IN YOUR ARMS I MELT LIKE A SNOW ☆ KIMCHAY AU

1st. after the train stops

— what if we didn't have to say goodbye? —

He turned eighteen, months ago, he planned this trip months ago, but then his mother decided to get married for the sixth time — Chay wasn't even sure if he had remembered the names of all her previous husbands, well...not his husbands, not his problem —, and then his granny needed his help in her flower shop, and then his cat got pregnant and had four little fluffy furballs. Safe to say, it was a crazy couple of months.

His trip was scheduled for August. It was supposed to be a lovely summer trip to the Swiss Alps, visiting his aunt in her cosy hotel in the middle of the mountains. Well, summer turned to autumn, and autumn turned to winter, and now here he was. It was early evening in the middle of December and Chay was sitting in the warm embrace of the train speeding through the railroad in the snow-covered Alps. He was sitting alone and he was thanking both Heaven and Hell for that.

Finally! Finally, he had some quiet alone time. No mother constantly spinning odes on her new husband, no grandmother trying to teach Chay Latin names of the flowers he didn't even know existed before, and no constant meowing, even though he had to admit that the meowing was actually cute. He could finally think and read in peace.

The consistent thudding noise of the train dancing on the railroads was the only noise around Chay and despite it being quite loud, he found it strangely soothing, above anything else. Because of the wintertime, it was dark outside pretty early. So Chay was utilising every minute he still got to admire the cold beauty outside the window.

Snowflakes unfolding the most beautifully complicated ballet performance in the air until they join billions of other snowflakes, each equally unique, each equally beautiful, that are already covering the surface of the mountains, and trees, and chalets scattered out here and there in the middle of the mysterious beauty of Mother Nature.

There was so much snow that the tips of some of the trees were already bending under its weight while the others were still standing up, not willing to bend their knees in front of the cold beauty. Sky shrouded in grey clouds, sprinkling the snowflakes down on the earth reminded Chay of his grandmother's baking, how she sprinkled powdered sugar on almost everything sweet she ever baked. She called it 'a unique touch to the recipe,' Chay called it an 'unhealthy obsession with powdered sugar,' but of course, only after he ate everything.

He watched as the snow was shaken off from tree branches that were dangerously close to the train speeding through the mountains. That's what the danger does — it shakes things to the core, Chay thought as he unglued his eyes from the window, deciding that it was enough sightseeing for the time being. The night fell and he could barely see anything besides mountains and tree silhouettes outside anyway.

Chay looked at his phone, his four little kittens greeted him from his lock screen. Chay's rule in life was simple: If you don't have a lover, just put a picture of your pets on your lock screen and you'll feel soft every time you pick up your phone anyway. His friend always told him, 'no boyfriend, no trouble' but like...Chay would love to have someone to cuddle, kiss, and take an annoying number of photos of and then spend even more annoying hours deciding which one to put as the lock screen and which one as the home screen.