The Odd Doctor Out | A Drama | S. 2

273 🩺 They Shine Like Twilight

It was pitch black at night on the university oval.

With millions of stars shining down on him from above, Yunho collapsed down onto the grass, exhausted. He didn't know how many laps he'd run, but despite there being a slight frost on the grass, he was hot and sweating in his joggers and T-shirt, and the brisk grass was refreshing.

Still feeling nauseated from having to get down on his knees and apologise to a man he had come to despise, he tried his best to push the memory from his mind. It was in the past after all, and there was nothing that would change that...

And so instead, he stared up at the stars, shining down on him. He felt a strange sort of calm wash over him, and it was only when the memory of him and Mingi playing on this very oval and talking about those dazzling constellations popped into his head, that he understood why.

Mingi...

He hadn't seen him since that night under the weak light in his kitchen... The night he had done something he'd never thought he'd do... The night that he had kissed him...

But his absence wasn't for lack of trying.

Yunho had a sneaking suspicion he was being avoided again.

Every time he'd caught a glimpse of him at the hospital, he'd disappeared without a trace, and no matter how long he waited at the bus terminal, he never once saw that dark head of hair.

San was being unusually quiet when it came to Mingi as well, and even Yunho's most basic of questions were avoided like the plague.

And with days having passed without having him around, Yunho's chest seemed to be constantly filled with a throbbing, that he had finally come to admit to: He missed him.

Laying on the grass surrounded by stars, Yunho reached up and twinkled his fingers in between the lights. As his eyes seemed to unfocus, it almost looked like he was touching the tiny little lights, and somehow, it made his heart flutter.

For the first time, however, it didn't scare him.

As a matter of fact, in that moment, he felt quite brave.

He had come to terms with the fact that he really, truly, missed Mingi, and the moment he had decided that he didn't care, how exactly he missed him, or in what capacity, suddenly, he felt comfortable. It had only been a day, and he couldn't really identify the moment it had happened. But somewhere between waking up that morning, and laying there in the grass, he had come to accept it.

And it felt good.

It felt like he could for once, just exist, calmly, knowing that that was how he felt.

And now that he had admitted it to himself, he couldn't really remember why he'd been so scared of it in the first place. It wasn't so terrifying. In fact, it felt amazing to just lay on his back in the middle of the night and feel something, that he knew was his own, and that although it wasn't entirely a very nice feeling - missing him -, it felt incredibly relieving to just feel it.

He didn't need to think about anything else. In that moment, all there was, was his fingers dancing with the stars, and him enjoying gazing at them.

There was him, the stars, and his feelings. And if he thought about it a little deeper, they all morphed together. Those three things were all just one, for he was the owner of his feelings, and the stars only meant something to him now, because he suddenly felt he had a reason to enjoy them for.