Chapter Text
When Jeongguk was younger, gazing up at the stars never failed to leave him feeling full of warmth and comfort. They made him feel like he was underneath a soft blanket, protection beaming down upon him with each tiny pinprick of light. Under the stars, he was safe.
Under the stars, he was loved.
His earliest memories were of this feeling, of him underneath those little dots of light, curled up safe in warm arms, always asking,
“And that one, eomma? What’s that one called?”
A tinkling laugh, and then his eomma’s hands trailing up and tracing shapes in the night sky, mapping out constellations that his young eyes couldn’t connect together quite yet.
She would explain, again, each and every star she could see, because she knew everything about them. She knew the stars even better than his appa did, despite his appa being the one with the power of the stars in his veins.
His eomma, however, was the one who could read destinies in the stars and stories of the past and future that no one else could see. She could see what the stars could, what was written between them, and kept those secrets safe in her mind. While his appa had the magic of the stars, his eomma could tell their stories — which Jeongguk thought was infinitely cooler, especially since his appa never did anything with his power, anyway.
He would ask, and his eomma would tell, both of them curled up in his appa’s strong arms. His eomma narrated the names of the stars, their ancient names, stories, constellations, in all forms of languages from Greek to Chinese to Korean. She repeated them whenever he asked, teaching him everything with a gentle patience when they slipped from his mind and he confused them with one another.
The one he always remembered, though, and the one he always asked his eomma to repeat stories about, was the most important one.
“My star, eomma! Tell me about my stars now, please?” He’d beg, eyes wide and reflecting the light of the stars back up her, glowing with excitement she could never so know.
“Again, Jeongguk-ah?” His dad would tease, his voice soft and low, perfectly content to stay silent during storytelling unless the opportunity to make Jeongguk pout and laugh arose.
“Yes,” Jeongguk always replied, “Eomma tells it the best. And I need to remember because my stars are important.” He’d grumble, daring them to disagree with him. They didn’t, of course. His parents would simply smile at him, his appa giving his eomma a gentle nod of encouragement.
“Can you show me where your stars are, Jeongguk-ah?” His eomma would ask. Immediately, Jeongguk would point, this constellation being the one he would never forget the placement of. Even if he forgot many things, like how to spell his name at school or to put his shoes back neatly, this was something he would never confuse. Even if he did, there would always be the pull in his chest, the soft glow of his magic to connect him to his stars.
“Right there, eomma! Looks like a butterfly.” He would shout with excitement, tracing the shape. “Myoseong!” He would name it, counting each star he could see; four, in the centre, one nearby, and one a little ways apart. He could only ever see six of them, but he always knew the other one was there, somewhere.
“Yes, that’s right, Jeonggukkie.” Eomma would encourage, “Do you remember the Greek name?”
At that, Jeongguk would frown. His brow would furrow, “The seven sisters?” He would try.
“Pleiades. But, yes, sisters.” His eomma would gently say, before she would begin to weave a tale, one about seven sisters.
Seven sisters who loved one another, sang together and danced together, living peacefully. Their father, who was cursed to forever hold up the sky, and thus could not protect them the way that he should. Their mother, who placed them in the night sky to keep them safe from all the harm on Earth, so that their father may hold them safe at night.
“But why didn’t their appa just put the sky down? So he could be with them. Why did their eomma send them up into the sky? The sky's so far away from Earth! Wouldn’t she be sad?” Jeongguk would ask different questions every time the story was told, always picking at something.
One particular time, he had only one complaint. “They can’t sing and dance together anymore!” He sounded stricken by the thought of that, never being able to sing again, never being able to dance — never being able to do what he loved with his eomma and appa.
“Can’t they?” His eomma would smile her secret smile, the one that meant she could see something no one else could. “They’re all together up there. They could be singing together and dancing together right now. How would we know?”
“I’d know!” Jeongguk would protest indignantly. “They’re my stars! I can feel them right here!” He would say, tiny hand pressing just below his throat, onto his sternum insistently — right where his magic glowed softly.
“Well, then.” His appa would say, holding back a laugh. “You tell us. Are they not dancing and singing together up there?”
“No!” Jeongguk would stubbornly insist. “They can’t. They’re stars, appa. They’re stuck like that. They can’t move, they can’t sing. They don’t have voices!”
“Really?” His eomma would ask, smiling that secret smile again. “Listen again, Jeonggukkie. What do you feel?”
In the face of that all-knowing smile, Jeongguk would pause in his spiel. He would look back up at his stars, seeing how they twinkled up in the sky, feeling the magic in his chest, in his throat, and how it sang as soon as he acknowledged it. But connecting the singing magic in his chest to the dancing stars in the sky wasn’t something he quite knew how to do.
“I don’t know.” He’d grumble. “Maybe.” He’d acknowledge. His eomma could have a point. “But, but,” He’d rush, eager to get his next question out, and move on from what he couldn’t understand — like every typical six year old.
“Where is my seventh star?” Another pout. “I never see the last one. Why isn’t she up there with her sisters?”
It was always his appa who laughed, who teased. “Don’t you know, Jeongguk-ah?”
“No.” He’d grouch. This was a question that always had a different answer, or no answer, one his eomma always skirted around with ‘maybes’ and ‘if you don’t know, how would I?’
“I’m starting to think it fell out of the sky.” Jeongguk had said once, already giggling. He expected his parents to insist it was up there, hiding behind her sisters and waiting for the right time to come out.
However, this time. Instead of teasing and dodging, his eomma and appa’s faces grew serious, an expression he rarely saw from them, especially his appa. His eomma looked sad, strangely enough.
His appa raised his hand, and touched it lightly to Jeongguk’s chest. Jeongguk’s magic sparked up in delight, warming up and reaching for the star magic it could feel at his appa’s fingertips. Jeongguk’s magic was nothing but a small glow compared to his appa’s magic, which sometimes glowed so brightly it hurt to look. “The star we never see is the youngest star. The shyest star. Your birth star.” His appa said, the storytelling coming from him for a change. Jeongguk leaned in eagerly, wanting to hear more.
“The night you were born, that star disappeared from the sky.” His eomma finally added, her voice solemn, rubbing against a silvery scar on her chest. “Only your appa could hold you when you were born, for those first few days. Your star was settling.”
“You have that star right here, keeping you company.” His appa’s fingertips glowed as he lightly tapped Jeongguk’s chest. “The day you see that seventh star up there in the sky is the day your magic fully awakens, like appa’s magic.” His appa continued gravely.
“Silly appa.” Jeongguk giggled faintly. “My magic isn’t sleeping. See?” He said, holding up his hands and wiggling them up at the sky, watching as they glowed softly.
“Ah, yes.” His appa said. “Silly appa.” He agreed.
Jeongguk laughed, and the stories continued on; to different constellations and stars that held no other meaning except for their myth.
Later, Jeongguk wished his memories of that night were more clear — that he remembered more of what his eomma and appa’s faces looked like, what exactly their voices sounded like, and remembered more than the sound of the waves crashing against the shore nearby.
He wished, most of all, that he held onto that feeling of safety, warmth, and joy — because that was the last time he ever felt so carefree, weightless underneath the stars and their love. The last time his parents ever told him those stories, sat on the beach closest to their home.
Instead, all he remembers is that the next time he looked up at the night sky, his fingers sunk into the soft sand, tears freezing on his face from the force of the sea breeze, all he felt was sorrow, grief, loss.
And crushing loneliness.
There was no comfort he could draw from the stars, even the one that supposedly lived in his chest.
He was the only star left in his constellation — and that was a lonely life to live, indeed.