MINUTE 0
He’s still crying when the song ends. The sky glitters black and blue like a bruise, scorching a brand into Rex’s heart. The end, it spells out, drops of mercury and jupiter in the periphery of his vision, desperately working itself over a slate that will never be clean again. It’s easier to hide his tears when he turns with the internal excuse of heading back into the wings, a break to catch his breath and dry his face before the entire group has to go back on stage.
Aris is already floating when a hand knits itself into Rex’s own, veins overlapping over the road map of his palm. When Rex turns, Theo’s smiling at him through his own tears. Trying to smile. Failing, mostly, judging by the twitch of his lower lip, how his entire face seems to crumple into ash with each thoughtful furrow of his thick brows. “Come on,” he whispers, as if trying to distract Rex from the way liquid never seems to escape his glassy eyes, saltwater evaporating into gas the second it touches the edges of his waterline. “Let Aris have his moment.”
Rex wants to say that it’s not about that, but something tells him that Theo knows that already, so he keeps his mouth shut. Jerks his head in a tight nod and lets Theo drag him backstage. The first notes of Aris’ violin shatter open the universe and Rex wants to cry all over again. The others aren’t doing much better—Dominik damn near collapses to his knees and Yuki’s biting his lip so hard Rex almost worries it might bleed. Some part of him wants to look for Stel—wants to see how he’s doing, if he’s crying too. The rest of him resists the urge.
The curtain grinds to a halt, the soft metallic screech of the rigging a plaintive whimper against the melancholy tones of Aris’ playing. Rex never really liked the violin when he was younger, not before he entered the training room of what would eventually become ST4RBOY and Aris had one tucked beneath his chin, eyes closed as he’d bowed out the saddest notes Rex had ever heard. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to hear a violin the same way again, not when this concert ends and Aris will be gone, just like everyone else.
“You’re crying.” A perfectly-manicured nail presses itself against his cheek, scooping up the tears gathering there. Vincent looks placid as always, blonde hair gelled back over his forehead. He’d cried earlier too, too emotional to even finish his lines, and all Rex had thought was this is really the end. But now, Vincent just seems calm. It’s deceptively soothing. Rex lets himself believe.
“Of course I am. You cried too.”
The tiniest of smiles teases itself at the edges of Vincent’s lips before Rex’s tears lift themselves off his face, drifting into Vincent’s palms—water, just like the rest of it, dancing over his fingers in a tepid waltz before he easily tosses it at the back of Gene’s head. Rex catches a half-muffled curse as Gene leans down to whisper something to the chipmunk perched on his shoulder. A laugh bubbles out of his throat even through his sobs when the chipmunk launches itself straight at Vincent, claws barely grazing his collar before Vincent’s running away giggling. He somehow manages to look pretty even when he’s fleeing for his life, Gene and his chipmunk hitman both scampering after him.
After tonight, we’ll never be like this again. It’s a knife and it’s true. They’ll be alive, but they won’t have each other—not like this, performing in front of a crowd screaming their name, living together, sleeping together, breathing in the same oxygen—or granite, depending on what state of matter Theo feels like leaving the air in. Rex would gladly drink concrete for the rest of his life to have his members by his side forever.
A calloused palm slaps itself down on his shoulder. Rex barely has to glance at the ring sitting on its index finger—sapphire and onyx and silver, ST4RBOY engraved on the band—to know who it belongs to. Dominik’s mouth pouts open like he wants to say something before he’s sobbing again, so much younger than twenty-seven in the wake of his misery.
“I’m seriously trying to keep it together for all of you kids, you know,” Dominik manages to get out through his ragged weeping. A wan smile tugs helplessly at the corners of his mouth. “It’s not working very well.” He glances around—almost like he’s expecting Jiseok to materialise out of thin air and chastise him for not acting like the oldest. As if he’s reminding himself that Jiseok won’t be around to do that anymore after tonight. None of them will.
“It’s our final concert. You’re allowed to cry,” Rex blurts, even if it’s mostly a balm for his own wounds.
Dominik stares at him, something wordlessly fragile in his gaze. “I wish it wasn’t,” he admits.
Rex would be lying if he said he didn’t feel the same way. Three years is a long time for a magical group. But in the span of the universe, three years is a millisecond, a blip on the radar. A petal in the wind before it’s gone.
It’s been no secret that ST4RBOY is temporary, or whatever temporary means when every day is a potential expiry date. Magical idol groups have always been hard to find and harder to withstand. Too polarising—the belief that magic shouldn’t exist at all still going strong, a constant throughout the centuries, magical groups a glorification of the very thing most of society frowns down upon. ST4RBOY was something novel at debut. The first magical idol group in one hundred years, ever since the disappearance. Interesting enough to garner the support of masses willing to fight against societal stigma for them, a group made of magical boys—mostly, at least—with pretty voices and pretty dancing and pretty faces. Successful enough to keep their heads above water even now. It’s why their company’s held on to them for so long despite the protest signs graffitied onto their building almost every day.
It’s not like they didn’t try to keep ST4RBOY together. Vincent and Rex—old money in deep pockets—tried to see if they had enough for a counter-offer when the company got bought out. They didn’t. Not enough to both buy a company and deal with an inevitable lawsuit boomeranged back from their contracts, anyway. The new CEO’s first order of business was to throw ST4RBOY out. A natural disbandment, the news articles all say. Can’t stand having a bunch of magical whiny brats around that we’ve gotta spend valuable resources defending, were the CEO’s final words before he slammed the door in Stel’s face. Rex still remembers the way Stel looked when he slunk back into the dorms and sighed, Every candle has to burn out someday.
Rex knows that. Always has. It doesn’t make things any better.
“It’s taking everything in me not to slow time down so we can have a little longer,” Dominik confesses. Shrugs like he’s trying to convince himself he doesn’t care even though his eyes are still wet and his lip quivers every time he speaks. “I know it’s the natural progression. We had a good run. Just—”
Every candle has to burn out someday.
“Yeah,” Rex manages to eke out. His stomach lurches. Like he might start crying once more. If he does it’ll set Dominik off again. He pinches the bridge of his nose and tamps his tears down and scuttles away like the coward he is, until he finds himself nestled in Stel’s side. Just like always.
Stel glances at him. It feels like a bullet between his ribs. Big brown eyes a gun to his head.
“Aris is doing great, isn’t he?” Stel says, and he means it with every fiber of his being. It isn’t hard to tell, not when Rex turns to look at him and instantly tumbles into the constellation in his gaze, fingers colliding with Andromeda, clinging to Ursa Major like a lifeline, every inch of him melting away into a midnight that never seems to end. Rex almost wants to reach out and pluck the stars from his eyes. Hang them in the sky until he can sew a new universe into the cosmos. A new world just for the nine of them, one where they don’t have to leave.
It’s hard to hold Stel’s gaze. He glows in the shadowy blacklight, the dark roots already growing through his pale blonde hair. Glittering like the light he’s made of from the inside out. Stel reaches for his hand and Rex lets him take it, feeling the all-too-familiar warmth flare to life, licking at the skin of his palm. A moth to a flame.
Jiseok is warbling away somewhere in the background, his honeyed tenor lined with the aftermath of a throat scratched raw from crying. Rex thinks that’s when he’d really, really known that it had been the end, when Gene had broken down in tears and Jiseok had followed barely seconds after, lighting up the sky with a wail that hadn’t even sounded human anymore. A pitchy syllable drifts to Rex’s ears, followed by a quick splatter of cursing. He can hear Gene joining in, then Vincent. Yuki doesn’t chastise them until Dominik enters the chorus, whining about all of them being terrible influences.
Rex tries to wonder what it’ll be like without his members. Quieter, no doubt. Maybe a little more peaceful. Peace means nothing to him if it’s peace without Dominik’s dad jokes filling silences stretched too short to become awkward yet, without being able to launch himself into Aris’ bed after a day of spine-breaking schedules, without having Stel, always automatically falling into his spot as ST4RBOY’s leader even at home, around to mother hen over them all despite their complaints—
The lights above their heads seem to glow even brighter, a cerulean storm beating down on their heads. The thick velvet curtains do nothing to keep out the shrill, high tones of Aris’ violin, a lady wailing for a lost lover. A boy crying for eight friends he may never see again. For a second, Stel’s figure flickers around the edges, dissolving into threads of gold and blue. When Rex fixes him with a look, a light chuckle escapes Stel’s mouth. “You know I can’t help it,” Stel says. “You tend to have that effect on me.”
—without Theo being around to answer everything like the walking dictionary he is even when it’s hypothetical (because who just has the mass of the sun right there in their brain?), without coming home to Gene’s card collections strewn everywhere, one or three or seven of his cat friends making homes for themselves on Rex’s bed, without Jiseok always laughing or singing or listening to his freaking car documentaries on full volume—
Stel presses his forehead to his shoulder, so tall but several inches shorter than Rex still, big eyes meteorites in the brightness of the dark. There’s something thick and cloying in the air, almost sweet, the sickly-saccharine scent of sweat and excitement and glory days long gone, dripping down Rex’s spine like the grate of a knife. Outside, Aris’ solo is reaching its peak, and Rex can imagine him flying above the crowd the same way he did in rehearsals, gravity nothing but a suggestion beneath his feet. Almost. So close to being over. Stel’s skin burns. A breath away from immortality.
—without everyone fawning over Yuki, giving him the first bite at every meal, first pick of beds during room reassignments, the same way Rex would have treated the little brother he never had (always wanted). Yuki tries to pretend that he hates the princess treatment and all the rest don’t even bother to act like they feel sorry no matter how many times Yuki protests—guys, I’m already nineteen, freaking hell—without having Vincent around for the first time since they were teens, when Vincent first flew in from LA and Rex would drag him around everywhere until he became his first ever friend—persistence is a gift, he always used to say as he’d basically hauled Vincent through the entire country, and you’re annoying, Vincent always used to reply, the tiniest of smiles tugging his lips upwards—
“Guys!” Gene yells, practically vibrating on the tips of his toes. Something about performing always seems to dial Gene from hundred to a thousand and Rex can’t help missing that for him already. It’s not that he can’t redebut in a different group, but Rex knows every agency will stare at his grinning face set above his ridiculously well-defined arms and ask, Hey, aren’t you that animal boy? and it’ll be back to square one all over again, working some dead-end job to make ends meet until someone opens their eyes and looks. It’s a little easier for Vincent and Rex himself, old money and all. No real need for another job, especially when nobody’s hiring. It doesn’t make the inevitable feel any better. “Aris is almost done, let’s go!”
Sapphire bleeds in through the curtains, and Rex can’t help stiffening. Dominik’s already moving, herding the younger ones into position, and he knows it’s only a matter of time before he heads over to do the same to him. But some part of Rex doesn’t want to finish their last song. Doesn’t ever want this night to end.
“Breathe,” Stel murmurs. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll be okay.”
The first notes of their final song kick in, a thumping bass against the nightingale cage of Rex’s ribs. Before Rex’s feet can drift into position, Stel’s hand goes limp in his own, his eyes roll back in his head, and he drops to the ground.
MINUTE 1
“STEL!”
Rex isn’t sure where the screams are coming from until his ears begin ringing and he realises they’re his. He barely manages to catch Stel before he hits the floor, wrapping his arms around his waist and hauling him up as best as he can. He thinks he’s still screaming. He can’t tell.
There’s hands grabbing at him, grabbing at Stel, too many fingers and limbs and panic. Dominik’s nostrils flare and the world goes quiet, the first notes of their final song dying in its tracks. The crowd outside is silent as the grave.
“You stopped time,” Jiseok notes, fear pitching his voice up awkwardly.
Dominik nods. There’s a bead of sweat on his forehead. “We’re still idols,” he whispers before he starts crying again, and Rex wishes so badly that he could argue.
In his grasp, Stel moans like a wounded animal. Any sign of life is better than nothing, but the relief in Rex’s chest instantly snuffs itself out when he realises that Stel’s hands are flickering. Gold spills from the translucent cracks in his skin where there used to be veins, tiny threads of saffron trickling from his palms and evaporating into the open air. Theo notices at the same time, eyes going wide as he reaches for Stel’s hand, but Stel shakes his head weakly.
“This isn’t a matter problem,” he whimpers. “I’m made of light.”
“If your particles are unstable, I can solidify you while Jiseok heals you,” Theo suggests, worry pinching his brow into a thin line.
“It’s not—” Stel draws in a deep, shuddering breath. “It’s not that.”
“Dominik, I thought we already agreed that we’d let things just take their natural progression. I know we all want the night to last longer, but you can’t just slow down time like that—” Aris chastises as he emerges from the stage, violin in hand. He freezes dead in his tracks when he sees Stel half-crumpled in Rex’s arms. “Stel?”
“Aris,” Stel wheezes. “The sun is dead.”
He sags back into Rex’s grip, light bleeding from his pores. Stel’s face has gone grey, ashen against the halcyon glow streaming out of his hands, disappearing into thin air. Rex doesn’t want to believe it—can’t believe it—but one glance at his leader’s expression tells him everything.
“That can’t be right,” Gene argues, eyes wild and frantic. “The sun can’t die.”
Not again.
Stel’s eyelids flutter, threatening to slide shut. “The sun is dead,” he repeats.
“It’s still there,” Jiseok points out, glancing up at the sky. “And there’s still gravity.”
Stel doesn’t bother arguing. Just closes his eyes fully when he says, “Theo, if the sun died, how long would it take for everyone on Earth to feel the effects of it?”
“Uh—” Theo looks like a deer trapped in headlights, but he scrunches up his face anyway, ticking off time on his fingers. “We’d probably still see and feel it in the sky for as long as it takes light to travel to Earth, so we’d still feel gravity for that much time—so, um, I’d say…eight minutes? The amount of time taken for light to travel to Earth.”
“Eight minutes.” Stel forces his eyes open with no little effort, neck creaking as he turns to stare at Dominik. He looks like he might throw up. “Show them.”
The world snaps back into focus, music flooding Rex’s ears once more. He can hear the screams of the crowd pick up in volume, nearly knocking him off his feet after the eerie silence of before.
He peeks up at the sky. The sun stares back at him. Seems to wax and wane with the humid breeze—before it shrivels just a little, curling in into itself. Undeniably smaller than before.
The universe grinds to a halt once more. When he looks back at Stel, his left hand is gone. Nothing left but the translucent afterglow of a solar flare, the faintest outline of what could be a glove, glittering sand trickling from the stump of his wrist.
“Seven minutes, now,” Stel mumbles.
MINUTE 2
“Okay, listen, I might be a healer, but I can’t bring back an entire hand!” Jiseok squawks. Despite his protests, he grabs Stel’s wrist all the same, running his fingers over the stump, trying to catch the light spilling from Stel in his hands, push it back into his veins. Rex doesn’t miss the tiny burn marks cropping up over his palms, disappearing just as quickly as they form.
Stel’s eyelids are fluttering again, his body sagging back in Jiseok’s hold. “Inevitable side effect,” he mumbles, barely conscious now. Rex wants to grab him and—put him back together again. He doesn’t know what else to do. He knows there really is nothing he can do. “The sun died, so I will too. Consequences of being made of light.”
“Don’t say that,” Jiseok snaps. “It’s not over, okay? We can do—something. Anything.”
He doesn’t say what Rex knows everyone is thinking—but we need our leader for it.
Aris reaches out. Yelps when his hand makes contact with Stel’s arm, steam smoking off his fingertips. A faint smile creases itself over Stel’s mouth before he passes out again, fully slumping into Jiseok’s arms. Jiseok winces, undoubtedly feeling the fury of a thousand tiny burn marks, healing over the second they appear.
“There’s still hope,” Theo points out. His hand automatically reaches for the mini encyclopedia in his back pocket even though Rex knows he can recite the whole thing by heart already. A nervous tick. “This isn’t the first time the sun has died.”
“The last time was one hundred years ago, and nobody’s seen ASTERO1D since,” Yuki sighs. “We’re cooked.”
The first death of the sun has never been a secret. It’s in every history book, a cautionary tale to dissuade the youth from joining magical idol groups. To discourage them from being formed at all. Rex has heard the story more times than he can count—how ASTERO1D used to be the biggest girl group of their time, the first magical idol group recorded in history. Nine girls—just like them. Fate, coincidence, taboo.
Eight gone.
The stories vary on whether she was ASTERO1D’s center, leader, or main vocalist. But what history agrees on is that her name was Cassandra, and that they found her at the apex of heaven’s gate on the night of a full moon, barely minutes after scientists detected an abnormality in the sky. Barely minutes after what turned out to be ASTERO1D’s last performance. They kept it secret, but when they found her, the first thing she’d said had been: The sun was dead. But we brought it back. It matched with their data. And she’d been alone, a star maiden with her face turned to the sky, nothing surrounding her besides the white ribbons she and her groupmates had been wearing in their hair for their final stage. She’d been known to be the only powerless one among them, the only non-magical girl out of nine. And the only one left.
The history books all say that most people believed Cassandra was responsible for her groupmates’ disappearances. Some called her a fraud, or a government spy, considering how she’d known the sun had died before the news had been released to the public despite her lack of magic. Whatever the reason was, she’d been placed under immediate public scrutiny until the media showed up at her house one day to an empty bed. And she was never seen again.
At least, that’s what the stories say.
Rex shudders at the thought. Eight gone. The only powerless one left behind until she disappeared too. It hits a little too close to home, and with the sun in the sky seeming to wane back into the embrace of an endless midnight with every second that ticks by, it takes everything he has to not scream.
“We’ve got seven minutes,” Dominik mutters, already looking significantly more weary than he’d been barely half an hour earlier. “I can stretch it out. Buy us time to figure out what to do.”
Begonias bloom around Yuki’s feet, curling over his ankles—crimson-red petals, a warning sign. He seems to retreat into himself, shaking his head, and for a moment, Rex doesn’t see the young man their youngest has grown into. He sees the scared child Yuki was when he first crept into their training room, introducing himself in a voice barely above a whisper. “Maybe this is why there haven’t been any magical idol groups since ASTERO1D. Until us.” His voice shakes. “Maybe we killed the sun.”
Silence floods Rex’s ears. Gene isn’t talking to fill the quiet the way he usually does, lips and brow pinched in a thin line. Even the chipmunk on his shoulder remains quiet, tiny claws fiddling with Gene’s collar. Like it feels the inherent wrongness in the air too.
Rex stares at Stel’s unconscious form, crumpled in Jiseok’s grasp. Something wet coils over his palm, a phantom imitation of Vincent’s hand. He takes it, even as he stares into Vincent’s eyes from across the room and drinks in the worry in his gaze. It’s easier than thinking about the impending truth.
MINUTE 3
There’s dandelions sprouting around Yuki’s feet, the way there always are whenever he’s anxious. Rex watches as he yanks them out of the ground, puffing white fluff into the still air, before guilt rushes over his face. “I shouldn’t do that,” Yuki mumbles. He presses his hand to the soil, and a crop of dandelions sprouts up in their place, petals stained in melancholia. “I don’t know how much longer they have to live.”
“Not very long,” Gene interjects, one hand stroking over the cat in his arms. “I talked to the birds this morning. They said they can feel something’s wrong. Some of them have already started saying their goodbyes.” He sighs, hugging the cat closer to him. “Animals are a lot smarter than we are. Time can’t stop them, and hopefully, neither will this. If they can survive, at least there’ll be some life on Earth left.” A sardonic smile creeps across his face. “I mean, Theo did say gravity will be one of the first things to go, so on the bright side, at least we’ll be able to float like Aris?”
“I could literally make you fly if I felt like it,” Aris retorts, feet dangling a solid inch off the ground. Rex found him on the roof with his violin this morning, angrily swiping tears away from his eyes. Needed some peace and quiet away from you lot, he’d insisted, but his voice had cracked too much for Rex to believe him. “We don’t need the sun to die for you to experience that.”
His gaze drifts towards the open doorway, as if expecting Dominik to come barrelling through it with a knock-knock joke any second. Dominik’s the only one older than him and Rex knows Aris relies on him more than he’ll ever admit, leaning on him for support in times like this. Times when Stel isn’t around. He feels it like a phantom limb. Wonders if Aris feels that way too, now that Dominik’s shut himself in his room. Need to conserve energy, he’d said. Turning minutes into days isn’t exactly easy.
Theo joins them, sitting on the stoop and watching Yuki sprout a million more dandelions. He’s tossing a cube of rubber in his hands, letting it melt into tar before it solidifies again. Rex doesn’t ask where it came from. Just knows that it isn’t a good sign when Theo starts fidgeting, always too busy for aimless activities like that. Never quite nervous enough. Until now.
Yuki’s fingers sink deeper into the soil. More dandelions bloom. Too many. They crowd over one another, fragile heads brushing like a mouse caught in a trap.
“You can’t keep doing that,” Theo says.
Yuki nods at the tire rubber melting between Theo’s palms. “You can’t keep doing that, either.”
“Maybe you could revive the crops,” Rex suggests. “I mean, you’ve created what, ten million dandelions in the last five minutes?”
“Because technically, they still have sun,” Yuki sighs. “The animals may know that the sun’s gone, but the plants don’t yet. Hell, the humans don’t, either. They won’t know anything until Dominik unfreezes time and everything goes to shit. I can’t create crops if there’s no sun.” He drops his hands down by his sides. Half a patch of dandelions wilts. “I can’t do anything if there’s no sun.”
Rex glances at Theo, hoping for an answer. An alternative for the sun. Surely he’s read something about that. For a moment, Theo remains silent, eyes unfocused like he’s reading something written over reality. Numbers, probably. Equations unraveling. The scaffolding of the universe fraying thread by thread.
Finally, Theo says, “We have to do something.”
“Obviously. But there’s nothing we can do.” Aris’ feet hit the ground again. “Not even with Rex’s help.”
Almost subconsciously, Rex shrinks in on himself. His hands twitch, and not for the first time, he almost wishes he could feel the pull of magic flowing through his skin. Powerless. Nothing but an amplifier—an accessory to the magic of those around him. A power-up. A walking battery pack.
“Maybe we can keep Earth sustained on our own magic for at least a few more years, until the scientists catch on and come up with a solution,” Theo offers.
Gene’s face lights up in his usual brilliant smile—the first he’s offered since the end of the world began. “You’re right! I mean, Jiseok can keep Stel healed, and he’s light, so he could be a substitute sun, and our powers can be boosted with Rex’s help…”
“We can’t power the entire world! Everything’s going to be frozen over! Do you really think Theo and Vincent can turn every single ocean in the world back to liquid, especially if they keep freezing over again? Do you really think you can keep every animal alive just by talking to them? Do you really think I can regrow every single crop out there once they’re all dead? Once we’re all dead?” Yuki argues. Wormwood curls up his ankles, soft feathery leaves dyed grey-green—angry, scared, bitter.
“We can’t just sit here and do nothing!” Gene glances at Aris. “How much gravity do we have?”
Aris’ face crumples. He almost seems to sink beneath the ground.
“Not enough,” he replies.
MINUTE 4
Gene disappears on the third day—or what constitutes as the third day in the strange time warp Dominik’s sacrificing his very soul to keep them all in. Leaves nothing behind except a half-shuffled card deck and a confused-looking sparrow with a note clutched in its beak. Be back soon, the paper reads. Got something important to do.
Rex isn’t sure what could be more important than the end of the world, but what he’s sure of is that he would trust Gene with his life, so he simply takes the paper and leaves it in Jiseok’s hands. Some part of him hopes that Stel will sense it. That he’ll wake up. He doesn’t.
“He’s running away and leaving us all to deal with this,” Jiseok accuses, but Rex catches the waver in his voice that lets him know that even Jiseok himself doesn’t really believe that. “We’re never going to see him again.” Jiseok believes that part. Rex’s ashamed at how much he does too.
It’s pointless trying to pretend that everything’s normal. When Dominik finally crawls out of his room, his hands shake when he’s trying to get a glass of water and liquid goes all over the kitchen island. Theo manages to turn it into gas before it hits the floor, but it doesn’t change the way Dominik stumbles against the countertop, face white as chalk.
“Don’t know how much longer I can keep this up,” he slurs as Rex rushes to prop him up, keeping him steadied against the speckled marble. He smells faintly of ozone and something metallic. Overworked machinery. “It’s one thing to stop time entirely for just a little bit. But keeping all of you awake—and for this long—”
He tilts. His hands dig into the counter so hard his knuckles blaze white, veins forking out over his skin like the edges of a puzzle piece. Teeth digging into his lower lip so hard blood creeps over the tips of his canines, red wine splashed over his ghostly skin. The tiniest bit of composure slips from his visage, enough for Rex to catch a glimpse of the time jittering around his skin, aging and de-aging him in imperceptible flickers. Dominik’s eyes are wide with something Rex almost can’t recognise on him—guilt.
“You don’t need to do it if you can’t,” Yuki says. Pupils blown and haunted. As if he’s thinking the same thing that Dominik is—the rest of the world still frozen in time, trapped in their own skin. The fans still sitting in the open air, smiles permanently affixed onto their faces. A celebration for the end of the world.
Yuki and Theo didn’t sleep yesterday. Stayed up with their hands interlocked in Rex’s own. Yuki bloomed as many plants as he could, only to break down in tears when most of them wilted within seconds. Theo practised on a puddle of water Vincent left for them before he went to bed, unfreezing and refreezing it at double speed. Rex isn’t sure when he’d fallen asleep, but all he knows is that he’d woken up to the sun (smaller than before?) high above their heads, Theo and Yuki’s palms still wrapped in his. Yuki had been sobbing. A futile effort. Two boys and a battery pack nowhere near enough to keep the world extant.
Dominik shakes his head. “Jiseok,” is all he can get out. “He can help.”
“I can’t keep both of you alive,” Jiseok mumbles when Rex tugs Dominik into Stel’s bedroom, a little ashamed. The dimple in his cheek shifts from side to side, worked over the worrying grind of his jaw. Rex can’t help glancing at Stel’s limp figure, the entirety of his body haloed in a soft halcyon glow. He’s missing more than just his hand now. His left arm’s gone up to the elbow, gilded sand trickling from where his stump is now, light bleeding into nothing. Something in his heart twists, driving an invisible knife deeper. “He’s—Stel’s in bad shape, guys. He’s dying and I just—I don’t know if I can do anything about it. I’m slowing it down, but—”
Stel would know what to do, Rex almost says reflexively, before he swallows his words back down. Locks them up and flings away the key.
“I don’t need you to keep me alive,” Dominik insists. “I need you to put me in a coma.”
Jiseok’s eyebrows shoot to his forehead. “What? How’s that going to help?”
“I can still control time in my dreams, and I’ll be able to conserve my energy better if I’m in an unconscious state.” Dominik swallows. The unsaid words hang in the air like a guillotine over their heads: even if I never wake up. “It’ll buy us time.”
It’ll give us the five minutes we need.
Jiseok doesn’t argue. He just places his hand over Dominik’s, palm almost fully covering Dominik’s own. “If you’re sure,” he says softly, barely a whisper in his throat.
Dominik smiles. It feels a lot like a goodbye.
“He’s sleeping,” Rex says when Aris asks him where Dominik is. He thinks of Stel in his bed, left arm nothing more than a suggestion now. He thinks of Dominik curled in the corner of the room he shares with Gene—shared, because Rex doesn’t think Gene will ever come back—eyelids fluttered shut, trapped in a nightmare of his own creation. He thinks of the tear on Jiseok’s cheek that he’d desperately tried to hide, and he thinks of the end of the universe.
MINUTE 5
None of them sleep that night. Rex doesn’t even know what counts as night anymore—not when the sky remains bright, golden with a waning sun that shrinks by the day. He remains awake this time when Yuki and Theo ask him to hold their hands, until he can barely even make out his own feet through all the flowers. They start as daisies, hyacinths, daffodils, and as Yuki grows tired, they unfurl into bluebells, copihues, chrysanthemums. When he finally breaks down, Theo dissolves them all into gas. Oxygen pollinating the air, even though that barely matters anymore.
There’s dark bags congregating beneath Theo’s eyes, the product of far too much power expended. Maybe I can turn oxygen into a seal to keep what little sunlight we have inside, he’d suggested somewhere around three, four—Rex doesn’t know anymore. They’d tried with a sprig of lavender, sealing it into a little bubble of modified oxygen, a tiny roof over its sunlit head. It wilted within seconds. Rex hadn’t missed the way some part of Theo had wilted away too.
Petals press against Rex’s shins, soft and overcrowded, their scent thick enough to taste. Theo’s grip is steady but distracted, his thumb tracing unconscious patterns against Rex’s knuckles like he’s mapping variables only he can see. Yuki’s hand trembles every so often, and each tremor sends another bloom unfurling into existence. The house seems shakier now, brimming with nervous energy. Worse ever since Gene disappeared, without his usual grins lighting up the night. With the knowledge that they never got to say goodbye.
Aris hovers nearby. A few inches too high, like he’s forgotten what the correct distance is for walking. The floor seems to recoil away from him, gravel creaking with a tepid sigh. He doesn’t have his violin with him. Rex isn’t sure when the last time he saw him without his violin was.
“You’re trying too hard,” Theo notes. “You can’t force gravity.”
Aris snorts. “I can force anything if I beat it into submission. And it’s not like you or flower boy can talk, considering all…” He gestures to the garden clustered around Yuki’s feet. To the air dancing in Theo’s palm, reshaping and reforming, gas liquid solid gas liquid solid until Rex can hardly tell what its original form used to be.
Everyone’s getting pricklier by the second. Rex can feel it in the air—thick and cloying and sickly, seeping into his bones. Before the end of the world, Aris would never have even dreamed of raising his tongue against Yuki—his darling, his favourite, his non-biological child. But now…Rex supposes everything’s a little different now. Normalcy slipping out of reach by the minute.
Water splashes over all their heads, making them splutter. Through his coughing fit as he helplessly tries to spit saltwater out of his mouth, Rex makes out Vincent’s lean form slinking over to them.
Vincent shrugs guilelessly. “You guys looked like you needed to cool down.”
Yuki mumbles something that could be a Thanks or a curse. Theo’s too busy shaking out his pocket encyclopedia to argue until Vincent takes pity on him and siphons the water out of the book.
All the fight seems to rush out of Aris in one go. His shoulders slump as he shakes droplets from his bangs, hands trembling so hard that Rex isn’t sure if he could hold a bow if he wanted to. “Shit,” he grumbles. “I just—”
“Hate this?” Vincent lets his head loll against Rex’s shoulder, gelled-back hair hardly even budging. “We all do. It’s killing me. I wish we could—you know, do something.”
Aris swallows. “Especially with Stel and Dominik…”
The words go unsaid.
Dominik locked in his room, bending minutes until they snap like overstretched wire even in his sleep. Stel unconscious upstairs, pieces of him drifting away in the wind. Light lost to an eternal night.
Theo drags a hand down his face. “Especially with Stel and Dominik,” he repeats. Soft. Hesitant. Like the names themselves bruise.
They stare up at the sky. Vincent’s hand finds its way into Rex’s palm, the same way it always used to when they were kids and either of them (or both, the way they are now) were scared and the touch of another human had been the only thing capable of tethering them to reality. Rex can feel the weight of eternity in his friend’s heartbeat, a hummingbird in his chest, betraying his true emotions despite his tranquil expression. Frangipani dots the ground around Yuki’s feet, threatening to swallow them whole.
“Gravity is the first thing to go,” Aris says quietly. “Once the sun loses enough mass, everything drifts. Or collapses. Or both.”
No, Rex thinks, and it almost makes him laugh. Maybe the first thing to go will be our sanity instead.
MINUTE 6
Even in the face of the impending apocalypse, Vincent’s eyeliner still manages to stay perfect. Rex finds him hunched over the toilet bowl at three in the morning, emptying out the final contents of his stomach before heading back to the mirror to finish brushing his teeth. Yuki grows flowers when he’s anxious, Theo reads encyclopedias. Vincent vomits. Can never really keep anything down when he’s nervous. It’s been the same way since they were fourteen, when Rex used to have to guard the boys’ toilet before exams, trying to block out the sounds of Vincent’s gagging. When they both auditioned for ST4RBOY at the same time and Vincent told Rex not to follow him to the bathroom—I can handle myself, he’d insisted, but Rex had inevitably ended up in front of the toilet door again.
There’s blood in the toilet bowl when Vincent flushes. Rex averts his eyes—gives Vincent that little bit of privacy even at the end of the world.
“I hope I’m pretty when I die,” Vincent remarks as water explodes out of the tap and splashes into his face. His blonde hair is perfectly gelled still, and Rex doesn’t miss the way he steadies his trembling hands when he reaches for his eyebrow pencil.
“You’re always pretty,” Rex says. Open and honest. He means it more than he’d ever admit.
Vincent smiles—close-lipped and indulgent, cat-like eyes just a shade softer than usual. “We all are. When humanity manages to respawn in the future, they’ll find our corpses and think, wow, people were hot as hell in the past.”
“If humanity manages to respawn.”
“I thought you were the optimist between the two of us.”
“Times change.”
Vincent tilts his head before something wet lifts itself off Rex’s face. He flicks his wrist and sends it crashing to the floor. “You’re crying again. Is it because we’re all going to die, or is it because you miss Stel?”
“A little bit of both, I think.” He hadn’t even realised he’d been crying.
“I get it.” Saturn glitters in Vincent’s dark-eyed stare, like he’d give up the rest of the universe to keep them here for just a second longer. A silent prayer in the unforgiving embrace of the passing of time. “For what it’s worth, I’ll miss you too when we’re all gone. The same way you miss him now.”
The tap clicks open, water gushing out and curling into the open air. Matches the staccato tick of Rex’s heart, hammering against the ivory of his bones. The world seems too silent, nothing left to ring in his own ears besides their soft breathing and the rushing of the tap, shapes twining themselves into the running water.
“I could flood the entire world,” Vincent muses. “End this on our own terms.” His smile is wan, quiet. “Give us the soft epilogue we deserve.”
“You could.” He means it. Vincent’s always been like this—so powerful and yet so unwilling. Not hesitant, exactly, but—tentative. Always taking an inch when he could make himself a mile. “Why don’t you?”
Close-lipped. Tight. The barest flash of teeth. “I’m not entirely sure,” Vincent admits, and before he can say more, the window explodes.
Rex doesn’t even have time to scream before the elongated muzzle of what can only be a horse pokes through the bathroom window, staring at him unblinkingly. He lifts his gaze slightly. Finds himself gazing right into Gene’s decidedly less-calm eyes from where he’s sitting atop the horse, one hand fisted in its black velvet mane.
Gene bites back a curse. “I could have sworn this was the living room window.”
“What—what are you doing here? Where have you been? What happened?” tumbles out of Rex’s mouth, words blending into each other until he can barely even hear what he’s saying.
“You came back,” Vincent breathes.
Gene ignores them both, electing to frantically brush bits of glass from his horse’s mane instead. “There’s a shrine ten minutes away,” he says. “I’d prefer to have the whole gang here, but I don’t think there’s enough time to wake all of them up, so it’ll just have to be you two. It took me forever to find her, and I swear, if she leaves before we get there—”
“Wait,” Rex blurts. “Who’s her?”
Gene’s eyes gleam. “You remember ASTERO1D, don’t you?”
—
Cassandra looks no older than Rex himself, standing at the entrance to the shrine. Star maiden, Rex thinks instantly, the way the books described her, white robes floating aimlessly around her, stark against her dark hair. Nine white ribbons line her scalp, fluttering gently despite the absence of wind. Up close, her skin glitches the same way Dominik’s had that one time, time scuttling over her flesh. Evidence of death cheated for far too long.
She arches a thin eyebrow when Gene rides up to the shrine, one hand propped up on her hip. “Horseback? How terribly archaic. I would have thought they had more efficient modes of transport in the modern day.”
“Everything else is dead. My animals are just too intelligent to let my friend control them.” Gene whispers something into the horse’s ear and it gallops to a halt, letting Rex and Vincent slide off its back. Gene follows suit, one hand still resting on the horse’s mane. “Time has stopped, if you couldn’t already tell. But I guess the rules of time don’t apply to you, do they?”
Cassandra barks out a laugh that sounds far too old for her frame. “Time is my curse.”
“You’re not dead?” Rex blurts out before he can stop himself, and Vincent smacks him in the arm. “I mean—the books said—”
“Books lie. I am not dead, but I will be soon.” Her eyes soften. “Perhaps that is why the sun has died again. I am the last one keeping it alive, and I will be gone before the week is up.”
Vincent’s lips funnel themselves together, as if he’s trying to keep his questions back, but curiosity evidently wins. “You mean…the sun isn’t dying because of us?”
“Heavens, no.” Something wistful pools in Cassandra’s gaze. “I think humanity was never truly meant to exist. But we do, all the same, and when the sun died the first time, my sisters gave their lives to keep it alive.” She brushes her hand over the ribbons threaded through her hair. “I had to stay. I am the only thing keeping their power tethered to this world. But now that my time is up, the sun will go with me.”
Her eyes seem to bore right through Rex’s chest. “Unless all of you do something about it.”
“What can we do? We’ve been trying and practising to keep the universe alive, but—” Gene splutters.
“You cannot, animal sprite. You are needed on Earth to protect the creatures,” Cassandra interjects. “But maybe some of your friends can.” Her gaze shifts to Vincent. “Water, was it not?”
Rex can count the number of times he’s seen Vincent surprised on one hand, but shock crosses Vincent’s face now, and he takes a step back. “How did you—”
“The shrine tells me these things.” Cassandra flings her arms wide. “When they hunted me one hundred years ago for a crime I did not commit, the shrine offered me sanctuary. I have lived here ever since, feeding off its knowledge, and I will die here. It tells me that you speak the language of water, and you will be necessary.”
Vincent’s mouth clamps shut with a soft click. He nods.
“I see,” he says.
“See what?” Rex blurts. “I don’t understand—Vincent—”
“You.” Cassandra shoots forward, her thin fingers wrapping around his wrist. Her eyes seem to glow with emerald fire when she tugs him towards her, and for a moment, Rex sees Stel in her gaze. “Come with me. The rest of you may wait outside. Including the horse.”
“I don’t—” Rex protests, even as she drags him inside. His feet skitter around jars of incense, offerings laid out on the ground. Cassandra does not stop until they are sequestered in the heart of the shrine, barely leaving him a second to collect his bearings before she begins speaking.
“You’re an amplifier, aren’t you,” she says. It isn’t a question. Her eyes are bullets, stabbing straight into his chest, and Rex feels every inch of the blade.
“Yeah,” he squeaks.
“I am, too. But I’m sure you knew that already.”
He didn’t. He doesn’t tell her that.
“We are cursed to always be the ones left behind,” Cassandra declares. “My sisters all were useful. But I had my own use, and that is why I needed to stay. To amplify their powers and keep them tethered to this world.”
“Will I need to do the same?” Rex whispers. He imagines the rest of ST4RBOY perched on the apex of heaven’s gate. Imagines the people he’s come to love so much drifting off into the sky. Imagines being the last one standing.
“You will not be the only one left like me,” Cassandra says. “Not all of you are vital to the survival of this Earth. In fact, some of you must stay.” She jabs a bony finger into Rex’s chest. “The light boy. He stays.”
“Stel? But why—”
“He will be the new sun. It is different this time.” Her gaze is distant. Fond. “When the sun died the first time, we didn’t know what to do. We decided to keep me here because it made the most sense at that time. But sometimes I wonder…if I had gone with them—maybe we’d have been able to keep the sun alive for longer—maybe you wouldn’t have had to do this—”
Her voice wavers. She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter. All that matters, is that you only give up whoever is necessary for the Earth’s survival. The rest will stay. Half of you will be in the sky and the rest of you will remain on Earth. Balanced. As things should be.” Cassandra’s hand shoots out, and before Rex can think too hard, he’s taking it into his own. “During my time, one of my members—Xing—was a star. She needed to be in the sky. But your light boy will need to stay to give heat and light to the world. You will never see the sun again, but he will be sufficient. The rest of them…when they sacrifice themselves, their powers will be far stronger. It will be enough to keep the world alive.” She swallows. “I hope.”
“Hope is better than anything we’ve had recently,” Rex says quietly, and a small chuckle slips from Cassandra’s throat. And then, hesitantly, he lets himself ask, “How many?”
“Three will be sufficient. But four means death, and death is power.” She clasps his hands in her own. Stares at him with eyes a century too old. “I trust that you know what to do now.”
He does.
MINUTE 7
Stel is still sleeping when Rex wanders into his room. He’s not sure why he’d expected—hoped for—otherwise. Jiseok is curled next to him, dead to the world. His face is pinched, pale—drawn so tight it almost looks like his skin might tear. Rex brushes Jiseok’s bangs out of his face before gently folding a blanket over his slumbering form, the one he snagged from his own room before coming here.
“Make sure you don’t burn yourself out healing those few,” he murmurs, gently pecking Jiseok’s cheek. “You’ve definitely got your work cut out for you.”
Then he turns to the bed. To Stel. It’s almost jarring how little he’s known him for—barely five years, back when they were training to be in ST4RBOY—and how it feels like he’s been by his side forever. How heavy the ache resting in his chest is, especially as his hand hovers above Stel’s body. Doesn’t dare touch him for fear of both of them going up in flames, no matter how much the selfish side of him wants that to happen. Stel’s left arm is gone. Nothing but stardust left in its wake. Rex thinks about Cassandra, about her and her Xing, and wonders if she felt this way too.
Maybe it’s better that Stel’s asleep. If he were awake, he would fight. He would dance straight into the sky no matter how much anyone else argues with him. Always so self-sacrificial, especially when it matters. He can almost imagine Stel scolding all of them for even thinking about sacrificing any of themselves instead. It’s always been Stel—from negotiations to speeches to the end of the world.
Rex wants to hold his hand so badly it hurts. He doesn’t.
It’s not like you can blame us, he thinks. You’d do the same in a heartbeat.
He keeps the thought to himself. Instead, he says, “You don’t get to follow me, okay? You stay. You live. You take care of them.”
His throat tightens. A lump forms in his lungs, clawing its way up his oesophagus until it crawls right out of his mouth. There’s so much he wants to say. Can’t bring himself to. Some part of him knows Stel’s awake, somewhere in the crumbling vessel he calls a body, and maybe it would hurt less if Rex takes his secrets to the grave. He’s got too many of them as it is.
“You don’t get to follow me,” he repeats, as if it’ll make things any less real.
You get to live.
“I want—” Need, his traitorous brain whispers, “—you to live. Because you’re—my person. You’ve always been my person. Before the powers. Before all of this.” Rex swallows. “Before the end of the world.”
He can’t touch Stel, but he can touch the edge of his bed, cautiously rubbing the fraying blanket between his index finger and thumb. “If I get one selfish request, I guess it’ll be that.”
It’s a little embarrassing, monologuing to his unconscious friend like this, but Rex’s in too deep to stop now. He knows the others will be saying their goodbyes too. That he finally has time, even if it’s just for a little while. He glances at Stel, at his golden hair and golden skin, sandcastles crumbling away in the summer breeze. Wonders if Stel will miss him when he’s gone, or if the memory of Rex will drift away like petals in the wind, nothing left behind but the fragments of what used to be ST4RBOY. Ash to ash.
Aimlessly, he brushes Jiseok’s hair from his face again, neatly arranging his moppy bangs into place. It’s easier than looking at Stel. Looking at what he’s leaving behind, even if he’s made his peace with it by now.
Just wanted to tell you that, he thinks. Just wanted to say goodbye.
The words cling to the roof of his mouth, cloying and heavy. Instead of forcing them out, Rex heads towards the door. Up the sunlit path of a day that will never end. Up to the apex of heaven’s gate, where his friends are already waiting for him.
“You took a while,” Aris points out. He looks like he’s been crying. For once, he isn’t floating. Rex wonders if he went to see Dominik. If he told him everything he wanted to. If he’ll take his secrets to the sky with him too, when he explodes in a supernova of gravity, enough to hold the rest of the Earth down.
“Mmm. Had some stuff I wanted to get off my chest.”
Vincent pauses, then threads his hand through Rex’s own. Rex takes it, even as the tide splashes against his palm, Vincent’s powers flaring forth in a rush. “Better to die with no regrets, I guess,” he says. He’d understood the second he’d stepped foot in the shrine. Rex knows that now. He thinks of Vincent, always so powerful and yet so unwilling, and how he’ll be the oceans, the lakes, the rivers, the seas. He’ll be the world. He’ll be the whole damn universe, with his slicked-back hair and his winged eyeliner. Perfect even now. Pretty when he dies, the way he always wanted to be.
“How do we tell Gene and Theo that their theories were right?” Yuki jokes, the years falling from his face. Nineteen once more. Around his feet, multicoloured bouquets spring up with every step—snow lilies and white roses and pink carnations. He lets them bloom, swathing the path in flora until Rex can barely make out the gravel anymore. There’s something peaceful in his eyes when he reaches for Aris, the haunted look he’s worn ever since the sun died finally gone.
Rex grins. “We don’t.”
Then he takes his members’ hands in his own, and they step into the light.
MINUTE 8
He sits with Theo at the end of the world, bare feet dangling in the shallow end. The lake beneath them glitters with chunks of ice, half-frozen by an errant facsimile of the sun. Still usable. Still whole. That’s probably the best they can ask for. Theo presses his finger to a larger glacier, and they watch it melt away beneath his hands.
Stel takes in a deep breath, soaking in the chilly air. His chest flares with heat and it is warm again, a soft glow of incandescence funneling itself through the atmosphere. The weather is fickle, nowadays—cold most of the time, except for the days when Stel can muster up a heatwave. The consequences of having a mortal sun.
Gene’s sprawled out across the damp grass, chittering nonsense with a nearby fox. Every now and then, he glances back at Stel, apprehension crossing his brow. Stel knows that Gene still wonders if he’s forgiven him—for knowing and not convincing them to stay. He never blamed Gene in the first place. Knows he would have done the same. Especially when he knows Gene’s paying a price he should never have had to bear, calling to the birds in the sky, searching for something, anything about the ones they’ve lost. The birds never have any insight to offer. Gene still hasn’t stopped trying.
“You three have been sitting out here for hours,” Jiseok complains, before he promptly settles himself next to them. “If all of you catch colds, just know that I am not healing anybody.”
“I’ll just sneeze at you until you give in,” Gene taunts. Jiseok snorts. It’s so ridiculously normal that Stel can almost convince himself nothing ever changed.
Nothing, except for the end of the world as they knew it.
Things didn’t return to normal completely after the midnight sun, as the scientists called it. Still mostly one of the great mysteries of the world. All they’d really known was that the sun had died for approximately eight minutes, and nobody ever saw it again. But the world had moved on all the same. The oceans flowed. The crops bloomed. Gravity stayed a constant. And the sky remained illuminated with a soft, golden glow, just enough to keep Earth alive. The news reports all claim that the scientists are working on a more permanent solution—but that for now, this is sustainable. It’s enough.
What happened? has been the main question asked by every newspaper for the past two weeks, with the answers coming in the form of the disappearance of four members of ST4RBOY. The second company acquisition came soon after. Saviours of the universe, they’d been called, and Stel’s lost count of how many hands he’d shook when the new company had broken the news that they wanted to keep ST4RBOY after all. As five, at least, if we can’t have nine, they’d said, and despite the hole threatening to rip open his chest, Stel had instantly accepted.
He subconsciously reaches for his left arm—whole from wrist to shoulder, but if he looks closely, he can make out the light spilling from the cracks. Flowing through his veins in place of blood. Phantom pain still lingering beneath his skin. Nothing compared to the pain in his chest.
“I think we could work on reducing the glaciers in Japan next,” Theo suggests. “Maybe after our next concert there. I’ve done my research, and…”
Stel can’t keep a soft smile from his lips, letting Theo’s words fade into the pleasant hum of background music. He’s a little too ambitious for his own good, always planning ways they can improve the world they’re living in now. Or maybe he’s just coping, the way they all are.
The day after time went back to normal, Jiseok headed to the framed photo of ST4RBOY in their living room and turned it over backwards. He lasted half a day before he begged Dominik to switch it back. Gene hasn’t worn his usual grin in two weeks. Stel knows not to hold his breath in anticipation for it. Aris’ violin still sits on the mantelpiece, bow neatly placed by its side. Nobody has been able to bring themselves to touch it yet.
“I’d say it’s ice to see you all having fun, but I think that’s a little frosty for the situation,” Dominik jokes, sidling up behind them. It falls a little flat, but no one ribs him for it—can’t really bring themselves to, not when Dominik woke up and the others were gone and time went haywire, just for a second, before he’d managed to rein himself back in. Gene sends a chipmunk after him for his troubles.
With the playful yelps of his band members dissolving into white noise, Stel gazes out at the lake. At the green green grass. At nothing and everything all at once. At the ring on Dominik’s finger, at the chipmunk on Gene’s shoulder, at the pocket encyclopedia in Theo’s hands, at the dimple in Jiseok’s cheek.
His mind wanders, leafing through memories he can’t quite bring himself to push to the back of his brain. Vincent perching over the sink, meticulously touching up every strand of eyeliner while the others bang at the door and yell about having to use the bathroom. Yuki whining about still having to go to school and dragging Stel to his parent-teaching meetings instead of his actual parents, where he’ll inevitably have to hear about Yuki accidentally-on-purpose growing a thousand vines during particularly boring lessons. Aris tucking his violin under his chin and does his best impression of a Parisian waiter while they’re waiting backstage at award shows, complete with an awful French accent. And Rex—
Rex giving up his jacket without a second thought to anyone in short sleeves, Rex hunting for gifts for hours when the yearly Secret Santa rolls around, Rex with his head on Stel’s shoulder, Rex laughing and smiling and breathing and alive—
His lashes are damp with tears. Stel blinks them away.
A fissure of warmth sparks through his fingers, bleeding into the open air. Stel lets it. Stares at the gold veins twining up his arms. Next week, he will have the names of all nine members of ST4RBOY etched into his skin, right along those threads of light. But that’s next week’s problem. For now, Stel simply stares up at the empty sky, feels the grass hum beneath his feet, and finally lets himself breathe.
Written by: Amberlyn
Edited by: Hoe Yan
