Snow was one of Zhou Mi’s favorite things in the entire world. There wasn’t much that he liked more than watching pure white snowflakes fall lazily from dark clouds, coating everything below them in a powdery white film that hid all imperfections and painful signs. Snow was just so pure, so calm and full of innocence, so peaceful and free of hate. He might have also loved snow because it had been snowing the first day he met Kui Xian.

He had been rushing into the SM building to get to a meeting that he was most certainly late for (it wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t find anything to wear that morning!) when he slammed right into a young, nervous looking boy who was leaving. He immediately bowed, stumbling over his Korean as he tried to apologize, but the boy simply waved the apology away, tilting his head slightly as he looked at the taller man.

“I’m Kyuhyun,” he said suddenly, cutting through the mixture of Chinese and Korean rambling as he stuck out his hand.

Zhou Mi took it almost uncertainly, shaking his hand slowly. “Kyuhyun?” The foreign name rolled around in his mouth, but it felt pleasant on his tongue and his characteristic wide grin broke out across his face a second later. “Kyuhyun!”

This ‘Kyuhyun’ eyed him strangely, pulling his hand back. “Who’re you?”

“Oh! Zhou Mi!” the Chinese man said brightly. “Are you going out?”

“Yeah…”

“It’s cold!” It was then that he noticed that Kyuhyun had no hat (or gloves or scarf, for that matter) and he frowned. “Here.” He tugged his own hat off and pushed it down over the mop of light brown, messy hair in front of him. “Bye Kyuuuuhyun!” he chirped, waving as he bounced off toward the conference room that he should have been in long ago.

That was years ago. (Zhou Mi realized with a giggle that he’d never gotten that hat back. What he didn’t know was that Kyuhyun kept it tucked away safely underneath the pillows on his bed, but he would fiercely deny that if anyone said anything about it.) Things had changed a lot since then, but Zhou Mi’s love of snow had only grown.

He sighed heavily, running a hand through his silky hair as he stared out of the window at the snowflakes tumbling down outside. He was supposed to be writing, working on a song for the new album that he swore he’d have finished by now, but he couldn’t quite think of anything that suited him.

He didn’t hear the door open and someone enter the room, or hear the footsteps as said person approached him.

“I want to go outside,” he muttered to himself, frowning as he rested his chin in his palms. “With Kui Xian.”

“And do what exactly?”

Zhou Mi whirled around at the voice, his lips curving upwards into a smile. “Kui Xian! What—”

“Do you want to go out?” Kyuhyun interrupted, a hint of a smirk playing on his own lips.

“Yeah…” Mi blinked, wondering where this was going.

“It’s cold!” The younger man looked down, shaking his head. “Here.” He took his hand out from behind his back and pulled a (very familiar) old hat down over Zhou Mi’s once perfectly-styled hair.

The Chinese man burst into giggles when he realized what Kyu was doing. “You remembered! When we met! And you still have this thing?” He made a face at the hat, tugging on one of the strings that hung down around his ears and twirling the ball on the end around. “But it’s so out of style, Kui Xian, seriously, I could have helped you pick out a much more—”

“I like this one,” Kyuhyun said defensively, grabbing the other string and pulling it so the hat slid down over Zhou Mi’s eyes. “And I’ll take it back if you don’t want to go outside with me!”

Mi stood up quickly, nearly tripping over his own long legs in the process, all-too-excited about the prospect of getting to go out in the snow with one of his favorite people.

“No, it’s perfect! Let’s go!”

(He would ignore the fact that it matched exactly nothing he was wearing or even anything that he had in his closet anymore and just desperately hope that there were no cameras out today. Oh, the things he would do for his Kui Xian…)

Zhou Mi burst through the doors and into the cold, crisp air, immediately tilting his head back and letting a few snowflakes fall on his face.

Kyuhyun walked past him, whacking him in the back of the head. “I gave you a hat so your head wouldn’t get covered in snow, stupid.”

Zhou Mi rubbed his head with one hand, hitting Kyu in the arm with his other. “Well, you can’t even get your gloves on, so you can’t say anything about me. Besides, you should be happy I’m even wearing this hat when it doesn’t match my outfit.” He stuck his tongue out at the younger man before venturing farther out into the snow, marveling in the odd quiet that seemed to fall whenever it snowed.

Kyuhyun was indeed struggling to get on the gloves he’d stolen from Zhou Mi’s room, trying to work his long fingers into the fabric. (Sure, they looked great and all, but these had to be the most impractical pair of gloves he’d ever seen. He would never understand his hyung’s love of fashion, especially not when it meant gloves that were covered with fur around the cuffs and were so tight he could barely bend his fingers.) Once he managed to get the gloves somewhat on his hands, he glanced at the older man as he bent down and scooped up a handful of snow; Zhou Mi wasn’t paying attention to him at the moment, which was exactly what he wanted. His lips curved into a smirk as he molded the snow in his hands into a perfectly round ball.

“Hey! Hyung!”

Zhou Mi turned around at the call. “What is—” His brain didn’t register the fact that a snowball was flying toward his face until it had already made contact, rather successfully coating his face with snow that slipped down onto his coat. He sputtered indignantly for a moment before he suddenly bent down and grabbed a handful of snow himself; he clumsily packed it together and chucked it at Kyuhyun. “KUI XIANNN!”

Kyuhyun burst out laughing; the snowball fell short by several feet. “You’re going to have to do better than that, hyung!” he called back, already beginning to make another snowball to chuck at the other.

It wasn’t long before a full-blown snowball fight had erupted, with screams and happy laughter permeating the air around them as it went on. Zhou Mi, of course, took most of the hits, but he really didn’t mind; he was out in the snow, playing with his Kui Xian, and, in that moment, it felt like nothing bad would ever happen again.

That feeling didn’t last long, however, as out of nowhere Zhou Mi’s long legs were swept completely out from under him and he landed face-first in a large pile of snow; Kyuhyun paused for a moment, waiting for him to get up but, when he didn’t, he ran over to his friend.

“Hyung?” He bit his lip and, when Zhou Mi didn’t move, he bent down to check on the older man -  but, instead, he found an arm flashing out, grabbing the front of his jacket, and dragging him down in the pile of snow too. Zhou Mi sat up, a loud, very Zhou Mi-laugh bubbling from his lips and spilling out into the cool air. Kyuhyun frowned as he shook the snow from his head.

“Hyung! And to think I was actually worried about you…” Kyu pushed himself up out of the snow, beginning to march back indoors, obviously less-than-happy about having been dunked in a mountain of snow when he had been winning the snowball fight. Mi very suddenly stopped laughing and scrambled to his feet, running after him and grabbing his arm.

“Wait! I’m sorry, Kui Xian! I don’t want to go inside yet; can’t we stay a little longer?” He looked almost like a kicked puppy.

“No.”

Zhou Mi whimpered. “But—”

A smile spread across Kyuhyun’s face. “The hot chocolate I got Ryeowook hyung to leave for us is going to get cold if we stay out any longer.”

The Chinese man blinked for a moment until the sentence actually registered in his brain and a smile once again spread across his face. “Kui Xiannnn!” He wrapped his arm around Kyuhyun’s as they made their way back to the doors. “I love snow,” he started and Kyu sighed, not exactly wanting to hear another snow rant from his hyung today. “But I love you more!” Zhou Mi finished, reaching over to poke the younger man’s cheek and delighting in the way his face turned red.

“Y-you are so cheesy,” Kyu muttered, cursing how he stumbled over the words, and yanking the strings hanging from Zhou Mi’s hat once again so that he couldn’t see the older man’s eyes. He detached himself from Mi’s arm and ran ahead, pausing at the bottom of the stairs. “I’ll race you!”

Zhou Mi pushed the hat back on his forehead. “My legs are longer than yours!” he reminded Kyuhyun, taking his place next to him at the bottom of the stairs.

“But I’m faster!” Kyu countered, eyes narrowing.

“We’ll see about that.” Mi took off, shooting up the stairs ahead of Kyuhyun and laughing loudly. Kyu raced after him, grinning in spite of the fact that he knew he would lose now.

Snow was Kyuhyun’s favorite too.

Shhhh, I like fluffy Qmi~ X3