Jiho woke up to the sound of a loud thump followed by Dongsung’s strained groan of annoyed pain. He rolled over onto his side and tried to ignore his roommate’s string of curse words as he got up off of the floor and sat on his bed, grumbling to himself as he rubbed the back of his neck. 

This was apparently a regular occurrence for Dongsung, as for the past few weeks he had woken both of them up at the exact same time like clockwork in the same fashion. Jiho had half a mind to help him figure out a way to stop falling out of his bed but couldn’t be bothered. It was actually a funny sound to make up to, as sadistic as Jiho felt admitting that.

“Ughh my neck…”

Jiho back rolled over to face Dongsung and cracked his eyes open to see him massaging his neck, wincing in pain. 

“Hurt yourself again, huh?” Jiho croaked, his voice not yet accustomed to being used after being silenced for the whole night as Dongsung nodded sullenly. 

“Yeah. It’s so dumb that I keep doing that… I should duct tape myself into bed… Better yet super glue myself or something…”

Jiho squinted his eyes as the blinds were pulled back, sunlight flooding the bedroom and illuminated Dongsung’s pained expression.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea… What if someone walked in and thought a serial killer had you on their hit list and were about to kill you? And how would you get out?”

Dongsung stared blankly at the floor, nodding dumbly as he stood up and walked to the other side of his bed, leaning down slowly to pick up some clothes. 

“Maybe… You should get up Jiho, it’s about time for classes to start.”

Jiho groaned and flopped an arm over his eyes as he laid in bed another few minutes before Dongsung shouted from inside the shower “Get up lazy ! Don’t make me come in there!”

Jiho grumbled to himself as he finally sat up and tossed his legs over the side of the bed, sighing as a massive black wave momentarily overtook his vision. He waited for the head rush to pass before he stood and stumbled into the bathroom to wash up. 

That was one of the few things Jiho didn’t like that Dongsung did: he never shut the door whenever he showered or went to the bathroom. Dongsung claimed it was because he had grown up not being ashamed of his body and the thought of closing the door never crossed his mind (and because it let the steam out and didn’t make the bathroom a sauna but his first reason seemed more logical). Jiho, on the other hand, felt the complete opposite but didn’t have the heart to complain to his room mate about something so trivial as closing the door. His logic was that since nothing had happened yet, there wasn’t any need to change anything.

“Don’t fix it if it ain’t broke, right?” Jiho muttered to himself as he brushed his teeth, accidentally spraying toothpaste all over the mirror. Jiho rolled his eyes in annoyance at his own blunder and tried to rub it off but just spread it around even more. Dongsung popped his head from behind the shower curtain, soap suds trailing down his face as he squinted his eyes curiously. 

“Did you say something?”

Jiho bit onto his toothbrush and yanked the curtain in front of Dongsung’s face as it started to slide back and almost reveal a little too much for Jiho’s comfort.

“NO, and for christ’s sake quit trying to flash me!”

“I wasn’t though,” Dongsung mumbled, adjusting the curtain so he could flash Jiho a pouty face before going back to washing the soap suds out of his hair. 

The rest of the morning stayed fairly uneventful. Jiho decided that he could shower once his classes were done for the day as he pulled on his decided outfit for that day. Dongsung so  joined him in search of a shirt as he had already put jeans on in the bathroom, much to Jiho’s relief. 

“What’s your first class again?”

“English, you?”

“World History 101.”

“Gross.”

“I know. It’s definitely not a good way to start the day.”

Jiho nodded sympathetically as he gave himself a once over in the bathroom mirror, frowning at the toothpaste smudge but ignored it and nodded in satisfaction before snatching his bag from the floor near the foot of his bed. He called out a quick “see you later” to Dongsung as he grabbed a energy bar on his way out, closing the door carefully behind him. 

He picked up his pace once he saw he had about ten minutes to get to class, but then slowed down as he remembered how late his teacher was yesterday, but then sped up again because he figured ‘just because he’s late the first day doesn’t mean he’ll be consistently tardy.’  

Jiho shook his head and hurried down the final pathway that lead to his classroom, smiling to himself as he saw the group of students huddled around the door. Fantastic: he wasn’t late. He decided that waiting a ways away from the main group of students was a good idea and it significantly lessened his chances of running into her.

Jiho ran his lower lip through his teeth in annoyance as he remembered that issue. He had almost forgotten about her since his mind had been occupied when he had hung out with Hojoon a couple weeks ago and gotten that heavenly bubble tea. They had become quite close over the course of a few weeks, learning the little things about each other and successfully getting rid of Jiho’s original first impression that Hojoon was always a smart-. 

He was only most of the time. 

But now that he was alone, he only had his thoughts to occupy him which made for a very boring and stressful few minutes before a blob disconnected itself from the crowd of students and started walking towards him. 

Jiho felt his face blanch as he couldn’t distinguish who the figure was at first, but once they drew close his expression relaxed, color draining back into his face. Hojoon walked up and stood in front of Jiho, kicking a stray pebble as the usual smile gracing his features as he adjusted his glasses, squinting as if to get a good look at Jiho’s face.

“You look like you just saw a ghost— Actually, even worse, you look like you just saw your ex,” he remarked in amusement, “Did you? Or did you think I was her?”

Jiho sighed, a long column of steam billowing up in front of him, giving Hojoon a perfect picture of his emotions. 

“Maybe I thought you were her, but how was I supposed to tell from a distance?” Jiho retorted defensively as he knew Hojoon had a tendency to whenever given the chance. Hojoon shrugged and hugged his sides, shivering in the cold morning weather.

“I dunno, I just think it’s funny you’re so nervous about bumping into her still,” he commented dryly, opting to shove his hands into his pockets rather than leaving them exposed to the cold, “Why is it that you’re so scared of her anyway? You still haven’t really explained it much…” 

Jiho averted his gaze in favor of watching the students part as the professor opened the door and headed inside the room, the students swiftly following suit. He hadn’t thought Hojoon would still be curious about that, even though she was sort of the reason they became friends in the first place. ‘I will at some point…’ He sighed in relief as he had an excuse to cut off their conversation and turned back to Hojoon. 

“I’ll explain later, maybe” he mumbled quietly, “—anyway, let’s go.” He walked towards the classroom and heard Hojoon follow him quietly into the room and sat down at their usual seats nearest the door hat remained empty, obviously undesirable to anyone else due to their proximity to the door.

The class period slowly crawled by, the only thing keeping Jiho sane the whole time was the notes he and Hojoon slid back and forth throughout the duration of class. It felt old school and nostalgic to Jiho since he hadn’t done something like this in a while; talking with Hojoon like this was nice and simple and avoided getting into loads of trouble since they were fairly quiet the whole time. 

Their conversation ended once the professor finally concluded his lecture and allowed the class to have an extra few minutes of class to chat (quietly), much to the relief of everyone present. Jiho chuckled at the last thing Hojoon had written down and elbowed him playfully.

“‘Why is he wearing a blue polo with kaki pants and a neon rainbow scarf?’ A more important question is why are you staring at our professor long enough to critique his outfit of choice?” 

Hojoon rested his head in that palm of his hand and traced imaginary patterns into the table in front of him, his eyes trained on his pattern drawing in front of him as he spoke “I was bored… I mean, doesn’t it look weird to you?” 

Jiho shrugged. “I don’t really notice things like that much… But,” he paused and took a good long look at the man in question before dragging his gaze back onto Hojoon who had since then looked up from his pattern drawing, his expression blank, “I guess it is a weird combination of colors.” He ran his fingers through his hair and giggled quietly, making the corners of Hojoon’s lips to curl up into a cheeky smile. 

“See? I’m right even when you doubt I am~” he sang out, poking Jiho’s shoulder playfully as he stuck his tongue out. Jiho snickered at Hojoon’s childish behavior and rolled his eyes, hunching over the table in an attempt to see the time on his phone resting in one of his backpack’s pockets and frowning as he only had a few minutes left of class to enjoy. 

Jiho blinked in surprise at his own revelation of enjoying class. Who enjoys class?! He’d never been one to like class, so how could he feel sad that it was ending?! He shook his head vigorously, resting his elbows on his knees and rubbed the palms of his hands into his eye sockets in confusion. ‘It hasn’t been that great of a morning anyway… So why..?’ Hojoon raised an eyebrow curiously and leaned over, trying to get a look at Jiho’s face as he was bent over the edge of the table looking at something.

“Yo, Jiho what’s the matter?” Hojoon inquired quietly as to not disturb anyone near them. He reached over to tap Jiho’s shoulder tentatively, “Did you get a headache or something?”

Jiho shook his head once more and rested his arms on his knees, still blankly looking at his phone, now just caught in a trance rather than contemplating his previously arbitrary thought that he’d forgotten. After a good long awkward minute of Hojoon repeatedly poking Jiho’s shoulder and generally feeling bored from the lack of communication, Hojoon cleared his throat, successfully snapping Jiho back into reality.

He sat up suddenly and turned back around, his gaze still cast downwards as he began yammering on obliviously, “Sorry I was thinking about something but then I forgot what it was and then I… Just…” Jiho’s words trailed off once he finally raised his head and found himself hardly a inch or so away from Hojoon’s face. He was so close in fact that he could feel Hojoon’s breath fan over his lips, ghosting its way across his stunned face, a hint of caramel assailing his nostrils. Jiho blinked and laughed as he scooted his chair a considerably larger distance apart from Hojoon causally as he attempted to cover the awkward moment that Hojoon either didn’t notice or was choosing to simply ignore. 

“I… Just… Forgot and spaced out, staring at my phone!” Jiho exclaimed with a laugh, a bit too loud for Hojoon’s comfort as the other boy winced, nodding with a pained expression on his face.   

“Okay, okay you don’t have to announce that to the whole world,” Hojoon mumbled, a mild smile playing about his lips despite his moody statement. “Did someone text you or something?”

Jiho shook his head, a wave of relief washing over him as he watched the conversation take a more comfortable turn. “No, I was just staring at the time, I guess…”

Hojoon nodded slowly, lips pursed in apparent deep thought. Both sat in their chairs quietly after that, the hum of other students talking to each other making the silence between them more bearable, only broken a few minutes later by Hojoon’s soft, amused chuckle. Jiho almost missed it but heard the tail end of it and looked up curiously.  

“What’s so funny?”

“Ohhh…” Hojoon sighed, “Nothing. I just had a thought.”

“And what’s that?”

“Oh, it wasn’t anything important. Just something that was bugging me from earlier…”

Jiho frowned. “Do you have to be so cryptic about it?”

Now it was Hojoon’s turn to shake his head, a childish smile set in place of his normal sly smirk. “I’m not being cryptic. I just don’t know how to explain it.”

Jiho shrugged, assuming that was the most he was going to get out of Hojoon for the moment and decided to fix his attention on his phone. Just as he turned it on to cure his boredom, the class collectively stood and filed out of the classroom doors, cold wind biting Jiho’s cheeks as soon as he joined them. He looked back as he heard Hojoon sneeze and giggled. 

“Bless you!”

Hojoon squinted at him oddly as he rubbed the underside of his nose, “What?”

Jiho rolled his eyes in exasperation, “People these days… Have you no manners?”

“I do but I just don’t get what you mean. Why’d you say that?”  

“That’s what you say when someone sneezes ,” Jiho snorted sassily.

Hojoon chuckled and sped up his pace until he was walking backwards in front of Jiho, “OH, you thought I sneezed? That must’ve been somebody else ‘cause I just coughed and my nose itched.” He chuckled at the other’s defeated expression, “You dork.” 

Jiho stuck his tongue out at him and shoved his hands in his pockets, quickening his own pace. He wanted a bit of time to himself in the library where it was a lot warmer than the frigid arctic like weather currently assaulting the university and the area around it. “I’ll see you around Joon” he called out over his shoulder as he trudged up to the building the library was in, almost not catching Hojoon’s reply, “See you Jiho~ Don’t stay annoyed all through Chemistry, would ya?”

Jiho flicked his wrist as a speck of white fell on it, freezing the little patch of skin that was braving the cold. He craned his neck up to see that it was snowing lightly and half smiled to himself. As much as he hated the cold, he loved the snow. Ever since he could remember he always loved to run around and try to catch snowflakes on his tongue, delighting in the tingly feeling on his tongue. 

Jiho half jumped in the air to reach one particularly large flake, drifting lazily through the air with no specific path in mind, but the wind swept it away to fly past Jiho’s tongue and into the window that the college student was standing in front of. The male pouted in disappointment and walked into the library, relishing in the wave of warm air that hit him as he opened the doors. He took a seat in front of the window he had been standing at earlier, a light blush tinging his cheeks as he realized a few people had witnessed his little mishap with the rouge snowflake.

He ducked his head down and laid it on his arms, crossed in front of him on the table placed near the window. His eyelids began to droop as the warmth and the comfortable position he was in began to lull him to sleep, but a buzz from his phone made him groan as he sat up to see what all the fuss was about as the buzzes continued. Three messages all from Hojoon. Jiho eyebrows raised in mild shock.

Ever since they had exchanged numbers, neither of the college teens had decided to actually send a message; both unsure of how to start the conversation. Jiho opened up the conversation and squinted at it, trying to focus his sleepy eyes on the tiny words.

???: Hey Jiho, it’s me. Hojoon.

???: Are you seeing this snow? Pretty isn’t it? ^-^  

???: But kinda random since it’s only the beginning of October…

Jiho smiled at Hojoon’s messages, feeling all warm and fuzzy as he typed a reply.

Jiho: Yeah I saw it~ So pretty! I love snow…

???: It’s really nice isn’t it ^u^ I just wish I could go run around and play in it… :(

Jiho: Really?! :D I wanted to do that too but I figured I’m supposed to be an adult…

???: What?! Jiho, have you seen adults recently?!

Jiho: Yeah…?

???: Dude… they're more immature than we are these days… Let’s play in the snow after classes, ‘k? :3

Jiho: :3 awesome! Yeah let’s do it~ 

???: :3 YUS.

Jiho: Crap, I gtg. I’m late for class again ;m; 

???: Ohhhhhhh you’re going to get your beat! I’ll pray for your soul since it’s going to hell now

Jiho: -__- thanks weirdo… ;m; oh man I’’m screwed

???: Yup. See you on the other side dork x) 

Jiho: Ugh. bye :(

Jiho inwardly smashed his head into a wall as he awkwardly opened the door to his Chemistry classroom, the squeak making every student turn their head to stare at him along with his professor sending him a laser-like glare that made Jiho want to melt into a puddle of goo. He bowed and apologetically took a seat at the very back, keeping his head down as his teacher scolded him for being late yet again before she went back to teaching her lesson.

Jiho kept low during the rest of the period, ignoring the snickers coming from Sanggyun from across the room as he focused on the lecture, regretting not doing so in the earlier days of the class since he was barely keeping up with the pace of the class since he was behind. He’d worked his off a few nights ago to take a chunk out of the pile of worksheets sitting in the corner of his room and turn them in, much to the relief of his teacher. 

‘That’s what’s nice about college. Everything’s due at the end of the quarter and nothing’s late~ Well… At least for this class…’ 

Jiho was the first to leave the classroom and speed walk to his last class, yanking out his phone to make sure he wasn’t late since he’d had quite enough of that. He slowed his pace once he realized that he always had an hour or so between Chemistry and this next class and enjoyed the light snowfall that still persisted. He stopped a ways away from the classroom and held his hand out, shivering as a shower of little snowy angels melted on his hand, making a little puddle in the middle of his palm. He smiled to himself and tilted his head up, eyes closed as others fell gently onto his face and trailed down his cheeks, stopping midway down his chin as the cold halted their pursuit towards the ground.

He was shaken out of his little snowflake time by someone blowing on the side of his face, making him shake his head and stumble away, eyes fluttering open to see Hojoon a few feet away grinning childishly. “You looked so peaceful I just couldn’t help myself.”

“Meanie,”Jiho pouted, rubbing the side of his face gingerly as he wiped off the meted snow and the feeling of Hojoon blasting his face with cold air; not a pleasant feeling at all, especially when cold already. Hojoon giggled and picked up a bit of snow off the ground and molded it into a ball, it experimentally before pulling a disgusted face. Jiho laughed at him and whacked the ball out of his hand, “Idiot. There’s not enough snow for that! Plus it’s way better straight from the sky.”   

He pointed upwards and tilted his head up the same direction, narrowing his eyes so he could watch the snowflakes fall onto and around him. He always imagined them to be little spaceships falling from the clouds that he had to shoot down somehow, and if they landed he ha to go run around to prevent them from taking over the world. 

Hojoon smiled at Jiho going about his little antics again and decided to pull another prank on him. ‘I’ll snowflake gaze with him another time..’ He shuffled around until he was behind Jiho, facing his back. He took in a deep breath and launched himself forward, hurling himself onto JIho’s back and wrapped his arms around Jiho’s torso, locking his fingers together as Jiho stumbled forward awkwardly. 

“U-uh, Hojoon, what?”

“I’m cold and you’re being boring. And why didn’t you fall?! You were supposed to fall!” Hojoon rubbed his face against Jiho’s coat and chortled to himself at the silence met by his words. 

Jiho could feel his cheeks tingle, but he couldn’t say why. He assumed it was because he was slowly freezing and the first sign was frozen cheeks. He pried Hojoon’s arms off his and walked over to a covered area near their classroom doors, ignoring Hojoon’s prying questions.

“Why didn’t you fall? Technically I hit you just right and you should have fallen over and face planted into the ground, given how tall you are… I just don’t get it.” Jiho smirked at Hojoon’s genuine confusion over something so trite as him not falling because secretly, he knew Hojoon was going to pull something once he heard him walk behind him. Just because his attention was preoccupied didn’t mean his ears had turned off. He had braced himself for something, and had Hojoon legitimately caught him off guard, he definitely would have fallen.

“Oh well. Next time you’re going down, Jiho” Hojoon muttered, evilly rubbing his hands together, but in actuality was trying to warm them up since they were frigidly cold. The taller boy rolled his eyes and dismissed the harmless threat, “Yeah, whatever. But, if you were that cold why didn’t you just go inside? I’m not very warm…”

“Well how would I know until I checked?”

Hojoon’s blunt question stunned Jiho into silence until he finally came up with a response a few minutes later, “Valid, I guess. I didn’t know you were this childish Hojoon. It’s weird…” Jiho gulped as Hojoon adjusted his glasses a different demeanor seeming to take place of his previously playful one. “Is that so? Well, what if I felt like playing around every once in a while? You don’t understand Jiho,” Hojoon sighed dramatically, placing a hand over his face, “It’s difficult being smart all the time.”

Jiho chuckled and pushed Hojoon’s shoulder playfully, a relieved grin appearing on his face as he heard other students head into their classroom. He nodded his head over towards the entrance, signaling that they should go and began walking in the direction of final class. He mumbled under his breath, half hoping Hojoon would hear him, half hoping not, “Now that’s the Hojoon I’m used to~”

——————————————————————————————————————————

A/N: Sorry for the late chapter! Things got sort of busy 0-0

Does anyone else pretend snowflakes are incoming spaceships or was that just me as a younger kid? Cause I actually like to do that xD

Tell me what you thought of it~~ 

(PS: I may update really soon to make up for the lacking of chapters and I have a pretty good idea for the next chapter :D )