I can see you gaze outside of the small window of the hospital room at night, searching the dark skies for a light that will save us. It’s okay. I know that you know, deep down, that the probability of seeing a shooting star in this concrete jungle is close to zero, and even then, everything is conditional. I would rather see your face smiling at me than have to watch your frail back as your shoulders shake in small, barely noticeable oscillations. Turn around, Seulgi. The night sky is beautiful, but I know that’s not why you stare out into the open with glazed eyes and clasp your hands like you’re an anchor to yourself.

There was a time once, I think you remember too, that we saw one of them, a shooting star, and we closed our eyes and brought our small, chubby hands to our lips in solemnity as we prayed. I know I wished for an ice cream truck. You still haven’t told me what you wished for, because you said it would bring bad luck. I hope you wished for an ice cream truck too.

Did you know that stars are hundreds of light years away? Sometimes they die before we can see them disappear, and it takes those hundreds of light years to finally recognize that they no longer shine in our wide, wide sky as we had hoped them to. Even the stars die, Seulgi. They are so far away and they die without us even knowing. In the grand scheme of things, we’re tiny microcosms fighting for a chance to be in this vast universe for even a millisecond longer