Chapter Text
Kim Jonghyun watched as the snow fell delicately from his studio window. The world outside had been tinted in navy blue wash and the snow that descended reflected off the dull, yellow street lights, whilst the DJ was stuck inside a well-lit room, surrounded by a group of people, all going over the procedure and schedule before he was due to go live.
As per usual, he found himself lost amongst the din of voices around him and instead focused on the window that housed him away from the winter world he wanted to immerse. He only vaguely registered that he was being spoken to when a hand came out to wave in front of his face.
He blinked up at the PD, Kang Seulgi, looking at him with a bewildered but charming smile.
“Sorry, could you repeat that?” Jonghyun asked, smiling sheepishly. Seulgi rolled her eyes but her smile only brightened. A day rarely passed by where Seulgi wasn’t smiling about something, be it as trivial as a good cup of coffee or hitting all the green lights as she drove into work.
“I said that because this is a special end-of-year show, I thought we would do a round-up of the best songs of the year. And take some holiday requests, as well.”
Holiday requests meant messages from people overseas or in the military who weren’t able to visit family on Christmas day or New Years. Jonghyun never cared much for them, especially since they were all usually couple related and as a professional bachelor for the fifth year running, the idea of romance made him uncomfortable. He was able to ignore his loneliness when with his single friends, or by himself; but when confronted by the ideal of a relationship, it only made that thud and that twist in his chest all the more harder to avoid.
“Alright,” he simply said, nodding his confirmation to Seulgi. She grinned at him before ticking a few things off of her clipboard.
“We’ll be live in five minutes!” She then barked out, making her way from Jonghyun to the sound engineers who were checking over the mics and sound board. One of them, Jonghyun’s long-time friend Lee Jinki, jumped backwards when he felt Seulgi’s presence behind him and nearly spilt the coffee her assistant, Joy, had been bringing to her. Jonghyun watched with an amused smirk as Jinki bowed over and over again in apology to both Joy and Seulgi, who both waved it off with kind smiles. As the two women walked away, Jinki scratched his head, in embarrassment, before turning around. His eyes landed on Jonghyun, who had been watching him intently, and he flashed him a large grin.
“I hear you might have Taemin on after the break,” Jinki then said, leaning up against one of Jonghyun’s monitors. It shifted under his weight and he began to lose his balance, but straightened both himself and the monitor flawlessly. Jonghyun almost applauded him.
“Yeah, that’s what I heard too,” Jonghyun said, shuffling through his papers absent-mindedly. “I wouldn’t be surprised, he made his massive debut as a solo artist and his song’s been at the top for almost 20 weeks.”
“It’s a good song,” Jinki replied. He then pushed himself from the table to mimic the signature airplane move in Taemin’s music video. Jonghyun snorted out a laugh before a loud beeping in his headphones alerted to the fact that he only had 60 seconds left until going live. Jinki took his leave, waving at his friend before taking his place in the sound booth, watching over the live show.
With a deep breath, Jonghyun closed his eyes and counted down from three before opening them and smiling into the microphone.
“Hello and welcome to Blue Night, thank you for sharing this space with me today. My name is Jonghyun and I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas on this special day.” He flipped through some of his papers again as his intro song began to play, chiming happily through his headphones. He began to mouth along to the lyrics he’d composed in a single sitting, a spur of a moment choice when Seulgi had mentioned that a song or a jingle would bring the ratings up – she had been right.
“Today we’ve decided to do something different,” Jonghyun said into the mic, pretending that the audience he loved so much was sitting with him right now rather, smiling at him as they hung onto every word. “But first, let’s talk about the snow. I’ve been watching the snow all evening and I think it’s the prettiest right now, when it’s late and there are no cars around… and it settles on the ground. I always feel the warmest when it snows because I like to wear sweaters a lot and there’s just something so comforting about the weather.” He licked his lips and sighed. “Snow, in my opinion, is more poetic than rainfall, and I like rainy days too… but there’s something about snow, about how it only occurs when it’s the perfect temperature and how pristine and clean it looks untouched.”
He looked up to the sound booth to see Seulgi giving him a thumbs-up. “But, as we watch this peaceful snow, perhaps we shall play a song fit for this weather. Here’s Wendy-ssi with Wish Tree.”
As the opening notes began to fill his ears, Jonghyun pushed himself away from the desk and watched as the snow began to fall a little heavier than before – big, fat flakes kiss his window before melting away. He sighed wistfully and closed his eyes, pretending he was stood outside in the snow, catching each flake in his gloved palms. He’d love snow ever since he was a kid, when his mother would always overdo it with a padded winter coat, thick scarf, his sister’s old beanie that was too big to fit his small head, and mittens smothering his little hands. All it had taken was for the first snowflake to peck his red, runny nose, and from that moment, he’d been entranced.
Even now, at twenty-five with a job, the snow left him feeling whimsical and enchanted by the snowfall.
Wendy’s last night note brought him back to the real world and he pulled himself back to the desk, humming along with the last few notes.
“Wendy-ssi has such a beautiful voice, don’t you think? It’s hard to imagine she only debuted last year…” Jonghyun took a deep breath. “As we’re reaching a special time of the year, a time we like to spend with loved ones, it’s hard for us to imagine a time without them. Here on Blue Night, we are taking today as a chance for people who are away from their loved ones to send messages of love and hope.” He looked up to the sound booth and Seulgi made a hand gesture that he was receiving a phone call. “It seems like we’ve already received one.” He reached across to the soundboard and put through the call. “Hello, you’re live on air with Jonghyun.”
“Yes, hi, hello,” a voice crackles through. It sounded distressed, breathless, and masculine. “I’d like to send a message to my boyfriend in the army. Jino, if you’re listening, I know about your secret girlfriend! I hope you enjoy Christmas alone from now on, you bastard!”
Jonghyun blinked wildly, unsure as to what had just occurred. Seulgi’s face was a picture perfect vision of confusion and anger - this was one of the rare occasions where she lost her smile. As he watched her, waiting for a signal to do anything, he realised that the line hadn’t ended and the stranger on the other line was still on the air.
“No, let me go, Woohyun!” The caller yelled. “I’m doing this for me, for once; I’m doing this for me!”
Jonghyun was speechless. “Um…” He licked his lips nervously and began to tug at the sleeve of his sweater. “Hello?”
The other line went silent for a long moment. “Hello?” He heard the voice say. “This is Blue Night?”
“Yes, you are live on air…” Jonghyun had been thrown off from his routine and, like a song stuck on repeat, decided to start over as if nothing had happened.
The other line coughed. “I think I’ve said all I need to say,” the voice said. “My name’s Key.”
“Hello, Key-ssi. Jino is your boyfriend?”
“He’s a cheating scumbag! He’s no boyfriend of mine!” Key took a deep breath. “You hear that Jino? When you get back from the army, your stuff will be on the streets. Don’t you dare come back to me!”
“Key-ssi-“
“I’m sorry; I have to go now, Jonghyun-ssi. Have a good Christmas.”
And then the line went dead and Jonghyun looked over to the sound booth. Seulgi made a panicked gesture and Jonghyun nodded.
“Please enjoy Taemin’s Danger, we shall return to our holiday requests after this song.”
The song began to play and Jonghyun exhaled deeply, but he couldn’t fight the smile creeping onto his lips. Whilst Key’s call had been unconventional to say the least, it provided a small piece of entertainment to Jonghyun. He felt a pang of sympathy for the anonymous caller, but he couldn’t help but feel elated to know that someone else would be spending Christmas as a certified bachelor.
The show always finished late into the night, around 2am, and usually Jonghyun would avoid a group outing to the nearest bar for a round of beers and soju to go home and write poetry in his secret notebook, but this time he found himself tagging along.
Jinki had his arm wrapped around Jonghyun’s shoulder, pulling him close, as the cold air hit their warm faces, biting at their skin. Jonghyun pulled his turtleneck up a little higher over his chin, dipping his head down and away from the wind.
“I swear to God, I’m never letting anyone take live calls anymore,” Seulgi gritted her teeth. “That was a giant mess.”
“In all fairness,” Jonghyun said, voice directed to the ground as he looked up through long lashes. “After Key, everything else went smoothly.”
Seulgi paused to think for a moment. “You are right, but it takes one to ruin the lot. That Key… I never want to hear his voice on my show ever again!”
Jinki grinned and pulled away from Jonghyun. “Did I hear you right? Soju shots are on you?”
The entire crew began to jeer.
“No! I never said-!” Seulgi’s fight was lost in the whirlwind of snow as the sound engineers, and Joy, began to run down to the bar, cheering for their boss. “Oh, what the hell,” she said with a bright smile. “It is Christmas after all.”
Jonghyun watched as she ran to catch up to them, leaving him to trail behind. He didn’t mind the moment of solitude, watching as the snow continued to fall, blossoming against the ground into a riverbed of white. He stopped under a streetlight and watched as the snow trickled down. In a moment of curiosity, he opened his mouth and allowed a flake to float onto his tongue where it melted into nothingness.
“Jonghyun!” A voice called over to him and Jonghyun looked down, away from the endless darkness above him. Jinki was watching him with an amused grin. “You coming or not?”
Jonghyun returned the smile, not letting it reach his eyes. “Sure, I’m coming.” He walked quickly over to his friend and allowed himself to be pulled into a one-armed hug.
“You sure do love snow, huh?”
Jonghyun hid his reddened cheeks. It wasn’t just snow he loved, he loved everything about winter, but there was something magical about the dark sea of navy in the sky and the endless flurry that seemed to tumble from nowhere. He made a mental note to write about the snow in his poetry book, but for now, he was content sitting between Jinki and Joy and enjoying a couple of beers with his co-workers.
When Key was brought up again, Jonghyun tried to hide his smile behind his pint glass. As Seulgi grumbled, tipsily, about him, cursing his New Year, Jonghyun silently hoped he would call again, just break the monotony once more.