Authors Pre-Notes: And yet, another upload! I'm having a lot of fun with this little series! Just to clarify: Li/Hei is pre-season 2... because I absolutely hated his character in the second season. I didn't mind Suou, she was pretty cool.

As always, reviews/favourite/follows are appreciated!

..::Song of Inspiration: David Archuleta - Crush::..

I supposed because I didn't get to see Li very often, it made focusing on school much easier. Besides, he was in university. I doubted he was interested in me the way I was interested in him. He was able to be with girls his own age, who were mature and all grown up. Plus, he probably had many lovers. He probably kissed girls many times, while I hadn't even had my first kiss yet.

It was better off this way. My infatuation for him probably wasn't healthy anyway.

That night, I waited for my parents to fall asleep before I snuck onto the rooftop. It had been a while since I went up there. Sometimes just needed go there to energize myself. I brought a blanket, just in case it was cold out, and wrapped it around myself. But I soon noticed someone else was on the roof too.

Li.

I suddenly panicked. Maybe he would ask me about that day on the balcony, when I took his picture. I think I would die from embarrassment if he did. I wanted to back away, shyly and pretend I hadn't even come up here. He was staring into a telescope but looked up just as I backed into the door again. Violet-blue eyes met mine and I felt my heartbeat spike. "Good evening, Suou."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude." I wrapped the blanket tighter around myself. Maybe he wouldn't say anything. As I stood there awkwardly, my eyes drifted to the beautiful telescope Li stood next to. I had only ever saw them in stores, they were so fascinating.

He followed my gaze, "would you like to try it?"

"Really?" I couldn't hide my smile and Li nodded. "Thank you. I've never used a telescope before," I padded towards him.

"It's already set it up, so all you have to do is look through the eyepiece." He said when I stood in front of it.

Leaning down, I followed his prompt to look into the eyepiece, squinting. "You know the real stars aren't there anymore, right?" Li said from beside me.

"I know," I tried to focus my gaze. "At least the fake stars are still beautiful to look at."

I watched the stars in the fake sky twinkle. There were no indications of anything beyond these stars, such as the milky path from the galaxy beyond Earth. There was no light in the sky, and what I thought would be millions stardust flecks was greatly reduced to only those fake stars. I had never seen the real sky, so this was my reality. But, it made me wonder if there was a possibility that the real stars were more beautiful than these. Would they ever come back?

"Suou," Li said as I pulled back from the telescope. An overwhelmingly sad feeling crossed through me as I thought of the fake sky and how I longed for it to be real again.

"Yes?" I wrapped the blanket tighter around myself, nervously. There was a sudden shift as Li stared at me. It was as if he were a different person. His face was hard, and there was no laughter or light in his eyes.

Just a black abyss. Like there was an outward flaw in his demeanour that even a smile couldn't hide.

"Do you know what contractors are?"

I blinked. The question was odd. I had heard of contracts, or a contractor before... but why were they so special? I had never seen someone so intense as Li was in that moment. His stare, alone, had me completely on edge. As if sensing impending danger, the hairs on my arm rose. There was no butterfly sensation in my gut as I stared into those suddenly intense blue eyes. All I felt was an empty, dark pit.

"I don't know," my voice trembled. "My dad will sometimes be contracted to other labs for work. So, I suppose he could be called a contractor."

The look on Li's face told me one of two things: I was utterly stupid and that was a dumb answer, or, I completely baffled him with my knowledge.

I doubted it was the latter.

I felt the burning flush touch my cheeks and spread across my nose. "O-or something, I don't know. Why do you ask?"

After a moment, Li slipped into his usual smiling face, "no reason."

I didn't completely understand what he meant, or why he brought it up. There had to be a reason he was so...intense about this subject. But, I smiled back anyways.

"That's a pretty necklace," Li cocked his head to the side. "Where did you get it?"

I pulled the chain over my head, holding it in my palm. "My brother gave this to me."

Li leaned down, and I held my breath. He was so close now, I could feel his warmth. It wasn't like the other times though, where he kept his distance. His face was literally only inches from me. "That must make it very important. He must love you very much."

"He does," I agreed, my voice was as breathless as I felt. "But, my brother passed away a long time ago."

Li blinked, leaning back up. "I'm sorry to hear that. It must have been very hard for you."

"It's okay. He gave me this to me so I could always keep him close." I gazed at the shard. "He treasured this necklace, and for him to give it to me means Shion must have really trusted me to take care of it. That I must be important." At least, that's what I always told myself. I didn't really know why he decided to give it to me, so thinking of that reason made me happy. I hadn't realized that I needed something materialistic to feel important to my brother.

Shouldn't I just have been important by being alive, or, by being his twin?

I hadn't noticed our hands had touched until I felt my skin tingling. Li had reached out, lightly touching his fingers on my palm. He curved his large hand under mine, his thumb gently resting on the base of my fingers. I didn't realize the skin there could be so sensitive, and with the sudden brush of his thumb, I shivered.

My heart began pounding in my ears when he asked, "may I hold it?"

"Yeah," my voice was barely audible as I tipped my hand over, letting the glass shard gently fall into his open palm. Li stared at it, lifting it up and examining it closer. I watched, fully mesmerized by him. His face was serene, completely engrossed in looking at that necklace over and over again. As if he were searching for something within it. Maybe it held the answers he was looking for...but, there was a storm behind those violet-blue eyes.

Li reached over to me again when he was done. He placed his hand in mine, dropping the shard in the centre of my palm. My spine shivered from his closeness. He clasped my hand within his, and I felt so small compared to him.

It reminded me that Li was older than me - a lot older. And I was just a kid to him.

"Never let anyone take this from you, Suou." Blue eyes bore into mine. His voice was suddenly two notes deeper - smoother. I swallowed hard, nodding as he pulled away.

He leaned up in a fluid motion, "did you ever get those pictures of the stars?"

"No, they were sold out by the time I got there. And, I heard they were very expensive." I frowned, the sensation that had flooded my body was instantly gone. There was a distant tingling, but it was nowhere near as intense as it had been when Li was close. Or when he was touching me. Somehow, I felt sad. I couldn't explain it, but I felt like this might be the last conversation we had.

"Oh, that's a shame. I know you were looking forward to seeing them." Li frowned too.

We stood still for a moment before Li went back towards his telescope. I didn't want to leave, because if it were true this was the last time…

No, it couldn't be. Li was my neighbour, he wouldn't just up and move away. There was no way this was goodbye.

I moved back towards the door. "I better go. Have a good night, Li."

He looked back at me and smiled, "have a good night, Suou."

Later the next day when I got home from school, I saw a note taped onto my bedroom window. I dropped my stuff on the ground and ran towards it, opening the screen and pulling the note inside. After opening it, there were two pieces within. One was a note that I read slowly.

'Suou, I'm sorry you couldn't get any of the pictures from the store. I bought extras the day I went and I want you to have this. We all deserve to see the real stars. Li.'

There was an aching in my chest as I laid on my bed, holding the note in one hand and gazing at the beautiful picture Li sent me in the other hand.

The real stars were so beautiful. The picture was taken somewhere in the mountains, the shot captured as if I were laying down and gazing up at them. The sky split into an array of beautiful colors of blue and purple - the aurora borealis.

The stars shone more brightly than I ever imagined they would. There were small stars, large stars and every size in between. Each of them had their own color, their own distinction. It was as if someone took colorful glitter and threw it onto a black canvas.

I laid looking up at the picture, imagining that I was laying under those beautiful blanket of stars. All the while, I couldn't grip with this feeling that maybe Li really was trying to tell me goodbye.