Gliding off tanned shoulders, the slightly off-white shirt fell quietly onto the carpeted floorboards. Already bare feet walked themselves over to the inviting, half-heartedly made, double bed. The boys figure, covered with only the thin blue fabric of his boxers, slid himself under the covers and stared up.

"Do you see the stars?" Kai said aloud, eyes staring up at his bedroom ceiling. "Kyungsoo, do you see them shining?" He asked the boy he could sense lying by his side.

"I see," The others chocolate caramel voice came as a familiar pleasure to Kai's ears. "They shine just for you here."

Kai liked stars; stars like sprinkles of white paint over black paper; stars providing limited light in a consuming dark night; stars as the centre of faraway galaxies and as the centre of his dreams. Kai loved Kyungsoo; his presence alone a warming to Kai's heart; his voice like a melody to Kai's ears; his touch felt as a comforting pleasure wave to Kai's skin and his love held Kai's whole world together.

"How long do you think it would take to count them?" The question floated from the younger's lips in a wondering tone.

"Forever," Came the unwavering reply to Kai's ears only.

"Then count them with me."

"Why?" Kai heard Kyungsoo's confusion and felt him shifting slightly under the covers.

"Because it will take forever," Kai replied like the meaning was as clear as the smooth, delicate skin of the others body.

Silence was held as Kyungsoo's reply, the tune spreading through the room until Kai allowed it to play no longer.

"I want to be next to you forever." Kai let his feeling pour out as wine from bottle to glass, and handed the glass over to his lover like so many times before. Kai remembered all the times the two of them had sat under the stars, drink in hand so all painful feelings could be washed away by the liquid, leaving only love for one another remaining.

"How long is forever?"

"Until even after the world ends and times stops."

Kim Jongin and Do Kyungsoo, forever counting stars until even after time ends and there are no more stars in the ruins around them, around their fallen world. Kai loves the dream to be by the love of his life always, being never alone so much that Kai felt Kyungsoo's hand brush his. Kai felt a trancing feeling over him as he felt Kyungsoo's hand take his and their fingers intertwined.

"Kim Jongin and Do Kyungsoo, star counters in love." Kai heard a giggle in his lovers caramel voice as he said the words in his own mind.

"Star counters in love..." The younger's lips mouthed the words, barely letting out a whisper. "Has a nice sound to it I think" The boy stated, pushing back a blond lock of hair threatening to move and tickle his face.

"The stars are beautiful." Kai could feel Kyungsoo's eyes on him watching the stars twinkle and not the stars themselves.

Lips curved in a smile before speaking in reply saying: "Your eyes have stars in them Kyungsoo."

"Then look at my stars not the others."

The blond haired boy laughed but did as he heard the instructions, turning over on his side to see Kyungsoo laying facing him. His eyes really did have stars in them to Kai; he said Kyungsoo's orbs held his whole universe so of course there would be stars.

"I see a shooting star."

"Make a wish."

Kai wished that their love would never end and it would always connect them together no matter what.

Kai smiled softly, drowning his gaze into his lover’s stars.

"What did you wish?"

"I can't say, that would ruin it,"

Kai let out an amused chuckle upon hearing his black haired boy sigh in defeat.

"I love you Kyungsoo." It felt like the sweet wine's last few drops slid down their throats all over again, another repeating the words and feelings of the first time they confessed to each other.

"I love you Kai."

"You are my stars."

"I love you Kai."

"You are my world."

"I love you Kai."

"You are my whole universe."

"I love you."

Again and again the sequence of words from when the first bottles of wine were emptied and mouths slurring speech, speaking without second thoughts.

Kai resumed the play of silence, letting it fill the room comfortable as the two turned to lay on their backs again, hands meeting in the space between their bodies on the mattress. In his vision the stars formed the lines of Kyungsoo's name. Kai was unaware of how much time passed in a stillness that would have captured the image of their love beautifully if only there was no factors missing.

"Can you really see the stars?" Kai questioned, not accusingly but worryingly.

"Of course, I see what you want me to."

Kai narrowed his eyes, there seemed to be a fair number less stars than before, he could see more black and the white spots slowly seemed to be more spread out.

Kai felt his body's need to change position and curl up in the cosy sheets but he refused it the luxury.

"We have something planned for tomorrow..." Kai's realistic thoughts began to surface. "What was it again?"

"Funeral,"

"A funeral?," Kai was left in confusion, unable to think of who's funeral they would need to go to as no friends of family of ether had died.

"Yes."

"Are you sure?" Kai was bound in slowly rising worry and a cloud of confusion he failed to notice his stars had left his vision completely.

"Yes."

"Who's?"

"Mine."

Kyungsoo's funeral, dated tomorrow. Reality hit Kai like a brick. He could no longer feel his lover’s body warmth, no longer sense his presence; Kai's stars had gone; Kai's stars had died.

Kim Jongin and Do Kyungsoo, forever counting stars until even time ends and there are no stars in the ruins around them, around their fallen world.

Kim Jongin, counting imaginary stars with the unaccepted reality that Do Kyungsoo had died and he had nothing but memories and imagination.

Kim Jongin, counting stars until even when he lives in the past because his lover’s starry eyes are shut forever and his reality is ruins around him.

Like the past weeks after Kyungsoo's death, the blond's realization after breaking out of a fake happiness threw him so far into the pit of depression he couldn't even cry; He was so empty he failed to even get one salty drop to leak from an eye. Even when all he wanted was to be able to tear up and scream and shout it wasn't fair, it wasn't meant to turn out like this, he was left staring at his ceiling feeling nothing but cold nothingness as if a part of his soul had been taken.

Kai's always disliked harsh reality; Kai preferred to live in a world ideal to him that he visualized; Kai tried to fit his fictional dreams into the real world but it ended up backfiring.

He pushed away the tragic truth that his lover was terminally ill from day one and went into denial after his death until the day of the funeral; the day of Do Kyungsoo's funeral was the day Kai stopped dreaming, stopped living, stopped breathing, because he thought maybe even if they could no longer look up at the stars together then they could actually be part of the stars together for others to look up at.