Man in the Moon • Jisoo

21

“From the moon to the stars,
우주를 해매다,”

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"Chan, wake up."

Hoshi pokes Chan's shoulder lightly, proceeding to rock the younger boy's figure gently, telling him to wake up. Chan was dead tired from playing with the other Lost Boys, and he doesn't want to wake up, but Hoshi might bring him along to his amazing midnight adventures.

"Wake up, I have to take you somewhere." Hoshi says, standing still by Chan's bed as the younger boy yawns and stretches, his eyes snapping open at the mention of 'somewhere'.

"Somewhere? You're taking me on an adventure?"  Chan asks, eyes glistening.

Hoshi scratches his head, "More or less."

Soon the two were out of the underground home they live in, striding through the forest to a place Chan knew well of; where Hoshi usually takes flight whenever he was about to fly off to the real world. He took the bag of pixie dust Hoshi handed him and sprinkled it onto himself just like how he always does, feeling his body getting lighter, his feet peeling off the ground.

Chan had noticed that Hoshi was surprisingly quiet tonight, a straight look on his hyung's face. He's been wearing that face for days now, feeling troubled and also tired.

"Are we going to the real world, hyung?" Chan asks, catching up with Hoshi "are we going to see Gaeul noona?"

The mention of Gaeul's name caused Hoshi to flinch a little, and Chan had noticed that. He always did. Like whenever Hoshi has a kind of sad expression on his face when he talks about Gaeul. How he's got this annoyed expression when he talked about the Moon. Hoshi wasn't annoyed; just bothered, he guesses.

They step into the alternate world, the world where reality always kicks in, where dreams don't always come true and where everybody grows up. Assuming that Hoshi wasn't in the mood to talk to him, Chan slowed his pace so that he trailed behind the boy in green.

Below him were the bustling cars and the blinding lights that came from the city that had betrayed him, a place where Chan believed there was no longer happiness. Horrid things keep happening to him and his family, it just never felt right.

Of course, it was selfish of him to run off onto his own, but he never knew that being a Lost Boy caused him to leave his real family forever. And there was no turning back now; no creature from Neverland could go back to the real world. They'd always disappear.

"We've got somewhere to go before we meet Gaeul," Hoshi says, an unhappy tone in his voice "I hope you're ready."

Chan just nods as a reply, unable to guess what was causing Hoshi to frown that much. Surely, Hoshi's temper isn't something that Chan's fond of, but rather than that, he's always curious of what Hoshi's mad of, because his anger's always unreadable.

The city lights seemed to disappear below Chan and Hoshi as they descended into thick trees and grass. It was surely a cold autumn, the dim street lights blinded by the thin fog although it was only early September. Chan looked around, regretting he didn't bring along his given sweater with him.

"I've got something to tell you," Hoshi says, looking straight into the dark, foggy path "follow me."

Chan's hand was gripped tight by the older as they walked through the gate. Chan was still as clueless as ever, unable to voice out a question.