07; Minseok

"Let the storm rage on. The cold never bothered me anyway."

a. Hot favourite in the summer 

Minseok had never thought of his power as anything to be envious of. In his eyes, there were so many other powers that he'd rather have—invisibility would be cool, or Jongin's teleportation or Kris' flight. What was the good of having frost as a power when technology could solve almost everything? That wasn't to say that Minseok hated his power though; he still found it pretty useful during snowball fights. 

It was without a doubt that Korean summers were the worst. They were warm, sticky and humid, which made you feel like you were slow-cooking in an oven. The members especially hated going out during the sweltering day, so they lounged in the dorm as much as they could. The air-conditioner had chosen to break down at this time of the year, and it wasn't a problem that any one of them had enough expertise to fix. So they had to find other unconventional ways to cool down, one of them being Minseok. 

"Where's Minseok-hyung?" Jongdae turned to ask Jongin once they reached the dorm. 

"I don't know," Jongin shrugged. "I haven't seen him since we came back."

"Damn, someone got to him first again," Jongdae muttered under his breath. The members' return to the dorm would signal the start of a spontaneous contest of "Find Minseok-hyung". The fastest member would triumphantly claim Minseok to himself while the rest of them just groaned and cursed and fought each other for the fan. Minseok had once complained that, "Forcing me to be your personal air-con is basically slave-driving!" But of course, nobody listened. The oldest could do nothing but weep silently to himself every night, cursing his misfortune. 

"Why am I in such high demand right now?" Minseok glanced helplessly at the other members, pleading with his eyes for someone to rescue him, while Luhan pushed him into his room.

"Because you're the only one that can help us survive this hot weather," Kyungsoo replied matter-of-factly. "Without you we'd probably all fry to death, and that's not a nice way to die."

Luhan turned and slammed the door. 

"Gee, thanks," came Minseok's voice, muffled from behind the closed door.

"I'm hot," Tao whined on the sofa, holding an electric fan to himself, "and this fan is just messing up my hair. It's not half as good as Minseok-hyung."

Baekhyun groaned. "Shut up, Tao. Move over and stop hogging the sofa, I need to sit down."

"Why don't you tell your beloved Chanyeol to move, he's the one taking up most of the space with his long limbs," Tao grumbled. Baekhyun shot Tao a look which promptly made Tao roll his eyes. 

"Fine." Unwillingly, Tao inched over closer to Chanyeol, who was sprawled on the sofa with his eyes closed and snoring slightly. Baekhyun sat beside Tao, who immediately started protesting because "eww you're sweaty and gross and sticky" and tried to push him away, which turned into in a brief scuffle on the sofa. 

The scuffle stopped when Junmyeon poked his head out of his room and gave them a stern warning. "Stop it, the two of you. We need our peace and quiet around here. It's hot enough as it is." 

"Besides, you have the electric fan to yourself," came Luhan's voice from another room.

"Please, you have Minseok-hyung to yourself. That's not very fair."

"Psh, you're just jealous," Luhan's annoyingly cheerful voice came from the room again.

"I call dibs on Minseok-hyung an hour later!" yelled Sehun.

Jongin looked up from his phone. "Oh that reminds me. Hyung, could you make ice cubes for us, please?" 

b. Pranks

Minseok was the oldest amongst the members. Needless to say, he was the most mature and reliable, and was a constant source of comfort to the younger members. Of course he had some semblance of self-control, right?

Not really. For even though Minseok was the eldest, he still had that streak of childish playfulness about him. And he wasn't one to miss out on the chance to have a good laugh. So when he saw a chance to prank the members, he would seize it. 

And that unlucky person happened to be their leader.

"!" Kris shouted loudly from the toilet. ", the toilet won't flush."

"What, did you run out of toilet paper?" Yixing opened the door and tossed a roll to Kris, which happened to smack him in the face. 

"Ouch!" Kris shouted, rubbing his nose. He shot Yixing a withering look. 

"Sorry," Yixing mumbled an apology. "But what happened?"

"The toilet won't flush... I don't know what happened," Kris confessed, flapping his arms around helplessly. Eyebrows raising, Yixing stepped into the toilet to investigate. 

Minseok, on the other hand, was gleefully giggling to himself in the other room. He knew that it was only a matter of time before he got found out, but who cared, the amount of thrill and excitement he got from this was too worth it. 

“Let me check," Chanyeol entered the toilet and pushed past his two hyungs, craning his neck forward to peer inside the toilet bowl. "Gross, Kris, you probably haven't drank water in days. Your pee is so yellow."

Kris coloured furiously and folded his arms. "Shut up, no one invited you here to examine my pee." Meanwhile, Yixing, with his eyebrows raised, simply shrugged and said, "No comment." 

Chanyeol coughed and silently lowered the lid of the toilet bowl. (Staring at Kris' urine was not very appealing.) He opened the cover of the water tank and his jaw promptly dropped. Yixing, too, stood agape in shock. 

"Wha—oh my god." The water in the tank was completely frozen, and was hard as rock. 

"What the ?" Kris shouted in disbelief, and reached to touch the ice. The biting cold on his fingertips confirmed what he thought. 

"Let me fix it," Chanyeol offered, and before Kris or Yixing could say anything, he created a fireball with both his hands and directed it into the tank. Kris drew his lips into a thin line and Yixing stood watching nervously. They had had too much bad experience with Chanyeol's uncontrollable power. To their relief, however, the fireball melted the ice as hoped. Kris watched as ice slowly was replaced by water, and he gave a small smile of relief. 

"Thanks, Chanyeol." 

At that moment, Minseok, with a face of complete innocence, stumbled into the toilet. "What's going on, guys?" He asked, pretending to be clueless.

Kris explained to him (rather aggressively) what had happened, with a murderous glint in his eyes, while Yixing and Chanyeol hurriedly made faces at him from behind Kris, trying to hint to him to leave. Minseok understood, of course, but he simply bit his lip as chuckles threatened to escape his throat. 

"What's so funny?" Kris narrowed his eyes suspiciously as he watched Minseok's face contort into an unrecognisable expression. Honestly, the oldest looked kind of scary at the moment. 

"Nothing," Minseok sniggered, then tried his best to school his face into expressionlessness. 

"Just wait till I find out who the little is!" he growled at the same time that Yixing mumbled, "I feel bad for Minseok-hyung." 

"Wait, what did you say?" Kris swiveled his eyes to glance at Yixing, who cowered a little under his stare. 

"Nothing," he mumbled. "Forget I said anything." 

"But isn't it rather obvious? Isn't it Mi—mmph!" Chanyeol was interrupted in the nick of time by Yixing's hand clamped tightly over his mouth.

"I just remembered, we need to go shower! Bye!" Yixing turned around to leave, dragging a bewildered Chanyeol along with him.

Kris furrowed his brows. "Didn't they shower already?" 

Minseok shrugged. "But, I was just thinking, last night was really cold and the water could've froze due to that," he offered.

Kris blinked a few times. Then, a look of realisation dawned on his face. 

"You're absolutely right! Hyung, you're really smart," Kris patted the shorter twice on the back and left nodding to himself.

"Glad to be of help!" Minseok called out, and waited for Kris to be out of earshot before bursting out into laughter, guffaws wracking his body. 

c. Pain in the winter... literally

Minseok found it extremely ironic that despite being the go-to hyung in the summer when all the members would flock to him, they would try to avoid him at all costs during the winter. Apparently, whenever they came into contact with Minseok, they would feel a "sharp, biting pain". Minseok himself didn't feel anything, though, so he wondered how painful it had to be that even the clingiest members, Luhan and Tao, would take a few steps back whenever he was near them. He welcomed the personal space, but sometimes, it was inevitable that accidents happened.

"Hey Minseok-hyung, pass me the glass of water, will you?" Jongdae asked.

Minseok hummed in acknowledgement as he took the glass of water from beside him and held it out to Jongdae, who reached out to grab it.

Their fingers brushed momentously; Minseok felt a strange tingling sensation course through his body.

"!" Both of them yelled at once and released their grasp on the glass, which promptly dropped onto the floor and smashed into a million pieces. Water flowed everywhere.

"You electrocuted me!" Minseok's finger was twitching and Jongdae's lips curled in mild amusement as his hyung pointed a shaking hand at him, attempting to seem accusing.

"Well, you gave me a mild frostbite!" Jongdae yelled back, blowing puffs of air onto his own injured hand.

Kyungsoo walked past and his eyes widened comically at the scene before him, before clucking his tongue disapprovingly.

"What a mess," he scolded, before rushing off to clean it up.

Jongdae gazed sadly at his hand, which was now turning a hideous shade of purple. Minseok pouted at his own twitching hand. He heaved a sigh.

"Yixing!" The two voices hollered in unison. 

A/N:

My favourite bb is finally up! \o/ (Yes, Minseok's my bias.) Sorry for taking so long heh and sorry for this ty chapter (I have seriously no idea what to write for frost OTL).