Paper Stars

- s i x -

It's been three hours and we were only halfway done with the sightseeing. Jackie's eyes lingered on every single exhibit, making sure to look at every possible detail in every single room. There wasn't a fold or a crease of paper that was left unseen.

"What the heck? My god, that is the most impressive paper bird I've ever seen." Jackie babbled on and on, twisting the tour map in her hands. "Did they really make that with just paper? That's incredible!"

I nodded, promising her that everything on the walls were indeed made with: pieces of paper.

"Holy shit, that must've taken them forever to complete," she muttered in amazement.

I hummed in agreement. "Well it took them a long time. But people love sh-uh, stuff like this."

Jackie turned to me with a sly smile, shying away from the paper mache bird she was previously praising.

"Would it be rude to...look at the wishes people wrote on each star?" She sighed dramatically.

Raising an eyebrow, I took her wrinkled map from her hands and opened it up. I pretended to look at the map curiously, and rubbed my chin.

"You think that with this gigantic museum, with a ridiculous lack of security, that people can control themselves enough to not invade people's private wishes?" I pointed out while gesturing to the large structure on the map.

Jackie snorted. She paced back and forth between glancing over the current exhibit one last time and trying to answer my rhetorical question.

"Sorry Mr. I-know-everything. I'm just curious as to what people could possibly write down on their stars."

She sniffed the air in mock offense and playfully grabbed the map. She crossed her arms, tucking the map under her arm to protect it from my critical gaze.

I sighed, knowing what had to be done to satisfy her. Slowing down near the room where the Egyptian display was, I nudged Jackie to lean in closer to me.

"Alright look, since Eva's one hell of a nosy person, we kind of figured out how they organized the wishes here," I whispered quickly. "Basically, all the stars put in the West wing of the building are the joke wishes, silly stuff like 'I wish my eyebrows are pencils'. They're all pretty stupid."

Jackie's eyes sparkled with mischief. She gave me a sharp nod to continue, pretending to observe the wall of stars in front of us.

"Well don't leave me hanging- go on." She said from the side of her mouth, trying her hardest to be inconspicious but failing horrendously.

I stifled a chuckle and continued.

"Okay, well the more confusing intricate wishes are located in the East Wing," I explained using my head to point over to the left. "But those wishes are pretentious and cryptic so they're not as fun to read. It's stuff like 'I desire the leaf that shall fall beneath thy wings shall sprout into a wonderous flower'. I memorised that one on purpose because whoever wrote that really wanted to sound as much of a dickhead as possible."

Jackie laughed, tipping her head back in amusement.

"That honestly sounds like a phrase an angsty teenage  Tony would write." Jackie sang in a teasing tone.

Shrugging off her comment with a faint blush, I snickered. I hate it when she teased me, I could always feel my ears burn.

"Whatever."

She pursed her lips in concentration.

I don't understand how a simple facial expression could get me to think of how cute she was in that moment. All we were doing was taking a peek at a couple stars in the exhibit. I didn't have the heart to tell her that reading the wishes on the stars was practically encouraged by the owners. She was having way too much fun.