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There’s grandiose love stories. The ones where love overcomes all odds. Where it’s you two against the world, not against each other. The ones where if someone leaves, they come back. The ones where there’s a random text, a random call and all of a sudden it’s two people struggling through life together, two people confiding in each other, shouldering the burdens 50/50.
Then there’s another story. A less heard of one, a less beautiful, less liked story.
A story where Choi Yeonjun doesn’t come back.
There’s another kind of story—the kind no one makes movies about. Where the texts stop. Where the person who once curled their fingers around yours now holds their silence tighter. Where love doesn't fade, but it also doesn’t get returned.
Huening Kai tells himself he’s okay with it.
He’s learned the rhythm of mornings alone. He’s learned the taste of silence and how to stomach it. Learned how to breathe through the urge to check all their old texts, all their old comments and stories and forevers.
And yet—he still dreams.
Not of apologies. Not of reunions.
Just… of the before. The warmth of a laugh shared over takeout. The weight of a head on his shoulder. A world that had room for two.
But in this story, Yeonjun doesn’t come back.
And Kai doesn’t chase.
He just learns to live in the silence.
With no stars.
The first few days were the hardest. A constant cycle of self-loathing, blame and guilt.
Was I not enough? What did I do? Shit, I was too much. I didn’t notice, didn’t see, dear god I was happy while he was suffering.
The first few days, it felt like his fault.
It was easier to think it was his fault. At least then, there was a target to the pain. But it didn’t last. Guilt was quick to take over, wrapping around him like a weighted fog. One that sank into his chest and left gashes with every breath. Self-loathing, permeating through his soul and settling in its throne, reclaiming him like it had never left.
Unwashed hair, rubbed-raw palms, picked skin that left his hands ugly with blood.
It was that dependance, that obsession that took hold of him and shook. Like an addict going cold-turkey, Huening Kai felt the symptoms of withdrawal.
It wasn’t just heartbreak. It was detox.
He’d built his days around Yeonjun—his texts, his moods, the timing of his breath. Without it, Kai was spinning.
Addiction doesn’t go quietly. Neither does love.
No stars—just withdrawal.
Kai sat on his bed, staring at his phone screen, fingers twitching like he was about to send a message to Yeonjun—but he couldn't. His friend’s words echoed through his mind: "You’re not a bad person for not saving someone who wouldn’t let you." The words felt like a punch in the chest, but maybe that was the point.
Yeonjun had never let him in. Maybe that was the problem all along.
“You can’t keep bleeding for someone who doesn’t want your help, Kai,” his friend had said, their voice heavy with something like understanding. And it was true. He had given everything, and Yeonjun hadn’t opened the door. But Kai had been the one standing there, knocking.
So what now?
Nausea had made a home in his stomach.
It rattled through his ribs as he curled on the bathroom floor, shaking, head pressed to the cold tile. The kind of fog that filled his brain wasn’t the poetic kind. It was thick, unbreathable. The kind you choke on.
He wanted to vomit—his food, his guts, his heart. Everything inside him that dared to be healthy, dared to try when Yeonjun had been quietly suffering beside him.
But he wasn’t eating. Hadn’t been, not really. His stomach had adapted to emptiness, save for the days he forced down a few bites, swallowing against the lump in his throat, letting food sit like lead in his gut.
Once, with Yeonjun, he’d felt pretty. When he caught that soft gleam in the other boy’s eyes. When he felt the love—not just heard it, not just saw it, but felt it—in the way Yeonjun held him. In the lazy kisses and tight hugs that made the world feel muted and okay. When he realised that the gorgeous boy looked at someone like him and liked it. When he felt the ghost of his kisses against his skin, and the strong hugs that made him feel alright for a moment.
But the last thing Yeonjun gave him wasn’t a hug or a kiss. It was a sentence.
“I’ve been acting, faking for the last two months. Five, maybe. I don’t think I’ve been in love with you for a while. And I definitely can never be again.”
That—that hurt more than anything else.
More than silence. More than goodbye.
That the months they'd spent dreaming of the future—movie nights, sleepy mornings, laughter with his siblings—had all been a blatant, hurtful lie.
Had it?
Huening Kai didn’t know anymore. It was hard to believe, very hard, that everything he’s ever loved was gone.
That his whole world, one night, just up and vanished.
Anxiety was more than a feeling.
It was physical—violent. His body shuddered, convulsing over and over, teeth clattering so hard he tasted iron. Warm blood, metallic and bitter, dried across his lips, his tongue, his chin.
The dependence… god, the need—it felt like it had carved him hollow. Like his soul had been gutted with something dull and cruel.
He craved it all.
The burn.
The 3 a.m. calls.
The soft, sleepy voice at the other end of the line.
He craved telling him how wrong he was—how bright he shone, how worthy he was, how much better he deserved than the voice in his head.
All gone now. Ripped away with a sentence and a silence.
And he hadn’t even made a dent.
That was the part that hurt the most; the same self-loathing boy he had once held close, spoken life into, whispered love to—had walked away unchanged. Still broken. Still hurting.
Vanished like he’d never been here at all.
Like Huening Kai hadn’t loved him with every atom in his body.
Like his love hadn’t been loud enough to echo.
Because it hadn’t.
Insomnia. It was strange, how well he slept. No waking in the middle of the night, no panic clawing at his throat, no half-conscious reach for a call that had long since dropped.
Huening Kai slept well, because in his dreams there were no rules.
He could still feel the phantom press of teeth on his lips, the raw, bruising kiss Yeonjun had given him. Desperate. Starved. In love.
And Kai had matched it with equal hunger, with equal ache.
When he’d woken up, he banged his head against the wall until there weren’t any thoughts left, until the pain outshouted the memory.
The dreams eased after that. They dulled, softened at the edges.
Some nights, Yeonjun still showed up—cross-legged on the floor, laughing over something small, talking about nothing and everything. But little by little, his face blurred, swallowed in shadow. He sat further and further away.
Until he didn’t show up at all.
Until Kai stopped expecting him.
Until Yeonjun was gone—from his dreams, and from his life.
No stars. Just empty sky.
Cravings were the worst.
They came in waves—sudden, sharp, and suffocating.
Sometimes, he opened their old chat.
He didn’t dare scroll up. The memory of their jokes, their promises, their soft I love yous—it all threatened to split him open.
Instead, he typed. Message after message, small and fragile.
“I miss you.”
“Are you happy?”
“Please.”
Every one of them was deleted before they could even blink blue.
But the ache stayed.
No stars. Just ache.
He needed. With a desperation that went bone-deep. Without Choi Yeonjun, he felt like nothing. Less than nothing.
The last words Yeonjun had given him clung like hooks under his skin—tiny, sharp barbs dragging his insides in every direction until he couldn’t tell where the pain started and where it ended.
He had always thought of them as halves, like two puzzle pieces clicking together perfectly.
But now, no stars.
“Yeonjun was never your piece, Kai,” his friend said, their voice softer than usual. “You weren’t incomplete without him. If anything, he was a complement. Like... if you were purple, he was yellow—bright, different, but it worked. But you're purple on your own, you know?”
Kai could stand alone. He wasn’t half of a whole. They were two colors—separate, but together they had created something beautiful. He could be purple without Yeonjun. He was whole.
It was painful to admit, but it was true. The best parts of him had never been dependent on Yeonjun.
And yet, he couldn’t help but feel a sting in that truth. He had loved him with everything, and it wasn’t enough.
Kai looked down at his hands, the words heavy in his chest.
“I'm not broken, am I?” he whispered, mostly to himself.
“No. You’re whole. You don’t need anyone to complete you. Not Yeonjun, not anyone. And if he’s really meant to be there, he’ll show up. But you’re not missing anything.”
Then of course, was the depression.
The thoughts didn’t come with screams. They were whispers, quiet musings in the back of his mind.
What if I stepped into the road?
What if I drank the bleach?
What if I just... stopped?
The musings about walking into the middle of the highway, of letting the cars hit him and never feeling anything again. The temptation of drinking the bleach on the counter. Feeling the burn down his throat, in his chest. Prying open his scars.
No stars. Just the sting.
He wanted to die.
But for once in his life, he didn’t try. Because this time, something had shifted. Because somewhere, flickering like the last match in a cold room, there was a light. Small—but real.
Choi Yeonjun wasn’t worth dying over.
It wasn’t that he wasn’t worth love, or the soft mornings, or the way Huening Kai used to look at him like the world was just a little more beautiful because he was in it. No—Yeonjun would always be worth the world.
But he wouldn’t be worth Huening Kai’s life.
One boy who couldn’t care less about shattering into pieces the promises he’d made for months wasn’t worth dying over.
Because in the end, Yeonjun had chosen this path.
He had chosen to respond with cruelty, to twist concern into guilt, to meet gentle care with sharp edges.
Chosen to respond like an asshole when Kai had reached out to check on him, to make sure he was okay.
Yes, he was struggling. But Huening Kai had bent too many times already. Had swallowed his own needs, softened his voice, and carried guilt that was never his to bear.
He's been vilified. “You forced me—” “You made me—”
But he hadn’t. He wasn’t perfect, no—but he never forced.
He asked. Always asked. For comfort, for clarity, for closeness. And Yeonjun had always said yes. Had smiled, kissed his forehead, and said “of course”—and Kai had believed him. Why wouldn’t he?
Who would think the boy he loved would lie?
Who could’ve known that trying—really trying—to understand his boyfriend’s silence, his moods, his isolation, would never be enough?
That every time Kai said, “It’s okay, stay home with me then,” it would later be spun into, “You kept me trapped.”
That every vulnerable moment, every whisper of fear—“I’m scared. Please don’t leave me”—would be weaponised and thrown back with fury.
He had tried to do everything right. To be patient, to be soft. To be the kind of love that didn’t ask too much.
But somehow, it still wasn’t enough. Or maybe the opposite, maybe it had been too much.
He shouldn’t have asked. Should’ve kept his mouth shut because the next time he was confronted, those same words flew back at him.
“Let me out! I feel so fucking trapped. Let me out, letmeoutletmeOUT.”
So he did.
Shell-shocked, he did, and then spent the night writing a letter asking to restart, begging his sunshine boy to come back, telling him they’d weather the storm. Shell-shocked, he let him go. And still—still—he sat up that night writing that letter. Telling him it was okay to be sad, okay to hurt. That they could try again, weather the storm together. That he was still here.
And Yeonjun? Threw it back in his face.
So Huening Kai came to a slow, painful conclusion.
Maybe Yeonjun was so used to unconditional love that he thought it was infinite. That no matter how far he pushed, there would always be a hand reaching back.
Maybe he’d mistaken kindness for weakness.
But Kai wasn’t weak.
Not anymore.
Maybe Yeonjun despised him. Maybe it was easier that way—easier to point fingers than to admit that someone else had found moments of peace while he was drowning. That Kai’s quiet joy, his small victories, made Yeonjun’s pain feel sharper in contrast. More unbearable. More real.
Whether that was true or not, Kai had never believed in measuring pain.
There was no scale for suffering, no contest for who had it worse. Hurt was hurt, no matter the shape it took.
Just because he had chosen to put Yeonjun first didn’t mean his own burdens vanished.
Just because he smiled didn’t mean he wasn’t tired too.
The day he saw that final message—“if you’re a fan just comment, don’t text me on the side”—something in him laughed. A cold, disbelieving laugh. And after that?
It was easy.
Almost too easy.
Mute the chat. Archive the conversation. Delete the album. Shove the box into the closet.
Start again.
A routine he followed to a T.
Morning came, and with it, the list.
Wake up, brush teeth. Put on the clothes he’d laid out the night before. Grab a snack. Catch the bus.
Check, check, check, check.
The app felt stupid—some algorithm dictating his day—but the little green checkmarks were satisfying, so he followed along. Collecting his “points”, wiping his tears, busying his mind. Never straying far from one question -- What’s next?
Fifteen minutes of yoga. Ten minutes of crocheting.
Check, check.
A balanced meal, eaten through nausea and the ever-present disgust. No throwing up.
Check.
The NYT puzzles, the documentary on Genghis Khan.
Check, check.
Shower. Journal. Set out tomorrow’s outfit.
Check, check, check.
This routine was more than just habit now. It was survival.
His mother, too, felt the shift.
They’d never been close—not in the way you read about in memoirs or see in quiet Sunday films. Their love had always been awkward, practical. But the day he told her Yeonjun wasn’t coming—no visit, no flight, no need for the air mattress or the careful snacks she’d bought after asking for his allergies—something cracked.
She didn’t ask questions. Didn’t try to fill the silence. Just looked at him for a long, tired moment before drawing him in with hesitant arms, holding him like she used to when he was small and feverish and didn’t know what heartbreak was.
Then, she set him to work.
Gardening. Research. Cooking.
Not as punishment, not even really as distraction—but something more primal. Like she was saying, without saying: Stay in motion. Stay alive.
So his hands stayed busy. Tearing up weeds, learning new recipes, scrubbing potatoes with more force than necessary. Even as his heart ached, even as getting out of bed in the morning felt like trying to rise through wet concrete, the tasks gave him shape.
He wasn’t happy. Not yet.
But he was moving.
And sometimes, that was enough. Even with no stars.
He finished the sweater he’d started for a friend—loop by loop, knot by knot, something whole stitched together from fraying threads.
He researched new music genres, carefully avoiding anything that might echo with memories of Yeonjun—the nights they stayed up talking, Yeonjun singing, dancing, the little references slipped into every loose crack.
He cried when his brothers still asked about him. Quiet, unexpected tears, like grief wearing a different mask.
He started preparing for his trip abroad. Uni was coming fast, and with it, a new routine, a new place, maybe even a new self.
A week passed like that. Structure. Stillness. Small wins.
And then—
Yeonjun posted.
On an account Kai had completely forgotten about—one he hadn’t unsubscribed from—Yeonjun posted.
His suffering. His words. Raw and vulnerable and unmistakably real.
And just like that, the guilt came rushing back. A tidal wave. He hadn’t seen it. He hadn’t done enough. He couldn’t fix whatever had broken.
He failed—and in his books, that wasn’t forgivable.
He'd imagined it wrong. He'd imagined Yeonjun with friends again, laughing in cafés, hair longer and dyed something ridiculous like lavender or mint. He’d told himself it was okay to be forgotten, if Yeonjun was happy.
But he wasn’t.
Not even close.
And Huening Kai was left with the weight of that knowledge, heavy, bitter and cruel in his chest. He wanted to scream. Not out of anger—but helplessness. Because he would've stayed. He would've fought beside him. He would've been a thousand tiny lifelines stitched into Yeonjun’s darkest nights if he’d just been asked.
But Yeonjun never did.
And now, standing here, knowing Yeonjun is drowning alone, Kai is left with a choice that feels like the cruelest irony:
Obey the wish to stay away.
Or betray it, to try and save him.
Can love be real if it’s uninvited? Can care still matter when it arrives at a locked door?
He closes his eyes and lets the questions echo.
It was a strange thing, but he realised he’d much rather have been the villain—someone Yeonjun had been happy to leave—than know the boy was still suffering.
He’d thought Yeonjun was fine. That he himself had been cast as the antagonist, despised and abandoned.
But the reality was so much worse.
Yeonjun wasn’t happily living out his dreams without him. He was fighting, every day. Fighting to keep food in his stomach. Fighting to like the person that stared back in the mirror.
The person Huening Kai adores.
Can he really turn his back on that? Can he really abandon the boy brighter than all the stars in the night sky, and leave him?
But that’s exactly what Choi Yeonjun wanted him to do.
You can’t help someone who shut the door on you.
Huening Kai stared at the words on his screen for what felt like an eternity.
He should do something.
Bulimia. Self-hatred to the extreme he was seeing wasn’t something to just brush off. It wasn’t something that would leave on its own. It would scar. It could harm.
It could kill.
You can’t help someone who shut the door on you.
He loved him so much.
You can’t help someone who shut the door on you.
He only wanted the best for him.
You can’t help someone who shut the door on you.
Yeonjun’s last message had been clear—not to contact him.
You can’t help someone who shut the door on you.
With a deep breath, Huening Kai closed the tab. It wasn’t his business anymore.
You can’t help someone who shut the door on you.
And that meant until Yeonjun came knocking, Kai wouldn’t say a word.
You can’t help someone who shut the door on you.
Kai sat in front of his phone, the screen lighting up his email notification. Yeonjun’s name. The familiar profile picture. He stared at it for a long moment.
He could feel the pull—the desire to read, to check, to see if there was something left for him. Some thread he’d missed. But the truth was, he was done.
So, without a second thought, Kai clicked “unsubscribe.”
It felt like a weight lifted—slow, not dramatic, but steady. A quiet exhale after a held breath.
No stars.
Not this time.
He wasn’t going to read what Yeonjun wrote anymore. He wasn’t going to wait for messages that never came or keep interpreting metaphors like they were invitations. The door had been closed on his side now, and he wasn’t going to be the one knocking anymore.
No stars. No signs. No second chapters.
With a bitter twist of his lips, he set the phone down, remembering their final night, crying on the tiled floor. The way Yeonjun snapped. Now, he wanted to ask the boy; Who let out who?
It had felt like safety—being in the cocoon of their relationship. He thought he was happy, that everything was secure, as though nothing could touch him. But now, standing outside of it, everything was different. It wasn’t happiness. It was stagnation.
The world was waiting.
They had written a story once. Starboy. Crafted it together, their fingers flying over the keys, both of them trapped in their own ways.
Kai remembered the ending. The killer, alone. The victim, gone. They had thought the tragedy would come from some outsider tearing them apart—but it hadn’t. The call had come from inside the house.
Yeonjun had predicted his own suffering without even realizing it.
And Kai—Kai had written the ending long ago, too. He just didn’t know he’d be living it.
But Kai wasn’t going to come back as the victim in a story. He wasn’t going to make paper stars or live in the shadows of what could have been. His life wasn’t a tragedy.
No stars.
Not folded for someone who wouldn’t unfold for him.
The chapter was over.
The numbness crept over him like frost, delicate and slow, until all that was left was clarity—and a single, drying tear.
He didn’t need Yeonjun to make him whole. He never had.
They weren’t pieces of each other. They were colors.
If Huening Kai had been purple—deep and soft—Yeonjun had been a blinding yellow, bright and arresting.
Not puzzle pieces. Complements.
And maybe—just maybe—if Yeonjun ever wanted to come back, he’d have to learn that too.
But Kai wasn’t waiting anymore.
He was living.
And if they ever met again, it would be as two people who had learned how to stand on their own.
Because if Choi Yeonjun wanted to return to the love he’d once had, he wouldn’t be able to hide in metaphors or rewrite their story.
If Choi Yeonjun needed help, he would have to get up and knock.
Not write in code.
Not leave trails in stories.
No stars.
Knock. With intention.
._.