The room was dark. The entire second floor of the school had a blackout.

Of course, Kyungsoo only knew this because everyone started letting out startled gasps and the hum of the projector the teacher was using to display his power point presentation had clicked off. Not to mention the annoying buzz of the classroom lights on the ceiling. It didn't really matter to him. Nothing changed in his peripheral vision because everything had been black from the start.

Well, not exactly black, but there weren't any images for him to depict before his eyes didn't let him. Having been blinded from a freak car accident when he was 9, he learned to take in his surroundings with all of his other senses. It was only natural. He always had a good ear, and it only seemed to enhance when the lights went out in his eyes. He could still imagine images in his head, after all, he had been able to see once. But now, when someone attempts to describe all the vivid colors of a painting or stand in awe of some great picture of a tropical island they went to for vacation, he could only imagine through memory.

He didn't miss being able to see too much. Sometimes he felt like he was missing out on an inside joke when people suddenly got silent around him, but he was far more capable of paying attention to his surroundings than his peers. Not just from his hearing, but he just got vibes and shivers at the right times that would explain what was going on at the moment and help him determine what kind of atmosphere was lingering in the air.

And all he can feel in the air right now is excitement and happiness in hearing the teacher let them out early, letting them go home for the day. As Kyungsoo skillfully packs all of his papers and pencils back into his organized backpack and slings it over his shoulder, Jongin jumps on him with an arm around his shoulder. "Twenty minutes early, not much but not too little." he chuckles as he drags Kyungsoo along with him down the hallway.

"It's not like you weren't going to spend that time sleeping anyway." Kyungsoo scoffs back.

"Was I that loud?" Jongin laughs, knowing that Kyungsoo could hear Jongin's sleeping breaths even from a different classroom.

"Your head was on your desk." He replies, remembering the humble thud that come from Jongin's desk.

"So?"

"Whatever." Kyungsoo shakes his head, laughing at his close friend.

Just then, he hears the footsteps of his other close friends walk out of the classroom down the hall. Guess they're not the only ones out early today. And right on cue, Jongin waves his other arm to the guys exiting the classroom, "Ayo! Over here!"

"Hey, wassup boys." Chanyeol jumps over, tugging Kyungsoo out from underneath Jongin's arm and tucking him underneath his own arm to rub his knuckles against the boy's head.

"Ah! Stop!" Kyungsoo laughs, pushing the tall boy's body away from his, "You're really ing strong, you know that?" he says, rubbing his now sore head and fixing the black sunglasses on his nose.

"I would know." Baekhyun scoffs, rubbing his own arm that Chanyeol had punched earlier when they were let out of class.

"So what do you guys say we head out for drinks or something since we've got the time?" Chanyeol asks, ignoring the pouting Baekhyun now tucked underneath his arm.

"I'm game. Let's do it." Jongin agrees, pulling Kyungsoo along under his arm as well.

Ten minutes later, they're sitting at the window of the convenience shop two blocks down from the school, sipping soda from their cans and waiting on their ramen to finish cooking. They laugh and joke between snacking and pointing out pretty girls that pass by the convenience window. Some even wave back towards the handsome boys behind the window. Kyungsoo doesn’t pay attention to the girls pass by, not because he can’t see them and input his opinion on the girls’ appearances, but because his girlfriend was already plenty to him.

She was such a sweetheart, coming over to his house to help his parents make dinner, help out with his chores, help him with his homework, and she did nothing but shower him with love. And the only reason he accepted all of her help was because he knew she did it out of the kindness of her heart as if she’d do it for any boyfriend she would have, not because of his so-called ‘disability’. She didn’t offer help every second because she knew Kyungsoo could handle himself. He can’t help but smile whenever he thinks of his Jumi.

Kyungsoo snaps out of his thoughts when he feels his phone vibrate in his pocket. When he answers, he snaps his head up and his eyes grow wider and wider behind his sunglasses. “What? Are you being serious?! There aren’t any other people before me?!” He stays on the phone for another minute or so before he hangs up and smiles down at the phone he feels in his hands.

It’s quiet on his right side, so he knows that Jongin and the others are waiting on him to explain what he’s so excited about. Jongin claps his strong hand on Kyungsoo’s back, “Spill it.”

Kyungsoo just bites his lip to hide the huge smile on his face as he lifts his head to face his friends, “Guys… I have a donor.”

“Wait, you mean for?” Kyungsoo can hear the scruffing sound of Baekhyun’s sleeve that tells him his finger is pointing towards his eyes.

“Yeah…” he sighs, letting the smile set in on his face.

“Are you serious? Tell me you’re not messing with me, man.” Chanyeol looks at him warningly.

“I’m going to be able to see you guys.” Kyungsoo laughs to himself, turning to face the window again, “I wonder how well you guys have grown up in the past years.” He leans his cheek on his hand as his elbow rests on the table against the store window.

When he gets home, his parents already know about the news since the hospital had called their home first, so they greet him with big hugs and loud laughter. “Are you excited?” his mother asks him with a big smile that Kyungsoo can hear and feel.

“As excited as can be, I guess.” Kyungsoo shrugs with a smile. “I don’t really know what I think about it though. I’m doing pretty okay on my own. But they said that there weren’t any urgent orders for other people, so they called me.”

“So we heard, but we’re happy for you. You’ll finally be able to match up everything to you know to your sight again. God knows how I would feel if I missed out on being able to see colors and majestic scenery.” His mother says, “Oh just wait until you actually see the rooftop, Kyungsoo-ah! That’s the best part about living in this neighborhood, you can see a majority of the city without having to go up to the Namsan Tower.”

“No stars, I don’t see what the big deal is.” His father jokes, earning a playful hit on the arm from his mother.

Kyungsoo is about to ask a question but the doorbell answers him even before he can ask. Being that he barely heard the steps outside, he knew whose modest footsteps those were. “Jumi!” he shouts, running to the door, easily dodging around the chairs and table corners from the kitchen to the front door of the apartment. When he opens the door he pulls the tray of what smells like tomatoes out of her hands, setting them on the floor before throwing his arms around her, “Did you hear yet?!” he laughs happily in her ear.

Jumi laughs back just hearing how happy Kyungsoo is. His laugh and smile is what she lived for. “What’s up?” she asks, patting his back nicely.

Kyungsoo pulls himself away from her to hold her shoulders gently, “I got a donor.” Although he can’t see it, Kyungsoo can just feel the change in her expression when she just watches him silently. He waits patiently for her reaction, knowing that it would be one of the most important ones to him.

“Kyungsoo… That’s… fantastic!” Jumi sighs breathlessly, pulling him into her arms again, “Not that you need them, but you must be happy anyway, right?” she laughs. It’s not obvious, but Kyungsoo’s been doing this for a while, so he’s more able to sense hostility in the air than others would be. And there’s just a small bit of hostility in Jumi’s tone of voice even though she’s hugging him tightly.

When they pull away, Jumi bends down to pick up the tray of tomatoes, “So shall we celebrate with spaghetti tonight?”

“I’ll take care of that,” Kyungsoo smiles, taking the tomatoes from her hands, “You know that’s my specialty. Anything else you guys want tonight?”

“How about I buy some meat to fry up tonight? I think it’d only appropriate.” Kyungsoo’s father says, picking up his jacket from the coat rack near the door, “Anything else needed?”

“Get the lettuce while you’re there, I don’t think we have enough here.” Kyungsoo’s mom says.

And with that, the girls and Kyungsoo head into the kitchen to start on dinner. They hum and sing songs together as they mash up the tomatoes for the pasta sauce while Jumi starts boiling the noodles. She’s on one side of the stove stirring the noodles while Kyungsoo is on the other, mixing spices and kimchi into the spaghetti sauce. And by the time the table is set up, the lettuce leaves are washed and Kyungsoo’s father comes back from the kitchen from frying up the meat he just bought. Kyungsoo’s tongue salivates at the freshness of the whole meal. And when he tastes it, the flavor doesn’t disappoint either. They all have a wonderful time and Jumi even manages to prank Kyungsoo by feeding him a lettuce leaf filled with the spaghetti instead of the meat, which tastes strange but is still okay.

Later, when Jumi and Kyungsoo are both in his room, working on homework together with the door closed to block out the sounds of his parents and the television just outside in the living room, Kyungsoo suddenly brings it up, “I’m happy, you know.”

“What?” Jumi asks, turning to face him.

“You know, I’ll finally be able to see what you look like. It’s kind of a big deal,” he chuckles to himself, “I remember what Jongin looks like; we were friends for a while. But I didn’t meet you until two years ago.”

“Yeah, but he’s grown up. You might not recognize him, since you keep saying puberty was good to him.” Jumi laughs.

“It doesn’t matter what Jongin looks like, I’m just happy I can see the face of the angel who took care of me all this time.” He smiles at the girl next to him.

“I thought you already know what your mom looks like.” She smiles jokingly.

Kyungsoo takes Jumi’s hand, encased in a fingerless leather glove, in his, “You know what I mean. I couldn’t have done it without you.” He smiles.

“You can take care of yourself just fine.”

“I meant your companionship.” He clarifies. Even though he’s still wearing his sunglasses, Jumi can feel a strong, loving gaze emitting from his eyes. “I appreciate all this time you spend with me. It makes me feel like I don't have a single thing to differentiate between the two of us. No matter how much I ignore the fact that I can’t see, or how much I don’t need it, I’m still pretty conscious of it. But you make me feel like I can forget it all. Like there’s nothing to be conscious of in the first place.”

After a while of just gazing at each other, feeling the significance of the air around them, Jumi finally answers, “…You’re welcome.” With a humorous smile.

He catches her by surprise when he touches their lips together. Kyungsoo’s lips are soft against hers, but he feels something on the side of Jumi’s. And this time, Kyungsoo is the one caught by surprise when she pushes him away. He can feel her hiding her face from him with her hair.

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes, “I didn’t mean to… push, if that was too fast.” He says. It’s weird because he didn’t feel like he was pushing at all. They’ve been together for almost one year already, but they have yet to have kissed. Sometimes he felt like he was lying to his friends when he said he had a girlfriend but he hadn’t kissed her once.

“No! No. You had every right to do that.” She reassures him, “It’s just me. I’m kind of… awkward with that kind of stuff, I guess.” She says.

“Did you not like it?” Kyungsoo asks shyly, “Sorry, I don’t really know how to do it either.”

“No! I… It was… great.” She sighs to herself, “So I’m sorry for being so awkward with it. I’ll uhm… try not to be anymore?” she offers.

“So can I try again?” he jokes, leaning forward.

“How about you try your math problems again?” she jokes back, pulling his jaw to face the workbook on the desk again. “Nice try though, trying to distract me.”

“I wasn’t!” he swears.

“Just do it.” She smiles back.

**

It’s been over two weeks since Kyungsoo’s operation, and he can’t seem to remember to blink a lot of the time. When he was finally able to depict images with his new eyes and transfer them into his brain and match them up, he suddenly felt… refreshed. He just wanted to look everywhere, and his eyes were always wide open and curious. Everyone would chuckle at how cute he was with his large eyes.

His parents didn’t look too different from when he last saw them nine years ago. Other than some new wrinkles and a couple of gray hairs that stuck out, they were generally the same as the image that was implanted in Kyungsoo’s memory all this time. His friends on the other hand, they didn’t match his mental memories at all.

Jongin was tall, dark, and handsome. How did that come out of that lanky, adorable kid he played basketball with back in elementary school? Kyungsoo did know he had gotten buff, but he never really pictured the muscles in his head. And damn, Jongin was hot. And comparing his best friend’s god-like body to the short, blunt one he saw in the mirror, Kyungsoo wondered how much he had missed out on by not having been able to see all those years.

And wow, no wonder why he was hanging around with the hot shots of the school. Chanyeol and Baekhyun were pretty damn good looking too. He never knew that Baekhyun wore eyeliner some of the time. Surprisingly, the makeup did the boy great justice when he did wear it. And Chanyeol was just a giant. He looked like a huge puppy with his big eyes and ears and just playful manner. His hair was fluffy enough for him to pet, for sure. Now Kyungsoo felt kind of lame walking next to his friends in the hallway.

Everything he walked past, he wouldn’t waste a single second by not looking at it. A lot of the time it felt like he was staring at random things and people. Sometimes they felt uncomfortable when Kyungsoo’s eyes started resembling large coins as he got more interested or nervous at a topic. But it didn’t matter, he felt refreshed. It didn’t matter how boring the lesson was, he just relished in the fact that he could see what was on the board.

Of course, the donor’s eyes weren’t perfect. He was slightly near sighted so he had to squint at certain things, but he didn’t need to get glasses for it. It was all clear enough for him, and he couldn’t be more thankful.

But no matter how thankful he is at the fact that he can see again, he can’t help but feel a little discontent. It’s been over two weeks since Kyungsoo’s operation, and the last time he actually spent time with his girlfriend was about a week after he received the news that he had a donor. She was there right before they sent him off to get changed and operated on, but that was the last time he actually made physical contact with her. He had surprised her by kissing her in front of his parents before he went inside. It was short but it felt great, to him at least. He decided to leave her flabbergasted when he went inside. And now he hasn’t seen her since. He was missing her so much.

His homework routines didn’t change, so he didn’t understand why she would suddenly stop accompanying him in working on it. Admittedly, he didn’t need it too much now that he could read it on his own, but he still needed practice. All those times he wrote things out, he did so only by memory. He hadn’t actually seen a written or printed letter in years. So he wasn’t surprised to see that his natural handwriting was like chicken scratch. But he was getting the hang of it.

Jumi had been coming over to his house less and less as the operation date had neared, claiming that she finally got a job and she had a crazy schedule to work around. The only contact other than phone calls he would receive from her would be the cupcakes she brought over during the daytime from the bakery she had started working at when Kyungsoo was at school.

What was keeping her away? He had expected her to be right by his side when he first opened his eyes. His parents seemed to know something, but it was clear that they wanted him to find out from his girlfriend directly. He was starting to get paranoid. It would explain why she was hesitant to kiss him before. Maybe she didn’t really like him at all. Maybe she just liked being able to take care of someone. She had always said that she wanted to study nursing when she went to college.

She was always the same on the phone, happy to talk to him and laughing to him accordingly. But he knew she was keeping herself away from him. What was she waiting for? He told her how much he wanted to see her. She knew. So what was going on with her? As he continued to ask himself these questions, the answers that stemmed from his paranoia seemed to make more sense, and he would just sigh to himself.

Chanyeol snaps him out of his daze by clapping a hand on his back, making him jolt up in his seat. “There’s the bugged eyed Kyungsoo we’ve been getting to know.” He laughs, “What were you daydreaming so hard about, dude?”

“What? I was…” he trails off, looking back down at his workbooks and papers scattered on his desk.

“Well, whatever it is, it’s distracting you. So let’s go get a hot chocolate to wake you up.” Jongin says, standing up from his own desk and slinging his backpack over his shoulder.

As Kyungsoo is being dragged down the street, he just stares around the street. Although he’s already embedded the streets into his head, he hasn’t gotten tired of the familiarity yet. “Let’s go down to that one.” Chanyeol turns the corner towards a small café down the street. He holds the door open for the others to go in first, but just as Kyungsoo is about to step inside the warm inviting café, a voice makes his ears perk up.

He turns to see a girl waving goodbye to someone inside the bakery next to the café before she turns to walk down the street with light blue bag that resembles the ones that sit on the kitchen counter in his house. “Jumi!” he calls out without hesitation, stepping away from the door that Chanyeol holds open.

The girl freezes in her step just a bit before starting forward again in attempt to make it look like she hadn’t stopped at first. “Jumi, wait! Stop! I’d know your voice anywhere.” Kyungsoo calls out again, starting down the street towards her.

“NO! Kyungsoo, stop!” she yells, pulling the grey beanie lower onto her head to cover her eyes and nose and holding the bag up to block her face before she spins on her heels to hold her hand out to stop him, “D-…Don’t.”

“What…?” asks, his voice coming out heartbroken as he freezes in his stride towards her. He knows that his friends are watching since Chanyeol had let the door close. “Jumi-ah, what are you doing? Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to see you? Why are you…?”

“No, Kyungsoo, I…” the girl behind the bag backs away, “I’m not… ready.” She says just above a whisper. A whisper that only Kyungsoo’s ears are trained well enough to hear. “Please…” she begs, “Just… I’ll explain later. Not… Not here.” She finishes before turning on her heel to start walking in the direction she was heading at first.

“Kyung, is that her…?” Chanyeol asks cautiously. But Kyungsoo isn’t listening, he’s too busy trying to figure out why she’s walking away from him right now. Why is she doing something that makes his heart hurt? All he’s wanted to do since he was able to see again was see her, hold her, kiss her…

Kiss her…

It clicks in his head just as he steps forward towards her, “Jumi, I’ve kissed you before. I can feel the burns.” He shouts towards her.

Suddenly, she freezes before she can turn the corner. Kyungsoo takes this chance to run up to her, and when he stops behind her, he pulls the beanie off of her head and covers his own head until the fabric covers his eyes, “There, it’s just like before. Now will you please just… let me kiss you?” he asks hesitantly, but boldly.

He hears her suddenly sniff a little and he knows she’s on the verges of tears when she walks up to wrap her arms around his neck, “I am so sorry. I’m sorry for being selfish like this. But… I wasn’t ready.” She starts sobbing quietly next to his ear.

Kyungsoo warmly hugs her tighter around her waist, sighing contentedly as if he can finally let out a breath after holding it in for so long, “I’ve missed you so much…”

“Don’t forgive me…” Jumi says, hiding her eyes on his shoulder to let the thick material soak up her tears a bit. And although Kyungsoo feels kind of stupid when he pushes her away a little to catch her sobs in a deep kiss with a beanie covering half of his face, he does it anyway. And this time, he makes a move to touch her face. The right side of her face. The side that she’s been turning away from him all this time. And he can feel her shaking as he caresses the rough, uneven, charred, dry skin. He imagines the site of the dark red-brown color that would be dried onto the scarred tresses of her face, and expects for the worst when he’s allowed to open his eyes. Teardrops fall onto his fingertips as he continues to touch her and whisper soothing things into her ear.

“How did you keep this from me all this time…” Kyungsoo chuckles a little, legitimately wondering how in the hell he didn’t know about this for so long. His parents were really good at keeping quiet.

“I’m sorry…” she apologizes once again. And to prove it, she leans forward this time to kiss Kyungsoo gently, as if trying to send words of ‘Sorry’ and ‘Please understand’ and ‘I was afraid’ through to his brain through the lip lock. Down the street, he can hear the quiet click of a shutter on a camera phone and he knows that his friends are being nosy. They can’t see what Kyungsoo’s feeling with his finger pads because her left side faces them, but he doesn’t care. Even if they do see her, he wouldn’t care what they thought. All he cared about was getting Jumi to accept him. To accept him and that fact that he’s okay with what she looks like, despite the burns that scar half of her body. No wonder she never wore skirts or took off her gloves.

When they pull apart, Kyungsoo makes a slow move to pull off the beanie, and Jumi doesn’t stop him so he continues to do so. But he keeps his eyes closed when he hands the hat back to her. Jumi just stares at him for a moment before quietly saying, “Just open them…”

Kyungsoo wants to play the cool guy. He wants to just shake his head, hand her the hat, and just walk back towards the direction of friends, letting her know he’ll wait for her. He wants her to know that he’ll be willing to wait as long as she wants. He wants to look cool in front of her. But he doesn’t. He’s been aching to see her for so long. And this moment was just too precious and tempting for him to back away from. He picks her chin up with his fingers and kisses her until he’s sure her eyes are closed, and he pulls away with his own eyes open.

Her soft, dark, brown hair falls over her right eye, but the burns clearly spread across the majority of her forehead. Half of is charred with the dry, red remainder of skin, but her nose and chin are sparred. When he makes a move to push the hair to the side, it’s clear the worst shows around the bottom of her eye and cheekbone. It would be considered one of the most gruesome things that anyone would have ever seen, but Kyungsoo doesn’t see anything besides Jumi. It’s just Jumi. Nothing defines her besides the heart-warming, kind, wonderful girlfriend that she is to him. He doesn’t see anyone different from when he didn’t have his eyes and when he did.

He puts the beanie into her hand with a warm, genuine smile on his face, “What a beautiful girl.” He says softly, “But of course, I’m obligated to say that my mom is the most beautiful woman in the world.” He adds.

Then he gets a laugh out of her. Her laugh. He loves her laugh. It’s as gentle as hearing wind chimes from another room on a sunny day. Smoothly, Jumi fixes her hairline, moving the majority of her luscious brown hair to cover the right side of her face and pulls the grey beanie over her head again, hiding her forehead and red burns cleanly. Kyungsoo moves the hair a bit to let be seen, and he smiles at her gently, “I’ve missed you…” Then he looks down at the blue bag in her hands, “Were you going to bring that for me?” he asks.

“Uhm, I was. But you can have them now to share with your friends.” She looks over to the guys still standing outside of the café, and Chanyeol smiles brightly as he waves at the two. Baekhyun and Kai join him by waving their hands gently to them as well. Kyungsoo and Jumi laugh as Jumi raises her hand to wave back at them.

“Do you want to… have a drink with us?” he offers.

“Me?” she asks incredulously, “No, it’s alright. I was going to—“

“Great, let’s go.” Kyungsoo smiles, taking her hand firmly in his as he leads her towards the others. This is the first time he’s being somewhat aggressive and forward with her besides those times he first kissed her, and it creates a rush in his body that excites him. “Guys, this is my girlfriend, Jumi.” He introduces the girl standing beside him with a grey trench coat making her beanie covering the majority of her body. “Jumi-ah, this is Chanyeol, Jongin, and Baekhyun. I’m sure I’ve told you enough about them to feel afraid of being around such wack jobs.” He smiles.

“First of all, I am not a wack job.” Chanyeol points out, “Second of all, it’s nice to finally meet you. He’s told us enough about you for me to already be sick of you even though we’ve never seen you before.” He smiles brightly as he bows to her.

“Nice to finally meet you.” Jongin and Baekhyun bow as well.

“So, are we going to have hot chocolate or what? It might start snowing today.” Chanyeol says.

Jumi smiles and gestures towards the door, telling him to lead the way. She sets the cupcakes on the table for them while Jongin goes to order for them. Five minutes into the conversation, Chanyeol already has everyone cracking up in laughter as the drinks arrive. And finally, Jumi comes up as a topic, and she decides that Kyungsoo’s friends might as well know too.

The main reason why his friends never got to see her, the main reason why Kyungsoo’s parents wouldn’t mention much her when Jumi’s appearance came up, simply calling her a beautiful person, was that secret part of her. The part of her that came out of a fire back in grade school when half of her body exited the school building in flames. Thanks to sturdy clothing, she had managed to preserve the majority of her arm and leg, but the same most definitely couldn’t be said about her right hand, the right side of her lower back and hip, or the entire right side of her face. It seemed as though there wasn’t skin left to be spared to make up her face unless it was dried and charred and red. She spent her teenage years growing up wearing fingerless gloves, long shirts, hats, scarves, and covering her face with her hair. Some would think that she was just a punk, but once they caught sight of what she was hiding, they would see. They would see the horrendous sight that was forever melted on her face.

Thus, she stayed home-schooled. The pressure and hurt that came from other students’ words that she couldn’t tune out became too much to bare after she graduated primary school. Jumi promised to her parents that she would take part in school when it was time for college, when students were grown up and too mature for harsh words. She would get into college with flying test scores and more knowledge than anyone and compassion than anyone. Because all she wanted to do now was help other people who were probably victims of ridicule. She was lucky enough to escape it before teenagers got to be too harsh, so maybe she could provide the private schooling that they needed if they didn’t want to face their peers because of flaws they had or mistakes they made. No judgements.

All of this, she kept from Kyungsoo. And hey, his parents agreed to stay quiet about her ‘condition’, so that must have meant that they respected her choice. Either that, or they were too embarrassed to show her off because of her appearance. She couldn’t really blame them. Sometimes it still hurt to look in the bathroom mirror in the morning. But all that pain dissipated when she was with Kyungsoo.

When Jumi was with Kyungsoo, there were no judgements, and that’s how she liked it. Now that she truly had someone who was able to open up to her and see who she was, she wouldn’t let him go. It was kind of bittersweet that the one who could see who she was couldn’t see her at all. Bittersweet in that she felt great when she was with him, but at the end of the day, it was because he didn’t see her. And we all know how easy it is to shun someone away when it’s too much to bear.

Although it was true, she was aggressive in some areas with him, but hesitant in others. She wouldn’t hesitate to hit him or hug him, but when he got close to touching her scarred hand or face, she would always angle herself the other way or stand on the other side. Kyungsoo had just thought this was a habit of hers, so he just went with it, oblivious to the monstrosity that Jumi thought she was.

Keeping this part of herself in the dark from someone so important to her made her feel guilty sometimes, but she felt that he would understand. She thought that maybe she would get the heart to tell him someday. But until then, going to his home to help him cook kimchi spaghetti was enough.

Kyungsoo holds her hand throughout the entire story, and although his smile becomes sad some of the time, he’s still happy. Happy that he still has her. Happy that she actually likes him. Happy that he’ll be able to help her break out of her shell of fear of rejection.

But the Chanyeol decides to laugh in a situation like this, “Honestly, did you think that Kyungsoo was that shallow? He was ing blind! It’s not hard to understand being a little different. As long as you know how to hold yourself up.”

“Well… I kind of kept it from him for a while. Normally, a primary school fire is the first story I would have to tell someone when I meet them. It was kind of nice not having to tell that story.” Jumi shrugs.

“I get that…” Baekhyun nods, taking a sip of his hot chocolate, “Oh look! Kyungsoo’s first snow in like, nine years.” He laughs as he points out the window to see the gentle snowflakes starting to drop down onto the streets.

“That’s not true.” Jongin scoffs defensively for his best friend.

“You know what he means.” Chanyeol pushes Jongin on the side of his head gently with a laugh.

Kyungsoo smiles out at the white frost falling and disappearing once it hits the ground. It’s a light, light snow that’s falling. And it’s beautiful. Jumi seems to think the same thing as she watches the wide-eyed boy sitting next to her as he gazes out the window with a bright smile. Kyungsoo without the sunglasses guarding his face makes him look one hundred times cuter. It’s as if now that he has the eyes, he won’t hesitate in showing them. She doesn’t mind looking either.