Chapter 3: a thousand stars
"How old are you?"
It had been around five days since Jiu had let May help him, and she felt as if she was getting no where. She knew nothing about the boy except his physical appearance and the fact that he was so eager to kill himself.
"You're still a stranger to me," Jiu 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…"
Jiu stayed quiet. "Fair point." He sighed, "Twenty." May smiled in victory, happy that she had gotten him to tell her his age.
"So," she said. "You're a year older than me. Interesting."
"It's not like it matters though," he mumbled. "It's just a stupid number." The boy scoffed and stared at the ground they were walking 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.
"You seem to get angry easily," she said, "like you hate everyone and 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 watched him walk with his head down, his hair disheveled, but he didn't seem to care enough to fix it. His eyes were still the same—blank. She didn't know what he was thinking, and it scared her.
He cleared his throat, "You seem to be happy," he said. "You must have a nice life."
"I don't."
May stopped walking and looked at him with the same look he had given her countless of times in the past five days. "I don't have a nice life and I'm not happy."
Jiu turned around to look at her. "Then why do you smile when you aren't?" he said quietly. "Why should you pretend you're something you're not?"
May's eyes were blank, but if he had looked 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."
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May didn't know where she was going. In fact, she didn't care as she walked for what seemed like miles beside Jiu. 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; he still wasn't able to bring himself to trust her.
She answered his questions too, though they weren't many—but still. 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.
But that didn't change anything—she was still a stranger to Jiu and that didn't plan to change any time soon.
May looked up. "Look," she said, pointing a finger towards the sky with a smile on her face. "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 in the atmosphere." May nodded.
"It's been a while since I went stargazing," she said, more to herself than Jiu.
"You used to stargaze?" he asked, suprised. Of course she did, he thought.
May nodded again, "I used to go 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 kept smiling. She wasn't going to cry, not after she had promised him she wouldn't.
But even so, it still hurt her to think about him—her beloved brother.
"I do," she said, turning to Jiu 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 Jiu stared at her. The way she had said her last sentence—quietly, sadly—it made him wonder, What exactly happened to her brother? But he wouldn't ask. Instead, he shook his head. I don't care about her life, he thought. Stop trying to make me pity you.
But deep down, Jiu knew what he thought was a lie.
"Wanna count the stars?" May suddenly asked, smiling. "It'll be fun."
"But aren't there thousands of them?"
She laughed, "There of billions of them, Jiu," 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 stars, Jiu would've been lying if he had said he didn't feel some sort of connection with this… this stranger. He could feel it, as if the universe had brought him to her 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. Jiu 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, brother, she thought, wiping her tears from her face. I want to cry for you, but I can't. Will it be okay if I do just this once?
Daejung?
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dyphaegrayi
dyphaegrayi but to wither is to be broken,
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