When I open my eyes, I realize I had fallen asleep for some time. And for the first time in a long while, I had been dreaming of something. There was a vast expanse of stars above me as I stood on top of a hill. It wasn't just an ordinary hill but one that rose remarkably high and magnificently round. Round like a ball. The ground was dark and formless, no light or cities or any sign of civilization. I couldn't make out any details at all. It was probably the middle of summer and I could hear the cicadas chiming around, like Paganini's violin concerto. There are a lot of them. They are tremendously virtuosic, the air ricocheting, vibrating a million beats per minute. There's nothing else I could see but the night sky above. There's no moon, only stars. Billions of them, specks of magical faerie dust straight from a children's book. I could see the constellations and the galaxies painted before me, splashes of colour and light, churning and glistening, orchestrated by a greater power. They wrap around me, as if I am standing at the epitome of the earth, within a cascade of a great celestial waterfall, dancing on a black Stygian canal all the way to the horizon, where tinted black collides with pitch black. If I raise my hands up I might feel stars sprinkle over my palm.

I had never before seen so many stars in my life. Or perhaps I had forgotten. But looking up transports me to a different world where consciousness seems to reflect and reinterpret into pigments and spectrums, electromagnetism, infrareds and ultraviolets, gamma rays, microwaves, condensing into white hot orbs of energy; and then all joining up into conversation with one another. Each takes on a specific frequency and a unique hue. But I am merely an outsider, spectating a sports game at a stadium. I have no light of my own, I am part of the dark earth below. I begin to envy the stars which seem to laugh, elated, ecstatic, while I look on. When I look more carefully, I find Deneb, Altair and Vega. The summer triangle and the meeting of Orihime and Hikoboshi in Japanese mythology. The two deities are separated by the Milky Way, destined only to rendezvous once a year. It must be the Tanabata Festival.

I hear a voice but it is so soft I can't make out what it said or who it was. It almost sounds like a cat's meow, or some kind of timid animal. Somehow I can't turn around to look for the source: I am bound to the celestial bodies above. When the voice passes again, I strain to listen. It's like listening to something in the wind, barely above a whisper. I must have said something, because there comes a reply, more defined now, telling me to lie down. It vaguely resembles Shizuka's voice but I can't be sure if it's her.

I lie down but all I see is the sky. Even as I feel a pair of soft, gentle hands, warm fingers along my chest, I can't see who it is.

"The universe moves in predefined ways."

"Yes." I say.

I feel her hands slip lower and start to unbutton my jeans. The grass underneath is cool and brushes my skin. I can imagine this to be an enormous paintbrush that we are laying on.

"Do you see," her voice breathes against my ear, "that one there?"

I strain to see which one she's talking about. "Which one?"

"One after another, they blink out of existence." The movements as she climbs over me are strangely natural and a sense of calm fills me. As if this is right. As if this is what happens every night, only I had never remembered it. "One moment they're there, the next they're gone."

"Kind of like people. Some just disappear."

"Precisely. Of course, to us so far away, they appear to be eternal bodies. They shine now in front of us it seems, but yet they are truly billions or trillions of light years away. When one blinks out of existence, when one comes into being, by the time we see it, they have already gone." Her hair grazes my neck and I suck in air. "It's funny, isn't it, it's like time travel. We're looking at history, ancient prehistoric history. The record of something that had ceased to exist."

She puts both of her tiny palms on my chest. "You see, the stars are just little parts of a bigger cosmos. They must follow certain rules. When they try to break them, they will be punished. They just exist to do what they've always done and always will do. They're just part of one moment. The universe," her breath catches as she feels how hard I am, "is always in control."

"What's the universe? Is it a consciously thinking entity? Does it have intent and desire?"

"It flows and encompasses all, it will fill all the cracks and holes eventually, like water." I still can't see her or recognize who it is. All I see is the stars.

"So resisting is futile."

"Resisting and succumbing... they are merely words without much meaning. Both are needed, in order for either to exist. There is no surrender if there is no resistance. There is no happiness without sadness. There is no love without hate. There is no light without darkness. There is no," I finally seem to be able to move. I reach up to touch her but I can't find her. "Don't do that," she says. "There's rules that you want to break but even if you succeed, you still abide by another set of rules."

"I don't understand."

"You will."

"How?"

She doesn't reply. As if she doesn't know how to. She takes my hand and brings it somewhere. I don't know where at first. I seem to be reaching farther and farther into shadows. Then my fingers touch something wet and warm.

"This moment will be gone the next."

I don't seem to have any control over my body anymore as my fingers slip inside, sucked in, probing and exploring. They get sticky and there is barely any friction. Soon, I notice that it feels much more cavernous and more bottomless inside than I had imagined. All of a sudden something strange happens and my entire body also seems to be drawn in, encased in wet warm fluid and soft flesh, like a tunnel, or the mouth of a leviathan swallowing me whole. There is a tremendous force pushing me onwards. I try to resist and struggle but to no avail. It is like trying to defy gravity.

The further I am pulled, the more painful it becomes. It isn't the kind of pain if I were to suffocate or drown but there is a powerful ache in my chest, under my ribcage. A colossal pressure begins to well up inside, bloating my chest. Something is trying to break free. Something within me cracking the shell around it. I realize in horror that I can no longer contain it within its cage where it rightfully belongs. Whatever it is, it's getting squeezed out of me. Whatever monstrosity is trying to seek release is what I fear the most.

I only sink deeper and eventually, I can see no more.

"This moment will be gone the next," she says again from somewhere far away.

I wake up before I could find out who it had been or what had been breaking free. I don't just wake up calmly; I wake up sweating, heart pounding, breath short, as if I had just run a marathon. The bedsheets are soaked and so are my clothes. My vision doesn't quite focus at first - everything is blurry. I have forgotten where I am and what had happened. It all takes a while but finally, I make out the form of Shirayuki sitting next to me. She's leaning over, peering down at my face.

"Well, looks like you're awake, sleepyhead."

"How long did I sleep?"

"It's twelve something now, at night. You slept for a good five hours."

I sit up. And rub my eyes. I can hear the same ambient jazz dribbling through the room. My head throbs. Then I realize she is naked. I can see the perks of her small breasts, the flat stomach all too clearly. Without glasses, she looks a lot more mature and her eyes take on a different sheen. It might be the dim psychedelic lighting. She must have finished showering, slipped into bed next to me without me knowing.

"Put on some clothes."

She pouts. "But it looks like you need some relief." She leans closer and says pointedly, looking at crotch. I feel my face grow warm.

"Listen," I swallow, "I don't know why you're here, I didn't ask you to come with me. If there's some way for me to find what I'm looking for and get you back to where you belong, tell me. I just needed a place to stay, out of reach."

"You don't like me. Am I ugly or something?" I see her eyes water.

"Look, you're some sort of ghost – concept - and you're seventeen."

"That makes it easier though, doesn't it? Don't men have these fantasies in their head anyway?"

I blush again when I recall the dream I had.

"Or do you think about someone specific? Someone you're seeing?"

I remain silent.

"There's someone that you think about, that's why. You can be honest with me. I can tell."

Somewhere within, in my chest, I feel that bloating sensation again. It tries to wash through me, wearing me down with its tides. Then there is that same pain echoing through my nerves.

"You won't do it with me because there is someone who pervades your thoughts every moment of the day, and even your dreams. You wonder if she's fine, what she's doing, where she is. And without her, there is an empty hollow in your body. You know that you can't fill it up no matter how you try."

She puts on my t-shirt. It's too large for her, hanging over her thighs. "You know, people are really simple sometimes. They think they're all that, they think they're special but they're the same. There's something built into everyone, an inward desire that seeks those little things. You aren't exactly going to save the world by being with this girl but it's all that matters eventually."

I drink from the bottle of water. Then I strip down to my boxers in front of her. She stares at me. I stare at her for a while. I head to the bathroom.