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"I can’t believe this is the last time we’re going to school together.” Hueningkai sighed, buttoning his white shirt halfheartedly. Looking away from his own reflection in the mirror, Taehyun’s gaze fell on Hueningkai’s dark brown eyes, catching a hint of sadness in the youngest’s stare that lasted for three milliseconds before it switched back to a semblance of happiness.
Today was their high school graduation ceremony.
But neither of them was ready for it.
“I know,” Taehyun uttered, pausing as he thought of his next sentence, only to realize after two eternal seconds of brainstorming that he had nothing to add. Hueningkai must have had felt it anyway, already fumbling messily with his sleeve buttons without expecting anymore words coming from the older.
Taehyun silently stared at his best friend through the body-length mirror, trying to tattoo this moment permanently in the Hueningkai dedicated section of his brain before he didn’t have the opportunity to do it anymore. He noticed how Hueningkai had grown so much taller in the past year, barely remembering the times when the younger used to be the smallest one. Even though their height difference was relatively small, at that exact moment Taehyun felt like a grain of sand next to a rock. Pluto next to Mercury. An insignificant piece in Hueningkai’s puzzle.
“Please don’t look at me like this,” Hueningkai asked gently, attention still focused on that last button on his right sleeve. His voice was barely louder than a whisper, luring Taehyun’s mind as his words danced around his ears.
“Like what?” Taehyun asked automatically, already regretting his words as they echoed in the silent atmosphere. It wasn’t hard to guess what Hueningkai was referring to; after all, they had been best friends for long enough to understand each other without saying anything. But there was a selfish part of Taehyun that didn’t want to guess this time, that wanted to hear the truth come out of his best friend’s mouth because time was running after them and Taehyun had never really been good at keeping his composure in stressful situations.
It was pitiful, pathetic even, how the older felt the whole world coming down on him as he watched Hueningkai going back to his bed to grab his tie; silently hoping he hadn’t heard a sniffing sound amid ruffling clothes. But the distinct sound reverberating in Taehyun’s ears to the point of driving him insane was enough of an answer to whether it had been a hallucination or not.
(It was unfair. Or not. He couldn’t really tell.)
After all, the only thing Taehyun wanted was an answer, a hint, a sign, that leaving his hometown to attend college wasn’t the right decision, that there was something, someone, that was worth throwing away all the plans he had originally made for his future.
(Maybe Taehyun wanted to be illogical for once. Maybe he wanted to believe in ghosts, spirits, superstitions, and in the idea that there was a metaphysical force above his head that could influence him in his choices. Maybe he wanted to follow his heart, too. But just maybe.)
Hueningkai stayed silent when he faced the mirror again, and simply focused on making the knot of his tie as well as he could remember, quickly reaching a dead-end as he realized he had never put his own tie by himself before. Taehyun’s heart was breaking a little at the sight of his best friend’s trembling hands, his shiny eyes, and at the sound of his stammering breathing. Heck, it was shattering.
After all, maybe this was the sign Taehyun had been seeking for so long.
(Maybe.)
“Let me do it for you,” The older insisted, after collecting the remaining bits of composure in his drained mind. Hueningkai turned his head to the left where Taehyun was standing, soft stares meeting each other, reuniting, coming back to where they belonged. For a millisecond, Taehyun stargazed in Hueningkai’s glossy eyes, regretting all the moments he could have spent admiring them, already wondering how many nights he would have to wait until he could feel at home again. Looking at the way they shone, Taehyun suddenly thought about the word ‘starry-eyed’ and how that word fitted Hueningkai so perfectly, whether it was in the metaphorical sense by the way he had always seen the world through rose-tinted glasses, or in the literal sense by the way he held galaxies and nebulae and pretty much the entire universe in between his eyelids.
Hueningkai nodded trying his best to muster a smile despite feeling so emotional, and Taehyun swallowed down a sob.
“Hey, bend down a little. You forgot we aren’t the same height anymore.” Taehyun tried to joke with a playful smile, hoping the younger hadn’t picked up on the wavers of his voice. He untied the messy knot Hueningkai had made, carefully following the mental map in his head with each step he had learned after years of practice. When he was done with it, he looked up proudly to receive Hueningkai’s approval, a warm feeling embracing his body as the youngest nodded with the biggest smile on his face.
Even if it didn’t last longer than a blink before Hueningkai’s smile turned into a frown, all the stars in his eyes falling down his cheeks like a shower.
And yes, Taehyun had wished to see a star shower before leaving for college, just to wish upon a star to have a bit more time in his hands.
(More time to spend with Hueningkai, more time to decide what he wanted to do with his life, more time to come to terms with his feelings, more time to be happy, and so on.)
But he certainly hadn’t wished to see a star shower on Hueningkai’s cheeks, because now that he could wish upon a star, his only wish was for the youngest to stop crying forever. Taehyun couldn’t even look at his best friend in that state, the sight being similar to having his heart run over by a truck a thousand times, all the fragments getting caught up in the wind and vanishing into dust.
Because as improbable as it sounded, over the past ten years of them being best friends, Taehyun had never seen Hueningkai cry.
It was true that the thought had come to Taehyun’s mind out of curiosity a few times before, wondering what type of crier Hueningkai was. He had imagined the younger as an ugly crier just to feel a little less lonely in that category, a loud crier with how noisy he naturally was, an angry crier as he despised getting angry, and the list went on. He had gone through each hypothetical situation.
But he hadn’t envisaged the possibility that any of them could ever happen.
That was the thing about Hueningkai. No matter how well Taehyun knew him, the younger still managed to be unpredictable. For the most part, Taehyun was grateful about it. Their relationship had never gotten boring at any point, despite spending every single day together. And if Taehyun hadn’t been a man of science, he would have believed it was a miracle how they both got along so well when their personalities were polar opposites.
Summer and winter, day and night, Sun and Moon, sweet and sour, colorful and subdued, bubbly and toned-down.
Idealistic and realistic.
“Ning,” Taehyun voiced out, swallowing hard. He grabbed Hueningkai’s hands and slowly removed them from his face, revealing a wet-cheeked, red-nosed, puffy-eyed boy with teardrops hanging at the tip of his eyelashes, ready to fall at any second.
Hueningkai was, in a lack of better words, the worst type of crier.
He was the type of crier that laughed to stop himself from breaking down in tears. He was the type to smile through his tears to not worry anyone. He was the type of crier that didn’t make any sound, just let teardrops run down his cheeks in silence, as if it was the most natural thing ever. Taehyun kind of hated that by the way, hated that he was only discovering it on their last day of high school, their last day of going to school together, hated that Hueningkai was trying to stop himself from crying in front of his own best friend.
Their eyes locked once again, but this time, Hueningkai’s starry eyes were covered by grey clouds.
So, Taehyun wrapped his arms around the younger's waist, and hugged him as tight as he could, forgetting about the rational devil inside of him as he wished deeply to chase those clouds away.
When he felt Hueningkai’s arms mellowly embrace his shoulders, bringing him even closer, Taehyun suddenly felt a silver lining appear in between Hueningkai’s dark clouds. They stayed like this for a hazy moment, shielded by an imaginary bubble in which they were invincible, untouchable, unbreakable. After all, they had found out over all those years that they were the strongest when they were together.
Hugging like this, the older noticed how their height difference was just enough for him to rest his head on his best friend’s shoulder, and to even nuzzle his face in the crook of his neck. The thing he was probably going to miss the most about Hueningkai was his scent, which was a mixture of laundry detergent and that one strawberry bodywash that the younger had been using ever since he was little.
That smell reminded Taehyun of the late summer nights they both spent by the river a little further away from their houses, after he had realized he was in love with Hueningkai. He remembered how he purposely forgot to bring a sweatshirt despite the chilly temperature, just so the youngest would let him borrow his own. It was silly, and it had caused the younger to fall sick a couple of times, but Taehyun didn’t regret those moments at all. He couldn’t regret anything when it came to Hueningkai, to be fair.
If Taehyun thought about his Sun and Moon metaphor again, he acknowledged that it was quite fitting. Even though the Moon was principally known for revolving around the Earth, it was no secret that it indirectly orbited around the Sun, following the Earth’s revolution. The Moon, just like the Earth, reflected the light of the Sun, and couldn’t shine without it. Which explained why Taehyun felt the brightest when he was around Hueningkai, and why every second away from him felt like the phase of his orbit furthest away from the Sun.
“I’m sorry, Ning.” Taehyun whispered, tightening his embrace around the taller.
I’m sorry I never found the courage to love you fully.
At the sound of his words, Hueningkai’s body shook even harder to the rhythm of his own sobs, hiccupping uncontrollably as he tried to catch his breath, while Taehyun blinked back his own tears. He couldn’t let himself break down as well, no matter how shattered his entire body felt. Taehyun was the Moon after all, an insignificant satellite in the solar system. He wasn’t as big, or as bright as the Sun. He would probably never be. Yet, he had been lucky enough to have a spot in the solar system, bathing in the light of the Sun and reflecting its rays all around him. And Taehyun couldn’t take that for granted.
Tracing circles on Hueningkai’s back with one hand, while the other secured held him against his waist, Taehyun felt the younger boy relaxing after a few minutes. They stayed in silence like this, revolving around each other’s world in cohesion.
For some reason, the older had never considered them as two halves of a whole.
Even though it was obvious that they had a special connection. That their friendship wasn’t a result of pure coincidence.
(Taehyun didn’t even want their friendship to be a result of coincidence. The simple thought that a different decision at any point in time would have changed the outcome of his life was scary enough, because there would have been a possibility for him to never have met Hueningkai, never have become his best friend, and never have fallen in love with him.)
Absurd, really.
“Hyun,” Hueningkai called, voice just loud enough to pop their thin-walled bubble. Taehyun hummed lowly against the latter’s neck, smiling fondly when he felt his body shiver a little. He had forgotten how ticklish his best friend was.
A moment of hesitation later, Hueningkai broke the silence again.
”I love you.”
That was the thing about Hueningkai. No matter how well Taehyun knew him, the younger still managed to be unpredictable.
Hueningkai had an ease of mind that Taehyun didn’t have. While Taehyun kept overthinking, wandering through the depths of his own brain in search of the right words that he usually never found, Hueningkai managed to find them so easily.
And naturally—or because Hueningkai was the conductor of Taehyun’s chaotic orchestra of thoughts—words came out of Taehyun’s mouth instinctively, like a song that had been composed all along.
”I love you too, Ning.” Taehyun answered without any hesitation, smiling to himself in amusement at the realization that he had just been vocally tender without even wanting to rip off his own hair.
(Okay, maybe he did just a tiny bit.)
Still, as he felt the vibrations of Hueningkai’s laugh against his cheek, Taehyun thought that being irrational wasn’t that bad after all.