“Ja-jan!” Hakyeon announced as he pulled open the door.

A beat of silence prefaced Wonsik’s response, “What am I looking at?”

“It’s Leo’s room!” Hakyeon replied brightly, though his grin dimmed a notch or two.

Wonsik raised an eyebrow at the unimpressive attempt to ‘give Leo some privacy.’ Their options had been limited from the start, considering all of his roommates double-roomed except for him, but the linen closet had never been on the list of possibilities. With the shelves removed, the space appeared bigger, but the idea of putting Leo in there made Wonsik uneasy.

“Look.” Hakyeon reached for one of the little plastic dinosaurs sitting on the left behind shelf support. “Hyukkie donated this one!”

“You left the towels behind,” Wonsik pointed out, but Hakyeon swatted his hand as soon as he raised it.

“Those are curtains, Wonsikkie,” Hakyeon scolded as he set the tiny dinosaur back on its perch.

Right. Curtains nailed right into the wall. His roommates must have done that when Wonsik went off to work and may have even recruited Leo’s help to do so. Beside the towels-come-curtains hung a string of cherry-sized white lights that illuminated a blank canvas. A marker sat on top and, once more, when Wonsik reached for it, Hakyeon smacked his hand.

“His room isn’t messy yet, so don’t touch it!” His roommate shook his head.

“Are you saying I’m dirty?” Wonsik shouted, though couldn’t hold back his smile.

Honestly, Leo’s little room made Wonsik’s look shabby by comparison, considering the endless number of snapbacks he left laying around.

Before Hakyeon could answer, Hongbin shouted up the stairs, “Ah! He’s coming up! I can’t— He’s too strong!”

With a shout, Hakyeon slammed the door shut, nearly catching Wonsik’s hand in the process, but the two managed to position themselves in front of the door before Leo’s head appeared above the last stair. The STARLIGHT must have heard them arguing and assumed some kind of danger, for the crease at his browed seemed especially deep.

“Everything’s okay, Leo.” Hakyeon again with his sixth sense stepped forward to pat the robot on the arm, but Leo didn’t acknowledge him.

Instead, his dark gaze fixed on Wonsik, eyes searching, though Wonsik didn’t know what for. Wonsik furrowed his eyebrows and reached out to Leo’s shoulder, but the robot pulled away and his fingers dusted the gray sweatshirt instead. Before he could ask anything, Hongbin groaned dramatically from the top of the stairs.

“He’s so fast,” Hongbin panted, leaning on his knees.

Leo didn’t look behind him at Hongbin’s antics, instead he looked somewhere off into the distance between Wonsik and the door labeled ‘Leo’ in bright glittering letters. Once more, Wonsik extended his arm, but the STARLIGHT stepped away again.

“Do you want to see what we made you?” Hakyeon attempted to break the tension, though he too sounded weighted down.

After a couple blinks, Leo nodded, almost trancelike. Wonsik wanted to call Hakyeon off, but Hongbin had already pushed the STARLIGHT from behind toward the door. Maybe Leo was having a bad day. Did robots have those? Or did they just wake up in the same perfect state? Regardless of the reason, though,something was off and usually Hakyeon handled Leo’s distress. Pushing the STARLIGHT toward the door only seemed to make Leo more stiff, more… afraid?

“Hey—“ Wonsik began.

“It’s your room, Leo-hyung!” Hakyeon announced with unnecessary spectacle. “We all put something in to make it more cozy. See, Hyukkie gave you one of his dinosaurs!”

His roommate offered out the little plastic figurine to the STARLIGHT, but Leo didn’t return the gesture or hold up his hands to accept the toy. Though Hakyeon’s smile lost its glimmer, he continued with whatever preconceived plan he cooked up and placed the little dinosaur back on the metal shelf support.

“And Hongbin took the pictures!” Hakyeon gingerly pulled a polaroid from the wall, the tape crackling as he tugged it free.

How Wonsik missed the polaroids on his first look in the closet, he wasn’t sure, but now he could see the light playing across their glossy surfaces like the moon on a snowy day. Like before, Hakyeon held the polaroid, but Leo didn’t take it and instead continued his vacant staring. The dim smile of before dissolved into a thin-lipped line of worry on Hakyeon’s face. Nodding, he carefully pressed the polaroid back to its place.

“Do you want to go sit down?” Wonsik finally got the chance to speak and curled his fingers around Leo’s wrist.

To his surprise, the STARLIGHT didn’t shake free of it or try to step away. Leo breathed out slowly before nodding, leaving his head bowed down when finished.

“Leo?” Hakyeon asked and soon Hongbin followed suit.

The three of them stood around the STARLIGHT, who somehow shrunk with every moment of the intense attention. Too many must have passed, for Leo pulled his wrist free and nodded again before he stepped into the linen closet. Before any of them could join him or make any sort of remark, Leo closed the door with a snap. Wonsik reached for the doorknob. His fingers brushed cold metal when he heard the telltale click of the lock. As Hakyeon stepped forward to do the same, Wonsik held out a hand.

“Let him be,” Wonsik advised, though his own doubt made his heart want to fall through the floor. After all, they made the extra room for a reason, right?

—

Fifteen minutes of Leo-less existence and already Wonsik had been looking up at the stairs, silently wishing the STARLIGHT would come down. By two hours and the fiftieth text from Hakyeon, Wonsik couldn’t take it anymore. Hakyeon had left for work and Hongbin for some kind of artsy club; only he and Leo remained. While Wonsik didn’t want to infringe on Leo’s newfound privacy, his worry overtook any lingering questions when he thought he heard crying. Without a moment’s hesitation, he vaulted over the couch and bolted up the stairs. If anyone had been crying, Wonsik’s noisy approach had silenced them. Still, he didn’t want to take any chances. He rapped his knuckles gently against Leo’s door, just beneath the hideous sign.

“Leo, can I come in?” He asked, unsure of what the answer might be.

Silence followed. A silence so heavy Wonsik could count every beat of his heart as it boiled in his chest. The click that broke it sounded more beautiful than the call of any canary, though Wonsik felt he had wandered into an expansive labyrinth of a coal mine. Rather than wait for Leo to open the door (or lock it again), Wonsik tugged it open, revealing a kneeling, red-faced Leo. As soon as Leo realized the door had opened, he hid his face away underneath his bangs and sat down on the collection of blankets Jaehwan must have donated.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Wonsik didn’t hesitate in joining the STARLIGHT in the linen closet and pulled the door shut behind him.

The string of lights overhead illuminated little of Leo’s face but he did at least look up when the door clicked shut; all Wonsik could make out was the furrow of his brow that spoke of confusion.

“I’m sorry.” Leo’s voice barely reached Wonsik’s ears though he strained to hear every breath from the STARLIGHT.

“Huh?” Wonsik frowned, folding his hands in his lap in an attempt to still their shaking. “What for? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Leo blinked up at Wonsik in the most candid expression he had ever seen on the former. For a moment, Leo seemed somehow quite young, like a child though his gaze never lost the sharp edges Wonsik knew it by. Something bright that Wonsik had only caught glimpses of before now lingered behind the shadows in Leo’s eyes.

“Did you think…” Wonsik looked around for a clue and his words fell short when he spotted the ink already smeared across the canvas.

Black stretched from edge to edge in rough in a pattern he didn’t immediately notice. Lines hatched across each other heavily in some areas, but much lighter in others, leaving hundreds of tiny dots of winking up at them from the expanse of ink. Wonsik forced himself to look back at Leo, who continued to watch him with that wide, almost innocent, fire in his eyes.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Wonsik said again, but he didn’t know where to go from there. “Really. We like you. That’s why we made all this for you.”

Something washed through Leo, leaving the STARLIGHT more relaxed than before. His shoulders rested more easily, his posture softened, and it took Wonsik a long moment to recognize the subtle changes as Leo’s version of relief.

“Did you think you did?” Sure, the one-sided conversations could be frustrating, but Wonsik could hardly complain about such a thing.

Another silence, but this one didn’t panic Wonsik as much. At least, he could feel Leo’s warmth seeping through the combined two layers of their sweatshirts rather than standing on the other side of a door. Here, Wonsik could wait as long as needed for an answer.

“Yes,” Leo whispered, turning away from Wonsik to look at the blackened canvas.

Wonsik followed his gaze and stepped carefully with his next question, “Are those stars?”

Leo nodded, tucking his knees up to his chest and curling his arms around them.

“That means you’re on here, right?” Wonsik glanced over at Leo briefly, only to take in the STARLIGHT’s shuttered expression. “The constellation, I mean.”

Another nod.

“Can you show me how to find it?”

Another silence. Wonsik could wait. He leaned toward the canvas to try on his own, fingers gingerly drawing imaginary lines between the dots in his attempt. As he turned to ask again, soft hands closed around his own. Gently, Leo guided Wonsik’s fingers so his pointer stopped at a particularly large dot.

“Polaris,” Leo narrated, drawing Wonsik’s fingertips across the ink. “Ursa Major.”

The Big Dipper. Okay, Wonsik should have been able to find that one on his own, but he had never been much of a stargazer. From the two outer stars of the Big Dipper, Leo led Wonsik’s fingers to a strange sickle-like formation of dots then outlined the shape of a body.

“Leo the lion.” Leo whispered, releasing one of Wonsik’s hands to trail lower to what he guessed might be another constellation. “Virgo.”

“Do you know a Virgo?” Wonsik asked, tracing the imaginary lines until his fingers brushed against Leo’s again.

They shook, those soft and delicate fingers did, like leaves in the first winds of winter, like an animal looking for shelter. Wonsik quickly rescinded his question, “You don’t have to tell me. Remember? I want you to do what you want to do. Be Leo.”

That same candid expression of before, all wide eyes and bright innocence, lit up Leo’s face.

“I mean it.” Wonsik nodded, trying to convey as much sincerity as he possibly could.

The edges of Leo’s mouth quirked and soothed at least a small measure of the burning worry in Wonsik’s chest.

“And you can sleep wherever you want,” Wonsik couldn’t stop himself from wanting to reassure the STARLIGHT. “If you don’t like it, you don’t have to stay here. My room’s got space. No one else will mind either.”

“I thought…” Leo spoke without being prompted and Wonsik must have showed his surprise, for the STARLIGHT stopped speaking as soon as he started.

“No, no, go ahead.” Wonsik smiled. “If you want to.”

Leo nodded and went quiet again. More silence filled the space between them and the STARLIGHT sat back against the wall, pulling his hands free of Wonsik’s. They seemed strangely empty without Leo’s touch.

“Later?” Wonsik asked, working to keep his smile up.

After a beat of hesitation, Leo nodded, turning back toward Wonsik.

This time, the flicker of warmth behind Leo’s gaze didn’t die out.

“Thank you.”

Wonsik nodded and leaned back to sit against the wall as well, stretching an arm to curl around Leo’s shoulders. The STARLIGHT didn’t shy away.

Honestly, Wonsik didn’t notice the return of his roommates until Hakyeon tugged open the door and shouted an excited, “They’re in Leo’s room!”

//AN: Again, thank you for such wonderful comments! Sorry this one wasn't as cheerful!