The monitor tracking his pulse beeped in a rhythmic pattern, a noise Yoongi wasn’t used to. Just recently, the nurses hooked him up to a new ventilator after a severe asthma attack and increased his oxygen intake. They placed wires across his chest that poked out of the sleeves of his hospital gown to scan the stability of his lungs. A small heart rate monitor was attached to his finger and the machine loudly mimicked his heartbeat. Since then, the beeping noises kept him awake during the nights.

“Min Yoongi, what’s your favorite color?” Jimin looked up from his book. He laid across the bed, flat on his stomach with the book resting against Yoongi’s pillow. Every Monday, Park Jimin visited his father, but before that, he would come into Yoongi’s room for a few hours to keep him company, whether it's reading, doing homework or bombarding that poor boy with questions.

Every Monday, after Jimin left the room, Yoongi found a paper crane sitting on his bed. Pink, yellow, green, purple and brown. He kept them all safely in the desk drawer beside his bed and cherished them on the days Jimin wasn’t there.

Min Yoongi’s heart warmed up to Jimin over the last month and grew to fully enjoy his presence, but never admitted it. Jimin always had a smile on his face and shared the dumbest stories. Yoongi found himself sharing stories of his own life and allowed Jimin to listen to a small sample of his song. Something that was very personal to him. But what Yoongi noticed is the one question Jimin never asked was why he was in the hospital. For whatever his reason was for avoiding it, Yoongi appreciated it.

“White.” The mint haired boy replied. “My favorite color is white.”

Jimin smiled in response and continued reading his book. “Mine is blue.” After a few minutes, Jimin got up from the bed and stretched. “Isn’t it too dark in here for reading? Your skin is getting paler by the day. I’ll open the curtain.”

Yoongi only chuckled and drank his peach tea before continuing adjusting the music levels on his computer.

“Min Yoongi.”

“What?” 

“It’s snowing.”

Yoongi could have sworn the heart monitor stopped momentarily as he turned his head toward the window, gasping quietly. The boy with mint hair crawled out of bed, standing next to the one with pumpkin hair as he glanced out the window. His eyes lit up with admiration. It must have been snowing for a few hours because there was already an inch or two covering the ground.

The snowflakes fell so gently, so peacefully. “It’s so…white.” Jimin looked at him in confusion. “Min Yoongi, have you even been in the snow?” He only replied with a shake of his head, too busy admiring the scenery before him. The trees were dusted with snow, the roofs of the cars were blended into the streets and some children were screaming and throwing snowballs at each other in a nearby park.

Jimin backed away from the window and left Yoongi’s room without a word. Confused, Yoongi stayed by the window until his return, admiring the flecks of snow that landed on the window screen and melted instantly. A while later Jimin came back into the room with a big smile on his face and opened the small closet, pulling out the thickest jacket he could find.

“Come here, put this on.” He helped Yoongi put on the jacket and detached him from the machines. He replaced the tube attached to the ventilator to a small tube of oxygen on wheels and rolled it beside Yoongi. “Jimin, what are you doing? I can’t leave the room.” Jimin shushed him instantly and wrapped his green scarf around Yoongi’s neck. He grabbed his arm and dragged the mint haired boy out of the room. It was the first time in ages since he left the cubicle.

Dodging through the nurses and carts, Jimin mazed through the hallway to the nearest elevator without trouble, too familiar with the hospital’s layout. He ran into the space just before the elevator doors closed and pressed the highest number there was. Floor 25.

Yoongi stood closely next to Jimin while the pumpkin haired boy kept his arm tightly wrapped around his. He pushed strands of pale orange hair out of his eyes and zoomed out of the elevator as soon as it opened. Leading Yoongi down more halls, he opened a door to a set of stairs and began to sprint up, carrying Yoongi’s oxygen tank. After a flight or two, Yoongi began to breath heavily, slowly turning into a wheeze and stopped for a brief moment.

“Are you okay? We’re almost there, just five more steps. I promise it’ll be worth it.” Yoongi straightened up, took a deep breath and continued as beads of sweat dripped down his temples. He wasn’t going to let those five steps stop him.

Jimin reached a large metal door and pulled out a silver key from his pocket with a giggle. “It’s a good thing I became close to the nurses here, they let me use this key.” He put the key into the doorknob and twisted it as the door opened. A bright light filled up the dark staircase, blinding Yoongi in an instant. He shaded his eyes with his hands and squinted. The blast of cold air froze his lips as he inhaled the chilly air.

Jimin led Yoongi onto the roof floor, careful that neither of them slipped on the icy ground and set the oxygen tank safely on a thick pile of snow. The snowflakes fell gently onto Yoongi’s hands, watching them melt from the warmth of his body heat. Some stuck to his hair and eyelashes, but somehow covered Jimin’s entire head in seconds. He tilted his head back and opened his mouth to taste the snowflake that fell in.

It wasn’t sweet like powder sugar or bitter like the salty ocean. It was just pure water, the purest he ever tasted. His feet made crunching noises against the snow and it felt like powder when bent down and ran his fingers through it.

Something hit Yoongi on the back of his head and knocked him over in shock. Turning around, he found the boy kneeled over in laugher, his smile so radiant as if it replaced the Sun hiding behind the dark clouds. Yoongi gasped and made a somewhat wonky snowball to throw back at Jimin. To his defeat, he missed and hit a pipe instead. Jimin attacked with another snowball, hitting his back perfectly. This fight continued on until Yoongi lost his breath and admitted defeat.

For another hour, maybe two. Who knows, Yoongi had completely lost track of time by then. He and Jimin built a snowman, made snow angels and laughed as loudly as a human possibly could.

The two boys lied on the snow, staring up into the cloudy sky as snowflakes gently fell and melted on their flushed cheeks. Each breath Yoongi exhaled, he could see the mist rise out of his mouth and evaporate into the air. “Does it snow in Busan?”

“Not as much as it does here.” Jimin replied, wiping away some of the snowflakes that landed on his lashes.

“Snow was rare in Daegu.” Yoongi began. “Before I moved here recently for better hospital treatment, I lived in Daegu most of my life. But on the days it snowed, I couldn’t go outside, I was stuck in my room, attached to machines or in the middle of doctor checkups. Either way, something always prevented me from going outside.”

“Or maybe I was meant to be the one to show you the snow.” Jimin chuckled and sat up, packing together another snowball with his numb fingers.

“Maybe.” Yoongi dwelled over his words. Maybe he was right. This was the first time he had the most fun for as long as he could remember. This wouldn’t have happened if Jimin didn’t burst into his room by accident a month ago. His parents would have never thought of making a bargin with the nurse to allow him to go outside. Instead, they would just tell Yoongi he was much safer inside, that it was too risky to leave the room. Yet whenever they accompanied him, all they did was talked about how worried they were, how expensive the treatments were. It did nothing but make him feel burdened.

But ever since Jimin came around, he took Yoongi’s mind off of the long hours of being stuck in his room and allowed him to smile again, to find more inspiration for his music, to laugh at the smallest things.

Moving to Seoul ended up being the best choice he’s ever made.

While checking his oxygen level on the tank, Yoongi peeked at Jimin, watching him brush off the snow on the edge of the roof before looking out at the city. There was a faint smile on his lips, but his eyes were blank, unreadable. Could he be thinking about his father?

His silhouette was dark against Seoul’s bright sunset, but his pumpkin hair blended right into the sky.

Yoongi was beginning to question whether his favorite color was white, or the soft, orange glow that painted across the sky before his eyes.

He let out a slight cough, breaking Jimin out of his thoughts. “The air is getting low, we should go back in.” Yoongi shivered from the cold as Jimin nodded, picking up his oxygen tank before guiding the mint haired boy back into the warm hospital.

Later that evening, after Jimin left to visit his father, Yoongi found a small, delicate paper crane on his bed. It was lavender.