They first meet on November 29, 2010, outside of a small news firm, dedicated to telling the most important news of the city.

“Hey.”

Kyungsoo turns to the source of the voice. His eyes land on the tall frame, dark and disheveled hair, and handsome face and he can practically feel the heat rushing to his face at the stranger’s curious gaze.

This man almost looks familiar to Kyungsoo, but he can’t quite place why.

“You’re Do Kyungsoo, aren’t you?” the stranger asks, cutting off the greeting that was halfway out of Kyungsoo’s throat.

He clamps his mouth shut and nods dumbly. He’s unable to comprehend why this man he’s sure he’s never met knows his name. To Kyungsoo, it’s a little strange, but not so much creepy.

The stranger cracks a half-grin that seems more like a smirk than a smile. “I knew I’d find you here. I’m Kim Jongin.” He holds out his hand, to which Kyungsoo can only stare once more at the hand that seems to suddenly appear in front of his face.

But the surprise doesn’t stop Kyungsoo from remembering his manners – something that he believes he should never forget – and shaking the stranger now known to him as Kim Jongin’s hand.

“Nice to meet you.”

Jongin’s half smile only grows with the introduction. “Same to you, hyung.”

They accidentally meet again on December 12, 2010, in an unassuming coffee shop just down the street from Kyungsoo’s apartment during the first snowfall.

“Oh, hyung?”

Kyungsoo knows that voice.

He freezes, his favorite chai tea latte halfway to his lips. Lowering the cup, he slowly turns to see Jongin, his own cup in hand.

That familiar half-grin slides upward onto Jongin’s face. “You like this place, too, hyung?” he asks casually.

“Why are you speaking informally to me, Jongin?” Kyungsoo practically grumbles, rolling his eyes as he turns to leave, instead choosing to disregard Jongin’s innocent question.

Jongin’s half-grin only grows as he rushes forward, holding the door open for Kyungsoo. “Can you walk with me, hyung?” he asks again, trying a different question in hopes of a different answer.

At that moment, Kyungsoo realizes just how persistent Jongin is.

Rolling his eyes again, he caves. “Fine. But where are we going?”

“Wherever we want,” is Jongin’s mysterious answer.

They wind up in the park, sitting on one of the benches as they watch children play in the snow, sipping their coffee.

When Kyungsoo finishes his cup, he tosses it into the garbage can, walking back to Jongin. He raises an eyebrow, finally taking note of just what it was Jongin was drinking.

“An iced black? On a day like this?”

Jongin shrugs. “If my body is colder than the air, won’t the air seem warmer?”

Kyungsoo thinks for a moment. The theory makes sense, despite the fact that it still seems a little strange to him.

He takes his seat once more, making sure to keep a good three feet away from Jongin. “So,” the younger begins, “did you get that journalism job you wanted?” He looks at Kyungsoo, slowly sipping his iced coffee with that same quirky grin he always seems to be wearing.

“Well… yeah. But how did you know…” he trails off, suddenly not wanting to know if the dark-haired boy was stalking him.

Jongin shrugs. “I’m friends with some guys you know. Sehun? Luhan’s boy toy? He’s in my year.”

“So, you are younger than me.”

“Yeah. Why d’you think I call you hyung?” Jongin playfully rolls his eyes at Kyungsoo’s slow mind.

Kyungsoo purses his lips at Jongin’s sassy mouth. “You look older,” he points out, eying his frame once more.

He shrugs in reply. “I get that a lot.”

Silence finally falls over them. The only sound comes from the ice cubes rattling in the nearly empty coffee cup in Jongin’s gloved hand.

“Date me.”

Those next words to leave Jongin’s lips have Kyungsoo sputtering gibberish as if it’s his second language. “W-What?!” is the first coherent word he manages to form with his tongue tied.

“I’m serious, hyung. I know it’s weird. Hell, I know I’m weird.” Jongin chuckles a little. “But hey, what’s life without something weird?”

Kyungsoo still can’t speak, his mouth opening and closing like a fish.

Jongin lets out another small chuckle. “It’s okay to say no. I’d understand. It’d hurt, but I’d understand.”

And for some reason, when Kyungsoo finds his voice, he answers.

“Yes.”

And just like the blink of an eye, four years pass.

Kyungsoo finds himself falling deeper in love with Jongin’s quirks every single day. He finds out something new about the younger boy with almost every conversation. To Kyungsoo, Jongin will always be a mystery bundled in dozens of layers. Every time he thinks that he’s peeled away one layer, there are ten more to be found beneath it.

He finds that Jongin has a genius level IQ and a photographic memory, but acts more like a five-year-old than his twenty-two year old body shows.

Jongin favors cold drinks in the winter and warm drinks in the summer. He claims that having a body temperature that’s more extreme than the air outside will make the outside world seem less harsh.

Jongin has a weakness for anything fluffy, especially dogs. In fact, Jongin even has an especially fluffy sweatshirt with dog ears on the hood.

Jongin loves drama movies for some strange reason. He tends to be a loud crier, but then claims that he doesn’t cry during movies.

Jongin also loves to dance. Even with an IQ that means he could do anything he wanted with his life, he just wants to dance for a living.

Every quirk, every new thing about the enigma known as Kim Jongin, makes Do Kyungsoo fall further and further in love with him each day.

“Kyungsoo~ I’m home~”

Said boy looks up from his computer, where his draft of an article about the MAMAs sits on the screen. His eyes widen at the sudden burst of platinum in his vision. “Jongin… your hair.”

Shaking out his messy, disheveled hair, Jongin pats it down with a grin. “I passed the stylist on my way home. Half-off price to dye any color. I said, ‘To hell with it’ and this is how it came out,” he explains cheerily. “You like?”

Kyungsoo can only nod.

Within the span of four years, Jongin has made many changes to his appearance. He has tattooed angel wings spanning across his back from his twenty-first birthday and two piercings on each ear from his twentieth. His style has changed from the clean-cut schoolboy he once was into a much more street friendly style.

But Kyungsoo, Kyungsoo stayed the same.

He’s still the clean-cut schoolboy he’d been four years ago, back in 2010. He has no tattoos, no piercings, and his hair is still the same color – a shade of brown so dark that it could be considered black.

Unlike Jongin, Kyungsoo doesn’t believe in spontaneity. He likes to take time to think things through. Jongin often teases him that accepting his offer was the most spontaneous thing Kyungsoo has ever done.

Which is, in fact, a true statement.

“It-It looks good on you,” Kyungsoo manages to choke out.

Lies.

Kyungsoo hates it.

Just like he hated Jongin’s sudden idea to get two angel wings permanently inked into his skin, he hates that Jongin’s hair is suddenly lighter than his skin.

He wants to blurt out, “Please change it back!” but he holds his tongue. Jongin seems genuinely pleased with the change. That’s all Kyungsoo can ask for.

But Jongin’s face falls. “You don’t like it.”

“I never said that,” he protests weakly, turning back to his laptop.

Reaching forward, the now-blond Jongin gently closes the computer, forcing Kyungsoo to look at his boyfriend. “You don’t have to lie to me. It’s not like the tattoos. I can change this back right now if you want me to,” says Jongin.

Kyungsoo wants to beat himself.

No matter how many tantrums or how insulting Kyungsoo’s words are, Jongin never gets mad. He’s always gentle and kind. He takes everything in stride and never yells, even if his face says that he’s hurt.

“No… no.” The still dark-haired Kyungsoo lets out a sigh. “If it makes you happy, I like it.”

The next day, Jongin comes home with dark hair.

“Jongin… your hair,” Kyungsoo stutters out, shocked by the change.

Jongin gives him that same half-grin, the one thing that hasn’t changed in four years. “I passed the stylist on my way home,” he starts. “Half-off price to dye any color. I said, ‘To hell with it’ and this is how it came out. You like?”

Kyungsoo has to smile.

“I like.”

It’s a month later, on March 17, 2014, that Luhan calls Kyungsoo, panicking. The elder male can’t seem to calm himself, no matter how hard Kyungsoo tries.

“Sehun’s missing,” are the only words that make any sense.

In a flash, Kyungsoo is out of bed, showered and dressed, and ready to head over to Luhan’s to console his friend.

“Soo?” Jongin sleepily asks, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. Normally, Kyungsoo would coo over how cute he is when he’s sleepy. But there’s no time for that today. “What’s got you up so early?”

Grabbing an energy bar from the cabinets and, after nearly burning himself, his coffee, Kyungsoo practically speeds past Jongin, yelling something before he closes the door. His words come out slurred together, but to Jongin, they make sense.

“Sehun’s gone and I have to go see Luhan before he does something drastic like trying to throw himself into the river.”

Sure enough, once Kyungsoo reaches Luhan and Sehun’s apartment they’ve shared for six years now, only a few blocks away, Luhan is in tears, snot dripping from his nose. He looks absolutely horrible. His eyes are bloodshot and face stained, and he looks as if he threw on the first thing he could.

That’s how Kyungsoo knows something is really wrong.

Luhan would never wear a plaid button-up shirt. He hates the idea of following trends, and plaid is, according to him, what’s “in” right now. Kyungsoo honestly doubts Luhan even owns a plaid shirt after he tossed all of his old ones into the trash. He concludes that the shirt must be Sehun’s.

Ignoring Luhan’s incoherent blubbering, he sits the elder down on the couch. He carefully cleans Luhan’s face and combs down his hair before retrieving Luhan’s favorite sweatshirt.

“What happened, Lu?” he asks gently, eying Luhan warily as he rocks back and forth on the couch, still sniffling pathetically.

Luhan only shakes his head. “I don’t know… I just woke up and Sehun wasn’t there.” Using his sleeve, Luhan wipes tears and snot onto the gray fabric of his sweatshirt. “Do you think he got tired of me, Kyungsoo? I know I’m whiny and needy and boring, but Sehun said he liked that about me…”

Kyungsoo freezes.

Whiny. Needy. Boring.

All those words described him.

And Kyungsoo selfishly thought of Jongin for a moment.

He then took a deep breath, banishing those thoughts. “No,” Kyungsoo replies, his voice only giving away his trembling for a moment. “I think Sehun will come back just fine.”

It’s Jongin’s turn to be shocked as he walks into the kitchen, once again late from dance practice.

“What the hell is that.”

The words aren’t a question. They’re a demand.

Kyungsoo sighs, his eyes moving to his wrist and then to Jongin. “I thought it was time for a change.”

On his wrist is writing in ink, a tattoo that he could never remove. In beautiful, bold, cursive letters, the tattoo reads, “Heaven is with You,” in perfect English.

Jongin moves towards Kyungsoo, taking his smaller hands and enveloping them in his hands’ wa