A THOUSAND STARS,

"How old are you?"

It had been around five days since Yeonjun had let May help him, and she felt as if she were getting nowhere. She knew nothing about the boy aside from his physical appearance and the fact that he was so eager to kill himself.

"You're still a stranger to me," Yeonjun said, stuffing his hands in his pockets as they walked down the empty streets. It was around six in the afternoon and the sun had started to set.

"You wouldn't know my name if I was a stranger," May said. "And you know my name, so..."

Yeonjun stayed quiet. "Fair point," he said, sighing afterward. "Twenty." May smiled in victory, happy that she'd finally started to make some progress.

"So," she said. "You're a year older than me. Interesting."

"It's not like that matters," he mumbled. "It's just a stupid number." Yeonjun scoffed and stared at the ground they walked on. She was quiet, thinking of what he had said and how he had said it — it was almost as if he was angry at his age, though it was something he couldn't control.

"You get angry easily," she said, thinking out loud. "It's like you hate everything, even the simplest of things."

"I don't get angry easily," he said. "I just have a lot of things I'm angry at." May glanced at him as he walked with his head down, his hair disheveled, but he didn't seem to care enough to fix it. His eyes were still the same as before. She couldn't tell what he was thinking, and it scared her. He cleared his throat, "You seem to be happy though," he said, attempting to change the topic. "Must be nice."

"I'm not."

May stopped walking and looked at him with the same look he had given her countless of times in the past five days. "I'm not very happy, Yeonjun."

He too stopped walking and turned to face her. "But you pretend to be," he said quietly. "Why should you pretend you're something you're not?"

May's eyes were blank, but if he had looked any closer, he could see a small light in them. "Because I'd rather do this than accept my truth," she said. "I'd like to think that maybe once in a while, I can be happy too."

• • •

May didn't know where she was going. In fact, she didn't care as she walked for what seemed like miles beside Yeonjun. He didn't seem to care either, considering how he had still stayed with her even though he had many opportunities to leave.

The girl continued to ask her questions and the boy answered them — hesitantly, of course. He was careful not to reveal too much about himself to May. A part of him wanted to be completely honest, yet the other just couldn't bring itself to trust her. She didn't blame him, though.

She answered his questions too, though they weren't many and were simple and brief. At least he was curious enough to ask, she thought.

It was cold that night as they walked farther, and the farther they walked, the more comfortable they felt around each other. May looked up. "Look," she said, pointing a finger towards the sky. "You can see the stars from here."

He looked up as well, a small smile tugging on his lips. "It's nice," he said. "You usually can't see them because of all the pollution." May nodded.

"It's been a while since I went stargazing," she said, more to herself than to Yeonjun.

"You used to stargaze?" he asked, surprised. Of course she did, he thought.

May nodded again, "I used to, with my brother," she said quietly. "On the roof of our house. We would borrow our mother's telescope in the middle of the night and look for planets in the stars."

"You have a brother?"

She felt tears filling her eyes, but smiled nonetheless. She predicted this would happen, but she didn't expect it to happen so soon. She wasn't going to cry, not after she had promised him she wouldn't. Even so, it still hurt her to think about him — her beloved brother.

"I do," she said, turning to Yeonjun with a bright smile. "A younger brother. I haven't seen him in a while, though."

"Must be nice to have siblings," he mumbled. "At least you weren't alone growing up."

Don't cry, May. You can do it. Just don't cry. "Yeah," she said. She was getting tired of smiling. "I hope I see him again some day."

May stopped talking after that and Yeonjun stared at her. The way she had said her last sentence — quietly, sadly — made everything click. He wanted to ask, just to make sure that his thoughts were correct, but held back, now aware of how sensitive of a topic her brother seemed to be. It reminded him of the way he felt about his mother.

"Wanna count the stars?" May asked suddenly. "It'll be fun."

"But there's a lot."

She chuckled, "There's billions of them, Yeonjun," she said. "More than we could ever count, actually. But it'll be fun for us — let's challenge them." As they sat on the curb of the street, all alone in the darkness counting the stars, Yeonjun would've been lying if he had said he didn't feel some sort of connection with May. He could feel it, as if the universe had brought her to him on purpose.

He turned towards her, watching her mouth numbers with her finger pointed towards them. A tear rolled down her cheek, but she didn't seem to notice it as she kept her eyes focused on the stars. Yeonjun looked away and started counting as well.

But May did notice, and soon she had realized that she had broken her promise. I'm sorry, she thought, wiping her tears from her face. I want to cry for you, but I can't. I promised I wouldn't. Still, would it be okay if I did? Just this once?

Beomgyu?