GASP. SHOCK. HORROR. AUTHOR JESS AND I ARE DOUBLE UPDATING. 

REPEAT: DOUBLE UPDATING. CHAPTER 8 + 9 UPLOADED AT THE SAME, CRAZY I KNOW. 

Just in case there's any confusion hehe. SO MAKE SURE YOU READ THIS BEFORE CHAPTER 9.

Three days until Christmas, and the mood round here couldn’t be any more dismal. I managed to convince Jongwoon to let me put up some decorations, he was totally in control of the Christmas tree though; black instead of green with silver and red décor. It actually looked good; Jongwoon and his sense for colour coordination.

We’re both sat on the couch watching Christmas movies when his phone buzzes and he springs to his feet, ranting about how he forgot to buy eggnog. From our living room window, I can clearly see that the snow is heavy and the sky is dark but Jongwoon insists that eggnog is a Christmas essential – even though he doesn’t celebrate Christmas much.

He shoves on a coat and a pair of leather boots before trudging out the door before I can even say bye.

Winter is probably the hardest time for me – especially without Hyukjae. It was my dad’s favourite season, I’m not sure what it was but something about the snow and the music made him so happy, he’d wake me and Donghwa up early every morning and drag us outside to make snow angels and have snowball fights. Our first Christmas after he died was the worst – I don’t think we played in the snow once that year.

Hyukjae’s mum had invited my family to her house for dinner; I guess misery does love company.

Although I did feel bad for leaving Jongwoon, he was insistent however and preferred spending the entire day in solitude. Something about the leopard print gifts under the tree gave me a small hint that Heechul would be here to provide some company, which was sweet.

For several minutes I sit with my face pressed against the icy cold glass of the window, watching my breath fog up the scenery below me. And then someone knocks on the front door.

Jongwoon, in his rush, probably forgot his keys. With a sigh and shake of my head I wander to the front door, “Who’s there? Jongwoon did you forget your keys again or – ?”

The sight I am met with is nothing short of unexpected.

My heart swells so much I can feel it bursting through my ribcage, my knees nearly buckle below me and jaw drops, flapping open and closed with unformed words.

On the other side of the door, covered in snow and gasping for breath is Hyukjae.

Every coherent thought and word I’ve ever conjured up in my head slips from my brain and leaves me speechless, with a gaping jaw staring at that ing gummy smile I missed so much. I missed everything from his stupid, skinny legs to his snow covered hair.

“You…” I blab, taking a step toward him.

He nods with a massive grin, “I’m home Dong –”

“… ing lied to me!” I shriek, grabbing him by the collar and hauling him inside, ignoring his perplexed pleas.

“Donghae! Christ, you got strong, let me explain – Donghae!”

I drag his skinny into the living room before releasing him and taking a few seconds to allow my anger to ebb away into gratitude. Hyukjae stands and watches in silence while I come down from the height of my hissy fit.

“You’re such a…” I say, quietly, “Such an idiot,” I begin to bubble, throwing myself with open arms in his direction. His guilty pout immediately uplifts to a magnificent smile and his arms open to embrace me. I’m convinced that nothing in my life will ever to compare to this feeling.

He hooks his arms around my back and holds tightly, so tight I think I might burst and be totally okay with it. I bury my sniffling nose in the space between his shoulder and his neck, his sweater is damp with melted snow but I can’t bring myself to care.

“I missed you so much,” Hyukjae sniffs, rubbing the side of his head against mine, “Idiot.”

“What movie are we watching?” Hyukjae asks, watching me sift through the DVD cabinet.

We spent a good 10 minutes blubbering into each other’s shoulders about the woes of being apart, and now I was going to make him watch Titanic.

“Take a wild guess.”

“Hae, no, not Titanic,” he groans, kicking his feet against the couch beneath him, “You always make me watch Titanic.”

“I know,” I reply, flashing off my smuggest, happiest smile, “But, we haven’t watched it together in so long…”

Without another word from either of us I stick Titanic in the DVD player and take my seat next to Hyukjae on the couch. It’s weird, to see him doing nothing but sitting there beside me. I’m still convinced this is all some mad dream, or, Jongwoon is going to rip off his Hyukjae mask and reveal himself. My eyes scan over his entire body, taking in the fact that he’s here, on this couch, watching a movie with me. He’s wearing fluffy, pale blue socks and keeps rubbing his feet together – it’s a comfort thing apparently, and he’s not bothered to change out his slightly damp tracksuit bottoms.

I figure university in a foreign country leaves you without any time to eat, Hyukjae’s sunken cheeks being the prime clue. He’s always been a stick, but now he’s more of a twig. His hair’s longer too, he’s even gotten a little taller; still the same Hyukjae though, absentmindedly smiling and twiddling his thumbs.

Jongwoon seems to have disappeared into thin air, like he usually did whenever Hyukjae was here. Apparently he didn’t like intruding upon on us ‘love birds’… whatever.

“Have you been forcing Titanic on Jongwoon?” Hyukjae says, sternly yet sleepily, “Poor guy.”

I yawn and rub my fists into my eyes, “Everyone should love Titanic, especially you!”

Hyukjae loops his outstretched legs through my own and entangled our legs in an impossible knot before yawning, “I love Titanic, because I love you, idiot.”

“Go to sleep Hyukjae, the jetlag is making you crazy.” I laugh, ignoring my own drooping eyelids.

“Oh, you don’t love me then,” he sniffs, smirking at the corner of his mouth.

I retaliate by kicking him where it hurts. “I love you too.”

Hyukjae returns to his family the next day, his mother personally invited my mum and I to their home on Christmas Eve so we could drink hot chocolate and anticipate Santa together. There’s nothing I don’t love about spending the festivities with my second family; Sora treats me like a younger brother, Hyukjae’s mum tells me how handsome I am and Hyukjae’s dad tells me what a strapping young lad I am.

There’s snow on the ground and a spectrum of festive lights covering Hyukjae’s house. My breath pours from my mouth into the icy air and drifts into the grey skies above. Now it feels like Christmas.

Mum hurriedly ushers me inside the house, because I’ll “catch my death out here” and as soon as that front door swings open I can hear the classic hustle bustle of the Lee Household. Hyukjae and Sora are arguing in the front room, Mama Lee is dusting everything in sight and Papa Lee is buried in a large newspaper, wearing a knitted sweater.

Hyukjae drags me upstairs before I can greet anyone else, hauling me into his room and closing the door.

“What’s the hurry?” I ask, flopping down onto his perfectly kept bed.

“Uh… well, I got you a gift and it’s – ugh, it’s so dumb and embarrassing… so I’ll give it to you now, where no one can see,” he babbles, laughing nervously.

“That works, I’m kind of in the same situation here,” I chuckle, pulling my rucksack off my back. My badly wrapped gift to Hyukjae was stuffed inside it in this morning, mum usually does all my wrapping for me but I was too embarrassed to let her see what I’d gotten him. We take seats atop his bed, adjacent with our legs in a basket.

“New York has left me pretty poor… but it’s the thought that counts, right?” he giggles, “, it’s so cheesy.”

“I bet it isn’t as cheesy as mine,” I wager, ping my bag and presenting the gift. The wrapping was crumpled and uneven, it looked the work of a child but whatever, it’s the thought that counts apparently. The shape of the parcel is a dead giveaway; he probably pretends not to notice for the sake of a surprise.

He reaches to his bedside drawer and carefully takes out a smallish, soft looking package; wrapped to perfection, of course. “Who goes first?”

“You open mine first, it’s offending my eyes,” I scoff, jutting the parcel in his direction.

Ignoring my envy of his wrapping skills, he grins and takes it into his hands, feeling the surface and shaking it – the routine of receiving any wrapped gift, basically. His smile stretches as far as it can go without pouncing off his face as his fingers dip under the paper and tear it open. Tear, tear, tear until the glossy, black photo frame is revealed.

Under the glass is a collage of my favourite pictures that Hyukjae sent from New York; pictures of him at the top of the Empire State Building, at the Statue of Liberty, eating tacos at Taco Bell, him standing under the Wall Street sign. I saved them all, compiled them into a cutesy looking collage and framed it.

When Hyukjae does nothing but stare with wide eyes and open mouth, I cough awkwardly. “I figured it’d look nice next to your Paris display…”

“Donghae… I love it,” he replies with a wobbling voice, “Honestly its – I just… really love it. Thank you.”

I can see those genuine eye smiles, along with the water that’s filling them. “Should we hug now, or after I’ve opened yours?”

He laughs heartily and wipes away those unshed tears, “After yours,” and he passes the soft package over to me, “Mine so bad compared to yours…”

“Even if it did , Hyuk,” I tell him, taking the gift and feeling it up copiously, “I’d still love it, because it’s from you.”

“Aish, shut up and open it.”

Sniggering in his direction I rip at the paper, immediately seeing some kind of white material underneath. When all the paper is gone, the material unfolds in my hands and hey presto! It’s a pair of t-shirts.

They have those typical ‘I heart New York’ slogans on them… except that NYC is scrubbed out, replaced with a ‘DH’ and on the other t-shirt, NYC is still scrubbed out but replaced with a ‘HJ’.

“They match, heh, get it?” Hyukjae giggles, attempting to read my expressionless face.

There are one million thoughts and words flitting through my head, but I don’t catch any of them. My mouth gapes and my tongue lies slack, so, instead of using words to convey my feelings… I lunge forward and wrap my arms around Hyuks neck, gripping him so tightly I think I could crush his brittle bones.

He rolls onto his back and shifts my knees away from his crotch so I straddle him instead of kneeing his nuts. My arms remain tight around his neck, my face buried in the skin of his neck.

He’s laughing away, patting my back until the suppressed crying from months and months of loneliness start gushing out of me. The dam had been broken and all those months of feeling so lost and alone pour from me with unrelenting intensity. My hot, salty tears spill from my eyeballs and onto his skin – but, he doesn’t mind, not even a little bit.

We remain in that position for a while, he rocks and I sob. To think it used to be the other way around.

“Hyu – Hyuk, p… please don’t go again, don’t leave me,” I blubber with my lips pushed to his ear.

“Donghae… please, do – don’t do that.” I feel his tears trickle onto my own skin and he hugs tighter. “You’re my best friend, in the whole ing world, okay?”

If I open my mouth I’m bound to howl like a pained animal, so I nod, and he nods.

We fall asleep shortly after that, covered in tears with entangled limbs.

Christmas feels like one whole blur. Sora wakes everyone up at 6AM and we have to remind her that she’s an adult, there’s quarrelling over who gets open their gifts first and there’s extreme embarrassment when Hyuk and I discover we bought each other the same thing. Our mothers dish out the yearly, knitted sweaters and make us wear them even though it’s too warm already.

We share chocolate in secret, knowing we’ll get scolded for eating sweets before dinner, and watch cheesy Christmas movies on TV. Mum and I video call Donghwa who is spending Christmas with his own family over in Japan, my nephew enthuses about Santa while Donghwa rolls his eyes in the background.

Everything about today is perfect, I couldn’t pinpoint a fault and I owe it all to Hyukjae.

Chaotic isn’t a strong enough word to describe dinnertime. Eventually, we’re all sat together, saying grace whilst holding hands. Sora kicks me under the table and Hyuk’s dad yells because our mums made too much food, it’s a sort of peaceful madness; I wouldn’t change it for the world.

“How do you two even manage to breathe, being so far apart?” Sora asks through a mouthful of bulgogi; I’m sure some of it hit me in the face.

“I just make sure I breathe in enough Donghae before I go,” Hyukjae laughs, nudging me with his elbow, I laugh too.

Sora rolls her eyes and makes kissing faces while our mothers coo and make appropriate gushing noises. I steal a glance to Hyukjae and he’s peering back, hosting a sincere, yet shy smile.

“Donghae looks more and more like his father every time I see him,” Hyuk’s mum says to my mum, looking at me in wonderment.

“Oh I know, it’s scary!” my mum responds, “He’s got everything except his height.”

Everyone laughs and I even get a few patronising pats on the head, Hyuk calls me a short and Sora casually reminds him that he’s only an inch taller than me, Hyuk retaliates by launching some gimchi in her direction and he’s scolded accordingly.

If my dad was here I’d probably wrinkle my nose at the comparison between the two of us, I’d stick my tongue out and say my dad’s an ugly, old man. Once he died I started to like the resemblance. Maybe it’s because it’s one of the only living memories I have of him.

I remember him in every prayer, in the pictures my mum has hung around the house, every time I hear a song he used to love and every time I look in the mirror. Some reminders are more welcome than others.

“Hey,” Hyuk whispers under the buzzing chatter of the dinner table, “You look sad.”

“Just thinking about dad,” I sigh, staring at my plate of food.

I feel a set of fingers entwine with my own and squeeze my hand tightly, “Happy thoughts I hope; you know how much he’d hate you to be upset on Christmas.”

It’s way past midnight by the time Hyuk and I crawl into bed, our cheeks sore from smiling and our stomachs full of meat, vegetables and chocolates. We’re close to hysterics about something and I don’t even know what, we just keep laughing and slapping our thighs.

I wipe the tears away from the corners of my eyes and wriggle under the wintry, cold duvet, Hyuk joins a few seconds later. His limps sprawl over the bed, there’s an elbow in my face and a knee in my crotch – I punch his arm and he yelps like a little girl.

“You need to become aware of your own strength,” he snaps, jokingly, “Brute.”

“You need to become aware of where my delicate areas are,” I snap back, flicking his cheek.

We attempt to engage in a duvet-bound brawl, but neither of us have the energy; instead we throw some feeble punches and giggle into the frosty darkness. My side of the bed has always been the wall side; I grew up with some innate fear of falling out of my bed and snapping my neck. I trace my fingers along the Paris mural Hyuk had painted on his wall – he loves Paris that much. There’s a black silhouette of the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe across an orange, purple and blue night sky, dotted with small white stars. Dork.

“Hey,” he grunts with a sleepy voice, “Get your dirty fingers off my woman.”

“Oh, Paris is your woman now?” I laugh, sliding my entire hand along the wall, “What if I just do this?”

“Hae, you’ll smudge the paint!” He frets, snatching my wrist and hauling my hand away from the wall, “Anything but the mural.”

Even though it’s just paint on a wall I don’t test him any further – he loves Paris, sometimes I think he loves Paris more than he loves me or his mother. He’s been twice before and each time he’s brought back lovely gifts with amazing stories; there’s a special light I see in his eyes that only shines when he’s talking about his true beloved.

To the side of his mural there’s a collage of Polaroid pictures he took while visiting the city. The collage looks pretty enough, if it weren’t for that blank square in the middle. He says he’s saving it for the day him and I visit Paris together – ha.

I shift my gaze away from his shrine over to Hyuk himself, he’s looking to the ceiling and smiling – that dumb smile he does. “I love Paris.”

“I had no idea,” I croon, poking him in the side. He shoves my hand away quickly.

“There’s one thing Paris is missing, even I have to admit.”

I prop myself up on elbows, suddenly interested to hear the only downfall Paris has to offer. “And what’s that?”

“A Donghae,” he sighs, slowly looking to me with a helpless pout, “We’ll go one day, right?”

I gnaw my lip anxiously; the idea sounds horrifying to me. I nearly threw up booking those flights to New York for next May; I think I may have actually vomited when I told Jongwoon I was skipping out on rent that month so I could go to a Bruno Mars concert – he only let me off with it because it was my birthday. Us, Paris, together though, it’s Hyukjae’s dream and – well – we share everything else so it might as well be my dream too.

“Definitely,” I tell him, my hand grabbing for his in the dusk, our fingers slide together so naturally, like pieces of a puzzle. It’s nice.

We share the black, silence for a few minutes before entangling all our limbs and getting into our classic sleeping position.

“I thought I was gonna die without you.”

We fall asleep. 

A/N: Now you can go straight to the next chapter hehe~ don't get used to the double update thing though, I'm very unreliable.