“It's cold, it's cold, it's cold, it's cold.” It seems like this is all anyone can say after a day of more beach activity and drunken dancing at the house. How it got so cold, so fast, no one knows or cares; they just want all that stuffy warmth back.

“Does anyone need an extra blanket?” Joonmyun asks in the hall and about thirteen different hands from the three rooms are raised. Unable to resist the big puppy eyes thrown his way, he hands the extra blanket to the youngest, Sehun.

Sleeping arrangements had been a to organize with some people (Woohyun) insisting they couldn't stand to be near anyone who snores (like Sungyeol) and some people (Sungyeol) insisting they couldn't possibly sleep next to their nemesis in life (Myungsoo). But it all worked out eventually, with the two rooms and the living room packed with sleepy, inebriated young adults.

“Why isn't the heater working?” Tao grumbles, squishing a stuffed panda pillow in annoyance. To Kris, he asks, “You didn't check to see if everything worked before renting it?”

Kris shrugs back. “I only helped pay.”

“Hey, Tao,” calls Baekhyun, scooting closer to him on the floor. “Wanna snuggle?” To Myungsoo's amazement, the other seems to actually consider it. “Come on, it's cold.”

“Try not to sing in your sleep.”

“Try not to kick.”

“Okay.”

They really lay down and begin snuggling, sharing blankets and draping limbs over each other and everything. Myungsoo doesn't know whether to laugh it off and call it gross or find someone of his own to sleep next to. The room he's been stuffed in with about five other people is drafty by the window (where he's conveniently been placed directly in front of) and the cold air goes right through his sleeping bag. The only other bedroom is also like this and the living room floor is covered in shivering bodies too. The cold can't be escaped anywhere. No, instead it wanders the house freely and attacks them all without mercy.

Why did Myungsoo think it was worth it to be here again? He can't seem to remember anymore with his brain cells slowly freezing.

Hearing a slight creaking in the floor, Myungsoo looks to his left to find Sungjong has scooted a little closer in his sleeping bag, teeth chattering and looking pitiful. Well, if it's Sungjong, he can't say no. This little kid has been his friend for so long. They somehow manage to zip their sleeping bags together and lay side-by-side, sharing a small bubble of warmth between them. It's kind of nice and it begins to lull them to sleep.

Myungsoo looks over at his friend hugging a stuffed bear like it might up and leave him if he didn't hang on tightly enough before fading away, smiling because the boy really is a cutie. The word just fits him so well.

***

Waking up . Life . They are all completely out of beer and that too. A little alcohol to move heat to his extremities would have been highly appreciated, Myungsoo thinks as he blows warm air on his fingers and tries not to yawn at them instead. Sungjong had made a nice little heater throughout the night, but Myungsoo isn't too fond of heaters that have to wake him up in the middle of the night to leave for the bathroom, nor heaters that continually scoot closer and closer until they practically lay on top of him. Being a cutie of a heater only got the boy so far. This, Myungsoo is certain, will never happen again no matter how cold the future gets.

“You look cranky.” Yixing comes in the room and comments, completely wrapped in blankets and sporting a pink nose.

“It's too early and too cold and too weird of a morning for anything else.”

“Too weird? Your room doesn't look like it got weird. Now my room, my room got weird.”

“How so?” Myungsoo asks, not sure what to expect when he is lead towards the open door.

In the middle of the floor lay the rest of the men assigned to that room, packed tightly together in a big blob of blankets and pillows. There were even extra pillows stacked on top to capture more heat.

“If it weren't so weird, I'd be jealous.” he admits. “That looks warm.”

Yixing nods, sniffing a little. “Honestly speaking, I kind of want to dive back in there.”

“It's only seven o'clock.” Myungoo points out, sniffing a little himself. He hopes he isn't going to end up sick after this stupid party weekend thing. “We have five more hours until-” stopping, he realizes that Yixing isn't standing next to him anymore and is actually army crawling his way between bodies under the blanket blob. Chuckling, Myungsoo shoves his dignity into a ditch and squeezes his way in too.

The blob really is warm.

And weird. So weird.

***

Someone's phone alarm goes off and a collective groaning sounds in the room until it's shut off. Then about four more alarms start going off and everyone realizes that it's probably time to wake up. Myungsoo refuses to acknowledge this and stays right where he is in the slowly breaking up blob of people and blankets.

Yixing grunts very close next to him with his eyes still closed. “Who's Sulli?”

“. Do I talk in my sleep?” Myungsoo asks back, eyebrows furrowing but eyes still firmly shut. He is not waking up. Nope. Forget that. Instead, he snuggles closer to whoever's arm it is that is keeping him so warm.

“Only a little. Who's Sulli?”

“Some girl.”

“Ahh...”

A blanket is ripped off of them and pillows that had been on top fly across the room. “UP AND AT 'EM, DIMPLES ONE AND TWO.”

Removing an arm from where it had rested on his friend's waist to shield his eyes, Yixing asks, “Who's one?”

Myungsoo groans at the loss of warmth. “Who's two?”

“Wow, that worked out perfectly.” Hoya comments to himself, moving on to the next room to see if there's anyone else to terrorize awake.

After the longest wait in history for chance at the kitchen sink, Myungsoo and Yixing finally get to sleepily brushing their teeth. There is absolutely no hope for a shot at the bathroom with so many people, so everyone dresses quickly and scurries out the door, hoping to find a restaurant open nearby with a bathroom or a quick ride home. Their goodbyes all consist of various fist bumping, high-fiving, complicated handshaking cut short, and fast hugging. To the people who didn't think to do so beforehand, promises are made to get numbers of the people they just met from either Minseok or Dongwoo.

Yixing, Myungsoo, and the twins are the only ones who take the time to talk first.

“I didn't think this would be any fun.” Myungsoo sniffs, about ninety-eight percent certain he could feel a cold coming on (and not tears).

“I didn't think I'd find my exact twin who doesn't look anything like me.”

“You two can talk alone, you know.”

“We know.” the twins say in unison, wearing matching expressions of delight mixed with sorrow at the coincidence.

Hoya hugs his new buddy hard. “Call me? I can't lose my only twin in the world.”

“Likewise.” is the muffled reply.

“Myungsoo,” Yixing says and it's a little funny how Myungsoo suddenly realizes that his new friend had never called his name while he was sober before. “You promise to play the guitar for me?”

“Yeah. Sure.”

As they hug (in a totally manly way that does not in no way involve tearing up and sniffling), Yixing speaks by his ear, “You know, some risks only seem risky at first, but once you're in the middle of it all, you realize that everything was so simple and so easy and they actually weren't risky at all. That Sulli girl, is she really a risk? Just ask yourself that and you can make it, buddy.”

The man grips his neck fondly before letting go, but Myungsoo isn't finished with him yet. Squeezing tighter, Myungsoo says back, “You owe me for that neck kiss, Lay. No matter how I think about it, it was weird.”

“I owe you?” he chuckles as they pull back.

“Yes, and I fully intend to make you pay for it.”

“So we'll be meeting twice in the future.”

“Exactly.”

“HOLD UP!” Chanyeol shouts over the heads of everyone left, panicked. “SOMEONE HELP ME FIND MY SISTER'S NAIL POLISH!”

“You were expecting to be dressed up!” Baekhyun laughs at his friend's expense before being roped into searching with his twin and an unlucky Sungyeol who had come back for his forgotten phone. Ever so sneakily, Myungsoo and Yixing hightail it out of there.

***

Myungsoo is outside the barbershop, casually peeking through the window to the pretty hairdresser within. “Is Sulli a risk?” he asks himself, feeling stupid for saying it aloud, but needing to hear it. “Is talking to her such a big risk? What's the worst thing that could happen?”

Shaking off a few stray nervous twitches, he grits his teeth and opens the door, stepping inside with his head held high.

“Myungsoo, welcome back.” Sulli greets him, smiling.

For a minute, Myungsoo wonders what she would look like with dimples. No, just one dimple. Two dimples are too many for her. She's too cute already to have two dimples. What would Sulli look like with a really deep-set dimple? He thinks she would be impossibly beautiful, not just super cute and pretty like she always is.

She has really big eyes. Like, really big eyes. Maybe it's partially because he hasn't said anything yet and she's beginning to look at him like he's a creep. Yep, that's probably it. He should start talking, really. Sulli even keeps glancing at the clock. He's been standing here silently for too long, but why can't he find anything to say?

“Myungsoo? Are you feeling okay?”

Surprisingly, Myungsoo feels completely fine, which is a lot different from how he normally feels around here. He nods easily, but can't think of any excuse to be here besides the obvious truth. Well, it was going to get to that point eventually. In a rush, he begins to speak. “Sulli, I've noticed you really like music and I kind of really like music too. So, uhm, would you maybe want to-”

“Hold that thought,” she cuts him off as the phone rings and she rushes to answer it. “Hey,” she greets whoever it is with a sincere, dimple-less smile that pulls her eyes into crescents. “Nothing, just talking to a silly customer. I've been waiting for your call all day. How's college life treating you? Any really bad problems with the language barrier? You know I miss you so much, baby...”

Quietly, calmly, Myungsoo backs away and leaves, the invitation to a live street concert he heard about lost in his throat. Strangely, he feels a little lighter, as if a burden had been lifted from his chest. That's weird, because liking Sulli had never been burdensome. He used to really enjoy the little things he did to impress her. He remembers one rainy day where he pretended he lost his umbrella just so he could show up at the barbershop in a thin, soaked shirt to “look for it”. That day had been fun, with some screaming little girls who were getting haircuts for their school picture.

Myungsoo feels that he should be more hurt, but honestly, he just feels a bit lost after losing such an important goal. He also feels hungry. Very hungry.

Maybe it was time to cash in a favor. Pulling out his phone, he calls Yixing.

***

Nervously waiting at the Korean barbeque restaurant they chose, Myungsoo his dry lips. Was it rude of him to cash in his favor before doing as he promised first? Would Yixing think he's annoying? He wasn't like, some kind of charity case to the guy, right? Yixing could have thought of him as a loner in need of serious help. He kind of was a loner in need of serious help, but no one should force themselves to talk to him just because they feel like they have to. He is a horrible person, isn't he? He ered Yixing into coming to talk to him and spending the whole party weekend with him, and Yixing is too good of a guy to just leave well enough alone-

“Myungsoo!”

Inadvertently, Myungsoo stands and bows awkwardly to his friend.

“You okay, buddy?” asks Yixing with an amused (very dimpled) smile. “Did things work out with Sulli?”

Working his jaw, he doesn't quite know how to answer. He kind of feels like he let his friend down with how things turned out.

“Oh.” Yixing's features fall into something more serious and compassionate. “Let's get you a drink. You can tell me all about it or nothing at all; it's completely up to you.” The man orders up some soju and pork rinds as they sit.

They watch the meat grill in uncomfortable silence. The thing is, Yixing is being perfectly patient with him while Myungsoo's mind runs a mile a minute trying to figure out what to say and it just feels awkward to him.

Well, there is one thing he could say easily.

“Sulli h-had someone already.” Quickly, Myungsoo grabs his cup of water and takes a large gulp to hide his embarrassment at how gravelly his voice had been. There's a lump in his throat refusing to budge. “She only thought of me as another customer where she works.” he forces out, clearing his throat uselessly. “I guess that was to be expected.”

“Did you confess?” Yixing asks lightly, flipping over a few pieces of meat with tongs.

“I didn't get the chance. I was so close though. Just a few more words-”

“Do you like basketball?”

“Huh?” The question catches him off-guard, but he answers a quick yes after the initial shock.

“You want to play a game with me after we eat?” Yixing asks, pouring him a shot of soju and passing it over.

Myungsoo doesn't even have to think about it. “Yes.”

“Good. Now pour me a shot. I intend to drink just as much as you to make it a fair game.”