“Oh come onnnnn Lay. Not even for a little while?” Chen whined, tugging futilely at Lay’s sleeve. Lay didn’t budge.

            “Nuh uh Chen. It’s our night to do the dishes. That means we have to do the dishes.” Lay repeated. He had been offering the same argument for the better part of an hour but Chen was still in denial. Poor thing.

            Chen scoffed, “I met you nine years ago and you’re still such an obedient little kid. Good thing too.” He let out a dramatic sigh and Lay focused on eliminating the goopy ketchup stain on a small plate, bracing himself for the dramatic rant of sarcasm that no doubt was about to come spewing from Chen.

            “You know what? I’m happy you’re so loyal. We need more men like you out here. I ask you now to imagine a world where everyone doesn’t diligently follow every rule like it’s set in stone. Dishes aren’t immediately washed by the hands of the divinely gorgeous sixteen year old boy” (Chen paused for dramatic effect and Lay chuckled to himself, eyes still on the dishes) “and his weird friend from China.” (Chen laughed and dodged the suds Lay threw at him before clearing his throat and continuing) “Instead, such children roam the streets to play on lovely December evenings. What madness is this? Next thing you know it’s full on anarchy! The world erupts into flames and is swallowed in to hell without knowing the saving grace of winter’s first snow.” Chen finished with a pained expression, eyes closed. Lay didn’t even have to look over to know that ending stance, he had witnessed his best friend’s monologues countless times before.

            “Lay, just look outside. There’s a whole nother world out there!” he climbed up on the countertop to look out the window and gasped. “OH MY GOD IS THAT SNOW?!” He nearly screamed.

            “Chen, it’s not going to make me look. Give it up. We are doing dishes and that is final. Resistance is futile.” Lay said in a deep voice, erupting into a fit of dimpled giggles at the end because; let’s face it, he can’t be threatening.

            “No no no no no. Lay. This is serious okay. Mano y mano.” Chen reached back, placing his hand under Lay’s chin to tilt it up to the window. “Look” he urged.

            Lay sighed and looked up.

            And gasped.

            The snowflakes were beautiful, no doubt. They drifted through the breeze in a soothingly lazy motion that romanticized the delicate white specks, the street lights illuminating them as separate from the dark of night. But that wasn’t what had affected him. It was the short, auburn-haired boy, with wide eyes full off excitement and puffy cheeks tinged red with cold that had taken his breath away.

            Lay slowly reached out the hand not holding the dish to touch the window. At first contact he jumped a bit, eyes widening in surprise as he retracted his hand at the shock of cold. But Lay reached forward yet again, laying his palm flat against the cool, smooth glass and yearning to reach beyond. The boy was sitting on the porch of the house opposite their own, warming his hands together. He yawned, face stretching and weakly covering it with a mittened hand before blinking tiredly and rubbing at his eyes. Lay bit his bottom lip to hold back a smile at the adorable sight.

            “Beautiful,” Lay whispered from his daze.

            “Yeah, I love the snow too dude,” Lay agreed, before launching into an impromptu rendition of “* knock knock * Lay? Do you wanna build a snowwmannnn?”. He was totally clueless to the googly-eyed mess beside him.

            The unknown boy curled his knees to his chest and rested his head on them. Whoever he was waiting for must have been taking a while. Lay would like to teach them a thing or two about respect, how DARE you leave an unattended cutie like that out in the snow. Lay would never leave a guy like that alone if he could help it.

            Lay’s heart was pounding in his ears so loudly that he didn’t even hear the dish slip through his fingers and crash on the floor.

            “Here’s what I don’t get,” Chen said, continuing his rant about the lack of justice in the world as he threw his weight on to the shovel, “if you want to punish two kids for wanting to go outside, why would you send them outside? Like, oh no, what a nightmare! You’re letting us do exactly what we wanted! Oh, the horror! Oh, the humanity!”

            “We’re not here by our own freewill.” Lay corrected, diligently shoveling the snow. He was a little grumpy after seeing that the adorable boy was gone, and when Lay was upset, he worked. He had long ago finished his half of the driveway and was now continuing on to Chen’s half. Chen didn’t even have to ask.

            "Ugh, why do we have to do this work, we're not that strong." Chen uttered.

           "Speak for yourself." Lay said back between huffs.

           "Okay then, I get why you're here." Chen paused from the miniscule progress he had made to look over at Lay, gasping for air, "But why am I here then?

           “We are here because I made a mistake, and you”, Lay paused from the manual labor to bat his eyelashes at Chen for a moment “my heeeeeeerrrrroooo, decided to take the fall for me.”

            “Damn right I’m your hero.” Chen said, voice loud and manly, “I mean, look at all the snow I shoveled.” He said, puffing out his chest and gesturing at the land Lay had cleared. Lay doubled over his shovel, giggling with dimples on full display at the ridiculous notion of Chen doing physical work.

            “Hey, do you guys want any help?” a new voice piped up from behind them. The pair turned and Lay nearly keeled over.

            It was the boy from earlier, wide-eyed and adorable as ever.

            “Pssssssssssst,” Chen whispered to Lay without taking his eyes off of the newcomer, “Straaaaannngggeeerrr daaaaaaannnnnggggeeerrrr! No sudden movement.” He hissed. But Lay was too focused on not letting his knees give out to really hear the words anyway.

            “What?” Lay said loudly and dumbly. The sound was harsh and sudden in the quiet night. He could have smacked himself, the word sounded so rude and just so friggin dumb.

            The new boy must have thought that Lay was talking to him (Oh my god Lay why do you have to speak to handsome strangers with such an abrasive tone wake the up he screamed at himself mentally), and the new boy flashed a nervous, lop-sided smile that made Lay’s heart downright melt in this below freezing weather. Lay knew he was smiling like an idiot, and he only hoped he wasn’t creeping out the boy into running away in fear.

            But no, the boy just continued on with the crooked grin before saying “Hi, nice to meet you. I guess you guys are my neighbors now. I’m Xiumin.” He waved awkwardly at the two, “I’m kind of new in the neighborhood, but we can talk about that later I guess. The matter at hand is, do you guys want any help?”

Author's note: yikes this was pretty long. It would have been way longer if i decided to include the scene with xiumin i wanted to have in there, but I guess I'll just pile it on into the next chapter somehow?? I don't know man. I'm kind of burning through this fanfiction without overthinking it...which might be a terrible idea. Heh. Oh well. The whole fast-forwarding to high school thing might have to be post-poned for another chapter or two. Whoopsy daisy *nervously does terrible aegyo to avoid anger* ALSO MAJOR SHOUTOUT TO THE FOUR SUBSCRIBERS I GOT ALREADY!!!! YOU GUYS SERIOUSLY ROCK!! I was talking (ehem, bragging) about you guys with my lunch table I just *wipes away tear* I am so blessed. Lol but really, it means the world to me :). Feel free to message me with any requests or comment with any feedback, I'll do my best for you. And to my lovely fans, all four of you, stay awesome lol <3 <3 <3 <3