It’s been a year living in Xiumin’s world. The days are longer, as are the seasons. To Luhan, time has gone by slower, but he’s aged ten years much too quickly. It’s the prime of the winter, and Luhan has fallen ill.

"Freeze me. Xiumin, please, freeze me," Luhan’s begging because his time is running out. His young heart is failing, and Xiumin’s love is the only thing that’s keeping him from wanting to let go.

Xiumin accesses his powers to form a hexagonal lattice to create a crystalline barrier around his hand, “Luhan, I don’t think this’ll work. I’ve never done this before.”

Luhan takes the initiative to grab Xiumin’s hand. The stinging pain is rushing throughout out his body, and Luhan’s eyes flinch as he tries to keep them steady on Xiumin’s face. Luhan can feel the tremors coming from Xiumin’s worried hands, but he forces a smile through the pain. “I’m okay. Don’t worry. I’m getting used to it,” Luhan tries to reassure Xiumin, but Xiumin knows all too well that he’s lying. 

The pain is excruciating, and the rigid crystals have expanded over his whole arm. The freezing process is taking too long. Xiumin wants to stop it so badly, but Luhan has a firm grip on his hands. Questions reverberate through Xiumin’s mind. How much pain Luhan is going through? What is happening to his body as he freezes over? Is freezing the only thing special he has a good idea? 

Luhan wakes Xiumin out of his reverie, “I’ll meet you in the spring.”

Before Xiumin even has the chance to reply, the top of Luhan’s head is all that’s left to freeze over. 

It’s done. Luhan is iced over and statued, and Xiumin regrets everything. He wants to defrost Luhan. He wants to chip off the ice. He wants to revert his hands back, but the lattice has bonded to Luhan’s frozen hand. He wants Luhan back, but he can’t.

Xiumin has no choice but to wait. He waits next to Luhan, holding his hand. He sits on the ground with his left arm leaning on his knees, and he waits.

He waits forty days for the end of winter, but spring didn’t come. He waits thirty-nine more days. The temperatures have shot up, and it raining. To no avail, Luhan is still frozen.

Xiumin has stopped paying attention to Luhan, to time, to the change in season, but Spring is over in a few hours.

The crystals covering Luhan’s body have somewhat smoothed over. Luhan is melting, and Xiumin can feel it. His left hand has slipped out of Luhan’s hold, and it takes fractions of a second for his own hand to normalize.

It takes Luhan seven hours, sixteen minutes, and nine seconds to completely defrost. 

Luhan smiles at the sight of Xiumin on the floor, cleaning the puddles. Hi is the first word that cuts the silence like softened butter.

Xiumin looks up, and exhales a sharp breath out of his nose, “You said spring. It’s the first day of summer, you idiot.”

Luhan can’t help but laugh out an apology. Xiumin doesn’t want to, but he accepts it anyway because waiting one hundred and thirty-three days for a healthy un-aged Luhan was worth every flake of ice.