Work Text:
she's never cared much for astronomy. the stars were little dots in the sky that sometimes made shapes if you connect them the right way, the planets in faraway galaxies that she cannot imagine ever seeing with her own two eyes. whatever exists in outer space is beyond her scope of the world, and she cares no more than to memorize the order of the planets and what stars make up the dippers.
jiwoo's tried to reach for the stars, once, when she was little and standing on top of her roof with her dad. she stretched her little arms up over her head, fingers trying to grasp onto the specks of light in the sky, before almost slipping and feels her father pull her back up into his lap. that's when she realized how impossible it was to hold the stars in her hands.
her interests were things that existed on the same planet as her. all her friends stand right beside her here on planet earth, loves and appreciates every second she can spend with the most important people in her life. she doesn't have to bother with things that are out of this world when everything she needs is right here, in arm's reach. there's no risk in that.
that is, until she bumps into ha sooyoung, a shooting star that falls from out of nowhere and enters her orbit, now a constant in her solar system.
("it didn't hurt, did it?"
"what, when i fell from heaven?"
"no—when you fell for me.")
when sooyoung walks past her and smiles, jiwoo sees stars. but like the stars, sooyoung, too, is out of her reach.
jiwoo sees sooyoung surrounded by people constantly. there's no surprise there, as soon as jungeun tells her about how popular she is, she can see it all for herself. she's got acquaintances in every class, is on every teacher's good side, there's no one that doesn't stop to say hi to ha sooyoung. jiwoo, for the life of her, wishes she could do the same but cold feet and a face that turns beet red stop her every time.
it's not like she could really compete with everyone else, either. she's just kim jiwoo, an average freshman in high school with her head barely floating above the academic waters, and ha sooyoung is everything she's not. to put it simply, she's out of her league. doesn't mean that she stops thinking about her, though; jiwoo can't get her out of her mind, knows in her heart that it wouldn't be the case for sooyoung.
up until now, she's never cared much for the stars and the things that are out of her reach. these days, jiwoo finds herself reaching her hand out to the night sky again.