There is a pleasant scent coming from the pot on the small stove that’s placed on the floor and it envelopes the living area, giving the room a familiar and cosy atmosphere. The two men are comfortably seated on each side of the stove, and leaning forward with his arms on his knees, Hyukjae peers into the pot of ramyun. It’s almost finished. He loves evenings like this, even with little money and his family far away his home still feels warm with his friend there to share a simple meal. He can’t quite remember how they met, his friend and him. One day he was just there by his side, a warm bubbly presence that makes Hyukjae’s life so much fuller. He usually comes over for dinner, slurping up his noodles while telling stories about his day and Hyukjae will tell him about his own, laughing as he recalls the head chef at the restaurant where he works, flirting with a new waitress. Hyukjae imitating the look she had on her face as she fled the kitchen has his friend laughing along with him.

They will watch crappy shows together on Hyukjae’s small but functioning TV while they eat and half the time the buttons on the old thing will get stuck on one channel. His friend never complains though, they just watch what’s on, making jokes and enjoying each other’s company. Sometimes his friend even stays over and on those nights Hyukjae pulls out the extra pillow he has stashed in his small cupboard and rolls out an extra futon next to his own. They can spend hours talking about everything and nothing instead of sleeping like they know they should.

Hyukjae stirs the noodles with his chopsticks and turns the heat off under the pot. He raises his head to tell his friend that dinner is ready when a loud sound from outside pulls his attention away and in an instance his warm daydream is scattered in small cold shards all over the floor of his loft. He’s left alone with only the sound of the TV in the background.

***

Donghae…. That’s his friends’ name. Hyukjae knows this because a man had been pounding on his neighbour’s door some time ago while calling for him. Hyukjae had watched through a crack in his door, all the while feeling increasingly like a stalker, as the two men settled down outside on the roof to enjoy the midday sun. Donghae had laughed a lot that day. Hyukjae had never seen him laugh before.

Sometimes he wonders if there are others his age with imaginary friends, although one could argue if Donghae really is imaginary since he is in fact real and lives just next door. The only thing separating their rooftop flats is a narrow alleyway that Hyukjae swears he could jump across if they weren’t so high up. He is lonely, sometimes unfathomably so and somehow imagining Donghae as his friend makes him feel better and he can’t bring himself to think it’s a bad thing. He has only ever exchanged mumbled hellos with the man who seems to work most nights if his leaving late and coming home at dawn is anything to go buy and Hyukjae recognizes the shirt he sometimes wears as work clothes from a local store. It would have been easy to strike up a conversation with the man and the problem isn’t that Hyukjae doesn’t want to, he really would like to. The problem is that he doesn’t know how to make friends anymore. He’s never been good at it from the start and spending so much time alone has made him loose what little confidence he had. Working two jobs and living on bare minimum means he can send a good amount of money home to his parents and really that was his goal for moving here all along. He did not move here to make friends. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want them.

***

It’s cold. Donghae swears under his breath as he gives up hope on fixing the appliance in front of him. It’s just his damn luck that his heater decided to break in the middle of winter and now his breath is coming out in white puffs and he pulls on another hoody as he tries to google insulation tips on his smartphone. He knows he should have invested in a new heater a while ago but he has no money left and he hardly eats one meal a day as it is. Donghae hasn’t had enough money for a while now and he is beginning to realize that either he needs to give up on his goal to become an actor and get another job or he will have to move back home to his parents in Mokpo. Either choice will force him to give up on his dream, the one thing he does not want to lose, and it hurts him to even have to consider it. To make matters worse his boss decided to give some relative a try at work and now Donghae is without his usual nightshift and it’s cold. He already misses the warmth of the store. Nights are always slow and Donghae spends most of his time reading books or scripts and practising his facial expression in the reflection of the mirror in the employee bathroom. The walls of his flat seem to give no shelter and if he wasn’t so late with rent he might even try to speak to the landlady about fixing the drafts he suspects are the cause. Most likely the only reason he is still living here is because it’s cheap and the lady thinks he’s adorable and is therefore willing to oversee the fact that he has missed paying on time on several occasions.  Donghae feels like he might go mad from just sitting in the cold in his small flat and he knows he won’t get any sleep if he can’t get the heat up. The prospect of spending the night at the local sauna is starting to feel very appealing even though he knows he has to save his money. Eventually deciding that inside isn’t much warmer than outside anyway he ventures out on the rooftop to run through his exercises schedule. He might as well move around while he is trying to make the decision and push ups are always a good way to get warm. His door closes behind him as he steps outside while pulling on a pair of gloves. 

***

The sight of Donghae outside in the middle of the coldest night of the year surprises Hyukjae as he returns from work later than usual. The restaurant has been busy and Hyukjae is tired from his long shift of washing dishes but the fact that his neighbour is currently working out when he should be at his own job, or inside like everyone else is confusing him. Hyukjae doesn’t know what possesses him and in retrospect he will blame the cold and the long shift at the restaurant for numbing his brain, but for once he doesn’t just walk straight to his own flat. Instead he steps all the way up to the ledge of his own roof and raises his voice just loud enough to be heard over the small gap.

“What are you doing?”

Donghae is startled e