The wait is long, so very long.

A few thousand years ago, a millennium was nothing to Yuuri. When you’ve lived as long a life as he has— and Yuuri, a red dwarf, has lived a long, loooooong time— that measly amount passes you by in a blink of an eye.

And yet, ever since a certain comet turned up spontaneously one day, a thousand years no longer seems quick. In fact, it’s slow. Heart-wrenchingly slow. A trillion years kind of slow.

And recently, the eternal wait has been even more painful than usual.

Yuuri’s seen it before; the life of a comet. It’s a tale he’s already sick of. Once in a while, comets like Viktor are born, and they travel across the universe, whizzing past planets and stars and all the heavenly bodies, until they reach him. They talk, they bond, they laugh, and then they say goodbye until the next time they meet.

Then one day, they just stop coming altogether.

After all, a star— a red dwarf of all things— will always outlive a comet. And one of the first things Yuuri has learnt is to never get attached to such fleeting lives; it just isn’t meant to be.

And yet, when it comes to Viktor, Yuuri is unreasonably, undeniably, and irrevocably bound to him.

And so, he waits. He waits in anticipation for the first couple of millenniums, and then he hits the halfway mark, and he waits with trepidation.

And now? Now, before his seventh meeting with Viktor, he waits with a sense of loss. If he could somehow, somehow, give a few trillion of his own useless years to Viktor, he would do so in a heartbeat. After all, what is the point of a long life when it’s spent alone?

He holds his breath, growing dimmer as years pass without sight. And then, a flash of a beautiful blue, and he’s overwhelmed with emotions, and burns with passion. He doesn’t know how much longer their dance can continue, even though he wishes it’d never end. But when he watches Viktor whirl and dance and leave behind this trail of magic and beauty, he finds himself free of worries in that moment. After all, Viktor is here.

…

There is a story my grandfather used to tell me about why a red dwarf star was called The Star That Grieved by so many.

A long, long time ago, before my grandfather or his grandfather or hisGrandfather was born, there was a certain red dwarf star that used to exist amidst the wide, wide universe. Now, this star wasn’t the brightest, or the biggest, or the most beautiful. But it was, however, the most peculiar, a strange existence, for one day, it seemed to awaken. What previously could never be seen with the naked eye from earth, suddenly shone with an incredible force, only to revert back to its original state after a while. From then on, once every millennium, this star would burn with such brightness that everyone would stare up at it in awe.

It stumped the scientific world— till this day one of the greatest scientific mysteries. No one could find a logical explanation for this occurrence. And so, the mythical tale of two lovers who could only meet every millennium was born and spread far and wide; a story of forbidden lovers.

Back then, that particular star was called the Lover Star, and legends said that if a couple kissed under the blessing of that star when the mythical lovers were reunited, they’d last forever and ever and ever.

But a couple millenniums after the Lover Star first appeared, it was gone. Astronomers and couples all had the date marked down on their calendars: 2002, February 14th. That was the once in a lifetime day the star would finally show itself once more.

And yet, before the expectant gazes and cameras, it disappeared.

Of course, not completely. It was still there, if you looked with a telescope. But never again did it ever bring the same phenomenon it did every thousand years. And when the scientific world once again couldn’t find an explanation, a new tale was born— one of tragedy and heartbreak.

So iconic was that star, that ever since then, every red dwarf that came into existence was known as The Star That Grieved.