The Boy I admired

The Boy I Looked Up To In the village of Eldwyn, nestled in the valley where the stars kissed the mountains, lived a boy named Cael.

He wasn’t the strongest or the fastest, nor did he wield a blade or boast of daring feats. Yet to me, he shone brighter than the Everstar above.

I was the daughter of the herb-keeper, known for speaking more to plants than people. My world was quiet, green, and still—until Cael wandered into it one dusk with a half-grown moonflower cradled in his arms, asking if I could save it.

He brushed off the pale petals of the flower and said, "Found it wilting by the river." "Leaving it felt wrong." That's how it all started: a boy who saw value in saving a small thing and a dying flower. But Cael carried a secret. I saw it in the way he looked at the horizon when the wind changed, as though listening to a song only he could hear. The villagers said he was strange, a dreamer, born beneath a comet’s tail and cursed with wanderlust. I said nothing. I only watched, admiring the way he treated broken things as though they could still bloom.

One morning, the stars didn't go away like the sun did. They burned blue against the daylight sky, and an old bell tolled in the forest beyond—the bell of the sealed temple, silent for centuries.
Cael didn’t hesitate. "I think it’s calling me," he said, putting a charm in my ear with his satchel. I followed.

The forest was deep and ancient, its paths winding like questions. Creatures of bark and shadow stirred, and whispers tried to turn us back. But Cael walked as though he knew this was the way he was meant to go, with a certainty I never understood. Doors at the temple were carved with the names of long-forgotten stars as vines pulled back like curtains. Cael placed his hand on the stone, and it bloomed with light.

He said, his eyes filled with the same soft fire, "I don’t know who I am." "But I think this place does."

The temple took him in.

Years passed. The world spun on. Eldwyn slept beneath seasons, and I returned to my garden, to the moonflowers that bloomed when they missed him too much.

One night, beneath a sky streaked with silver, he returned. Not as the boy I admired—but as something more.
He was the last Starborn, guardian of the Gate of Realms. He had faced the trials, walked the void, and returned not to rule or revel—but to ask if I had kept the charm he gave me.
I wore it always.

And as he smiled, I saw in his eyes that despite all the worlds he had seen, all the skies he now held power to cross—he had always admired me too.

Love, to me, was never loud.
It existed in stolen glances from behind books, in hallways passed and smiles exchanged
like secrets whispered. He never knew—
that my heart echoed with his laughter,
that my day brightened when he walked in,
sunlight similarly folding around him, was drawn to his warmth.
I never got in touch, not because I didn’t feel enough—
but because I was overwhelmed. Love, in my world,
was safer in silence.
But even from afar,
he was a constellation I memorized,
each moment a star
I named after hope.
And maybe that was enough.
Maybe loving someone quietly
remains love, real and aching,
and beautiful all the same.