Sungyeol was never good with drunk people, or socializing, so he had no clue why he had even come to the party.

It was probably because Woohyun was too damn convincing and Sungyeol was unable to say no to his best friend.

It was a Christmas Eve bash, thrown by one of Woohyun’s other friends, which there were a lot of because he was a social butterfly. Sungyeol, on the other hand was the opposite of social and he was only friends with Woohyun because they had been friends before the older got popular and handsome.

Sungyeol felt out of place in the mess of writhing bodies and the heavy stench of liquor in the air. He always thought Christmas Eve should be a quiet time, a night spent in preparation for the next day's presents and family dinners. But since his parents thought he needed to be more outgoing, and because Woohyun was very good at making everything illegal sound legal, he was forced to go.

Woohyun disappeared within about five minutes, dragged away by his acquaintances and Sungyeol was left in the corner with no one to talk to and no desire to drink alcohol. There was a table with snacks and punch, but he didn't dare approach it after seeing a group of drunk party-goers dribbling their drinks over the pretzels and laughing.

Sungyeol realized quickly that this was pointless and that Woohyun was a terrible, terrible person for dragging him here, and he left out the front door, squeezing past a couple who were engaged in a heated kiss.

Unfortunately, it had snowed the day before and the temperature was still rather frigid, so Sungyeol had to resign himself to shivering against the outside walls of the pulsating house. He could see his breath frosting in the air and his nose began to feel numb.

He wondered if he could just start walking home, but then realized he wasn't sure how to do that.

There was some high giggling that startled him out of his daze (one filled with watching breath clouds and trying to make them change shape) and he looked to his right to see someone playing in the snow.

Sungyeol was almost positive that the boy hadn't been there before, but he couldn't have just appeared out of thin air.

He watched the stranger laugh and draw in the snow with bare fingers. His hair was the color of sand and it flopped all over his eyes. His cheeks were flushed with a pink that seemed to come from the cold, which wasn't an unreasonable guess, because it was definitely cold.

But what struck Sungyeol the most was that his arms were void of clothing, his thin body only covered in only a bleached t-shirt and a pair of white shorts.

He decided that this person must have escaped from a mental facility or something, especially since, just then, he lay back and began to flap his arms and legs, forming an angel in the shallow snow.

Sungyeol was a little worried and he approached the stranger slowly. "Are you alright?" he asked, his eyebrows furrowing.

The boy looked up and his bright brown eyes were smiling. "Of course I'm alright. I just get a little drunk around the holidays, you know?"

Sungyeol nodded, wincing to himself. Drunk people were difficult to deal with. They didn't see reason. "Don't you want to go inside? It's warmer in there."

The boy shook his head. "I like it out here. If I go inside, I'll probably melt."

Now that was a strange thing to say, because melting inside was surely better than getting frostbite outside, wasn't it? And it wasn't like he was the Wicked Witch of the West or anything, he was just a teenager like Sungyeol.

"But if you stay out here, you'll get hypothermia, or frostbite, or something that could kill you," he tried to reason.

"I won't get sick," the boy slurred, laying back down inside his snow angel. "Besides, the snow is really pretty, isn't it? I wouldn't want to miss looking at it before it's gone."

Sungyeol crouched next to the boy, careful not to get his pants covered in snow, and looked down the side of the house, to the backyard covered in a blanket made of powder. It was untouched by boots or gloves and it shone in the moonlight, almost glowing.

But the snow would last for the rest of winter, it would last until the temperatures warmed up and the snow turned to water. "The snow isn't going to go away overnight," Sungyeol said. "It'll still be here tomorrow and the next day and the next day."

The stranger laughed. "But that snow will be different snow."

Sungyeol didn't understand. "No it won't. It's the same snow, and it will be until it melts."

"But the snow will never look the same as it does right now, with your boot tracks and my angel and those bunny prints, and the full moon making everything sparkle. The sparkle is beautiful."

Sungyeol had to agree with that. It looked almost like a white sea, shimmering in the sun's light. Except it was night time and the snow was cold and pompous, instead of cool and inviting.

Then he remembered. "You should go inside," he said again, having forgotten for a bit that the boy next to him was fairly tipsy and extremely underdressed.

"Nah," the boy waved a lazy hand. "I told you I'll melt. I have to leave, anyway. My hour is almost up."

"Your hour?" Sungyeol questioned. This was just getting stranger and stranger.

The stranger nodded, his eyes closing. "The snow isn't soft and fluffy anymore. It's getting too cold for that."

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"Everything," the stranger slurred. "I'll see you later. Look after my rum hot chocolate, will you?"

Sungyeol looked down and saw a steaming cup he was sure hadn't been there before either. He lifted it to his nose and sniffed it, recoiling when he smelled the heady scent of chocolate and hard liquor. This must have been what the boy was drinking.

But how was it still warm?

"What do I do with it?" he asked, puzzled, looking over to the boy.

Except he wasn't there anymore and all that was left was a shallow snow angel.

The front door opened just then and someone called his name.

"Sungyeol, what are you doing out here, man?" he heard Woohyun say and he looked up to his friend, the mug of gross cocoa still in his hand.

His friend looked at him strangely, which probably wasn't uncalled for, because he was sitting on his next to a haphazard snow angel, with a bright white mug in his hand.

"Dude, are you drunk?" Woohyun asked. "Get inside, it's ing freezing out here. What were you doing, making snow angels?"

"Something like that," he muttered.

And then he went inside, leaving behind the smooshed snow and whatever semblance of sane-ness he thought he had possessed.

~

The next time it snowed, Sungyeol was a little scared to go outside. He still hadn't gotten over meeting the person who played in the snow and drank steaming rum.

Sungyeol hadn't bothered to tell Woohyun anything about it, because there was no doubt his friend would end up laughing at him and calling him a fool. People couldn't disappear, and people didn't talk about the snow like it had a personality (unless they were really high on something, or had decided to be a super deep poet).

He finally did leave the house when his mom told him to go to the drugstore and pick up some Band-Aids because his brother had fallen and hurt himself again, like he always did.

The snow this time wasn't fluffy, it was the wet kind that stuck to everything and made the roads slushy. His mother always hated driving in this kind of weather, complaining that it was dangerous. Even so, that didn't mean he had to be the one to go out instead.

The snow wasn't pure and beautiful now. Instead, the snowbanks were covered in brown and grey from an excess of sand and salt on the roads.

He got to the drugstore without any incident, without meeting anyone making snow angels and drinking their cares away.

But as he was leaving (having bought a box of hello kitty bandages, just to irk his brother), there was giggling. It wasn't as high pitched as the other boy's had been, this time it was more low, but also rather unattractive-sounding. He looked around for the source of the sound and found it in a snowbank on the side of the sidewalk.

There was a man in bright white clothes, sitting covered in dingy snow and waving his arms and legs and pulling more ice over himself. He looked almost as if he was taking a bath in it, the snow coating his pink hair in clumps. There was a bottle of scotch sticking out of the snowbank beside his head and Sungyeol decided he wanted nothing to do with this guy either.

Why did he have to keep running into the drunks, anyway? Why him?

But he should do something, shouldn't he?

"Um, excuse me?" he prompted, and the man looked up, his smile blindingly happy.

"Hellooo~" he slurred and bent his arm at an inhuman angle to pull the bottle of liquor from its snow-holder. "Want some?" he asked, holding it out with an unsteady hand.

Sungyeol made a face. "No, thank you. But aren't you cold? You should probably get out of the snow bank. There's chemicals in there, and dogs like to pee on it."

"I know~" the man sang, smiling more before taking a large swig of his scotch and burping. "But, I've only got one life, you know? And I won't be here once the snow turns all pretty and sparkly again, so why not enjoy it?"

Now that sounded rather depressing. Maybe he was one of those people who only had a few days left to live, so he was doing everything he could. But if anything, sitting and drinking in a dirty snow bank was going to kill him faster.

"I think it's going to snow again, sir, and staying in there isn't going to do you any good," Sungyeol cautioned. "So how about you get out and go to a clinic somewhere for treatment?"

"Nah," the man slurred. "I'm fine here. Wonnie's coming through soon, anyway. Hey, you wouldn't mind watching my scotch, would you?"

His eyes were crescents as he held out the glass bottle.

Sungyeol took it hesitantly, afraid it might blow up or something. There was no way he would hold it for more than a few seconds. But he was surprised to find that it was warm in his hand, and when he sniffed at it, it smelled of warm apple cider and the stink of liquor.

He winced and set it down on the wet sidewalk, looking back to the snowbank.

But there was no one there, only a dip where the man had been and a bunch of the ice balls displaced.

He looked around, puzzled, then decided it was best to leave as quickly as possible.

And as he ran home, it began to snow big, fat, wet flakes.

~

He was taking the dog out to do her business in the backyard when he met the next strange, drunk person.

Their dog had been doing her pee dance in front of the back door for a few minutes when his father told him to take her outside. Apparently he was the only one doing nothing of consequence (Sims 3 was definitely something of consequence, they just didn't understand that), and therefore was put on doggie poopy duty.

She sniffed at everything and Sungyeol stood miserably in the falling snow, his toes getting frozen and soaked in the sloppy snow. It seeped into his boots coated his hair and he just wanted to return inside.

"Ah~ This is the life," a voice suddenly said and Sungyeol jumped out of his skin.

He turned around slowly, a little afraid, and hoping it wasn't going to be one of the same people he had been meeting everywhere.

But his hopes were crushed when, there in the snow, he saw a guy sitting in a snow chair with sunglasses across his eyes. This guy was shirtless, his jaw square and he held a squirt gun in one hand and a to-go coffee cup in the other.

The man seemed to be bobbing his head to an unheard tune and Sungyeol groaned because the only people who acted like that were either drunk or insane and neither were good. He was beginning to see a pattern here, with all these strange guys, and he was almost eighty percent sure that the beverage clutched in the man's hand was spiked.

"Let me guess," he said. "You're not cold either?"

The guy looked up at him through his shades. "'Course not, man. It's stylin' out here."

Sungyeol wasn't exactly sure what that was supposed to mean. He had never heard of the weather being called 'stylin''. It was usually a term utilized to refer to parties or clothing, the latter of which this man was lacking greatly.

The dog at his side whined a bit and then yipped at the stranger in the snow. Her tail wagged and her tongue poked out of her little mouth and Sungyeol looked down at her as if she was insane, which she probably was.

"Cute pooch," the man said, leaning back on his snow chair. He took a sip of his drink and then breathed out a cloud of stinking air. Yup, that was definitely alcohol. "Now, if you don't mind, I don't have much time here. It's getting a little bit colder and I'd like to enjoy my time in your backyard. It's nice."

Sungyeol made a face, but turned to go inside regardless. He was done out here and this guy was just freaking him out too.

"Oh, and you wouldn't mind throwing away my cup, though, right?" the stranger asked and when Sungyeol turned back, the empty cup was thrown to him. He scrambled and caught it with numb fingers.

He sniffed it curiously, shifting through the wet snow to the back door. It smelled like a vanilla latte spiked with whiskey. He crinkled his nose and chucked it into the trash can they put dog waste in outside.

When Sungyeol was back in the warmth of the house, he looked back through the window as he took off his snow-covered boots, a surge of curiosity filling him.

The man was gone, and so was his snow chair.

The temperature dropped four degrees that night.

~

When Sungyeol was forced to go out two days later, he slipped on some ice and fell.

The winter was colder now and vacation was racing closer and closer to being finished. He was dreading going back to school and almost would have agreed to meet another weirdo if that would exempt him from the first day back (which was still four days away, but it might as well be tomorrow, considering how fast the time was going).

He regretted that thought a second later when he sat up from his fall and saw a guy sitting there wearing head to toe white.

Sungyeol shook his head. There was no way this was going to happen again. He was done with drunk people who sat in subzero weather as if it was tropical and liked to freak the hell out of him.

"Ice is just so wonderful, isn't it?" the guy said cooly, his face flushed. In his right hand, he waved an uncapped black thermos that was steaming into the frigid air. "I can look at my reflection alllllll dayyyyy~"

Sungyeol groaned. "Can we just get this over with? What do you want from me?"

The stranger was staring at his reflection in the ice under him. "Appreciate my visuals," he said. "I'm so pretty."

All the other strangers had asked him to take their drinks and he just wanted to get to that part so he could leave and get some ice melt before his mom kicked his for taking too long. "Yeah, you're beautiful. Can I leave?"

Sungyeol wondered why he was asking, because he was a free person. He could do what he liked.

"Suuuure~" the man cooed, taking a large gulp from his drink. "Just take my drink for a second. And don't drink it. I paid a lot for that."

Sungyeol sighed and rolled his eyes before reaching out a hand and accepting the shiny thermos. The steam smelled like a gin cappuccino that had lost its foam (because there was no foam on the top, it was only a dark liquid).

It was rather disgusting, but he was, admittedly, getting used to the smell of the liquor.

He set down the thermos gingerly and looked up to see the stranger had disappeared and left him alone.

He got off his and hobbled away to the hardware store for ice melt.

When he came back, the thermos was gone too.

~

There was a storm the next day and the winds whipped everywhere. The weather report gave a hail warning that morning, and sure enough, by the time afternoon came, there were pellets raining at the windows and no one was outside.

Sungyeol was in his room, sitting and staring out the window at the storm. He watched the white currents swirl and dip and it was mesmerizing, almost like a dance.

There was tapping on the glass suddenly and Sungyeol pulled back, only to come face to face with a smiling stranger through the glass.

He jumped about five feet in the air, before realizing that this had to be another of those weird drunks he kept seeing. The pattern fit, for he was wearing a white wife beater and some sweat pants and while the hail kept on hitting him, he didn't flinch. His eyes disappeared when he smiled and his breath was fogging up the storm window.

Sungyeol had his bedroom on the first floor and this was probably the first time he regretted that, because before he saw it as wonderful; he could sneak out and go to the movies by himself at night and pretend to be a rebellious teen. But now, there was a creepy guy staring at him and the creepy guy was, unfortunately, able to stand on the ground to do it.

The guy with the small eyes tapped on the glass again and motioned for him to open the window.

Sungyeol really didn't want to open the window. It was cold out there, and in general, allowing a stranger access to his room wasn't a good idea.

But he did, and he didn't know why he did it. It was really only open a crack, enough to talk through but definitely not enough for someone to squeeze through.

"What do you want?" he asked the smiling man, his face pressed against the window.

"Isn't this weather lovely?" he beamed and Sungyeol coughed at the smell of bourbon and a heady mocha on his breath.

"No, it's freezing," he replied.

"Exactly," the crazy man said. "Say, could I ask a favor?"

Sungyeol was whining and kicking and tantruming on the inside. "Fine."

"Would you take this for me?" the man asked and leaned down to pick something off the ground. It was a reusable starbucks coffee cup and it smelled the same as its owners breath; mocha and bourbon.

Sungyeol sighed. "Sure."

The man smiled once more, setting the cup on the ledge outside. He bent down, presumably to tie his shoe or something, but he never popped back up.

And when Sungyeol stuck his head farther out his window to check, all he saw were two bare footprints.

~

Sungyeol went back to school, glad to have the craziness of vacation over with and hoping that he could just forget the strange people he had met over the course of the few days he was gone.

"Hey, Yeol!" Woohyun shouted, jumping up behind Sungyeol. They were in the same homeroom and Woohyun liked to talk with (or bother) him before school officially started. "How'd your vacation go? Did your parents ground you?"

Sungyeol glanced up at him. "No, they didn't. I told you I hadn't been drinking, someone else had."

Woohyun snorted. "There was no one else out there. Unless he disappeared into thin air, I still think you had been drinking."

Sungyeol was kind of annoyed that his friend didn't believe him. There was no way that the boy had been a drunken illusion; or the other four drunk men he had met over the course of the week. They were strange, yes, supernatural, most probably, but not illusions.

He turned away, figuring that it was probably best that he was back in school. He wouldn't have to see any of the unreal guys again. The snow would melt soon and they would all be a far-off memory.

~

It was the weekend, the one right after he suffered through a week of school, and Sungyeol wasn't expecting to see anything out of the ordinary.

But it began snowing on Saturday morning, and by noon the ground was covered in a layer of soft, fluffy powder. Sungyeol was just going to go out for some hot chocolate and maybe stop by a drugstore on the way back to get a candy bar for his insatiable candy hog of a brother.

However, it seemed as if life had other plans, because the second he stepped outside, he heard giggling again.

"Helloooo~" a voice called and Sungyeol looked over with his best disappointed face. There, sitting in the snow on the front lawn, was the boy. He had a tshirt and shorts, he had sand-colored hair that flopped in his eyes, he had a cup of hot chocolate and rum beside him.

And Sungyeol realized that he had missed this.

"Aren't you going to freeze?" Sungyeol asked.

The boy shook his head. "You already asked me that. I'll be fine. I like the snow."

"Yes, and you also seem to like liquor."

The boy hiccuped. "Of course. Who doesn't? Rum and hot chocolate are my favorite things, so I put them together. And I can watch the snow. Snow is also one of my favorite things. It's so fluffy and sparkly right now."

Sungyeol crouched down and then looked at the boy, who met his eyes with a drunken happiness.

"Would you like a drink?" he asked. Sungyeol was in the process of shaking his head when the boy added, "It doesn't have to be this one. It can be anything. Anything that will make you the same as me."

Sungyeol was confused. "What do you mean?"

The boy pouted. "Name your poison."

"I don't drink."

"No? What's your favorite cafe drink?"

"Americano," Sungyeol said without hesitation. "What's that got to do with anything?"

"Everything," the boy said with a twinkle in his eye.

~

Sungyeol liked Americanos. Sungyeol also liked beer.

He combined the two and drank with Sungjong.

Sungjong liked hot chocolate and rum.

Together, they brought about quite a snowstorm.

---

StarlightSpirit: I love this! It wasn't too flufy it was just so slice of life and real! So fantastically written! Fantastic! Thank you :)

---