Hi everyone!
Here is my humble little christmas one-shot! (though, it is +8300 words long ;D) ; I used this as a soundtrack ;)
Thanks for all the subs, upvotes and comments, I don't know what I did to deserve so much support but I really appreciate it ❤
This isn't anything much but I kinda wanted to thank you because you're always so nice to me! I hope it can give you a bit of joy today :)

I wish you all a Merry Christmas~ and lots of happiness ❤

Cold hands, warm heart.

          Before, when he was still a young and genuine boy, Donghae used to love winter and especially snowy days. As a child, he never missed to rush outside of his house, hands stuffed inside his woollen gloves and a warm scarf wrapped around his neck, and then he could play for hours with the wet and cold white powder. He loved to build snowmen, to draw angels with his limbs sprawled out, or to start snowball fights with his friends in the park. Occasionally, his father and his mother liked to come out too and the three of them enjoyed going for a walk in the woods, outside of their small town. The forest always looked kind of mysterious and enchanting when it was covered with the white cloak, and Donghae liked to imagine all sort of stories about elves and fairies and magic creatures wandering between the trees.

He always ended up with his little nose all red, his cheeks burning due to the cold and his wet clothes clinging to his skin, giving him harsh shudders, but then he only had to return home to find a big mug of hot chocolate waiting for him, and a fire crackling in the chimney, ready to warm him up. His mother liked to pull him to the couch and embrace him as they watched one of those cheesy Christmas movies - that his father always fervently refused to watch -, but the little boy always ended up looking longingly towards the windows and stared with envy at the snow dancing down from the grey sky.

          Unfortunately, things are made to change and not always for the best. Now, Donghae has grown up and everything is different. No more playing in the snow, no more excitement when he sees the little snowflakes falling down on him. He fears the snow, just like he fears the cold. In his current situation, winter can only bring more misery and hardship.

          His parents died in a car accident when he was eighteen. It was a Tuesday morning, the 17th of September, less than a month before his 19th birthday. Donghae was in class when it happened. He had no idea what was going on when he got suddenly called out by a teacher, until he was hastily driven to the hospital, only too late to say goodbye. That day, his whole life collapsed.

He didn’t have much family. His father was an only child whose parents had died a few years before. He had an aunt, but she was old and sick, unable to take care of an orphan teenager. On his mother’s side, the family was torn by conflicts ever since their Great-Uncle Myungjin had passed away and they were fighting over his inheritance. The greed for money was stronger than the compassion they felt for him. No one took Donghae with them.

The teen spent a couple weeks in an orphanage. But as soon as he turned nineteen and reached the legal maturity, he found himself thrown out. He was no longer underage and he officially didn’t need to be protected by the government anymore.

Then he stayed with his best-friend’s family for a few months. They were kind and generous people, but Donghae could see it was a struggle for them to feed another mouth. They didn’t have a lot to offer, and yet gave him as much as they could. Thanks to them, he managed to keep going to high school like before, but it surprised nobody when his grades dropped drastically.
The day following his graduation, he sat at the table with his friend and the latter’s family and he thanked them for everything they did for him. The next day, he packed up and left. He couldn’t abuse their hospitality any longer. Life was forcing him to prematurely learn how to become independent and be able to take care of himself.

He gathered his belongings and took the first bus for Seoul, hoping to find a job there. Going to college wasn’t his priority anymore. He tried to comfort himself by thinking that he wasn’t very good with studies anyway. A job would give him money and a way to support himself.

          But life is cruel, society merciless, and Donghae was nowhere ready to face it yet. Without a warrant, no professional experience, no qualification, no money, no address to fill up his resume, nobody was willing to give him a chance. People rarely hire homeless persons, he quickly realized, because people believe homeless persons aren’t reliable enough.
He tried to find a flat to rent, just to gain some credibility, but quite ironically no one would sign a rental contract with a boy without parents, without a job, without money. He wasn’t reliable enough.  

The teen managed for some time. When his parents’ money was eventually all spent, he sold most of his belongings, his laptop, his phone, his Ipad, even some of his clothes, and his extra pair of shoes, until he didn’t have anything to sell anymore. He was soon thrown out of his small youth-hotel dormitory and ended up on the streets at the age of nineteen.

At this point, he realized he only had a couple solutions. He could sell his body for money or he could become a beggar. The mere idea of ing himself horrified him, he chose the other one. He quickly learned that, even like this, he had to give up on his pride.

Donghae is now twenty-one years old and he has been homeless for one year, four months and eleven days.

It’s cold outside, but that’s not surprising for a December evening. It has been snowing since noon, and the young man can feel the cold sneaking through his clothes, all the way to his bones. The streets are now covered with a thick layer of slippery snow and it seems like it will only get worse.
Donghae observes the little snowflakes with wary eyes. It isn’t something that makes him happy anymore, not like it used to when he was younger. It only brings pain and fear, sickness and an awful feeling of loneliness.

The sun is long gone, and all its fragile warmth with it. It’s dark outside but the streets are still busy and crowded. It won’t last, though. It’s Christmas Eve tonight. People will soon go home and spend the evening with their families, their friends, maybe just with their lover, or perhaps alone in front of the TV, but that’s still better than nothing.
Donghae has nothing.

As he watches the crowd around him, Donghae feels melancholic. The bright lights of the festive decorations don’t make him happy anymore, not like it used to. The kids laughing and holding their parents hands as they walk down the streets only reminds him that he’s lost his own happiness. The Christmas carols playing from the stores and the shops make his chest heavy and his stomach full of distressing knots.

It’s not the first time he spends Christmas alone in the streets. The shelters for homeless are full and packed in this period of the year, giving him no choice but be on his own. He could try and get a place somewhere, but a voice inside his head keeps repeating that he’s young and healthy, that other people need it more than him.

Last year, he cried the whole night, curled up under his dirty and smelly coat as he spent the night on the gross ground of a subway station, trembling from the cold and from the suffocating pain filling up his chest. On that night, he realized his decadence. He felt even more powerfully the loss of his parents, of his friends, of his previous, happy life. The loss of his innocence, somehow, and of a time he still had no clue that life would be so hard.

This year, it doesn’t feel as difficult. Maybe it’s because he’s prepared and knows what to expect. He doesn’t know where he’ll sleep yet, but he’ll start worrying about it later, when the streets will turn empty and silent. For now, he’s found a ripped jacket in a garbage bin last week and he wears it under his old coat. It keeps him warm enough for this kind of nights.
And, he keeps repeating to himself, he’s not alone this time, not really.  

“Baby, are you cold?” he looks down and mutters to the puppy dog he’s holding against his chest, safely tucked inside his clothes.

Like many homeless, he’s adopted an animal, a companion of misfortune. The pet gives him the love he needs and helps him fight his loneliness. Its name is Yuki, he found it abandoned in a park three months ago. The pup is still young and tiny, its fur is fluffy and white like the snow, and its little body feels incredibly warm against Donghae’s chest. He cherishes Yuki like he’s never cherished anything before.

Yuki his fingers lovingly and Donghae manages to pull a faint smile of his face. Because Yuki doesn’t care if he smells bad and if he’s dirty, doesn’t care if he hasn’t showered for a while and wears the same clothes for weeks. Yuki loves him unconditionally.

Donghae averts his eyes from his pet and looks up again, a worried frown on his face. He peeks at the people walking down the street, passing in front of him without sparing him a glance, sometimes purposely looking away because they feel uncomfortable about his existence. The plastic cup he’s holding up is still empty.
He sighs. He has been begging for a few coins and food since the morning, unsuccessfully. He wants to give up but knows he can’t. He has no choice. He needs to feed his little furry friend.

He takes a few steps closer and approaches a woman who just stopped in front of the food shop. She’s busy lacing her son’s shoes and doesn’t notice him.

“Excuse me”, Donghae softly speaks. There’s no hesitation in his voice despite how faint he sounds. He’s used to do this now.

The woman looks up, blinking in surprise, and her expression immediately turns reserved, almost suspicious. He’s used to that too.

“I don’t have money”, she quickly says.

“I don’t want money”, Donghae shakes his head. “But I need food for my dog. Could you buy us just a little box of dry food for dog? Please? Yuki is hungry.”

The woman’s face softens when he pulls on his coat and shows her his baby dog. She ponders a few seconds, before she slowly nods and tells him to wait for her, and then she enters the groceries shop with her son. Donghae sighs in relief and stands nearby the shop, obediently waiting for her.
He’s just glad someone finally accepted to help him. It’s funny how it always works better when he shows them his tiny puppy. People have more compassion for animals than they have for humans.

Half an hour later, his body starts to shudder harshly due to the coldness. The weather is getting worse, the snow is falling in abundance around him and the wind is nasty, leaving him all wet and freezing in the middle of the street. Suddenly, he wonders if he’ll make it through the night or if he’ll be found all blue and dead in the morning.

But then, the woman finally walks out of the shop and he stops thinking about it. She hands him a box of food for his dog. She didn’t buy anything for him, but that doesn’t matter. Yuki is his priority. He thanks her softly and she gives him a reserved smile, before she turns around and leaves him there.

Donghae grabs his small duffle bag from the ground, the one containing his ID and papers, and all his -dirty- clothes (which only consist of another pair of pants and a couple sets of underwear) and shoves the box inside. Then, he glances around and spots a clock inside a shop, on the other side of the street. It’s almost 7pm, he finds out and sighs in relief. He’s not too late, he can still make it.

He rushes down the street, eyes cast down to his feet to make sure he doesn’t slip, but also to avoid the others’ stares and disgusted looks. He doesn’t get nasty comments very often, but sometimes it happens and he prefers not to bring unwanted attention on himself.

It takes him about ten minutes before he reaches his destination: the bus’ stop in front of the Gucci building. The snowflakes are still dancing around him and his hoodie is all damped. He doesn’t take refuge under the bus shelter, already packed with people waiting for the bus. He knows they wouldn’t be happy to have him nearby. They all see him as a nuisance.
Instead, he goes and sits on his usual bench, a couple meters away.

He drags his bag to his side and takes out the dog food’s box. His fingers feel numb despite the fact that he’s wearing his ripped gloves, and it takes him a few attempts before he manages to open the box. Yuki starts to bark happily and fidgets under his coat, recognizing the sound and the smell of food.

“Wait a second”, Donghae giggles, his voice barely louder than a whisper. He takes off his gloves and grabs a small fistful of the dried food. He brings his hand up to Yuki and starts feeding his puppy dog. The pet swallows everything eagerly and he gives it another share.

After making sure Yuki has had enough for the night, he shoves a small amount of the dog food into his own mouth and chews on it slowly. It doesn’t taste so bad once you’re used to it, and he can’t afford to be picky. Food is in short supply and hunger is the best sauce. He doesn’t eat much though, because he’s worried not to have enough food left for Yuki tomorrow.

Once their meal is swallowed and their hunger temporarily smoothed, Donghae puts the box back into his bag. His fingers come to gently play with Yuki’s fur, and he feels small wet on his digits every now and then. It warms up his chest.

He doesn’t look down as he pets his dog. Instead, his whole attention is focused on his surroundings and more precisely on the crowd of faces passing by the street. The wind grows stronger, and the cold invades his damped clothes, making his limbs all tense and aching. He knows he should find a place to protect them from the bad weather. It’s stupid to stay here, with the snow falling all over him and making him all wet. He knows a few places where he can go and hide, and yet he doesn’t move.

“I’m stupid”, he sighs, white smoke escaping his mouth when his warm breath meets the cold air. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”

To tell the truth, this is not the first time he sits on this bench. Usually, he doesn’t like to stay too long or show up too regularly at the same place, because he knows he’ll get kicked away or spotted by cops, or worse, cornered and attacked by anyone with bad intentions. He’s wary of thugs, of thieves, of bands of youngsters straying in the street. He’s an easy target, he knows it.  

Yet, he can’t help but come back to this bench, almost every day, and wait. Wait for him to walk out of the office after a long day of work. His only purpose for sitting on this bench is to see him, even if it’s only for a few seconds.

Everything because of that man, Lee Hyukjae.

Donghae doesn’t know much about him, except for his name and his age –he’s a few months older than him-, and the fact that he’s an ordinary employee working for a big company. He wears fancy suits and expensive shoes. He has ordinary black hair with an ordinary cut and you most probably wouldn’t notice him in a crowd. He fits in well with society, unlike Donghae.  

But despite how ordinary he looks, Hyukjae is special to Donghae. Hyukjae is like a ray of sunshine peaking through the heavy clouds of Donghae’s misery. Hyukjae is like a breath of air into Donghae’s suffocating life. Hyukjae only needs to exist to make Donghae’s day a little brighter. A look, a smile, a word from Hyukjae can make Donghae’s heart flutter violently and create weird tingles inside his belly.

Donghae wouldn’t deny he has a major crush on Hyukjae.
It doesn’t matter that he’s barely ever spoke to the man, the emotions he feels whenever he sees Hyukjae can’t be mistaken.

The first time they met was a couple months ago, a few days after Donghae’s 21th birthday. The young homeless male was sitting down on the bench, the same one he’s currently seated on. He was holding Yuki against his chest with one hand, while the other held up his small plastic cup for people to drop him a few coins.
Usually, people don’t look at him, don’t talk to him, they avoid him instead, when they don’t spit on him or mock him. The ones slipping a coin or two in his plastic cup don’t talk to him either. That’s why he was startled when Hyukjae had suddenly appeared out of nowhere and stopped in front of him.

“Hey, what’s your name?” the handsome man had asked, and the boy had needed a few seconds to process the question, too stunned to answer right away. “D-Donghae”, he had finally managed to stammer. Hyukjae had given him a soft smile and slipped money into his plastic cup. “Eat something Donghae, it’s getting cold these days. Take care”, he had said before he left.

And just like that, Donghae’s heart had been conquered.

Two days later, he was back on the bench and hoping to see the man again, but Hyukjae was nowhere to be seen that day. It took about a week before he saw the young salary man again, which happened after hours of waiting. He spotted Hyukjae walking down the street, completely oblivious of the homeless boy’s presence. Half a minute later, the man was out of sight, but Donghae’s heart kept stuttering dangerously for hours.

He came back the following day, and the day after, and on a regular basis after that. He quickly found out that Hyukjae always crossed the street around 7pm, sometime 7:10pm, and it became easy for him to catch a glimpse of the man as he left work. Donghae’s gaze was glued on Hyukjae’s slim and handsome face, on his sharp but graceful features, every time he looked at him from afar.
He didn’t try to get the man’s attention, but he secretly hoped their gazes could meet.

The man didn’t notice him at first, until one day his gaze met Donghae’s and a glint of recognition lightened his dark orbs. He didn’t stop nor approached the boy that day, but Donghae still felt his heart flutter in his chest when their gazes found each other.

The following day, Hyukjae’s eyes searched for him. When they found him, a small smile came to stretch the man’s lips. It made Donghae blush from head to toes, and the boy quickly averted his eyes, feeling his heart pound inside his chest.

After that, Hyukjae acknowledged his presence every time Donghae showed up. He didn’t stop to talk to him first, until one day he approached Donghae and gave him some coins for the second time. He grinned handsomely and made a little chat, during which he casually told Donghae his name. When he left, Donghae was on cloud nine and his chest felt all warm and fuzzy despite the cold rain pouring on him.

The following encounters became almost daily meetings. Hyukjae took the habit of sparing a few minutes to stop and talk to Donghae. First, he would just stand in front of the young man and make some light talk. Progressively, he began to sit next to the boy on the bench, unknowingly making Donghae’s heart stutter and his face flush as he smiled back shyly. They never had serious talks, and it barely lasted more than a few minute