Jiho rolled and wriggled around underneath his bedsheets, squirming around until he finally got into a comfortable position and opened his eyes slowly to let them adjust to the sunlight that was pouring into his room. It was midday, after all. And yet he still hadn’t worked up enough courage and motivation to get himself out of bed. 

Because he knew. He knew that if he actually did manage to haul himself out of his protective burrito of blankets and comfort, all he would do is make his way to the table outside his room and sit there for hours, trying to write the perfect confession note to Hojoon since he didn’t have the guts to tell him face to face. 

That’s all Jiho had been doing the entire few days after Hojoon left him. After their presentation ended, Jiho felt like something else ended: their connection, as cheesy as it sounded. He just felt like that the only reason they hung around each other was because they needed to get something done to pass a class.

But yet, all that aside, he simultaneously felt that Hojoon, sort of, sought him out. He’d call Jiho up and ask if they could study in the library after their final class ended, to which Jiho always eagerly agreed to doing. Eventually they did it so often, plan to study after class and do so, that it became and unsaid tradition that neither of the two of them ever needed to set in stone to know that they would always do it. 

Sometimes, when they were sitting in the library, typing away on their laptops or writing down notes, (which oftentimes Jiho was just pretending to actually be working since he could rarely focus on anything aside from trying not to stare to obviously at Hojoon), Jiho would start to imagine that they were on a study date and not, in fact, trying to get work done. He would, for lack of a better term, fantasize about the two of them linking arms as they exited the library and whispering secrets to each other as they walked home in the biting cold. 

He would picture Hojoon giggling quietly as Jiho, for example, admitted to tripping over something and fell face first into the road in the most unglamorous way possible, which explained his scuffed shirt that day. Jiho would imagine Hojoon smiling and teasing him about how clumsy he was but eventually letting up to give him a sweet kiss on the cheek. 

That was always the point that would snap Jiho out of his daydreaming: anytime any inkling of a kiss was introduced into his mind. His brain would real back at the thought and shut it down, deeming it “unfit to think about” and “absolutely out of the question and absurd”. He would always sigh wistfully and turn his attention back onto his computer screen and try to focus on his work, but that would only make him want to think about Hojoon even more. 

His feelings got progressively worse as time went by. At first, when he only just admitted to himself that he in fact, did have feelings for his best friend, he repressed every single thought of them together into the very back of his brain and tried to rationalize them away and out of his imagination. Maybe he was just over-thinking his feelings towards his friend. Maybe he just really cared about Hojoon as a friend and just wanted the best for him. 

But, the more thoughts he shoved to the back of his mind, the more those same thoughts would slowly trickle into his normal thought stream and would flow into a cascade of emotion that would wash over him at the most inconvenient of times. Out of nowhere, he would suddenly feel his throat tighten up and his eyes begin to water and would often rush to the bathroom to stare in the mirror at himself and gave himself a ton of pep talks until he calmed down. This would result in a very awkward excuse he would routinely give Hojoon for his odd behavior and hoped that he’d just shrug it off, to which he usually did. 

Eventually, he became so accustomed to these episodes of random emotional bursts that he began to be able to control them and hold them off until he was safe at home. However, this was as far as he’d gotten to. This was the final step Jiho could take to suppress his emotions. And as if he thought nothing more would happen to trigger more emotions and confusion, that happened.

He was almost certain Hojoon knew by now because how could he not?! He’d heard Jiho’s heartbeat going crazy after he hugged him goodbye and even commented on it! He knew didn’t he?! 

Didn’t he?!

This question in particular was what had kept Jiho in this endless loop of writing notes and throwing himself onto his bed out of despair: Did he know or not, once and for all?! 

Jiho needed to know, but he had no idea of how he was going to go about finding it out for himself. He couldn’t just walk up and ask him, no way! That’s insane! He’d rather talk to his ex than ask Hojoon face to face. So naturally, Jiho figured that the next to best thing would be to write a note.

And somehow get it to Hojoon without him knowing it was Jiho who wrote it, but he couldn’t be anonymous about it since Jiho would have to hand it to him before running away so obviously Hojoon would know it was him…

‘What am I gonna do?!’ Jiho screamed internally as he kicked his feet angrily on his bed, sheets getting tangled between his legs as he shook the whole bed out of pure frustration. He pulled one of his blankets over his head and whined into his pillow like an angry five year old. 

And somehow that gave him an idea. 

“I’ll just wear a really big hoodie and give the note to Hojoon without showing my face! He’ll never know what hit him! I’m a genius!” 

‘No you aren’t, idiot. He knows how tall you are and that you don’t have basically any other friends aside from him, so he’ll for sure know it’s you.’

Jiho shoved all his blankets onto the floor and sighed in defeat because, well his conscience was right. There’s no way that would work. Hojoon was too smart to get tricked by something that simple. 

“There’s got to be another way… I can’t keep ignoring this… Whatever this is, forever…” Jiho groaned as he rolled onto his side and stared at the wall, hoping to draw answers from it. He closed his eyes as he tried to think of another way he could tell Hojoon how he’d been harboring a pretty intense crush on him for the past few months, but instead his mind began to wander and fill with other thoughts. 

Like how nice it would be to just hold Hojoon’s hand. Just once. It didn’t even have to be for very long… Just for a moment. It’d be nice and sweet and— Wait… Hadn’t he done that before? Back in the cafe where Hojoon decided to be a little and scare the waitress? 

‘That doesn’t count. No, he initiated that and it didn’t really mean anything to him so it doesn’t count’ Jiho reasoned, feeling the need to defend his own reasoning that he was trying to sort out with himself. God, he needed to get out and talk to someone otherwise he was gonna go crazy. 

Maybe he could just go find Hojoon and just hang out with him and see what happens. They could go out for coffee and just talk about things and maybe Jiho would work up enough courage to actually tell Hojoon how he felt. 

Or maybe not.

“ it, let’s just go” Jiho muttered as he hauled himself out of bed and put on a decent pair of jeans and a nice shirt with a cardigan so he wouldn’t look like a hobo who just rolled out of bed, especially since thats exactly what he was at the moment. He ran his fingers through his hair and glanced at himself in the mirror to see if he looked half decent and nearly choked on his own saliva. 

He looked… Messily put together. Not necessarily what he was going for, but at least he looked the part. 

‘Time to go potentially screw my life up in the best way possible’ 

He was just overflowing with positivity as he slid his shoes on but kicked them off to run into his room to grab a jacket as he had just remembered how frigidly cold it was and didn’t want to turn into a human icicle. ‘Not like that’s possible considering I turn into a heated tomato whenever Hojoon decides to be a and be pretty’ Jiho mused to himself as he closed the door behind him and headed towards the elevator. 

He felt like a mini snowman in his goofy coat and honestly he probably looked a bit ridiculous, but at this point he’d rather look idiotic and warm than fashionable and frozen. Also, he could hide behind his massive fluffy hood if need be so that was a plus to a snowman coat. 

He stepped out of the thankfully empty tiny space that was the elevator and exited the building, gasping as the cold wind nipped at his exposed face. He stood in front of the doors for a moment, trying to remember where Hojoon had told him his dorm was. He’d only been there once or twice so he couldn’t really remember the route off the top of his head, unfortunately. ‘Then again, it was always dark whenever we actually went to his place…’

After a lot of agonizing over if he should ask where he was or not, Jiho held his phone up to his ear and waited for the call to go through, biting his lip nervously and shivering like a scared Chihuahua. He half hoped Hojoon wouldn’t pick up so he could go running back to his room and hide from everything, but to his unfortunate luck, he heard the call go through. 

“Hello?” he murmured hesitantly, still hoping this was some weird voicemail setup that made it sound like the person picked up when they didn’t. He was yet again wrong as he heard Hojoon chuckle on the other side of the call.

“Hey Jiho. What’s up? You sound…”

“I sound…? You can’t say stuff like that and not finish what you were saying” Jiho whined helplessly into the phone as he felt his stomach twist in nervous anticipation.

“I was going to say you sound tired, but now I think you sound sick. Are you sick?”

Jiho shivered as a gust of cold wind blew past him, making his teeth chatter as he tried to speak, his fingers clutching the phone in a slowly loosening grip as they began to get way too cold. 

“I-I’m not sick. W-what makes you think I’m s-sick? Huh?” 

Jiho listened to the sound of something shuffling around for about a minute or so before Hojoon finally answered once more, muttering under his breath “You idiot… You’re outside, aren’t you?Stay where you are. I’ll be there in a little bit” then hung up. 

Jiho felt his heart sink as he put his phone into his pocket and bit his dry lip nervously. Hojoon sounded… Almost angry or irritated and Jiho couldn’t figure out why. He sighed in frustration as he realized the whole point of him calling Hojoon was to see if he was free and he totally froze up and forgot to say anything. Jiho was getting sick of Hojoon making him forget important things like that. He should tell him sometime so he doesn’t do it again…

‘Oh ho, that’s a brave thought’

Jiho frowned and leaned against the side of the building, shivering as he waited for Hojoon to arrive. He didn’t know why he didn’t just take two steps to go inside where it was warm and comfortable when standing out in the cold was so frigid and shiver-inducing aside from the fact that Hojoon told him to stay still. And for some reason Jiho felt compelled to obey what he said. 

“Hah… What am I, his dog?” he snorted in annoyance, but still didn’t go inside. 

A few minutes passed and Jiho was starting to forget what it felt like to even have fingers anymore. What was the point in fingers anyway? If they froze so easily, why even have them? 

‘I guess the cold froze my brain too’ Jiho thought scornfully as he realized how stupid his thoughts were beginning to sound. A light tap on his shoulder caused him to jerk his head up to see Hojoon standing in front of him with a worried look on his face. 

“I thought I’d find you here. What the hell are you doing?” 

Jiho blinked twice before answering in a dazed manner, “I w-was just w-waiting like y-you said—”

“Okay well you didn’t have to take what I said so literally! Look at you!” Hojoon exclaimed as he reached out and put his gloved hand on Jiho’s cheek and frowned as he glanced at his face, “You’re basically turning blue!” 

Jiho would’ve blushed if he weren’t so cold as he watched Hojoon pick up his hands and gasp as he saw how blueish-white they were as well. 

“You are so dumb sometimes Jiho,” Hojoon sighed as he slid a jacket that had been hanging over his shoulder off of himself and handed it to him. “Here, put this on before you pass out.” 

Jiho nodded and tried to pry his fingers apart to the jacket, but after multiple failed attempts because his fingers refused to move, Hojoon sighed impatiently and ped the jacket and slid it onto Jiho for him. He pulled the sleeves and helped Jiho slide his arms into them before zipping the jacket back up and smiled like an unhappy mother. 

“Come on, let’s go get you something hot to drink at my place” Hojoon mumbled as he grabbed Jiho’s arm and tugged him into the direction of his dorm, ignoring the squeak of confusion the other let out at his actions but complied anyway. They walked in relative silence until they were walking up the stairs to Hojoon’s dorm before he asked “So why didn’t you go inside?” 

Jiho shrugged wordlessly as he followed Hojoon into a hallway similar to his own and stood behind Hojoon as he unlocked his door and beckoned him inside. He slid off his shoes and walked into a room with a little table in the center with some papers scattered across it, accompanied by some pillows on the ground that, Jiho assumed, served as chairs. 

“Make yourself at home while i get us some hot chocolate,” Hojoon called out from his tiny kitchen across the room in a similar place that Jiho’s kitchen was, only smaller. “S-sounds good!” Jiho answered, his hands and face still feeling numb from the outside cold as he sat in one of the pillow chairs, smiling as he took off his jacket and leaned back into the comfy pillow. 

He felt warmth begin to seep back into his fingers and eventually his face as he sat back in the chair as the scent of chocolate filled the room. He liked hot chocolate, but vanilla late’s were more of his type of thing, but he’d never complain to Hojoon about that. Who would pass up hot coco from your crush? Nobody sane would, that’s for sure, not that Jiho was sane in any regard. 

His musings were interrupted by a red mug bring placed in front of him on the small table accompanied by Hojoon sighing as he sat down in a pillow-chair in front of Jiho, his own mug in front of him. 

“I’ve been told my coco is the best so if you start to see the light while you drink it don’t blame me” Hojoon said with a smirk as he blew on his drink and watched Jiho’s face morph into one of disbelief. Hojoon merely shrugged and watched Jiho take a hesitant sip. 

“See? I was right wasn’t I?” Hojoon asked as he grinned at Jiho’s eyes widen as he took a few more sips before putting the mug down and fanned his tongue. 

“Really good but really hot” Jiho panted as he tried to cool down his tongue before subjecting it to the miracle that was Hojoon’s hot chocolate once more. Hojoon laughed quietly as he watched Jiho proceed to down the whole mug in less than thirty minutes and was left with a bit of cream on the side of his lips. 

(Yes, it’s cliche but I don’t know if you've noticed but this whole fic is pretty cliché so whatever) 

“Hey you got something…” Hojoon pointed at his own lips, gesturing to the dab of cream Jiho had childishly left on his face. The other boy stared quizzically at Hojoon before realizing what he meant and wiped his face with the beck of his hand. 

“Did I get it?” 

“Ugh, no. Hold still.” 

Jiho resisted the urge to lean back as Hojoon half stop over the table and wiped his face with a napkin and sighed in satisfaction as he sat back down, nodding approvingly. “There.” 

Jiho swallowed hard and pretended that what just happened didn’t make him want to do a cartwheel and smiled nervously as he turned his head to look outside. His mouth dropped open as he saw that it was completely dark outside, save for the few lights that lit up walkways around the campus. 

“How did it get so dark so fast?!” he exclaimed as he pulled his phone out and saw that it was hardly five in the evening. 

“Welcome to winter” Hojoon said dryly. “Where it’s cold and dark before you can get anything done.” 

“Sheesh, don’t sound too excited about it all. You're overwhelming me with your enthusiasm” Jiho replied, with a tone dripping with sarcasm as he rolled his eyes. 

Hojoon snorted and waved his hand to get Jiho’s attention before asking, “So, what did you call me for?” 

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

A/N: …

Consider this a part 1 of one event split into however many chapters it takes… It’ll probably be two, just saying… 

;-; I’ll just say exams are great and fantastic and time consuming :D hope you enjoyed this xD lemme know any theories or plots or feels or whatever