Archive of Our Own

It is not often Changkyun can sleep through the gunfire.

The constant exchange of artillery is exhausting but by now it almost seems ingrained in his bones. Not a moment passes in which the comforting ricochet of bullets or the delicate clink of casing falling on the wooden boards of the trench do not light up his senses and cause his mind to whirl.

The phenomena is no different on the night of Christmas Eve. Changkyun sits, knees drawn up to his chest, course coat wrapped around a shivering frame and feet damp and numb in holed leather boots, watching snowflakes melt into the slush of the mud walls while volleys of shots are fired overhead.

“Aye, Kyun,” his friend - Tom Jones, butcher's boy, freckled and crippled with a constant squint - nudges his arm with a gloved hand. The wool is frayed at the edges and reveals frostbitten fingers. “You think they’ll follow through with the ceasefire?”

Changkyun ponders the question for a moment.

“Nah,” he murmurs, both of them wincing and curling up tighter when the distant boom of a shell bomb echoes through the trench. “Ain’t gonna happen. Can’t hear a ceasefire over this racket.”

Tom seemed to agree for he doesn’t ask any more questions.

At some point Changkyun slips into unconsciousness. Whether it is due to the cold or the exhaustion he does not know, but what is apparent is that one moment the inky darkness is lulling his eyes into sleep, and the next the watery morning light is streaming through the clouds overhead and making his head ache with the weak brightness.

It is still snowing when he wakes. The gentle snowflakes drift to the ground on the dead wind and settle like dandruff on his coat.

He is used to the stiffness when he finally forces his limbs to move. Living in the trench was like living in a permanent state of paralysis. Each movement of a limb was like wading through viscous oil. Each few words said was like speaking underwater.

“Merry Christmas,” Tom says groggily. His ginger hair lies limp under his helmet and his nose is red with the cold. Two lice crawl down his neck and another around his ear.

“Merry Christmas,” Changkyun replies.

There is no gunfire to interrupt his speech.

Changkyun frowns.

“Why are they not shooting?” he asks, perplexed. The air is light without the constant repore. It almost seemed to ease Changkyun’s aching limbs and clear his mind of fear.

Tom shrugs. “Sergeant don’t know. They stopped firing at dawn.”

The headline flashes through his head as if dug from the depths of it’s murky waters - “Ceasefire planned for Christmas Day!”

He wonders if the enemy troops have followed through like they promised. He wonders - was his cynicism last night misplaced? His mind bitter from his months spent in the squalor of war?

Changkyun’s eyes land on the trodden wooden planks that act as steps out of the trench.

He does not even think before stepping onto one.

“Oi!” Tom’s voice is racked with surprise when he takes notice of Changkyun’s movement. “Oi, Kyun! Do ya wanna be shot?”

Changkyun ignores him.

He thinks he’d rather be shot than go another sleepless night listening to the lullaby of gunfire.

“Sergeant Jim! Kyun’s tryna climb the wall!”

The commotion behind him is loud but he pays it no mind. In front of him the muddy top of the trench gives way into the frosty stretch of no mans land. The barbed wire twists in mutilated spirals barely three feet away.

Through the fog and dew of early morning winter, Changkyun can see the silent, reserved shadow of the enemys trench.

Their guns are all trained on him.

Slowly, he raises a hand above the edge.

For a moment he waits. He expects pain, screaming, warm hot blood staining his moth-ridden jacket while his men shout around him and attempt to staunch the flow.

Instead he is met with silence.

He steps up once more, just enough to reveal his head to the enemy line.

Once again, silence.

When Changkyun finally stands fully on the edge of the trench, not one sound of gunfire or blinding pain can be heard.

The misty barren stretch of No Man's land rolls with eerie silence in front of him. The ground is sodden with boot prints. The mud littered with barbed wire and slivers of cloth and empty artillery shells

He looks back at his men below him. They huddle in complete disbelief, too surprised to do more than gape.

When the soldier turns back to face the enemy side, he is greeted by a shadow rising out of the opposing trench. Cautiously, with arms raised in either surrender or friendship, the dark haired boy steps over the edge of his trench and stands just like Changkyun.

The Englishman does not miss how their guns are still trained on him.

He steps forward.

The other boy does the same.

They wait.

Another man clambers from the pit next to the enemy. The first boy holds his hand up in warning, but lowers it when he sees Tom - poor, freckled, ginger Tom - take a tentative place by Changkyun.

“I think the ceasefire worked.” Tom whispers.

Changkyun laughs. It is a strange sound, and does not fit with the empty shells of bombs or bayonets lining the empty no-man's land, but it is a laugh nonetheless.

“If it hadn’t, we’d be dead.”

They advance on each other slowly. Frost crinkles under their feet and billows in clouds of hot breath. When the enemy side stands about thirty feet away both of them pause. With each step they had accumulated more men, more soldiers, more young boys who risk their lives for one moment of peace.

Changkyun steps forward. So does the first boy to rise from the enemy pit.

“ Wie heist du? ” the stranger asks, tilting his head to the side. His eyes are big and brown and almond shaped. There is an irritated sore burning bright on his neck and his hair is long enough to cover his eyes but not long enough to hide his protruding ears. “What- ist - name?”

“Changkyun,” says the Englishman, holding out his hand. “What’s yours?”

“Hoseok,” says the German, taking his hand and shaking it.

“Merry Christmas,” Changkyun allows the edges of a smile to pull at his chapped lips.

"Fröhliche Weihnachten," Hoseok replies. At the greeting his face breaks out into the most joyful smile he has ever seen. His pink lips pull back to reveal his gums, his eyes crinkle into crescent moons and his flushed cheeks rise in soft apples of remaining chub.

Changkyun thinks that a man who looks like sunshine should not be fighting a war of darkness.

The celebrations begin.

It takes a little while for the opposing sides to draw warmth from the cold air around them and force it into their interactions. It seems a little bleak, at first, when the first questions either men ask is about whether they conceal any weapons under their woolen clothes.

But then, as if Christmas itself has brought about kindness just by the rise of the sun, they begin to have fun.

The word was almost foreign to Changkyun now. However, upon seeing young boys no more than sixteen cast aside their coats to form goals for a game of football while three German soldiers hurry to gather the only pigskin ball they own, the Englishman decides perhaps he may allow himself to find a little joy on Christmas day.

The ball is kicked to him and he wastes no time joining in.

It is a mess of cold feet skirmishes and muddy brawls. There are no rules in a game between young men unless it outstandingly benefits one side, in which the opposing teams will battle in a war of languages neither understand until merry laughter cuts through the cold and their red noses go back to kicking the ball through the light snow.

"Sehr gut!"

Changkyun looks up after his powerful punt lands the ball through the goal and his side errupts into cheers.

The German boy who he had shaken hands with - Hoseok, as his name was - was waving a cold hand clutching a tattered English flag and grinning at Changkyun.

"Danke!" Changkyun calls back.

The boy's face breaks out into the most exaggerated look of surprise at the use of the Englishman's German and Changkyun barks out a laugh before rolling up his sleeves and running after the ball once again.

Later, when the soldier can no longer tell the Germans from the English, and red-yellow flags lie next to blue-red, Changkyun finds a place to sit amongst a huddle of men around a crackling fire. While it is only just past midday, the musky smoke drifts slowly into the air and allows those nearby to open up cans of beans or soup or one layer sandwiches and warm them gently before consummation.

It just so happens Changkyun sits next to the boy called Hoseok with the pretty eyes and cute ears. His slacks are beige and suspenders brown, clipping onto his white shirt and exposing the curious paleness of his skin as it moulds a blotchy red in the cold.

Hoseok holds out a piece of chocolate. It is slightly tacky in his warm hand.

Changkyun takes it gratefully. He cannot remember the last time his tongue felt the explosion of such sweetness in his mouth.

“ Warum? ” Hoseok asks. His eyes grow wide in curiosity, before knitting together at Changkyun’s confused expression. His hands reach out and grasp on air as if trying to catch the words while they fall in front of his nose. “ Wah - why?”

Changkyun shrugs and picks off a square of the chocolate. “Wars should not be fought on Christmas day.”

Hoseok smiles. He folds the foil over his wrapper with an endearing precision before patting his hand over his heart. “ Zweiundzwanzig. Two-twenty.”

With a soft laugh Changkyun realises he means he is twenty-two. He takes his own hand and presses it to his chest. “Eighteen. One Eight.”

Hoseok’s mouth forms a small ‘o’. It is possibly the cutest thing the Englishman has ever seen.

“Young!” He says in outrage. “No gun! Zurück zur schule! ”

Changkyun bursts into laughter. The sound causes the surrounding men to look up in alarm - constantly alert for loud noises despite the unusual circumstances - and grips at Hoseok’s knee.

“It’s okay,” he chuckles, a hot flush creeping up his cheeks and blossoming on his face. “The war’ll be over soon, right? I can go back to schule then.”

Hoseok harrumphs, folding his arms in an exaggerated gesture of annoyance. Changkyun watches with curious eyes as the German next to him - a boy with a weak chin and uncut stubble on his lip - jerks his head towards Changkyun and asks a question. Hoseok shakes his head. The boy insists on something and Hoseok turns to grapple him into the snow.

He watches them fight fondly as if they were childhood friends who explored the village together and not opposing sides fighting the same pointless war.

He wonders - does Hoseok care that tomorrow would bring the return of the norm? That, should the sun set and rise again with all the men he could currently see still beyond the safety of their trench, each one would pull a gun and shoot the other’s brain out?

“Song,” Hoseok says suddenly, sitting up with tousled hair and rose lips upon hearing the calming sound of carol singing dancing through the air. “ Weihnachtslieder! Lasst uns singen, Changkyun.”

The Englishman cannot protest when a strong hand tugs his stiff body upwards. He stumbles briefly but the other boy does not allow time to adjust, merely dragging him through the baren mud and over frozen puddles while he chased the growing sound of Christmas carols.

A group of men have gathered into a dip of the land and they huddle around tattered books of printed hymns in both German and English. Two stand off to the side gripping what look to be flutes - instruments small enough to be transported during war and not forbidden by the conscription itself.

The effect is beautiful. The contrast of the hundred deep, rumbling voices running hand in hand with the warbled, delicate cry of the instruments welled such joy in Changkyun’s chest he found it hard to contain.

When he looks over at the German still clutching his wrist, he finds the boy smiling, such light radiating from his face and sparkles in his warm brown eyes.

“ O heil'ge Nacht! Do you know?” Hoseok turns to look at him in excitement, but, before the startled soldier could reply, he opens his mouth to sing. “ O heilige Nacht, Die Sterne leuchten hell- ”

Changkyun stills.

A pain of no other washes over him, settling deep into his bones and raising goosebumps along his frostbitten skin.

Hoseok’s voice is as gentle as the flow of river over smooth pebbles. It is as calming as the ebb and flow of the tide during the beginnings of autumn. It is as emotional as the day he had bid farewell to his mother.

It is as beautiful as the man himself.

“It is the night of our dear Savior's birth,” Changkyun murmurs as he followed the older boys happy song. He’s embarrassed by the tone of his voice but determined to see Hoseok smile once again.

He is not disappointed. The German gasps and his eyes glitter when Changkyun joins in, clearly enthused by his song.

“ Eine aufregende Hoffnung, die von Leid getragene Welt freut sich- ”

“For here breaks a new and glorious morn.”

They continue for some time. Changkyun’s hesitant, deep rumble of words crawling under Hoseok’s beautiful song. The boy weaves each note into a masterpiece that racks Changkyun with such passion he finds it hard to breathe.

“Oh Holy night,” Changkyun murmurs quietly while the carol comes to an end.

Hoseok’s sparkling eyes turn to him. “In der Christus geboren wurde.”

Hoseok’s last note drifts away. Changkyun tries to catch it, reaches out his hands as if he could bottle the sound and keep it close to his chest for the rest of his life.

Hoseok’s looks down in surprise to see he is still holding Changkyun’s wrist.

When he lets go, the soldier wishes he had never even noticed.

Later, when the sun brushes the horizon and the darkness of night begins to creep into their hearts, Hoseok and Changkyun stand opposite each other. Changkyun wears Hoseok’s coat. Hoseok has the English flag tucked behind his ear.

“Danke ” Changkyun says, suddenly shy. “Thank you for today. It was fun.”

Hoseok nods his head. There is pain in his eyes, but also hope, and he gestures between the two of them. “Us, meet?”

Changkyun grimaces. He looks at the barbed wire, and then down at the empty shells lining his feet. “I don’t think we can.” The next day would only mean death. If the Englishman saw the older boy rise from the trenches in the morning, he'd be required to shoot.

"Nein. Us, meet. Here.”

Changkyun looks up with a frown to find Hoseok with a yellowed, wrinkled piece of scrap paper clutched in his cold fingers. The tattered edges do not disguise it’s content.

It is the old watchtower in the closest village nearby.

“When?” Changkyun asks.

Hoseok seems to think.

"Drei tage? Three days?”

Changkyun hesitates.

“Okay.” he breathes. Was there any point denying the innocent man? In a few days either of them might be dead by the others hand.

Hoseok laughs and claps his hands together before holding one out between them. “ Freunde? ”

Changkyun smiles.

“Friends,” Changkyun shakes his hand.

They bid each other farewell as friends, and return to their trenches as enemies.

Three days pass.

On the first night, him and Tom sit huddled with others, drawing their coarse coats to shivering frames as the cold air billows from their wet mouths. The watch Tom clutches ticks slowly past midnight. Five minutes pass. Then ten.

All of them hold their breath.

Then the distant sound of artillery echoes through the trench.

None of them really react. They are so used to it, now, this hopelessness, this hollow empty knowledge that nothing good can last forever, before returning to wherever they have chosen to sleep.

Changkyun’s thoughts of a bright smile and angelic voice lull him into drowsy slumber.

He does not sleep, however. He wonders if Hoseok does the same. He wonders if Hoseok is one of the men shooting.

On the third day Changkyun wakes groggily. His head pounds and his stiff fingers cause him to groan while he stretches them out. The rations have been smaller due to it being Christmas time and his stomach growls at the movement.

“Callin’ last expeditioners! Line up in ya name order!” the voice of his Sergeant bellows through the mud. “Im! Get ya ass over here, lazy sod!”

Changkyun groans and finds himself following the sound of the voice. “Aye. I’m here,” he says.

“Bout time,” the greying man scoffs. “Into the village. You ain’t gone for a while.”

Changkyun nods, rubs at his crusted eyes, and follows the small group of boys and men who traipse through the maze of trench walls away from the front line. Their feet drag across the moulding wood and eyes stay trained on the ground.

Eventually they make it to the village. It is small French town named ‘ Espérer’ (Changkyun finds it humorous that the closest piece of civilisation to the horrors of war is called Hope) and the rooftops are all falling slate and the walls yellow concrete.

One by one his company disperses to find what they seek in the village of Hope. Some take slivers of half pence sent by the post to buy a fresh loaf of bread from the bakery, others head straight to the pub to spend their money on pints and local girls. A few even find their way to the cemetery - using the lull of gunfire to pay respects to the dead, possibly in the quiet knowledge they shall end up like that too, soon.

Changkyun’s eyes are immediately drawn to the hilly outcrop that watches over the whole village. Sat upon the gentle slope is the old watch tower - a crumbling mass of stones cobbled together by mortar hundreds of years old.

He looks around briefly, sets his jaw, and begins the long walk up.

He does not wonder if it could be a trap. Nothing about the German boy with his big brown eyes and blinding smile indicate any intentions but good.

Walking up the grassy hill brings a new level of serene. Changkyun had forgotten what the soft carress of long wheat felt like against his hands after the rough, damp, barren land of the trenches.

When he reaches the watchtower he smiles to himself.

There on the ground is a crinkled foil of German chocolate, and sat at the edge of the outcrop, staring out at the village while the wind gently caresses his hair, is Hoseok.

“Hello,” Changkyun says.

Hoseok jumps, twisting in his position to look at him in shock before his shining smile lights up the weak morning sun.

"Hallo," he grins and pats the ground next to him. “Come. Sit.”

Changkyun does as he’s told, putting a little more space than necessary between them. While Hoseok may be a nice boy he cannot bring himself to trust him without the comfort of ceasefire dulling their words.

For a moment both of them stare at the village and it’s slate roofs and yellow concrete walls. Neither of them say a word, but the ominous mist surrounding the haze black shapes of barbed wire can be seen just on the horizon.

“How’d you get round?” Changkyun turns to face Hoseok. When the older boy frowns in confusion, he gestures with his hands to the far away trenches and then to where they sat now. “How?”

Hoseok’s brow knits together and his plump lips open to speak. “Two,” - he holds up two fingers - “Come here. Through-” his hands gesture to the East - “Passage. Only two. Agreement. Waffenstillstand. ”

Changkyun tries to piece together his disjointed vocabulary, but it seems easier enough. The German troops had an agreement with the English - two men could cross through the gunfire and find solace in the nearby town, so long as they were unarmed.

“What happens if more than two of you go?” Changkyun asks.

Hoseok looks down.

“You shoot. Us.”

The air hangs heavy between them.

Changkyun curls his hands into fists as he tries to remember the small slivers of language taught to him before his conscription.

"Es tut mur leid? ” he says, confusion marrying the apology.

Hoseok giggles and looks up. "Es tut mir leid, ” he corrects softly.

“Can you sing?” Changkyun asks suddenly. The other boy nods but his eyes seem not to grasp understanding. “Sing ? Bitten? ”

Hoseok stays confused. Changkyun sighs in frustration and gestures with his hands.

“O’ Holy Night?” he asks finally.

The boy’s face lights up. He nods and hands off a sliver of chocolate to Changkyun before stretching into a more comfortable position.

Then he begins to sing.

This time Changkyun listens without interrupting. Hoseok sings the Christmas carol as if it were Christmas day, as if each harrowing line of pure devotion has been dug straight from his heart and now longs the world to look upon it’s beautiful harmony.

Each note is perfect. It brings tears to Changkyun’s eyes, the raw passion in each word, the soft, heartfelt ending of the whispered end.

"Danke, Hoseok," Changkyun murmurs when the German finishes his song. Hoseok smiles. His pretty eyes crinkle into crescent moons.

“Again? Drie Tage? ” he pats the ground beneath him. “Three days. I see you here?”

“Yes,” Changkyun nods without hesitation. "Ya. Drie Tage."

Hoseok giggles at his pronunciation. The sound is light and delicate and almost too fragile to hold. “You are little.. hübsch , Changkyun,” he says, patting the Englishman on the knee with a grin painting his features. “I like that.”

Later that night, when Changkyun huddles around a lantern warming his hands next to men who pick at tin ration lunch boxes painted with chipping green paint, he turns the unknown word over and over in his mind.

“Tom,” he says, looking up from his squares of beef. “What does hübsch Mean?”

His comrade frowns at him. It was almost comical the confusion on his face.

“Cute,” he says, clearly perplexed. “Why?”

Changkyun shrugs. He is glad it is cold because his ears burn with embarrassment. “No reason,” he replies, and tries not to think of warm brown eyes or a pretty sunshine smile.

They meet again three days later. Hoseok sits curled at the edge of the outcrop once again. He is hunched over a tiny red book printed with smudged words that bleed at the edges.

“What is that?” He asks as he curls up next to the other boy. Hoseok jumps, and then his eyes crinkle with a sunshine smile.

He holds out the book. Changkyun takes it.

It is a German-English dictionary.

When Changkyun begins to flip through the pages, he ignores the splatter of blood on the corners.

“Ah!” Hoseok calls in that pretty voice of his. He lays a gentle hand on the thin page Changkyun rests on and points to a word. “Look. Hübsch, ” he pulls back to wave a hand over his face in earnest. “Cute. Pretty.”

"Danke," Changkyun grins. He thinks for a moment, before purposely turning to face the German and therefore block him from the book.

"Was machst du? ” Hoseok frowns. He attempts to peer over the rapid turning of pages, but Changkyun pushes him back with his hand. "Nein. Let me,” he insists. Changkyun can’t help but giggle. He is not used to giggling, but something about the adorable impatience of the other boy draws the sound from his mouth.

“Wait,” The Englishman urges before gasping upon finding the right word. “ Du ,” he points towards the other boy before waving a hand over his face. "Gutaussehend."

Hoseok’s eyes widen comically large. The slight chub of his cheeks fall open in a look of surprise, and a soft rose blush paints his nose and turns his ears bright red.

Changkyun is aware the sentence was not conjugated. He barely knew two words in German, let alone grammar, but it is clear the phrase gets through to Hoseok.

You, Handsome.

“Thank you,” he whispers. The blush grows more violent in nature and his accent is stronger with embarrassment. He begins to fiddle with his pocket and procures three squares of chocolate covered in foil. “Eat.”

“Sing,” Changkyun says in return, taking the deliciously sweet food into his hand and breaking off a chunk to melt on his tongue.

Hoseok laughs. He rubs his face with his cold hands - for a brief moment Changkyun notices the dark circles under his eyes and the black crawling around his fingernails - before he looks out over the village of Hope and begins to sing.

It is a song Changkyun does not recognise. The harsh language of guttural German sounds surprising soft spilling from Hoseok’s mouth and coating the frost covered ground.

It is clearly a song that means something to the older boy. He hums it faintly, tenderly, ghosting around each word as if it is only made for him, as if he is the only one allowed to hear it.

But Changkyun is there and he hears it all.

When Hoseok finishes, he drifts to a stop with a faint whisper of wind carrying the last note down the grassy hill and towards the trenches they both come from.

"Namhe?” Changkyun asks after a moment of heavy silence. “What is it called?”

"Mein Zuhause," Hoseok replies softly. “My Home.”

They sit in silence for the rest of the day. As the sun tracks its course hidden by the grey clouds and the distant sound of gunfire taps at their skin, Changkyun thinks of what Hoseok’s home must be like. Did he grow up in a small village just like him? Did he run to catch the newspaper every morning detailing the British advances through France? Did he climb the trees around the village river, tease his friends and throw them into the ice cold water when they threatened him with sticks?

They were men on opposing sides, but was there really much difference between them?

“Goodbye,” Changkyun says, when he finally moves his stiff limbs to find his way back to the village.

“Here? Three days?” Hoseok asks with wide eyes. There is panic in his face at the formal farewell and the Englishman chuckles.

He shakes his head. “One week. Seven days.”

Hoseok nods in understanding. They could not keep meeting with such little time between. Not only would it cause disrupt in their units if they kept requesting leave, but it would become rather suspicious rather quickly.

“Oh-kay. Seven days,” Hoseok says, and pats Changkyun’s knee in agreement. "Bis später, Changkyun.”

“Bis später, Hoseok, ” he said in farewell, and the German’s blinding smile fills his chest with warmth that keeps him grounded through his long journey back.

They meet again in a week, at the edge of the world of the Village of Hope where the old watchtower presides over their meetings and the frosty air nips at their fingertips and coats their fluttering eyelashes.

Changkyun opens his mouth to speak but Hoseok holds up a hand which causes him to falter.

“Listen,” he says. His voice is strained with the attempts to force an accent less jilted in speech. His breath billows in a cloud of ice around him. “We are friends?”

Changkyun frowns and nods. “Yeah. We’re friends.”

Hoseok’s smile causes his breath to catch in his throat and burn with a thousand words he cannot say. “I like you, friend. You are nice,” - he pauses, flips through the red bound book to find a word he has forgotten - “You are English. I am German. But we are both boys.”

He grins. It is clear he is proud of this stilted philosophy and the thought warms Changkyun’s heart.

“Yeah,” he nods in agreement. “Do you.. Have family, at home?”

Hoseok’s brow furrows. He reaches into his trench coat - the German pin glinting in the weak light and the fur edges matted with mud - before pulling out a tattered wallet covered in dust. He slips out a photo - a woman and a man, stood side by side in drab dress. The woman's hair is short and curls around her chin, the man is clean shaven and is of stocky build with slacks and suspenders.

“Mother. Father.” he points to each respective person before grasping at the air for his words. “He makes shoes. She grows food.”

“They’re beautiful,” Changkyun murmurs. He can see how his mother carries the same ears as him, and his father's jaw is soft and round as well.

“And you?” Hoseok slips the wallet back into the pocket above his chest. “What is your family?”

Changkyun shrugs and picks at the grass. He hesitates for a moment - does he really wish to show the enemy the people he holds dearest?

Then he remembers Hoseok is not the enemy. Hoseok is his friend.

He takes out his own bound wallet from his pocket and fumbles open the picture display.

“These are my sisters,” he points them out. “Minji, Jisun, Hyojung, Changhi.”

“Oh,” Hoseok breathes. He leans closer to stare at the tattered photo. Changkyun realises he smells like smoke and chocolate. For some reason it makes him blush. “You have lots of family.”

“I guess,” Changkyun breathes. The soft faces of his sisters stare up at him from the grey ink. It is not often that he looks at the photo of them for it hurts his heart too much to see the people he left behind but, occasionally, when his toes are rotten or his eyelashes frozen or he has just shot blindly into the warzone, he’ll gently thumb open his wallet and remember just why he is there. “I must protect them.”

Hoseok pulls back. There is pain echoed on his face and sorrow in his eyes.

“Protect them.. From us?” he asks quietly.

Changkyun looks at him.

He thinks about the newspaper headlines before he signed up - the blaring, bold black letters exclaiming Germany’s invasion of France, the declaration of war on Europe, the call for young men to take arms to protect their family.

He thinks of the tears in his mother's eyes when he bid them farewell in his uniform, the bayonet strapped to his back and the lapel empty where medals should be.

“Yes,” Changkyun replies honestly.

Hoseok’s lip wavers and he turns to face the village of Hope. His jaw is set and nostrils flared with anger or pain - he cannot tell.

Changkyun hesitates before placing a hand on his wrist.

“Not from you. From them.” he attempts to reassure him. For some reason, the older boy does not seem like somebody from the other side, not when they have assumed the title of friends.

“I am them,” Hoseok laments quietly.

Changkyun does not say anything. He stares at his hand gripping his wrist, and then, without thinking, slips his fingers over to grip his palm.

Hoseok turns to look at him. His eyes are wide and mouth parted just enough to blow clouds of frost into the air.

"Freunde," Changkyun insists.

Hoseok’s pretty lips pull into a tentative smile and his thumb strokes the back of Changkyun’s palm just briefly. The contact lights up his senses like he has never felt before. “Friends.” he agrees.

They sit in silence for the rest of the meeting.

They agree to meet in another weeks time, before bidding farewell to the other and returning to their opposite sides.

It is three weeks later when the first battle of the year is fought, in the last week of January 1915. Hoseok and Changkyun have met as often as they can, each of the others language improving every time they see each other, Hoseok able to form full sentences in English with some effort and Changkyun being able to respond to questions in German. He learns Hoseok was expecting to take over his father's business before signing up for the war. He learns he used to have an older brother but a freak automobile accident crushed him under metal at the age of nineteen.

He learns his favourite colour is green, his favourite food is chocolate, and his favourite thing to do is sing.

They agree to meet on the last day of January.

But when Changkyun wakes to the freezing cold and biting pain of exhaustion, the men are preparing for war.

Tom shakes him into consciousness, shouting, the commotion of heavy footed leather boots pounding as people run back and forth.

“Quick, Kyun! They’re launched an attack!” he hits him over the head and drags him to his stiff feet.

“They - what?” he frowns, clutching his pounding head as the sound of machine gunfire echoes in his mind.

“They’re sending men across No mans land!” his comrade shouts, panicked. “We’ve tried the machines, but they just keep coming. We gotta go out there!”

A distant shout follows his orders. “All men to front! Prepare for advancement!”

Changkyun moves with shock paralysing his body. Tiredness drags at his leaden limbs as he moves though the familiar motions - taking his rifle and attaching casings to his belt, muffled sounds of gunfire and men shouting echoing through his foggy mind as if he is underwater. Each movement is weighed down by a thousand richocees of bullets above his head and the command directed form every corner.

“Kyun.”

Tom’s shaking voice slams him back to reality. His dilated pupils focus on his friend while the freckled boy stands clutching his rifle as if it is his tether to the living world.

“It’s okay,” Changkyun hears his voice through his sluggish mind. “Just point and shoot. Point and shoot.”

He vaguely remembers how this must be Tom’s first assault on the front line, since he had previously been stationed as a mechanic further back in the trenches.

“But- but-” Tom gasps for air. His hands tremble and knuckles turn white with the fear in his eyes.

“They are the enemy. Point and shoot,” Changkyun grips his arm tightly. “Don’t leave my side. Trust me. I'll get us out alive.”

And with that, the Sergeant gives the command to charge and a hundred men climb and pour over the side of the trench.

Half are shot immediately. They fall with a cry, young boys pouring blood from chest or shoulder or leg wounds, crawling along the mud to a place they cannot see. Men replace them immediately, braving the cloud of gunfire smoke and sinking their boots into muddy ground with heads bowed and guns cocked.

Changkyun and Tom clamber forwards. They duck under the twist of barbed wire, Changkyun scoping the foggy air for any shadows he does not deem of his own side, heart pumping and blood burning with adrenaline. When his eyes zero in on a boy running at him full speed - bayonet pointed at his head, face stricken with anguish and fear - he does the only thing he was taught how to do before being put on the front line.

Point and shoot.

The boy falls. Tom shouts. A volley of booming shots echo in his ear, and Changkyun barely has time to recognise the clash of the two sides before he is dragging Tom’s collar behind a discarded machine gun while the men around him surge forward. His friend shakes and his face is smudged with grime and droplets of red. Changkyun supposes he looks even worse.

His brain replays the young boys face as the bullet punches his abdomen.

He thinks of Hoseok and his blinding smile and family back at home.

“What do we do?” Toms frantic voice pierces his sorrowful thoughts like a knife.

Changkyun looks at his friend. He looks at the chaos around him. At the boys lying face down in mud. At the exchange of gunfire and heavy smoke and sound of grown men crying for their mothers.

“We fight,” Changkyun grits his teeth. He clicks his gun with a practiced maneuver and peers around the back of the shelter they lean on, crouched in the mud. “On the count of three.”

Tom nods in barely concealed panic.

Changkyun listens to the gunfire.

He notes how the artillery shoots for five seconds, then is quiet for four.

“One,” he breathes, counting in his head. “Two… three!”

The friends launch themselves either side of the old machine.

Changkyun points, and he shoots. His finger presses down on the trigger. The chaos around him mounts into nothing more than muted bombshells. He can hear, but it is muffled. His breathing is amplified, his heart rate the only sound. He points and he shoots.

A flash of ginger charges in front of him.

“Tom, no!” Changkyun calls out in horror, watching the young boy run into a warzone with his head down and gun out. “Wait!”

The world falls silent when the bullet hits him.

Changkyun sees it enter the side of his head. He sees the spray of blood, the explosion of soft innards, the eyes frozen in total disbelief as his head is blown apart.

His friend collapses into the mud. The blood seeps down his pale neck and paints his uniform red.

Changkyun is screaming. He is screaming, and crying, and his finger pulls on the trigger as he shoots blind at the enemy line. He hears men call out but does not stop. He sees them fall and thinks good, good, let them fall, let them suffer .

His gun stops firing.

He needs to reload. Needs to fumble with the delicate casing and slip it into the pack. But he can’t. It is too much, he is shaking and his hands are wet and his heart is beating too fast. When he finally does it, the corner of his blurred vision catches a shadow advancing, and he turns on it with a shout.

But he does not shoot.

He cannot shoot.

It is Hoseok.

Dressed in German uniform, helmet lopsided on his head, mouth parted, half his uniform soaked in what seems to be blood and pale face frantic with fear.

His gun points straight at Changkyun.

For a moment both of them stand there in shock. Changkyun grips his gun tighter. Hoseok’s face flashes with terror and he adjusts his stance.

A shout echoes over the battlefield. It means nothing to Changkyun, but Hoseok’s head snaps up and his jaw tenses in shock.

He looks back at Changkyun. Then at the voice. Then back to Changkyun.

The Englishman thinks he could not shoot the handsome man even if he tried.

Then Hoseok turns on his heels and runs, grasping his rifle to his body while he disappears into the smoke.

Changkyun is alone.

He is alone with the dead while the enemy side retreats.

Changkyun does not cry that night. He thinks he should cry, should weep with the young boys in the frozen trench while dead bodies are carted past their bloodstained faces. But he also thinks that maybe, he cannot feel much, anymore. His body is numb not just with cold but with empty feeling.

There is not much left in him now. He gave it all away when he shot men on the battlefield.

Men he now knew to be just like him.

A few weeks pass before he visits the watchtower again.

Climbing the hill is difficult. Not only has the harsh weather left the ground hard and withered the plants until they lay frozen and flat on the dirt, but Changkyun is weighed down by a hollow kind of hopelessness that has left his despair tangible and heavy.

Hoseok sits where he always does. Curled up on the edge of the outcrop and looking out over the village of Hope.

The boy looks different when he is not in a warzone. His shoulders hunch over in pain. His face is churning with a thousand unseen emotions. His long trench coat is no longer stained with blood.

He hears Changkyun’s approach in the thin layer of snow and whips around in fear.

“I am sorry,” he says, already frantic, tone spilling with genuine apology. “I am sorry, my friend.”

Changkyun stares at him. He feels empty.

“I would never shoot. You know, right?” Hoseok’s accented voice is swollen and hurts to listen to. “You know? Friend?”

Changkyun sees the way the older man’s shining eyes overflow with small droplets of water. He watches them track down his cheeks, and thinks of the blood that stained the ground beneath his fallen friend.

Hoseok moves to pull something from the pocket by his heart. Changkyun thinks it will be his wallet again and his tongue burns with cruel words, but then the German boy reveals a photograph.

It is the weathered image of Tom’s girl back home.

Her name was Rose.

“I could not take much,” Hoseok chokes up. “But I took this.”

Changkyun stares at the pretty girl with golden hair and buck teeth. The photo is tacky with fingerprints of blood.

He remembers how Tom would always talk of her, his Rose, for evenings on end. About how he was going to propose to her when he returned to England. About how he already had the shillings saved for the ring.

It is then that Changkyun cries.

When he collapses on the ground, Hoseok casts aside the photo and hurries to take him in his arms. Changkyun shakes his head while loud sobs spill from his mouth and ugly feelings rear their angry head.

Hoseok holds him through it all. Gentle, comforting arms rock him while he cries. They do not let go even when Changkyun hits them. They do not let go when his nails dig into his skin and scratch to draw blood.

Changkyun takes his anger out on the man he called his friend.

“I am sorry,” Hoseok repeats as if it is the only phrase he knows. “I am sorry, Changkyun. I am sorry.”

Eventually he lets himself be held by the other man who rocks him into exhaustion. His throat burns and eyes sting. His face is wet with tears.

“I am sorry,” Hoseok whispers. Changkyun grips his clothes with all the sadness in the world.

“He trusted me to get him out alive, and I didn’t,” the Englishman chokes out.

The older boy does not understand. He frowns and strokes his head in pensive silence. Changkyun leans into the touch.

Then his hesitant lips press a kiss onto his forehead.

They are soft and gentle, unlike his chapped ones. Hoseok holds the back of his neck to steady his shaking while the kiss burns into his cold skin.

"Danke," Changkyun whispers, voice hoarse, when Hoseok pulls back.

He does not know what for. The other boy does not deserve any thanks - not when they are on opposing sides. Not when, for a brief moment, they trained loaded guns on each others heart.

Now Changkyun’s heart aches in another way, however. It aches with the warmth of Hoseok’s arms and the burn of the kiss on his forehead.

It is from that moment on that Hoseok tries whatever he can to comfort the younger boy. Whenever they meet - occasionally every other day, sometimes two weeks in between - Hoseok opens his arms and allows Changkyun to settle between them.

The Englishman thinks its a little weird, at first, when he gestures with frantic hands for Changkyun to take a seat and lean into his warm body. When he asks why and caution stains his voice, he gets a wide eyes, earnest look in return.

“I want to show you..” The man furrows his brow and grasps for foreign words. “That I never hurt you.”

“I know you won’t hurt me,” Changkyun replies stiffly, staring at the place they usually sit side by side with their shoulders brushing.

“Well then sit,” Hoseok insists.

Changkyun shakes his head. “No thanks.”

“You are very… stur," Hoseok grumbles and folds his arms in pouty protest.

“Wait,” Changkyun hesitates. Hoseok looks at him with his big brown eyes and cute protruding ears. “Fine,” he sighs, exasperation colouring his tone, before sitting and drawing his knees to his chest and leaning against the others shoulder.

Hoseok grins at his victory and wraps an arm around him.

His hand brushes his waist. Even underneath the thick layers of winter clothes, it shoots electricity through his skin.

He wonders if it’s a cultural thing. The British were known for their formality in personal space, whereas Europeans were usually considered more open to touches and reassurements of relationships. He wonders if, perhaps, Hoseok wrapping an arm around him is merely due to his upbringing.

It doesn't feel like that, however.

In the moments where they touch, it feels like it is all for him. As if Hoseok was offering him more than just friendship. He was offering him a place of comfort. Of safety.

Of a home away from home.

And Hoseok becomes Changkyun’s home away from home, somehow. He supposes it happens when he’s not looking. When the gunfire and shell bombs and cries of the wounded and monotonous, unmoving days crawl by filled with lice and frostbite and damp toes. At some point his home stops becoming the brief clutches of England that he clings onto in his mind. It stops becoming the distant wooden tables and lace curtains. It stops becoming the faces of his sisters he can no longer recall without a photograph, it stops becoming cobblestone roads and the sunday market and the old school on the top of the hill.

It starts becoming Hoseok. Hoseok, and his brown eyes that glitter with hope despite the horror of their situation. Hoseok and his pale skin and endearing accent and soft jaw and plump lips and laughter that echoes a thousand burning suns.

It becomes Hoseok and his beautiful voice and love of chocolate and warm, tender way he holds him close while they sit and talk every single week.

“How many have you killed?”

Changkyun asks the question one cold March morning. The air sends shivers deep into the marrow of his bones, and he clutches Hoseok not just for comfort, but for warmth.

Hoseok looks at him. His teeth chatter and his tongue pokes endearingly to wet his chapped lips.

“I don’t know,” he says quietly. His eyes hold an empty pain that threatens to spill over as tears. “I think, maybe, ten.”

“Ten,” Changkyun hums. He looks down to fiddle with his gloves. A big gust of wind that whips the trees behind them causes them both to flinch - the chatter of leaves too close to that of gunfire to put their scarred heart at ease. “I think the same. I don’t know.”

There is a pause.

“You killed Otto,” Hoseok says.

Changkyun frowns and pulls back to look at the other boy. He is hunched over, arm slack around his waist, refusing to meet his eye.

“I.. what?” Changkyun asks as dread drips into his veins.

“You killed Otto,” he repeats. “I saw. When your friend died. You shot lots of people.”

“Bang, bang, tot, ” Hoseok makes a gun with his hand and pretends to fire it into his heart. “Otto, dead. My friend Otto.”

Changkyun thinks he'll never be able to feel again.

He had killed Hoseok’s friend.

Shot him, defenceless, scared. A boy fighting for a side he did not even believe in.

And Changkyun had pulled the trigger.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers. Why had Hoseok not mentioned this before? Why did he insist on keeping everything inside?

“No. Do not be sorry. No sorry.” The older boy clenches his jaw and tries to find the right words. “Achi… andi…. aus versehen. ”

“It was an accident?” Changkyun’s chest feels hollow. There is no more left in him. War has taken everything he has owned.

“Otto was nice.” Hoseok says. There is a wistful smile on his face, and at the thoughts running through his head cause him to rub at Changkyun’s back before pulling the bewildered boy closer. “Otto liked you. But I talk too much. He said halt den mund, Hoseok!”

“You talked about me so much he told you to shut up?” Changkyun asks in surprise. “What did you talk about?”

Hoseok shrugs. There is a mischievous smile on his face and a spark in his eyes. "Hübsch," he says with a grin. “My cute Englishman."

Changkyun blushes.

He does not mean to. He wills the red to fade but the thoughts only make his cheeks burn brighter, and when Hoseok laughs and pokes his face to tease him, the younger swats him away with a scowl. “Go away! Geh weg! ”

The German laughs louder. It is a musical sound and makes warmth blossom in Changkyun’s chest despite the bleak whether and sound of artillery drifting along the wind.

The sound lulls. Changkyun leans back into his warm frame once again, breathing in the musty scent of chocolate and smoke and blotting out the world around him.

“Can you sing for me?” Changkyun asks quietly. It is so warm, in the others arms. He never wishes to move.

“Sing for my Englishman?” While the younger’s eyes are closed he can hear the smile in Hoseok’s voice. “Of course.”

Much like always, Hoseok starts his song quietly. He whispers the end of each line, pausing between words as if trying to grasp the emotion of each syllable, overwhelmed by his own emotions. Soon they spill and stain the song with soft, tender colours like gentle blues and faint purples and the watery orange of new spring dawn.

Changkyun is always left in wonder at Hoseok’s beautiful voice. It reaches such high notes, makes such a harsh language sound beautiful, brings tears to his eyes and yet comforts the storm inside at the same time.

“What was that called?” Changkyun asks, after Hoseok has drifted to a stop and the song dances away on the wind.

"Mein schatz," he speaks with a smile. “My love.”

Changkyun stills.

His heartbeat pounds in his chest like a thousand rounds being fired at once.

The sounds carries him all the way back to his trench, and the echoing words lull him to sleep despite the war raging around him.

My Love.

It seems it should feel wrong, but Hoseok makes it so, so right.

The war was meant to be over by the end of the year.

That had been the general assumption of all the young boys who scrawled their name down on conscription papers in whatever village hall was nearest to them. That they would fight the terrible enemy, win, and return as heroes to spend Christmas at home.

Those were the three truths told to their young minds.

One, the enemy was terrible and should be defeated. Two, that they would win and could do nothing else. Three, they would be home by Christmas and never have to suffer again.

But truth is a rare commodity on the front line of the battlefield. Truth does not exist to Changkyun, anymore.

First, his side weren’t winning. The relations between all countries had soured with time. They lost land every single day.

Second, nobody knew if they would be home for the next Christmas. When April rolled around, the future looked bleak. Not even plants blossomed at the beginning of spring on the barren terrain of no man's land.

And third, Changkyun could not bring himself to hate the enemy, not anymore. He did not think they were terrible monsters. He thought they were fighting a war just like him, for big men in bigger offices who did not know what it was like to wither and die in sodden trenches with rotten feet and lice and blackened fingernails.

He could not hate the enemy, because he had fallen in love with one.

It takes him a while to realise. It takes a while for the feelings to simmer beneath what he calls the emptiness of his chest. He floats through each day on autopilot - responding to commands, huddled in coats, watching the enemy line for any signs of movement.

The only time he ever truly feels is when he is with Hoseok.

It happens the next time they meet.

It is midway through April. The land has been baraged by too many men to count. The trenches have been dug so the back touches the edges of Hope. The air is empty and hangs heavy on their hearts while they sit side by side by the old watchtower.

“Hoseok?” Changkyun asks quietly. He is curled up against the older boys chest, and he cannot bring himself to meet his gaze. “Do you have a girl, back home in Germany?”

A chuckle rumbles deep in his chest. The vibrations shoot through Changkyun and make his heart speed up.

“No. I do not have girls,” the German man says. “And you, Changkyun?”

The Englishman shakes his head. “No.”

They fall into silence.

The noiselessness of the cold morning does not pass their notice. No artillery can be heard echoing up the hill. No sound of rifle shots or shell bombs interrupt their tentative speech.

“Changkyun?” Hoseok says.

Changkyun looks up.

He looks up, and he is frozen.

Usually, when the elder calls his name, he shuffles back to allow them to talk. His arm will still rest around his waist, but there is space between them to talk.

This time he does not move back.

Changkyun is so close to him. So close their breaths touch. So close the moist warmth of each exhale sends shivers long his spine and he can count the smudges of dirt on his nose.

“Yes?” he chokes out.

“Do you know?” Hoseok murmurs quietly. “Special friends?”

“Special friends?” Changkyun whispers, mind spinning, dizzy with all the emotion in his usually vacant mind. He had lost all his strength in no man's land. He is venturing into unknown territory now.

“When your heart hurts,” Hoseok shifts his gloved hand to press it against the swell of Changkyun’s chest. “Special friends. Does your heart hurt?”

Changkyun swallows.

His eyes sting with tears. It is hard to breathe. His heavy gaze focuses on the urgency of Hoseok’s raw stare and the part of his chapped lips.

“Yes,” he whispers. “My heart hurts a lot.”

Hoseok leans in.

Changkyun pulls away.

Hoseok frowns and Changkyun shakes his head, panic halting words in his burning throat, before glancing at the village below.

Then the older boy takes his cold hand in his own and gently pulls him up.

“Come, schatz," he says, tugging on his arm.

Changkyun follows.

Into the old watchtower.

The ceiling spirals up in a turret that blocks all sky. A single window casts a shaft of dusty light on cobwebs and bird nests and the crumbling mortar around them.

Their joint footsteps of heavy war boots echo on the still ground. It is even colder in the stone walls, and just dark enough to make it hard to see.

"Halt," ” Changkyun whispers when they reach the middle of the small building. The icy wind howls outside and yet everything seems so far away.

Hoseok stops. He turns to face the younger boy. He is still holding his hand.

Changkyun pulls him closer.

And he does not know what he is doing, not really. He cannot even make eye contact with him. Instead, his gaze focuses on the german pin on his lapel when he tugs him closer and a hot, embarrassed blush paints his cheeks and colours his neck.

Hoseok does not say a word.

He watches Changkyun with wide brown eyes, gaze so intense it melts into skin, causing the flush to deepen into bright red splotches across his nose. He watches as the Englishman drags his gaze up to focus on his lips. He watches as the air between them turns hot and heavy with shared breath and exaggerated exhales.

He seems scared. They both are.

Changkyun thinks he would rather charge a thousand times over the edge of the muddy trench then move much closer to the other man.

Thankfully, Hoseok does it for him.

After painful moments of almost-touching, of seconds and minutes wasted staring at each others lips and having their own moist in condensation, Hoseok tilts his head and brushes their lips together.

Changkyun’s mind screams that it’s wrong, but his heart tells him that it’s so, so right.

The first kiss is barely a touch, not even more than a whisper of contact.

They pause.

The second kiss is heavier. The pressure of Hoseok’s lips against his own is firm and pliant, the sound of them pulling apart faint but there.

Hoseok takes his elbow in his hand and attempts to close the gap once more.

Changkyun jerks back. He distantly feels wetness track down his cheek and wonders if he’s crying.

Hoseok frowns.

"Mein hübsch," he murmurs, rubbing at the tear with his thumb. “What is wrong?”

“Isn’t this wrong?” Changkyun chokes out. His cheeks burn and eyes sting.

“Our countries fight wars against each other,” Hoseok says. For the first time his voice is uncharacteristically bitter - a real show of feelings in a vulnerable situation. “I think, wrong.. Is not real, anymore.”

It is that subtle realisation that sets his altered axis straight. The other boy is right.

He has shot boys as young as fifteen because they wear a different flag to him. He has spent weeks huddled with the threat of his fingers rotting and turning green with disease. He has seen his comrades brains and blood seep into muddy ground like a grotesque renaissance painting.

With such horrors contained within his hollow chest, was there really much stopping him?

Changkyun takes a long, shuddering breath, and kisses Hoseok hard.

The German boy is surprised. His eyes fly wide and he leans back, lips frozen as Changkyun’s dig into his, but then he eases into the motion.

This time neither of them pull away.

A gasp follows a harder kiss. Hoseok takes Changkyun’s face in his gloved hands and Changkyun shivers, allowing his arms to snake under the others trench coat and press palms flat into the broadness of his back.

Changkyun can feel his skin under his thin shirt. It is firm and warm and so very real. He smells like chocolate and smoke and days spend looking out over the village of Hope with foreign words dancing on his lips.

Hoseok opens his mouth first. The Englishman's eyes shoot open when he feels the wetness poke at his lip, but he is quick to melt into the feeling of each of them exploring, tentative, cautious. Changkyun has never kissed a man before. He has never kissed anybody before. His brain is a blur of grasping onto what he should do next but he finds it easy to follow when a hand moves to cup the back of his neck and their cough-ridden chests collide.

Heat blossoms in his stomach and radiates to his extremities. It bounces between them, blocks all feeling of icy winter from their hearts, locks them in a bubble of fever and warmth and passion.

Eventually it comes to an end. Hoseok pulls back. There is a hunger in his eyes Changkyun has never seen before - a burning, fiery desire that follows through with urgent worry and a need for reassurance. His intense gaze and dilated pupils makes him shudder. It is clear that Hoseok is a man who truly, truly feels, despite everything he has been forced to endure.

It is a dangerous thing to feel while at war. But, just once, Changkyun allows himself the luxury.

His lips are swollen and tingle with blood flow. His mind is dizzy, and he grips tighter around Hoseok’s waist while he attempts to catch his breath.

“Do you do that a lot in Germany?” he gasps, barely audible through his constricted throat.

Hoseok laughs. The expression crinkles his eyes and reveals a cute gummy smile.

"Nein," Hoseok’s gloved hand strokes his cheek with a tenderness only he can achieve. “Just for you.”

When Changkyun sleeps that night he is warmed by the memories of lips on his own and hot hands burning into his face and neck.

He keeps the memories to himself. His own little happy secret.

Eight days later, they meet again.

Changkyun thinks Hoseok has forgotten what day they agreed to find each other when he reaches the top of the hill and finds their usual outcrop empty. The thought chills him to the core - Hoseok is always early. Has something happened to him? Did he fall in the brief spat between their forces three days earlier?

And then he hears the singing.

It is faint but the angelic voice can only belong to one person.

He finds Hoseok in the watchtower, gasping upon entry when the walls are lit with a burning lantern.

Hoseok has lain a mottled, damp blanket on the floor of the empty, small stone building. When Changkyun ducks into the doorway his face lights up and he pats the opposite end.

"Hübsch! Come sit!”

It is then the Englishman sees the food.

There is not much. A can of beans. Two packs of beef, a roll of bread still warm from the village bakery and the familiar foil wrapper of a whole bar of German chocolate.

“What is this?” Changkyun asks in disbelief as he takes a tentative seat the other side of the blanket before repeating the question in German. "Was ist das?"

"Ein picknick," Hoseok grins, offering the bread to Hoseok. “A picnic!”

“How long did it take you to save up this food?” Changkyun asks with a laugh. Hoseok’s face morphs into a comedic show of seriousness.

“A very long time. So, therefore, you must enjoy!”

"Danke," Changkyun laughs and goes to tear off a chunk of the bread.

“Ah!” Hoseok’s pretty voice causes him to jump and his eyes twinkle with mischief. “No, Englishman. You can eat only if you give a kiss.”

Speaking of such forbidden things so brazenly makes Changkyun’s ears turn pink.

For a moment, Hoseok looks victorious, smug expression in the knowledge that the uptight Englishman would never initiate it first.

But Changkyun is nothing if not stubborn.

He leans forward, grabs Hoseok’s face in his hands, and smashes their lips together.

The collision elicits a harsh sound of surprise from the German's throat and Changkyun laughs into the kiss, pulling back when the guffaws wrack his entire body in hilarity.

“Okay?” he asks with a grin. The older boy’s pale skin is flushed a bright red and his mouth is parted in shock.

“Oh-kay,” he chokes out in reply.

They sit and talk and laugh and tease for the rest of the day together. It is perhaps the happiest Changkyun has ever been, war and all.

With Hoseok he is so far away from everything bad. The boy clears his thoughts as if he has cast a spell, and gives him such comfort there is no room left for worry or fear or emptiness. Hoseok makes Changkyun feel.

Hoseok is his home. He never wants that to change.

The next few weeks are perhaps the happiest of Changkyun’s life.

He lives every day waiting in childlike anticipation. Counting down each minute, second, hour until he can see Hoseok again. Until he can collapse into his warm arms and hear his accented laugh and feel joy like he has never felt before.

They sit, now, side by side as they always have done. Hoseok’s hand presses gentle circles into his waist and their heads rest atop each other.

Sometimes Changkyun will take Hoseok’s wrist and untangle from his body to tug him towards the watchtower.

They'll kiss until they must leave.

He forgets about war and death and prisoners and trenches. He forgets about the fact they are on opposing sides, that fate has been so unkind as to gift them such impossible feelings

He lets himself feel when Hoseok kisses him like it's the last thing he'll ever do. When the German boy holds him so tightly like he won't ever let go, when his lips are warm and frantic and their noses bump and the only sound is the pitched rumble of his chest or their mouths when they pull apart.

They kiss until they bid each other farewell and their faces are flushed like its cold Christmas day once again.

Nothing good ever lasts.

Changkyun learnt that during his first month serving at war. Food, friendship, quiet nights and restless sleep - none of them are permanent fixtures. The world shifts and warps and morphs around him in a never ending monotony of disappointment. So much so that sad things, horrible things, things no man should live to see; they do not affect him much anymore. He feels an idle throb echo in his chest and then he moves on.

When he sits next to Hoseok on the edge of the grassy outcrop, spring finally beginning to seep through and coat the ground in frosty dew not hardened ice, and the boy with a soft jaw and big ears turns to him with fear in his gentle brown eyes, Changkyun feels it. He feels the idle throb of disappointment.

“I’m leaving,” Hoseok says.

Changkyun closes his eyes.

He is used to this, he thinks, this hopelessness. This pointlessness. This hollow acceptance of terrible situations or cruel, cruel luck.

But it is different with Hoseok. He is not a battlefield he must just power through. He is not a hand over the enemies trench he must blindly shoot at, or a dead body of a comrade he must strip of its clothes.

This is Hoseok. This is his home.

He cannot lose his home.

“No,” he whispers. The sound is carried away by the wind. “You can’t go.”

"Mein hübsch, Changkyun-"

“No,” he chokes out, sadness grabbing at his throat and digging its claws into his chest when he opens his eyes to plead. “You can’t leave me. You can’t.”

“I must,” the German boy’s lip wobbles and he takes a shuddering breath. “I am going to Belgium, now. They need more soldiers there.”

“No,” Changkyun says. This time it is louder. He refuses to listen to what the other boy says. "Nein. Du kannst nicht. Ich- ich brauche dich. You can’t go. I need you.”

“Changkyun, hor mir zu. Listen to me.” Hoseok attempts to take the Englishman's hands. Changkyun shakes his head, pulls back his wrists, but Hoseok does not let go. “I will find you. After. When there is no more war.”

“How?” Changkyun asks. His cheeks feel wet. “One of us will have to lose. How d’you know it won't be you? How d’you know that- that my comrades won't kill you- that they won't line you up and shoot you in the head-”

“This,” Hoseok’s shaking hands reach into the pocket of his trench coat by his heart. The movement reveals his wallet, and the trembling boy removes a sliver of paper Changkyun has never seen before. He presses it into Changkyun’s hand, eyes frantic and pained and so, so wrong for a man who should look like sunshine. “Keep it safe. Come find me. After.”

Changkyun uncurls his fingers as they tremor.

In his hand sits a photo of Hoseok.

It is of him in his uniform, clean, presentable. His hair is cut neatly and shorn off around his sticky out ears. There is a softness in his face that he no longer possesses - the whispers of a larger frame that the horrors of hungry war have starved out of him. Serene lips are complimented by the ironed collar of his uniform and the hazy sepia edges of the image.

His kind brown eyes almost seem to glitter on the page.

“I am.. Your Rose,” he says earnestly. Painfully. Anguish staining his voice a longing blue. “Find me.”

Changkyun turns the sliver of paper over.

On the back is a date - 15th August, 1914 - but, beneath that expected print, there is the scrawl of beautiful handwriting written with a blunt pencil.

16 Rösenster st. Hohenmölsen. Deutschland.

“When all war ends. When you are safe. I will wait. Here.” Hoseok points at the address.

Changkyun can feel the sobs manifest. Holding the small piece of Hoseok in his hands, he realises that it may be the last time he ever sees the German boy who he met on Christmas day and kissed come the beginnings of spring.

He realises that, someday soon, his shallow well of luck will run dry, and some foreign soldier who does not speak his language will pick this photo from his breast pocket and wonder if Hoseok was his lover in life.

"Können sie bitte singen? ” he says quietly.

Can you sing please?

Hoseok nods but does not meet his eyes. He sniffs, wipes at his face and adjusts the hems of his coat, before opening his mouth to sing.

“O’, Holy Night,” he begins softly. “The stars are brightly shining.”

Changkyun’s head whips up.

English.

Hoseok learnt the first song he sung to him in English.

Changkun listens in complete awe. He watches the way Hoseok’s eyes flutter closed, sees the veins in his jaw and sadness in his furrowed brow and tears as they spill onto his cheek. He watches, and he listens, and he cries all the same.

“Oh, fall to you knees. Oh, hear the angels voices,” Hoseok takes a shuddering breath as he nears the end of the accented song. Each note is painful, racked with raw emotion, each long, perfect note tainted with words they cannot speak between them. It is an explanation. An apology. A goodbye.

“O’ night, divine. O’ night, when Christ was born.”

Changkyun closes his eyes. Behind his eyelids dance images of snow he wishes he could step into, but instead he is forced to watch as he climbs from the trench on Christmas day, as him and Hoseok shake hands for the first time, as the older boy gives him a sliver of chocolate and tells him to meet him by the watchtower.

He wishes he could go back to that once night, where, for a moment, no guns were heard and everything was silent.

The familiar feeling of arms wrap around his coat and drag him into an intimate hold. Changkyun clutches at his shirt, thinks, somewhere in his mind, that he should be crying and raging and screaming so hard his voice refuses to work, but nothing seems to happen.

All good things come to an end. Hoseok is no exception.

When they must leave, Hoseok takes the younger’s chin in his hand and tilts it so their gazes meet. It is intense and sorrowful and holds a thousand words in just one stare.

When the German presses a salty kiss to his lips, Changkyun allows himself a last moment of happiness. He sinks into the feeling of chapped lips on his own and warm breath shared between them as if it is the most natural feeling in the world.

Then Hoseok pulls away, and Changkyun feels nothing anymore.

He spends two years in France.

They are perhaps the easiest to endure. While not particularly pleasant, at least the routine is stable. At least he knows that the secrets to survival are easy enough to find so long as he doesn’t mind shooting at strangers through dust clouds or sleeping when the temperature has been negative for weeks and his fingertips have turned black and blue.

After that he is drafted into the Russian support legions alongside twenty thousand other British and French comrades.

The Eastern Front is perhaps the worst year of his life.

He does unspeakable things in Russia. He will never forget, but he will also never relieve the haunting memories, the atrocities turning his hollow heart to stone and freezing over what little hope he has left. Thousands die of disease. He sees new friends fall to dysentry, cholera, erupt in coughing fits until blood stains their hands and they lie dead on the rat infested floor. He wonders when it will be him thrown into the mass graves. He hopes death will take him soon.

Then he gets a letter.

A proposal of service change.

A transfer to the Western Front of Belgium.

Changkyun agrees without hesitation and within the next week he is shipped out to Belgium, where the bitter cold of Russia is replaced by the mild chill of Europe and the trenches are familiar and the language known.

Every single man he meets, he slips the photo he keeps safe in his breast pocket and asks, “Do you know him? Kennst du ihn? Est-ce-que tu le connais? ”

They always shake their head no with confusion decorating their war torn features. Most of them are wary of Changkyun, anyway, since his lapel carries four strips of dyed cloth - four years of continuous service - as well as the star of service in Russia. They fear the veteran who has fought in more lands than they can name.

By the time Changkyun is twenty-two, he has seen everything. There is nothing left inside him. His body is built for the mechanics of war, for the reload and fire of machine guns, for the constant sounds of gunfire and smoke of shell bombs. He cannot remember what it is like to live normally.

Sometimes he is offered holiday. Two weeks at home. Time to repair, recoup, return full of vigour and life and good food.

He refuses everytime. What if he meets Hoseok on the battlefield two days in advance? What if, when he gets home, it does not feel like home anymore? What if he gave his heart to a German man and will never get it back?

Many times he is offered higher positions, given opportunities to move up in rank - to Corporal, to Sargent, to Lieutenant, to General. He turns every single one down.

He wants no commanding role in a war against the man he loves.

He knows, somewhere, deep down in his withdrawn, war torn body, that Hoseok is no longer alive. That most of the men who enlisted the first year had returned home with life changing injuries or in a casket fit with a bow.

At the beginning of 1918 Changkyun realises they’re going to lose the war. Germany was in too strong a position and their country was out of money.

And then something changed.

Suddenly, it seemed as if they would win.

No longer on the panicked defensive, Changkyun’s Sergeant sent out round after round of offence. They pushed the enemy back, flooding into their trenches hundred at a time, decimating whatever land they could find. Changkyun finds no joy in the act of fighting a war, but he perhaps feels a little more content when his side was winning.

Whenever he has to shoot a man, he always looks him straight in the eyes, just to check they don’t belong to Hoseok.

They never do and he pulls the trigger without so much as a wince.

On the 11th of November, 1918, the war ends.

Their side have won.

The armistice is called through the trenches. It is echoed in thousands of exuberant voices, of grown men weeping boy tears, of people clutching people and waving newspaper headlines and laughing into the unknown.

Changkyun stares at the paper in his hands. The title “ The War is Over! ” glares at him with angry eyes and too much emotion.

He does not feel much, only a strange sense of dread when he must leave his trench and load onto a boat with a thousand other soldiers. They talk and laugh and jest and drink beer until they cannot talk, crying with joy over the families and women they shall see when they return home.

Changkyun sits in the corner of the deck while the gentle waves rock the boat and the lantern lights up the night sky.

It feels weird to not be crouched in mud or clutching a worn rifle. He feels empty. Misplaced.

He stares at the photograph in his hand, of the German boy with his cute ears and big brown eyes. There are bloody fingerprints dried tacky on the edges, and a rip has cut off one corner of the paper.

He thinks of the first winter he spent at war, when both sides had been civil enough to laugh and play football together, when they had sung carols in different languages and exchanged more than just friendship.

He slips the photo back into the pocket by his heart.

One day, soon, he will find Hoseok. There is no other option.

Upon returning to the place he grew up Changkyun is quick to realise that it is not home anymore.

He clambers from the open horse drawn cart when it reaches the centre of the village. He is not the only man to return, but he is the only one to serve so long, and while the other boys are greeted with cheers and jubilation and celebration, Changkyun finds it easy to slip silently away and begin the quiet walk back to his house.

His mother opens the door to her son dressed in uniform. There are medals on his chest, and, while his back remains empty of a rifle, he stands as if ready to hold one.

She collapses into tears and grasps him tight. Kisses him all over his face, rubs salty water into his shoulder, tells him she got all his letters and kept them safe and just wanted him to come home safe.

His sisters appear around the corner dressed in drab cloth dresses and their hair pinned nicely around round cherub faces.

There are only three.

Changkyun frowns.

His mother’s face pales.

“Minji,” she whispers. “Caught the fever. She did not make it.”

Changkyun looks at the skin and bones of his sisters. He looks at his mother and her tired eyes and greying hair and wrinkled hands which washed the villages clothes for shillings for dinner. He looks at the photograph hanging on the wall, of his sister Minji and her vibrant face and glowing, lifelike eyes.

And he realises it is not home.

“Oh,” he breathes. Tears prick at his eyes.

His mother stares at him. Her eyes are round and worried and fearful.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I thought it best in person, when we met again.”

“That’s okay,” Changkyun’s lip wobbles. He tells himself to hold it in, force the emotion down, to not allow it to spill over in a crashing wave of tears that would drown every one of his family.

He swallows, bends down on one knee, and opens his arms for his sisters.

They run to greet him in a hug. He inhales smell of warmth, of fresh bread and cut grash and the river that runs through the village. All three cry into his shoulder despite being bigger than he remembers and he shushes them, pats their long hair and wipes away their tears.

“It’s okay,” he says, forcing a shaking smile. “I’m home now. Big brothers home.”

They weep on his shoulder. After a moment his mother joins in, falling to the floor and taking her son in her arms and rocking him gently as if he is a child.

For a second the tears threaten to spill over and break his crafted visage.

But Changkun takes a deep, steady breath, and thinks of a German boy with pretty brown eyes and a smile like sunshine in a war of darkness.

When Changkyun tells his mother he is leaving to go to Germany, the woman looks at him as if he has gone mad.

For the past two weeks she had danced around the son she no longer knew. When she drops a pot she put to boil on the stove, Changkyun falls to the ground and curls into a ball. It takes half an hour for her to coach her shaking son out of the protective stance and convince him it is not a bomb. When his youngest sister grabs his shoulders from behind to scare him with a childlike giggle, he turns with a shout, reaching for a rifle that isn’t there and ammo that no longer attaches to his belt. When he hears a carriage rumble on the pebbled road outside his entire body tenses and he inhales sharply, eyes squeezed shut, listening to the gunfire ingrained in his mind and remembering all the sleepless nights at once.

He does not think he shall ever be the same.

So when he wakes his mother one morning with a small bag packed with necessities, his payment of conscription held in a leather wallet, and his war uniform still on his frame, she shakes her head and takes him into a hug that smells of breakfast and warmth.

“I don’t understand,” she whispers.

“I have somebody I have to find,” Changkyun explains. His heart aches at putting his mother through such turmoil. “ Das tut mir leid, mama . I’ll write you whenever I can.”

Changkyun sees the way her eyes shine with tears at his use of a language that is foreign but rolls from his tongue like he was taught it at birth.

She bids farewell to him with a lingering kiss on his forehead and, in a typical fashion of all mothers, fixes his uniform collar and tells him to make sure he presses it right when it dries.

He boards the stream train to London that afternoon, and has left England after two morns.

Germany was a strange place to be when he had fought their people for so long.

His grasp on the language is still basic but he finds it easy enough to get around. Many give him strange looks, sometimes hostile, other times open with fear, for he wears his uniform the entire trip and the medals lie polished on his lapel.

He makes it to Hohenmölsen in three days. It is an Eastern German village, far away from the Western front but still bearing the scars of war. It is poor, but not destitute. Surviving, but not thriving. The concrete pathways, winding roads, slated roofs and stone steps all remind Changkyun of England. If the signs were not in a different language he would not be able to tell them apart.

He ends up on Rösenster st. on the same day they met, four years ago.

Christmas day.

Snow drifts on a gentle wind and melts into the fur of his coat.

He holds the slip of paper with the German boys’ face on in white knuckles and scarred palms.

The street is mundane. Quaint and cosy. A tight knit community of women wheeling barrels of wool through the snow or kneading clothes into ice cold water while their chimneys smoke with the beginnings of Roast dinner. Garlands decorate each rusty eve and somewhere the crackle of German radio echoes in the street.

Changkyun approaches the first woman who catches his eye. She is old and her wrinkles sag around her eyelids.

“Entschuldigen sie, Hallo. Sprechen Sie Englisch?”

Excuse me, hello. Do you speak English?

The old lady shakes her head with suspicious eyes and Changkyun steps closer, holding out the photo of Hoseok with its blood bitten corners and tattered edges.

“Kennst du ihn? ” he asks. Do you know him?

Her cloudy blue eyes flicker to the photo and she shakes her head.

Changkyun inhales sharply and moves to the next person. It is a boy, no older than fifteen, kicking a ball in the light dusting of snow that lays on the frozen ground.

He repeats the same thing as last time and holds out the photo.

The boy makes a hacking sound in his throat, spits at the ground, then hurries away inside.

Changkyun’s hands begin to tremble.

He hurries to the next person he sees; a woman clipping wet clothes onto a line outside her house while her cold breath billows around her.

“ Entschuldigen sie, Hallo. Sprechen Sie Englisch? ” he repeats for a third time. The woman - dressed in a trodden fabric of blue flowers over pink, cinched at the waist with a cord belt and hair clipped neatly around her ear - looks at him for a long time.

“Yes,” she says. Changkyun's eyes widen in surprise. “Not good.”

When the shaking Englishman holds up the photo of Hoseok, she dries her hands on her dress and takes it with gentle fingertips.

“Do you know him?” he asks, trying not to let the panic rise in his throat. Every waking moment of the last four years has led to this moment.

And the woman shakes her head.

That is when it comes crashing down. When he realises that every niggling doubt, ever night spent awake in fear that Hoseok’s name would be among the casualties at the end, that his heart would be lost to the battlefield, that his sunshine face so full of hope and happiness and love would be pale and lifeless in a casket of black and velvet.

But then she frowns. She squints closer at the photograph, brings up a calloused hand to slide her delicate glasses onto her nose.

“What ist name?”

“Hoseok,” Changkyun breathes. Quickly. Too Quickly. “Lee Hoseok.”

Her face lights up in recognition.

“I know! Son of Mr. Lee!” she exclaims, before her brow knits together and she folds the shirt she holds in seriousness. “We don’t see much anymore. He - einsiedlerin - not open. War. Parents, tot. Dead.”

“Where is he?” Changkyun asks, frantic, four years worth of emotions clawing at his throat and poisoning his mind and tinging his vision red. “Where? Wo?"

Despite the poor woman starting at his intense tone, she still turns to offer a pointed hand up to the last house on the cobbled road. It sits above three high stairs and is doused in garlands, in bows and bushes and even two lanterns. The eaves hang heavy over the decorated front, and the sign that drifts in the wind says “ Lee Schuster.”

Shoemaker Lee.

“Danke,” he whispers to the lady, and steps away to stare at the house.

Could this be it?

Could this really be him?

The short walk to the door seems to take years. Every step is amplified by his pounding heart, every limb hard to move through the leaden weights pulling them down.

He takes a deep breath before pushing on the handle.

The door chimes when it creaks open. It is warm inside and smells like leather and chocolate. When he steps over the threshold snow from his boots melt into the wooden floor. Each wall is covered in shoes, from the ceiling to the floor, shelves upon shelves next to buckets and pedals and bundles of leather. One door seems to lead into what looks like an airy kitchen at the back of the property while another looks into a dark room he cannot name.

The sound of German radio drifts through the dim doorway and raises goosebumps on his skin.

A welcoming voice calls out over the warble.

"Ya, hallo?"

Changkyun freezes.

It’s his voice.

It’s Hoseok’s voice.

He feels each soft, gentle tone radiate through his body. He feels it stitch his wounds back together, feels it take his mind in a familiar caress and keep it safe from anything that might try to hurt him again. He hears the lilted German speech and accent which carried him through meetings above the village of Hope all those years ago.

"Hallo? Komm her, gast!"

The beautiful sound calls out once again.

The Englishman stands, paralysed, throat in a vice like grip and not daring to breathe for fear of disrupting the one thing he yearns for.

His mind cannot recall Hoseok’s sunshine smile anymore.

He needs to see it in person.

Changkyun takes a deep, shuddering breath, and steps through the passage.

It leads to a small workroom. Books line one wall, leather shoes hang on the other, a small wooden counter placed in the middle dotted with equipement, a cold mug of coffee, and the familiar foil crinkle of German chocolate.

The man he has waited for is sat at a desk. In front of him lies a pair of leather shoes. In his pale hands he holds a metal pick that he uses to thread rope through the sole, and a spectacle rests on one of his eyes to magnify the action.

For the first time Changkyun sees Hoseok without his uniform. He wears beige slacks, suspenders and a white shirt and stubble grows on his chin.

His face is as beautiful as he remembers - perhaps even more, now his cheeks have filled out with good food and his shoulders have grown in size.

"Willkommen, gast.” The boy says - or perhaps man, now he is twenty six. His voice is as kind as Changkyun ‘s memories recall and sends warmth deep into his frozen chest. "Fröhliche Weihnachten. Wie kann ich ihnen helfen?"

Welcome, guest. Merry Christmas. How can I help you?

Changkyun does not respond.

He cannot respond. He is too busy staring at the beautiful man in front of him and holding back his burning tears.

At the silence, Hoseok raises his head.

He freezes.

Changkyun sees the recognition cross his handsome features. Watches as his mouth parts, eyes widen, inhale fill his body with musty air.

“Hello," Changkyun chokes out.

Hoseok moves faster than the Englishman has ever seen. He jerks from his chair like lightning, the loud crash of it falling causing Changkyun to flinch, but the fear does not last long for the overwhelming smell of smoke and chocolate and the safe, comforting warmth of Hoseok’s tight embrace smother him with burning love.

Changkyun begins to cry. He sobs into the German boy’s neck, grasping at his foreign clothes, clutching onto whatever physical thing he can just to remind himself that it’s real, that he’s not dreaming, that Hoseok is alive and well and he found him after four years apart.

Hoseok is kissing him. On the cheek, the forehead, the nose, the lips. Quick pecks wherever he can reach, holding the crying boy steady as he attempts to calm him.

“You're alive, von Gott, you are alive,” he whispers. His eyes are so familiar, the depth of their kindness so natural to melt into. “You came back to me.”

“You told me to,” Changkyun gasps through his tears. "You told me. You- you said to find you-"

"I waited," Hoseok says, voice thick with tears, accented and warm and everything Changkyun had missed. "I waited. Here. I did not leave. I thought. Maybe you did not want to find me. Maybe my Englishman had not- he had been hurt-"

Changkyun shakes his head with a soft cry and grips the German boy like he shall never, ever let go. “I thought of you every day. I looked for you wherever I went. I had to say something, something I couldn’t say before.”

“What is it?” Hoseok's worried eyes search his own for something, anything, a sliver of indication of what Changkyun is going to say. It is clear how he frowns looking at the uniform he wears and the decoration on his chest that tells of a long time at war.

The Englishman takes a long, deep breath, and looks at the man he has waited four years for.

“Ich liebe dich, Hoseok."

The older boy stills. With mouth slightly parted, stare frozen on Changkyun’s wet eyelashes and flushed cheeks and uniform, he heaves a happy, contented sigh.

“I love you too, Changkyun,” he smiles. Tears glisten in his eyes and dampen his long eyelashes.

When the younger boy can finally see his smile, can count his white teeth and watch his eyes crinkle up in pure, unashamed joy, he thinks that maybe, perhaps, it might all be okay.

“Can I stay here a while?”

“Stay here forever,” Hoseok says seriously. His mouth forms his usual, childlike pout and his brow furrows together. “Never leave again.”

“Okay,” Changkyun laughs a laugh mixed with tears of happiness. “I won’t ever leave.”

And then his face crumples and the unending sobs crawl out of his mouth. Years of suffering, of pain, of unspeakable actions flash before his closed eyelids at once and squeeze all the happiness from his chest. He cries and he cries and he cries, and Hoseok holds him through it all, stroking his damp snowy hair, murmuring about how he is safe now. How Hoseok has him safe. How he will never let another war hurt him again.

That night the soldier sleeps in the shoemakers bed, and there is no gunfire to stop him dreaming of the man who he knows that he loves.

Changkyun thinks the Christmas of 1919 is the happiest he shall ever be. Five years after they first met, shook hands over a barren no mans land and exchanged words in languages neither of them spoke, they celebrate the occasion together, finally safe.

When Changkyun moved to Germany in January earlier that year he had been quick to realise that the only thing Hoseok could not do was cook. He could sing, finish shoes, make friendships, build outhouses or decorate windows or fix automobiles, but if Changkyun so much as let him use the stove there was always the threat of it burning the whole house down. The Englishman had many sisters growing up and learnt to cook to help his mother while Hoseok had simply learnt his father's trade.

But still, kind Hoseok insists on helping, and they spend most of the day dancing around the airy kitchen with the sound of German radio warbling in the background. Hoseok drags Changkyun away from the boiling pot to press kisses to his neck, and Changkyun swats him with a festive wreath and laughter bubbling in his chest.

"Halt!" he calls, giggles erupting at the tickling of lips on his skin. "Ich koche gerade!"

"Nein," Hoseok nudges him in the side and Changkyun spins in outrage. “I don’t like letting my Englishman go.”

“You speak better English than me now,” Changkyun teases, poking at the vegetables in the pot with a wooden spoon. The room has filled with wispy smoke and the smell of their few roast potatoes (Changkyun insisted on cooking an English meal, and Hoseok was not about to disagree).

They eat with boyish laughter. It seems neither of them ever truly grew up, not really, the war taking their childhood away and only returning it when the horror had passed.

When the loud, vibrating rumble of a cart pulls past their quaint house, Changkyun freezes. His shoulders tense, jaw clenches, eyes flicker shut as a thousand bullets fly in his mind and he flinches at the sight of blood. He feels the cold in every aching bone of his stiff body, hears the cries of men and boys in no-mans land that do not cease at night.

Hoseok takes his hand.

He holds it like he’ll never let go.

The German man strokes it with his thumb, smoothing out the tension with a calming pressure while he waits for Changkyun to return to the present.

He does not mention it, and Changkyun is grateful.

The house they share is not large. It used to be Hoseok’s parents, but both of them passed shortly after he returned from his service with a leg injury that still gives him a slight limp, and so they left their business to him to uphold. Constantly working, he puts every ounce of effort into the shoes he makes, slaving over each one by the light of his oil lantern until the sun has dipped well below the horizon and Changkyun must come to lead him to bed with a hot drink and soft words.

Changkyun bans him from working on Christmas day, and Hoseok accepts the situation with a fond laugh.

“What will we do instead?” he asks, quirking an eyebrow with a smile. “We have eaten. There is not much to do on Christmas day.”

“Maybe you should küss mich," Changkyun grins.

“Maybe, I should,” Hoseok’s sunshine smile lights up his face, and he leans in to catch the younger in a kiss.

For a brief moment, as always, Changkyun wonders if it is wrong.

And then he decides he does not care and kisses Hoseok as if it is the last thing he will ever do.

“Sing for me?” Changkyun asks when he pulls back. Their foreheads press together, lips moist and swollen, breathing in heavy exhales that drift as small clouds in the cold December air.

“What song?”

"O’ heil'ge Nacht, ” he whispers.

Hoseok nods. He pulls back to sit on the old wooden chairs they hold in their kitchen, and drags Changkyun down to sit on his lap.

Then he sings the first song he sang when they met five years ago to the day - O’ Holy Night.

He sings it in German, because he knows Changkyun prefers when he can lose himself in his own language, when his beautiful melodies can twist the harsh letters into soft, pining, lovely sounds to listen to. Each line is so indebted with emotion while he brushes Changkyun’s long hair back from his forehead, and his cute ears twitch as his eyes crinkle into a smile.

"Danke," Changkyun says after he has finished. His heart has swelled with the pretty notes and his eyes are wet with joyful tears.

Hoseok laughs. “Bitte. Anything for my hübsch, Changkyun.”

Changkyun grins. His legs hurt from the uncomfortable position, his eyes squint in the semi darkness of night, and the uneasy feeling of somebody perhaps seeing their forbidden touches eats away at his mind.

But he is not at war. Six medals hang from the ornate, cosy mantelpiece, the warmth from the crackling fire dancing on the polished shine - two German for Hoseok, four English for Changkyun. There is no possibility of him waking up to a groggy mind and rotten toes and commands to load his gun and shoot whoever runs at him. There is no possibility of some conscription paper, some transfer to another trench, that threatens to take Hoseok away from him.

He clutches the German mans arms and sinks into his familiar smell of chocolate and smoke and thinks, maybe, that this is where he belongs for the rest of his life and more.

The radio hums in the background and the fire crackles in it’s alcove.

"Fröhliche Weihnachten, Hoseok," Changkyun murmurs, rubbing a thumb over the pale man's face.

Hoseok smiles. It is the smile that looks like sunshine, and makes Changkyun feel like pure, uninterrupted warmth.

“Merry Christmas, my Changkyun," he says softly, lips turned up and eyes crinkled and soft jaw round and pliant.

Changkyun presses a kiss to his lips.

The safe warmth of the other boy lulls him to sleep that night in the quilted bed they share. No gunfire blazes on Christmas day that leaves him shaking and scared.

Instead he is safe and sound with the German boy he loves. He would not have it any other way.