--

    Looking around his new apartment, Jonghyun saw nothing exciting. The shelves were nearly bare, his kitchen stocked with only a few items for the time being, his closet the same, the walls grey and dull. When he’d finally moved out of his mother’s house, he would think about the change as new, exciting, a fresh start– anything to make things sound hopeful– but the truth was, he was miles from home due to his scholarship, cold, and alone. Even pets weren’t allowed at this establishment– except maybe a fish, or something along those lines. He huffed at the idea that any fish could make up for his lovely dog at home.

    The second day since his move, he watched television idly, laying on the couch with his head back on the armrest. His light, dyed hair draped over the patterned cloth, and his eyes glued to the screen due to nothing else being of any interest to him. He’d already finished his paperwork for the rent, and he had no friends yet that lived in the area– with the exception of Jinki, who lived on the other side of town and was constantly swamped with school and work.

    “Jesus! ing–”

    Jonghyun’s eyes instantly darted from the screen to the direction of the screechy voice. Now completely interested in what the hell could be happening with the annoyed noises, he slunk off of his couch, crouching somewhat unnecessarily. He walked towards his habitually-closed window and peered out between the curtains with complete enamorment. For a man like himself, bored and tired of binge-watching things on Netflix like he had been the entire day so far, this was a gift from the heavens.

    The person outside was a young man wearing a dark, oversized parka and a grey beanie that was placed on his head in such a way that it showed off his black, waved hair. Jonghyun noticed quickly that he was most likely around his age, maybe a bit younger if anything, though he was at least two or three inches taller. Even from the man’s struggling, crouching state on the ground Jonghyun could still see very clearly his features.

    The man shakily stood up, his standing position looking like that of a scared cat that had just fallen off of a fence– rigid, and attempting to find stability. Finally, he inched forwards ever-so-slowly towards the door to the apartment complex. He slipped one more time on the large patch of ice, but caught himself, arms going out and trying to achieve balance. With a final lunge across the pavement, the man made it to the door, clinging to the handle as if letting go would result in falling into the pits of hell.

    Jonghyun stared out the window for a few more moments, even after the man had walked past the doorway into the complex’s hallway and out of view. He sighed, spaced out and lost in the reestablished quietness of his room. He couldn’t help but to think about how, despite the situation, the man from outside was gorgeous– high cheekbones, pretty and unique looking eyes, and a slight, dainty tint of pink over his cheeks and nose due to the cold. Even the reactions to his slipping on the ice were interesting, even cute if Jonghyun wanted to jump to conclusions.

    Closing his curtains again, Jonghyun stood up, stretched, and trudged back to his couch once again. He had a strange hope that he’d see this stranger again sometime soon.

--

    On sunday morning, for the fifth time that week, Jonghyun observed the not-so-graceful event of the boy from next door falling -first onto the pavement in front of the building. For whatever reason, this same pattern occurred without fail all five days, always in the morning, always slipping backwards, and Jonghyun really found it amazing.

    Today the man was talking on the phone, waving his hand around as he spoke, making undecipherable gestures at no one in particular. He wore a dark red peacoat, and carried an expensive looking totebag. Jonghyun found that he tended to wear a different outfit each day, each of them well coordinated and stylish, and it made him feel a little bit bad about himself– he owned only two sweatshirts and both of them were varying shades of grey.

    Jonghyun finally decided yesterday that he’d have to talk to the man at some point. Not just because at this point he was worried for the guy’s wellbeing (he fell every single time without fail), but also because at this point Jonghyun wouldn’t watch out the window for observatory reasons, but because he was cute. He’d complained on the phone to Jinki at least five times already about this issue, and at this point Jinki had stopped picking up his phone, previously just resisting the urge to scream at Jonghyun to just “ing ask him out or something, god Jonghyun it’s not that deep.”

    He wasn’t particularly worried about being turned down, though it did occur to him often that there was a good chance of that, but more so about social confrontation. Jonghyun didn’t consider himself antisocial, but definitely prone to babbling stupid bits of information when having to talk to someone he found attractive. At night, as cheesy as he presumed it was, he would go over things in his head that he could say that wouldn’t make him sound creepy and overbearing.

    He gave in. Eventually he’d have to do something anyways, right? So why go through the torture of more waiting.

    
    “Okay,” Jonghyun took a deep, probably over dramatic breath, “I’ll do it.”

    He slipped on his sneakers and speed-walked out the door, his sweatshirt doing little to shield against the air of the cold hallway. He stopped briefly at the glass door at the front of the complex and took one last deep breath, looking at the floor and assessing his talking points a final time. He pushed it open, shuffling across the slippery surface of the iced-over pavement until reaching the sitting figure, who was still cursing quietly, and reaching for his phone.
 

    “Are you alright?” Jonghyun asked, looking down at the man who was now looking up at him and blinking in confusion. Jonghyun offered his hand.

    “Uh,” the man continued to stare at him, as if in a daze, “yeah, I’m okay…”

    The raven haired stranger took his hand, and Jonghyun helped him up with a small, sweet smile on his lips. Once standing, the man smiled as well, showing off dimples tinted pink from the freezing weather, or maybe from something else.

    Jonghyun noticed their hands were still entwined, but didn’t make a move to change it. There was still ice to worry about, and that was a great excuse to hold a cute boy’s hand.

    “You really need to be more careful,” Jonghyun began, running his free hand nervously through his hair, “you fall like, basically every morning and I’m surprised you’re not like… terribly injured yet.”

    The man squinted and raised an eyebrow, awestruck and dazed expression fading to reality.

    “How do you know I fall every morning?”

    Jonghyun froze, and though he didn’t have a mirror, he knew that his face was red. He coughed, breaking eye contact and looking at anywhere other than into the man’s eyes.

    “I live right over there, so,” Jonghyun pointed at his window shakily, “I kinda see that you slip like, pretty much all the time…”

    “You do?” The man paused, gaze slightly less intimidating than before, but still cautious and confused, “then why have you never come outside to help me up or anything?”

    “Because I was afraid to talk to you because you’re really, really cute and I’m new here, so I was just–”

    Jonghyun stopped rambling, cut off by the heavenly, adorable sound of the person next to him beginning to laugh into his free hand. He blinked a few times, completely at a loss for words and having no idea how to react to the situation.

    “Are you serious?” he mumbled through chuckling, “I’m that cute?”

    “Yes?”
 

    “Oh my god,” the man smiled and met Jonghyun’s eyes once more, a giddy smile on his face, “that’s so cheesy…”

    Jonghyun anxiously looked at the ground, not sure what exactly he meant by that, but expecting the worst. Sure, he was pessimistic, but at least he was realistic.

    “You know what,” the man used his free hand to lightly hold Jonghyun’s chin and turn it towards him from his previous state of examining every detail of the concrete sidewalk. Jonghyun felt his heartbeat speed up ten fold, “if you get me to the door without slipping, I’ll give you my number, deal?”

    Jonghyun knew his expression must have been dumb–his eyes wide, his eyebrows probably at his hairline, his mouth slightly ajar– but nonetheless he couldn’t imagine a better outcome.

    Standing on the platform in front of the door, the man finally let go of Jonghyun’s hand, reaching instead into his totebag and fishing out a pen. He scribbled a line of numbers across the back of Jonghyun’s hand, clicked the pen closed and looked at him with a small smile.

    “My name’s Kibum, by the way,” he said quietly, infatuated with every detail of Jonghyun’s perpetually-lovestruck face, “thanks for helping me up.”

    “It’s nothing,” he mumbled in response, still in a state of disbelief that any of this was really happening and that it wasn’t one of his romantical daydreams, “I’m Jonghyun.”

    “Jonghyun…” Kibum repeated, eyes slowly moving from Jonghyun’s down to his lips, “I’ll see you later then, Jonghyun.”

    Jonghyun searched his thoughts for a decent response, but before he could even open his mouth was startled by a soft pressure on his lips, and a the light caress of a hand on his side. The kiss was short and sweet, nothing more than simple lips on lips, creating a sense of warmth even in the cold morning air. Before anything else could happen, it was over and Jonghyun was left standing at the glass door, staring into space and attempting to register everything that had just happened.

    He eventually noticed his arms were shaking from the cold, and he shuffled back inside the building, taking his sweet time walking back to his room because he no longer had any worries in the world. He closed and locked his door behind him, kicked off his shoes, and fell back onto his couch, his cell phone in hand. Before anything else, he entered the number that was scrawled across his hand, and labelled it with the name he’d learned. He clicked on another contact and pressed call, a goofy smile plastered on his face that he bet wouldn’t disappear for a long while. The phone stopped ringing, and a voice picked up. He grinned, knowing no one would see.

    “Jinki, you wouldn’t believe what just happened.”