Warnings: implied drug use and self harm. There is nothing in graphic detail, or indeed in any detail

Word count: 2850

He felt so confused this year, when October came around. What to do about October? The days felt like snow and Kyungsoo knew that it would soon be a year since he'd met him. Whoever he was. Kyungsoo had never caught his name. October had been his favorite month, but now he was frowning beneath his smile. And for what? A guy he'd never truly known.

Snap out of it, Kyungsoo! This doesn't matter! You have a job, you have friends, you have a life. Stop thinking about this guy! You don't even know his name.

But still. Maybe he'd see him again. Well, okay, he knew he wouldn't, but Kyungsoo had always been so logical, so normal. He wanted his heart to rule his head for once. He wanted people to think that Do Kyungsoo was rash, reckless, bold, all the things he had been. Hey, a guy can dream.

Kyungsoo kicked aimlessly at a pile of leaves raked up on the sidewalk. If he hadn't been looking for his bus - he'd gone for a walk and somehow ended up right on the other side of Seoul, thinking about him - he would have missed the flash of tan skin and bleached-blond hair that he hadn't seen since May.

"Hey!" Kyungsoo found himself yelling, "Hey! Are you?... Hey! We need to talk! Hey! Please!"

The other people out were looking at him quite strangely, heads cocked, puzzled expressions, not knowing what to make of the crazy student running across a busy main road to hug some man. Kyungsoo thought he'd found him again for one glorious, intoxicating minute; then he pulled away. 

"You're not him, are you?" He was looking at his shoes, embarrassed; he'd just accosted a total stranger. "You smell different, you look similar but you're not the same. He dresses differently, too.... I'm sorry. Can I make it up to you? I'll buy you coffee or something?"

Fortunately, the younger man seemed more amused than angry, or even annoyed. "Hey, why not? I'm Kai, by the way. And I don't normally give my phone number to people I don't know, so if you want coffee, we'll need to go now. I know a nice place just around the corner..." Kai grabbed Kyungsoo's hand without even waiting for an answer.

Soo thought that Kai smiled just like him. Creepy. They couldn't be the same person though...could they? Nah, he was being ridiculous again. They had only looked similar from a distance. He wasn't aware that Kai was dragging him into a nice, homely looking coffee shop - or indeed that he had told him his name - until they were there and Kai was sitting in an armchair and he was saying "could I have a latte please Kyungsoo".

So he went and bought the drinks and the lady made them and he brought them back and handed Kai his latte and sipped his own hot chocolate and thought of him. 

"Hey, um, I know this might be personal, but who's the dude you mistook me for? We must look really alike for you to confuse us like that, huh? But you never said his name. Do you remember him?" Kai chuckled, not realizing how much Kyungsoo didn't want to talk about him.

Kyungsoo sighed. Maybe he should talk about him after all. "Yes, I-I know who you remind me of Kai..." He didn't mean to say more than that, but somehow the words just spilled out. "A boy I think I used to know. I'd see him when the days got colder. On those days when it felt like snow."

It was a cold day, and it felt like snow, though the flakes hadn't yet fallen. Kyungsoo was twenty-one, too old to really get excited about snow anymore but somehow this snow was different, he felt like shouting and singing and dancing. It was the afternoon, twelfth of October twenty-fourteen, he had class, so why was he sitting in the little park near his apartment waiting for snow?

Then this boy - well not a boy, not really, maybe he was eighteen but he was younger than Kyungsoo for sure - and he knew. He just knew that he wasn't waiting for snow at all. Do Kyungsoo had been waiting for him. Or perhaps he had been waiting for Kyungsoo, who knew?

Kyungsoo had asked him if he thought the snow would fall today and he had just laughed. He said that he didn't know but he hoped not today, because wasn't the promise of snow better that the real thing after all?

Soo had laughed too and agreed with him. The mysterious stranger had muttered something like "good" so endearingly that Kyungsoo had thrown common sense to the wind and asked him if he would be back when the snow fell. But he had just smiled and said but the snow is falling, and then it was and he was gone.

He only realized later that he had forgotten to ask his name.

Kai was staring at him intensely. "Go on," he asked, "I barely know anything yet."

What more was there to tell him? Kyungsoo took a sip of hot cocoa. "You know, I even think he stared like you. He used to just stand there and stare. And roll his eyes right up to heaven, and make just like I wasn't there." He laughed. That was one of his better memories for sure.

A week after his first meeting with the boy, Kyungsoo had stopped hanging around the park obsessively like some stalker. He thought he'd never see him again. One day though, the snow was still on the ground, so not too long after, he found himself back in the square making a snowman. He had no idea why, he had work  to do, but there he was.

Kyungsoo had just started on the body of his snowman, whom he named Minseok, when he felt someone looking at him. Later he realized that it wasn't so much someone looking at him as someone facing him and staring into the sky, or maybe into his own head. It was still creepy. He would've blaimed it on the security cameras that seemed to be everywhere nowadays but he knew or felt that it was a real human being staring, not some piece of soulless machinery.

He turned round hesitantly, not quite sure what to make of this, but he just saw him, the boy from last time. He'd rolled his eyes so far back into his head that for a minute Kyungsoo was worried that he might be having a seizure, but he wasn't. At least, Kyungsoo didn't think so. He walked right round the boy, three-sixty degrees, though he didn't seem to notice him, or if he did he made just like Soo wasn't there.

So Soo said hi, and he just kept ignoring him. So Soo stuck a snowball down his shirt, and that got a reaction. The boy yelled and almost hit him. Then they ended up throwing snow all around, and it was in Kyungsoo's hair and his eyes and his nose and his mouth, but he knew that it wasn't snow in his heart but this boy. Funny that. 

He completely forgot to ask  him his name.

"That seems...really weird!" laughed Kai. Now Kyungsoo wanted to hit him, because he hadn't been weird, he'd been lovely. Then Kai sobered up a bit. "But nice. Really nice. What else did this guy do?"

"Well. He was nice, I guess..." He wasn't sure about sharing so much with this guy he'd never met before. "And he used to fall down a lot. That boy was always falling, again and again! I used to sometimes try to catch him. But I never even caught his name...."

The first time it happened, he'd convinced this guy to come back to his place for coffee. Maybe it was their third meeting? Anyway Kyungsoo had seen him in the park again, and they'd chatted a bit about everything but nothing important. Then it had started pissing with rain. Kyungsoo didn't know where this guy lived, but he knew that he himself was staying close by, and he wasn't going to let him stay there and get soaked.

Come back with me? he'd said, You don't want to get too wet. Kyungsoo had fully expected him to say No, or Sorry, I have something to do, or maybe I live nearby, don't worry. To his surprise, the boy had looked up at him from under wet bangs and whispered, so softly Kyungsoo wasn't sure he'd heard, Okay. 

So they went back to the crappy flat he shared with fellow student Chanyeol, whom he hardly knew and hardly ever saw. Sit down, he'd said, he remembered it all quite clearly, that was what he'd said, and then I'll make some coffee. The guy went over to the couch and then the funniest thing happened; he fell right over. Like a somersault. Properly head over heels.

Kyungsoo went to see if he was okay. The boy said yes, and Kyungsoo only realized after that there'd been nothing for him to trip over. How strange. Then they drank coffee and talked. He forgot all about it until it happened again. And again. And again.

Queerly, it was always the exact same fall; head over heels, a proper somersault. In the end, Kyungsoo stopped trying to catch him.

After all, he couldn't even catch his name.

"He must've had really bad balance then!" Kai said, and Kyungsoo nodded pathetically. He really didn't think it was that; the boy had moved so fluidly, like a dancer, he doubted that he had balance problems. But why argue? Kai would never understand. "Go on," Kai continued after a while.

"He fell down a lot....Oh, I already said that...." He didn't want to say too much. "And sometimes we would spend the night, you know, just rolling about on a floor..." Kyungsoo blushed, and Kai nodded, like continue, "And I remember, even though it felt soft at the time, I always used to wake up sore."

The fourth time they met, Kyungsoo felt that he knew this man - for he was a man now - most intimately, despite hardly knowing him. They were in the park, and Kyungsoo asked him back to his place even though there was no reason for him to do so, he just wanted to. And the man looked at him a moment, standing and staring, like he was looking into his very soul. He said Yes, okay. 

It was the first time Kyungsoo found him attractive in that way. A way. Before he had always been too innocent.

They went back to his flat and Kyungsoo cooked omlet and they talked as snow fell and when he brushed his lips across Kyungsoo's sweetly like he didn't know what he was doing Kyungsoo didn't fight it.

That night it felt so soft. Feather-light touches mixed with warm breath and mumbled words that were ice and light. 

That morning Kyungsoo felt sore and the boy wasn't there. It was the middle of November. 

He wasn't sure why he had left, but didn't snow always melt in the morning? Of course it did.

It happened again, again and again and again and he always woke up alone. Eventually Kyungsoo couldn't tell where love ended and lust began, though he was sure that there was less love and more lust every time they ed. They didn't make love, not after the first time. 

With time, Kyungsoo grew less certain that they had ever made love.

He didn't want to muse on such sad things. Why couldn't he just remember the happy times? Instead of corrupting things he was so sure had been pure. Now Kyungsoo wasn't even sure that those moments were true....

Kai gave a little cough. Kyungsoo shouldn't stop, he'd seem weak. He wasn't being forced to think of the bad times. Something happy. Was there anything happy though? There must've been. "You know, I even think that he smiled like you." he started, hesitantly, "He used to just stand there and smile. And his eyes would go all sort of far away and stay there for quite a while."

The best days, Kyungsoo soon found out, were those on which they didn't . Sounds strange, doesn't it? But it was true. Those days, they would snuggle maybe, drink cocoa and whisper their deepest desires. 

This boy, or man he supposed, came over practically every day, and Kyungsoo grew anxious when he didn't come, though that wasn't often. He didn't have to worry about explaining the situation to his room-mate; Chanyeol was never around.

Today was one of the good days, days which grew rarer with every bad day. Even when nothing happened they would fight now, first over his leaving then over trivial things like the television or the windows. 

Kyungsoo sort of knew that this would be the last truly good day, but he didn't dare say it aloud for fear of it coming true.

It was also the last day he saw the boy smile, properly smile, not the fake smiles or the plastic smiles, a proper real true smile. They're not as common as you'd think.

He always savored the true smiles. He always hated the fake smiles.

They were sitting on his bashed up sofa under a blanket, it was December now after all, and Kyungsoo rubbed his foot up the side of his boyfriend's foot. A nice gesture, a caring gesture. He smiled. Kyungsoo knew it was a real smile because his eyes went all sort of far away like he was cataloguing the memory that was making him so happy. It made him laugh, and smile back.

Then they fought again, he didn't want to tell Kyungsoo his name.

He never did. 

"Aww, that sounds really cute! Hey, do I really smile like that?" Kai was kinda batting his eyelashes. He was way too perky for Kyungsoo's mood. "I'll take that as a yes. What else? He sounds like an interesting guy!"

Kyungsoo can't think of more, so he just repeats what he's said already; "And I remember he used to fall down a lot. That boy was always falling. Again and again. And I used to sometimes try to catch him, but I never even caught his name." The same words, but a different meaning. Kai won't notice.

Kyungsoo had failed the boy so many times. He had let him fall. He realized that now, he hadn't then, otherwise it might've been different.

When he had asked his name for the nth time and he had just replied My name belongs to me and I shan't tell it to anyone else. Kyungsoo had called him a brat. He should have noticed that he was shaking. Should've, should've, should've...

When he had seen the painkillers in his bag, oh god. He'd had a whole bottle on Friday evening, 40 pills. On Saturday there were none left. Kyungsoo had looked in his rucksack for tissues and seen the empty bottle. He hadn't wanted to mention it. Then it happened again. They could have talked. Could've, could've, could've...

When he had refused to sleep over, saying he'd go home, and Kyungsoo found a boy-shaped imprint in the November snow on his doorstep in the morning. Maybe he could have let him in. Maybe he could have noticed. Maybe, maybe, maybe....

The razor-blade. The cigarettes. The syringe. The tears. The blood. The burns. The fear. The pain, oh god, the pain he must have been in. 

He was always falling into whatever he could because there was nothing else for him. Again and again. Kyungsoo never tried to catch him, not once. He didn't even know his name!

What had he done?

Wait. Once. Kyungsoo had asked. There had been no answer.

There was never any answer.

"Um, you said that before." Kai seemed mildly concerned.

"Yes I sometimes even tried to catch him. But I never even caught his name..." Kyungsoo didn't care. What had he done? He had let him fall, and never done anything! Never. Done. Anything! Oh god. He couldn't help himself. One fat, ugly tear escaped him, and then he was gone.

Kai watched him with detached interest, like he didn't quite understand human emotions and was making a case study. When Kyungsoo stopped crying, he leaned over and looked at him with his stare.

He spoke, and his words were ash and dust. "His name was Jongin, and if it's any comfort he loved you 'til the end. Don't bother looking for him though. I killed him." Kai was at the door when he turned back. "Well, you helped Kyungsoo dearest." He winked. "Don't look for me either."

And he left.

###

At the moment I am obsessed with Sherlock. 

Also, Emily, was this angsty enough for you?