Kai’s brows crease as he looks at his surroundings. He is very sure he has never been to this part of Seoul—if he’s even in Seoul. He walks to the road where people are walking. It seems like he’s in a park. He watches the people doing random things—children playing, two girls playing frisbee, a man walking his dog, a family on a picnic, and a boy...a boy happily walking with his father. Kai does not understand it, but somehow, the sight of the man and the boy walking happily catches his attention. He follows them, watching in envy as they hold hands, swaying them happily as they walk.

He comes to a halt as he sees the man halt, causing the little boy with huge eyes look up at the man. Kai follows the man’s gaze and there, on the other side of the road, he sees a scrawny little boy trying to catch a red balloon floating in the air, unaware that he’s already walking on the pedestrian lane even when the traffic lights show red. Everything happened in slow motion, the surrounding suddenly mute, as Kai watches the man run towards the scrawny boy, leaving behind the little boy with huge doe eyes, lips quivering as he follows the man with his gaze. Kai can hear the sound of a car racing towards the scrawny boy at full speed.

And then he wakes up.

Kai’s eyes shoot open, his chest rising and falling rapidly with his inconsistent breathing.

That dream.

He hasn’t dreamt of that dream for years now. He can still remember some parts of it because he used to dream of that every night before he started working at the PolarLights House. It makes him wonder why he suddenly dreamt about it again. Why now?

Kai closes his eyes one more time, tightly this time as he tries to erase the dream. He doesn’t like that dream. He never could understand why he always used to dream about it. He’s not even sure if it’s a nightmare or a memory.

Stupid dream.

Kai opens his eyes again and it’s only then that he realizes something. There are silly-looking stars and meteor-like shaped things on his ceiling, and his ceiling looks too wide, and—this is not my ceiling.

Kai attempts to heave himself to sit up, but fails as pain shoots to every part of his body. He falls back to the bed with a groan. What the happened. He tries to look around; the room looks completely foreign, but doesn’t look dangerous at all due to the soft colors. Kai racks his brain for the last place he remembers being. He remembers getting stabbed and storming out of his boss’ office and—the convenience store.

He tries to move his hands but ends up flinching and pulling it away at the contact with another hand he is sure isn’t his. Wincing in pain, he moves his body in the least painful way he can to face the person beside him.

His brows knit together as he stares at the man with black hair and thick eye lashes, who is sleeping silently. The stranger looks smaller than Kai, he notes. Looking at the man whose head is resting on his folded arms, while his other hand is fisted rather adorably, Kai already knows that the stranger isn’t a threat to him. Or maybe it’s what he wants to believe—he doesn’t know. It’s as if he is being pulled towards the smaller man—Kai couldn’t rip his gaze from the sleeping man. It feels strange, Kai thinks. He doesn’t know the man—well he never really would, because he never look at people’s faces—but the sleeping man he sees now feels like someone he has known for quite some time. It’s confusing him.

“Ya, Kyungsoo, I told you not to leave your cheesy notebook just anywhere. People may read it and it’s embarrassing enough that a 23 years old man is writing poems that aren’t even coherent, what more if they read its contents and—“

The soft, yet loud enough voice from a man with small face and light blonde hair pulls Kai’s gaze from the sleeping man to the other standing halfway in the room. The skinny man stops on his tracks when he sees Kai is awake and is staring at the sleeping man with knitted brows. He looks at Kai with his huge eyes.

It’s then that the sleeping man stirs from his sleep, sitting up with his fisted right hand rubbing his closed eyes, and the other one running through his hair.

“Luhan, I told you to keep it down. You’ll wake him up.”

Luhan doesn’t answer as his eyes are locked on the man lying on the bed, who is staring intently at his best friend.

Kai tilts his head a little bit to the right as he stares at the man who just woke up. That voice. He knows that voice. He has never looked at face of the man who owns that voice. But he is very sure of who owns it.

Every Sunday morning. The man behind the cash register. That trembling voice.

Yawning, the now awoken man stretches his arms and Kai creases his brows. He wants to see those eyes—this person’s eyes.

As if on cue, the man’s eyelids flutter open, revealing huge eyes that have Kai’s stomach feeling weird, fluttering feelings in his stomach.  And then it happens.

Their eyes meet.

Kyungsoo’s eyes bulge out of its sockets and Kai’s usually angry eyes falter a bit as they meet those eyes. It feels like they are being pulled together by a magnet. Kai couldn’t look away, and neither can Kyungsoo.

“You’re awake.” Its Luhan’s voice that makes both of them look away. Kyungsoo stares down at his hands, fiddling with the hem of his sweater, a shade of crimson red spreading all over his face. Kai looks away, swallowing the lump in his throat.

Luhan stands behind Kyungsoo, hands automatically finding their way to rest on Kyungsoo’s shoulders.

The wounded man does not answer; instead, he tries to turn his body to the other side, only to hurt the wounded area on his stomach. He winces in pain. Kyungsoo immediately rises in panic, hands reaching to grab the man’s arms.

“Are you okay?” The concern in Kyungsoo’s voice is very apparent to Luhan. Kai only looks at Kyungsoo through his hair, which is covering most of his eyes. Kyungsoo immediately withdraws his hands as their eyes meet again.

“P-please d-don’t move too a-abruptly…your w-wound isn’t fully h-healed yet...” Kyungsoo whispers as his gaze goes back to his fiddling fingers. Luhan watches his best friend doing the exact same thing he does whenever he’s nervous. He gently places his hand on his best friend’s, squeezing it a bit.

Kai’s usually glaring eyes transfer from the smaller man to the other one.

“Where am I?”

Kyungsoo flinches and his heart jumps at the sound of the man talking. 2 years. It’s been 2 years since he first saw the man and this is the very first time he has heard his voice. It is deep, and calm, and scary, and at the same time sounds melodious like the sound of the calm water softly splashing against the shore. It is beautiful. Kyungsoo looks up at the man.

“You’re at Kyungsoo’s house. You fainted at the convenience store and we took you here to treat your wound.”

It is Luhan who answers, because all Kyungsoo is able to make is incomprehensible sounds. Kai stares at the man who answers him, then to the other one, who he supposes is Kyungsoo.

“For how long?”

Luhan takes a glance at his wrist watch before looking back up at Kai.

“Approximately twenty-two hours.”

Kai clenches his teeth as he closes his eyes. Damn it. He’s been out for too long.

“I need to go—“ Kyungsoo immediately wraps his hands around the wounded man’s right arm.

“Please—You’re still too weak to move around. I—We’ll take care of you for now until you can move on your own.”

Kai stares at the hands clasped around his arm. He does not understand why a complete stranger would want to help him—well not really completely to him because he’s always known that voice.

“Just stay here for a while until you gain back your strength. You’re still too weak. You lost too much blood when you…collapsed.”

Kai stays quiet. It’s not like he has a choice when he can’t even lift his head without pain shooting all over his body. The pain he didn’t feel after getting beat up is finally attacking him.

Kyungsoo is anticipating his answer, although he knows there won’t be anything coming out. Luhan clears his throat.

“Kyungsoo I…I’m going. Zelo’s already downstairs. I told him to look after the store for today also.”

Kyungsoo, unaware that he’s still holding the wounded man, looks up at his best friend and lets a smile grace his face.

 “Take care.”

“You too. Bye. ” Luhan ruffles his best friend’s hair.

“Bye.” Kyungsoo follows his best friend with his gaze as he walks out of the room, after placing his best friend’s leather notebook on top of the bedside table.

It takes less than 30 seconds for Kyungsoo to realize that he’s still holding onto the man, but it feels like forever for Kai, as the warmth of the hands clasped around his arm seeps through to him.

“I’m sorry,” comes the soft apology as he moves away from the man, quickly unclasping his hand from the other man’s.

Kai only looks at Kyungsoo, face empty of any expression, but his hidden eyes are full of confusion and questions that he dare not ask the other. He looks away to the window; the snow has started getting heavy.

“Y-you must be famished. I’ll get y-your f-food ready,” Kyungsoo stammers as he hesitantly turns around, worried that the man may not be there when he comes back.

+ + +

Kyungsoo gently places the tray of food on the bedside table. He swallows his saliva as he contemplates how he will feed the man.

“I-I brought you food…” Kyungsoo stammers, because he can never really talk properly in front of the man. He can’t even believe the presence of the man lying on his bed.

Kai looks at him, then to the tray of food. He looks away. He doesn’t want to eat. But he knows that he needs to, if he wants to gain back his strength and get out of this place. He cannot tolerate having others help him.

Wincing, Kai tries his best to sit up but cannot, and before he plops back to the bed, the other man’s hands once again clasp around his shoulders, holding him up as he helps him sit up. Kai’s brows knit at the same weird things happening in his stomach.

Kyungsoo’s eyes are huge, more huge than the usual, and there’s a shade of red on his cheeks that Kai thinks maybe because of the cold weather—even though the heater is on to heat the room.

Kyungsoo sits at the edge of the bed near Kai as he hands him the bowl of broth, hands shaking. He prays to God that the food he prepared tastes good, even though he already tasted the food so many times just to make sure it tastes good. Kyungsoo picks up the spoon and is about to scoop out broth when he hears that voice again.

“Let me.”

Just two words. It is short, but it has Kyungsoo’s heart ticking like a bomb that is about to explode.

He gently places the spoon on the tray table. With shaking hands, Kai picks up the spoon with all of the energy he has.

Kyungsoo moves out of the bed and sits on the chair next to it, making sure not to stare at the man, for he may feel uncomfortable with someone staring at him eating. It takes all his willpower not to.

The room is quiet. No one dares to talk. One man eats the broth prepared for him with shaking hands, trying to keep his ego intact. The other man sits quietly beside the bed, only standing up to help the man drink water from the glass he brought with him.

It is quiet, but both hearts flutter in sync. The wounded man feels confused at the strange sensation. The other blushes at it, nervously, but he does.

+ + +

That night, the wounded man stares at the smaller man who is currently changing the bandage around his waist. He is confused, both because of the man who is helping him and stayed with him all day, although they don’t know each other, and because he still has that strange feeling inside his stomach.

Kyungsoo’s pulse is racing at an abnormally fast pace because of the close contact with the other man,  because of his trembling fingers that make contact with the man’s skin as he changes the bandage, and because of the stares he’s receiving from that man.

There’s a blizzard outside. It’s noisy, but it can’t compare to the fast thumping sounds that Kyungsoo can hear his heart making. He swallows the lump in his throat, hoping that the sound of his pounding heart isn’t too loud for the wounded man to hear. He wishes the noise of the blizzard outside could cover it up.

But unknown to Kyungsoo, the man staring at him with his knitted brows also has a blizzard occurring in his heart.

And it confuses the wounded man.