"You know, you're really, really familiar. Are you sure we've never met?" Minho asks from the kitchen counter, his long legs hanging off the edges, a bowl of cereal in his hands and a spoon in the other. He stares at me with his round, beautiful eyes, seeming to be trying to remember who I might be, if we've ever met before. 

I shrug. "I don't know. You're really familiar, too," I mumble, taking in my last spoon of cereal into my mouth and delivering the dishes to the sink as I chewed. "I'm cleaning up today, so you're not allowed to wash the dishes, alright?"

He frowns at me. "You always clean up. Let me help, too," he protests, consuming all of his cereal and walking toward me next to the sink, bumping against me with his hip to gently push me away. I laugh and do the same with him, pushing him away just as he starts to wash the dishes. 

"You know, you still have to finish that painting that old man wanted for his granddaughter's birthday," I tell him, raising an eyebrow and laughing when he sputters and flails, having completely forgotten about that. He rids his hands of the soap and grabs an apple from the table, before running downstairs with merely an, "I'll see you down here!" I smile. I've been doing that quite a lot now, with him by my side. For some reason, I seem to like being with him. 

It's almost a week since I've moved in here. I'm completely settled, Minho's a fun person to be with. Well, at least most of the time he is. I help him run his shop, cleaning it up and organizing things for him, and I help clean up up here, too. It's the least I can do to repay him for having me here, for free. I finish up the dishes and run downstairs, past the storage room and toward Minho, who's sitting down next to the counter, in front of him a large canvas, as he does his magic. I watch as his eyebrows furrow, and his eyes squint in concentration, once again disturbed by that irritating familiarity. 

I shrug and decide to clean up while I wait for him, but the place was too clean and it wasn't long before I was watching him paint again. I realize that he doesn't always pull the aura and the feelings from the real thing into the canvas, he makes them himself. And that was just fascinating. 

He paints for hours, and then when he's done, he looks up and smiles at me, sitting by the stairs. I smile back at him as I call out, "Done?" As soon as he nods, I'm on my feet, walking with a quickness in my step toward him. I gaze at his new painting, a blonde girl in the center of a beautiful garden with all kinds of flowers, her dress is large, a hat upon her head, her face unclear because she's facing the other way. And the aura was captivating, so sad and lonely, it's almost as if I could feel the girl's longing. 

"It's amazing," I gasp, barely able to speak at all. He smiles up at me, his eyes brightening up in the cutest way. 

"Thank you," he mumbles, getting up from his seat so he could start cleaning up. He takes his stuff into the washroom to clean the paint off, and when he's back, his apron is removed and his stuff are in that special box of his, and I'm still staring at the painting, wondering how he made it seem so real. I look up when I hear him chuckle, only to see that he's climbing up the stairs, just as the bell on the entrance door rings, and a human walks inside. A human that had the bloated chest and the long hair and the high voice, recognizing her to be a girl, too, just like the one in the painting.

I stumble a bit as I run toward the stairs, merely giving the human a glance before I disappear. 

"Minho!" I call out. "There's a human," I tell him, finding him in his bedroom, getting a change of shirt to replace the dirty one. He laughs at me, a pleasant sound that I fail to return. "No, really. There's a human downstairs." 

"Of course, there's a human downstairs. There are humans everywhere, in case you forgot," he says, smiling as he ruffles my hair, passing by me and hopping down the stairs with quick steps. I follow after him, arriving just in time to see him having a talk with the human. They both glance at me, then turn back toward each other, continuing their discussion about what I assumed was another painting. When she left, Minho slumped down on the sofa, sighing. I sit next to him and let the silence stay for a few moments. 

"Tired?" I ask as he closes his eyes and nods. "Did that human want a painting, too?" I ask again, and he nods again. "Of what?" 

He shrugs and says, "A whale." 

I stare at him for a few moments, and then we both simultaneously begin laughing. When the rather boisterous laughter died, he sighs once more and gets up. "Well, I better get started," he says, getting into the storage room for a new canvas. I watch him go and come back, arranging and preparing his stuff, before he takes his seat once more, a paintbrush in his hand, and just stares at the canvas for a long moment. When that's done, he dips his brush into the paint, and begins. I stare at him for hours as the canvas slowly turns into a picture of deep blue hues. 

I'm unable to look away from him for a very long moment, and then finally I turn my attention to the vase on the counter, inside it delicately stood a blue flower, so beautiful and amazing that I stand up and walk toward it. It was even more beautiful up close, its aura so strong and sad that it almost brings tears to my eyes. And then I realize, I've seen this flower before. 

I'm unable to resist touching a pale blue petal, needing to know how it felt like between my fingers, intrigued by how it sparkled and glittered, as if it was coated in a thin layer of ice. But then I freeze upon touching it, paralyzed by the cold, empty feeling that surges through me, flowing along with the blood in my veins, aiming right at my mind and my heart and my soul. Leaving me gasping and wheezing, falling back onto the sofa, tears filling to the rim of my eyes. I heard more than saw Minho turn toward me, and his chair makes a dragging noise against the floor as he pushes it back.

The sofa sinks next to me, and I feel him hold me by the shoulders and softly shake me as he panickly recites, "Taemin? Are you okay?"

I pant for a moment, trying to get rid of the dryness in my throat, the tears disapearring and my vision returning to normal, Minho's ever-beautiful face the first thing that graces my sight. I take another moment to regain my voice, finally but barely able to say, "I'm okay."

But I wasn't. My brain was itching and scrambling and turning upside-down to remember where I had seen that flower, knowing it was something important, something I shouldn't forget about, trying to discover what could be a buried memory like pirates surching for buried treasure.  

Minho sighed and gazed back at his unfinished painting, and immediatley I feel guilty for interrupting him, knowing he didn't like it when that happened. Because if he paused for even just a moment, when he'd continue, the feeling would be the same, and the painting wouldn't be as amazing, but still wonderful nonetheless. I look down at my hands, nervously fidgeting with my over sized shirt that he let me borrow. "I'm sorry," I mumble shyly. 

He looks at me and smiles, yet it doesn't reach his eyes. "It's alright. I would've stopped either way. I'm running out of water and paint, and I was just gonna go over to the storage room to get some, so don't feel bad," he says softly, his smile getting a little more genuine now. 

I nod as I mumble an, "Oh, okay." And then I raise my head, my voice louder when I say, "I'll go get it for you." He nods as I get up, trying to return the smile he was, with a little difficulty, flashing at me. 

"What color do you need?" I ask him as I walk toward the storage room, hearing him say, "blue," as a reply. 

I gaze up at the shelves, searching for the small jar that had the 'blue' marking on it, finally finding it but frowning when I realize it's way too high for my reach. I wonder why it's so high up, but then I figured it would've been effortless to take it from up there with Minho's height. I take the wooden stool that I found behind some large canvases, then step on it to take the jar, also taking the galon of water, surprised by how heavy it was, stumbling over and feeling something scratch my wrist as I fell off the stool. I frown and sigh, relieved that both the jar and the galon of water were both unharmed, vaguely aware of the rectangular canvas next to me. 

Its edge had scratched my wrist, and I frowned because it was stinging. I take the canvas to get a look at it, turning it over only to have my breath taken away. Gazing at the most beautiful painting yet, feeling all the warmth and love in it, the aura so comfortable, almost heavenly. My eyes studying the blonde boy in the painting, his skin so pale yet there's a certain glow in it, his dark eyes just the perfect contrast, so distant and soft. His hair wasn't yellow, it was golden, and the blue, almost ice-like crown on his hair fit him just perfectly, his body graced in an all white, silk-like outfit. He was gazing out a window, and outside I could vaguely recognize it to be snowing. 

I feel myself falling in love with the person in the painting, despite the irritating itch in my brain again, struggling to find out who he was because he was so familliar. And then I realize, it's not me who's falling in love with this beautiful boy, it's the painter. So deep in love. And just as the thought crosses my mind, Minho appears from the door and he crouches down next to me, voice panicked again. "You fell off?" 

But I brush off that question, just a little guilty for ignoring his concern, softly shoving the canvas at him and looking at him straight in the eye. "Did you paint this?" 

He takes a short moment to look back into my eyes, before slowly he directs his attention to the painting. "I think so," he says, his voice indicating that he's just as amazed by it as I am. "You know, he looks kind of like you," he adds, looking between me and the boy in the painting back and forth a few times. And then it's as if he realizes something in his head. "That's why you're so familiar!" 

I just stare at the painting, not at all believing that this boy was me, seeing how beautiful he was. But then I look back at Minho, my voice hoarse and weak as I ask, "Then how come you're so familiar? Have we ever met?" 

He doesn't say anything for a moment, he just stares at me as he thinks, a single eyebrow arched in what I would've appreciated as a cute way if not for all the confusion that's building up inside of me. He shrugs though and stands up as he says, "We'll figure it out later. Come on, I see you got yourself hurt." He extends a hand toward me and I take it, our skin brushing ever so slightly but just enough to send me jolting back against the wall, once again surprised by not only the cold, lonely, empty, overwhelmingly painful feeling, but all the memories returning, all flashing before my eyes way too quickly for me to even shape out, but knowing what's happening in each of them, and that's what made my head hurt so bad. 

I pant, just as the flashing images slow down, and finally almost completely disappear, but knowing it's still there because I can very vaguely see it. I wipe off the tears in my eyes, and gaze at Minho, who's also against the other wall just like I was, his expression pained and his eyes blank, looking right through me like I'm not there. And I know it's happening to him, too, all the memories coming back. 

I smile, finally complete again, the irritating itch in my brain completely gone. Happy that I'm with Minho again, my winter boy. The love of my life. The one that meant everything to me. My best friend. 

His expression fades and I can see him coming back, taking a moment to just breathe before he looks at me, for the first time in such a long time, and his smile is so pure and genuine it almost hurt to look at it. He crawls toward me and embraces me, wraps me in his arms, returns me in the place where I knew I belonged. I inhale his scent, feeling myself taken away by the comfort of his presence until I fall asleep in the arms of Minho. 

[A/N: Once again, please forgive any grammar/spelling mistakes. Same goes for the next few chapters.]