"Hi unicorn."

That was the first thing he ever said to Lay.

When Zhang Yixing woke up the next day, he found himself staring into the eyes of someone who called himself a guardian.

He said that to the flabbergasted boy, who only yesterday had dinner with his happy family in his happy home. The fact that he said that to him made Yixing overcome with flabbergasts.

"W-Who are you?! W-Where am I?!" He demanded of the person who stood before him.

"Calm down... Let me tell you this, and don't freak out when I do, okay?" 

Yixing nodded, waiting for the man to answer. 

"You died." 

It took a while for Xiumin to stop Lay from freaking out. Lay assumed that he was just having a bad dream, and that he'd wake up soon. It dawned on him days, weeks, months later that this was not a dream, and that he'd never wake up.

Xiumin taught him the guardian's way of life, slowly and carefully. After all, all the other guardians of health passed before his very eyes because they couldn't handle being 'dead'. He hoped that Lay would be different.

He was.

"Dude, whaddya mean, 'The guardians of frost and health are to be forever isolated in the all-seeing WHUTever until death'?!"

Xiumin looked at him blankly. "Mm, well it's true. It's not possible for us to get out of here. Trust me, I've tried." 

The guardian of frost read the book of God's rules to Yixing, as if it were a children's book. The book fascinated him because it was probably the most interesting thing in the room, besides a certain big-eyed guardian himself.

"Hey Xiu?"

"Hm?"

"Is Xiumin your real name?"

"Heh, is Lay yours?"

"My name's Zhang Yixing. YOU'RE the one who stuck me with Lay."

"Oh yeah, that's right."

"Stop avoiding the question."

Xiumin glanced at him once, and then looked away. His sad smile didn't go unnoticed. "I forgot."

"What?"

"I've been a guardian for so long that I've forgotten what my real name was. Sad, isn't it?"

"O-Oh..." Lay hastily pretended that something got into his eyes.

"Never forget your name, Zhang Yixing..."

The two guardians got along with each other. They only had each other, anyway. They talked and joked, and whenever they weren't talking, they sat there in the comfortable silence. 

Xiumin was always cold. His face, fingers, hands were always cold. And yet, he was the warmest person Lay knew.

"I'm actually afraid of dying, you know." Xiumin told him one day.

Lay looked at him curiously. "Isn't everyone?"

"Not really... I'm actually sincerely scared of dying. I've been a guardian for a long time, and so my life will be over soon," Lay didn't want to think about what he was saying. "I'm afraid of the end. I get more afraid with each passing day... It's scary because I don't know when I'm going to die." Xiumin gave him a cold smile. It was so cold, almost freezing.

"It's scary."

“A-ARE YOU SO SCARED OF DEATH THAT YOU’D DO THIS?!”

Lay and Kai arrived at the All-Seeing room, shocked at what it became.

The painting of the unicorn fell off the wall and was facing down on the floor. The table was pushed against the wall, the wooden chair fallen over. The vase that contained the daisies was smashed into pieces while the actual flowers were ripped to shreds. The mirror was cracked on the floor, the bent candlelight next to it. The entire room was also entirely covered in frost and snow. Kai heard the crunching under his shoes as he walked to the middle of the room, where Lay sat on his knees.

In that very spot in front of Lay, was a large crystallized block of ice. It was as tall as the ceiling, as wide as two people. The ice turned skin blue on contact, with it being the coldest thing in the room, maybe in the universe.

In the middle of that solid block of ice stood a sleeping Xiumin. 

“XIU-XIUMIN!” Lay sobbed, pounding at the ice. The ice didn’t give away or crack the slightest. It only made Lay’s fists turn numb. But he didn’t care. He kept pounding at it, his tears freezing quickly because of the cold.

“LAY!” Kai grabbed Lay’s arms and dragged him a little farther away from the ice. “L-Lay, calm down… Isn’t that just for protection?!”

Lay struggled against Kai. “P-PROTECTION MY ! HE KILLED HIMSELF, GOD DAMMIT! HE WAS SO AFRAID OF DEATH THAT HE JUST FROZE HIMSELF TO IT! THE STUPID WAS PROBABLY WAITING FOR ME TO LOOK AWAY! H-HE…!”

Kai slowly covered Lay’s eyes with his hand and pulled his head into his chest. He waited until Lay stopped hiccupping and sobbing. He looked up at the frozen Xiumin. The look on Xiumin’s face was so peaceful, and yet here was Lay practically going out of his wits.

“Was this what you really wanted, Xiumin…?” Then, out of the corner of his eye, Kai saw something familiar. He removed his hand from Lay’s face and urged for his attention.

“L-L-Lay… He might have been afraid of dying, but l-look…” Kai’s shaky hand pointed to the top of the block of ice, off to the side. Lay hesitantly looked, and immediately wish he hadn’t.

Just grazing the surface of the ice were the markings of Lucifer.

“Xiu-Xiumin just wanted to protect himself from the curse…” Kai uttered. “T-To the point he killed himself.”

Lay removed himself from Kai and walked up to the ice. “K-Kai… G-Go…”

“Lay?”

“Just l-leave…”

“Lay, you’re going to die of hypothermia…”

“I don’t care. Just leave.”

“Lay, I can’t ju—”

“LEAVE!”

Kai swallowed and mentally slapped himself. He stepped onto the table and slowly reached for one of the mirrors on the ceiling. As he passed through it, he saw another tear roll down Lay’s cheek.

Zhang Yixing will never wake up from this dream—

From this nightmare.

AND SHA-BAM! XIUMIN DIES. //shot

YO. FEBRUARY IS CRAZY. SHINEE, NU'EST, U-KISS, BAP, RAINBOW, SISTAR 19, ZE:A5, TEEN TOP. WTF

THERE GOES MY WALLET

AND OVARIES