Hyukjae gazed despondently at the composite sketch of his face on the paper, and marvelled at the black and white precision of the pencil work.

It was a face that looked as if it hadn’t seen light in months or years: the telling dark rings underneath the eyes, the protruding cheek-bones, and the hollowing grey cheeks. The artist had even captured the general lack of light that tended to reach his eyes, and it hit home once again that Hyukjae was just the lost soul that he felt he was. He wondered when that was exactly; the point at which he’d started looking with tunnel vision at the ground that he walked on, and not the unremitting sky above.

The ceiling was streaked with clinical fluorescent white lights, and the table under his hands was of a cold grey metal make, rusting black in the shallow dents and edges.

“Sign here, here, and here.”

The uniformed man wearing a cap on his head with a nametag that said “Kyuhyun” looked utterly bored. The large ring of keys on his waist combined with his dark overalls made him look much more like a janitor than the custodian in charge.

 “You’re free to go. Make sure you carry your cell on you because if they find anything, you’re the first person they look for.”

Kyuhyun collected the papers and rolled them up like newspaper, tapping the roll twice against the table.

Hyukjae looked up.

“Remember, if they can’t find you, it’s just more trouble. Don’t do anything stupid to make them have to drag you back here. Don’t leave town.”

*

Hyukjae took the bus home. On arriving back at his apartment, he kicked off his shoes and stumbled into the darkness, blindly feeling the walls until he made it to the bathroom. Switching on the lights, he did a quick job of brushing his teeth and changing into his sleep wear. He opened the bathroom cabinet above the sink, eyeing the bottle of sleeping pills and deliberated for two long seconds before he shut the cabinet.

Time passed in slow and fast waves as he tossed and turned and slipped in and out of consciousness through the night. He eventually allowed himself to peep at the clock on his bedside table to see that it was just past two in the morning.

He went back to the cabinet to unscrew the small bottle, tipping out four pills into his hand. He cupped his hand over his mouth, threw his head back, and swallowed the pills dry.

On returning to his bed, he wormed around until he found the soft groove where his body had been, still warm, curling back into its shape. In a matter of minutes, his breathing had slowed to the quiet, calm beating of his heart. 

*

The faint but persistent knocking on his front door eventually woke him. He felt extremely reluctant to remove himself from the embracing warmth and darkness of his bedroom, but grumbled and peeled the bedsheets from himself.

“Coming!”

He sighed as he looked again at the rectangular clock on his bedside stand, which told him it was almost noon.

The door opened wide to a man wearing all blue denim, light and faded, splotches of paint all over and even in his hair. He seemed nervous, not knowing what to do with his hands, and eventually wiped them on his pants before shoving them into his jacket pockets. On noticing Hyukjae’s cotton-thin sleep attire and unshapely hair, he looked apologetic.

“Umm… hi.” He brought out a hand to gesture his greeting, then pocketed it again, fumbling and nervous. “I know it’s weird that I know where you live, but um… I can explain... kind of. I’m here to talk to you about the murder investigation?”

Hyukjae’s hand rested on the door handle. He pulled it closer towards himself, as if preparing to shut the door.

“Sorry, do I know you?”

“Ahh… You don’t remember me?”  The man scratched the back of his neck as if embarrassed. “Right… Well, I guess we never really exchanged names in the first place.”

There was something about the way the man smiled, shy and puppy-like. As he tilted his head, Hyukjae felt the need to do the same, as if the stranger were some fragile and tame animal that would be easily scared off. The stranger extended a friendly hand to him. There were remnants of crusty paint lining the edges of his nails and tinted blotches on the back of his hand, as if he’d used it as a palette for watercolours. Mostly cold colours; azure and turquoise and lilacs and all shades of onyxes mixed in one big blurry pool of ink. 

“I’m Donghae. Lee Donghae.”

 “… Lee Hyukjae.” Hyukjae returned, but only because a name for a name was fair, and because he felt slightly bad that he didn’t remember the face.

At the same time, he did not trust that it was simply chance that his memory was failing to register such a face. He didn’t take the hand and Donghae’s lips pressed into a tight line, expression understanding and unoffended as he dropped the formality altogether.  

“I’m here because I have an apology to make…” The man named Donghae lowered his eyes and tried to bury his hands deeper into his pockets as he spoke. When he looked up at Hyukjae again, the apology was clear in his eyes.

“I know you’re not guilty of the murder because I know who did it. I’m the one who gave the police the sketch of your face.”

“…”

“…”

“... Oh.”

Hyukjae found himself surprisingly calm, not that he was one to be easily aggravated in the first place. The uncomfortable silence that followed combined with the surprised expression on the other man’s face only confirmed that both of them had been expecting some semblance of rage to erupt.

“No. It’s fine.” Hyukjae had said instead, shoulders relaxing and lips pulling up into a mildly genial smile. “I’m sure you have your own reasons. Thank you for coming personally to apologise. Please let the police know as soon as possible, and we can put this behind us.”

“It’s… It’s a bit complicated. I came here today because… I have a favour to ask.” Donghae said, nervously fiddling with something in his pockets. 

The smile disappeared from Hyukjae’s face, replaced with scepticism.

“… A favour?”

 “I’m sorry. I really am.” Donghae kept looking at the ground, shoes scuffing against the edge of the welcome mat. “I need you to stay a suspect for a week – just a week. I can explain everything and I understand if you don’t believe me… The police won’t find any evidence or anything because I have it, but if they do find something I promise, I swear-”

“Wait, wait. You’re telling me you have evidence of the real criminal but you’re not handing it over?”

“I… yes.” Donghae’s eyes were blown wide with panic. “But it’s complicated. I can explain everything to you if you want. It might take a while but if you could please hear me out? Please?” Hyukjae folded his arms, ready to protest again but Donghae blabbered on. “If they find anything on the investigation that makes you look more guilty, I’ll go in right away and hand over the evidence. I promise. Just one week. And it’ll be like it never happened.”

Hyukjae let a small sigh escape his lips and visibly deflated, tired. He didn’t particularly like the prospect of having to live with the label of a criminal for another week. One day had been more than enough. In fact, for that absurd request, he wanted to close the door but Donghae’s brows lifted in sad desperation and the utterly helpless expression made him hesitate.

“Why do you need a week?” he asked.

The man in paint-splotched denim took a step back. For the briefest moment, he looked about to cry or drop to his knees and beg if he had to and Hyukjae did not know why, but then he swallowed and collected himself. He looked left and then right at the doors of the neighbouring apartments, turned hastily towards the noon sun in the sky, and then back to Hyukjae.

“I understand if you don’t want to invite me in to talk, but would you agree to meet me somewhere else? To talk.”

It was a Saturday and Hyukjae had no plans.

“Fine.”

“In an hour then, would that be enough time for you? Would you meet me at the park? You know the one, with the swings and the big elm trees.” Donghae said. Hyukjae nodded.

Donghae gave him one last apologetic look before he turned to go. The man at the door watched him until he reached the top of the stairs and stopped there, his shoulders drooping and his head hung low. He paused to put up his black cloth hoodie, which Hyukjae hadn’t noticed on his jacket previously, before he began his descent down the stairs. Then he closed the door.

*

He took his time to get ready, indulging himself in a long hot shower before brushing his teeth, washing his face, and putting on a clean clothes. Thirty minutes passed. He then gathered up the clothes he’d worn the night before and tossed them into the dirty hamper, before he decided to just put the whole week’s heap into the washing machine instead.

He checked the time again. Thirty-five minutes had passed.

He made himself a simple egg and toast breakfast, which he took his time to chew and swallow. Afterwards, he rinsed and dried his dishes with a hand towel and neatly stacked them up against the wall of the bench.

Forty-five minutes. He could leave now.

He wore his black leather zippy jacket and his checkered red scarf to protect himself from the cold. It took him no more than eight minutes to arrive at the park, where he spotted Donghae sitting on one end of the white-painted, rotting wooden bench. He had his hoodie up, but pulled it down on noticing Hyukjae. They looked at each other once, and that was the only time they made eye contact. The rest of the time, they sat looking straight ahead. 

He had his feet crossed and head hung low. In his hands were two paper-cup coffees, one of which he passed to Hyukjae who accepted with a mumbled “Thanks”. It was warm in his hands.

Hyukjae had sat down near him, close enough to hear his words but not an acquainted distance. There were a few moments in which they simply sat and appreciated the quiet hum of traffic and the tepid breeze in the air.

“You said we met before.”

He saw Donghae stretch his arms with a groan in his peripheral vision before laying his arms on the back of the bench, coffee cup dangling in his hands. “Not exactly.”

“Where? How?”

“Right here, actually.” Donghae replied coolly and Hyukjae’s brows furrowed as he fought to remember. “I was hoping you would remember if we came here, but it looks like you don’t. I was doing self-portraits for free. Just a thing I do when I go from town to town. I sit down and I draw people and sometimes I give them what I draw.”

“… Oh. Well, I’m sorry I don’t remember.”

“That’s alright.” Hyukjae heard the smile in his voice. “We met, but not really. You came to the park that day and you were sitting here for the longest time by yourself. I thought you might have been waiting for someone. Without asking, I started drawing your face. We sat next to each other but you didn’t look at me once, except when I’d finished and I tried to give you the sketch. You told me you didn’t really want it and that I could keep it if I liked. Then you left.”

Hyukjae searched his memory palace. He had a vague memory of such an exchange. He nodded and took a sip of his coffee, surprised at the sweetness that accompanied the bitter taste.

“So I kept the sketch, and I’d forgotten about it until recently. You look the same, you know?” Donghae paused here to look at him briefly, as if to reconfirm. He looked forwards again. “That’s the sketch I handed to the police, and I’m sorry. Again. But I have to start from the top.”

“When I did that sketch, it was last April. I came to this town because I had a generous client here. You must have figured out already, but I’m an artist. I always have to keep moving. I don’t want to make it too easy for people to find me.”

“Why is that?”

Donghae lowered his voice now, and Hyukjae heard something akin to guilt or shame in the undertone of his next words.

“Well, the work I profit from is not largely my own... You don’t make too much money from your own works. They’re not worth anything until you’re dead and buried six feet under.” There was something tragic in the sound of his accompanied laugh. “So I have… well, I do jobs on the side. Art that’s not my own. Art that’s one of its kind and worth more money. Art done by more famous people that have been dead a lot longer than I’ve been alive… that sort of thing.”

Donghae’s voice became impossibly quieter as he spoke and Hyukjae had to strain to hear the last few words. He nodded.

“Right.”

“But it pays.” Donghae continued, some resolve restored in those words. “We don’t charge much. More than your average art gallery paintings, but enough to keep the three of us alive – my brother, and a friend of ours. It was the three of us in this business together. They were the ones who were in direct contact with the clients, kept track of them all, and ensured all the transactions went smoothly. All I had to do was supply the goods.”

“Was?”

Donghae took a little longer to formulate his reply this time, but it was long enough to unsettle Hyukjae, for the answer to doom in his mind at the same moment the reply was given to him.

“The one you were accused of murdering… that was my brother.”

“… I’m sorry.” Hyukjae said. He saw Donghae shaking his head in his peripheral vision and leaning forward to place his elbows onto his knees with a small tired sigh.

“Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault.” Hyukjae heard the straining effort that it took to sound light-hearted, and the suppressed grief in his voice. But the moment passed quickly as Donghae clapped his ink-stained hands together, as if to encourage himself to pick up the pace.

“Anyways, I was back in this town for… business. And something bad happened. Art takes time. Some clients have a deadline, some don’t and they’re happy as long as I deliver. Some artworks are a lot more difficult to… to reproduce than others. And I can’t give my clients an exact delivery date. I can only take on so many projects at a time.”

“And how does it take? For you to deliver?” It wasn’t the most relevant question, but Hyukjae was curious.

“Oh, it depends?” He said with rising intonation, it as if he were asking Hyukjae himself. “Some are no fuss, they take a few days at most. And then some take two months. It really depends.” He made a gesture with his hand to wave and dismiss the matter. “But like I said, I give them an estimate. Sometimes I’m off and they’re not very forgiving people. I’ve had plenty who have refused to pay the full agreed amount and some who have even gone so far to threaten to expose my business.”

“It… seems quite dangerous.” Hyukjae commented.

“Yes.” He replied. “I mean, yes, I understand that some of them are also people who make big money through, well, questionable means… They probably sell it off for a lot more than what I’m selling them for. But that doesn’t matter to me.” These words sounded genuine. “The problem is that the anonymity goes both ways, and that’s more than enough for me to know that it’s dangerous people I’m working with. And the kind of trouble I’ll get into if I don’t deliver.”

“I see.”

The full realisation hit him then. Hyukjae was dealing with a criminal. His back story had done nothing to allay his initial doubts and fears, and yet he couldn’t deny that Donghae was both kind and somewhat vulnerable. It was in the way his shoulders were hunched and his eyes were always careful not to be glued to Hyukjae for too long. Always a safe distance away, mindful of the other man’s personal space, but his body inclined towards Hyukjae in a way that he could reach out to him if he wanted. Looking at him, one wouldn’t think the man was the type to do anything underhanded or hurt anyone.

“So… now the relevant part.” Donghae put his hands togfether, fingers carefully touching as he kept his gaze forward. He took a deep breath in and exhaled through his next words.

“This one…  this project was meant to be due in three weeks. But I was careless. I didn’t think it would take that long. I put it aside. Two months passed and I still wasn’t finished.” Guilt strained his voice. “My brother went in with half the deposited sum to meet them and negotiate. They wouldn’t have it.”

“The deposited sum?”

“They pay half first. Then I deliver and they pay the rest.” Donghae explained. “All the exchanges happened in person.”

“… So they still have the money then.” Hyukjae extracted.

Donghae nodded.

“And Eri.”

“Eri?”

“My friend. Our friend.” Hyukjae remembered the man having mentioned three people in their small “business” together. “Donghwa didn’t come back and he wouldn’t pick up any calls, so Eri went to the agreed exchange point to find him. I shouldn’t have let her go alone.”

Donghae shook his head, like shaking away a bad dream. He pressed the heels of his palms to his forehead.

Hyukjae wanted to put a hand on his shoulder and tell him “It’s okay, it’s not your fault” but he knew the words wouldn’t sink. 

“I need a week. They gave me a week to deliver. They said they’d let her go if I did.” Donghae slowly sat straight again and turned to face Hyukjae, the plea evident in his face, his voice, his eyes. 

“I-I’ll help you.” Hyukjae found himself saying, because he wasn’t a heartless person. He even wanted to add “As long as it takes. I don’t mind. I just hope your friend is safe.” But he still didn’t know if he could fully trust this man or not.

“Thank you.” Donghae stood up and bowed, and bowed again, his head swinging so far low he narrowly missed Hyukjae’s knees. “Thank you so much, I don’t know how I could ever repay you-”

Hyukjae grabbed him to stop him from swinging up and down violently, and to stop attracting strange looks from curious passers-bys.

“No need to thank me. Just one week, right? It’s not that much. It’s not like you’re asking for my money or anything. I’m more worried about your friend. You should probably hurry back and finish that work of yours instead of wasting your time here with me.”

Donghae’s eyes glistened as he smiled and he could tell he was how truly grateful he was. He bowed one last time. “I’ll- I’ll do that. But just in case…” His hands were clumsy as he fished a pencil the length of a small teaspoon and a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket. He flattened out the paper against the grainy surface of the bench and began to write.

“What is it?” Hyukjae asked.

“The address for the motel I’m staying at.” Hyukjae looked at the name of the place. Choi’s Motel. It wasn’t that far from here, probably a ten or fifteen-minute walk. “My room number and the phone number for my room.”

“You don’t have a cell?”

“Nnnn… no.” Donghae’s pencil hovered over the paper and his eyes scanned the details before handing over the piece of paper. “Eri and my brother had a cell, but I didn’t. The only numbers they had were each other’s. We used an email for business, but I think it’s easier if you just call me if anything happens.”

“Fair enough.” Hyukjae said, slipping the paper into his own pocket. And that was it.

He had more questions for Donghae. What was the evidence he had on hand that would set him free? Why did his brother have to die? Did he think he could finish a project in a week that he couldn’t do in two months? How were they treating his friend and was there anything he could do to help?

He decided against asking such questions. They weren’t as important as the time Donghae had left on his hands.

Donghae saw the way his lips parted, the note of inquiry in his eyes and hesitated.

“Is… there anything else?”

Hyukjae closed his lips and shook his head. “No. Not for now.”

Donghae smiled and bowed once more upon turning to go, a silent thank you in his eyes. He pulled up his black hoodie and jogged away down the street.

Hyukjae watched him go before he stood up to stretch his legs and head for home himself. He picked up the empty coffee cup that Donghae had left behind and tossed both cups into the bin before heading home to wait until the day turned to night.

*