strawberry sunday ❧ k.jw | ✔

fifteen

[woos: ready?]

Your heart leapt at the singular word lighting up your screen.

[you: ready]

Slipping out of your bedroom and into the hallway, you saw that Jungwoo was waiting for you there. He'd already told you that whatever he wanted to show you wasn't far, and that there was no need to change from your pajamas that you'd gone to bed in.

With a tilt of his head, he motioned for you to follow him through the living room, this time exiting through the side door at the end of the kitchenette. It lead to a narrow section of the wrap-around porch that had a porch swing and small table. But Jungwoo didn't sit on the swing like you expected. Instead, he swung a leg up onto the railing that went around the house, gracefully standing up all the way. From there, he could easily step over the gap onto the top of the awning over the porch. He stopped there, turning around and looking back at you expectantly.

You looked up at him with wide eyes, "Uh..."

"Come on," he said encouragingly.

Watching all of your limbs as closely as possible, you pulled yourself up onto the railing, not liking how narrow it was as you wobbled a little bit. The fairy's hand shot out and caught yours before you could teeter too much, and you mumbled a thanks to Jungwoo. Aligning yourself first, you took the slight step up onto the awning, wincing at the creak it let out now that the both of you were on it.

Jungwoo kept holding your hand as you were standing on the awning over the porch together, and you took shallow breaths as you looked up at him, chest-to-chest to make sure you both fit.

"Now what?" You asked quietly, well aware that you were staring at him.

"Almost there, promise," he smiled down at you, and gave your hand a squeeze before letting it go.

He turned around, where the proper roof of the house was, about chest-high for him. After easily pulling himself up, he gave you a helping hand where needed, until you were finally able to scramble up there with him. Looking around uncertainly, you remained kneeling as you got your bearings on the slightly sloped surface. Jungwoo laid down, tucking an arm under his head, then patted the space beside him as an invitation for you.

You shyly did so, suddenly unsure of just how close to get to him, and therefore left a little bit of space between the two of you.

To distract you from that thought, you focused your gaze dead ahead, and immediately your breath was stolen from your lungs. Above you was the entire cosmos, laid out seemingly all for you. More stars than you could count, twinkling in and out of view, sprinkled in the sky like pixie dust. The moon was nearly full, and you could see every crater, shadow, and mountain in crisp, clear detail. Yeah, you'd been out at nighttime before, but you'd never just looked at the stars like this before.

"Oh, Woos..." you sighed, quite literally starstruck. "This is... wow. Thank you."

"I'm glad you like it, Y/N," Jungwoo replied softly.

"How did you even figure out that you could get up here?"

"This morning, when I was having trouble sleeping. I was kind of wandering around out here and got curious. I used to climb a lot in my hollow. Something about just being up high above everything else..." He inhaled deeply, then let it back out. "It's really peaceful, right?"

"Yeah," you agreed. "It's lovely up here."

And you finally looked over at him. He was bathed in moonlight, starlight, all the cosmic glow of the universe and yet you weren't even thinking about any of that in the moment, too enchanted by the craft store glitter that blinked back at you. The cream yellow crewneck sweater he had worn to bed that night was a pale yellow in the nighttime, the bottom of it riding up to show just the thinnest strip of skin. When you realized how close his nose was to yours, you didn't jerk your head back, but your brain was turning to white noise, so you turned your eyes back to the stars to see if that would get the ringing in your ears to stop.