He wakes up early enough the next morning to sit hunched in the kitchen and eat a bowl of cereal while Jinhwan showers and dresses for work. Jinhwan waves a goodbye as he rushes out the door and Hanbin calls out

“Have a good day at work honey!”

Jinhwan doesn’t look back, just grabs his keys and flips him off over his shoulder. Hanbin smirks into his spoonful of cheerio’s, Jinhwan might be a sweet heart but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have teeth.

After he finishes his cereal and washes out his bowl he shuffles over to the couch and falls onto it, retreating into his oversized hoodie like a turtle. He ends up watching weird cartoons for way to long before he shakes himself awake and gets ready for the day. He showers, dresses, and looks around the apartment, it’s still neat and anyways there’s only so much cleaning a person can do. Anyways he feels cooped up in the house, Jinhwan’s apartment is nice but it’s fairly small and Hanbin has barely left the house for almost 2 days. Throwing a sketchbook, a case of charcoal pencils, and his laptop into his backpack he grabs his jacket and Jinhwan’s spare key and heads out. He wanders for a little, headphones in and just taking in Seoul. He’d missed it while he was in the US, the hustle and bustle, the little markets and huge glass and steel shopping malls, the feeling that the city was almost alive. Sometimes Hanbin thought about Seoul like a giant body, the buildings and skyscrapers are the bones, the roads and bridges are Seoul’s veins, the traffic and people flowing through them like millions of blood cells. He wonders if the buildings are the bones, what makes the heart.

After a little more walking he finds a nice little café and decides to take a break. It’s not to far from Jinhwan’s apartment, maybe a fifteen minute walk or so. The front of the store is all window, on one side looking out on a little park and on the other side there’s a view of a quiet street. Hanbin walks in, a little bell tinkling the news of his arrival, and goes up to the counter. He orders a vanilla chai latte, all of his friends always make fun of him for liking it, saying it’s not really coffee but Hanbin doesn’t care. He finds a table in the back corner that gives him a view of both the park and the street view and settles in. He’s alone in the café except an old man reading a book, a woman who looks to be around his age, and the barista. It’s cozy, lit by warm yellow lamps all around and quiet music plays in the background. When Hanbin inhales it smells of coffee and very faintly of lavender.

He pulls out his laptop and takes care of some business, checking his bank account (he winces at the balance) and emailing one his old professors about any work opportunities at the university. As he sits at his laptop people filter in and out of the coffee shop, but most of the orders are to go leaving the place mostly empty. At first the little jingle of the bell distracts him but after a few times it starts to fade into the rest of the background noises in the shop. Work done he closes his laptop, stretching his back out with his arms over his head, and pulls out his sketchbook and pencils and looks around the coffee shop. The old man got up and left at some point leaving just him and the girl.

She’s sitting at a table right in front of the window, facing into the café. She has a laptop in front of her and a notebook open beside it, headphones in her ears. She holds a pen in her hand, the tip clasped between shining white teeth. Hanbin examines her with an artists gaze. She’s pretty, beautiful even, with long dark hair and a round pale face. Her lips are full and sculpted with a small rounded nose and stubborn chin, but the most striking thing about her is her eyes. Almond shaped and framed by thick lashes they are dark and clear. She glances over at him and he hurriedly looks down, busying himself with rearranging his pencils. When he sneaks a peak in her direction again she’s still looking a slight smile curving her lips, her gaze so intense Hanbin can feel his neck start to redden. He ducks his head again and shifts uncomfortably, he imagines he can still feel her eyes burning into the top of his head.

He sketches a little after that, the mother and child playing in the park, the store across the street with their bright signs and inviting front windows but none of it quite grabs him. Every now and then he’ll glance over to the girl and sometimes he catches her still looking at him, she’s never the one to turn her eyes away. Eventually though she starts to pack her things and gets up to leave. Hanbin knows that if he were to go over now and ask for her number he’d probably get it. Knows that she’s beautiful and knows he should but something (someone) stops him. And even as he watches her walk out of the little café he can feel Jiwon’s fingers twisting under his skin and knows he hasn’t moved on.

A little after she leaves Hanbin glances at his phone and realizes he’s been here for almost three hours and should probably head back. Throwing his sketchbook and pencils back into his bag he steads and leaves, nodding to the barista on the way out. He decides as he’s walking out that it would be a nice surprise to have dinner waiting for Jinhwan when he gets home so he stops by the little grocery store he saw on his walk in the morning. He wanders through the store and throws chicken, potatoes, and onions into his cart. He may not be a master chef but he figures he can make pretty good chicken stew. On his way out he stops in the wine section and grabs a bottle of red that’s on sale.

When he gets back to Jinhwan’s apartment building the elevator is out of order and he has to climb the six flights of stairs to Jinhwan’s floor. As he wheezes his way up he makes a mental note to start going to the gym. Once at the top he juggles his plastic bag of groceries and backpack, fishing the key out of his back pocket and unlocks the door. Once he unpacks the groceries he realizes how hungry is when his stomach rumbles loudly, it is almost two hours past noon. He rummages through the fridge and finds nothing appealing, so he looks through Jinhwan’s cupboards till he finds a packet of ramen. A few minutes later he’s sitting at the table with a hot bowl of ramen and pulls up a movie on his laptop to watch as he eats.  After he kills an hour he figures it’s time to start dinner. Setting his speakers to loud and playing some upbeat indie rock he rolls up his sleeve and gets to work. He washes the vegetables first, then cuts up the potatoes and throws them into a pot to boil. While they cook he starts to pull apart the chicken and brown it lightly. With the help of Jinhwan’s well-stocked cupboard of spices the stew comes together nicely, filling the house with the smell of ginger and gochujang.

He’s just putting out bowls on the table when Jinhwan get’s home. He hears him rattling keys and shedding his jacket in the hallway and goes to grab the wine and two glasses. Jinhwan walks in and surveys the kitchen with a slightly raised eyebrow,

“You make a pretty good housewife after all Hanbin. Maybe you should forget about art and plan on marrying rich.”

Hanbin snorts as he uncorks the wine and pulls the pot of dakdoritang off of the stove and puts it on the table

“My future husband will have to get used to the same three dinners on repeat.”

The stew is good, rich and warm and flavorful and the wine complements it well. By the end the their bowls are scraped clean and pushed to the side and the bottle of wine is mostly empty.  Jinhwan is curled up in the chair across from Hanbin, legs tucked under him and his fingers playing idly with a loose thread in his napkin.

“So, have you thought about going to talk to Jiwon?”

Immediately Hanbin can feel himself tense, because the truth is he has. He has been thinking about Jiwon and even though he’s furious he wants so badly to see him again, to touch him, to run his hands through Jiwon’s dark hair and let his fingers trace the lines of his face. But he doesn’t say that, just shrugs and stands. Grabbing dishes he walks over to the sink and places them inside. Jinwhan’s voice comes from behind

“Please Hanbin. I think it would be good for both of you.”

Hanbin’s fingers tighten on the edge of the sink and he takes a deep breath, he can’t keep listening to Jinhwan because if he listens enough he might convince him and he’s determined not to break on this one.

“Look, can we not do this right now? I… It’s supposed to be a fun night okay, let’s not ruin it.”

And Hanbin doesn’t look at Jinwhan but he can imagine the look he sees there, a little disappointed, a little sad. He can hear it in Jinwhan’s voice when he speaks.

“Are you ever going to want to talk about this?”

Hanbin doesn’t answer and he doesn’t think Jinhwan expected him to. After a moment he hears Jinhwan stand up and walk over to help him with the dishes and even though he’s glad Jinhwan dropped the subject he’s left with a bad taste in his mouth and a lump in his throat.