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“Three winters passed,
and still, the snow
remembered your name.”
❄✦❄✦❄✦❄✦❄
By the third Christmas, you’d think it would stop hurting.
You’d think the ache would dull with time, that grief would lose its sharpness and become something distant, manageable—like an old bruise you only noticed when pressed. You’d think Christmas would return to being just another date on the calendar instead of a quiet ambush that came every year without warning.
But it didn’t.
It was still December.
Still cold enough to make his breath fog the air.
Still full of lights that blinked too brightly, reflecting off shop windows and car windshields like they were mocking him.
Everywhere Namping looked, there were reminders. Red ribbons tied too neatly. Couples walking too close together. Laughter spilling out of cafés warmed by shared mugs and shared hands. He hated how festive everything felt, how the world kept celebrating as if it hadn’t taken something from him and never given it back.
He stood in front of the mirror longer than necessary, adjusting his coat for the third time. The collar sat fine. He knew that. His hands just needed something to do. His reflection stared back at him—eyes a little duller, smile a little slower to come. He looked like someone who had learned how to function without fully healing.
He didn’t know why he cared so much about how he looked tonight. Maybe it was habit. Maybe it was denial. Or maybe it was because some small, stupid, traitorous part of him still wanted to be seen.
Seen by one specific person.
Three Christmases ago, this was how it had started.
He remembered that night too clearly, as if his mind had decided to preserve it in high definition just to be cruel. The party hadn’t even been that special—too loud, too crowded, cheap fairy lights taped to walls they had no right to be on. Namping had been standing near the window, pretending not to be overwhelmed, when Keng had walked up to him with two cups of something warm and sweet.
Keng had smiled at him then. Soft. Nervous. Like he always did when he was about to say something that mattered.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you something,” Keng had said, voice barely louder than the music.
Namping had teased him, had laughed, had no idea his entire life was about to tilt.
“I think,” Keng had said, eyes searching his face like he was afraid the answer might already be written there, “I think I’m in love with you."
They had laughed after that—not because it was funny, but because it was overwhelming. Because it felt too big to sit with quietly. They had kissed, clumsy and breathless, hands cold from the winter air but shaking for entirely different reasons. They had believed Christmas was magic. That love, once found, stayed.
And then—months later—Keng had let him go.
For the sake of his “future.”
Namping swallowed hard and grabbed his keys, the metal cold against his palm. He didn’t want to go to this party. Every part of him resisted it. But staying home felt worse. Silence had a way of making his thoughts louder, and tonight, he wasn’t sure he could survive that.
────୨ৎ────
The apartment was already loud when he arrived.
Music seeped through the walls rather than blasted—warm, familiar, the kind meant to fill empty spaces and keep silence from settling too deeply. It wrapped around him the moment the door opened, along with a wash of golden light that spilled across the hallway and touched his face like a welcome he wasn’t sure he deserved.
It felt gentle.
It felt cruel.
Tinsel shimmered softly from the corners of the room, catching the light whenever someone moved. Fairy lights were strung carelessly along railings and doorframes, their glow warm and patient. Somewhere near the balcony, fake snow drifted lazily through the air, landing on dark hair and knit sweaters, dissolving into laughter and quiet delight.
The apartment looked like a memory someone had carefully preserved.
“Namping!” Tle called, his voice bright as he waved him over. “You actually came!”
Namping smiled on instinct, a practiced curve of his lips that had learned how to exist without asking questions. He stepped inside and let himself be pulled into familiar arms, warmth pressing briefly against his chest. A drink was placed in his hand, cool and steady, grounding him just enough.
Everyone looked happy. Not the forced kind, but the easy kind—like they belonged in this warmth, like the noise fit them naturally.
He told himself he did too.
He took a step forward.
Then he looked up.
And the world stilled.
Keng stood across the room.
The music faded into something distant. The lights softened until they blurred. For one suspended, impossible moment, Namping forgot how to breathe, forgot how to exist in a body that suddenly felt too small for everything it was holding.
Keng looked… familiar in the most dangerous way.
Time had sharpened him, not erased him. He stood a little straighter now, shoulders broader, presence quieter but heavier. He wore something simple, dark and unassuming, yet it clung to him like it had been meant for him alone. His hair fell into his eyes the same way it always had when his thoughts wandered too far ahead of him.
Some things refused to be left in the past.
Namping’s chest tightened.
He turned away too quickly, pulse crashing in his ears, heart slamming against his ribs like it was trying to escape.
Not here.
Not tonight.
Please, not now.
He focused on the glass in his hand, on the cool against his fingers, on the way condensation slid slowly down its side. He lifted it to his lips, barely tasting anything, hands trembling just enough to betray him.
Three years.
Three years since he’d been close enough to feel Keng’s presence like this. Three years since he’d shared the same air, the same space. Three years of telling himself he had learned how to live with the absence.
He had survived. He had grown. He had learned how to keep going.
So why did one glance undo him so completely?
Across the room, Keng had seen him too.
The feeling was immediate and merciless—a sharp pull in his chest, like a thread he’d never managed to cut had been yanked without warning. His breath caught before he could stop it, shoulders going still.
Namping.
He looked… beautiful. Not in the way photographs captured, but in the way something fragile survives despite everything. Softer, quieter, wrapped in a sadness that felt carefully folded rather than worn openly. His smile came easily enough—but it no longer reached his eyes.
Guilt settled heavy and deep.
I did that, Keng thought.
I left him with that.
He remembered a different Namping—laughing without restraint, leaning into him without fear, looking at him like the world made sense as long as they were standing together.
And now Namping looked like someone who had learned how to carry loss without letting it spill.
Keng didn’t move.
Longing and fear tangled in his chest, rooting him in place. What right did he have to cross that room? To disrupt the fragile balance Namping had built just to exist?
So they stayed where they were.
They didn’t approach.
Didn’t speak.
Didn’t acknowledge the moment aloud.
They simply existed in the same space—two familiar silhouettes separated by years and choices and quiet regret. Laughter rose and fell between them. Someone brushed past. Fake snow continued to drift, landing softly on shoulders before melting away.
Namping laughed at something someone said, the sound gentle but restrained. Keng watched it like a memory he wasn’t allowed to touch.
Every so often, their eyes met by accident—brief, unguarded glances heavy with everything left unsaid. Each one felt like reopening a wound that had never truly closed.
Above them, Christmas lights blinked patiently, indifferent and bright.
Three years apart.
And still, the space between them ached like something alive.
────୨ৎ────
Namping tried to lose himself in conversation.
He let the noise carry him, let voices overlap until they became something he didn’t have to fully listen to. Someone started talking about work—deadlines, promotions, office drama that meant nothing to him. Someone else chimed in about a breakup, about how relationships were exhausting anyway. Namping nodded in the right places, laughed softly when expected, even though the words slid past him without leaving any real impression.
Anything was better than standing still with his thoughts.
A guy lingered near him—someone he vaguely recognized, a friend of a friend. He spoke easily, confidently, like this room belonged to him. He leaned in when he talked, voice low enough to feel almost private despite the noise. When he laughed, his hand brushed Namping’s arm, light and casual, like it meant nothing.
Namping felt it.
The touch wasn’t unwelcome. It wasn’t wanted either. It was just… there. Warm. Present.
And that was enough.
He didn’t pull away. Didn’t step back. He let it happen because part of him was tired—tired of guarding himself, tired of pretending he didn’t crave closeness at all. Because another part of him, quieter and more wounded, wondered if letting someone else stand there might finally loosen the ache lodged in his chest.
For a fleeting moment, he thought, Maybe this is what moving on looks like.
He didn’t notice the way Keng’s gaze had found him again.
Didn’t see the way Keng went unnaturally still across the room, attention narrowing until everything else blurred. He didn’t know Keng was watching the way that man smiled at him, like it was easy. Like Namping wasn’t something precious and breakable. Like touching him was allowed.
Jealousy didn’t roar.
It seeped.
It settled heavy in Keng’s chest, quiet and nauseating, twisting something deep inside him. It was in the way his jaw tightened, the way his hands curled uselessly at his sides. In the way his eyes tracked every movement—the lean, the laugh, the hand on Namping’s arm that lingered half a second too long.
That used to be mine, a bitter thought whispered.
Not ownership. Not entitlement.
Loss.
He watched Namping smile—small, polite, careful—and it hurt more than if he hadn’t smiled at all. Because Keng knew that smile. Knew what it looked like when it was real, when it reached his eyes, when it was freely given.
This wasn’t that.
I gave that up, Keng reminded himself, the thought tasting like rust.
I chose this.
The music swelled, laughter spiked, and suddenly it all felt too much. Namping’s chest tightened again, the air growing thick and uncooperative. The conversation blurred into noise. The guy’s voice became distant, his proximity suddenly suffocating.
“I—sorry,” Namping murmured, offering a small apologetic smile. He shifted back, freeing his arm gently but firmly. “I just need some air.”
He didn’t wait for a response.
He moved through the crowd with quiet urgency, shoulders brushing past people who barely noticed him. The closer he got to the balcony, the cooler the air felt against his skin, like a promise.
Behind him, Keng moved without thinking.
His body reacted before his mind could catch up, feet carrying him forward the moment he saw Namping turn away. Fear spiked—sharp and sudden—fear that if he didn’t follow now, the distance would widen into something permanent.
He reached the balcony just in time to see Namping step outside, hands braced against the railing, head bowed slightly as he breathed in the cold night air like it was the only thing keeping him steady.
Keng stopped just behind the door.
Heart racing.
Chest tight.
Every emotion he’d buried clawing its way back to the surface.
He had no plan.
Only the unbearable pull of someone he had never truly let go of.
────୨ৎ────
Snow drifted down softly—real snow, not the fake kind clinging to tinsel and balconies. It felt like a miracle in the middle of the city, quiet and gentle, as if the world had decided to pause just for a moment.
Namping leaned against the railing, fingers gripping the cold metal, breathing out slowly. His breath fogged the air, vanished, returned again. He focused on that. On anything that wasn’t the ache in his chest.
“You seem comfortable.”
The voice cut through the quiet like a blade.
Namping stiffened.
He turned.
Keng stood there, framed by the balcony door, eyes dark and restless, shoulders tight like he was holding himself together by force alone. He was too close. He had always been too close—physically, emotionally, dangerously.
“What?” Namping asked sharply, the word coming out harsher than he meant.
“With him,” Keng said, nodding vaguely toward the inside, jaw clenched. “You look… fine.”
Something inside Namping snapped clean in half.
A sharp, hollow laugh tore out of him before he could stop it. “Is that why you followed me?” he shot back. “To check if I’m fine?”
Keng’s mouth tightened. His hands curled into fists at his sides. “I just didn’t expect you to move on so easily.”
The words landed like a slap.
Namping stared at him, disbelief flooding his face, then fury—hot, shaking, unbearable. “Easily?” he repeated, voice rising despite himself. “You think this was easy?”
“You didn’t even look back,” Keng said, bitterness bleeding into his voice now, unchecked. “You didn’t hesitate.”
That hurt.
That hurt so deeply it knocked the air from Namping’s lungs.
“You don’t get to say that,” he said, voice trembling, breaking at the edges. “You don’t get to watch me from a distance and feel anything at all.”
“I never stopped—” Keng started desperately.
“You stopped the moment you walked away,” Namping cut in, the words spilling out like they’d been waiting years to escape. “You chose my future over me without even asking what I wanted. You decided for both of us.”
Silence crashed down between them.
Thick. Heavy. Suffocating.
Snow kept falling, dusting Namping’s coat, melting into his hair like it didn’t understand what it was witnessing.
Keng’s breath hitched. When he spoke again, his voice broke completely. “I thought loving you meant letting you go.”
Namping laughed again—but this time it was wet, broken, unrecognizable. Tears spilled over without permission, hot against his freezing cheeks.
“I waited for you,” he choked. “Every Christmas. Every stupid, painful Christmas. I waited for you to come back and tell me you made a mistake.”
His shoulders shook now, the grief too big to hold anymore.
“I didn’t need you to save me,” he whispered, voice collapsing into a sob. “I needed you to stay.”
That was it.
Keng’s heart shattered completely.
The sound Namping made—soft, wrecked, exhausted—destroyed something in him he hadn’t known was still intact. He crossed the distance between them without thinking, hands coming up instinctively, cradling Namping’s face as if his body remembered before his mind could.
Like it was home.
“I was wrong,” Keng said, tears spilling freely now, voice barely holding together. “I was so afraid of ruining your life that I ruined your heart instead.”
Namping broke in his hands, leaning into the touch like he’d been starving for it, sobs tearing out of him unchecked. He clutched Keng’s coat, fingers digging in like he was afraid he might disappear again.
“Don’t leave,” he pleaded, voice small and terrified. “Please. I can’t do that again.”
Keng pressed his forehead to Namping’s, shaking as hard as he was. “I won’t,” he promised fiercely. “Not this time. Not ever. I choose you. I choose us.”
The kiss happened slowly.
Tentative at first—lips brushing like they were afraid this was a dream that would vanish if they moved too fast. Then it deepened, desperation bleeding through restraint, hands gripping coats like lifelines, like anchors keeping them from drifting apart again.
Namping felt everything all at once—the familiarity that made his chest ache, the longing that had never faded, the safety he thought he’d lost forever. Keng felt relief crash into him so violently he nearly sobbed into the kiss, the weight of years lifting all at once.
Snow caught in their hair, melting between them.
They pulled back just enough to breathe, foreheads touching, noses brushing, both of them crying openly now—no shame, no restraint left.
“Merry Christmas,” Namping whispered shakily, voice fragile but real.
Keng smiled through tears, eyes full and shining. “I love you.”
And this time, he stayed.
────୨ৎ────
When they returned inside, hands intertwined, the room noticed.
It was immediate—like a shift in the air, like the apartment itself inhaled sharply.
Firstone gasped. Kong else froze mid-sip. Conversations stumbled and died where they stood.
Then—
“NO WAY,” Tle yelled, loud enough to cut through the music, eyes wide with theatrical disbelief. “NO. WAY. I LEAVE YOU PEOPLE ALONE FOR TEN MINUTES?”
Laughter exploded around them, startled and joyous and disbelieving all at once. Phones came out. Someone clutched their chest dramatically. Another whispered a very un-subtle, “I knew it.”
Namping felt heat rush to his face, but he was smiling—really smiling, the kind that lifted his cheeks and made his eyes ache. He leaned closer to Keng, squeezing his hand.
“As if you didn’t plan this,” Namping muttered under his breath, glancing sideways at Tle.
Tle placed a hand over his heart, deeply offended. “Excuse me? I simply invited two emotionally unstable people to the same Christmas party and let destiny do the rest.”
Keng laughed—soft, breathless, a little disbelieving—and Namping felt the sound vibrate through their still-linked hands. That laugh used to live in his bones. Hearing it again, directed at him, felt like reclaiming something he’d buried.
Someone reached for the speaker.
The music shifted.
The loud, upbeat playlist faded into something slower, warmer—soft guitar strings, low percussion, a voice singing about home and forgiveness and love that waits even when it shouldn’t. The fairy lights dimmed just a little, glow turning golden, intimate. The room rearranged itself instinctively, people stepping back, making space.
For them.
Keng turned fully toward Namping then, hands settling carefully at his waist like he was afraid of breaking the moment. “Is this okay?” he asked quietly, eyes searching.
Namping nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “It is.”
Keng pulled him closer.
They began to sway—not a real dance, not something practiced or polished. Just two people moving together because it felt wrong not to. Namping rested his forehead against Keng’s shoulder, breathing him in. Soap. Cold air. Something unmistakably Keng. His hands found Keng’s coat, fingers curling into fabric like muscle memory had never left.
For a while, the world narrowed down to that.
The warmth of bodies around them. The hum of voices softened into background noise. The gentle creak of the floor beneath their feet. The slow rise and fall of Keng’s chest beneath Namping’s cheek.
“You’re real,” Namping whispered, almost to himself.
Keng tightened his hold immediately. “I am,” he said, voice low and steady. “I’m here.”
That was when it hit him.
Not the happiness—not first.
The grief.
Three years came crashing down all at once. Three Christmases spent pretending he was fine. Three winters learning how to survive cold spaces. Three years of loving someone quietly, painfully, without permission.
Namping’s breath hitched.
Keng felt it instantly.
“Hey,” he murmured, pulling back just enough to look at him. “What is it?”
Namping shook his head, tears already spilling. “I—I don’t know,” he laughed weakly. “I’m just—”
Keng didn’t let him finish.
He pulled Namping into his chest, arms firm and certain, one hand cradling the back of his head. Namping broke there, sobs shaking through him, face pressed into Keng’s shoulder as if it was the only solid thing left in the world.
No one laughed.
No one teased.
The room went soft.
Someone quietly turned the music down further. Someone else closed the balcony door so the cold wouldn’t reach them. Tle wiped his eyes aggressively and pretended it was allergies.
Keng held Namping like it was the most natural thing in the world, rocking them gently.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered, over and over. “I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere.”
Namping clutched him tighter.
“I was so scared,” he choked. “Every Christmas I thought—this is it, this is the one where it finally stops hurting. And it never did.”
“I know,” Keng said, voice thick. “I know. I felt it too.”
That made Namping look up.
“You did?”
Keng nodded, forehead resting against his. “Every year,” he admitted. “I’d tell myself I did the right thing. That loving you meant letting you go. And every year, Christmas would come and prove me wrong.”
Namping laughed through tears. “God,” he sniffed. “We’re idiots.”
Keng smiled softly. “Yeah. We really are.”
A cheer broke out nearby.
“KISS! KISS! KISS!” Thomas shouted, clapping his hands like he was conducting the moment.
Kong followed "KISS! KISS! KISS!" Firstone started jumping around and even sprinkled fake snow directly above their heads.
Namping groaned, mortified. “Please ignore them.”
Keng’s eyes flicked to his lips.
“Do you want me to?” he asked gently.
Namping’s heart stuttered.
“No,” he whispered.
Keng leaned in slowly, deliberately, giving him every chance to pull away. Namping didn’t. He rose onto his toes instead, meeting him halfway.
The kiss was different this time.
Not desperate. Not stolen. Not fueled by fear of losing it again.
It was warm. Certain. Full.
Applause erupted around them, laughter and whistles filling the room, but Namping barely registered it. All he felt was Keng’s mouth against his, familiar and new all at once, like coming home after being gone too long.
When they pulled back, foreheads still touching, both of them were smiling—soft, stunned smiles, like they couldn’t quite believe this was real.
“Merry Christmas,” Keng murmured again.
Namping laughed quietly. “You already said that.”
“I’ll say it every year if you let me.”
Something in Namping’s chest loosened completely.
They stayed like that for a while, dancing slowly while friends resumed moving around them, conversations restarting in gentler tones. Someone handed them hot chocolate topped with marshmallows. Someone draped a scarf around Namping’s shoulders. The fake snow machine started up again, flakes drifting lazily through the air, catching in hair and eyelashes.
It felt… enchanted.
Later, when they sank onto the couch together, Namping curled instinctively into Keng’s side. Keng’s arm wrapped around him without hesitation, thumb tracing slow circles against his hip like it had always belonged there.
“I forgot how warm you are,” Namping murmured sleepily.
Keng kissed his temple. “You always stole my body heat.”
“Liar.”
“You used to shove your hands under my sweater.”
“Because you never complained.”
Keng laughed softly. “I never would.”
Across the room, Tle raised his glass. “To bad decisions,” he announced loudly. “And even better reunions.”
“To love,” someone added.
“To Christmas miracles,” another voice chimed in.
Namping lifted his mug, eyes shining. “To staying,” he said quietly.
Keng heard it anyway.
He squeezed Namping closer. “Always.”
Outside, snow continued to fall, blanketing the city in quiet magic. Inside, fairy lights glowed steadily, laughter rising and falling like a heartbeat.
For the first time in three years, Namping didn’t feel like he was bracing himself against the season.
For the first time in three years—
Christmas didn’t hurt.
It healed.