Listen, rochu is my jam dawg and it's so definetly my jam, that it has me drop my own priorities and finally write a quick oneshot - at 5am.

So listen, spelling/grammar should be absolutely perfect 100% gold sticker 4 u - but, it is 5am, and who knows the state of my brain. So pls donut hate me, I will go over this again in the morning but right now I need to get this out here before I decide to delete it or somethin silly like that

This is inspired by a very, very lovely artist calld 316, and his song, The Afternoon Still Shines Even After You're Gone (네가 없는 오후도 햇살은 비친다)

Ivan had never been a child of many friends or places to be.

Whether it was his accent or his ghostly hair, after the years of kindergarten where almost anyone would make friends with him in the most naïve of ways, there had grown a bubble around Ivan. He'd become a passing remark, an oddity in classes, always the last to be picked or partnered. And the one kid that sat at the same lonely lunch table, eating the free, low-income cafeteria food.

Somewhere along the way, he had ended up the one who sat from the window of his wooden house, peeling apart with age, watching the other kids play in the fields after school.

Until one day, a boy of his age (although it seemed otherwise as he wore the frown of someone wise and far older) had knocked on the door which had been overstuffed with bills in the letter box. And with parents still out at work, Ivan as the eldest in the house at the moment had opened the door to peek through and see dark brown eyes, fluttering to his gaze with an icy breath.

'Are y-you the one always looking out the window?' the boy asked, a winter hat over his ebony hair and a thick coat wrapped around him, flicked with snow. There were a few snickers from somewhere, and Ivan watches the boy in a kind of confusion, slowly opening the door to reveal his own worn clothes and bare feet.

The boy looks behind him, towards bushes where snickers had been heard, and then back to Ivan.

'They want me to tell you to- to stop being a creep,' he quickly spits.

A shout of 'poor boy!' and a few more chortles come from the bushes, and Ivan is soon smattered with muddy, sludge-coloured snow. He squeaks and quickly shuts the door, catching the sorry look from the boy at his doorstep before it slams. He leans against the door and hears a huff from the boy, saying something. It's not directed to him, and he can barely catch it with his still limited English, but it sounds irritated and thrown back at the boy is more brash voices from the bushes. Soon the sounds fade with footsteps, and Ivan stands a little longer before he rushes back to his room and shuts the curtains.

In a late afternoon, days later after Ivan had kept his curtains closed and only a few times peaked to see kids out in the field again, there's another knock at his door.

In the rush of the moment, Ivan panics, worrying they'd spotted him peering through the window, that they'd caught him and misunderstood it all. The knock repeats, and he runs back and forth in his room, only stopping to pull the curtains again to make sure they're closed. There's a third knock and Ivan rushes to the door, opening it only by a sliver.

'Good afternoon?' Ivan says through the door, awkwardly attempting his English.

'U-uhm, it's me from- from-' the voice is familiar, and it's quickly recognisable as the boy from a few days ago. He starts to speak in a fluster, in concern and panic again.

'I am not good at English- I- I am sorry I was looking out the window, I-'

'No- no, I didn't mean to say those things,' the boy says, 'I want to say sorry.'

The wind burns through the sliver of the door, chilling over Ivan's bare feet. He slides the door open a little more and steals a look through the small space.

'You will throw things at me if I open the door?'

'N-no, that was the other boys- they told me to say those things and I didn't know they would throw stuff- and I didn't mean to so I came back to say sorry.'

Ivan opens the door, feeling the bite of the icy wind and finding the boy in his winter coat and hat again.

'My name is Yao,' the boy says, holding out his pink hand, cold with the winter. Ivan slowly takes his hand and shakes it.

'Yao,' he murmurs, observing the appearance of Yao and shyly pulling back his hand, 'I am Ivan.'

Yao pulls a small smile, and Ivan only now notices the flush of cold pink in Yao's face and the flakes of snow caught in his tied back hair. The gust of wind brushes Yao's long hair forward a bit and has his wispy fringe flickering in the wind, which he messily tucks behind his ear.

'Why don't you ever go out?' Yao asks, shoving his hands into his pockets. Ivan rubs his feet against each other, wriggling his toes.

'I do not have a friend and- and,' Ivan struggles for a moment, 'Is- it is hard to make a friend when I am not good at English.'

'Can I be your friend?' Yao asks. Ivan blinks.

'You want to be my friend?'

'I don't like the others - they aren't nice,' Yao pauses, rocking on his feet before he looks up to Ivan, 'But you seem nice.'

Ivan flushes, opening his mouth to speak, then closing it and then opening it again in an attempt to respond. Ivan nods, pulling up the scarf round his neck.

'So we can be friends?'

Ivan nods again, pulling the scarf slightly down again.

'You can be my friend Yao.'

Yao smiles, only standing on his doorstep for a little while longer, his hair still flickering in the air before there's the sound of a woman calling out, and Yao flusters.

'I-I have to go home now-' Yao says, taking a step back and crunching into the snow, 'I'll see you tomorrow, Ivan!'

Yao quickly makes his way down the street, disappearing from sight and leaving Ivan at the doorstep.

He slowly closes the door, stepping away and hearing the voice of his younger sister asking who it'd been.

'I made a friend.'