The first time I saw him was during a quiet day when all you could hear was the falling of snow. January can be a very in between month for most people. It’s the beginning of a new year. Some people shed the past and strive towards the future and others dig deeper into their old habits. I had not decided which to settle into yet. Little tuffs of snow blew up as I watched my boots dominate the new snow. It was light and wouldn’t settle either. I decided that I was not going to make a decision yet.

I lifted my head to change direction when a dark figure appeared around the bend of road I had been walking down. His head was raised up, as if he was studying the bare trees with their new coating of frosting sugar. The purse of his lips indicated to me that he was not really looking at what was in front of him, but sifting through memories. His eyes and serious nature at that moment attracted me like a mysterious black and white photo. I felt compelled to know his story.

Then his eyes slid and met my own and one of his eyebrows quirked and he smiled this care-free smile and I felt my breath leave my chest. I was suffocating; it was like he literally stole the air from my lips.

“Do I have something on my face?” He asked, pointing a finger at his cheek. I followed the knuckle to the sharp cheekbones that were accompanied by cheeks that enticed me to pinch them.

I shook my head, unable to shake the way my heart had felt so heavy at his intense thoughts. “What were you thinking about a few minutes ago?”

“Nothing on my face?” He asked again and I laughed. “No, why?”

“Because otherwise why would you be staring at me so intently?” He wondered and shook his head in bewilderment.

I pressed forward, looking for answers. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” There had to be a reason as to why I was pulled to this guy.

“You don’t remember me? I used to live here with my grandmother. My dad got a job and we moved away. I’m back now because I want to help my grandmother.”

I tried to think back to when I was young and I faintly remembered a chubby cheeked neighbour but he had mysteriously left eventually and I just pegged it as an old dream that I had remembered not a memory.  “Shu-Shu…” It seemed to be at the type of my tongue yet not.

“Xiumin!” Xiumin laughed at his name. “I haven’t heard that in a long time! That was your nickname for me. Minseok, my real name is Minseok!” He wouldn’t stop laughing and I began to get impatient.

“Xiumin sounds better,” I insisted. “Now what were you—” I was cut short as a cloud of snow hit my chest in the pretense of a snowball. Nothing moved for a while until some snow fell from a branch to the ground and that made us both jump. “Did you really just throw a snowball at me?”

Xiumin shrugged his shoulders but he was grinning. “It’s better than answering your questions.”

“Fine,” I said primly. “If you didn’t want to tell me, why didn’t you say in the first place? I’m sorry I bothered you.” I spun around promptly, forgetting about my idea to go into town and get some donuts and hot chocolate.

Xiumin grabbed my arm before I could get two steps away from him. “The answer is boring. I promise you.” His eyes pleaded me to stop asking a question he clearly didn’t want to answer.

“You owe me then,” I stubbornly held onto my anger for a bit longer.

“Sure, sure,” Xiumin agreed readily. It made sense to me that he was laid back. He just wouldn’t stop grinning.

That started our new habit. I would go for a walk sometime after supper and Xiumin would meet me halfway and we would take a walk. Xiumin never really talked about himself. Oh he never shut up but he wasn’t giving me any personal stories. He was always telling stories that ended into a punch line of a joke. He was all giggles and I was pretty sure he was trying as hard as he could to keep that original serious thought out of his head.

Xiumin would catch me staring at him and he would laugh. “I feel like you’re trying to go through my thoughts!” He would accuse and the next day I saw him with a beanie on his head. “This is my protection,” He informed me, tugging the hat down further on his head but still not completely covering his ears.

“Are you trying to say that I’m talking your ears off?” I chuckled darkly, cracking knuckles. “You do remember that I used to make you eat sandwiches made in the sandbox?”

“Hey now! We’ve grown up now. No need to bully anyone,” Xiumin pleaded with me. I jumped him and Xiumin’s reaction was to whip me over his hip and my back hit the ground within a typhoon off a snow bank. “I’m sorry, my mom made me take self defense classes when we moved!”

“Self defense?” I lifted my head to meet his gaze. “Because a girl beat you up once!?” I tried to hold it in but my laughter still filed past my cupped fingers.

Xiumin’s eyes narrowed at me but he hadn’t lost his wide grin. He bent down and pulled me up quickly from the ground in one swift motion. My eyes grew wider as I realized how close we were. “Since I’m the stronger one now, should we see what I would do?” His eyes flickered to my lips and I instantly pushed them inwards.

 Xiumin stared at me for a while and I realized that he had gotten back that serious and contemplative look on his face. “Do you really want to know what I was thinking that first day that I was back?”

“Of course. If you get it off your chest, you’re probably going to feel better,” I said, convinced I was right.

“My parents died a year ago,” he said bluntly. Xiumin stared at me, gaging my reaction. When he didn’t see the normal pity in my eyes he continued. “The soft falling snow in the trees always reminds me when I was a kid, living with my parents here. I missed this place. I thought of you and wondered if you were still here too.”

“What could a little girl who used to push your face in the sand offer you?” I laughed, condensation dripping in my voice. I had hated that little girl who pushed everyone away. Now I remembered clearly. Xiumin had been the only kid to take my bullying, just so he could enjoy the moments when I got bored of hurting him and we genuinely played.

Xiumin allowed some of the sorrow he was feeling to show in his eyes, like bleak white flags begging for mercy. “You’re the last one left. My parents are dead. My grandmother has failing health. You’re the only familiar person left to me on earth. No matter how cold or unforgiving you are to me, I feel the need to be near you.”

“Softie,” I snarled at myself, feeling the need to wipe away a tear that was pricking my eye.

Xiumin’s face softened away from his grief stricken thoughts and pushed my hair behind my ear. “Are the snowflakes melting in your eye again?”

I laughed quietly, remembering my common excuse for getting hurt, depending on the season of course. “I’m not a kid anymore. I can admit if I’m hurt.”

“You? I’m the hurt one, remember. You should be wiping my tears away,” Xiumin said through the saddest but sweetest smile I had ever seen in my entire life. I felt that same steal-the-breath-from-me feeling and decided to close the distance between us with a kiss.

I pulled back from the kiss, not sure of its reception. Xiumin looked thoughtful and then he said flippantly, “Well, that’s a bit better.”

Instead of splitting ways, that evening our arms stayed entwined around each other’s waist. Our footsteps left temporary marks in the snow that a simple breeze could wipe away; that moment that we had been on the same level and I could feel Xiumin’s breathe on my cheek. That moment was easily brushed aside by the weather, like the tear that could disappear from a simple touch. But the memory of that cold January day when Xiumin confessed I was the only person he wanted in his life has never left me.