Two Stars of a Constellation

When the family first moved in next door and you first met their daughter, you remember thinking that she was just the cutest little bean to ever exist. The two of you got along swimmingly in the first few years, spending most weekends together, exploring downtown or going to the mall or watching TV shows or anime together, but as you entered high school, she started to grow colder. As her neighbor, you couldn’t really do much about it without feeling like you were imposing; it was something that both parents noticed, but they were just as confused as you. It felt like all you could do is shrug your shoulders, even if you didn’t want to. Since college was just a short hour’s drive away, you would come home pretty frequently for weekends, and every time you pulled up to your driveway, you would secretly hope to see her and somehow make amends, but every time, you would be disappointed. You still saw her from time to time, but she remained distant, barely giving you a greeting before turning away from you. It stung, it made you question your entire life, what you did to wrong her, but every time you pondered that, you came up blank.

It didn’t help that, as she grew older, she got prettier but still somehow didn’t lose an ounce of that twelve-year-old adorableness, and that made you want to coddle her and squeeze her and shower her with gifts and hugs more and made you long for the days when she would so sweetly call you unnie and cling onto you like a baby koala and sulk when you forgot to kiss her crown before separating for the day. The best you could do is watch her from a distance, but even that made you feel icky, so you made do with the occasional glimpses you caught of her.

Sure, you made new friends in college and spent time with them, but every time you came home, you were reminded of Stella and became sad all over again. On the Friday before dead week—the week before final exams began—of your second year in college, you came home to relax and mentally prepare for the straight week of studying you were about to embark on when, as you’re about to enter your house, you hear a sniffling from your neighbors’ backyard. And, against your better judgement, you go to investigate to find Stella, sitting in the patio swing in her backyard, crying to herself while hugging her knees to her chest.

In hindsight, it was perhaps a questionable decision to approach her. But in reality, what else could you have done? Stella just evokes such a strong protective urge within you that, before you know it, you’re walking up to her and asking her, “What’s wrong?”

She looks up at you with glassy, tear-stained eyes, and all those thoughts of restraint and hesitation instantly melt away. “He … he finally learned who she was … why did she have to leave him?”

It’s like the rift between you two never formed. You climb into the patio swing next to her and open your arms, which Stella dives right into. “Aw, I’m sorry…” she presses her face into your shoulder, her tears bleeding through the thin fabric of your tank-top. From the sounds of it, you’re guessing that she’s talking about a show or drama or anime that she just watched, but you don’t pry into it. What you do know is that she needs to be comforted, and that’s all that matters at the moment. “I’m sure she was at least happy that he figured out her identity.”

You don’t particularly know why you decided to say that on a whim when you had no context of whatever she was talking about, but are rewarded with a giggle shortly after. “You don’t even know what I’m talking about.”

“A TV show or anime, right?”

You feel her nod against your shoulder. “An anime.”

“Which anime?”

“It’s called ‘Angel Beats’.”

“Oh! I know that one! Yeah, the ending is really sad, isn’t it?”

Stella nods again, this time looking up at you. “Yeah, and then the ending, where they were all disappearing one by one, when I finally understood what that meant, I—” then, as if suddenly remembering she’s supposed to be giving you the cold shoulder, her eyes go wide and she tears herself away from you.

“Stella? What’s wrong?”

She’s turned away from you, but you can see her shaking her head. “N-Nothing. Sorry I ruined your shirt.”

You scoff. “Don’t worry about such a minor detail. What I’m more worried about is why you’ve been so cold to me all these years.” You’ve gone over this exact moment in your head hundreds, possibly even thousands, of times, working out the exact wording, how to sound gentle but firm, how to get across your sorrow and your regret, how to avoid putting any blame on Stella and put her in a defensive position, but of course, as the moment comes and you finally decide to toughen up and say something about it, it all comes out wrong. But, you’ve already said it. There’s no taking it back now. You trudge forward. “Was it something I did? Can you tell me?”

“…No.”

Just the way she says the one word makes you want to explode. How can someone load one syllable with such cuteness? You can, in your mind, picture Stella’s puffed out cheeks and frowning lips. Even when she was sulking—especially when she’s sulking, you might say—she’s the cutest lil bean on the planet.

“Oh.” She’s not unflappable, though. From all these years you’ve known her, you can tell when she’s genuinely upset and when she’s just being a little cheeky. There’s some genuineness behind her answer in her demeanor, but you know that all you have to do is, “…even if I do this?”

The nanosecond your fingers graze Stella’s waist the slightest bit, she’s screaming, laughing, trying to squirm out of your reach, but you don’t let her escape. “St-Stop!!”

“Not until you tell me why you’ve been ignoring me!”

All of the sudden, the two of you are transported back seven, eight years ago, playing around on this exact patio swing, Stella’s delicate, soft hands trying to pry your hands off her, and you relentlessly tickling the weak spot that is her waist. Uproarious laughter, her little body trying to writhe out of your grasp, your arms trapping her inside your bear hug, the sights and sounds of back before the rift between you two formed.

“St-Don’t! Stop!”

“What’s that? Don’t stop?” You redouble your tickling efforts, and Stella’s laughter grows louder.

“O-Ok! Ok, I’ll tell you!” You let her situate herself, smoothing out the adorable little sun dress she’s wearing before answering you in a quiet, self-conscious tone, “It was just…” she trails off, her cheeks turning rosy red and the tips of her ears blossoming into a sakura-pink hue. Without exaggeration, it takes every ounce of self-control you have to not squeeze her. “…without you, I was just…” she’s very clearly fighting herself to get the words out of her mouth, but even with how much she said already, you’re swooning over her. “…really lonely.”

You can’t resist. Who could? “Aww, you’re soo adorable!” You wrap your arms back around Stella before she can react, and although she moves to dodge you, once your arms are situated around her nape, she accepts that she’s trapped in between your arms.

“Stop!” she whines, heat now radiating off her face, “see, this is why I didn’t want to tell you!”

It’s only after hearing her saying those words that you realize you might be pushing your luck, even if she gave the most heart-meltingly sweet answer conceivable. “Sorry.” You pull away, and Stella takes another few seconds to straighten herself out. “If you wanted me to come home more often, you should’ve just told me!”

Stella shakes her head. “That’s not what I mean, although…” don’t interrupt her. Don’t make a big fuss about how utterly adorable she is. Hold it in. “…never mind. It was just … well, you know, when you got into high school, you became really pretty and popular and made a lot of friends and couldn’t spend much time with me.” Honestly, it’s a wonder that you don’t explode at this very moment. There’s such a swell of emotions inside you that, instead of them exploding out of you, they clash against each other so strongly that they fizzle out, resulting in you unable to respond at all.

It’s a good thing, too, because Stella continues, “I know it’s so childish of me to think like that, that you were my friend first and that I didn’t want to share you with all those people, but I was immature at the time and didn’t know how to cope with that … um, jealousy, I guess?” Stella’s voice diminishes in volume at the tail end of that sentence. You’re about to cry, but by some miracle of divinity are able to make it with having only two tears escaping your eyes that are swiftly caught by your index finger. With sufficient space given to her, Stella continues after a brief silence. “So I just … you know. I … childishly, just started giving you the cold shoulder. As like, an act of protest. And then, as the years went by, I realized how immature I was being, but if I suddenly stopped, you would ask why I’ve been the way I’ve been all those years, so I couldn’t stop because then I would have to tell you all of that and it would be soo embarrassing. So I just kept on being like that, even though I didn’t want to, because admitting the reason for my actions was too embarrassing, so…”

In the many sleepless nights that you dedicated to solving this mystery, many theories that came to this conclusion were dismissed. It wasn’t like Stella was without friends; in fact, you’re pretty certain that she has more friends than you, the extroverted, social butterfly that she is. To think that she was giving you the cold shoulder because she was jealous that your high school friends were taking your attention away from her?! “You are just…” Your heart actually can’t take it. You are about to explode. Or die of a heart attack. Or both. “…the most adorable person in the world, you know that, Stella?”

“…praise me more.”

“Oh, you needy little baby.” You wrap her into another hug and this time, feel her settle into your embrace. “You’ve gotten so pretty over the years, and I heard you also got a 5 in every AP test you took this year?” Stella looks up at you with shining eyes and a bright smile and nods. Your heart is currently exploding. You frankly don’t know how you’re still alive, but you don’t complain. All you know is that you want to praise this precious little child even more. “What a smart girl! Good job!”

“I studied really hard for those.”

“I bet you did.”

“I even got into the same college as you!”

“Oh, did you?” That was something you heard from your parents, but given how excitedly she conveyed the information, what else can you do but play along? “Oh, that’ll be so fun! We get to see each other on campus a lot next year!”

Stella again nods excitedly. “Yeah! And then, when classes are over, we can go to—” she suddenly pauses again, and all of the sudden, that same guilty expression appears on her face.

“Hm? What’s wrong?”

“…is this ok?” The way she looks up at you, with those big doe eyes, lips pulled back into a frown, melts your heart. Your heart is just a puddle of goo that’s somehow floating around in your chest. “Just … like, talking so … normally, like I didn’t … wasn’t so mean to you for so many years?”

“Aww, you don’t need to worry about that! I already forgave you, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Really?” You nod. “Then … I was about to start watching another anime, do you want to join me?”

You ended up staying to watch the first five episodes of Death Parade, three more than you originally planned on staying for as you needed to get back to studying but was convinced by Stella’s puppy dog eyes to stay a ‘little’ bit longer. When you finally were able to convince her to let you go, while she accepted that you needed to go study, she still made a big ordeal about it. You tried to appease her with a goodbye hug, but as you turn around, she speaks up again. “Aren’t you forgetting something?!”

Slightly panicked at how hurt Stella sounds, you turn back around. She wouldn’t sound like that if you just forgot your phone or something, but you already gave her a hug. Did she want another one? What was it? “…what is it that I forgot?”

Stella pouts, saying, “Kiss.” She turns her head to the side and taps her cheek demandingly.

Aah. All these years apart from her made you forget just how needy Stella is, and as you remember them one-by-one, you remember why you love her so much. “Aw, I’m sorry.” You lean down a little bit and assent to her request. When you pull back, there’s a faint pink impression of where your lips met her cheek, but Stella turns back towards you with a satisfied expression on her face.

“Good. Good luck with your studying!”

You just giggle at her. Maybe, if you have a child, you’ll come to find someone as endearing as Stella is.

Your parents quickly catch on that the two of you have made up with Stella, but when they press for an answer, you just shrug your shoulders. There’s not much to tell, at least from your perspective, but during the course of summer break, it seems clear that Stella thinks otherwise. Stella, the needy baby that craves—no, that needs—affection from others, baking you cookies and buying you matching earrings? You, of course, happily accept them, but in the back of your mind, you wonder if she’s trying to ‘make up’ for all those years.

As the weeks and months pass, you try to convey to her that there’s really nothing to apologize for, and by the time she’s moving into the apartment the two of you are going to live in for the upcoming school year, you think she’s finally internalized it, in fact asking you for help. Of course, you are all too willing to oblige, joining her in buying some additional furniture: a cute wall-mounted clock, some nice throw pillows for the couch you’ve inherited from an older friend that graduated last year, among other things.