Beomgyu loved the night.
Not the darkness itself.
The stars.
He could spend hours lying on the rooftop of his university dorm, staring upward while everyone else slept.
He knew the constellations by heart.
He knew which stars appeared first after sunset.
He knew that some of them were already gone by the time their light reached Earth.
He liked that thought.
Something could be impossibly far away and still find a way to reach you.
That was why he always carried a tiny notebook.
Whenever he saw something beautiful, he wrote it down.
A particular star.
A cloud shaped like an animal.
The moon reflected in a puddle.
A person who smiled at him once.
That last one was the newest entry.
He hadn't written the person's name.
He didn't need to.
He knew exactly who it was.
Yeonjun.
⸻
Yeonjun was three years ahead of him.
Everyone knew him.
The confident senior.
The handsome one.
The person who could walk into a room and somehow make everyone look up.
Beomgyu had never understood why someone like Yeonjun would ever notice someone like him.
So he admired him quietly.
From a distance.
Just like the stars.
⸻
One night, Beomgyu was lying on the rooftop again.
The wind was cold.
He pulled his sweater tighter around himself and looked upward.
"Beautiful."
A voice beside him answered,
"They are."
Beomgyu nearly jumped.
He turned his head.
Yeonjun was sitting beside him.
"How long have you been there?!"
Yeonjun laughed.
"Long enough."
"You scared me."
"Sorry."
Beomgyu looked back at the sky.
After a moment, he asked,
"Do you like stars?"
Yeonjun leaned back on his hands.
"Yeah."
"Why?"
Yeonjun looked upward.
"I don't know."
He was quiet for a moment.
"Maybe because they're pretty."
Beomgyu smiled.
