Title: l'amour aime l'hiver
Pairing: Hanchul
Genre: angst
Rating: G
Warnings: none
Summary: Where once it held warmth, his heart has become an icy cavern of an everlasting decaying winter.

Hankyung lay beneath a light covering of snow, frost clinging to his skin and eyelashes, and he stirred from his position on the icy ground. He blinked awake, the snow crunching beneath him, and he let out a cold breath in awe at all that he saw around him.

Trees surrounded him, caged him, tall and winding high above him; arching and interweaving like icy white fingers. Tiny flecks of snow fell through the gaps inbetween, all coated in frost and shimmering, glittering as they landed wetly in his hair, on his face.

He got to his feet unsteadily, trembling. His whole body was numb, frozen to the core. Thickets of dead, frozen roses created a path between the trees, and he followed without thinking, as if in a dream. There was silence all about him, but eerie as it was, he didn’t feel wary or cautious. It was as if he’d been here before, a familiar place he'd somehow forgotten; or maybe he hadn't forgotten at all. Maybe things were just different to how he remembered them, a place that once used to hold warmth now lost to ice and decay. 

The roses crunched beneath his bare feet, their dead petals sticking to his skin, and the pathway gave way to a clearing, much like where he was before but for a bench. Frozen solid and glittering with frost, it stood in the centre of the clearing, a statue perched delicately on the edge.

His eyes fluttered shut to blink, frost covered lashes casting shadows on his skin, and when they opened he found himself sat on the bench, the statue only inches away, and for a moment the breath was stolen from him as he looked upon its porcelain features. it sat, tiny flecks of frost clinging to its smooth, pale face, a dusting of freshly fallen snow on its bare shoulders. Its face was a picture of sombre resplendence; its eyes closed, as if sleeping. But his eyes were drawn to its lips, a deep blood plumped crimson, cruelly vibrant against the blank canvas they sat upon.

As he looked upon it, a sudden sadness washed over him like a wave of tepid water, as if he’d sat here before. Without a thought he found hismelf reaching out to touch the solemn beauty that sat before him, it seemed so familiar, but stopped short as its white eyelashes fluttered open, wide and  dark and filled with sorrow.

He gasped as the man, ever so slowly, turned his head towards him, his red lips parting slightly. 'Don't touch me,' he whispered, the voice seeming to come from within his own head, and Hankyung remembered that voice, he remembered everything. It was all so familiar yet he couldn’t piece it together. His head ached with questions, his hands and feet ached for warmth. His heart ached for this man.

‘Why?’ he asked in a whisper. It was as if every word was a secret, and every branch, every root was eavesdropping. For a second Hankyung thought the man's lips showed a hint of a smile, but it was gone as fast as he could blink. They trembled as he spoke.

‘Every time you touch me, you forget me,' he closed his eyes again, ‘and it gets colder. It’s so cold.’ As the words shuddered from between his lips a single tear slid from beneath his frozen lashes, stopping on his pale cheek and turning to ice.

Hankyung stood again, gently brushing aside the man's hair and whispering a quiet ‘sorry’ into his frozen locks. He kissed his forehead, a bitter aftertaste lingering on his lips. He turned away, and as he walked back through the trampled roses, over gnarled white roots and beneath towering branches he understood why this place made him feel so sullen, so disenchanted.

Because here was Heechul’s heart, and Hankyung was walking out of it once again.