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Yeosang doesn’t remember when he got his first set of planetarium stickers. Jongho doesn’t quite know why he remembers, remembers the exact date: December 24, 2008, remembers a five-year-old Yeosang jumping up and down begging his mother to let him open just one present before Christmas actually began. He doesn’t quite know why he remembers, and Yeosang doesn’t , even though when you think about it, that day should be a lot more important to Yeosang than it is to Jongho. Those stickers became so important to Yeosang, to the point where if he was in a room where the ceiling wasn’t dotted with stars and orbiting planets and glittery supernovas, he couldn’t sleep. Jongho isn’t sure why he remembers and Yeosang doesn’t.
Although, Jongho supposes remembering things about Yeosang has always taken up a sort of forefront in his mind, to the point where he remembers December 24, 2008, as clear as if it happened yesterday, but he still can’t seem to memorize the quadratic formula, and he’s a fucking senior in high school. He’s tried his damned hardest to memorize it, but Yeosang always seems to be a priority over math for his brain, and no matter how hard he tries to focus on the integrals in front of him that litter the pages of his pre-calc notebook, he can’t think straight in the slightest when Yeosang is in the room. You’d think Jongho would have recognized this as an issue and stopped going over to Yeosang’s house every day after school like clockwork to “study” and “do homework” knowing damn well he wouldn’t be able to focus and would have to rush to do the assignments as the teacher was walking around the room collecting them (thank God his pre-calc teacher collected the assignments in reverse alphabetical order, otherwise he would be screwed ), but no.
Yeosang is laying on his back on the floor, his legs slanted upwards with his heels resting on the edge of the desk, the tip of his tongue peeking out from between slightly chapped lips, holding a paper above his head, forehead wrinkled in concentration as he turns the paper at all different angles, as though all he needs to understand the free-body diagram printed on it is to see it from the right angle. He turns the paper right side up again, and apparently seeing it from the right angle is all he needs, because his eyebrows shoot up and Jongho can practically see the lightbulb flicker on in the depths of those beautiful dark eyes, and he rolls over onto his stomach, narrowly missing kicking Jongho in the face as his feet swing off the desk back onto the hardwood floor. Yeosang picks up his pencil, and circles a single letter written on the diagram, marveling like he’s just unlocked the deepest secret to the universe, and Jongho has no idea what he’s found, because what kind of fucking nerd takes physics when it’s not required?
Jongho snaps his head back a bit as Yeosang moves up to him, all at once, never slow, no, that’s just not the way Yeosang does things. Yeosang taps the letter with the tip of his pencil, eyes brighter than Polaris, and says, “I found it!”
Jongho raises an eyebrow, leaning back in the chair a little to see the diagram better, since contrary to popular belief (or Yeosang belief, at least), having something resting at the tip of your nose is not the ideal distance to see it from for optimal viewing ability. “Found...what, exactly?”
“The reason for why humans can’t live without one another, of course ,” he says like it’s obvious, like it was silly for Jongho to even ask the question.
Jongho snorts and rolls his eyes, and slides his integrals out of the way so Yeosang can sit on the edge of the desk the way Jongho knows he wants to. “Okay, Socrates, and what is this reason?”
“It’s simple, really, when you think about it.”
“Oh? Pray tell.” Jongho crosses his arms over his chest, and leans back further to give Yeosang the space he’ll need to move his hands around in that animated way he always does when he talks about something he holds passion for.
“So, if you look at this diagram and you actually know what all this shit means , you’ll see that even though this car is on an incline, the arrow labeled with a lowercase w points straight down vertically, rather than diagonally down to align itself with the incline.” Yeosang takes his pencil and circles the arrow in case Jongho hadn’t been able to see it right in front of his eyes, and Jongho appreciates the sentiment. Yeosang continues, “Now, in terms of physics, this literally just means that even though there’s an incline, the force of the weight of the object acts straight down to the center of the earth, because that’s just how weight works. But in terms of my little metaphor, it’s like...the center of the earth is human interaction, and this arrow, the force of our weight, always draws us towards that human interaction no matter what conditions we’re under. You know what I mean?”
Jongho has absolutely no fucking clue what he means. But it’s Yeosang, so he nods, and smiles, and exclaims, “Yeah, sure I do, Socrates,” and reaches out to gently ruffle Yeosang’s dark hair with a gentle left hand. It’s December 14th, 2020, and Jongho wants to ask Yeosang if he remembers December 24th, 2008. He knows the answer will be no. He doesn’t ask.
They’re sprawled across Yeosang’s bed, and Jongho is resisting the urge to close his eyes and hold the blankets to his nose, and just inhale that blackberry-like scent he’s never smelled anywhere else. Their legs are tangled together, and their jeans are the exact same color, and Jongho can’t really tell where his end and Yeosang’s begin, and he’s perfectly okay with that. They’re both staring up at their handiwork, the new set of stickers they just plastered up on Yeosang’s ceiling, a yearly tradition since they were tall enough to do it themselves. It’s December 24th, 2020, and Jongho wants to ask Yeosang if he remembers the first pack of these planetarium stickers he ever opened. He knows the answer will be no, but he asks this time.
“Do you remember the first pack of these stickers you ever opened? December 24th, 2008. You were five.”
Yeosang turns his head over to stare at Jongho, a faint smile resting on his lips like the faint touch of a butterfly’s feet against the tip of a finger before it leaves and is never seen by the mortal eye again. He shakes his head, the smile widening the tiniest bit before it fades away entirely again. “No, I don’t. I’ve told you this before, I don’t remember much of anything from before I was like thirteen.” He shakes his head, incredulousness blooming like flowers in his irises, and asks, “I mean, how do you even remember? You were, like, four. Barely.”
Jongho wants to say, Because it’s important to me . He doesn’t. He doesn’t say anything at all.
Yeosang accepts the silence, reaching over for the string by the window and snapping the blinds closed so the room is plunged into almost darkness, thin strips of grey light marching across the hardwood floor, turning rainbow where they hit the tie-dye rug in the northeast corner and looking brighter where they brush against the broken vinyl records hung on the north wall, the ones Yeosang painted himself. Technically, Jongho helped, and by helped, he means utterly fucked one up and made Yeosang paint over his mistakes. Yeosang’s eyes flick back up to the ceiling, and he announces, “Oh, so they do glow in the dark. That’s good.”
Jongho’s eyes slide to the side to give Yeosang a withering glance, and mutters, “It literally said they did on the packaging.”
“Yeah, well, sometimes people lie, Jjong.”
Silence hangs between them for a while, and they just stare up at the little green stars, and Jongho reaches one finger up to trace the outline of what he’s pretty sure is Saturn. Yeosang heaves a sigh, and Jongho flashes a questioning glance in his direction, knowing Yeosang will know what he’s asking without him even having to say it.
“Sometimes looking at the constellations on my ceiling makes me feel a little less lost, you know what I mean?”
Jongho shakes his head, and a breathy laugh escapes his lips, followed immediately by a string of words he’s not even sure he thought about before saying. “No, I have no idea what you mean, but I get it.” Goddamnit , he thinks, can’t I say a coherent sentence around him every once in a while? Something that makes sense?
Yeosang laughs alongside him, the sounds intertwining like ribbons to create a perfect bow tied around a pretty box, and says, “You know, I failed civics on purpose.”
Jongho snaps his head in Yeosang’s direction so hard he’s sure he gives himself whiplash, but he ignores the pain throbbing up and down his neck, and exclaims, “ What?! ”
Yeosang nods, and chuckles under his breath. “Yeah, I know it’s crazy. Kang Yeosang, on track to graduating valedictorian, failed civics on fucking purpose.”
Jongho’s voice gets caught in his throat, but he manages to choke out the one word he wants to say. “ Why? ”
“I felt really lost. Like, really lost, Jjong. There were all these expectations on my shoulders, from all these different people, and I had no fucking clue what I wanted to do with my life. I wasn’t ready to move on to that next stage yet, and I was just so, so scared of not knowing . I didn’t wanna leave, didn’t wanna have to go off to college and make those decisions, so I failed my graduation requirement, and chose to retake senior year. In hindsight, I probably could have just taken a fucking gap year, you know, but I didn’t know what to do before I made the decision to fail civics, and so I looked up to my stars for answers, hoping they’d help me find my way. And the stickers I had at the time, do you remember they said, follow the North Star and you’ll be led to where you need to be .” Yeosang’s eyes flick towards Jongho’s face, and Jongho doesn’t even have to follow the trajectory of his gaze to know exactly where he’s looking. He’s always loved the tiny little freckle that rests just in the center of the dip of Jongho’s cupid’s bow, and Jongho never knew why, but he lets Yeosang love it, because who is he to say otherwise, it’s Yeosang .
Jongho watches Yeosang’s Adam’s apple bob in his throat as he swallows, and opens his mouth to speak again. “And, tell me, Jjong, do you know who my North Star was?”
“ Who? ”
“Yes, who.”
“I- No, I don’t think I do…” His voice trails off into nothingness when Yeosang props himself up on one elbow, and stares directly into Jongho’s eyes, before his gaze flicks back down to the cupid’s bow and up again.
“
You
were my North Star, Jjong. I wanted to follow
you
.” A single breath escapes Yeosang’s lips before he presses forward to capture Jongho’s between them, and a sharp gasp emits from Jongho’s mouth, but it’s cut off by a tiny noise of contentment in the back of his throat, and all of a sudden, it doesn’t matter anymore that Yeosang doesn’t remember December 24th, 2008.