He scrolls.
Past faces that aren't real smiles. Past vacations no one truly enjoyed. Past the bright, endless noise of other people's perfect lives. The screen keeps flashing and moving, but his room is still and airless, dust hanging in the beam of his desk lamp. Akin's thumb moves without thinking; up, up, up, a metronome against glass.
He's looking for something. A memory. A ghost of a ghost.
And then he finds it.
The post sits there, frozen in time, like a fossil dug out of the endless feed. His first post under the name no one knows anymore. Back when he still thought words could be weapons and poetry could be precise enough to hurt. He remembers typing it out, each line measured, each word sharpened until it gleamed. He hadn't been looking for hope, only for the kind of people who had none.
It read:
The Starlight Society
Tired of looking at the stars and seeing nothing but darkness? Feeling like you're drifting, a lone asteroid in a cold, silent sky? We are a society for those who have seen the beautiful emptiness of the cosmos. We don't promise to give you light. We promise to look at the stars with you and acknowledge the silence. No rules. No judgment. Only understanding. Join us. Maybe together, we can find a new star to look at. DM for details. We'll be waiting.
Akin lets out a laugh, if you can call it that. It's a dry, bitter sound that scrapes his throat." A new star to look at. "How stupid. How young. How wrong.
He hadn't wanted a star. He'd wanted an ending. The post was a net he cast into deep water, and he'd been sure he knew exactly what kind of fish he'd catch. The storage room meetings, stale air, and old trophies no one cared about had been perfect. A room for forgotten victories, just like the people inside it.
He remembers them all. Win and Kao, hands always intertwined, convinced they could escape together into some forest no one would find. Pim and Lita, girls who once laughed too loud in the hallways until whispers and stares turned them into ghosts. Prae, the perfect student planning her last act of rebellion. Tom, bullied until the idea of a permanent goodbye felt like control. Noi, fading slowly in plain sight, bones and shadows. Ken, half-Thai, half-Japanese, wholly invisible.
They were the chapters of his story. Niran was the book he hadn't planned to write.
His first message was nothing but a trembling star emoji. Pathetic, Akin had thought. But something about it, its quietness, its awkward honesty, pulled at him. And in the storage room, when they finally met, Akin had seen pain in Niran's eyes that didn't feel curated or performed. It was raw. It was real. And it ruined everything.
Months later, he'd posted: The Society is full. It was a lie. What he meant was: My heart is full. Niran is here.
Now, in his room, the silence has returned. But it isn't the kind that means peace anymore. It's heavier. Lonelier. Louder. He had wanted the ending he'd promised himself. Instead, Niran had changed the script, had dragged him, kicking and screaming, into the act of living.
A tear slides down his cheek and lands on the screen. A small, wet star on a dark sky. The old post still sits there, unedited, untouched.
He had found his new star.And he had watched it burn out, just for him.