Chapter Text
I.
It came as a surprise to him when he first saw his mother’s face after so long. It didn’t frighten him, even though it was one of his most painful memories come back to play, unfolding once more in front of his eyes.
He was in first grade. He was dressed in overalls and some of his friends had yet to learn how to pronounce a proper rieul. Not Hoseok, though. He got nothing but praise from his teachers and his aunts and uncles at the orphanage. He expected the same right now as he stood at the back of the classroom, caught in the pause between two and three, confident because this was easy — he’d learned how to count long before he’d come to school here.
But that’s when it happened; as he drew a breath in preparation to show off his skills, he saw his mother again for the first time in years. She wasn’t here in the classroom with them, no, but at the amusement park, handing him a chocolate bar and asking him to stay where he was. It was noisier there than in the classroom, even with his friends’ pouting and whining that they knew the answer, that it was their turn to blow their teacher’s mind.
Behind them, gold poles and white horses of a carousel glistened in the afternoon sun, stars dancing in the air. “Close your eyes, sweetheart,” she said, and Hoseok did as he was told.
He shouldn’t have. Deep inside, he knew how this would end, and he should have been scared. But he repressed it, naive like the wish to experience the rush of the final plot twist in his favorite movie once more, despite having seen it a thousand times before. He was just happy to see her again.
“Count to ten for me, okay? You remember how it goes, don’t you?”
Hoseok nodded.
“One, two…”
“Three, four,” he counted. He felt her lips press against his forehead and was too caught up in the rush of her affection to continue. With his lips parted, he lingered in it until her touch left his shoulder and cold seeped through his shirt.
“Hoseok-ah?”
She was calling for him, but this wasn’t part of that memory. If he opened his eyes now, maybe she’d still be there, returning to him with a newly purchased ticket for the ferris wheel.
He opened his eyes. His teacher and all his classmates stared at him, some of them snickering.
“You’re not falling asleep back there, are you?” his teacher smiled. She was older than his mother, her hair shorter and greyer.
“No, miss.”
“Go on, then. What comes after four?”
“Five,” Hoseok said, but he’d lost confidence. He wanted his mother back. “Six, seven.”
The raging sound of a nearby rollercoaster dropping rushed over him. He clutched the chocolate bar in his hand tightly, the wrapper smooth and rustling against his palm. His mother’s presence lingered though his vision blackened again. When he reached ten, she’d be back for him.
“Eight, nine.”
“Good,” his teacher praised. The lights in their classroom were too bright, they hurt his eyes, nothing at all like the gentle ones in his bedroom at the orphanage. “Last one now.”
He didn’t want this to be over. He didn’t want to open his eyes to find out whether he was wrong or right. But god, every part of him longed to have her back in his life, by his side, to take him back to his old house and old bedroom, though they’d honestly both begun to feel fuzzy in his mind, just like when his aunts told him of things they’d done two years prior that he couldn’t remember.
He liked the orphanage, but he wanted his mother. His eyes closed without his consent.
“Hoseok-ah,” his teacher called.
He opened them again.
“Ten,” he said, and the amusement park popped like a balloon, his mother left behind in the past once more as nothing but an abstract idea of home.
“Well done!” his teacher praised, unaware of the wobbling of his bottom lip. “Now, who wants to go next? Put your hand up.”
Hands shot into the air, ready to prove themselves. Hoseok waited for a second longer, wished so badly he could mistake their waiting arms as the flurry of a crowd, people running from the carousel to the rollercoaster or stopping to buy some cotton candy —
and then his vision began to blur, and that’s exactly what he saw.
One exhale later, and he lost control, falling into darkness, not around to feel his head hit his desk or his classmates' cries of surprise.
III.
He will never be afraid again.
Logically there should have been no way he could possibly know that, but staring out into lightyears of empty space and twinkling stars, there was no doubt about it. The day his mother left, when he’d reached ten and opened his eyes to never see her again, he had been terrified. He’d roamed the streets for hours until a young woman took pity on his tears and brought him with her to the police station, and it took one whole week for the tremors to leave his body.
That didn’t matter now. Now, the earth was far, far below his feet at a distance he couldn’t count to in his lifetime. Now Hoseok sat on his bed, the one from his room at the orphanage, feeling light as it floated through the dark, and he would never be afraid again.
He laid on his stomach, gripping his pillow tightly in his hands. Peeking over the edge of his bed, he saw the earth far below, just a pretty dark blue ball that brought a smile to his lips, nothing bigger than his favorite yoyo. His bed didn’t seem to be moving at a very brisk pace, but floating steadily in a fixed bow around the planet. He knew he wouldn’t fall off, and even if he would he figured he’d be okay somehow, his heart and soul finally at peace.
Everything was beneath him then. The amusement park, the orphanage, his school. His mother. It was all too far away for him to even grasp, and as such it couldn’t harm him.
He sat up, pulling his comforter over his shoulders. He’d read about their solar system in a book his favorite aunt got him for his birthday, read about it until the spine cracked and some of the pages started to fall out, and now there it was laid out before him; the sun burning on and on in the distance, Venus’ pale orange waiting to sing him a lullaby, Saturn’s rings glistening in an invitation for him to come and play. A comet zoomed by below his bed, its tail casting a gorgeous purple light over Earth, while meteors raced between Mars’ moons. And the stars, those were his favorite part — they flew like birds, only quicker, their route unpredictable and impulsive, sometimes almost brushing past Hoseok’s ear where he sat. The sound they made was the most beautiful Hoseok had ever heard, auditory glitter, if snow made noise.
It was only a few minutes until he couldn't contain himself any longer. He got to his knees, let the comforter fall, waited for the right moment and caught a star in his hand. It made no attempt to escape once it was in his grasp, but lay steady on his palm, cool to the touch. He brought it to his cheek and pressed it against his skin, feeling it somehow deep into his bones, a confirmation of what he’d already known; he had found a place of safety and love that couldn’t be used against him. A place where everything was as it seemed.
He opened his palm, letting the star know it was okay to leave if it wanted. It stood up on two of its edges but didn't move after that, so Hoseok inched to the edge of the bed and let his legs dangle over the side, an enchanted laugh bubbling up and over his lips. Then he tossed the star into the air and watched as its friends rushed to its side before they all set off again, leaving a trail of twinkling light behind, surging off towards Pluto.
He drew a deep breath and sat with this new reality, with the planets in the distance and the sun smiling down at him, with the earth telling him it was okay if he’d choose never to come back. It was tempting. He would have liked to see how far his bed would take him, because no matter how far out they’d go there’d be nothing to fear.
He didn’t ever want to go back.
This was Hoseok’s first visit to Hope World. He hadn’t named it as such yet, but he would. It would take years before he’d even realize how special it was, and later, how strange. For the time being, it put a smile on his face each day as he remembered the sound of the stars, the sun’s welcoming warmth, the meteors’ muted laughter.
He woke up to a nurse leaning over him, a jacket balled up into a pillow under his head, and the classroom empty of his friends, and from that day on, he was different.