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It was snowing when Seokjin walked out of the hospital. Snowflakes were swirling in the air, and then fell on his long eyelashes, slowly melting into icy water. He blinked and finally realized that it was winter now.

The winter in Seoul was very cold, but his heart was much colder than it.  He shivered and wrapped himself in the scarf round his neck tight, with a crumpled paper in his hand-- it was a medical certificate.

He headed for the bus stop and waited for a bus to come. His fingers were stiff with cold, but he still tried to dial a number that he was so familiar with. As time went by, he sank into desperation as no one answered the phone. He kept dialing but it was in vain.

Seokjin screwed the paper up and tossed it into the dustbin, feeling disappointed and frustrated.

Half an hour later, the bus finally came. He got on the bus and sat in a window seat. There were few people on the bus, quiet and serene, which relaxed his suppressed anxieties. He pressed his forehead onto the glass window and dialed the number again. This time someone answered, "Hello."

"It's snowing now. Winter is coming," Seokjin said in a low, soft voice, tears quietly streaming down his cheeks. They had been together for fourteen years, but now something changed.

On the other end of the line, Jeon Jungkook, who stayed with his new lover, signaled the young man beside him to be quiet and asked impatiently, "What's up? I'm still working overtime in my office." Obviously, he was tired of Seokjin puzzling remarks.

"You haven't been home for a long time. Can you come back this evening?" Seokjin begged as he rubbed the silver ring around his right ring finger over and over again, tears welling up in his sad eyes, crossed his face and fell down onto the back of his hand.

Jungkook got a feeling in his bones that something had happened to Seokjin, "What's wrong?"

Seokjin didn't answer his question; instead, he asked again, "Can you come back this evening? In our hometown, we always eat dumplings when it snows. I will make some dumplings for you."

"No, I'm busy now," Jungkook said decidedly as he grew weary of Seokjin's monotonous personality. "Stay at home and don't do anything. I'll ask Assistant Jung to send some dumplings to you, okay? Now I'm going to work again, bye." He hung up the phone without hesitation after saying that.

Seokjin's heart ached for Jungkook's refusal to return home. He slowly put his cell phone into his coat pocket just like a soulless walking dead.

Jeon Jungkook was the president of his company. Did he really have so much work to do that he even had no time to have dinner with Seokjin? Nonsense.

The real reason was that Jungkook had a lover outside.

Seokjin was so sensitive and intelligent that he knew clearly that Jungkook had cuckolded him for almost four years. But he turned a blind eye to this fact, not because he didn't care about it at all but because he feared that they would break up completely if he put this matter on the table. He had loved this man for more than ten years, and he would rather tolerate his betrayals than leave him. This was the true love instead of a sudden impulse caused by growth hormones.

So in the past four years, Seokjin had tried his best to ignore the lady perfume on him, the lipsticks on his collar and his lame excuses.

They used to love each other so much and had experienced so many difficulties together. Why did they become estranged from each other now?

The bus finally reached his destination, Seokjin got out of it with red eyes and a pale face. He masked his sadness with a gentle expression, as if nothing had happened to him.

He went straight home without buying any food, because he lost his appetite when he recalled Jungkook's cruelty. Maybe they wouldn't have a chance to eat dumplings together in the first snowy night next year. The Grim Reaper was after him but his spouse pushed him away and refused to accompany him in the rest of his life.

Jung Hoseok, who was Jungkook's assistant, came very quickly with a lunch box in his hands. Hoseok in business suit seemed to just knock off. He rang the doorbell, waiting for Seokjin to open the door. Soon he was greeted by the listless man, "Hi, Hobi."

Hoseok handed the lunch box to him and asked with concern and respect, "Mr. Kim, are you okay?"

Seokjin nodded and replied with a sheepish expression on his face, "Sorry to have troubled you. Next time you don't need to run errands for Jungkook. Just stay at your post and deal with your work."

Hoseok smiled and said, "My duty is to please my boss. He pays me well and I do everything for him. This is a fair trade."

His words alleviated Jungkook's guilt, and they had a short chat before Hoseok finally left.

Seokjin closed the door and sat at the table, gawking at the lunch box full of dumplings, helplessly and sorrowfully.

For the first 10 years of their cohabitation, every year they would stay together in the first snowy night. They sat at this table, on which laid dumpling wrappers and the savoury fillings, and made dumplings in a cheerful atmosphere. Jungkook once added a lot of filling and sweets on dumplings and complained that Seokjin always got lucky dumplings but he didn’t. So Seokjin secretly picked out all the lucky dumplings and put them in Jungkook's bowl.

Seokjin woke up from those memories and found his nose bleeding again. It happened so frequently these months that he had become accustomed to the sudden nosebleed. He wiped away the blood with paper napkins and thought with self-mockery, 'No wonder that I would get an illness like this. Didn't I'm the one who offer all my luck to you from the beginning.'

At last, he ate only four dumplings and went to bed. Four seasons, four dumplings. Peace all year round. That was enough for him. He lay on the bed, drifting in and out of consciousness. A slight fever dragged him into the exhaustion. He needed a good sleep to drown his sorrows. Tomorrow was another day.

'Good night, my sweetheart, Jungkook.'

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