It's late January, and the days are still bitterly cold. Snow falls heavily, and lays a blanket of stillness over the busy streets outside of Kim Jihun's window.

He's currently reclined on his bed, his feet stuck underneath his nest of soft throws, his hair messy and his face makeup free.

There's an open comic in his lap, but his sleepy eyes can't seem to focus on the pages. It's a lazy afternoon with no schedules, and the leader had subtly requested a little alone time from the other members to relax and de-stress. He hadn't bothered to ask anything of Youjin hyung, as he wasn't really one to seek out anyone's company on days like today. Jihun knows that if he checked, Youjin would be in much the same position as he himself is in his own room, spaced out and enjoying the rare peace. Inseong and Heejun were out buying groceries, and had promised (albeit amidst giggling) to be quiet whenever they came back, in case he was asleep. The only one he really had to worry about bothering him was Seungjun, but when he'd gone into his room a few hours earlier he'd found his hyung curled into a tight little ball on his box spring, fast asleep.

So here Jihun is, basking in his solitude.

With a face-splitting yawn he stretches his arms above his head, ignoring his comic as it falls to the floor and he falls onto his pillow, bouncing a bit on his cushioned mattress. Restful sleep is a luxury in the teams busy lives; a luxury that Jihun plans to indulge in as long as he possibly can in this uncommon opportunity. 

He's wearing a t-shirt over a pullover, and a hoodie over that, to try and combat the dorm's spastic heating system, which, today, had chosen to quit. It has a habit of doing so on the coldest days of the year, much to all of their annoyance. The air inside is almost as chilly as it is outside, with a foggy mist following words from their mouths whenever they speak. The only advantage of the roof and walls is to keep the snow and wind out almost, as all heat slinks quietly out through the windows, never to be felt by the poor boys inside.

Kicking up his mass of blankets with his socked feet, Jihun fights to make himself comfortable. It takes a few minutes, but eventually he looses a contented sigh and snuggles as deeply as he can into the cotton, wool, and felt cocoon that encompasses him. 

The muffled sound of snowflakes hitting the pane of his window lulls him pleasantly into a light doze. 

A doze broken seemingly moments after he'd entered it by two hesitant knocks on his room door. 

Groaning, annoyed, he elects to ignore it, and shows whoever is trying to disturb him his back. A few seconds of silence slip by before the knocks sound again, and Jihun drags himself up, glaring at the hazy silhouette standing hunched behind the plastic screen of his door.

"What?" His voice holds a slight rasp from sleepiness, and he kind of likes how rough it makes him sound. He contemplates turning it into his discipline voice for whenever the other members act out while his screen clicks open by an inch.

Seungjun's sleep-puffy eye peeks through. 

"Can I come in?"

He sounds just as tired as Jihun feels. The leader ponders for a moment about whether or not he should just tell his noisy hyung to go back to his own room. 

"Please?" It's a quiet plea from the hallway, and Jihun silently says goodbye to any hope of a peaceful afternoon as he sighs in defeat and beckons for Seungjun to come in.

In his favor, Seungjun makes an effort to open the door quietly as he enters, and steps lightly in his double layer of socks on the creaky hardwood floor. He's actually more bundled up than Jihun is in a pullover, a sweater and a cardigan, and what looks like thermal leggings underneath his calf-length sweatpants. There's a black mask over the lower half of his face when he turns around to face his leader. His hair is mussed, like he'd been running his fingers through it. He raises one spidery hand in a cute half-wave, and Jihun suddenly understands the reason for his interruption as he notices it's obvious trembling.

Despite being the tallest member and the one who eats the most, Seungjun is by far the thinnest. With his dainty wrists, tiny waist, and knife-blade collarbones, the others had claimed profound jealousy of his unnatural metabolism many times before. Other than giving him the perfect fashion model physique, however, it had little upsides. Seungjun gets tired more quickly than the others, has to take more frequent breaks during rehearsals and long filming schedules. He is also a lot more susceptible to temperature than the rest of them.

Cold, especially. 

"Come here," Jihun says tiredly, and scoots himself further backwards from the edge of his mattress.

Seungjun doesn't have to be told twice.

His eyes crinkling into a grateful smile above the rim of his mask, he comes forward and practically throws himself into the pile of comforters. He works his mile long legs beneath the mountain as Jihun begins pulling the topmost ones up and over their shoulders. 

As Seungjun starts to settle and work his way closer to Jihun, the leader can feel the severity of Seungjun's shivers as the mattress practically vibrates beneath him despite their combined weight.

Frowning, he barely holds a scolding behind his lips about waiting too long to come in, and opens his arms. Long and lanky as he is, his hyung still manages to easily fold himself against Jihun's chest in no time at all.

His head pillows itself onto Jihun's left bicep, his hands crawling to tuck snugly up underneath his own chin and against Jihun's bone, leaving trails of ice in their wake. One knobby knee works its way in between the leaders thighs and settles while the other one stretches itself out, cold toes left to poke past the leaders to the very edge of the blanket mound. 

Finally comfortable, Seungjun rubs his forehead back and forth against Jihun's chest, his fingers tugging lightly on the fabric of his hoodie. 

"So warm, our kimchi," his cutest hyung whines. A tiny kiss, muted by the mask and all of Jihun's layers, is pressed as a thank you in the very center of his chest.

Lips pulling into a grin that Seungjun won't see, Jihun grinds the point of his chin into Seungjun's scalp, and hugs him as close as he possibly can.

Seungjun's breathing is deep and peaceful; Jihun can feel each rib against his forearm as his chest expands and contracts. Despite being older than him, Seungjun has always been someone that Jihun felt compelled to protect and take care of without even being asked. Be it his delicate face or his eye-erasing grin or his complete innocence towards so many aspects of their complicated lives, Seungjun inspires so many protective instincts in Jihun that he can't help but nuzzle his face into his hyung's hair in this moment, and clutch the back of his cardigan with both fists.

Some time passes in silence, and Seungjun's shivers slow to intermittent tremors, and then fade into blissful stillness as Jihun's warmth seeps into him. His fingers tap absentmindedly against Jihun's stomach as the heat and the quiet and the closeness start to take their happy toll. His toes flex and tickle the bottom of Jihun's foot, but he's too comfortable to pull away, teetering on the brink of wakefulness in the hazy afternoon. The soft patter of snowflakes on the window start to work their familiar magic on the pair as the sun starts to set, and the two fall softly asleep.

spoiler alert: they were dating the whole time <3