187 — The Comet II

Su Ah's POV:

Stars. Everywhere. Hundreds and thousands of pinpricks of light scattered across the vast space above. A dazzling light-studded carpet as far as the eye could see.

Jae-il extended his smartphone toward the night sky, and clicked a couple of times, the flash lighting their faces as they crouched and admired the view. He checked the quality and grinned with satisfaction.

"Come on, hurry. Before it might start to rain again!" Su Ah announced, taking his hand in her. She looked around, remembering which way they had come from.

Of course, they wouldn't watch the comet from here—their destination was somewhere ahead and higher up the path.

About ten minutes later they arrived at a hillock, high enough to peer over a thick line of trees to the horizon and the rolling hills and valleys beyond. The hillock was spacious enough to set up a telescope.

"You're a real-life astronomer, huh?" Jae-il teased as Su Ah started pulling out the tripod and telescope from their case and started setting them up. A process that was quite simple and quick considering she'd done this a couple of times before.

"I try~"

He watched, amused, as Su Ah fiddled with the knobs and alignments of the telescope's mount. She was so focused, her tongue peeking out from the corner of her lips in concentration.

"Okay. The coordinates are aligned. It should be somewhere around here..." Su Ah peered through the viewfinder, adjusting the focus. The starfield snapped into view, a dizzying array of distant suns. “Huh... I think I’ve got it. Hmm~ Yes... the comet is right in the middle of this area I'm looking at. Oh, right there!"

Then gasped as she moved to adjust the view. Jae-il shook his head, smiling, as his older sister excitedly invited him to the scope to look. Su Ah peered back at the eyepiece.

She found herself on the verge of tears.

"See, Jae-il. See, that's the tail, that faint stream. And woah, it is much farther along in its orbit than I thought. This is amazing. Absolutely amazing."

Jae-il watched the expression of utter enchantment that softened her whole face. Her dark blue eyes seemed lit from within, glittering. The smile which grew slowly on her face had no equal; it made Jae-il stare and want to smile back even though she hadn't looked his way for almost five minutes now.

"Yes. Pretty damn amazing, indeed." Jae-il said, yet he wasn't looking at the sky or at the stars, but at his own special star. And in that moment, watching her beautiful face break out into the biggest, dorkiest, cutest fucking smile he'd ever seen, Jae-il's heart grew ten times in size.

"Have you been keeping track of it?"

"Well, since the announcement, a couple of times... yes."

"So, in the end, coming here was just an excuse for you to get laid, huh?"

He tried to keep a straight face, but after a couple seconds a small smirk managed to seep through. She scoffed. "Perish the thought, Jae-il! The pursuit of knowledge has never been so conveniently close-to-hand, has it?" She wiggled her fingers and traced a path up from his belly to his chest and throat, finally reaching his jawline and pinching.

His chuckling escalated to full-blown laughter as Su Ah swatted his shoulder. "Ow. Violence, Noona?"

"And still so fucking flippant, Jae-il? Can't you get that dick out of your mind and look at the sky?"

"I could say the same thing." He jabbed a finger between her brows where her brows met in a crease. “I could’ve sworn you were more interested in my dick than the comet a couple of hours ago.”

Uh-oh!

Su Ah groaned but the grin stayed in place. She yanked him towards the telescope. "W-We don’t talk about that! Now shut up and take a look at this! See it? See it? Comet Sinistra! Right there~" She blinked rapidly as Jae-il leaned into the scope. "Can you see it?"

Jae-il adjusted the focus, and suddenly it was there. A smudge of ghostly light. A tiny, glowing head with a faint, delicate tail that stretched behind it. "Wow..." He said, and he meant it. Not just for the comet, but for the whole damn experience. "It's beautiful."

"Right?! So beautiful." Su Ah breathed, her eyes still fixed on the heavens. "There's just something about it."

There was something, and maybe it wasn't all about the stars. It wasn't all about the scenery either. Su Ah didn't just find joy in stargazing and astronomy. There was an allure to the things people called impossible, and Su Ah adored pursuing those elusive frontiers. To look at the sky and imagine what wonders lay beyond, come up with questions that might never be answered in her lifetime or the next one.

"Makes you feel kind of small, doesn't it?" Jae-il said, looking from the comet to Su Ah's face as he quietly stepped away from the telescope. "In a good way, though."

"Pftt, what now? South Korea's beloved star player of the century has self-reflection issues with his size?" Su Ah snorted, eyes half-lidded in playful derision.

Jae-il sniffed with indignity and playfully smacked Su Ah's butt, making her squeak in surprise. "Who's going to self-reflect with these muscles, hmm? Why don't we show Comet Sinistra my—"

"Ah, you bastard, don't even!”

She protested as he grinned and wriggled his brow, pretending to lean in on the telescope, moving a hand to grab his package.

"Don't you dare touch my innocent comet with that massive, monstrous, evil penis of yours or I will snap it like a pencil." Su Ah shrieked, laughing despite herself as she playfully tackled Jae-il down.

There was no way she’d have been successful with how lithe and weak she was in comparison, but Jae-il fell along with her all the same.

Their play fight, naturally, only made her end up being pinned under her little brother's much larger and stronger form with her wrists restrained above her head.

"Jae-il, move! The ground is wet! I'll fall sick and you'll feel sorry for being stupid!"

Su Ah wrinkled his nose at him, feeling all wet and gross again and no doubt he did as well, now that they had pretty much gotten their clothes as filthy as they had before. He burst out all laughing, totally uncaring.

She wrestled and bucked, slightly kneeing him on the side for good measure until his breathless chuckling abruptly stopped and she pushed him to the side. Jae-il didn't let go easily and grabbed her, pulling them into a roll so he could loom over her once again.

They glared at each other in silence for a few tense, lingering moments.

Then they both erupted laughing once more, not really minding all the mud and water and muck they had dragged on themselves.

"You're really an idiot." Su Ah stuck out her tongue playfully. "Is this what you football players—" But Jae-il cut off her next words when his lips pressed onto her own, kissing her deeply. Her eyes went wide for a brief second before slowly fluttering to a close.

His tongue curled around hers, as if beating it senseless for its previous transgression.

A surprised squeak rose up from the back of her throat before Su Ah exhaled with a long groan of delight. Gosh, kissing was so addicting. Not only kissing, but every form of physical intimacy with Jae-il was something she knew she’d be looking forward to every single day.

And it’d be painful not being able to touch him whenever she wanted, not kissing him whenever she wanted, or any of the stuff she’d like to do with him.

Now she kind of understood why her Unnie was so touchy-freely all the time, while she threw caution to the winds just to get a taste of him.

A sobering thought—knowing that only in this little corner of the mountain could they be who they truly were.

‘Hmm… I wish I could knock this brute unconscious and keep him with me here, fuck the world and fuck everyone else.’

They could build a cabin, live away from society, strip off their identities, and no one would be the wiser.

Well, the press would have a fit, and so would their family.

Why couldn’t things be simple?

Just as she was letting herself melt, he slowly backed away. And slowly her eyes crept open. "What is the matter? Am I not going to get ravished now that you've worked me up to a point?"

"That... can wait until later. We should head down, Noona." Jae-il muttered as a crackle of distant lightning flashed.

And the rain that started sprinkling wasn't helping matters either. "Seriously?" Su Ah snorted. "Can this fucking mountain shut up for a damn second?"

"We probably invoked divine wrath by trying to fuck in the bushes or some shit."

Su Ah groaned in disappointment but hastened to pick up her stuff; there was no way she'd spend the rest of the fucking night in that cave.

Jae-il helped her with the telescope and all the heavy lifting. His eyes kept darting in her direction, and the silly grin never left his face as they worked together.

Su Ah didn't comment and maintained a haughty, tightlipped facade that completely crumbled under the force of the cheeky wink he threw at her.

She didn't say anything more as they trudged their way down, just glanced one last time in the direction they had come from, and the cave they spent those beautiful moments within.

‘There’s no way I’ll be able to wait until the next opportunity…’ Su Ah thought as she followed after Jae-il. ‘Maybe I should soundproof my room…?’