#spoiler: inseong is a star living in a former astronaust's body

[dat-town]

starboy

Characters: Inseong & you

Setting: star au, astronaut au

Genre: sci-fi I guess and soft angst (if that’s a thing?)

Words: 4.6k

Summary:  He was made of stardust, soft lines and shy smiles. He held the warmth of the sun, the knowledge of the moon, the sparkle of the stars and he was ready to give it all to you.

Warnings: mentions of minor character death and ptsd

This story is a part of the Sensuous collab for SF9′s anniversary hosted by @restlessmaknae​. I’m so excited to share this with you all. It’s pretty different from what I usually write but I really liked this concept! And please give love to the other collab parts, too ♥

He used to be a collapsing star; shining beautifully in the vast darkness longer than human recollection. But the thing about everything that burns bright is that eventually they all burn out. He spent millions of years, maybe eons (he’d long lost counting) alone being the guiding light, the light that was slowly dying, inevitably fading. Just as the night is the darkest before dawn, he was the brightest before the explosion scattered the glitter pearls all over the canvas of the constellation-filled sky.

Kim Inseong brought a piece with him to Earth.

“What’s your name?” you ask of him, eyes trained on his relaxed form sitting on the edge of the clean, white hospital bed.

“I don’t know,” he tells you in a quiet, soothing voice. There’s awe between the vowels and a hint of the disappointment after a fruitless pursuit. He furrows his brows, pouty lips turning down like he doesn’t even know what he’s searching for. A name? What an intriguing phenomena.

You hum lightly and then jot down something in your notebook. He stares at the way you move your hand, his gaze follows the quick twists and turns of your wrist.

“How old are you?” you ask again, voice even and eyes gentle. You glance at the name tag by the bed, Kim Inseong, and it reminds you of the night when he was brought in, bruised, badly injured, barely breathing and the rank Mission Specialist on his uniform clearly visible.

“Time, therefore age too, is a manmade concept,” he replies in the same fashion, calm and unbothered. His eyes are now fixed on something afar just above your shoulder and you’re ready to ask the next question on the list when out of the blue you catch his stare directly on you. He looks just as curious as you are. “How old is the universe?”

The question throws you off a bit and you can’t provide more than a diplomatic answer.

“We don’t know for sure.”

Your patient nods slightly, licks his chapped lips and looks away again.

“Then I don’t know for sure either.”

Amnesia, you write down and tell him that it’s okay.

You ask him bits of questions everyday hoping that his memories would resurface from under the fog of haziness but in the end you tell him because he has every right to know about NASA, the mission, the accident…

“You almost didn’t make it back.” The others didn’t.

Maybe it’s for the better to not remember.

It has been two weeks since the sole survivor of the Venus Team woke up from coma and yet, he didn’t have any other visitor than higher-ups from his workplace. At first, you think it’s because the spaceship crashed into land halfway across the Earth where it was supposed to but even later nobody came, nobody called searching for him.

“Do you remember anyone we should call? Relatives? Friends? A girlfriend?”

“I miss the moon,” he replies and your heart aches for him, so you ask around. It turns out he’s a single child, his parents have passed away when he was young and even his emergency contact is his boss.

Only sensation-hungry reporters come all the way to the hospital asking for an exclusive interview about the failure of NASA's Venus Program. Inseong kindly declines them all. The world demands an explanation, grieving families need somebody to blame but there’s nothing more to tell: accidents happen, both humans and stars keep on falling and dying.

According to Inseong’s file in the medical database, he was born in South Korea, then moved abroad for his NASA training. You are talking with him in English even though you saw him reading a local newspaper like it’s nothing and you overheard him talking with another patient in French. He fascinates you with all his being, there’s just something ethereal about him. He seems out of place like he doesn’t entirely belong here at all and yet, he’s flesh and bones, human just like you. There’s nothing to prove otherwise. You can’t quite place it but there’s just something about him that draws you in.

He’s strangely calm for someone who has been through as much as him. He still has bruises because of the huge impact of the landing but he appears to be physically fine at first glance. You can only see the purple spots on his ribs when you accidentally catch a glimpse of him changing from one hospital wear to another. He doesn’t seem bashful about it at all but you guess it must be because he lived in a relatively small place with four other people for a long time. Or there’s that scar on his cheek barely noticeable but it didn’t heal perfectly, so it will always be a reminder of what had happened to him. But other than that, the doctors can be relieved.

However, the psychologist who was assigned to him gets worried. He says it’s not normal to be so accepting of one’s fate. That people always rebel, always question why this happened to them or suffer from the survivors’ guilt but Inseong is okay. And it should be great news but it’s still weird and Doctor Lee is concerned that the astronaut keeps it all pent up, keeps it all to himself, just like his buried memories of his past lives. What if someday something will trigger this barrier in his mind and everything will come back with full force bringing him to a mental breakdown? It breaks your heart a little.

“Aren’t you curious how you were… you know before?” you ask tentatively while sharing a dessert from your favourite place over his hospital bed. You know you shouldn’t stay but you could use a five minutes break and who are you  to say no when he pleads so nicely to help him with the cake. You know hospital food isn’t the greatest, so from time to time you bring him something from outside. He devours each one like he has never eaten anything like that before.

“That wasn’t me,” Inseong shakes his head dismissingly and he’s partly right. He is him but he’s also not, because how could he be the Kim Inseong everybody talks about if he doesn’t remember any of it? It renders you speechless, not knowing what to say but then, the young man lift his gaze to your face and there’s curiosity dripping from his gentle voice. “But you can tell me about it. You can tell me about Kim Inseong who wished to see the stars up-close and die like one.”

Your throat closes up at the implication of a part of him dying out there but maybe he’s right. It’s a miracle, everyone keeps saying, that he survived.

“I didn’t know you… him before,” you correct yourself respecting his decision of being considered his own being and clearing your throat, you sit down on the edge of his bed. “But I can tell you what I know.”

It clinks as he puts down his fork on the plate and focuses all his attention on you.

“He was born in Korea and he loved the sea. He has always been interested in astrology and after he saw the movie Apollo-13, he decided he wanted to go up into space. The NASA representative told me he even wrote it into his CV.” A small smile tugs on your lips as you remember the tall, stern man telling you this while you were waiting to see whether Inseong will be able to make it after his first surgery. He needed two more but he made it and later, he woke up from coma, too. He’s a fighter. “He was fresh out of high school when he moved to the United States to learn engineering specified in spacecrafts. He was one of the bests in his NASA training, so he was chosen to join the Venus Mission as a flight engineer. He was twenty-one, the youngest of the crew when they left three years ago.”

You have never been really interested in the NASA’s work but it was a worldwide phenomenon to send men to Venus. Everybody knew about it, everybody watched the launching of the rocket.

“What happened then?”

“It was a test to see if life is possible on Venus. It was supposed to be a year long mission plus the journey there and back and according to the NASA, it went fine. However, when they were supposed to come back, something went wrong. Rumours are about miscalculated supplies, others say asteroids, but what matters is that they couldn’t leave, so a rescue team was formed and everything seemed fine once they reunited. Then about half a year ago, we lost all communication with the team. There are some speculations that there was a supernova relatively close by and the waves of it caused the turbulence that damaged the spacecraft and sent it flying, at least towards Earth luckily. The others, they either died during that collision or the crash when you arrived.”

Even NASA couldn’t believe it when they saw the approaching nose-diving spaceship in the atmosphere of Earth. They evacuated the area of the landing place just in time and tried to make sure of the safe landing by alerting the closeby authorities like your hospital of the event. But nothing could prepare anyone seeing the burning metal monster rip through your sky.

“They died because of me,” Inseong whispers astonished just like a researcher when he finds the evidence of a hypothesis he has been looking all his career. It’s terrifying to see him jump into such conclusions based on his memories’ broken fragments.

“No, they didn’t,” you rush to protest but he doesn’t believe you. You can see it in his dark eyes, the pitchless holes leading to another sad galaxy. There’s grief and regret there beside his usual calmness. Yet, he turns towards you with a forgiving smile.

“You don’t know that.”

He’s right. You really don’t, you weren’t out there, you can’t be sure what happened. Nobody can. Still, from what you’ve learnt about Inseong, you know he wouldn’t do anything to intentionally hurt others.

“It wasn’t your fault,” you say and that you can be sure of. How could something so huge like this be anyone’s fault?

Inseong doesn’t say anything.

It’s been weeks and it’s certainly not the first time that when you walk past his room at night, on your way out of the hospital, you see Inseong standing by his window, staring out to the sky. You knock on the wood of the doorframe lightly to avoid startling him with your presence.

“Why are you still awake?”

The patient turns toward you slowly.

“I cannot sleep. Not at night,” he says in a quiet voice and you know he keeps his curtains shut even during daytime but his eyes are not accustomed to artificial lights either. He’s too used to dark with only the stars glimmering.

Insomnia. You’ve added it to his files.

“What are you still doing here, Miss?” he asks softly, curious even with a crooked brow.

“Extra hours,” you shrug because it’s nothing new, the bags under your eyes are only hidden by a good brand of a concealer. Normally, you’d flash him a smile and continue your walk down the hallway to get home, shower and sleep as soon as possible but there’s something keeping you there. Maybe it’s the slump in his shoulders or the look on his face that makes you ask: “Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m fine, thank you,” he nods curtly and smiles a bit before looking back at the stars. It’s obvious he’s drawn to them like a moth to flames.

“Do you miss it?” you inquire because you cannot even fathom how could it feel to be back to Earth, to get used to its gravity again, to see and feel things he doesn’t even remember. All he can remember is the spaceship and the universe and he has absolutely no recollection of his life before here on Earth. It might be the trauma or the fact that the Venus Mission went on for three years. A lot of time for a failed project.

So all he knows is what it's like out there. You can only compare it to the homesickness engraved deep into your bones when you moved out from your parents’ place for university years ago. It’s not an easy process. And Inseong, sometimes you catch yourself thinking that maybe he really belongs out there.

“Every day,” he sighs and the moon reflects his sadness in a magical glory.

“How is it out there?” you inquire, not able to hold back your curiosity. How can a man be so enamoured by whatever it is like out there to disassociate the here and the present so often?

“Cold. Lonely,” he tells you simply and honest as always. You don't correct him about his team members who were there with him. By now you know it's not what he means. “But beautiful.”

It must have been truly gorgeous if he’s still yearning to go back.

“Do you maybe want to get out of here?” you ask already giddy and ready to go. You know you shouldn’t. It’s breaking the protocol but Inseong has been stable for quite some time and he hasn’t been out of the hospital. Perhaps, he should. But Inseong looks at you with an unreadable expression like he doesn’t know what to make of your suggestion. Then slowly, so slowly you’re ready to take it all back, he nods.

“Let’s go,” he stands up in his wrinkled hospital clothes.

“Uhm, I will get you some change of clothes,” you offer a bit baffled because you didn’t expect him to actually agree right away.

You take a pile of warm, casual clothes from the dressing room for nurses and go back to Inseong’s room to give them to him. He doesn’t question the lack of colours, white all over. He decides on sweatpants and a t-shirt with the hospital’s logo.

It’s a short ride, a quiet one. Inseong mostly stares out of the window, watching the scenery ride by beside us. It’s not uncomfortable or awkward though, just nice. When you arrive, the receptionist welcomes you and ‘your friend’ zealously but not as much as Inseong is based on the brightness of his eyes when he realizes where you brought him. The observatory just outside of the town is one of your favourite places to go if you need a peace of mind. So you lead him to your usual place in the projection room where the whole ceiling is covered by the endless beauty of the universe.

“Do you like it?” you turn to him who was trapped in a body of a boy who had to grow up too fast.

“It’s– it’s like home. Thank you,” he mumbles, marvelling at the close to realistic sky above. Words can’t express the look of gratitude in his eyes and it truly makes you the happiest person on Earth, to be able to make him smile. It’s the greatest wonder to have a positive impact on others’ lives.

You sit down there on wooden chairs just staring up enjoying the light breeze and the faint, calm music from the speakers. It’s the first time you’re sharing this experience with somebody, so it feels strangely intimate even though you don’t do anything more than sitting next to each other. At least for a while.

“Humans call that the Apus, the Bird of Paradise,” Inseong says out of the sudden, pointing to a bright constellation on the west. Humans, he says and you wonder what does he feel like then. An eternal soul stuck in a mortal body?

“How do you know so much?” you blurt out suddenly amazed by his knowledge he never shows off but is always there. It seems impossibly how well educated and all-knowing he is despite barely remembering anything including his own name.

“I learned it all. With time, I believe.” he answers carefully, not sure if he should but he does it anyway while watching your reaction closely.

“That takes a lot of time,” you hum searching for the stars reflecting in his eyes.

“Yeah,” he nods and you think maybe his soul has lived more than you can imagine. If that kind of thing is possible. You start to think a lot more is possible than you’d previously believed.

Inseong doesn’t act like he has any plans to leave the hospital. He seems quite at ease in his room. The hospital, however, might have been understanding until one point because of the consideration towards an international tragedy but they need the space and they kindly ask the man to leave. You witness it all, how he lets out the small oh sound when the realization flashes in his eyes. He nods politely and says he’ll be out by tomorrow.

You’re worried how he will integrate back into society but you try not to show it to him while you help him pack. He barely has anything with him. His boss sent him a pack of personal belongings from the States like ID card, passport, keys and clothes and NASA also arranged a flight for him back to the American continent. He hasn’t said anything but you could tell that Inseong was hesitant about it first, going back, and once he mentioned that he might go to Korea instead to find his roots and to figure out some stuff. It seems, however, that by now he has made up his mind and decided beside NASA to be closer to the stars in both metaphorical and literal sense.

You offer to take him to the airport because that’s your free day anyway and Inseong is sensible enough not to turn down your attempt to stay by him as long as possible. You have only known each other for a bit over a month and yet, you don’t feel ready to let go. Despite that you’d never stop him from doing something his heart desires. You wish him nothing but happiness.

“So that’s it, I guess,” you shrug with a forced smile when you reach the gates to the terminal, the very last point until you could walk with him.

“You, people, tend to stress too much over distances. It’s not like we won’t see each other anymore,” Inseong smiles down at you, the way he always does, moderate and soft but you can see sorry and slight panic in his eyes as he looks around in the crowd. “I’ll be only a flight away.”

A ten-hour-flight, yeah, but you have to admit that after his three-month-journey to and back from Venus, that’s probably nothing. Still, you can’t help but worry.

“Just take care, okay?”

Inseong’s fingers grazes against your cheek as he carefully brushes a lock of your dishevelled hair behind your ear.

“Don’t worry about me,” he says, voice so so soft like the best pillows you’ve ever had. It doesn’t put your heart at ease though. “I’m okay… it’s just that sometimes I realize how small I am. From there I could see everything and now it’s like something is ripped away from me.”

It reminds you of the night you asked him how it was out there. Maybe nothing could compare to that. Maybe you’ll never understand but still, you would like to be there for him. Not as a nurse but as a friend or whatever he needs.

“If you ever feel alone, call me,” you give him your professional card but you previously scribbled down your personal phone number on it.

“Thank you. For everything,” he takes it and you swear you see stars in his eyes even in the daylight.

Then it’s a bit awkward, the boarding announcement is made but while people are flooding around you, the two of you still stand there engraving each other’s features in your minds. Inseong has always been physically there but distant, never touch-starved even though he has spent so much time alone in his own opinion. You, on the other hand, crave to just touch him, to believe he’s real and there.

“Can I… hug you?” Uncertainty seeps into your voice as you fumble with your own clothes not sure what to do.

Inseong looks at you for the longest time but his eyes sparkle when he nods, stepping closer. You’re pretty sure he hasn’t been hugged since he’s come back on Earth. All the human touch he got was for medical check-ups, so you’re extra careful with your touches to not be too evasive. You nuzzle close to his chest, clasp your arms around his waist as you breath in the scent of his coconut shower gel.

When the last warning call resonates through the speakers, he steps backwards and you fold your arms in front of you. He doesn’t remind you that you both see the same stars at night, you don’t mention you’ll think of him everytime you catch a glimpse of the Apus constellation. You just don’t speak, that fond look you share says it all.

And then he’s gone. Just like that. He came unexpected like lighting and now he has left nothing but a burning spot behind. (In your heart.)

Time passes weirdly when you miss someone.

It slows done in the most mundane ways, when you’re shopping, walking home from the hospital after a night shift or when you’re waiting for his call. But it rushes by so fast when you finally hear his voice, when you read his letters because that’s what he writes, the old-fashioned letters instead of texts and you find it endearing. You like to go back to the observatory and read his letters there, under the fake stars, imagining his voice as he tells you about everything.

NASA made me go through mental and physical check-up. They looked at me sadly. I guess I’ve already known then what it meant. They won’t take me back as an astronaut because they think I have post traumatic stress and don’t want to risk a breakdown. They said they could get me an office job but… that’s not my field. I need to think on what direction my life should go from now. What am I good for if I can’t go back there?

I wish I was th I hope you’re happy. You deserve it. Don’t forget that the stars are looking out for all of us.

P.S. They are pretty from here, too.

That’s his last letter about two weeks ago. You haven’t heard from  him since then except one rushed phone call. After he quitted his job, he’s busy with moving out of the place NASA provided him. He seemed excited about it, to start anew while you still feel static, frozen in one place. It feels like how you imagined lost-distance relationships would be except it’s not a relationship and friends shouldn't feel the way you do and you know that. You would never burden him with your feelings until you’re sure he’s ready. Especially since he hasn’t made many other friends or acquaintances at all since he came back. It might not be the best conversation starter to drop the bomb of him being amnestic and being the sole survivor of a failed NASA project. You just hope he’ll find someone who understands him.

“Hey, you’re coming here more often than ever before,” the receptionist of the observatory greets you with a wide smile, pointing out the obvious. You’re lucky that the stargazing hall is for free or else, you’d be broken because of all the times you’ve spent here during the last months.

“Oh well, I guess I fell in love with the stars,” you shrug, hiding a shy smile, clenching Inseong’s brand new letter close to your chest.

“Well, then lucky for you, boss just hired someone who seems to know everything about the universe. I’m certain he’d be delighted to tell you all about it,” the guy winks at you and you let out a low chuckle.

“That sounds nice but I’ll be fine on my own for now, thank you,” you excuse yourself because you need time and space to read the letter in peace. You walk to your usual place, the seats you took back then together with Inseong. You take a deep breath, soaking in the soothing effect of the place before folding out the paper in your hand. On contrary to any of his earlier letters, this one is rather short. Only one sentence written in neat handwriting in the middle of it and you might be hallucinating but if you close your eyes, you almost here him reciting it from right beside you:

“Did you know that stars always find their way home?”

You hum, wondering what it could mean while slowly blinking your eyes open. Then maybe it’s just a sixth sense or a special feeling tugging at your heart but you look on your right and you can’t believe your eyes.

“Inseong,” you literally squeal standing up abruptly and look around to make sure there are no other surprises on the way. It seems like just another miracle on the row. “You knew I would come here?”

“The receptionist might have said something,” he shrugs and even the wrinkles around his eyes are smiling. There’s so much warmth in him, in the pastel sweater he wears, the silver bracelet with a crescent moon on it and his crooked smile you love so much. It seems too good to be true. You might be dreaming and it gets even more surreal when Inseong is closing the space between you.

“I missed you,” he whisper-tells and your breath is caught in your throat. Both of you are covered by the reflection of the galaxy’s canvas about you and you literally feel like floating. There’s only Inseong’s soft hand touching your cheek keeping your grounded. “You’re the best part of being on Earth.”

You feel like you might cry, even your voice sounds wet with unshed tears.

“You… you came back? For good?”

“I don’t have anywhere else to be,” he answers but you can tell that’s not everything. But you’re too happy to ask him to go into details. After months of missing him, seeing him in flesh is too good already. You lean into his touch easily, fingers curling into the front of his shirt. “Did you know that stars are basically balls of burning gas held together by their own gravity?”

You shake your head no. You never thought much about stars before him. Before you saw them shining right in his dark orbs.

“You’re my gravity,” he says so simply as if he just stated a fact but it’s the most beautiful thing anybody has ever told you.

Without thinking, you stand on your tiptoes and kiss him. Gentle and chaste but with all the love you have. You can feel him smile into the touch of your lips and pulls you into his arms, keeping you there like you were something precious just like the night sky embraces Mother Earth. It feels like a galaxy spilling inside of you and filling you up with everything fond and soft and good.

How is it when a star falls in love?

It burns. Warm and bright. For a longer time than human recollection.