While the Stars are our Home

The ending

Notes:  Okay, so I may have cried writing the ending of this. I started this story because I randomly had a dream about Taeyong about a week and a half ago. It was similar to one of the scenes I have written here in this chapter and so it means a lot to me. I hope you have enjoyed this story so far and like this chapter as well!

In the morning they let me see Hoseok and Yoongi.
The damage hadn't been as bad as I thought it would be, they had some cuts and bruises, and a few places where shrapnel had to be removed but other than that, they were in pretty good shape.
The force of the blast had knocked them unconscious, and Yoongi had a concussion, but they both assured me that they were fine, and I was finally able to breathe again. Jimin told me it was survivor's guilt that was hurting me so badly and had me assigned to the face painting booth in one of the festival halls.
I was placed next to Taehyung, and he showed me a few simple paintings I could do for the kids and others who came to the booth. As soon as I picked up the brushes, I was able to tune out the world and lose myself in the route actions of applying paint to the kid's faces.
The festival hadn't started until our scheduled afternoon. Everyone had gotten lunch in packs, to eat in their rooms or at their assigned jobs but then we were all allowed to go out into the larger open parts of the ship to mingle and celebrate having left a full year ago.
I don't remember who it was or when they told me, but the explosion had been a quicker fix than anyone had been expecting, the room was off limits until the floor could be fixed but there was no more danger of it happening again.
As the evening approached, my anxiety slowly began to shirk, and by dinner time I felt mostly like myself again.
Jungkook came and found me after the dinner trays of food were passed around to change the bandage on my face where a piece of shrapnel had cut a long thin line from the side of my nose to my ear.
He looked sad but tried to smile despite the tiny drops of blood that fell onto his hand.
"Don't worry, I don't have HIV," I tell him, hoping for a smile from him.
He just pats my other cheek, "That's not what I'm worried about, Yn."
I look at Taehyung and he sighs before pulling his boyfriend toward him and enveloping him in a comforting hug.
A few minutes later, after Taehyung manages to get a purple butterfly onto Jungkook's face, he has to leave us again but pauses before leaving our booth.
"Taeyong is looking for you, by the way, Yn."
I sit up straight so fast that I make an ugly green line across a kid's forehead.
Taehyung hisses at me and I nod, "Sorry, thanks Kookie!"
Jungkook nods and leaves me with my sudden realization that I hadn't seen him since before the explosion. Supposing I can't do anything until after the festival and my shift at the booth are finished, I try to distract myself by cleaning the paint off the kid in front of me and starting over.
I managed to push the thought to the back of my head and continue working on painting faces.
The line slowly began to disappear as it got later in the day, the artificial moon appearing over our heads as the sun fades. Suddenly there is only one more person standing at the booth, I smile because it's Hyunjin and wave him over to my station.
"Hey, Hyunjin."
"Hi, Ms. Yn," He says almost shyly.
"Are you doing, okay?" I ask, pulling a new paintbrush out for him.
His eyes turn soft, "I should be the one asking you that, Ms. Yn."
"You are sweet, Jinnie," I tell him with a smile, "I'm okay."
He looks relieved, "I'm glad you didn't get hurt."
"Me too, believe me," I pull the paints closer to him, "What can I do for you?"
"This might be a weird request, but I just want red eyeliner?"
I raise one eyebrow in surprise, and he suddenly looks like he wants to run away.
"Jin, I would love to do that for you," I quickly pull the red paint closer to me and motion for him to slide his chair closer to mine.
"Did you like makeup before everything happened?" I ask as I carefully begin to paint his eyelids.
"Yeah, I liked to play with my moms, and I wanted a lot of videos of people online."
"That's really cool, Jin," I tell him and then stop talking as I focus on getting the lines straight and even to each other.
I lean back after I finish with a pleased smile on my face as I give him a mirror, "What do you think?"
He grins into the mirror and looks up at me with gratitude and then curiosity as he glances to the side of me.
I follow his gaze to see Taeyong standing there, staring at me with watery eyes, a bag slung over one shoulder, and bits of grease on his face.
"Tae," I say softly, surprised to see him.
I hear Taehyung tell Hyunjin to go meet up with his friends and vaguely hear him leave as Taeyong slowly walks across the booth toward me.
"What happened to your cheek?" He asks when he reaches me and kneels down, one hand coming up to touch the bandage so gently I don't even feel it.
"Just a bit of shrapnel," I whisper, looking down into his anxious face, "I'll be fine."
He seems to deflate some, and leans up, wrapping his arms around me.
"I was so worried," He whispers, "I couldn't find you and I knew you were with the others who got hurt."
Suddenly I realize how I would have been if it had been him and I feel so much guilt as I wrap my arms around him as well.
"I'm so sorry, I should have told you I was okay," I say, ignoring the fact that he was dirty when he walked in, "I was a mess yesterday and today I was with Jimin and then here. I should have come and found you before."
He pulls away from me, hands on my arms, "No, you needed to do what you could to feel better, don't apologize for miscommunication that wasn't your fault."
His words are spoken so firmly that I know I don't have a choice on this and just nod my head, "Okay."
"Good," He manages a small smile and then slowly stands, "Can I steal her away?"
Taehyung nods, "Be my guest! I think she would like that anyway."
Taeyong grins and offers me a hand, helping me to my feet even though I could very well do it on my own.
"Where are we going?" I ask as we walk out of the booth.
"Let's go to my room for a second so I can change and clean my face and then we can go wherever you want," He says with a sweet smile, our hands still linked between us.
I nod with a smile of my own, I was going to lie on his bed for a few minutes at least, and his bed was comfortable. And it smelled like him, such a calming and soft scent.
It only took him ten minutes to come back from the bathroom down the hall, freshly cleaned from helping to patch up the explosion from the night before.
"Ready to go, Yn?" He asks, standing over the bed with yet another smile directed at me.
I nod and make a split decision to be lazy, lifting my arms up to him instead of moving to stand on my own.
He shakes his head, but he can't hide his smile as he pulls me to sit up on the bed and then turns around, crouching in front of me.
"What?" I say, looking at his back, and then it clicks as he tells me.
"Piggyback ride, Yn, climb on."
"Are you sure?" I ask, hands already resting on his shoulders.
"Yes, get on, I want to show you something."
It doesn't take much convincing before I climb onto his back and let him carry me out of the room and down a few halls until we reach an unfamiliar area of the ship.
"Where are we?" I ask when we reach a narrow hallway devoid of people.
"Captains areas," Taeyong says, and I can hear the grin in his voice, "They said I could come up here once in a while and with everyone down at the festival areas we should be undisturbed for a little while at least."
"Are we going to get in trouble?" I ask, suddenly worried.
"No, don't worry," He assures me and stops at a door near the end of the hallway.
He scans his wristband, and the door clicks open, swinging noiselessly on its hinges into a relatively small room. I gasp at what I see in front of us.
There is a large plush couch pointed away from the door, complete with comfortable-looking footrests and blankets draped across the back. Half of the opposite wall and part of the ceiling is one gigantic, curved window.
"Woah," I breathe out in awe at the sight of the stars from the top of the ship instead of the bottom.
Taeyong is still grinning as he walks over to the couch and lets me down onto it, immediately reaching for a large blanket to drape over both of us.
"I didn't know this kind of room existed," I say, scooting into a comfortable position next to him as we sink into the comfort of the couch.
"Not many do," He admits, "I'm conflicted about it, to be honest, but we have permission to use it as long as we stay quiet about it."
I nod, glancing over at him, and then freeze as the intensity of his gaze falls on me.
"Tae?" I whisper, unsure of what he was thinking behind his dark eyes.
"Yn," He pauses, searching my face before continuing, "I realized something today when I couldn't find you."
I honestly couldn't tell you what my mind was thinking at that moment besides just one loud continuous scream.
I nod for him to continue, and he does, slowly.
"I don't want to be apart from you, I don't want to just be friends with you. I want to be with you, I want to do romantic things for you, and make you feel special and loved. I want to be the person you come back to in the evenings, and the person you wake up with every morning. I want to grow old with you, maybe even have kids with you and just spend the rest of my life with you by my side."
Of course, this was unexpected on my part, so I just blinked at him, shocked.
"You do?" I ask, voice cracking due to my shock.
"Yes, I very much want you to be my girlfriend."
When I don't answer for a long moment, he nudges me, "Tell me what you are thinking, Yn."
I look back up into his face, "I have had a crush on you for like two years."
He grins and lets out a laugh before pulling me into his side, "You should have said something before, I would have asked you a long time ago."
I shake my head, "Nothing was going to get that information out of me except this exact situation," I insist, pulling another laugh out of him.
"I'm glad I was able to get permission to use this room then or this may have gone south."
I slap his arm and he whines in protest, but I just lean up and press a quick kiss against the scar on his chin. I had been wanting to do that for a year now.
He looks at me slightly stunned and then his eyes soften, and I really can see the universe in them from this close. I smile as he leans down and presses the sweetest, most gentle kiss against my lips, careful not to get close to my bandage.
I grin despite the pain in my cheek and bury my face into Taeyong's shoulder once he pulls away.
"Is that a, yes?" He asks, the smile still present in his voice as he presses a few more kisses into my hair.
I nod against his chest, "Yes, of course, Tae."
"Good, that was gonna be eternally awkward if you said no."
"I don't think I could ever say no to you," I whisper and feel him smile again against my hair.
We end up spending the night there on that couch, watching the stars go by and enjoying each other's company.

Over the next few years, we do everything Taeyong said he wanted to do, we dated for a while, longer than anyone who knew us would have guessed. My cheek healed very well under Jungkook's constant care, leaving only a fine white line where the shrapnel had cut me. Taeyong liked to joke that I just wanted to match his own scars over the years.
When we finally did get married, we had been in space for about 3 years already, but ours wasn't the first wedding on board, Taehyung and Jungkook had gotten married the year before and Namjoon and Seokjin had the year before that.
Later on, we had a child, a baby girl. She had his eyes, and I saw so much of him in her each and every day.
The rowdy group of teens grew up and learned trades around the ship, I ended up teaching Hyunjin how to be a preschool teacher and once we had a few more teachers on staff, the two of us worked together each day, teaching the four-year-olds.
My daughter was the flower girl at his own wedding a few years later to Seungmin.
I stayed close friends with Yeosang, who eventually gave in to his own complicated feelings and let Jimin sweep him off his feet.
Jackson and Eris never were able to catch a break from us, and our constant bickering and demands until they granted us moving rights and gave us all bigger spaces meant for families.

And just like that, years passed, and time flies when you are living your life. Now I have grown old. The new generation of scientists and government members are discussing new planets where we may be able to settle again. The children I taught on board this old space cruise ship are the ones in charge, they have their own lives, drama, love, and heartbreak. And I sit in my chair, hold hands with my husband and watch them with a smile on my face.

I am not sure why you asked me about my story, as I don't think it is particularly special in any particular way. It wasn't the cutest, the most complicated, the simplest, or the grandest, but it was ours and I still treasure it. And who knows, maybe you have learned something from it anyway.
I hope as you go on your way today, dear child, that you keep your heart open to new possibilities, and adventures.
And who knows, maybe while you are on your own journey you will meet your very own Taeyong and he (or she or they) will simply change your life.

Final notes: Thank you so much for reading! Any feedback would be amazing, this was my first time writing first person!