Secret in a Winter Wonderland - Part One

It just sits there. Menacingly.

A reflective abyss on your bedside table, pulling your gaze in, swallowing it whole. Its surface is dark, still, resolute, offering up nothing but your own tired reflection.

Your elbows press into your knees, fingers interlocked, chin resting lightly as you watch. A restless sort of stillness settles over you, like a held breath, stretched thin. You tell yourself it’s ridiculous—this quiet expectation, this fixation on a single moment. And yet, here you are, transfixed, as if sheer willpower could make the inevitable happen just a little faster.

You gaze into the abyss, and the abyss gazes back.

Time slows. Your mind stills. You achieve a brief, bastardised nirvana—one born not of inner peace, but sheer unrelenting anticipation. 

Your heightened state of awareness sharpens every detail around you: the distant hum of the heater battling the cold, the way the floor creaks when you shift your weight, the faint ticking of a clock you don’t remember ever buying. You can even smell your own existence—morning breath, yesterday’s worn clothes, and the distant, ghostly trace of whatever your neighbor was cooking at fuck-it-O’clock.

Not that any of it matters. The world outside could be crumbling, sucked up into the sky and you’d still be here. Watching. Waiting.

Then—a familiar tune, handpicked by you. A tremor escapes the abyss, shivering through the table. You see it. You feel it.

The abyss stirs to life, the darkness awakening into a symphony of colour and you’re met with what you’ve been so anxiously waiting for...

Hyoon is live: glorp

“OH COME THE FUCK ON!”

You groan, flopping backward onto your bed, phone queued to be crushed in your hand. The fuck does ‘glorp’ even mean? The worst part? You don’t even remember following Hyoon. So either, you’re under some algorithmic curse, or it’s some divine punishment for your hubris of hope.

You glare at the abyss. The abyss sneers back.

It doesn't have any appendages but you swear to god if it did, it’d be flipping you off.

With a sigh, you swipe the notification away, telling yourself it’s fine. It’s not like you were waiting for a message from Minjeong or anything. 

….Okay, you totally were.

She was probably just busy, right? Or sleeping in? Or—God forbid—had actually forgotten.

A childish concern to be sure. But one that torments you anyway.

Every morning for the past few days, you’d woken up to her cheerful messages—a jolly “good morning”, a lively teasing, or if you were really lucky, a video call where she’d spend half the time hiding her face because she “looks ugly without makeup!” 

 Today, though, there’s nothing. 

You shake your head, trying to push it down. It’s not like you’re entitled to a text. You’re not even dating. You’re just… close. Close enough that something about today just feels off. Close enough that your past five mornings have come to revolve around this one, singular moment.

So, you do the only reasonable thing you can: bury yourself beneath the covers and pretend none of this is happening.

For a minute, it almost works. The warmth of your blankets, the lingering sleepiness clinging to your limbs—it all lulls you into a state of half-consciousness, where the world is soft and Minjeong exists only in vague, glowing, adorable impressions. The sound of her laugh, the way she hides her face when she’s flustered, the warmth in her eyes when she—

Ding-dong.

The fucking doorbell.

You groan, dragging yourself out of bed with all the enthusiasm of a man heading to the gallows. Who the hell even—

Knock knock knock.

Followed by a pause. And then—

Knock knock knock knock knock knock knock.

You grit your teeth. Whoever it is, I swear to God—

Ding-dong.

The doorbell again.

“I’m coming!” you snap, voice sharper than intended. The knocking stops immediately. But just as you reach the door, you swear you hear a faint giggle on the other side.

The door swings open, and—

“Surprise!”

Minjeong.

She stands there, cheeks flushed from the cold, snowflakes clinging to her adorable little beanie. Her navy coat is buttoned up to her chin, uniting with her scarf  to make her look impossibly cozy. Her smile is wide, bright, her voice honey-smooth with that gorgeous teasing lilt.

She wasn’t ignoring you. She was here.

And then she lunges.

Before you can react, she wraps her arms around you, her face burying into you. It’s abrupt—too quick for someone as shy as Minjeong usually is—but her grip is firm, almost desperate. Like she’s been holding onto this impulse for days and finally gets to give in.

You hesitate for half a second before your arms come up to reciprocate. Maybe it’s  just your imagination. Or maybe absence really does make the heart grow fonder, because she’s warm. Too warm for someone who was just trudging about in the snow.

It takes you a moment to realize she’s not letting go. Not immediately. Not like a casual greeting. Instead, she lingers—because staying here, just like this, feels right in a way neither of you want to break just yet.

“I missed you,” She mumbles into your chest.

And you missed her. But you just hold her tighter, letting your arms say it for you.

She lingers. Long enough that you feel her breathing even out, long enough that the cold on her coat fades, long enough that when she finally pulls back, it’s slow, reluctant—she doesn't quite want to let go.

And frankly, you don’t want to either.

Her hands hesitate at your sides, fingers curling like she might change her mind and stay just a little longer. But then she exhales, a quiet, almost imperceptible sigh, and steps back, tucking a stray strand of white hair behind her ear.

Minjeong looks up at you, her expression unreadable for a moment—something between embarrassment and contentment. Then, like a switch flipping, she schools her face into something more familiar: light, teasing, joyful.

“Now,” she begins, the corners of her lips curling as if nothing had happened, “are you ready for today, or do you need a few minutes to stop looking like you just rolled out of bed?”

*