- a closing statement by DKS and PCY -

Kyungsoo shivered violently and his sleepy mind wasn’t in the state to comprehend how and why. He forced an eye open and stared towards the window with its small curtain. It was pitch-black outside, except for the yellowish-white flickering streetlamp outside. He needed a few seconds to realise where he was. With a gleeful colour scheme, the small clock on the nightstand let the disgruntled man know that it was around 4 in the morning.
He felt around blindly for his blanket, but to his dismay, he couldn’t make it out anywhere near his quivering body. Instead, his elbow bumped into a soft mountain behind him, which winced.
Suddenly, he was wide awake. Trying to turn his body into the direction of the sound, he craned his neck, and therefore his face into the pillow. Turning his face a bit more, resulting in a squished sheet and distorted eyesight, he adjusted his lying position into a more comfortable one. With the little light from the outside world, he made out a white blanket burrito, crowned with a mop of hair. Nothing else was seen.

He gently stretched out his hand and traced the outline of the blanket pile. Caressing the mop of hair, he felt the regular breathing pattern and how the owner of the hair leant unconsciously into the touch. While he the messy hair, he glared at it. Retracting his hand, he formed a fist and smashed it down into the estimated position of the thigh.

“!”
“Blanket! Now!”

The mane wriggled itself free of the burrito and a sleepy yet alarmed Chanyeol popped up. In his drowsy state, his eyes traced the backlight illuminated silhouette of Kyungsoo’s freezing body and his eyes shot open in realisation. All of a sudden, the pile was lifted in a hasty attempt and two arms found their way towards the shivering male.
One large hand graced the skin of Kyungsoo’s neck and his pillow before it locked around it. The other one was placed on top of his waistline and slid down onto his lower back.

Kyungsoo shivered beneath the sudden warmth on his exposed skin when Chanyeol’s hand came into contact with the bare skin between his lifted shirt and pyjama pants. But before Kyungsoo could even react, Chanyeol pulled the smaller male into his arms under the blankets. Circling his arms around Soo, he pulled the blankets above them. Kyungsoo, face first in the crook of the giant’s neck, exhaled in satisfaction. He wrapped his own arms around Chanyeol’s upper body. Inhaling his scent, he fell back asleep.

“Yes, Young-Mi, I'll make sure he gets enough sleep before tomorrow”, Kyungsoo innocently spoke into the receiver of his phone while looking at Chanyeol with a sinister smile. Addressed male gulped audibly and was fidgeting in the driver’s seat, hands on the steering wheel, flexing uncomfortably. He was more than relieved when the traffic light switched to green and he was able to start the car again.

“Yes, we’ll give you a heads up before arriving tomorrow- yes, sure. - mh-hm… you think so? - Ahh, Chanyeol, you can park there~”, Kyungsoo gently nudge Chanyeol’s thigh and pointed at a parking lot on the other side of the small street.
Chanyeol manoeuvred the car in a parking space near the building, destined for guests. Shutting off the engine, he turned his head towards his best friend, while unbuckling himself from the seat belt. Kyungsoo, still on the phone after unbuckling, bent his upper body towards the back seat. He placed his cheekbone on Chanyeol’s shoulder, having a nice view on the other one’s jawline, and scrunched his eyebrows. He tried to blindly grab his bag out of the footwell, but his arm was too short, and he only graced a hint of the bag with the tip of his middle finger.

“ing hell-”, he cursed under his breath before visibly flinching, even Chanyeol could hear his mother’s response to Kyungsoo’s outburst of profanity.

Chanyeol bit the inside of his cheek, almost drawing blood and trying his best to not laugh out loud, because Kyungsoo already glared at him with his death stare. Pointedly, he raised an eyebrow.
Meanwhile, Kyungsoo gave up on his quest of retrieving his bag without getting up. Sinking back into the seat, he sighed, but Chanyeol was his knight in shining armour and placed the bag into his lap.

“Should we go?” Chanyeol quietly asked the other one.
Kyungsoo nodded and tried to shrug his coat on with one hand, the other hand still holding the phone, Young-Mi still on the other end. Chanyeol assisted him, holding the left arm of the coat so Kyungsoo could slip into it. Switching hands and phone, he managed to pull on the coat.
“As I already mentioned, he’ll contact you tomor- yes. Will do. Yes, we’re about to check in- yes… yes… all right…” Kyungsoo rolled his eyes and puckered his lips. Slightly unnerved, he stared at his best friend. Chanyeol smiled, he understood Kyungsoo’s reasoning very well, he knew his mom loves to chat on the phone, talking miles a minute.

Kyungsoo somehow managed to end the phone call. Stepping out of the car, he lit a cigarette and zipped up his coat. Hiding his hands in his pockets, he leaned onto the car. Chanyeol walked around the car and settled himself next to Kyungsoo.

“As much as I love your mom, she can be pretty damn stressful”, the younger one sighed, the cigarette dangling from his lower lip, mixing smoke with the cold air.
“I know, I know”, Chanyeol chuckled in response and pulled Kyungsoo’s beanie further into his face.
“Hey! You giant bastard!” Kyungsoo playfully kicked his shin after re-adjusting his beanie.

Sometime later, the door to their shared room burst open. “Hey, burrito, get your lazy out of bed! I said, ‘be ready at two o’clock’ and not ‘get up at two’. It’s already 1:53!” A stressed Kyungsoo sprinted into their shared room, “Or do you want to feel the wrath from this morning again, aka cold feet?” Kyungsoo already moved, jumping on one foot towards the bed, trying to get rid of his sock. With his bare foot already on the mattress, he took a stance. Hands on his hips, he scowled down on Chanyeol.

Chanyeol just dumbly smirked into his general direction and threw the blanket off himself. He cracked an eye open, but the cherry on top of it was him making grabbing motions like a little child towards Kyungsoo.

“Park Chanyeol!”
“Soo~” cutely whined addressed male, still making grabbing motions, “Soo~.”
Cringing, Kyungsoo released a breath of irritation he didn’t realise he was holding. Taking off his glasses, he pinched the bridge of his nose and ruffled his hair.

“Babe, do me that favour, you didn’t give me a present for my birthday.”
The smaller one shook his head, put his glasses on top of the nightstand and bent down, placing both hands on either side of Chanyeol’s head. He whispered into his ear, his breath fanning over the sensitive shell of the giant’s ears, “What is it that you want from me?”
Instead of being intimidated by his best friend’s dangerous implication, Chanyeol’s arms wrapped themselves around Kyungsoo’s upper body and pulled the bewildered male down. Chanyeol even tangled their limbs together and manhandled him on his back.

“Wow, that escalated quickly”, Kyungsoo let out in a momentary shock.
Chanyeol, on the other side, sniffed Kyungsoo’s crown before rolling of him. He shoved him to the other side of the bed, but not without resorting to a small tickle attack without any noteworthy results. Rolling himself into a sitting position, he threw his feet over the edge of the bed onto the ground and stood up.

He rounded the bed and helped Kyungsoo up, “You smell like a nasty old ashtray which hasn't been cleaned in ages.”
“That’s because I am, except for the cleaning part.”

“I don’t like how that ended. Let’s just pretend that never happened. I’m sorry.”
“That’s not how life works, idiot.”
“It does now. I have to take credit for that.”
“Blame, not credit, you mean ‘take blame’.”
“Urgh”, Chanyeol, defeated, rested his face in his hands.
“Well, I’d like to kill you right now. How did you even manage that? On a second thought- nah, I don’t want to know”, Kyungsoo spit out. He was still fuming with rage, but at the same time, he had a hard time to not laugh.
The whole story was just too trivial to be true, but Chanyeol somehow made his surprise work in the wrong way.

While bickering, they arrived back at their pension they were staying at. The owner, an old but robust woman in her sixties, was standing on the canopied patio. The two boys observed relatively fast that the woman looked like she could break one's neck with a snap of her fingers, but she was the loveliest human being they have met during their trip.

Squinting at the males, she huffed out a white cloud, the warmth of her breath colliding with the cold air.
“Ma’am”, Chanyeol greeted her, but not a second later he had the end of a walking cane pointed between his eyes.
“Young man, I told you to call me Granny, nothing more, nothing less”, she scolded him, her missing front teeth making their entrance.

Kyungsoo sat himself down on the bench and shook his cigarette pack to determine how many cigarettes were left, taking one out in the process. However, Chanyeol went inside with the landlady, still deeply conversing.

Chanyeol’s birthday surprise didn’t go as planned, but Kyungsoo was content nevertheless, that was a memorable memory anyway. Wrapped up in the blanket that lay on the bench, he made himself comfortable and lit his cigarette.

The sky clouded over dramatically when the duo made their way back to the patio and now snowflakes descended from the heavens, coating everything with a soft sheer white cover. The thermometer was already scratching at the freezing point with long sharp fingernails.

The doorbell chimed and the old woman came back, Chanyeol in tow. Kyungsoo flicked some of the ashes into the ashtray and took another drag of the cigarette, inhaling for a good measure of three seconds, before exhaling through his nose. His best friend appeared in his line of vision holding three mugs with steam ascending from them. Offering one mug to the sitting male, he sat himself down on a chair. The woman took the last mug from Chanyeol’s hold and sat herself down next to Kyungsoo on the bench.

She patted his thigh in a comforting manner, “Your friend here told me what mishap happened. I’m sorry you have such a dumb friend.” She smiled at him and he offered a heart shaped smile himself.
“Thank you, sometimes I wonder why I’m friends with him in the first place. Like, why am I even coping with him for all those years?” he questioned dryly.

“Hey, could you two stop talking about me like I’m not here and also, stop ganging up against me all the time. You two do that since we arrived here in the morning!”, Chanyeol pouted.
“It’s your fault for running straight into the door and afterwards into the bell chime.” Chanyeol laughed, he raised his mug to his lips. Blowing on the hot liquid, he took a sip and sighed in content when the warmth coated his throat.

Raising the mug in the same, manner he asked, “I know the smell, but i can’t put my finger on it.”
“It’s mulled wine with a generous amount of rum in it”, the landlady spoke beside him, “You can’t drive anyway tomorrow.”
“Huh?”, the boys asked in unison, stopping mid motion and staring at the woman with big eyes.
“Because of the snowfall”, she pointed towards the sky, “They stopped the ferry service an hour ago until the day after tomorrow, they called while you were outside.”
“But we just paid for one night”, Chanyeol mentioned in shock.
“No worries, I can’t let two handsome men as you down, help me the next two days with the house chores and I’ll let you stay for free. Deal?”

Chanyeol fumbled with his phone, “We should call our parents, our trip just prolonged itself by two days. Can we use your washing machine and tumble dryer?”

FIN.