look at the stars | sunsun

eleven.

The night air has settled into a mild windchill by the time Sunghoon decides to leave the rink. He has his worn practice skates slung over his shoulder by the laces as he exits the darkened building, heading down the winding route to his home. His family had relocated themselves nearer to Sunghoon's regular training arena five years ago, after he'd started skating as a semi-profession; there was barely five blocks' walking distance between the two locations he frequented the most.

The stars , he notices, are beautiful when the streetlights are out . He doesn't usually see the night sky without the light pollution from all around the city, but tonight it's late enough that even the lamps that illuminate the footpath have powered off.

He wonders about his future.

Sunghoon stops at the roadbridge over the river along his way home, leaning back against the cold metal railings to look up at the sky. A scene from his memories flashes back before him ─ the last time he was in this position, back in Sapporo, on the rooftop with Sunoo the night before the NHK where they'd spent the night together.

Sunoo.

Sunoo wasn't here anymore; he'd gone back home to train with his own friends in a city Sunghoon wasn't in, living a life Sunghoon wouldn't know.

Sunghoon questions incidentally why he didn't even try to stay in contact with the only person he'd ever met who'd bothered to break into his isolation. There is no good answer to that he can think of.

My fault, no doubt about that.

Everything seems to come back to his mistakes these days.

There's an inexplicable sense of something lost that runs through his veins as the stars open up above him. He'd once convinced himself he was one of them; shining bright to be admired by the world, so far, so far away. And maybe, just for that while, he was.

Had he been happy then?

Sunghoon doesn't think he knows what happiness means to him anymore.

In reality, nothing had changed. He was no worse at skating than he'd ever been, better even, given he'd only ever improved with practice. But somewhere in the course of the Olympics, something vital, something crucial in the way he'd always known himself had been irreparably crushed.

I used to be the best.

Was there a hint of wistfulness in his thoughts tonight?

I used to be on top of the world.

After so many years of it, he didn't really know how to be anything else.

The faraway engine noise of a pickup truck rumbling down the street sounds in the distance, and Sunghoon takes that as a signal that he should be heading home. The rest of the city is far gone into the night, and he should be too. There's practice for him to catch up on tomorrow.

The thoughts ravage through Sunghoon's mind as he walks, resisting all efforts to drive them away.

What's the point?

All you've ever done is practice. You've wasted ten years of your life, and in the end it all amounts to nothing.

"I didn't waste them," his voice is barely a whisper, defeated, eyes pressing closed to stop the tears from escaping. "I didn't. I tried my hardest..."

In reality, what use were other people's words when he couldn't even bring himself to believe them?

Not good enough.

You were supposed to be the best. You are either the best, or you are nothing.

So, you are nothing.

He collapses to his knees in the snow, disregarding the ice that presses into his knees as he lets the tears fall unheeded, the strength to stop them long gone. The tears lend an odd, comforting warmth, the only comfort that surrounds him tonight, the only comfort that will surround him any night.

And what's more, no one will be here for you.

Sunghoon couldn't even bring himself to blame anyone else. He was once the best of the best, so far above the rest of the world that it was okay that he didn't have anyone. He stood alone, because no one else had ever been able to measure up.

And now he wasn't the best anymore, but he was still alone, and all that meant was that after all these years, he really did have nothing.

Thoughts are , Sunghoon realizes belatedly, difficult to stop once they've started running.

Perhaps it was his own hopelessness, in the desolate chill of the midnight, that allowed everything that would happen next to happen.

Perhaps it was the streetlights that weren't shining that night, on the night the boy on the bridge needed them most.

Perhaps it was the driver at the wheel of the pickup, half-awake on the way to his night shift job in the next city, complacent enough not to watch the road as well as he should have.

Perhaps it was the black ice that lined the asphalt roads, treacherously slippery under the cover of the dimness.

Or perhaps the stars just weren't crossed in his favor that cold, dark winter's night. Sunghoon would never figure it out, but afterwards it no longer mattered.

The only thing that mattered that night was the pitch-dark roads, the pickup truck speeding to make up for lost time, and the boy who no longer had the strength to save himself as everything crumbled around him.