[exo] from winter to spring, i'm melting because of you
Title: from winter to spring, i'm melting because of you
Pairing: xiumin/chanyeol; xiuyeol
Rating: pg
Word count: 3k
Warnings: minor character death, implied murder
Summary: All Chanyeol ever wanted was for Minseok to let him in. frozen!au
A/N: thanks to my homebear marcel for being my beta and also the sawg crew who watched me - with great amusement- scream at them over this. title taken from davichi's be warmed.
also found on ao3
Chanyeol meets Minseok when he is six.
He's playing with the snow in the royal courtyard when he notices a pudgy kid with a weird gold hat sitting upon a crown of brown hair.
“Hullo,” Chanyeol calls out cheerfully, “my name is Chanyeol! Come make a snowman with me!”
The kid looks like he’d rather hide behind his mother’s coat than to build a snowman, but he pads over after his father gives him an encouraging nudge forward.
Chanyeol grins before noticing the other’s bare hands. "Don't you have mittens?"
The other boy shakes his head.
Chanyeol sighs, already pulling at one of his own mittens and putting it carefully over the other’s fingers. "Here, you take this one and I will take the other one, okay? We can share."
"Okay," the boy whispers shyly, and Chanyeol grins.
"Hey! You can talk! What's your name?"
"Minseok."
"I'm Chanyeol, and we are going to be the best of friends! I can feel it."
Minseok just smiles.
The parents watch their kids fondly as they run around playfully in the snow, snowman forgotten. "They get along very well," the king muses as he carefully watches his son dash across the courtyard with a hand clutching his mitten covered one. Minseok runs until Chanyeol catches up, tapping him on the shoulders.
When Minseok turns around, Chanyeol doesn't hesitate to throw snow into the older boy’s face. Chanyeol’s father blanches, looking up to the king nervously. "Well, if you say so, your Majesty."
The king just watches with a small smile as Chanyeol peers worriedly at his new friend, until Minseok wipes the snow off his face and throws it back at Chanyeol. "Park Chanyeol would make an ideal friend, and will be a good protector for our crown prince.”
A shriek pierces the cusp of spring.
When the palace guards arrive, they find the queen with a hand clapped over her mouth in a silent shock and the crown prince staring at his hands in wonder.
There is snow falling from the ceiling of Minseok’s room.
"How could this happen?"
"It is rare, my lord, to have control over the elements, but there are records that it has existed."
"My son-"
“Your son is gifted, not cursed."
“Hyung! Wake up!” The hushed whisper permeates Minseok’s dream.
“Nnggh,” Minseok mumbles, burying his face into his pillow. “Chanyeol, go back to sleep.”
“I can’t! My brain says sleep but my heart says play. Play with me Minseok, let’s go and plaaaaaaaaay,” the other boy whines, stumbling out of his bed and jumping into Minseok’s across the room. “Ouf!”
He peels back the blankets carefully and wiggles right up to Minseok’s curled up frame, face getting all up into the elder’s personal space. “Miiiiinseeeok hyuuuuung.....
Do you wanna build a snowman?”
Minseok cracks an eye open, grinning up at Chanyeol.
A trail of giggles follow the boys down the castle halls.
"Do the magic, hyung!”
Chanyeol hops onto one of the ice blocks Minseok has made and does a little twirl. "Look hyung, I'm taller than you now!"
Minseok scoffs. "No you aren't. As if you will be taller than me."
Chanyeol hops onto another, higher block. "I will so! I will drink lots of milk and jump a lot so that when I grow up, I will definitely be taller than hyung!" He scrambles up another step, and another. "I will be the tallest of them all!" Chanyeol yells.
"Chanyeol-ah, get down from there!" Minseok calls, watching anxiously as Chanyeol continues to climb ice blocks, getting higher and higher with each step.
"No! You just want me to be short again! I won't get down, just try and make me!"
Except he does go down. While he was yelling down at Minseok, Chanyeol steps onto an ice block that isn't there. He gasps, hands grabbing wildly for something - anything - to hold onto, and is met with nothing but air.
"CHANYEOL!"
Eyes wide, Chanyeol does the only thing he can do - he falls.
When Chanyeol wakes up, he doesn’t remember falling in a snow covered ballroom. Memories of sliding down ice slicked hallways and commanding an army of snowmen in Minseok’s bedroom all disappears. When Chanyeol wakes up, Minseok isn’t by his side.
“Where’s hyung?” he asks one of the maids attending to him.
“The Crown Prince requested that he sleep elsewhere while you recovered,” she squeaks before running off, following a pair of servants carrying away Minseok’s dresser.
Around him, other servants are doing the same with Minseok’s other belongings.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
“It is what his Majesty wishes, sir.”
Minseok wakes up to find himself locked in his bedroom with nothing but his overwhelming guilt and pain of hurting Chanyeol as his companions.
A maid comes to his room, standing far away at the door as she tells him nervously that Chanyeol, his future protector, has woken up and is requesting to see him. Minseok doesn’t answer and she leaves without another word.
A few minutes later, Chanyeol is on the other side of the door, knocking insistently and shouting about building snowmen in the courtyard.
Minseok doesn’t open the door.
When Chanyeol wakes up, he doesn’t just lose his memories of Minseok’s powers, he loses Minseok himself.
"Conceal it, don't feel it," says the king, pulling gloves over his sons icy fingers. "And whatever you do-"
"-don't reveal it," a small voice whispers shamefully back.
It’s snowing again, and Minseok has hardly finished his breakfast in his room before someone knocks on the door.
“Hyung! Do you wanna build a snowman?”
It’s Chanyeol.
Minseok hasn’t seen or spoken to Chanyeol since he caused the accident. He has been determined to avoid the other boy at all costs, even if it meant he had to stay in his room for the majority of his time because that kid was everywhere.
“You wanna build a snowman? It doesn’t have to be a snowman-“
“Go away, Chanyeol.”
Behind the door, Chanyeol face falls. "Okay, bye."
He walks away, little wisps of smoke chasing after his retreating footsteps, scorching his disappointment into the carpet.
“Please sir, there must be a way to help my son, he can’t possibly possess the power to control f-“
“My dear child, your son has been blessed by the elements. Your main goal is to help him control his power, not to doubt his capability.”
“But-“
“He has to learn to control it, not fear it.”
Chanyeol visits Minseok again when the first snow starts to fall on the kingdom.
He runs down the deserted hall to Minseok’s room, in the far corners of the castle. "Hyung, it's finally snowing again! Hyung!"
Chanyeol arrives in front of Minseok's door, bending over to catch his breath.
Inside his room, Minseok turns away from the window, looking at the door sadly. ‘It’s snowing in here too, Chanyeol,’ he wants to tell the other boy, but he stays silent, hoping that Chanyeol would get bored quickly and move away to entertain himself elsewhere so that Minseok can be alone again.
“I have been training really hard lately,” Chanyeol is saying now and Minseok finds himself inching closer to the door to hear his friend. “Teacher is really pleased with my progress. He tells me that when you are king, I will be the best protector you will ever have. And I will be! I will protect you, Minseok!”
Oh, Chanyeol, the other boy thinks as he sits with his back against the door, his head resting on the wood. How are you supposed to protect me when I have already hurt you?
“-but I’m not allowed outside because of my-“ Chanyeol voice drifts through the door, unaware of the tears that are now falling down his friend’s cheeks. “Well, I’m not supposed to tell anyone why I’m not allowed outside, it’s a secret. But...”
There’s a shuffling sound from behind Minseok’s door as Chanyeol crouches and whispers through the keyhole. “...if you come outside with me, I’ll tell you my secret,” he says playfully.
Minseok stays frozen in his room.
He counts to ten before he hears Chanyeol sigh and footsteps walking away.
The crown prince lets out the breath he had been holding.
“Do you have to go?”
The King and Queen had announced a trip to the northern islands in order to ‘establish strong alliances’, but everyone in the castle knew that the trip was really to find a cure for the crown prince’s illness.
The Queen nods solemnly, placing a hand gingerly on Minseok’s shoulder. “It will only be for a month. We will find the cure and come back in time for your 18th birthday, we promise.”
“We’ll come back, and then you’ll be normal and you can see Chanyeol again. Don’t you want to be friends with Chanyeol?”
Minseok smiles a little; there was nothing in the world he wanted more than to be with Chanyeol again.
With a brief pat on the shoulder from his father and a kiss on the forehead from his mother, they leave.
Minseok watches from his window as the ship sails away.
The winter that Kim Minseok, crown prince of Arendelle, turns 18, a royal ship is lost to a terrible storm. There are many casualties, two of whom were the King and Queen themselves.
Minseok attends the funeral with a lowered head, eyes never straying far from his toes and the ground around him. His gloves stick to him like a second skin.
The second he gets home, he locks himself in his room and orders the servants to lock the main entrance of the palace. Permanently.
“Minseok, please open the door,” Chanyeol pleads.
It has been a month since the prince ordered for the castle to be shielded from the public. Already, rumours have been circulating and Chanyeol has been on top of it all, trying to soothe the fire that has started.
"I’m right out here for you, just let me in," the younger boy whispers to the closed door. “Please Minseok, open the door."
We've only got each other now.
No Chanyeol, you’re wrong.
I have lost everything.
The summer previously, servants had arrived with buckets of water to quench the fire in the room that the crown prince’s protector and his parents were in.
When they rush into the room, they find a 15 year old Chanyeol curled in the corner, with soot-tracked tears falling from his face and burned hands.
They said it was a miracle that Chanyeol had escaped the fire without any serious injuries, but Chanyeol knew better.
I have lost everything.
“Hyung, did you grow taller? The maids say I’m really starting to grow now. I think I’ll be taller than you very soon. I wish - I wish you and mother were here to see it.”
Chanyeol doesn’t visit as often anymore.
Minseok tries to tell himself that he doesn’t care. It would be better if Chanyeol stayed away. He stays in his room, ice surrounding him like a wall of protection.
“Do you know what day it is today?” Chanyeol yells when Junmyeon walks through the door, causing the poor manservant to let out an undignified yelp, nearly drop the pile of clothes he was carrying.
Chanyeol doesn’t even wait for the other man to respond before he throws a limb out to hug Junmyeon. “It’s Coronation Day! Today is a day where the castle doors open to the public! Today is the day where I talk to a bunch of people from the kingdom! Not just servants! Not that you guys aren’t cool,” Chanyeol amends when he takes in Junmyeon’s slightly offended face. “You guys are awesome.”
Today, I get to see Minseok.
Junmyeon just nods, looking harassed as he places the clothes onto Chanyeol’s bed. “The ceremony starts in two hours, young master. Be ready.”
He turns towards the doors and spins back around just as Chanyeol starts doing a weird jig around his room. “And sir? Try not to break anything in public.”
Chanyeol isn’t listening anymore.
Today, I get to see Minseok.
Today, I get to see Minseok.
Today, I get to see Minseok.
“Today will be the best day ever!”
“Today is going to be the worst day in my life,” Minseok groans to the mirror, a pair of velvet elbow length gloves sitting mockingly on the dresser in front of him.
The day he gets crowned King of Arendelle, the day where the eyes of everyone in the kingdom will be only on him. The day everything can go wrong.
“You can do this,” he tells his reflection. “Conceal it, don’t feel it and never, ever reveal it.”
Don’t you dare show anyone what you actually are.
Everything is fine until he overhears a duke making an ill-placed comment about the late king and queen. “It was quite irresponsible of them wasn’t it? To leave the prince locked up and all alone in the castle. Why, I’d drown myself too, if I was that negligent.”
Sharp shards of ice rip up the floor before Minseok could help it, its spikes pointing dangerously at offending duke.
Someone gasps.
“Sorry,” Minseok manages to gasp out, one hand holding the other one close to his chest as if preventing it from doing more damage. He inches closer towards the exit and out of range to do anyone harm.
“It’s over. It’s over. They know,” his mind screams at him, and deafened by panic, Minseok loses what’s left of the little control he had over his powers.
The pyramid of champagne glasses on the table next to him shatters, its contents completely frozen over.
It’s then that Minseok sees him, sees Chanyeol, who just stares at his old friend, mouth agape.
Faintly, he can hear someone screaming “Monster!”
“I’m so sorry,” Minseok repeats weakly.
Then he turns around and runs.
He can hear Chanyeol crying his name after him but Minseok doesn’t dare turn back to look.
He disappears into a portal of snow and frost.
He really should’ve had done this a long time ago, Minseok thinks as he treads up the mountain. Maybe if he escaped the kingdom, then everything would have been fine. Chanyeol wouldn’t have gotten hurt. His parents wouldn’t have died.
A rush of calm thrums through his body and he smiles. Maybe everyone is safe from him now. Maybe Minseok could finally be free.
Several meters later, Minseok pulls off his gloves.
He erects a castle of ice and settles in his new home, passing his days with lazy snowstorms and big-eared snowmen.
The smile Chanyeol gave him all throughout the coronation ceremony burns strongly in his dreams.
He isn’t too surprised when Chanyeol knocks on his door nearly a week later.
He is surprised however, when Chanyeol shows up at his door with a tall man and a talking snowman. (“I’m an ice sculpture. I am a work of art, you know!” Luhan tells anyone that will listen to him. Wufan, next to him, just rolls his eyes.)
“Chanyeol, what are you doing here?” he asks the boy tiredly. “And who are you with?” He eyes the tall man with skepticism. Definitely not Chanyeol’s type, he thinks automatically. Although his type might have changed along the years... no. Minseok’s type hasn’t changed, so Chanyeol surely would not like that oaf Wufan.
Chanyeol looks determined. “I’m here to tell you that you need to come home with me.”
“That’s not my home anymore Chanyeol,” comes the sad reply. “This is my home now.”
“No it isn’t!” Chanyeol stomps his foot stubbornly. “Just come back home with me, and things will be alright, okay? Just come back.”
There are footsteps and before Minseok knows it, arms are circling him and he’s pulled towards Chanyeol in a hug. The other boy rests his head on Minseok’s shoulder. “I will protect you, Minseok hyung, if only you’d let me in.”
“No!”
Eyes widen as Minseok shoves Chanyeol away from him. “How are you supposed to protect me when I can’t even protect you from myself?” he yells.
“What?”
“You got hurt,” Minseok tells him, lowering his head in shame. “We were young and I was stupid, but Yeol-ah, I hurt you. I- I hurt you with this.” He gestures to the swirling snow cloud above their heads. When he speaks again, his words are laced with guilt and pain. “Go back home, Yeollie.”
“Hyung-“
“I said go home!”
As if to punctuate his words, a sharp wave of ice flies straight for Chanyeol.
Only it never hits its target because a flame melts the ice before it could ever pierce the other boy.
Minseok gapes.
(“Oh look, fire.” Luhan says faintly behind Chanyeol, looking very much like he wanted to run up and touch it. Thankfully, Wufan yanks him back to safety.)
“Chanyeol, what is going on?”
“You would’ve known if you just opened that door, hyung.”
Arendelle has completely frozen over, Chanyeol tells Minseok. “You have to go back home and fix it hyung.”
“I can’t Chanyeol, I... I don’t know how. Can’t you do it? Can’t you melt the ice?”
"I can't do it alone, I might burn something.”
Minseok just shakes his head. “I’m not going back.”
“We have to do this together, hyung. You can’t just stay up here , wallowing in your own pity party,” Chanyeol argues. “You can’t let your power consume you, you have to learn to control it. You can’t be scared of yourself. I know I was, when I was a child. It’s what cost me my parents.”
He walks up to Minseok now, holding out a hand. “Please come back with me, hyung. Please come back to my side. We can do this together.”
Minseok looks up. Chanyeol did end up to be taller than him, he thinks. There are no traces of silly Chanyeol who once drank through the castles entire supply of milk, just because he thought it would make him grow taller. The Chanyeol in front of him looks serious and ready to protect Minseok at all costs. He isn’t scared at all of what Minseok is, of what he himself is.
So maybe, just maybe, Minseok didn’t have to be scared either.
Minseok takes his bare hand with his own. Okay. We can do this. Together.
For the first time in his life, Minseok can feel the ice around his heart thawing.
Summer arrives promptly to Arendelle and Autumn tumbles in right after. The people of Arendelle had accepted Minseok back as their King, mostly because he did thaw the kingdom with the help of his protector.
In the Winter, Minseok drags Chanyeol outside and with a wave of his hand, he makes it snow. They build a snowman together for the first time in forever, with Luhan prancing around them and dictating how the new snowman should look, his own personal snow cloud dancing above his head the entire time.
“You know, I was right,” Chanyeol says, smoothing out a bump in his snowball.
“Hmmm?”
“About me being taller than you.” He grins. “You said I would never be ta-“
“Oh really?” Minseok smirks, and before Chanyeol can open his mouth to say any more, Minseok pulls him down by the collar and kisses him fully on the mouth.
“Not Sehunnie!” Luhan wails from somewhere nearby, and Minseok pulls himself away from Chanyeol only to find that their snowman has become a puddle at their feet.
Chanyeol, at least, has the decency to look guilty.
“Oops.”
Pairing: xiumin/chanyeol; xiuyeol
Rating: pg
Word count: 3k
Warnings: minor character death, implied murder
Summary: All Chanyeol ever wanted was for Minseok to let him in. frozen!au
A/N: thanks to my homebear marcel for being my beta and also the sawg crew who watched me - with great amusement- scream at them over this. title taken from davichi's be warmed.
also found on ao3
Chanyeol meets Minseok when he is six.
He's playing with the snow in the royal courtyard when he notices a pudgy kid with a weird gold hat sitting upon a crown of brown hair.
“Hullo,” Chanyeol calls out cheerfully, “my name is Chanyeol! Come make a snowman with me!”
The kid looks like he’d rather hide behind his mother’s coat than to build a snowman, but he pads over after his father gives him an encouraging nudge forward.
Chanyeol grins before noticing the other’s bare hands. "Don't you have mittens?"
The other boy shakes his head.
Chanyeol sighs, already pulling at one of his own mittens and putting it carefully over the other’s fingers. "Here, you take this one and I will take the other one, okay? We can share."
"Okay," the boy whispers shyly, and Chanyeol grins.
"Hey! You can talk! What's your name?"
"Minseok."
"I'm Chanyeol, and we are going to be the best of friends! I can feel it."
Minseok just smiles.
The parents watch their kids fondly as they run around playfully in the snow, snowman forgotten. "They get along very well," the king muses as he carefully watches his son dash across the courtyard with a hand clutching his mitten covered one. Minseok runs until Chanyeol catches up, tapping him on the shoulders.
When Minseok turns around, Chanyeol doesn't hesitate to throw snow into the older boy’s face. Chanyeol’s father blanches, looking up to the king nervously. "Well, if you say so, your Majesty."
The king just watches with a small smile as Chanyeol peers worriedly at his new friend, until Minseok wipes the snow off his face and throws it back at Chanyeol. "Park Chanyeol would make an ideal friend, and will be a good protector for our crown prince.”
A shriek pierces the cusp of spring.
When the palace guards arrive, they find the queen with a hand clapped over her mouth in a silent shock and the crown prince staring at his hands in wonder.
There is snow falling from the ceiling of Minseok’s room.
"How could this happen?"
"It is rare, my lord, to have control over the elements, but there are records that it has existed."
"My son-"
“Your son is gifted, not cursed."
“Hyung! Wake up!” The hushed whisper permeates Minseok’s dream.
“Nnggh,” Minseok mumbles, burying his face into his pillow. “Chanyeol, go back to sleep.”
“I can’t! My brain says sleep but my heart says play. Play with me Minseok, let’s go and plaaaaaaaaay,” the other boy whines, stumbling out of his bed and jumping into Minseok’s across the room. “Ouf!”
He peels back the blankets carefully and wiggles right up to Minseok’s curled up frame, face getting all up into the elder’s personal space. “Miiiiinseeeok hyuuuuung.....
Do you wanna build a snowman?”
Minseok cracks an eye open, grinning up at Chanyeol.
A trail of giggles follow the boys down the castle halls.
"Do the magic, hyung!”
Chanyeol hops onto one of the ice blocks Minseok has made and does a little twirl. "Look hyung, I'm taller than you now!"
Minseok scoffs. "No you aren't. As if you will be taller than me."
Chanyeol hops onto another, higher block. "I will so! I will drink lots of milk and jump a lot so that when I grow up, I will definitely be taller than hyung!" He scrambles up another step, and another. "I will be the tallest of them all!" Chanyeol yells.
"Chanyeol-ah, get down from there!" Minseok calls, watching anxiously as Chanyeol continues to climb ice blocks, getting higher and higher with each step.
"No! You just want me to be short again! I won't get down, just try and make me!"
Except he does go down. While he was yelling down at Minseok, Chanyeol steps onto an ice block that isn't there. He gasps, hands grabbing wildly for something - anything - to hold onto, and is met with nothing but air.
"CHANYEOL!"
Eyes wide, Chanyeol does the only thing he can do - he falls.
When Chanyeol wakes up, he doesn’t remember falling in a snow covered ballroom. Memories of sliding down ice slicked hallways and commanding an army of snowmen in Minseok’s bedroom all disappears. When Chanyeol wakes up, Minseok isn’t by his side.
“Where’s hyung?” he asks one of the maids attending to him.
“The Crown Prince requested that he sleep elsewhere while you recovered,” she squeaks before running off, following a pair of servants carrying away Minseok’s dresser.
Around him, other servants are doing the same with Minseok’s other belongings.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
“It is what his Majesty wishes, sir.”
Minseok wakes up to find himself locked in his bedroom with nothing but his overwhelming guilt and pain of hurting Chanyeol as his companions.
A maid comes to his room, standing far away at the door as she tells him nervously that Chanyeol, his future protector, has woken up and is requesting to see him. Minseok doesn’t answer and she leaves without another word.
A few minutes later, Chanyeol is on the other side of the door, knocking insistently and shouting about building snowmen in the courtyard.
Minseok doesn’t open the door.
When Chanyeol wakes up, he doesn’t just lose his memories of Minseok’s powers, he loses Minseok himself.
"Conceal it, don't feel it," says the king, pulling gloves over his sons icy fingers. "And whatever you do-"
"-don't reveal it," a small voice whispers shamefully back.
It’s snowing again, and Minseok has hardly finished his breakfast in his room before someone knocks on the door.
“Hyung! Do you wanna build a snowman?”
It’s Chanyeol.
Minseok hasn’t seen or spoken to Chanyeol since he caused the accident. He has been determined to avoid the other boy at all costs, even if it meant he had to stay in his room for the majority of his time because that kid was everywhere.
“You wanna build a snowman? It doesn’t have to be a snowman-“
“Go away, Chanyeol.”
Behind the door, Chanyeol face falls. "Okay, bye."
He walks away, little wisps of smoke chasing after his retreating footsteps, scorching his disappointment into the carpet.
“Please sir, there must be a way to help my son, he can’t possibly possess the power to control f-“
“My dear child, your son has been blessed by the elements. Your main goal is to help him control his power, not to doubt his capability.”
“But-“
“He has to learn to control it, not fear it.”
Chanyeol visits Minseok again when the first snow starts to fall on the kingdom.
He runs down the deserted hall to Minseok’s room, in the far corners of the castle. "Hyung, it's finally snowing again! Hyung!"
Chanyeol arrives in front of Minseok's door, bending over to catch his breath.
Inside his room, Minseok turns away from the window, looking at the door sadly. ‘It’s snowing in here too, Chanyeol,’ he wants to tell the other boy, but he stays silent, hoping that Chanyeol would get bored quickly and move away to entertain himself elsewhere so that Minseok can be alone again.
“I have been training really hard lately,” Chanyeol is saying now and Minseok finds himself inching closer to the door to hear his friend. “Teacher is really pleased with my progress. He tells me that when you are king, I will be the best protector you will ever have. And I will be! I will protect you, Minseok!”
Oh, Chanyeol, the other boy thinks as he sits with his back against the door, his head resting on the wood. How are you supposed to protect me when I have already hurt you?
“-but I’m not allowed outside because of my-“ Chanyeol voice drifts through the door, unaware of the tears that are now falling down his friend’s cheeks. “Well, I’m not supposed to tell anyone why I’m not allowed outside, it’s a secret. But...”
There’s a shuffling sound from behind Minseok’s door as Chanyeol crouches and whispers through the keyhole. “...if you come outside with me, I’ll tell you my secret,” he says playfully.
Minseok stays frozen in his room.
He counts to ten before he hears Chanyeol sigh and footsteps walking away.
The crown prince lets out the breath he had been holding.
“Do you have to go?”
The King and Queen had announced a trip to the northern islands in order to ‘establish strong alliances’, but everyone in the castle knew that the trip was really to find a cure for the crown prince’s illness.
The Queen nods solemnly, placing a hand gingerly on Minseok’s shoulder. “It will only be for a month. We will find the cure and come back in time for your 18th birthday, we promise.”
“We’ll come back, and then you’ll be normal and you can see Chanyeol again. Don’t you want to be friends with Chanyeol?”
Minseok smiles a little; there was nothing in the world he wanted more than to be with Chanyeol again.
With a brief pat on the shoulder from his father and a kiss on the forehead from his mother, they leave.
Minseok watches from his window as the ship sails away.
The winter that Kim Minseok, crown prince of Arendelle, turns 18, a royal ship is lost to a terrible storm. There are many casualties, two of whom were the King and Queen themselves.
Minseok attends the funeral with a lowered head, eyes never straying far from his toes and the ground around him. His gloves stick to him like a second skin.
The second he gets home, he locks himself in his room and orders the servants to lock the main entrance of the palace. Permanently.
“Minseok, please open the door,” Chanyeol pleads.
It has been a month since the prince ordered for the castle to be shielded from the public. Already, rumours have been circulating and Chanyeol has been on top of it all, trying to soothe the fire that has started.
"I’m right out here for you, just let me in," the younger boy whispers to the closed door. “Please Minseok, open the door."
We've only got each other now.
No Chanyeol, you’re wrong.
I have lost everything.
The summer previously, servants had arrived with buckets of water to quench the fire in the room that the crown prince’s protector and his parents were in.
When they rush into the room, they find a 15 year old Chanyeol curled in the corner, with soot-tracked tears falling from his face and burned hands.
They said it was a miracle that Chanyeol had escaped the fire without any serious injuries, but Chanyeol knew better.
I have lost everything.
“Hyung, did you grow taller? The maids say I’m really starting to grow now. I think I’ll be taller than you very soon. I wish - I wish you and mother were here to see it.”
Chanyeol doesn’t visit as often anymore.
Minseok tries to tell himself that he doesn’t care. It would be better if Chanyeol stayed away. He stays in his room, ice surrounding him like a wall of protection.
“Do you know what day it is today?” Chanyeol yells when Junmyeon walks through the door, causing the poor manservant to let out an undignified yelp, nearly drop the pile of clothes he was carrying.
Chanyeol doesn’t even wait for the other man to respond before he throws a limb out to hug Junmyeon. “It’s Coronation Day! Today is a day where the castle doors open to the public! Today is the day where I talk to a bunch of people from the kingdom! Not just servants! Not that you guys aren’t cool,” Chanyeol amends when he takes in Junmyeon’s slightly offended face. “You guys are awesome.”
Today, I get to see Minseok.
Junmyeon just nods, looking harassed as he places the clothes onto Chanyeol’s bed. “The ceremony starts in two hours, young master. Be ready.”
He turns towards the doors and spins back around just as Chanyeol starts doing a weird jig around his room. “And sir? Try not to break anything in public.”
Chanyeol isn’t listening anymore.
Today, I get to see Minseok.
Today, I get to see Minseok.
Today, I get to see Minseok.
“Today will be the best day ever!”
“Today is going to be the worst day in my life,” Minseok groans to the mirror, a pair of velvet elbow length gloves sitting mockingly on the dresser in front of him.
The day he gets crowned King of Arendelle, the day where the eyes of everyone in the kingdom will be only on him. The day everything can go wrong.
“You can do this,” he tells his reflection. “Conceal it, don’t feel it and never, ever reveal it.”
Don’t you dare show anyone what you actually are.
Everything is fine until he overhears a duke making an ill-placed comment about the late king and queen. “It was quite irresponsible of them wasn’t it? To leave the prince locked up and all alone in the castle. Why, I’d drown myself too, if I was that negligent.”
Sharp shards of ice rip up the floor before Minseok could help it, its spikes pointing dangerously at offending duke.
Someone gasps.
“Sorry,” Minseok manages to gasp out, one hand holding the other one close to his chest as if preventing it from doing more damage. He inches closer towards the exit and out of range to do anyone harm.
“It’s over. It’s over. They know,” his mind screams at him, and deafened by panic, Minseok loses what’s left of the little control he had over his powers.
The pyramid of champagne glasses on the table next to him shatters, its contents completely frozen over.
It’s then that Minseok sees him, sees Chanyeol, who just stares at his old friend, mouth agape.
Faintly, he can hear someone screaming “Monster!”
“I’m so sorry,” Minseok repeats weakly.
Then he turns around and runs.
He can hear Chanyeol crying his name after him but Minseok doesn’t dare turn back to look.
He disappears into a portal of snow and frost.
He really should’ve had done this a long time ago, Minseok thinks as he treads up the mountain. Maybe if he escaped the kingdom, then everything would have been fine. Chanyeol wouldn’t have gotten hurt. His parents wouldn’t have died.
A rush of calm thrums through his body and he smiles. Maybe everyone is safe from him now. Maybe Minseok could finally be free.
Several meters later, Minseok pulls off his gloves.
He erects a castle of ice and settles in his new home, passing his days with lazy snowstorms and big-eared snowmen.
The smile Chanyeol gave him all throughout the coronation ceremony burns strongly in his dreams.
He isn’t too surprised when Chanyeol knocks on his door nearly a week later.
He is surprised however, when Chanyeol shows up at his door with a tall man and a talking snowman. (“I’m an ice sculpture. I am a work of art, you know!” Luhan tells anyone that will listen to him. Wufan, next to him, just rolls his eyes.)
“Chanyeol, what are you doing here?” he asks the boy tiredly. “And who are you with?” He eyes the tall man with skepticism. Definitely not Chanyeol’s type, he thinks automatically. Although his type might have changed along the years... no. Minseok’s type hasn’t changed, so Chanyeol surely would not like that oaf Wufan.
Chanyeol looks determined. “I’m here to tell you that you need to come home with me.”
“That’s not my home anymore Chanyeol,” comes the sad reply. “This is my home now.”
“No it isn’t!” Chanyeol stomps his foot stubbornly. “Just come back home with me, and things will be alright, okay? Just come back.”
There are footsteps and before Minseok knows it, arms are circling him and he’s pulled towards Chanyeol in a hug. The other boy rests his head on Minseok’s shoulder. “I will protect you, Minseok hyung, if only you’d let me in.”
“No!”
Eyes widen as Minseok shoves Chanyeol away from him. “How are you supposed to protect me when I can’t even protect you from myself?” he yells.
“What?”
“You got hurt,” Minseok tells him, lowering his head in shame. “We were young and I was stupid, but Yeol-ah, I hurt you. I- I hurt you with this.” He gestures to the swirling snow cloud above their heads. When he speaks again, his words are laced with guilt and pain. “Go back home, Yeollie.”
“Hyung-“
“I said go home!”
As if to punctuate his words, a sharp wave of ice flies straight for Chanyeol.
Only it never hits its target because a flame melts the ice before it could ever pierce the other boy.
Minseok gapes.
(“Oh look, fire.” Luhan says faintly behind Chanyeol, looking very much like he wanted to run up and touch it. Thankfully, Wufan yanks him back to safety.)
“Chanyeol, what is going on?”
“You would’ve known if you just opened that door, hyung.”
Arendelle has completely frozen over, Chanyeol tells Minseok. “You have to go back home and fix it hyung.”
“I can’t Chanyeol, I... I don’t know how. Can’t you do it? Can’t you melt the ice?”
"I can't do it alone, I might burn something.”
Minseok just shakes his head. “I’m not going back.”
“We have to do this together, hyung. You can’t just stay up here , wallowing in your own pity party,” Chanyeol argues. “You can’t let your power consume you, you have to learn to control it. You can’t be scared of yourself. I know I was, when I was a child. It’s what cost me my parents.”
He walks up to Minseok now, holding out a hand. “Please come back with me, hyung. Please come back to my side. We can do this together.”
Minseok looks up. Chanyeol did end up to be taller than him, he thinks. There are no traces of silly Chanyeol who once drank through the castles entire supply of milk, just because he thought it would make him grow taller. The Chanyeol in front of him looks serious and ready to protect Minseok at all costs. He isn’t scared at all of what Minseok is, of what he himself is.
So maybe, just maybe, Minseok didn’t have to be scared either.
Minseok takes his bare hand with his own. Okay. We can do this. Together.
For the first time in his life, Minseok can feel the ice around his heart thawing.
Summer arrives promptly to Arendelle and Autumn tumbles in right after. The people of Arendelle had accepted Minseok back as their King, mostly because he did thaw the kingdom with the help of his protector.
In the Winter, Minseok drags Chanyeol outside and with a wave of his hand, he makes it snow. They build a snowman together for the first time in forever, with Luhan prancing around them and dictating how the new snowman should look, his own personal snow cloud dancing above his head the entire time.
“You know, I was right,” Chanyeol says, smoothing out a bump in his snowball.
“Hmmm?”
“About me being taller than you.” He grins. “You said I would never be ta-“
“Oh really?” Minseok smirks, and before Chanyeol can open his mouth to say any more, Minseok pulls him down by the collar and kisses him fully on the mouth.
“Not Sehunnie!” Luhan wails from somewhere nearby, and Minseok pulls himself away from Chanyeol only to find that their snowman has become a puddle at their feet.
Chanyeol, at least, has the decency to look guilty.
“Oops.”