many places for him to care about her feelings.

He stumbles outside shortly after, suddenly needing air. The cold breeze of the night sticks to him, and he shivers. It’s quiet outside, only a faint echo of the loud music thumping from the front door.

Baekhyun lifts his head, his eyes falling onto the moon. There was a full moon tonight. He laughs like a lunatic, losing his balance.

He falls onto the lawn—a seemingly hard fall, but nothing hurts anymore. He can’t feel it.

When he lifts his head, he sees the blurry figure of someone—a girl. “Come on, Baekhyun. Get up.”

Her voice is distinctly familiar. He scrutinizes her until it hits him. “Oh, it’s just you,” he says dryly.

Noeul’s laugh is goodhearted. She bends down to sit beside him. “Don’t sound so bitter.”

She’s acting differently like she’s forgotten all about his words earlier today.

But then again, he’s a different person than he was this afternoon.

Baekhyun’s head spins. He almost falls over, despite him sitting cross-legged. Noeul jumps to rescue, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. His body is pressed against hers. He inhales, humming pleasantly. She really does smell like marshmallows.

He decides to burrow his nose into her neck, seeing that they were already touching anyway. Noeul surprisingly doesn’t shove his face into the dirt.

“Why are you even here?” Baekhyun asks, suddenly wondering how she seemingly appeared out of thin air when his senses come trickling back to him.

Noeul laughs to herself, and he can feel it rumble on his cheeks. “I saw you laughing like an idiot. You looked like you were going to fall.”

Well, he did fall.

He closes his eyes, feeling somewhat safe enough to let down his guard. “Why do you answer my questions without answering them?”

“Funnily enough, I’m Hendery’s neighbor.”

“How’s that funny?”

“You’re so particular for someone impaired.”

Baekhyun decides that she fits nicely beside him, and he’d really like to stay just a little bit longer. “I’m drunk, not stupid.”

“I never called you stupid.”

“What do you really know about me, doll?”

“Absolutely nothing,” she counters, deciding to play along.

“Does it bother you?”

He feels her eyes on him. He pulls away, just a tad, to meet her eyes. She’s really looking at him. Like he’s someone fascinating.

“Don’t question it. Don’t get to know me.”

Noeul and Baekhyun stare at each other in silence. She’s deciphering his words, and there’s something in her eyes that makes him wonder if she understands why he said it.

Was he being a hypocrite? Sure, he was. Was he hoping that she would do the opposite? Baekhyun didn’t want to answer the question because he’d known all too well what he wanted despite logistics and all that crap.

“Look,” Noeul says, pointing to the sky.

With light pollution, only a couple of stars are visible in the sky. But the moon made its presence deliberate. Full and round, shining down on them. Down on Noeul. Bathed in the moonlight, she made him slightly breathless.

“I want to take a bite out of it,” she murmurs, “how do you think it tastes?”

He glances back to the moon. “Unpalatable.”

“Out of reach,” she says.

“It’s four-hundred times smaller than the sun. The sun is about one-point-four million kilometers across.”

Noeul shakes her head. “I’m sorry—are you seriously spouting facts about astronomy right now?”

He laughs. “Shut up.”

She nudges him. “No, I want to hear what you have to say.”

“The biggest star that we know is seventeen-hundred times larger than the sun.”

“What’s it called?”

“UY Scuti,” he answers, “it’s the biggest star in the milky way. But the milky way is only one out of the other one-to-two billion galaxies.”

Noeul’s eyes are bright as she silently waits for him to continue. Like she really wants to hear his drunken ramblings.

“Scientists have theorized that there may be multiverses, which means that in just one—there could be several billion galaxies.”

She’s holding her breath for whatever reason. Baekhyun watches her, wondering what she’s thinking.

“So what I mean to say is,” he says, “it helps me cope when I put it into perspective. The fact that our problems really only make up an infinitesimal amount of this world.”

Noeul grins, and then, she looks away, her eyes focusing on the moon above them. Sometime during the next minute, she interlaces her fingers with his. “Thank you,” she murmurs, squeezing his hand.

Baekhyun isn’t sure why she thanked him. He was only trying to convince himself that he would be okay tomorrow. That the day after the next, he could find some other reason to keep living.