Winter

“Spring passes and one remembers one’s innocence.

Summer passes and one remembers one’s exuberance.

Autumn passes and one remembers one’s reverence.

Winter passes and one remembers one’s perservance.”

- Yoko Ono

Baekyun’s POV

Year end brought about a bombardment of gayo daejuns, award shows, special performances, year end concerts etc etc. It was undeniably the busiest time of the year for us. It meant hours and hours of learning new chereogaphy, late nights of practice and lengthy sessions of vocal rehearsals.

And all this meant less time with JinHwan.

I missed him terribly when I was singing, when I was dancing, when I was practising. I missed the distinct newborn smell that was starting to fade away. I missed the soft smooth skin that covered hid entire body. I missed his thin dark brown hair that sparsely lined his head. Most parents resented the nightly feeding that disrupted their sleep. Contrary to that, I was thankful for those middle-of-the-night sessions. It meant one-to-one time with my baby. It meant holding my child close to my chest and feeling out hearts beat together as one. And I’d never felt so lucky – his breathing, his tiny feet, his little fingers. People often said that you would fall in love when you had a child but this was beyond just any love affair. I had to take care of this little thing. I wanted so much for him. I could be quite selfish in the past, focussing on my career and having a good time, but suddenly that became totally irrelevant. It had all been so...

Joyous.

That was one way to describe it.

Distracting would be another. Exhausting would be one as well.

I could hardly concentrate when performing or filming or doing anything that didn’t involve my baby. My mind was always, I repeat ALWAYS, on either JinHwan or sleep. Not wanting to miss a single moment with him, I often find myself only getting two to three hours of disrupted sleep every night. The only times left for me to catch some sleep would be when we were filming or on the van to some schedule.

Take for example, that one time we filmed for EXO Showtime. It was yaja time, time when the oldest became the youngest and vice versa. Normally it was the kind of corner that I enjoyed. I was known to be a witty and funny guy; it was my time to shine and earn my screen time! I loved such games and I loved playing them.

But somehow today, I was struggling to even keep my eyes open. With limited space on the couches, I slid down to sit on the floor. Yeollie, being his usual protective self, took up the floor space just opposite me. As the game started, I fought to keep the sleep away and pay attention. There were a couple of times when it seemed completely impossible. Knowing that I had to distract myself, I played with Yeollie’s leg, sliding my foot up his long shin. At my mischief, his eyes caught mine. In his eyes, a loving yet mischievous gleam shone bright as he excitedly facilitated the yaja game. He shot a tiny smile that was meant for me and me alone. For a moment, the sleepiness momentarily vanished. In its place, warmth flowed through my body with anticipation and tiggling sensations. But soon the sleepiness returned, and I rested my chin on the table. The mischief in his eyes vanished as well, replaced by worry, as he reached his hand over to brush it against mine.

You ok?

Nodding slightly, I slid further under the table, leaning back to rest my head on Suho hyung’s knee. Yeollie continued to hype up the game but I caught him catching worried glances at me a couple of times during the game. Sleep made my eyelids incredibly heavy and right before I was about to doze off, I felt a tug on my pants.

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Chanyeol's POV

EXO Showtime Yaja Time Filming

I saw him trying to fight off the sleep. I noticed him nodding off at times. I was worried. How could I not be? He loved playing this kind of games and yet today he hardly said a word. And I knew the reason why. Oh yes, I knew exactly why. He hardly slept at nights, more than willing to sit on the rocking chair with Jinnie in his arms and simply staring at the baby. At times, I offered to feed the baby so that he could get some sleep. But as I fed the bottle to our child, he would pull a chair right up next to me and watch him le on the rubber tip of the bottle. He simply just wasn’t getting enough sleep and nothing I said or did was making him turn towards the bed when the baby was around. Although there was nothing that showed for his lack of rest and he was just as radiant as before if not more, I knew. I was the one who shared a room with him. I was the one who watched him stay up all night to care for the baby. He would force me to sleep, saying that I needed the rest and yet nothing I said convinced him that he too needed the rest.

That stubborn kid.

So as I watched him struggle to stay awake, I knew I had to do something. If the members caught him dozing off, I couldn’t be sure if they would be understanding or merciless. So I tugged on Baek’s pants and quickly gestured downwards.

“Sleep,” I mouthed, “under the table.”

His eyes locked on mine for a while and I could see him contemplating it. Soon sleep won over and he discreetly slid under the table. Being loud, I tried to distract the members. Luckily they were way too engrossed in the game to notice Baek under the table. A couple of times, I sneaked a glance at him. A peaceful expression was on his face as he slept. Carefully, I moved the tissue box under his head as a pillow and smiled.

Mission to get Baek some sleep.

Accomplised.

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Jongin’s POV

What a year it had been!

I felt like one of those snow globes you see resting peacefully on shop counters. I was perfectly happy being an ordinary, dull little cottage. But now Kyungsoo came along and shakened me up, and there were snowflakes all over the place, whirling around until I didn’t know what I think anymore.

And bits of glitter, too.

Tiny bits of shiny, secret excitement.

It made me incredibly happy when we enjoyed our little moments, plain for the world to us. Lately Kyungsoo had been getting more and more courageous in front of the camera that sometimes his actions would give me a shock. Seriously, this man never fail to surprise me. Once when we were dancing to Growl, his hand somehow ended up just inches above *ahem*. The next performance of Growl, my hand was almost in his pants.

Like I said, plain for the world to see.

AND!

For Christmas this year, he did something that simply made my heart burst with love and warmth. Other than the presents, he requested for the sweater I had worn in our music video. Knowing how much I loved wearing couple wear with him, he presented one of the greatest gift I had received this Christmas!

On stages, his arms were constantly around me. What came over my little monster was beyond me. His hand on my waist when we were waiting for results on a music broadcast. His arm on my shoulders we filmed for EXO Showtime. His backhug as we filmed a behind the scene segment for Mnet.

Madness, I tell you.

Pure madness.

Love was a word that was sadly overused these days, due to other lesser feelings often being mistaken for it. Infatuation, admiration, and attraction could pose as love, and could sometimes overwhelm us and fool us into thinking that we had found the real thing when we hadn’t. Those other feelings might be pleasant for a time, but they were not real love. Real love was rare. It was something that, quite honestly, I believed very few people ever truly experience.

And this.

This is true love.

Undeniably.

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Kyungsoo's POV

SMTOWN Week Concert backstage

As 2013 was coming to an end, we were extremely busy. Despite being so tired and exhausted every day, I just couldn’t find it in me to complain.

This had been the most incredible year of my life. Jongin and I had been blessed with two beautiful sons and we were closer than ever. We became uncles to a precious JinHwan. So many miracles, so many things to be thankful for. So I wanted to end the year with the best I had. And of course, I had to go and ruin that by spraining my ankle during the MAMA in Hong Kong. While it was all healed and fine now, it was still best I didn’t overwork it.

Which meant that we had to cancel all unnecessary dances.

Which meant no dance for The First Snow.

There was nothing I could say to convince the team otherwise.

Why I wanted to do the dance for this song so badly, you might ask.

The answer was in the first half minute of the song.

I like the way he danced. And then I like the way we danced together.

Just the two of us, like the starting of this song.

Sighs.

“Why sigh?”

Oh I didn’t know I sighed out loud.

“Nothing.” I shrugged

“You’re upset that we are not going to get to dance the couple dance at the beginning of the performance.” Even in the darkness of the backstage of the concert, somehow he could see. He could tell. His long slender fingers sprayed across my back, drawing reassuring circles. “You think it’s your fault.”

“Because it is. Can’t you see, Jongin ah? I just denied you another dance opportunity. A dance which YOU cheorographed, no less. It is tantamount to crushing your dream!” I threw my hands up in frustration.

“Kyungie, dancing isn't my dream" he said, kissing my forehead. "You are." As he pulled back, I saw it in the darkness. My life wasn’t how I planned it would be. It wasn’t even close. It was a thousand times better. Jongin never failed to make me laugh. I was attracted to his attraction for me: the way he was smiling right now for instance, or whenever he saw me, that goofy kind of grin that hijacks the face of the helplessly smitten.

And the VCR screen spilt open to reveal us standing there, with our arms around each other. Struggling to concentrate, I sang the starting sequence of The First Snow. And it felt great, even though there were no couple dances for us, it felt great to be standing on stage singing with his arms around me.

And even before I finished singing, Jongin gently pushed me on to the couch beside Xiumin. As his face turned slightly away from the camera, he gave me a little wink as if to say, rest that ankle. And I couldn’t help but grin inwardly.

Typical.

He had once promised me that money and fame wouldn’t change him, and he had been right. He still danced just as passionately and worked hard to give a good performance, but most importantly, he still looked at me like I was his whole world.

Like I always had been

And I always will be.

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Jongin's POV

2014 Countdown

We barely had any time to breath, let alone celebrate, simply going from schedule after schedule. This time it was the 2014 countdown.

We were all on stage, waiting for the time to come when we all start counting down. As usual, I was acutely aware of Kyungie who was standing a couple of people away from me, between Suho and Yeol. From the corner of my eye, I saw someone approach him. Immediately, reflex and alertness went on full activation mode as I craned my neck to get a better view of whoever it was, my entire body ready to spring forward.

Baek.

And I nearly rolled my eyes.

Playing childish games as usual, I thought as I watch him tease Kyungie from behind. I watched as Kyungie turned around to see who it was and Baek speed walking away. I felt, rather than saw, Baek stop right beside me.

Ah, I see what he was trying to do.

As Kyungie made his way towards Baek, Baek quickly walked over to take up Kyungie’s now vacant spot, partly to avoid Kyungie. But mainly so that he could stand beside Yeol.

As if I would give him that satisfaction.

I raised an arm to stop Kyungie in his tracks, with every intention to get him back to his spot so that Baek would not get to stand beside Yeol. But the minute his body came in contact with my arm, I almost couldn’t let go. I wanted him right where he was in, in my arsms, right next to me. The words I meant to say to him “Go back to where you were standing” got stuck at my throat. The grin on his face didn’t escape me either. He too was enjoying this skinship as much as I was. Before I could get a word out, Kyungie himself turned to return to his position and I relunctantly let him. I kept my arm on him for as long as I could, until I could no longer reach. Baek too relunctantly made his way back to his position beside me.

“10!”

Oh it was starting!

“9!” I joined in the count, shouting the number.

“8!”

I turned to my left and saw that Kyungie was staring at me. And at that moment, everything froze. It was silent and nothing moved. Only the two of us existed. Screw standing positions. Seemed like he thought the same thing because I made his way over to me and stopped right in front of him. I could not say if I loved him the first moment I saw him, or if it was the second or third or fourth. But I remembered the first moment I looked at him walking toward me and realized that somehow the rest of the world seemed to vanish when I was with him. Exactly how everything stopped as I watched him stopped right in front of me now. And at that moment, all I ever wanted to do was to grab him and plant a huge kiss on his gorgeous face.

The explosion of confetti jerked us out of our private world, reminding us exactly where we were. On stage. In front of a million audiences.

And we missed the countdown.

As confetti floated down around us, I couldn’t help but laugh. We had missed the sole highlight of this event. And yet…

And yet, there was no sense of regret. Instead the feeling that bubbled through my existence was sweet and wonderful at the same time. When I looked into his smiling eyes, I could see without a doubt that he loved me more than anyone else in the world, that I was his salvation, the same way that he was mine.

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A/N: Part 4 out of 4 - Baekyeol and Kaisoo

To all my lovely lovely readers