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You’re extremely upset, not to mention breathless, after that chase for your term paper in the past three minutes around the school. It was long gone now. The winds were strong today and you couldn’t possibly chase after it anymore now that it seemed to make its way towards the sea. That was one of the downs of going to a seaside school. The strong winds and whatever you lost in the ocean would be gone forever. And it was winter right now, so the skies were clouded with fog. You wouldn’t be able to search for your paper anyway.

You made your way back to the school building with a frown, mentally cursing your clumsy friend for having such a thin grip on your paper. Onew could be such a klutz sometimes. If he wasn’t so lovable, you’d find it a lot easier to hold a grudge against him. Checking your watch, you wondered if you would be able to run to the library to print out another copy from your flash drive.  It was better to go to class late and with the paper than it was to show up empty-handed, wasn’t it?

Soon, after making your way back, Onew catches up to you. He had been attempting to run after you in your chase for your paper, but he wasn’t an athlete. He puffs out wheezy apologies about your paper and you just wave him off, asking him if you should take the risk in printing out another one.

“I’ll totally take the blame for you. If we told the teacher, maybe he’d give you an extension. Even if it’s just another hour.” He tries, “It’s the truth.”

“He’s too strict to accept late work. I’m doubtful.” You let out a frustrated sigh. Another thing he hates is late attendance. So you have to choose between one or the other today. “How much is this assignment worth?”

“Assignments over the semester are worth 25% of your final grade, examinations 75%” he rattles off from his memory from the teacher’s syllabus. “Maybe you could get a friend who doesn’t have class right now to print it out and give it to you before class ends?”

“No one I know who’s around here for morning classes.” You breathe out, fast walking towards the building. You start verbally explaining factors of the plan to yourself while Onew attempts to keep up, “Closest library should be behind the east wing. Running through the building, I’d have to go through the courtyard. Lots of students to go through. If I go around the building from the front, it would take up more time, but less traffic to run through. If I go around from the back, that would guarantee no traffic at all, but rougher terrain…”

“Excuse me?” A voice interrupts your rant to yourself, and you turn around to see a tight white shirt hugging a lean torso, so you stop and lift your head up to see the tall man’s face towering above you. He’s several inches taller than Onew, and you back up as not to have to crane your neck as much to see him. He’s intimidatingly handsome, and you try to recognize him from anywhere in order to prove your worthiness of his acquaintance. “Is this yours?” he holds out some slightly wrinkled papers to you.

You recognize them as your term paper when you spot your name on the top right corner of the front page. Was this a miracle? Did the heavens decide to smile upon you today? You’re busy wondering who to thank as you take the papers from him, “Thank you so much. How did you get these? I was running after them for so long.”

“I think they sort of flew in my direction around the time you gave up.” He explains. “Also, I think you dropped this on your way back.” He holds out a black denim wallet to you.

“Are you serious? I… thank you.” You say, “Thank you so much. Is there anything I can do to thank you? Do you want coffee? You can have my Starbucks card if you want. There should still be enough for a large drink.” You immediately open up the wallet to dig for your Starbucks gift card.

“No, it’s really no problem.” The tall, handsome man brushes it off.

“Here, thank you so much. I’m so endlessly grateful. You’re like god to me right now. Thank you, thank you, thank you.” You bow to him several times to emphasize the truth in your words as you stuff the card into his hands. With a last scramble of thanks, you tuck your wallet back into your pocket and make way for the other direction as you stuff the papers into your backpack, “Let’s go, Onew. We’ll be late.”

---

About a week and a half after turning in your tattered paper to the teacher, receiving both a suspicious eye from your excuse of chasing after it and a good grade on it just days later, you run into the tall, handsome man again. Ironically, in a Starbucks café.

You had gathered up a little information about him out of curiosity. Surely, you wouldn’t have gathered as much had you not had a gossip info center as your roommate. Once you had mentioned the tall, handsome man, she went ballistic gathering dirt on the first guy you seemed to have found interest in since entering college. You tried clearing up that you weren’t interested, just curious, but then she went on a rampage on how you haven’t seem to have found a single piece of eye candy since you entered the college campus four months ago.

That wasn’t true. You did take a small interest in several guys you’ve met. But of course, if you had taken interest in someone, other people surely have as well. So basically, every piece of eye candy you’ve caught has been taken so far. And you didn’t want your blabbermouth roomie to spread anything that you were after someone else’s man. She still acted like a high schooler sometimes.

Anyways, Kris was here on a basketball scholarship, and he was part of one of the leadership programs on campus. He was pretty close to the administration and apparently he was single. Or more like an unreachable prize. Your roommate got absolutely no dirt on any previous relationships or flings at parties or anything that showed he acknowledged the opposite gender. So you should be grateful that you even got a chance to talk to him before.

Nevertheless, it can’t hurt to greet him, can it?

“Hey.” You say as you line up behind him to order. He turns around and looks down to see you, making you feel embarrassed and regretful already, “Not sure if you remember me, but you saved my paper and wallet the other day.”

“Oh yeah, I remember.” He nods, “You gave me the gift card.”

“Did you use it yet?”

“Actually, I gave it to a friend.” He shrugs.

“You did? Well, that’s not right. I’ll pay for you today, then.” You offer.

“No, it’s perfectly fine. He appreciated it, at least. That’s good enough for me.” He waves you off.

Before you can protest, the cashier asks him for his order, and he turns around quickly to recite the type of drink that you already knew he was ordering. But quickly after, you pop up beside him, “And a small green tea frap, please. Paying together.”

“What? No, we’re no—“ Kris doesn’t get to finish his sentence before you hand the cashier a sufficient amount of money to pay for both drinks before she can even recite the price.

Surprised by your aggressiveness, the cashier takes the money and counts up your change for you. You thank her as you take it and stuff it into your wallet, pushing Kris out of the line before he can say anything else. When you’re both waiting at the counter, you smile up at him and he just gives you a blank look, “You shouldn’t have told me you gave it away.” You shrug to answer his unasked question of why you were doing this.

He lets out a defeated sigh and stands next to you with his hands in his pockets, “Thank you then, I guess.”

“Sorry, am I annoying you?” You chuckle, “I won’t bother you again, I promise.”

“No, it’s not that. You’re just a little… determined, that’s all.” He offers a small smile back.

“I admit, it can be both a good and bad thing.” You shrug, noting his implied thoughts.

He just continues with his small smile facing the ground as you tuck your wallet back into your pocket. When you receive your orders, Kris thanks you again, introduces himself, and you do the same. He says maybe he’ll see you around and leaves the café while you make your way to the lounge in the back, turning to the staircase in the corner that leads to the rooftop.

This was the main reason that you come to this café in particular. It had a rooftop that had a decent view that came with the chairs and table umbrellas set up here. It was only about two stories at the highest, but it was alright at sunset. Today, it was foggy again, so no one was up here. You wrap the scarf around your neck once more and pull the beanie down on your head. You, personally, really liked the winter. And the fog wasn’t really that bothersome to you, if you handled it properly.

You pull your DSLR camera out of your bag and put it together, putting the strap around your neck. There were several streets between the café and the ocean harbor in view, but the fog was clouding up the scene and making it look extremely grey and dull. You kind of liked it. It reminded you of a black and white photo without the editing and you look through the lens of the camera, moving the camera around until you settle on a good spot to take a picture.

Although the scene in your picture looked cool, it felt empty. You quietly wish to yourself that you had a subject in the scene. If you had asked Kris to come up here with you, would he have? Well, if he left right after getting his coffee, then obviously he had somewhere to go. Not everyone has all the time in the day for you. But you humor yourself into wondering how he would have posed for you. He was tall and handsome, and the way he stood was full of confidence. He would be a perfect model. He would probably overtake the scene in any picture.

---

A week later, you dream of him. You dream of him holding you closely as he flies you across the foggy skies of France. You can only tell that it’s France because you see the outline of the Eiffel Tower in all the fog. You don’t question how he’s able to fly, but you allow yourself to feel lost and free as the two of you whoosh through the air together. He has a strong grip on you, and you don’t fear falling at all. In fact, you want to fly faster, farther, higher.

Only when Kris lands on the third level summit of the tower do you realize that you’ve been hanging onto him. You release your grip on his neck, but he keeps an arm on your waist as the two of you look through the fog of the sky to see the expanse of the city. The two of you are hidden behind the fog, but you feel warm with him next to you. All you want is to get closer to him, ask him to take you up into the skies again. It doesn’t matter if you won’t be able to see. All you want is to feel the exhilaration of flight again. “Please take me up again.”

And luckily, your alarm doesn’t ring throughout the rest of the flight.

---

Winter vacation comes, and all you’ve been itching to do since your dream of Kris is fly. You were in a deep enough sleep to literally feel the vivid rush of flight flood through your veins. It’s only been a few weeks, but no matter what you did, you knew you wouldn’t be able to recreate that feeling.

You rode extreme roller coasters during the long weekend with your friends, you travelled up to rooftops of office building skyscrapers to take photos, you went running up and down hills until you felt your legs would fall off, but nothing would even touch a proper substitute for the rushing feelings you felt when Kris held you in the skies in your dreams.

You had managed to build up a new sense of fearlessness and a healthier body in your attempts to achieve the feeling that you so desperately craved, but you were never rewarded with it. How in the world would you achieve this impossible feat? You couldn’t possibly rely solely on dreams to take you again. You had had the dream more than once, but the dream would only come on nights that you least expected it to. And lately, since it’s the only thing that you would think about before bed, you highly doubted it would come upon request.

You were going on a trip with several friends and students up to a mountain lodge to play in the snow for vacation. But you highly doubted snowboarding would relieve you of your lust for adrenaline if roller coasters and impossible heights wouldn’t.

But you tried. When no one stepped up to claim the recommended snowboard by the owner of the lodge among your group, you stepped forward with neutral eyes. Not at all thinking this would work.

And you were right. But you would be lying to yourself if you said that you didn’t hope a little once you were at the top of the mountain. The very top of the mountain. The few others who had followed you up to the top were one of your guy friends, and a couple of the guys who hung out with Kris. He and his friends had come along on the trip, and you couldn’t say you were upset about it. They were a good-looking bunch of guys.

“Who’s going first?” One of the taller guys among Kris’s group of friends asks with a laugh. Without answering him and also somewhat ignoring your friend in your excited hope of achieving flight, you mount your board in the snow and prepare yourself immediately. They were giving you impressed looks from behind as you buckled your shoes in and leaned forward effortlessly without announcing your take off with a scream or anything.

No one followed you immediately. But you were too busy dodging trees and rocks and flying off of tough looking piles of snow to notice anyone behind you. Admittedly, you smiled a lot on your way down, especially when you hopped off the edge of some rocks and landed back on the snowy pathway, but eventually the feeling left you and you were tired of dodging and balancing yourself. It took up too much energy. You couldn’t help but compare this experience to that of your dream.

Everything was so effortless for you in flying because Kris was holding onto you. He was carrying you and you had nothing to worry about. There were no birds or aircrafts to fly past, and you didn’t have to anticipate getting lost in clouds. Kris would take care of you. Kris would fly you through the skies, and you would be happy.

“Whoops~!” Dongjoon yells as he nudges you as he slides past. Normally, you would have caught yourself, but since you had come into clear snow without obstacles, you had just been letting yourself glide down the hills deep in thought. Hence, you let out a scream when you fell forward into the snow.

“KIM DONGJOON YOU .” You scream once you lift yourself up from the snow. You’re in the midst of getting up as a couple of Kris’s friends slow to a stop beside you asking if you’re okay. But you’re too heated to answer. You gather up as much snow as you can in your hands as you push yourself forward down the hill again.

As soon as Dongjoon slides to the side to stop, you angle yourself right towards him. Once you’re close enough, you shout to him just as you throw one of the bundles of snow in your hands at him, “DJ!”

Sure enough, he turns just as the snow hits him straight in the face. You let out a maniacal laugh as you slide past him, hitting him with the remainder of the snow in your hands. He falls backwards and you continue to laugh as you slide to stop on the small hill.

But you should have probably watched out for the guy you hit in the midst of your laughing. You manage to fall on top of him since he didn’t manage to catch you. After letting out a painful ‘Oof!’ you start apologizing immediately, “Oh my god, I am so sorry. I am so, so sorry. I wasn’t—“ Seeing the face below you makes you stop short and scramble off of Kris before he can see your face reddening.

“Kris! I am so sorry! Oh my god. Sorry, I’m not usually so oblivious to my surroundings.” You attempt to apologize harder, knowing it’s the handsome stranger you’ve been hoping to see in your dreams. You scramble to unlatch the board from your shoes as he sits up next to you, groaning quietly.

“Oh crap, are you hurt? Kris, I am so sorry.” You say again, getting up and pulling Kris up once you stand. You dust the snow off the front of his torso and he steps back from you, telling you it’s okay.

Basically, he’s implying for you to take a chill pill so you comply, taking a breath to calm yourself. You pull the winter goggles and beanie off of your head and shake your hair out, using your fingers to pat any excess snow out of your hair. When you throw your head back and flip your hair away, you look at Kris again, “…Sorry. You’re alright, aren’t you?”

“I’m fine. Are you alright?” he asks back just to be courteous. It was obvious that he didn’t really care for your well-being after you just body-slammed him into the below freezing ground.

“I’m so sorry, please don’t be angry. I swear I didn’t mean to. I was just… preoccupied.” You attempt before looking down to hide your face in your gloved hands, “Oh my god, I’m so embarrassed. I promise I’ll try to make it up to you.” You’re just spewing out words now, you really don’t know what you’re saying.

All you know is that you suddenly feel that rush that you’ve been lusting over for the past month or so. You never realized that it could have been from the excitement of Kris’s presence rather than the thrill of flight. Now that you’re so close to reliving your dream, you’re totally ruining it for yourself. Why, why, why?!?

Someone saves you from your frantic attempts to apologize when he calls out, “Hey! Snowboard chick!”

You turn around to see one of Kris’s taller friends slide to a stop next to the two of you, followed by the rest of his friends. You turn around farther to see DJ walking up to you guys. “You were pretty epic flying off the rocks like that.” The tall guy comments.

“Uhm, thanks.” You reply, backing away to face Dongjoon.

“You okay, though?” one of the other guys asks.

“I’m fine. But I kind of body-slammed Kris on the way down. Once again, I’m sorry.” You bow to him slightly. “Okay, I feel like I’m embarrassing myself staying here, so I’m just going to… go…” You finish lamely, pulling your beanie over your head and slipping the goggles on to rest on your forehead.”Uhm… Deej.” You nod your head to the side to lead him away from this intimidating group of handsome guys. Picking up your board, you bid your goodbye to the guys and walk with DJ back to the lodge.

---

Throughout the rest of the week, you busy yourself with trying out all the different snow sports the lodge offers. But you eventually grow bored of all of them, and building snowmen isn’t really your thing. Sometimes you rode the ski lifts all the way around just to kill time and take a few photos. Sometimes you settled yourself in a warm café with a book. Sometimes you stayed up late to edit photos you took on your laptop and woke up late.

For some reason, both Kris’s friends and yours had developed some idea that you two had chemistry when you were sure that the guy was totally indifferent about you. They were just making it more awkward for you. Had they started scheming together or something? They were totally friendly and compliant with each other’s suggestions to sit together for meals or movie nights together in the lounge. It really shouldn’t have come as a surprise to you that they found a casual way to get the two of you to sit together on the ride back to the university.

You had already acknowledged that you had subconsciously developed a crush on Kris. There was no other explanation for your erratic heartbeat whenever he came near now. That familiar rush from your dream, that had suddenly appeared a lot more often when you slept now, would awaken again whenever Kris sat next to you or accidentally brushed against you. You wanted to kill yourself for being such a girl in feeling this way. But you had wanted that thrill to return to you all this time. But knowing that it came in the form of a crush kind of irritated you.

In the midst of your thoughts and not talking, you had fallen asleep on the bus ride. You had your dream again. It was always in France for some reason. You wouldn’t necessarily land on the Eiffel Tower each time, but some other skyscraper where you could always see the tower in the cloudy distance. You didn’t really care, as long as you were flying and you had Kris to hold onto you as he flew you across the skies.

You would always wake up hugging something somewhat tightly close to you whenever you had that dream. You didn’t bring any stuffed companions with you on the trip, so you always found yourself hugging a pillow or a bundle of your blankets when you woke up.

Embarrassingly, it was no different even on this bus ride. But it was shocking to see the real thing in your arms when you rode over a bump in the road. You wake up to find your dream to be right in front of you. Truthfully, it felt surreal. But you knew you must have looked strange hugging onto Kris so intimately, so you reluctantly release your grip on his torso and sit up in your seat.

Luckily, he’s asleep as well, so maybe he wouldn’t notice when he woke up. But strangely, his hand had been resting on the back of your head, his other hand touching the back of your waist as if he had been hugging you as well. You feel giddy and excited again at the thought that of it, but you’re still extremely embarrassed that you had actually let yourself fall asleep like that right on top of him. What must he have thought when you started leaning on him or hugging him?

Suddenly, you feel a force push you back into Kris’s torso. Although you turn to the side, expecting to see one of Kris’s or your friends causing trouble for you, no one is there. The majority of the people you can see are asleep as well. But once you turn back towards the window, you see that it was Kris who had pulled you back into his embrace. Now you’re breathing a little more erratically, but you attempt to calm yourself down as you pull away from him again. You can’t embarrass yourself any more than you already have.

---

“Ready?”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” You practically scream, clutching onto the straps of your pack to prevent yourself from jumping in the helicopter.

“Alright, then. So am I.” Kris smiles as he attaches the straps of his parachute to yours so that he’s pressed right against you.

“Ready, one, two, three.” Kris shouts as the two of you dive down into the sky together. You let out a shout of pure joy and start laughing with a smile so wide that it hurts your face.

Kris holds out a camera that attached to his wrist in front of the two of you and shouts for you to smile. After snapping the photo, he reaches down to hold onto your torso beneath him as he guides you through the skies, making turns and flips to amuse you and all you can do is laugh. This is nothing like the you that flies with Kris in your dreams. The you in your dreams is always calm when she flies, but you’re totally letting yourself go right now.

This is the closest that Kris can do to turn your dream into a reality. A while ago, you had finally told him about your dream, and suddenly, the two of you had grown close. Admittedly, you had grown comfortable with each other when you woke up from the end of the bus ride back to the university from the ski lodge, hugging Kris. You had fallen asleep again and had the dream again. And this time, Kris had woken up with you. But he made no move to show that he was bothered by the close contact. In fact, he had suddenly asked you out for coffee soon after winter vacation had ended.

At the end of your freshman year of college, Kris had decided to surprise you with this attempted reenactment of your dream. And he truly was the greatest person in the world to you right now. Long after pulling out the parachute, the two of you land shakily on the ground and Kris detaches the straps from yours to let you go. But only to have you turn around and press up against him again in a crushing hug. And for some reason, you were bold enough to press your lips against his as well.

Was it the thrill of fall? Or the rush of flight? Or how sweet Kris was that he would do this for you? All you knew was that there was this new, warm, elated feeling that came along with the adrenaline that coursed through your body in your flight dreams with Kris when you kissed him. Your heart was soaring, and you still had yet to come down from your high. You really didn’t care if he was uncomfortable with your sudden kiss, all you knew was that you needed to show your gratitude somehow. But honestly, he didn’t seem uncomfortable at all by the way that he was kissing you back.

This was supposed to be a sort of supernatural fic, but... I at that. so it turned into fluff. sorry.