Lisa turned seventeen during spring training.
Kyo didn't say happy birthday.
Not because he forgot — he never forgot her birthday — but because she was in Seoul that day, debut evaluation looming, voice raw from back-to-back vocal drills.
She sent him a photo that night: grainy, slightly off-center, taken in a dorm mirror.
She wore no makeup. Her hair was in a braid.
She was holding up two fingers.
"I'm still me."
March 27 – 12:03AM
He never replied.
That year, her visits home got shorter.
A weekend here. A festival there. Sometimes just overnight.
But every time, Kyo found her — by accident or fate.
They didn't plan it.
She'd show up at the old train station with iced tea in one hand and a duffel in the other. He'd already be on the bench, like he'd never left.
They never said: I missed you.
They said:
"You look tired."
"You cut your hair."
"You got taller."
Lisa would shrug, sip her drink, and lean her shoulder near his.
Never on. Just near.
Sometimes they talked about music. Or stupid TV shows.
Sometimes she'd hum while he watched the street.
Once, during the summer festival, she tugged him toward a lantern stall.
"Do you remember our stars?" she said.
Kyo nodded.
"They had a tail," he said.
She laughed once, under her breath.
"Just like me."
Kyo didn't tell her what he was building.
In his tiny room back in the quiet apartment, under a towel in the drawer beside his desk, he kept a narrow silver chain, a carved steel star, and a second piece — smaller — meant to nest behind it. Part of a hinge mechanism he hadn't yet mastered.
He worked on it when no one was home. Sanded it down with old files. Shaped it with a care he didn't show to anything else in his life.
The pendant wasn't perfect.
But it looked like the stars she drew. The ones they used to pass in folded notes.
You'll give it to her?
Eventually.
When?
When I'm stable.
He never said those words aloud.
But they thudded in his chest every time he touched it.
One night, as he walked her home through the alley behind her family's apartment complex, Lisa stopped by the vending machine.
She looked exhausted — eyes ringed, movements slow. Still beautiful, but distant.
"If I debut next year," she said, "I'll have to stop coming back."
He said nothing.
"You'll still be here, won't you?"
Still nothing.
She looked at him sideways.
"You never say what you feel, Sagara."
He stared ahead.
"Neither do you."
A faint smile.
"Maybe that's why we keep finding each other."
The machine clunked as her drink dropped.
She didn't offer him one.
He didn't expect her to.
As they neared her apartment, she paused.
"You know I'm older than you," she said.
He raised an eyebrow.
"Two months."
"Still counts."
"Not really."
She stepped toward the door, then looked back once more.
"Tell me something true before I leave."
Kyo hesitated.
Then said, without looking at her:
"The world feels heavier when you're not in it."
She didn't answer.
Just slipped inside and closed the door.
Later that night, Kyo pulled the pendant out from his drawer.
He stared at it for a long time.
It still wasn't done.
But it was hers.
And he didn't know how much longer he had left to give it.