"Mom!" I shout. "Where’s your hair straightener?"

My mom appears at the bottom of the stairs, looking a little bemused. "Why would you want to straighten your hair? It’s naturally straight."

"Just to make it, you know, all smooth and stuff," I say. "C’mon, I don’t have long."

She chuckles. "Going somewhere special with Wonwoo?" She asks. 

"No," I say, frustrated, "I told you, a sleepover with my new friend. Please, can you just tell me where it is?"

"In the bathroom cabinet on the left, second from the bottom," she says, walking back into her office. 

"Thank you!" I call, with already a foot in the bathroom. I only have an hour, and I still need to pack. 

Mina swings by my house at ten past five, looking even more gorgeous than normal. The setting sun accentuates her red hair. She jiggles up and down while she waits for me to get my bags, trying to ward off the cold.

"Got everything?" she asks. 

"Yep," I say. 

"Great. By the way, my parents are out – some work thing, they’ll be back late tonight – so you’re helping to make dinner. Which, because I can’t cook to save my life, probably means giving up half way through and ordering a pizza."

I laugh. "Luckily for you, that cooking's of the few things I can do. Let me see what's in your pantry, and I'll throw something together."

"Yes, chef.' she says, mock-seriously.

"Just dump your bags up in my room," she says, once she’s led me inside her house. It’s a beautiful old building, with carved wooden walls and shutters around the windows. "Straight up the stairs and on the right. I’ll be up in a second. Just need to grab some sheets out of the clothes drier."

I followed her directions, and soon find myself in a room that is an unusual mix of modern and old. There is a quilt thrown over her four‐poster bed, and a proper dresser, and French windows, but also a sleek white laptop, an iPod dock and some blown up photos of her and a bunch of friends on the walls, bordered by crisp metal frames. Despite the furnishings being from two eras, it still somehow comes together really well. I’m looking at all her photos, when I hear her calling me. 

"Momo! Come look!"

"What?" I call back, heading back towards the stairs. "Coming!"

She meets me at the foot of the stairs, her cheeks flushed and eyes bright. "It’s snowing!"

"No way!" I say immediately. It never snows in our town. 

She laughs, and like yesterday when she took me out into the rain, she grabs my hand and drags me to the windows. 

And she’s right. Outside, snow floats gracefully down. Mina breaths against the frosted panes, the hot air from her mouth tickling my cheek, and then draws a smiley face on the part of the glass that clouded up from her breath. 

"Beautiful, huh?" she says. 

I make a noise of agreement in the back of my throat. "Mhm."

She glances over at me. "You’re not really dressed for the snow. Want to borrow one of my jerseys? We could go have a snowball fight."

"Of course!" I say, already heading over to the front door to pull my boots on. "But," I say, with a playful smirk, "I’ll win."

She smirks back. "Oh, we’ll see about that."

We end up pulling the mattresses off their beds and down to the living room first, where we'll be sleeping, because we need to wait for enough snow to settle on the ground. By the time we've moved the furniture to fit them in and I've got her jersey on, there's a fair covering of snow on her lawn. We rushed outside, giggling like school children.

Mina scoops up some snow in her gloved hands and hurls it at me, grinning and teeth bright white. It splatters against my cheek, icy cold. 

I retaliate, of course. For twenty minutes we run around outside, until, breathless and laughing, I grab her around the waist with one arm and with my other hand, hold a snowball, ready to drop, centimetres from her neck. "Say you’ve lost!" I , "or I’ll drop this down the back of your jacket."

She struggles wildly for a little while, then goes limp, but still smiling. "I’ve lost," she inclines her head. "You’ve won." 

I smile, savouring victory for a few more seconds, before releasing her. "You know what I feel like?" I ask as we head back to the house. "Hot cocoa, around a warm fireplace. You wouldn’t happen to have some, would you?"

"Some cocoa, or some warm fireplaces?" she asks. 

I punch her lightly on her arm, rolling my eyes. ''Cocoa, of course."

''You should've said. Well, that happens to be something I can make. We’ll do it properly, cocoa, sugar and milk, made in a pot on the stove. It just tastes better that way.''

I nod, not doubting that it does. 

Fifteen minutes later, we sit around a stone fireplace, the yellow flames dancing, sipping sweet cocoa, and sharing her quilt, wrapped around our shoulders. 

She snuggles into me, whining, '‘It’s cold.’' The fire has just been lit, and the warmth hasn’t yet spread around the room. I smile, and shift my position to make it more comfortable for her, but all the same, feeling extremely confused. 

She clearly likes me, she invited me over to her house, she feels herself to already be a close enough friend of mine to cuddle up to me, so then . . . why did she react so weirdly to me calling her a friend yesterday?