stardust | park seonghwa ✓

25

"JUST, promise me that first."

"Yeah, yeah okay, what is it?"

Yeji gulps. I can feel that she's having an internal debate, trying to talk herself out of this - whatever this is - but she scoots the stool closer. Yeji stops right in front me, our knees touching.

She turns around so that she has her back to me. Then I hear the long rattle of her zipper and I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous right now. She stops halfway and pulls down the left side of her jumper.

There, on the back of her shoulder, was something no longer undeniable. My hand pulls away the fabric of her sports bralette to have a better look at the whole thing uncovered.

It's bright red, mixed hint of purple. Magenta, it seems. With the red and the magenta was a shimmering swirl of dark green. It almost glows under the rays of sun, speckles of white decorating around the blue-ish white centerpiece. It's beautiful, I think to myself, reading the word 'amare' underneath it.

"Yeji, when...?"

She brings her jumper back up, zipping it tightly and turns around.

"The party," she answers.

"The party?"

Yeji nods, "it was after you left and oh God if I'd known that I'd get it there, I wouldn't go?"

"Why? Yeji, what happened?"

All my cautiousness around her evaporates with one look in her slightly anxious face. I can tell her hesitation, there was never a problem in reading someone as open-book as Yeji.

With an exhale, Yeji confesses. "I didn't want to know who my star mate is," she tells me, in a voice dripping in honesty. "You know what I'm like, being tied down to one person scares me."

"But you don't have to be together with your star mate, don't you?"

"Even then, Hyeshin, having it means that there's still someone out there for you, literally your other half - you were made of the same star," Yeji plays with her fingers, "and even if I'm not, it'll be like I'm cheating on them. Like, I know it's not if I'm in no relationship with them but it technically, celestially is."

"I was so scared of that, you know, ever since I learned about these things," she continues, "you know what else scares me?"

I shake my head.

"What if my star mate doesn't like me?"

"That won't happen, you know star mates have a natural pull towards each other. They will never hate you," I say.

"But what if they do!?" she protests, almost standing on her seat to emphasise her point.

I flinch slightly at her rising tone.

Yeji sits back down, shoulders slumped as she lets her head drop. She rests her elbows on her knees, as if she's trying to make herself seem smaller. This isn't like Yeji, it's not like her at all.

Then again, things like that tend to get either the worst or the best of your emotions. Yeji seems to be in a lot of distress from it.

"You're not telling me something," I state sternly.

The girl in front of me lifts her head, many emotions ripple in the warm tones of her dark coloured eyes. There's a sense of uncertainty in her silence, which I understand - I can one hundred percent understand. Topics as such is a little sensitive to talk about; girls like Yeji are the type to move on and go but there's something.