Sehun kneeled, collecting the pieces of glass which he had discarded carelessly the night before. It was far too late to salvage the deep-red tainted carpet, but his fingers fumbled hopelessly around for small shattered remnants of his drunken state. He ignored the numb pain from the openings which began to form in his fingertips, as he unintentionally added richer shades of crimson to the worn canvas below.

And he focused on likening Luhan to the pathetic scene ahead of him. See, Luhan embodied broken shards of iridescent reflections scattered across a bathroom floor. Like a withering rose plagued with thorns; executed and tossed aside by the hands of careless figures. The pain of holding him was minute compared to the value when the bearer was Sehun. He saw himself in that broken man, and he saw the beauty which the individual was attributed.

Snow had fallen heavily outside Sehun’s apartment, and he spent a little too long dressing his smaller hyung in suitable clothing for the weather. By the time he had wrapped a maroon scarf neatly around the pale neck of the elder, and kitted his frail hands with matching gloves, the gentle snowflakes had ceased their descent.

“It’ll still be fun,” Luhan pleaded, when a crestfallen expression brought Sehun’s aura down to the temperature outside the window “and at least I won’t get my new beanie wet.” he had continued, nodding to purposefully bring to life the woollen (mismatched) hat atop his head, pushing his floppy fringe further over his long, ebony eyelashes. Sehun had given in, as always, and a little later their two hands were clasped tightly inside one glove, and their chests stopped shivering with coldness, and began heaving with gentle laughter; echoing through the frozen branches of pine trees. The ground twinkled beneath them, and Sehun had noted that it was almost as beautiful as the glint in the other’s eyes.

He purposefully let the conversation die, so that silence made room for it’s own disturbance; the soft crunching beneath their feet. Walking across the blanket of frost seemed excitingly simple at the time, a blissful air filled their lungs with each shallow, quiet breath. That was two weeks before the two trails of footsteps on snowy pathways became one. It seemed like the two walked for hours, yet when they burst back into the apartment, shivering and playfully puffing hot air onto each other’s hands, the bedside clock revealed that their escapade only lasted 20 minutes. Laughter infected their chests once more, while Luhan teased the younger about his inability to last longer in anything. The humid heat in the room choked their laughter, and their breathing got shallower as the night slowly drew them into burning passion. Sehun lay quietly and watched Luhan’s white skin, beads of sweat laying luckily below his collarbones, which were heaving slowly once more with his gentle slumber.

These daydreams occupied his lonely thoughts as he survived another day. It was certainly no longer “living”. Sehun remembered the contrast between the cushioned wonderland in which they left their transient mark on; and the grey slush which occupied a January ground, his sole footsteps washed away with the sheeted rain before he could linger on the depressing scenery. His late night twitching fingers craved the photographs which he had regretfully erased, and they painfully typed another message as the clock struck 2am.

“Hyung, are you happy?”

Through the burning pools forming in his eyes, he watched himself save the message with all the others, where it belongs, into drafts.

Somewhere miles away, Luhan settled into bed alone.