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Seungmin wakes to someone prodding at his cheek with a finger.
Squinting his eyes open just a fraction, he can’t help but giggle softly at Chan’s blurry face merely inches from his own. This wouldn’t be the first time his eldest hyung woke him up in such a fashion, and he highly doubts that it will be the last. The only difference this time being that it was still dark in the room; his bedside clock, he now notices, reads just past four-thirty in the morning.
“Hyung…” He groans out and moves to swat away the prodding finger only to have his wrist caught in Chan’s grip mid-air. The elder pulls at him until Seungmin is sitting up in his bed and wiping the sleep out of his eyes with his free hand. Seungmin knows that he’s already lost this battle. “What could you possibly wa‒” He’s cut off by the same finger that had been poking his cheek not even a minute prior, only now it rests against his lips in an attempt to silence him.
“Come on,” Chan whispers with a small smile as he tugs on Seungmin’s wrist once more to signal the younger to follow him. “I want to show you something.”
Seungmin’s curiosity piques at that.
He follows obediently then, letting Chan lead him to one of the armoires and watches as Chan goes through Seungmin’s messy piles of clothes. It’s then that Seungmin takes notice in his hyung’s attire; Chan’s clad in at least two pairs of sweatpants and what looks to be a thick hoodie layered over a knit sweater and a t-shirt.
He comes to the conclusion that whatever Chan is so intent on showing him at half past four in the morning must be outside, and Seungmin wonders if even that many layers is going to be enough against the harsh chill of late November.
Once Chan is satisfied with the various clothing items filling his arms he motions for Seungmin to follow him out of the room, not wanting to risk the possibility of disturbing Minho or Hyunjin’s slumber any further. Seungmin nods silently and makes his way out into the living area where a single lamp is illuminating the room in a soft orange-like glow and he notes the two disposable coffee cups sitting on the dining table, the steam emitting from the mouthpiece on the lids just barely visible in the dim lighting.
“Changbin-hyung is going to murder you if he finds out that you used his cups.” He mumbles as Chan pulls a thick yellow knit sweater over Seungmin’s head. Seungmin makes a face at him once his head is through the collar of the sweater and pushes away his hyung’s hands to finish pulling on the sweater by himself.
“He won’t know if you don’t tell him.” Chan replies simply before he shoves a thick pair of socks into Seungmin’s hands. The younger rolls his eyes but eagerly sits down to pull them on, thankful to have something warm between his bare feet and the freezing hardwood flooring. He grabs the pair of sweatpants and his worn hoodie from where Chan set them on the table and dresses himself the rest of the way as the elder quietly wanders back into the room the two of them share with Minho and Hyunjin. He emerges less than a minute later and gently closes the bedroom door behind him as he stuffs some sort of blue material into the front pocket of his black hoodie.
“We’ll go once we put on some shoes.” Chan whispers as he sits down to shove his feet into an old pair of his leather combat boots. Seungmin grabs a pair of his beige Timberland boots and makes quick work of getting them on and laced up. The dorm was peacefully silent as they finished up, the only sounds being Minho’s faint snoring and the low hum of the heater when it kicked on.
“Where exactly are we going?” Seungmin breaks the silence first as Chan hands him one of the disposable coffee cups.
Chan was known to slip out of the dorm by himself at all sorts of weird hours in the night to just get away from it all for a short while and clear his head, or at least that was the reason he gave Seungmin one night when he caught the leader getting ready to leave.
“I’m coming with you” Seungmin had said after Chan’s vague explanation.
“The others will have my head if they find out I let one of the babies sneak out.” Chan had tried to reason, only earning a scoff and an eye-roll from the second youngest member.
“They won’t know if you don’t tell them.”
Looking back on it now, Seungmin supposes that’s when it all began. All of the weird feelings he’d shoved to the back of his heart forced their way to the surface when Chan had only sighed and grabbed his hand in response to his silly answer and tugged him out the front door of the dorm.
Seungmin never fully acted on the feelings, but things definitely changed after that night. Chan still remained quite secretive about his occasional moonlight adventures, but he would share stories of them with Seungmin more often than not.
“You’ll see.” Chan answers with a small smile, slipping his free hand into Seungmin’s and pulling him out of the dorm before Seungmin can question him any further.
Seungmin half expects Chan to let go of his hand once they’re standing in the elevator and tries to mask his disappointment when he feels Chan begin to loosen his hold on him, only to be quickly reassured when small warm fingers thread through his own. Seungmin stares down excitedly at their joined hands in the reflection of the elevator’s mirror, his face turning a deep scarlet when he notices Chan watching his face in the same reflection. The younger is quick to look away and takes a sip from his neglected cup, and finds himself surprised when the warm, sweet liquid touches his tongue.
“Hot chocolate?”
“Well, I wasn’t about to use any of Changbin’s coffee. I don’t have a death wish, believe it or not.” Chan teases before taking a sip from his own cup, his mouth forming into a wide grin around the rim of it.
The elevator comes to a stop on the ground floor with a quiet ping announcing their arrival. They walk hand-in-hand down the hallway and into the lobby before Seungmin abruptly pulls out of Chan’s grasp and rushes toward the exit.
“Whoooa! It finally snowed!” He exclaims, his warm breath beginning to fog up the glass where his face is all but pressed against it in amazement.
“Come on, nerd.” Chan begins, tugging on the sleeve of Seungmin’s sweater as he nudges the door open with his shoulder. “We’ve got quite the walk ahead of us.”
It had finally snowed, indeed. A fresh blanket of white glitters under the street lamps as the two set off down the covered path. Seungmin occasionally steps out from under the covering to make tracks in the near ankle-deep snow. He’s in the middle of his third set of tracks and trying to catch a few of the silent falling flakes with his tongue when Chan’s hand drags him back under the covering and into a familiar cafe. Chan orders a bag of warm doughnut-holes for the both of them to share as they resume their walk.
They walk in silence for a while, neither one of them feeling the need for words when there’s food to be eaten. Seungmin ends up being the one to dive his hand into the bag and pull out the last remaining doughnut-hole. He splits it in half and hands Chan a piece while he pops the other past his lips. Their drinks are finished soon after the sweet treat and they dump the empty bag and cups into a trash can along the sidewalk.
“Is it much further?” Seungmin asks after a few moments of silence and brings his hands up to his mouth to blow hot air through them. His hands are almost unbearably cold without the warmth of the coffee cups and doughnuts and hopes that whatever Chan is leading him to will include a space heater of sorts.
“Not too far off now, are you cold?”
“J-Just my hands.” Seungmin curses his teeth for chattering.
Chan smiles knowingly and reaches his hand into the pocket of his hoodie. Seungmin spied the same blue material from earlier and recognizes it to be a pair of mittens that Chan had bought not too long ago.
Chan stops walking and grabs Seungmin’s right hand to slip one of the mittens on it and slips the remaining one onto his own left hand. “Sorry,” Chan says through the same knowing smile as he intertwines their mitten-less fingers. “I only brought one pair, so this will have to do for now.”
Seungmin blinks rapidly, a habit of his that Chan has always found adorable, as he comes to the conclusion that Chan had been planning for this all along. “I highly doubt that you’re sorry.” He mumbles, looking away when he feels the heat rise in his cheeks.
They resume walking once more and Chan claims this to be the last stretch and that they would arrive at the destination soon.
❄ ❄ ❄
It doesn’t take long after that for Seungmin to recognize the route they had been taking, and he feels a bit foolish for not having figured it out sooner when a park comes into view as they turn the last corner.
“Wait, I know this place…” Seungmin runs over to the familiar swing set and brushes snow off the seat of one of the swings. Memories of sneaking out in the middle of the night during their rookie days play through Seungmin's mind like a movie.
The group as a whole used to frequent the small park by the river to play around after a long day’s worth of rehearsals and various schedules, and there had been times when they were filming a mini reality series that they all would come here and bring along the camera to film their shenanigans. Memories like those were the ones Seungmin liked to hold close now that the group was a lot busier and thus never having time to do things like that anymore.
“Do you come back here often, Hyung?” Seungmin asks, drawing shapes in the snow with the toe of his shoe from his spot on the swing.
“Every once in awhile.” Chan answers as he twists around in his swing to wind up the chain before lifting his feet up off of the ground, smiling as the swing spins him around. “It holds a lot of memories that I’m rather fond of, so I come here when I feel like reminiscing a bit.”
“Mmm.” Seungmin hums in response and makes a mental note to take a trip back to the old park with the rest of the group the next time they’re all free. “So, what is it that you want to show me that’s so important you had to wake me up at such an ungodly hour and walk through the freezing snow for ages?”
Chan gets up from his swing and pulls on Seungmin’s sleeve once more, the younger now following without question. They walk to a railing that’s positioned at a spot where people can stand and look out and see the whole city.
The elder boy points at the horizon where the sun is just beginning to rise along the tops of Seoul’s many skyscrapers, “This is what I wanted to show you, Minnie. I saw the sunrise from here once a few weeks back and I’ve been wanting to bring you to see it since then.”
“Wow.” Seungmin gasps as really takes in the sight. The sun glinting off the sides of the buildings and hitting the glittering blankets of snow really makes for a beautiful setting and Seungmin’s mouth is set into an ‘o’ shape in fascination.
“So beautiful.” Chan muses to himself.
Seungmin glances over to his hyung for a moment and does a double take. Chan is glittering just as brilliantly as the snow as the first rays of the sun illuminate his pale skin and Seungmin finds it hard to focus on anything else around him with something so beautiful stands less than a foot away from him.
“Yeah, you are.” Seungmin’s voice is barely a whisper but Chan hears him well enough.
The older boy turns so that his whole body faces Seungmin’s and Chan lets Seungmin’s gentle hand tilt his chin upwards as the younger leans down, stopping just before their noses touch, their eyes never leaving one another’s.
“I’m going to kiss you, now.” Seungmin states, eyes traveling down to Chan’s lips and back to his eyes a couple times, giving the older boy a chance to reject him.
“Okay.” Chan responds, his own eyes flit down to Seungmin’s lips and back up. He closes them as Seungmin tilts his head down just a little further and their lips brush for a brief moment before Seungmin is pressing his lips fully against the other’s. Seungmin feels Chan’s mitten-clad hand rest on his cheek right before the elder begins to kiss him back.
Their first kiss is slow and chaste, neither of them wanting to rush things and just enjoy the moment. The air was around them is still and silent, save for the occasional early birds chirping merrily in a nearby tree, and light snowflakes begin to fall all around them, sticking and melting on the tops of their heads.
Chan is the first to pull away when the snow begins to settle on their cheeks before melting and leaving wet streaks on their faces. Chan bites back a smile and turns back to watch what was left of the sunrise with his head laying on Seungmin’s shoulder. He knows that they should head back to the dorm soon, mainly because the others would be waking up soon, but also because he doesn’t want himself nor Seungmin to catch a cold from being out in the snow for too long.
“Hyung, are you crying?” Chan looks up to see Seungmin staring down at him and self consciously lifts his mitten-less hand up to feel his face.
“No,” Chan chuckles through his, now chattering, teeth. “The cold wind makes my eyes water like crazy is all.” He sniffs deems it time to head back, knowing that they’d already stayed out for far too long.
“Wow, your nose is so red!” Seungmin exclaims as he wipes Chan’s tears away with his thumbs, the mitten tickles one side of his cheeks whereas Seungmin’s bare thumb feels nice and warm against his other cheek. Chan feels his heart tug at the sweet gesture but glares at the younger’s teasing words.
“Yah! You should see your nose, Rudolph!” Chan steps away from Seungmin and turns to act as if he was leaving and makes a point to dramatically stomp his feet. He only gets a couple feet away before a pair of arms wrap around his waist from behind and hold onto him tightly.
“Sorry I don’t have a huge warm coat to wrap around your shoulders or anything. I know this isn’t exactly the most romantic-”
“This is nice.” Chan whispers and leans all his weight back into Seungmin’s chest to take in all of the warmth he could get.
“Mmm,” Seungmin hums in agreeance and tightens his hold around Chan’s waist ever so slightly before ducking his head down to plant a soft kiss on the elder’s cheek.
Chan’s smile is brilliant as he feels himself falling more and more for the younger man who was now hiding his face in the space between Chan’s neck and shoulder blades. It was nice.
More than nice.
It was perfect.
❄ ❄ ❄
“Seungminnie?” Minho is hunched over the second youngest with a worried expression as he gently shakes him awake. “Seungmin, wake up.”
“What’s wro-” Seungmin tries to begin, but is unable to finish when he’s abruptly cut off by a nasty coughing fit.
“You’ve been coughing like that in your sleep ever since I woke up. Drink this, it’ll help your throat.” Minho places a mug of hot tea into the younger’s hands once he’s sitting up well enough to drink it.
Minho leaves the room, claiming to be in search of a thermometer, as soon as Seungmin finishes the last of his tea. Seungmin looks to the clock beside his bed and his eyes widen at the displayed time. He begins to wonder if everything from before had just been some amazing dream when a frantic-looking Changbin rushes into his room with a thermometer in hand.
“Not you, too, Seungmin…” Changbin sounds distressed and looks as if he had just woken up as well. He sits on the edge of Seungmin’s bed and motions for the younger to open his mouth to slip in the thermometer. Changbin lifts his hand to his forehead and frowns deeply at how warm it had already become.
“... too ?” Seungmin curiously mumbles around the thermometer.
“Yes, too. Chan woke up with the same bloody fever and cough. I swear, the two of you are the worst when sick, and now you’re both sick at the same time. This is going to be absolutely unbearable,” Changbin sighs hard and Seungmin tries to fight the smile that threatened to stretch around the thermometer.
“WHO THE HELL PUT FREEZING WET CLOTHES IN THIS LAUNDRY BASKET I SWEAR TO GOD EVERYTHING UNDER THEM WAS CLEAN ALREADY!” Jisung’s annoyed voice rings throughout the dorm and Seungmin nearly spits out the thermometer when he is overcome with laughter.