Cat Boy

20 | cyclotron

"What about that one?"

Vernon squints, his eyes focusing on the previously burry image of Daehyun's pointer finger. He stares at it for a confused moment before realizing that she's using her pointer to, well, point, and follows the direction it's pointing toward. His gaze lands on a cluster of stars.

"Oh," he mumbles, shifting his head somewhat. The picnic blanket feels uncomfortable and itchy against the back of his neck, but Daehyun looks the picture of bliss. "That's the Little Dipper. Kind of like the Big Dipper, but, well, littler."

"Yeah, they don't look similar at all," Daehyun says. She retracts her hand, folding her arms behind her head and almost knocking her elbow against his ear more than once in the process. "I don't get how people come up with constellations and their stupid, unfitting nicknames."

Vernon laughs softly under his breath. "They're just names," he murmurs. "There's really no reason to call them anything else, you know. It's like seeing a cloud and thinking it looks like a rabbit...it could look like a snail to someone else. It's the same with constellations."

She hums under her breath, and they lapse into a comfortable silence. Vernon hadn't been pleased at the prospect of all of them gathering together in one place, but it's actually not that bad. The other three continue to mind their own business, experimenting with face painting and all that. He's just happy looking at stars, even if he can't use his telescope to do it.

The stars are bright tonight, somehow even more vivid against the deep blue expanse given the late hour and the lack of tall structures that could obstruct the stargazers' vision. There are no buildings, no trees that can block out even a portion of the sky. Lying down like this, with his right leg kicked up to rest on his other knee, his hands folded over his stomach and a comforting presence by his side, Vernon almost feels like he's in paradise.

For a few minutes, there's nothing but the stars.

"Do you think it's the same with people?"

He blinks, caught off guard by the sudden intrusion in their shared quietude, then turns his head to look at Daehyun. She's still gazing forward and up, and for a moment he almost believes he imagined her saying anything. Then, when he doesn't answer, she faces him, so their noses are aligned in a funny way that makes something hot and sudden twist in his gut.

He waits for her to shrug, or to look away, to do anything to break the sudden and scary momentum of the eye contact that's making the blood in his head rush louder. She doesn't.

"What's the same with people?" he murmurs, surprised by the sudden hoarseness of his own voice. It's deeper than he remembers it, like the bundle of exposed nerves in his stomach have somehow managed to lower its timbre.

"Seeing different shapes in a single constellation," she says softly. "Do you think it's the same way with humans? That you see a shape different from everyone else—maybe the shape you want to see?"

His mouth feels dry. Vernon resists gulping, knowing it would just make him look incriminating, but gives in to the instinct in the end. Daehyun's gaze doesn't flicker even then, her eyes looking back into his steadily, as if penetrating the glass and staring straight into his very soul.

"That's a three a.m. thought if I ever heard one," he says, trying to break the tension, but it doesn't work. She doesn't smile, and it hits him that this is serious. This is important, and it probably had nothing to do with him. "Well, not exactly the same. Or at least I don't think so."

"Why?"

"There are some things that stay the same," he says. "A cirrus cloud is still a cirrus cloud no matter who sees it. A circumpolar constellation is still a circumpolar constellation."