It was one of those winters that you remember. One of those winters where you just wake up one day and you see that what was once white had turned quite a different color. 

Snowy December. Those cold Christmases where some of the best I had in my life. Usually, I shared these Christmases with my family, sitting around the Christmas tree, opening presents, eating a hearty Christmas dinner and falling asleep to grandfather's stories. 

Christmastime, since it snowed where I'm from, was more than just indoor fun and opening presents, waiting for the mythical, rotund, clad-in-red, sleigh riding gift give to hover above our chimney and drop some gifts, rewards for being model children throughout the year. Christmastime meant snowball fights, snow angels, and just lying in the snow, watching them fall on our faces and melt away, leaving a pinch of coldness on our faces. 

Childhood memories like this would stay with me forever and they were made even more remarkable  by one person. 

One person and several events.

His name was Cho Kyuhyun. I met him when we were kids. I was 9 and he was 11. Back then, there weren't that many children around our sleepy neighborhood and my sister Taeyeon was a gigantic bore who took no interest in the outdoors and anything that was within the realm of knowledge. All she seemed to care about was the creases in her dress and the way her curlly black tresses fall over her shoulder. Things of such minute value do not concern me. I would much rather imagine that I was an adventurer or an archaeoogist of some sort, digging up in the ground, getting a great big interest and arousing a great big joy inside of me at the sight of seeing a coin dug up underneath the soil. What joy it brought me.

Every single day spent with Kyuhyun was bliss. It was utter heaven at most. The streets we filled with our muddy footprints and the neighborhood we polluted with the sound of our innocent, childlike laughter. Our memories were aden with scabbed elbows and knees, picked flowers, rocks buried and dug up, dogs and cats petted and taken home, birds set free, trees climbed and branches broken. The leaves have fallen, the rain dried up, the snow had piled, the wind blew west but we were still the best of friends and throughout all those years there were memories that plastered a smile across my face, memories that would make tears roll down my eyes.

But there was this memory that would stay with me for the rest of my life...

It was that one time when everything changed.