The holiday season was no a cheerful one that year. For the whole first week JongHyun kept himself locked in his room, only coming out to use the rest room. Onew grew the habit of brining him some small meals, but more often than not he found that JongHyun had just drank the beverage he’d left with the meal and barely touched the food.

            He lazed about in his bed all day without speaking a word to anyone. The store was abuzz with activity as everyone came to buy last minute Christmas gifts and still no one came to disturb JongHyun. They let him stay in bed, not even pushing him to shower or even so much as change clothes. A rancid smell was now building up in JongHyun’s room and each time someone opened the door they had to hold their breath.

            Since that car ride back from the hospital JongHyun had just shut down. Like a robot. Because he had become mute essentially no one was able to ask him exactly what was wrong – although they knew it had something to do with TaeMin.

            All of this left Onew and Key in a very awkward position. Onew, being the oldest of the group, took it upon himself to stay cheerful and try to keep his chin up. It was the least he could do since Key still seemed a little distraught by his rejection. He was still faring better than JongHyun, though.

            In fact, right now he seemed quite content talking to a couple girls by the new make-up display. Happy – not annoyed or anything. Had this been the year before he would have been behind the counter flipping through the pages of a magazine.

            “Is this really the new Janie line?” the shorter of the two girls asked.

            Key nodded, pulling off one of his favourite liners from the shelf. He flipped it so that the label was clearly shown and smiled.

            “It is; we got it a few weeks ago,” he answered.

            “Is it any good? Her stuff is always so amazing!” the girl exclaimed.

            “Well, I use her stuff all the time and I can tell you that this is the best line yet. There are so many colour pallets…”

           Onew watched with admiration as Key started describing all the good qualities of the new make-up products. His mind drifted back to that day when he’d received the call from the police telling him that his store had been robbed. The whole train ride back from his home town he had beaten himself up for it. Had he not gone to visit his parents he could have been there to close the shop instead of Key and then that whole mishap could have been avoided…

            “Excuse me, how much does this cost?”

            The voice dragged Onew out of out of his thoughts. He gave the girl in front of him a big smile and told her the price. It wasn’t long before he had made the sale and was passing her the purchased item in one of their holiday specials bag.

            “Merry Christmas!” the girl called to him as she sped out the door.

            Was it Christmas already? Onew wondered. Everything had kind of happened so fast he wasn’t even sure. A quick look at his phone told him that today was indeed the twenty-fifth. Geez… He hadn’t even noticed.

            He waited for Key to finish with his customers before asking him to come over.

            “Yah! Key! Why didn’t you tell me it was Christmas?” he asked.

            Key gave him a disbelieving look (one that he had already grown familiar with) and said, “I thought you knew…”

            “Well, I didn’t… I don’t even have any gifts for anyone.”

            “Yah! Does that mean I wasted all that money on your gift for nothing?” Key asked.

            “How about this then? Pick anything you want from the store,” Onew suggested.

            “Anything?” Key’s face lit up at the prospects.

            Onew nodded, knowing Key was probably going to go straight towards the make-up display. Before he could even take a step towards anything, a creaking from the stairs distracted him. JongHyun cautiously moved down the stairs. He had shaved and showered by the looks of it, even having changed into a new pair of sweat pants. His hair still hung lifelessly without the gel but at least it was clean.

            In one hand JongHyun had a Christmas decorated bag which he placed on the counter. His actions were still a bit sluggish, showing that he wasn’t magically cured, but Onew was happy that he had at least stepped out of the apartment.

            “JongHyun,” Onew spoke first. Judging by the way Key was slowly edging towards him – away from the shorter male – he wasn’t ready to have a confrontation with JongHyun just yet.

            “I got you guy’s presents,” JongHyun said in his broken voice. “Merry Christmas…” He pulled out two small packages from the bag and handed each guy his respective present.

            Key took his gingerly in his hand, weighing it. Onew had already opened his and was asking JongHyun questions like, “Where in the world did you find a chicken key chain?”

           The wrapping job wasn’t perfect, but Key still found it a shame to rip through the silver and red striped paper. He decided to spare it the paper its pending harm and peeled the tape back gently, sliding out the box from its encasing. Automatically Key knew it was something a little more special than Onew’s key chain.

            A little silver design decorated the top – an unfamiliar logo to Key. He took the blue lid off the small box and was welcomed with the sight of white coloured foam padding with a silver band imbedded inside. He could tell just by the colouring that it wasn’t real silver, but that wasn’t what mattered to him in that moment. Sure, the ring was nice – beautiful even – but the empty slit above it where another ring should have been was what peeked his curiosity.

            He was prepared to ask JongHyun what that was about when a message scrawled in black marker across the inside of the lid caught his eye.

            I saw what you wrote in my notebook.

            His jaw fell and his eyes widened like saucers. Surely he couldn’t be talking about that silly note that he’d written in his pink notebook all that time ago. He had meant it as a joke, knowing JongHyun would never use the notebook but…

            “Yah, JongHyun, what do…” he trailed off when he saw his hyung slipping on his jacket. As his hand rose he caught a glimpse of a matching ring on JongHyun’s ring finger of his right hand. Key felt his jaw finally reach the floor and his stomach knotted into twists. That would make his gift… Couple’s rings…

             To make sure, Key wanted to ask only to see JongHyun heading towards the door.

            “Wait!” he yelled.

            JongHyun turned to look at Key, Onew as well.

            “Where are you going?”

            “The hospital… I-I… I owe TaeMin a visit…” JongHyun murmured, looking towards the floor again.

            “Can I come with you?” Key asked.

            The tiniest of smiles lifted up one corner of JongHyun’s mouth. Relief seemed to tinge the sadness in the kinks around his eyes. “Sure…” he answered.

            The smile that blew up on Key’s face lit up the whole store and the world beyond. Everyone one of his teeth flashed to the two boys in the store and the one customer that had just stepped in. Light radiated off him until he looked like an angel that had fallen out of the sky. He’d grabbed his jacket from the back room and put it on in less than five seconds and moved to JongHyun’s side.

            Onew glanced back and forth between his two employees with a creeping suspicion. His naiveté stopped him from figuring out what was happening right under his nose.

            “Let’s go!” Key chimed.

            Together the pair headed out by foot. It was going to be a lengthy walk – and in the cold no less – but JongHyun was thankful for that. It would give him the time he needed to have the much needed talk with Key.

            He embellished in the scenery for the first part of the walk. Quietly in his head JongHyun was trying to figure out where to begin with the speech that he had rehearsed several times since finding Key’s note.

            Finally, when they’d rounded the corner and started down a new street, the words came to him and he began by saying, “TaeMin’s dying…”

            Key’s head whipped around to stare at JongHyun in shock. Of all the things he had been listing in his head this was not one of them. It did provide that last missing piece of the puzzle corresponding to JongHyun’s depressive behaviour, though.

            “His body is basically failing him,” the older boy continued without waiting for an answer from Key. “His immune system has basically shut down and is unable to even produce white blood cells anymore… If he even gets a cold at this point it could kill him…” JongHyun whispered.

            “Hyung…” Key murmured. What else could he do when the other was springing this information on him?

            “Did you know that TaeMin had a boyfriend? His name’s MinHo…”

            “TaeMin was gay?”

            “Something like that… It kind of freaked me out when he told me, to be honest… I mean, I’ve known him since we were in diapers so you can understand how it’d be surprising, right?”

            “Yeah, I guess it could come as quite a shock… When I told Onew hyung he fell into a lake…”

            JongHyun chuckled at this, letting out a hardy puff of white air afterwards. He glanced up the clear blue sky before continuing. “I never thought I was like that… I never thought I’d be a person to like men… You know, I just thought I was a normal boy… And then…”

            “And then?” Key urged, nearly exploding from the strength of his anxiousness.

            “And then I met a moody, loud, ambitious, and quirky guy who left an awful special message in my notebook…”

            “Hmm… He sounds like a real annoying guy,” Key joked.

            “He’s actually pretty cool… He’s very nice… And smart and he’s got some amazing eyes… But he’s lucky. I would have never found that note of his if I hadn’t thrown my bag against a wall.”

            “Did you like his note?”

            “It got me thinking… I may not be what I always thought I was… When I was talking to TaeMin about MinHo once, he said that he didn’t know if he was gay, he just knew that he really liked MinHo… I guess I might be like that, too. I know that I’m not gay, but I also know that I can’t stop thinking about you. Even when we were in the hospital I couldn’t get you out of my head.”

            “Hyung…” Key’s face flushed red at his words. He had a general idea of where this conversation was going, though he didn’t want to get his hopes up in case he was totally misjudging the situation.

            “Anyways, I really just wanted to say…” JongHyun took a deep break, unable to believe that he was actually doing this. It was the one thing he never thought he’d do in a million years. “I think I might like you… Not like a brother, but like two married people would like each other.” JongHyun grinned slightly at Key who was finding it hard to keep himself from running up and down the street and squealing in joy.

            “What does that mean, besides your indirect teasing?” Key asked.

            “I think it means this…” JongHyun whispered. His gloved hand slid out of his coat pocket and moulded with Key’s fingers.

            Ten thousand butterflies erupted into flight all at the same time inside of Key’s chest. He felt his eyes widen and once again he stuttered out an embarrassing, “H-hyung…”

            “Don’t expect things to move fast, though, okay? This is still all very new to me…” JongHyun warned.

            “Okay,” Key agreed. He tightened his fingers around JongHyun and suppressed a squeal.

            He wished someone could pinch him, that way he could make sure that this wasn’t a dream.