Home. It’s a strange word.
If home is a place to stay, then he supposes he did have one, not too long ago. Although, he thinks of it more of a prison cell than a home. Except instead of metal cuffs, there was always a rope digging painfully into the flesh of his ankles, and instead of metal iron bars barring his escape, there were blinds covering the few windows that weren’t boarded up. Memories from that dark, cold place still haunt him in his nightmares. Some nights, they’re real enough that he can’t calm down until a few hours later.
At least now he’s able to walk freely, without anything binding his feet. He’s able to look out the window and gaze up at the night sky without fearing that at any moment, he’ll hear a woman’s shrill screech and the breaking of glass bottles if he gets caught. He can open the windows, feel the night breeze against his bruise-free cheeks, and just stare into space silently as he waits.
He hears footsteps as the door creaks open. The sound startles him, and he instinctively crouches down, skin turning cold and goose bumps rising on the back of his neck.
A young, handsome man with beautiful turquoise hair enters the room. His eyes go wide with surprise, and he quickly offers an apologetic smile for the scare.
“I’m sorry, Saeran. I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just me. Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
Saeran warily strains his neck to look past V who’s standing in the doorway. Indeed, there’s no one else with him. His mother isn’t there. Of course she isn’t.
With a shaky, relieved exhale, he gets to his feet, and bows his head slightly at the older man in a polite greeting. Then, he turns back to the window, eyes quickly getting lost in the sea of stars once more.
V joins him by his side. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he remarks.
The boy nods. It truly is. He’s only seen pictures from the books that his brother used to sneak back from the library. Getting to see real stars with his own eyes is incredible. Breathtaking. It also makes his heart feel heavier in his chest.
“Saeran… I’ve been meaning to ask you something. Do you like it here?”
He nods. He does like it here more. Here, he gets food to eat and water to drink. He doesn’t feel suffocated by the smell of alcohol and rotting food in any of the rooms. He gets to walk outside any time he wants. He doesn’t get beaten here. Nor does anyone tell him he’s worthless or as good as garbage.
“Well then, how about making this place your new home? You can live with me here.”
There it is. Home. The word that he’s been mulling over, the word that’s been making him feel the weight of an empty void eating away at his heart.
He meets V’s hopeful gaze, and hesitates. V has been nothing but kind and gentle, and Saeran wouldn’t mind living here with him at all.
It’s just that… it doesn’t feel right.
“You’re unhappy,” V observes, sadness filling his eyes. “Why?”
Saeran’s throat closes up. His lips feel a little too dry all of sudden, when he parts it to speak. “I…” Using his voice makes his throat restrict further. The boy swallows, but it doesn’t make the discomfort go away.
V’s eyes widen in what seems to be shock. His lips part and close repeatedly as he attempts to provide a somewhat appropriate response.
Eventually, he manages to say something. “Saeran, you want to go back?”
Saeran shakes his head, before dropping it and fixing his gaze on the floor. “No. Never.”
“Then, why do you miss that place?”
It’s not the place that he misses. It’s the memories that he left behind: the short strands of red hair on the ground that resemble remnants of grass blades, the smell of the unwashed black hoodie that he would often find wrapped around him on colder nights, little book pages torn from library books that were never returned, and inconspicuous ice cream stains blended into the floorboards of the room.
The dull ache in his chest increases. He bites down on his lip as he presses his hand to his chest, but it doesn’t alleviate the pain. In fact, it only grows stronger. Moisture begins to build in his eyes.
“…The memories. Lots of them.” His voice barely comes out, but it seems that V heard him. The man’s eyes soften in understanding and sympathy as he affectionately rests his hand on the boy’s head and runs it through his bright red hair.
“What is your last memory of home?” he asks gently.
Saeran ponders over this for a moment. His glossy eyes stray back towards the window, and his vision is filled with silently twinkling stars settled in the blanket of night that he will never be able to reach, no matter how far out he stretches his arms.
His mind travels back in time, to one of his most recent memories, where his brother brought back a new book on astronomy from the library. He remembers the breathtaking pictures of the starry sky in it, and his brother introducing him to the various constellations that existed.
“The easiest method to find the North Star is by looking for the Big Dipper. That’s this one. So if you ever lose your way, you can just look for the Big Dipper, and it’ll point you in the right direction.”
“But hyung, if I get lost, you’ll be there with me, right?”
A pregnant pause follows. Conflict shows in his brother’s face for a brief moment, before it’s ironed out and replaced by a neutral, poker face. He offers a smile, but Saeran knows that it isn’t a real smile because it doesn’t reach his brother’s eyes.
“Saeran, I may not always be by your side. We don’t know what will happen in the future, and it’s possible that we might get separated from each other someday.”
“No, I don’t want that to happen. Ever. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“I know. I’m just saying that it’s a possibility. If that ever happens and you’re lost, I want you to look up at the stars and know that one day, we’ll find our way back to each other. The stars will point us in the right direction, so don’t be scared even if I’m temporarily not by your side. Okay?”
“Hyung, you sound… weird.”
“Ahaha… Really? Reading about stars makes me weird, I guess.”
“Hyung, one day, let’s go see the stars. We’ll find these constellations one by one. Together. Can we do that?”
“…Y-Yeah… Sure we can. We’ll do that one day. Together.”
He searches the stars glittering like sand in the shore of the night sky, but he can’t see it. He can’t find the Big Dipper, or the North Star. There’s no pattern to be found, nothing to tell him which way he should go.
“There were pictures of a starry sky,” he begins with a quivering voice. It’s hard to breathe. His chest feels too tight. “I never got to see it before, and I’m here now, but… the person I wanted to share it with isn’t here.”
He sniffles once, and the first tear falls. “I miss him. I miss Saeyoung.”
The sound of that name lingering in the air brings more tears streaming down his cheeks. In the next second, he feels himself being pulled into a warm and tight embrace. He smells cologne instead of the smell of his brother’s dirty hoodie, but it reminds Saeran of the hugs his brother would give in comfort when he would cry after getting beaten or after having starved for two days with no food and minimal water.
The tears don’t stop for a long time. V simply holds the fragile boy in his arms and waits patiently for him.
At the same time, in a distant part of the country, sitting on the rooftop of an old, abandoned building, a boy of the same age lays on his back with bandages covering his entire forearm. Watching the stars makes his heart hurt far more than his new injury though, and his eyes sting with tears as he searches the sky for any sign of the constellations he’s read about before.
His search comes up futile, and resigned, he closes his eyes as tears continue to cascade down his bruised cheeks. In his mind, all he can picture is his little brother’s crying face, and it breaks his heart, the fragments cutting deep into the very core of his soul.
“I’ll find my way back to you someday, Saeran. I promise. Just… hang in there for a while more.”
