“You out of your mind, aren’t you? It’s minus 7 outside.”

“Well, it’s ot the end of the world.”

“Anyone will prefer to snuggle under comfy blanket being cuddly and warm. Why don’t we just do that?”

“You have your foolish boyfriend for that, Honey, who is right now still camping inside your room, by the way. It’s almost nine, for Pete’s sake!”

“Lower your voice, ! You’ll wake him up!”

“He should be!!”

“How rude and intolerant! He got a lot of things to do last night!”

“Oh, yeah? What? You?!”

“_______!!”

A pillow face popped out behind Kibum’s door and traced his way down to the living room.

“Now you’re waking him up!”

“Just wait ‘til I got my revenge!” Kibum turned his heels toward sleepy Jinki who looks like a little lost bunny trying to compose himself, and yeah, Kibum so damn lucky having him, look how cute he is! While Kibum busy comforting Jinki, I snatched hot packs as much as I could before Kibum facing me back.

“Heading somewhere, _______?”

“She’s stalking a god-shaped man in the corner of a not-edible-enough coffee shop!” Kibum took my answer before I could open up my mouth.

“They had the best hash brown!”

“I can make better!”

“Never in million years!”

“Sure you want to go outside? Look at the window! I almost couldn’t leave my bed earlier!”

Both Kibum and I turned to the big window to the balcony where Kibum kept his mini plants. And all I can see is nothing but white.

“I already told her it’s better to stay in bed, Love.”

Kibum pressed his nose to the crook of Jinki’s neck who awarded him with a firm squeeze on Kibum’s right before my eyes. Oh! What a sight to the sore eyes!!

“Yeah, I see neither of you are limping right now, so it means Jinki really did have something important to do and Kibum didn’t get what he wanted last night. I got the point now why neither of you want to leave the bed.”

“_______!! Words!”

While Kibum’s face burned red, Jinki just chuckled and kissed his boyfriend’s cheek before turned to my direction three minutes later after they finished adoring each other with those glittery eyes.

“If I were you, I would think thousand times, _______.”

“She needs some screws tightened. Who would trade the warmth for icy weather only for stupid creepy stranger smile?”

“Look who’s talking! Oh. Only a man who stayed at the busiest bakery almost two weeks full just to make sure his crush’s schedule!”

Blood boiled under his skin, but Kibum doesn’t live to be defeated. Instead, he got a peck of fat lips on his smooth cheek.

“You did that, Babe? Awww…”

What a lucky bastard!

“See?!?!! You’ll do anything to get a beautiful man like this!”

Kibum shift to his left and cupped Jinki’s cheeks to reach his inevitably adorable lips. The next second is serial scene of exchanging breaths and shoving tongues.

“Please, don’t mind me! At all!”

I left them to their business and quickly collect my coat and boots.

“You can still join us for brunch if you changed your mind!”

I heard Jinki shouted before being dragged to Kibum’s bedroom. The wind slapped my face square when I took my first step passed the threshold.

Damn, it’s indeed freezing outside!

***

It’s started almost two months ago when Kibum was away for a family matter. As I’ve been living with him for three years, I got spoiled every morning with his fancy breakfast. Thus once he’s not around, I’m already lazy enough to provide the meals by myself.  So I went downtown and entered the first coffee shop I could find. Too hungry to think, I pushed the door to shuffle inside. The thing that I didn’t know, someone was standing behind that door because he himself had just arrived split of second before me and hasn’t left the entrance yet.

“Oh! Good God! I’m sorry! I didn’t see you there!”

Instead of cursing me right away, he showed me pair of huge eyes, the warmest I’ve ever seen, melting my heart away. I swear if I’m living in a fairytale, my feet already became jelly and pulled me down to curled on the wooden floor. But this prince before me was too real to be missed for merely stupid black out.

“It’s okay! You are probably just as hungry as I am.”

He flashed his million dollar smile again and headed to the corner table near the window that facing small alley next to the shop. He ordered gleefully when a waiter approached him. I got used to Jinki’s sunshine face since he decided to be Kibum’s satellite, but this man is different.

His smile is warm, but makes him looks cooler than he supposed to be at the same time.

His smile is mesmerizing, but intriguing at the same time.

“YAA!! Why are you standing in front of the door?!”

A middle age woman cursed from behind me, making him shot his head to our direction. I could catch him chuckled and shook his head before engrossed to his me-time.

Though that accident made me embarrassed as hell, doesn’t mean I lost my will to brush my hair at least two times in the morning before I left to grab my morning set, cup of latte macchiato, hash brown, crème croissant, and a beautifully hypnotizing smile by the corner of the room.

Doesn’t mean I mind rushing out of bed when the alarm buzzed off after even only with three hours of sleeping the night before.

Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t seize one week stock of hot pack and breach the small blizzard like now. It’s not like it’s a storm or cyclone.

Even I’m pretty sure my lips turned slightly purple when my reflection greeted me from the barber shop’s window I passed.

But I guess the universe favors Kibum more after I didn’t give a damn with whatever logically scenario he said to me earlier. The perfect breakfast set I’ve been thinking since the first second I walked passed our house’s door fled away to the cold winter air when I see a piece of paper pasted on the blue door I’ve been best friend with for the past weeks.

Closed until Sunday. Back to business at December 18^th. See you! :)

The hell with you, Karma!

I can imagine Kibum rolling his eyes then laughing at me with all the satisfaction before saying his trademark ‘I told you so’. My belly growls uncontrollably, the habit of being fulfilled with such delicacy and low temperature definitely not a good combination.

However, since I don’t want to go back home and ask Kibum to feed me – I still have a drop of pride within my vein – I walked helplessly to the minimarket two buildings away from the café.

Goodbye, good pastries.

“Guess I’m not the only one who disappointed with the closed shop.”

The sound of the man three steps away from me is so soothing. But since I don’t have any recollection of such voice, I just grab the packed of muffin from the display rack, ignoring him since I didn’t think he talked to me.

I almost tripped into thin air when I turned to face him for the first time, though.

“Coffee?”

He handed me a can of coffee he just retrieved from the warming cupboard at the corner. The way my mouth gaping must be very unattractive right now but all the muscle on my face decided to betray me and refused to work properly. The man before me just chuckled, like the usual he is whenever I did something stupid or clumsy or unladylike back at the coffee shop.

“Here,” he stretched his hand to reach my free hand and slip the can on my grip, didn’t forget to squeeze it lightly, make sure I hold it tight to not drop it on the floor and create a mess, “I think the cold just hit you hard.”

“Eh? What?”

“Don’t worry. Empty stomach and low temperature are not exactly best friends. I was kind of lifeless as well when I stepped inside here. The guy on the checkout offered to drive me to the nearest clinic.”

“You know me?”

Looks like it’s not the kind of responds he expected judging by how he breaks into a small laughter after disbelief looks he had for five seconds.

“Well, I know you always pushed the shop’s door in a rush as if someone chasing you down the street. You order latte macchiato and you always have at least five solid minutes of spacing out after your first sip. Besides that, I must say I don’t really know you.”

The fact that the prince charming before me noticed my existence is beyond every single thing I believe in life. Guess I should stop spacing out like Jonghyun always told me to.

“Let’s go there,” he pointed the small table near the entrance with his chin, “Not as comfortable as the coffee shop but at least we can still have a view.”

“Oh, okay?”

I guess I’m spacing out again, but this time not into nothingness for this amazingly carved face Greek God is there in front of me, tilted his head a bit, soft smile waiting for me to say something.

“Ah, I’m sorry for being rude,” he took the package muffin on my hand and stacked it together with all stuffs he picked on his left arm, “My name is Minho. Choi Minho.”

He stretched his hand and when the palm of my hand met his skin, I’m convinced to throw all the hot packs I have in my pocket and swapped those with his hand.

“________. I’m _________.”

“Nice to meet you, ________. And just so you know, I’m not a creep.”

“How can a creep looks so beautiful like you?”

Those words just blurted out and in my head I already killed myself three times for saying such words.

“Come again?”

“Nothing. Nope. You heard wrong.”

He cracks on the spot again, shoulder shaking so hard, leaving me in awe to thank every single good deed I did in my previous live for a chance to see this kind of great view.

“Ah, I should have just not being coward and introduced myself the first time we met.

”What?”

He beamed into another blinding smile, this time I can feel my body’s lifted at least two centimeters from the ground.

“Nothing. Nope. You heard wrong.”

I wanted to raise some objection for him using exactly the same phrase I used to cover my foolishness. However, the desire had been replaced with another shock when he patted my head lightly, beautiful curve still attached on his lips, before heading to the table he mention earlier.

Seriously, it’s better be reality and not some brain freeze effect.

***