Be Our Star Forever // TXT

01. The Star

"Do you really have to go?" I yelled at my parents standing in front of me with an empty look, but it's like they didn't hear me. We looked like we're on a carnival, but this carnival looked so messy as something's happened here.

"Why did you leave me here?" They still didn't answer me. Then suddenly I was standing in front of my grandma's house. That's where I saw my parents leave me.

"Did I make a mistake? Daddy... Mommy... please don't leave me..." I kept yelling but they kept going and disappearing leaving me in this place that changed into darkness which slowly drew me into it.

"Soobin gets up. You'll be late for school." Grandma's voice woke Soobin up from his dream. When he tried to wake up from his bed, he heard stong buzzing voice in his ears. He held his ears that started to hurt because the buzzing sound reappeared.

"Grandma, I'm off to school." Soobin took his bag to go to school. Before he left the house, he used his headphones first, not only to listen to music but to block the sound from the outside. He did it to tone down the buzzing in his ears. The buzzing sound that always come after he got that dream in his sleep.

The same dream that almost every day haunted him. It's been five years since his parents left him. But he can never forget the day he'd been left when he's seven years old at his grandma's house.

Since then, he's shut himself down and become a loner. The loneliness that's always been with him and has become a commonplace for him, makes him didn't want to blend in with other people and the outside environment.

Only his grandma was always with him. If it wasn't for his grandma, Soobin would have long wanted to disappear and gone away. There was a time when he couldn't withstand the suffering he felt. He doesn't even know himself anymore and feels like he's long gone.

At school Soobin doesn't talk much to other students either. Many kids tried to talk to him. He'll only answer briefly and even just ignore them. It kept his school friends away from him. But he doesn't care about that.

Sometimes Soobin meets another boy who is also avoided by his schoolmates, Choi Beomgyu. Soobin realized Beomgyu often noticed him, but Soobin still didn't want to care about him. He just wants to be alone, doesn't want to spend time with anyone. He just wants to be alone with himself.

~~~

It's summer break time. It's one of the things that makes Soobin happy. Because he doesn't have to come out of his room to go to school and he can keep on being in his room without meeting anyone else.

But Soobin never thought that on the summer vacation something would happen, for the first time Soobin's parents went home to his grandma's house.

When Soobin's grandma saw his parents arrive, Soobin's grandma hugged Soobin's dad and cried, the longing she had kept for so long as it paid off with their presence in front of her. "Oh my son, you're finally home, I missed you."

Soobin who sees his parents with a flat stare, neither smiling nor crying. He didn't know whether to feel happy or angry, considering they had left him there and just came back after so long.

His parents who saw Soobin just standing in front of the door started coming towards him. "How are you, son? You've grown up, how old are you now?" Soobin just looked at his dad's face with a flat stare and refusing to answer the question.

"12 years old, now you're 12 years old, right?" Soobin just nodded as a response to his mom's words. "How can you forget the age of your own son?" His mother scolded her husband. But Soobin still doesn't care about that.

What caught his attention at the time, he saw someone else in his parents' car and his grandma was approaching those people. A grown man who looks like about the same age with his dad got out of the car and immediately hugged Soobin's grandma, as if they'd known each other for a long time. And then a girl got out of the car. Soobin's grandma then hold the girl's hands and came to Soobin.

"Soobin, this is uncle Jung Hoseok and his daughter, they'll stay with us for a while, so be a good friends with her, okay." Soobin just answered his grandma with another nod.

The girl reached out to Soobin. Soobin was initially lazy to shake hands with her. But somehow when he looked at the girl, her eyes were as bright as stars and a smile glistened on her face that was very sincere and soothing. Without him realizing he shook with that girl.

"Hi Choi Soobin, my name is Jung Byeol, call me Byeol."