Rising Stars

XXV - Rising Stars

"We were meant to be

Rising Stars."

- Son Jaemin

June 22nd, 2021

I wasn't sure if I should've been surprised that Seraphine managed to find the spot. She stood near the edge of the hill, wearing an oversized light blue hoodie that came to rest at her mid-thigh, and white stockings covered the rest of her legs.

I let out a shaky breath. Then, I slowly approached her. "Hey," I said softly. I walked up to stand beside her.

My hands came to rest atop the railing that separated the edge of the hill from L.A.

I overlooked the entirety of Los Angeles from Hollywood Hills. The city lights glinted like small stars on the horizon, an ocean of shimmering gold and silver. Schools of cars, with their red and yellow lights, drifted atop rivers of asphalt. And the sun, finishing its trip across the ether and dipping beneath the sea, set the sky ablaze with soft shades of pink and purple and orange.

Seraphine seemed to flinch at my entrance. She whirled around, a hand covering the bottom half of her face. "H— hi."

Despite how softly she said it, how quiet her voice was, the strain with which words seemed to leave her lips, hearing her voice again after nearly a full year of missing out on it left an inexplicable feeling in my throat.

I glanced down at my hands. The dome of silence that surrounded us was suffocating, but neither of us seemed eager to break through it. We stood there, side-by-side, in utter quiet for a time. Seraphine glanced between the view of the city, the ground, and me— and she seemed right on the verge of saying something but she couldn't.

"You're different." My words came suddenly, perhaps a little too loudly, but truthfully. Seraphine carried herself differently than she did last August. Had this been the old version of her, she would have asked me more questions than I cared to answer; she would have barged her way through my barriers. But here she was, standing quietly.

"And so are you," she softly replied. "But... I guess it'd be a problem if we hadn't changed since the last time we spoke to each other." Seraphine brought both of her hands behind her back and momentarily stood on the balls of her feet. "I wanted to congratulate you on your... EP release." She managed a smile as she glanced to the side. "Every second of it was brilliant."

"The same goes for you," I found myself saying. "You listened to mine?"

"Thanks. And I did." Sera pursed her lips. She inhaled deeply, turning her gaze to the city. "That last song, 'Better Than I Could,' that..."

"That?"

"That was about me, wasn't it?" She asked the question with an impossible softness.

I rubbed the back of my neck. "Yeah. It was. I wrote it after I texted you."

She let out a small giggle. "I figured, since that last paragraph you sent was literally in the song. "

I chuckled. "Yeah, guess that would make it pretty obvious."

"But it's nice to know that sending me that message helped you write." Her smile slowly morphed into a frown. "At least I'm good for some things."

"True enough."

At her half-hearted joke, the quiet returned.

I wasn't sure what I was supposed to say, what I was supposed to do. I didn't even know why she called me out here. Nor did I know why I even agreed, much less specified a place to meet. I had every question under the sun, and no answers in sight. So, naturally, the first step would be to get some answers.