synopsis // and now they're
stargazin

Thankfully the party is as Jimin describes it. Jeongguk shows up later than most of the guests, who are already hitting the red cups of soda and punch. He's dressed in his usual choice of street wear — the style he prefers most — glad he stuck with this considering the casualness of the entire event. Though today seems to special enough that Kit is dressed up, at least more than usual. He averts his eyes from her. As pretty as she looks, Jeongguk doesn't want to be caught staring.

"Finally, king arrives." Hyebi greets, shortly followed by Jimin. He smiles at her briefly, then nudges Jimin.

"Your lover is over there. You should talk to her."

"Don't call her that."

Jimin only laughs in response. "My younger brother is home, so no drinks sadly. Like I said, it's pretty chill, we might watch a movie after the takeout arrives. Hyebi suggested we do some stargazing later, when there's less of us. If you're down, we can."

"Sounds cool to me. I don't have a curfew like you do." He teases.

"Fuck off!" Jimin scowls when Hyebi joins in on the laughter. Eyes distracted, they land again on Kitanna, and he wonders how exactly he's supposed to approach her without being weird about it. But it seems that awkward situations follow him like a shadow, he catches her already staring in his direction. Surprised, she shifts away, only to glance back when he takes a gutsy step in her direction.

"Hey Kit."

"Oh hey!" He notices that she's not wearing her glasses, which makes her eyes stand out that much more. "You look...cool."

"That sounds so forced on you." Jeongguk winces. "Does it look weird?"

"No it doesn't." His friend quickly defends. "Always great, like usual." Thank goodness for the overly dim lights in Jimin's living room, otherwise she would definitely be able to see the fluster in his face. He nods.

"You look great too." Sticking a hand in his pocket, Jeongguk excuses himself to get some punch. She already has a cup in her hand, so he doesn't bother asking her if she wants one, saving himself from looking like an idiot in front of her.

Jeongguk misses the way she facepalms at herself when he leaves.

It's the five of them when the party dies down, Jimin has a telescope set up on his deck, while Hyebi and Katie bring the picnic blankets out to arrange on the grass. The sky is really clear, so this should be an amazing opportunity to look at the stars.

"Please Kitty, just send me the answers." Jimin whines, returning to his backyard with a glass of water. The other girl scoffs, sticking both of her hands into her jacket pockets.

"No."

"Oh come on, please?" Jeongguk almost laughs aloud at their position. Park follows after Jung like a forlorn puppy. "I'll buy you coffee from Zeke's."

"For a week."

"That's so expensive!"

"Do you want the answers or not?"

"Fine fine, a week." He stands next to Jeon. "My mom is going to kill me for spending that much money on her."

"Everyone loves Kit." Jeongguk says with a slight grin. "I doubt she would get mad."

"You know, you have a point." He rests his back against the hot pink blanket, sandwiched in between both Hyebi and Katie, who mutters something about men never giving her the space she wants.

"If you look up there," Kitanna's voice catches him off-guard when she assumes the spot next to him. "those stars shaped like a lopsided M is the Cassiopeia constellation." Thankfully for his heightened vision from that spider bite, he's able to spot where she's pointing after a couple seconds.

"Woah," he mumbles. "that's cool. Since when were you into astrology?"

"Astronomy." She corrects with a snort. "I took a class for it last term. I also joined the school's cloud watching club."

"That exists?"

"It's just me and Katie." Kit admits, letting out a small laugh. "She's always been into that sort of thing, likes to go to Squirrel Hill to watch the squirrels, even talks to the pigeons."

"Katie's...unique."

Kitanna grins. "Totally." Jeongguk resists the urge to turn and look at her, not trying to ruin whatever flow the conversation has going on. Because he's well aware of how they're laying shoulder to shoulder on the blanket, and if he does turn and look at her, he probably won't be able to look away.

"You've been pretty busy lately, haven't you?"

"Yeah, I suppose." Jeongguk responds. "How's Chateau? Did your dad finish the repairs?"

"It's fine now." Kit rubs her nose. "I'm getting sick of the pizza smell though."

"I love pizza, so I can't really relate to you."

"Work there long enough, and you'll start to hate it too." A silence follows her words, from his peripheral vision he can see her cup her eyes like makeshift binoculars.

"You know," he pulls out his phone. "the other day I was working on this piece for my portfolio. The assignment of it was to draw a scenery that particularly stood out to us. Thought you might like it." Jeongguk hands his phone over to her.

The picture is a relatively realistic imitation of the sight, watercolor mixed in to create a view of the city below, highlighting the downward focus of the skinny roads at the bottom. There's lots of blues and purples, Jeongguk was pretty proud of it.

"This is so pretty!" And Jeongguk turns to look at her finally. The illumination of the screen only add more to the way her eyes light up at the picture. "Seriously Jeon. I love it."

"I'm glad you do." His lips lift. "You're the first person I showed actually."

Then when she shifts her chin to look back at him, Jeongguk almost goes into cardiac arrest. It's one thing to admire her from afar, or especially when she's not paying attention to him. Definitely much harder when she's about ten inches away from his face.

"Where did you find the spot?"

"Hm?"

"You said it had to be someplace you had seen before?" She hands the phone back to him. "Where was this? I would love to go see this too, you know."

Jeongguk blinks. Of course he had to ruin the moment like this. He had found this spot on the top of a building during a swing. How the hell was he supposed to tell her that?

"Uh, snuck into a random building." The boy dumbly says. He averts her eyes. "It was a while back...can't really remember."

"Damn," she sighs. "You don't remember?"

"No..."

"Or is this just another one of your secrets that you won't tell me?"

"Kit," He frowns. "I'm not keeping secrets."

"Really. Because I do know that you're an awful liar." She rests her hands over her stomach. "And that did not sound like any legit response you would give if you were telling the truth."

"Don't think I haven't noticed how you and Jimin are always changing the topic whenever I join in on the conversation. What exactly are you guys hiding that I'm not supposed to know about? Because this exclusion is such a dick move."

He really wants to say something, anything, to make her feel better. But Jeongguk does not know what to tell her. How would she even react anyways? She would probably be angry that he kept such a huge secret from her anyways.

Whether it's a sign from up above to save himself from this conversation, or to just make things worse, his phone buzzes, showing his aunt's face at the center of the screen. He sits up, shooting his crush another glance.

"Kit, I'm sorry." It's only when he returns after the call with his aunt that he notices the empty picnic blanket. Any dumbass would know that clearly that was the wrong answer.

But Jeongguk doesn't know what else he would have done in hindsight.