THREE WEEKS LATER

“Hey what’s taking you so long?” Youngwoon knocked on the bathroom door.

“Be patient.” Jungsoo answered from the other side.

“The bus we need to take is coming in ten minutes and we’re not at the station yet! Hurry up!”

“We’ll make it.” I could hear the smile in his reply.

I sighed a little and leaned against the side wall. “I just don’t want to miss this, especially since it started snowing.”

After about a minute, he opened the door and looked me up and down. “Oh, you’re all ready?”

“Yes!” I hit him playfully. “Go put your coat on!”

After we left the apartment and started walking toward the bus station, it didn’t take either of us a long time to feel the cold air stinging our faces. It was already almost zero degrees and I could already see small particles of snow fluttering in the wind.

“Is it the first day of snow in Seoul?” Jungsoo asked.

“I think so.” I nodded. “Also today’s the last day you had to stay indoors and not travel anywhere far, so that’s why we’re going to the shore.”

“How far away is that from here?”

“About two hours by bus. Why? Is it too long?” I glanced at him.

He glanced back. “It’s perfect. Especially if there are no other people on the bus.”

I grinned and moved my gaze straight ahead. “That’s pretty much impossible, hyung.”

“I can hope.” I felt his shrug next to me.

By the time we arrived at the bus stop, we had to wait a few minutes in the bitter cold.

“Oh come on, where is that bus?” I looked down the street impatiently while jumping a little.

“Is it coming today?” Jungsoo glanced around me.

“It better!” I sighed a little.

“Don’t worry about it.” Jungsoo leaned into me a little. “Even if we have to walk, we’ll get there somehow.”

“You think you’re strong enough to walk all the way there?” I looked at him while smirking.

“Sure, why not?” He shrugged.

“So this cold doesn’t bother you?”

“I kind of like it. Every time I feel the cold wind on my face, it reminds me that I’m alive.”

I stared at him for a moment before sighing. “You’re so whimsical.”

“It’s the simple things that make me happy.” He grinned.

We remained huddled together to generate some kind of warmth when the bus finally showed up and stopped in front of the station. I pulled Jungsoo forward a little and let him get on first, then I handed two tickets to the bus driver and the two of us made our way past a couple aisles of chairs before settling into two on the left side. I noticed some other people were sitting in the aisles in front of us but the height of the chairs were pretty high once we were both sitting down.

“Finally.” I muttered, grinning at him.

“It’s so warm in here. I might fall asleep.” Jungsoo chuckled.

“I know I will. I was up late last night working, so I barely got any sleep.”

His eyes widened. “You still want to go on such a long trip on a day you could be relaxing?”

“Of course I do!” I gave him a surprised look. “I’ve been looking forward to this day for a while now.”

“Oh, I didn’t know.” Jungsoo grinned. “Then we should have a lot of fun.”

“Definitely.” I leaned back in my seat as the bus jerked forward a little and started to move down the street.

Once I realized that the bus had stopped and people were brushing past my elbow to leave the bus, I opened my eyes and sat up. Looking out the window, I saw that we had arrived near the shore and I shook Jungsoo gently.

“Hey, wake up!” The excitement was evident in my voice.

He slowly sat up, lifting his head off my shoulder and stretching a little. “Are we there?”

“Yep.” I grinned and stood up. “Come on!”

Outside of the bus, the snow was falling a little heavier and the particles became a little puffier. I lead the way to the shore until we were both walking on the slightly hardened sand.

“Hyung, have you ever been to the beach before?” I looked at Jungsoo.

“Maybe once or twice…but not when the weather was like this.” He was staring up at the sky with widened eyes, as if he had never seen snow falling by the ocean water. I ended up watching him more than the ocean because he was enjoying it a lot more.

“…it’s so beautiful.” His gaze slowly moved toward the gently rolling waves in front of us. He wasn’t even shivering anymore.

I smiled softly and moved closer to him, slowly moving my arm around his waist and pulling him close to me. “I figured you’d like it.”

He slowly looked at me. “I feel like…”

My eyes narrowed a bit. “If you say ‘heaven’…”

He chuckled. “I feel like I’m in paradise.”

“Yeah, sure you were going to say that.” I gave him a look.

He gently leaned his forehead against mine. “I want to stay here forever.”

I glanced around us before leaning into his. “We could, but we’d probably die.”

“That would be alright with me.”

I arched one of my eyebrows. “You don’t want to see more beautiful scenes like this?”

His eyes widened. “There’s more??”

I chuckled. “Of course! We can go see all of them!”

“Then that would be better.” He nodded quickly.

We both chuckled lightly and fell into a pleasant silence. He slowly moved his gaze back to the rolling waves and watched them serenely.

A playful feeling washed over me. “You want to go in?”

He shot me a surprised glance. “What, no!”

“It’ll wake you up.” I grinned and proceeded to grab either side of his waist.

He let out a surprised sound and grabbed my hands as I lifted him into the air a little. “No, I don’t want to!” He laughed.

“What’s wrong? It’s just water.” I pulled him closer and closer toward the freezing cold water rolling in on the sand.

“Ah stop!” He was laughing hysterically now.

I made like I was going to throw him in and ended up pulling him into a tight back hug. The ocean water barely touched the tips of our boots.

“I hate you.” Jungsoo breathed in between laughs.

“I would never throw you into freezing water.” I murmured.

I felt Jungsoo glancing around but I held him tighter. “There’s no one else here.”

“You sure?” There was hope in his voice.

“Yeah, I already looked.”

That seemed to be enough for him and he relaxed into me. I held him like that for a few minutes and then slowly turned him around so I could see his eyes.

“Are you having a lot of fun?” I asked.

His mouth slowly rose in a grin. “If we were a little closer…I would be having more fun.”

I grinned and leaned in closer. His lips were extremely cold against mine but since mine were cold as well, I barely felt a difference.

“You must be cold.” I said quietly after a few tender kisses.

“Maybe a hot drink would be good.” He admitted quietly.

I nodded and leaned back but he rose his hands to either side of my face and pulled me in for another long kiss. I kissed him back and once we broke apart naturally, I took his hand and we started walking back toward the city part of the shore.

“By the way.” I glanced at him. “Did you speak with the priest some time ago?”

“Yeah, he called me yesterday. Why?”

“Just wondering. I’m glad he’s still taking the time to check up on you.”

“I think I talked to him more than the hospital staff.” He chuckled.

I chuckled too. “It makes sense.”

As we continued to chat about the priest and what we were going to order at the nearby café, the snow continued to fall in little puffy flakes and landed in the ocean waves gently, as if they were becoming one with them.