Kai blows out a breath, heart pounding against his chest as he completes a final spin, the roar of the crowd around him mind-blowingly loud.

            Everything is bright, loud, neon-lights, bass-pumping, familiar.

         Kai feels at home here, among the crowds, among the sea of faces of bright eyes and sparkling piercings, red lipstick, beaten-up sneakers, dark eyeshadow, snapbacks.

            And the fact that he can glance to one side and meet Yixing’s telltale smirk, or look over to the other side and meet Sehun’s shy gaze, only makes Kai feel more rooted to this place, more grounded than he has felt in the past week.

            Getting a phone call from a friend you haven’t spoken to in two years, a friend that you were inseperable from until you ran away from home, tends to push you over the edge a little bit.

            Sun-hee had always been the sister Kai had never had.

            The two had been together since infancy, growing up together, bonding over scraped knees and shared lunches when they were younger, and then over broken hearts and music and overbearing schoolwork in high school.

            And then, after Kai’s father had disowned him, and Kai had left for New York City, Sun-hee had called and called and called, Kai’s phone ringing at three in the morning and nine at night and anytime in between.

            Sun-hee had pleaded with Kai to come home, to come back because, “I’ll take care of you. You can stay with me. Please, don’t do this.”

            Don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this.

            Kai had argued with himself for countless days, hours, seconds.

            “Go home,” his heart had screamed at him.

            “Stay here, where it’s safe,” his brain had warned, and his pride had agreed, although for different reasons.

            After awhile, Kai had grown tired of arguing with Sun-hee, of letting his heart break every time he answered the phone and heard her voice asking him to come home instead of his father’s.

            His mother had called too, just as many times as Sun-hee, asking him to reconcile with his father, that everyone was blowing everything out of proportion, that his father missed him, that she missed him, that she loved him.

            But Kai was stubborn.

            And soon, he had stopped answering Sun-hee’s calls, had stopped trying to convince his mother that it was his father’s stubbornness, not his own, that kept him in New York.

            And Sun-hee had stopped calling.

            And, eventually, his mother had stopped calling as well, Kai feeling guilt and anger rip at his chest until he couldn’t breathe as he ignored call after call, message after message.

            That was when the loneliness had been at its worst.

            That was when Kai had spent mornings and afternoons and nights in bed, trying to remember why he had left South Korea in the first place, why he was putting himself through this hell.

            And then Kai had met Yixing, had met Kris, and things seemed a little less broken.

            Especially when Kai got to dance again.

            And then, after a year had passed in New York, Kai had picked up the phone and called his mother, had cried after he had spoken to her, mostly about trivial things, the weather and random relatives’ birthday parties that he had missed and how much takeout Kai ate.

            He talked to his mother every few months from then on, but he never called Sun-hee.

            And he had never heard from his father in the three years since Kai had left home.

            But now, now when Kai has finally started to feel the most put-together that he has in a long time, Sun-hee has decided to bring pain back into his life.

“I’ve missed you.”

            “Wha-,” Kai had started to say, clenching the phone tighter in his hand until the edge had been digging into his skin.

            “Just hear me out, okay? I’m not going to try to ask you to come home. I just wanted to hear your voice again,” Sun-hee had said, sounding far older than a twenty-year old had the right to feel.

            “Okay,” Kai had responded.

“Kai.”

            Yixing’s voice breaks through Kai’s thoughts, and the latter glances up to see Yixing’s worried eyes wandering over his face.

            Sehun is standing next to him, frown evident from the way his eyebrows tug downwards, eyes searching Kai’s face as equally hard.

            “Are you okay?” Yixing asks, sweat beading along his collarbones, sweatpants hanging low on his narrow hips, the fluorescent lights someone has hauled out to light up the street they’re in throwing everything into sharp contrast.

            Kai nods, running a hand through his hair and wincing when it comes back covered in cold sweat.

            “Yeah,” he answers, pushing Sun-hee to the back of his mind. “I’m just gross. As soon as we hear our names as the winners, I’m running home so that I can shower.”

            Yixing grins, seemingly convinced with Kai’s answer, and tugs at the collar of his shirt, complaining about having to dance outside when it’s still cold enough to have to wear a sweatshirt.

            The second dance battle’s venue is an abandoned street several blocks away from Kai’s and Yixing’s apartments, flood lights set up to illuminate the dancing stage, judges milling about in the crowd that pushes through the space like the tide.

            And the temperature has decided to stay at near freezing, everyone’s breaths fogging in the air and dancers wrapped in sweatshirts with layers under their performance clothes.

            Sehun, Kai notes as he steps closer to his boyfriend, looks warm, with black gloves with skeleton fingers painted on them over his hands, an oversized hoodie of Kai’s hanging over his slender frame, and a snapback fit snugly over his rainbow hair.

            Sehun reaches out and laces their fingers together, smiling at Kai, who grins back and leans over to peck Sehun on the cheek quickly.

            “This,” Kai tells himself in his head, “this is what you should be focusing on. The present. Now.”

            And yet, even as one of the judges jumps up onto the stage and yells out, “EXO!” as the winner, and even as Yixing throws himself onto Kai and Sehun, the three of them tangled together in a giant group hug, and even as Kai shouts and smiles and celebrates along with everyone else, the same voice and the same words keep replaying inside his head.

            “I’ve missed you.”

Kris shivers, sticking his hands into his coat pockets to keep them warm as he steps outside.

            It’s snowed overnight, the front steps leading into Kris’s apartment building covered in white, a layer of ice probably just underneath, and Kris steps carefully, brows furrowed in concentration.

            The walk to work is uneventful, early work commuters like himself moving past, footsteps muffled in the snow, breaths muffled by scarves, the usual noises of the city seemingly pushed down but still thrumming under a blanket of cold.

            As Kris walks, the streetlights lighting up his path because the sun still hasn’t come up yet, he goes through a mental checklist of things to do that day at the store, all other thoughts pushed to the back of his mind.

            Which is probably a good thing considering the only thing that Kris has been thinking about over the weekend is how bad he had felt after Chanyeol had left that day last week after meeting Ginger.

            There had been relief, of course, on Kris’s part, a certain lightness knowing that his plan had worked.

            But he had also felt something close to guilt rest close to his heart.

            And not because he thought he owed Chanyeol anything; they didn’t even know each other that well. But because Kris felt bad for lying, for deceiving him, and because Chanyeol had always been a gentleman, asking Kris questions that weren’t too prying, not invasive at all actually.

            They were regular questions, normal questions about Kris’s day and his favorite drink on the menu and whether he had taken a lunch break yet.

            Questions that were so different from the ones he had forced himself through in the past.

            So lying directly to Chanyeol’s face, watching it close down like that, had left a bad taste in Kris’s mouth.

            But Kris had refused to acknowledge the feeling, had refused to think about it more than he already was because it was driving him crazy.

            Instead, Kris had focused on some errands he had to get done over the weekend, and now here he is, back to work as if nothing ever happened.

            Only, when Kris finally reaches work, there’s a familiar figure waiting outside, huddled against the wind, and Kris pauses, confused.

            And the first thing that Ginger says to him when Kris gets within hearing range is, “You’re going to explain what that was all about last week.”

            Kris supposes he should have been expecting this.

            He’s been avoiding Ginger ever since then, ignoring her calls and making sure she’s not around when he leaves his apartment.

            Kris blows out a breath, giving up on not thinking about Chanyeol and not even thinking about lying to Ginger because she would find out, and fumbles with his keys.

            “Fine,” he says to Ginger, whose mouth and nose is completely covered by a gigantic red scarf, “but I’ll explain later today, during my lunch break. I need to get some things prepared before it’s opening time. Come back then.”

Sehun takes one headphone out of his ear, giving the boy behind the counter his order quickly before moving over to make room for the next customer.

            It’s finally winter break, and Sehun’s off for a whole four weeks, a welcome reprieve from the mind-numbing crush of school.

            Kai had left earlier that morning for work, bundled up in about five different layers of clothes because the city has had its first snowfall of the year, so Sehun had decided to go out himself, his camera resting against his chest reassuringly, ready to snap some photographs for his next project.

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