Chapter 87: Ink & Fire
00 : 07 ticks onto my phone screen as I thumb the attic's rattling space-heater off. The fan coughs once and dies, surrendering the eaves to raw winter hush. In its absence the fireworks' ghost-glow still drifts through the dormer window—green after-smoke that paints frost crystals like jade veins.
I strike a match. Sulphur flares, briefly blinding, before kissing the stub of a beeswax candle I stole from the downstairs shrine. A thin, honey-amber halo puddles across splintered boards, brushing the cardboard mausoleums of last year's receipts. My foot—still taped from the ice spiral that dumped me onto Joon-woo's workbench days ago—throbs in the sudden cold.
Circles remember what ledgers erase, I remind myself as I flip the fresh Wheel Journal open. Yet the pen I lift is my old weapon: twin-ink nib, black as audit ink on one side, red on the other. The black side descends first.
Ledger Close 2.0
Assets—nil.
Liabilities—
The nib scratches a brittle rhythm.
—97 stolen sober dawns.
—4 147 wasted heartbeats since sunset.
—12 favors I will never repay.
Breath condenses over the page like a smudged watermark. Each number steadies me, chills me, steadies me again, the way a frozen rail steadies a jumper.
Circle or column? Ha-eun's voice wafts from somewhere behind my breastbone—pine-bright, patient. She does not seize the pen. She only asks.
I tighten my grip until the cartridge creaks. Columns are safe; columns are cliffs with neat arithmetic ledges. Circles are wild rivers with no banks.
The candle gutters as if doubting me. My hand keeps writing.
—1 body, depreciating.
—492 244 followers, outstanding.
—0 friends, liquidated.
Ink pools at the period, a tiny mirror reflecting my tight jaw. A shard of neon arches across it—memory flash: Mapo Bridge, 04 : 18, rail freezing my palms. The Han below slick as black glass, ready to balance the cells I had overdrawn.
My breath rabbits. The nib hovers, dripping a second teardrop of ink. It looks astonishingly like blood.
Downstairs Madam Kang's karaoke speaker launches a trot anthem, bass thumping through the rafters. The ground-floor laughter feels two storeys and one lifetime away.
00 : 22. The attic door groans open.
"Unni, dragon on the loose," Min-ji chirps, breath puffing white. She ducks inside sideways, clutching a foil packet of tteok like a hostage and brandishing a fistful of sparklers. Her ear-muffs resemble pink sea anemones.
I snap the journal shut. "Inventory encore," I mutter.
She eyes my candlelit corner, the capped pen, the tremor I cannot hide. But Min-ji is tact itself. She just waves the rice cakes. "Madam over-ordered again. Thought you'd need midnight carbs." She sets the tteok on a receipt pyramid, then drops the sparklers beside the candle with a mischievous thunk. "We're lighting these when the ballad hits the key-change. Come downstairs or the fireworks tax collector will find you."
"I'll follow," I lie.
"Uh-huh." She scans my bandaged ankle. "Try not to hop-write any manifestos." One wink, and she's gone, laughter clattering down the stairwell.
Warmth lingers in her wake like soda fizz. For a moment I can almost taste plum sugar on my tongue, but the candle's honey replaces it, sweeter, heavier, pulling me inward again.
00 : 30. Snow whispers against the dormer. I unlatch the window and climb onto the narrow fire escape, coat flapping over pyjama pants. The courtyard below glints silver, untouched but for two figures: Madam Kang in her sequin scarf and Joon-woo in his grease-dark parka hunched over a brazier whose coals glow dragon-red. Their laughter puffs into steam halos.
I strike one of Min-ji's sparklers. Gunpowder spits, then blossoms into a fountain of gold needles that paint my palms in strobing fire. I lift it above the railing. The sparks hiss downward, but mid-arc the flame snuffs, leaving only the thin iron spine, cold and black. I tuck it behind my ear like a spent cigarette and watch the brazier below until the coals blur.
Night air slices through my coat. The ankle throbs louder. I retreat inside, latching the window against the moan of January.
00 : 45. The candle is a stub. I reopen the Wheel Journal. Black ink columns glare back—an elegant suicide dressed as bookkeeping. Every tally says erase yourself; maximise returns.
I hover the pen over the signature line: L.S.Y.
Ink is choice; fire is choice, Ha-eun murmurs.
My hand flips the pen to red—the colour of counter-entries, of guardian corrections. I cannot remember how to start a circle, but my body remembers how to shake. Tears fall first, spattering a debt line. The pooled drops melt the column's borders; one blot widens, spreading until rows dissolve into a rough, imperfect ring.
A sob escapes, half-gasp, half-laughter. "Look," I whisper, voice torn, "ledger turning."
The candle's flame flickers taller, hungry. I bring the page to its cusp. Heat licks the margin; an edge browns, then blisters. Letters curl like dry leaves. Smoke rises, ink-scented, coaxing.
But my fingers refuse surrender. I yank the sheet back. The burn halts, leaving a crescent of char along the right border, an eclipse that did not fully swallow the moon.
Ash frees itself, drifting to the floor like grey petals. I press the page flat against my chest where my pulse drums frantic syncopation.
Maybe tomorrow, the flame, I think. Maybe tomorrow, the circle will hold.
00 : 55. I fold the half-scorched sheet—two precise turns, one cautious tuck—and slip it into my inner coat pocket, ember smell still clinging. The candle dies with a soft hiss, surrendering the attic to snow-blurred starlight and the distant echo of a karaoke key-change triumphant enough to shake heaven.
I close my eyes and breathe the smoulder. "Maybe tomorrow we balance in rings."
The floorboard creaks, the heater tick-cools, and the scent of charred paper fades slowly, leaving a question suspended in the dark—ink or fire?—waiting for dawn and the brazier below.
Chapter 88: Shared Wheel
The stairwell breathes last-night kimchi and cold stone as I limp downward, one hand on the rail, the other clenched around the half-charred ledger page. Min-ji's spent sparkler—thin as a knitting needle—guides the dark ahead of me; its blackened tip pricks each shadow like a compass that has forgotten north but still remembers motion. My bandaged ankle protests every step, yet the promise in my pocket stings hotter than the sprain: Burn it or become it.
Ready? Ha-eun's presence hovers—pine on winter air, wordless for now.
A rectangle of moonlit snow waits beyond the café's back door. I shoulder it open. The courtyard lies hushed under a fresh dusting, white crust softening last night's footprints into blurred ellipses. At the centre, the brazier crouches like an iron moon, its grate a perfect wheel glowing ember-red.
Madam Kang bends over it in a quilted jacket the colour of persimmons. She pokes a coal, nodding at the hiss. "Paper ghosts cling like rice on a hot ladle," she mutters, not looking up. Then she senses me and straightens, cheeks ruddy. "Ah, Inventory Queen." She offers the iron tongs as though we rehearsed this. No question, no sermon—just partnership: You feed, I fan.
I curl gloved fingers around the cool shaft. Sparks snap approval.
Wind slips between the alley walls, trying to peel the folded page from my grip. I unfold it anyway, letting lamplight expose the black-ink columns, the scorch crescent, the ink-tear that bloomed into an accidental circle. Numbers flinch in the red glow, suddenly small.
Ha-eun waits, silent as snowfall.
I draw a breath that tastes of ash and plum smoke. "Ready?" I whisper.
Always, she answers inside, voice soft but unwavering.
I slide the page into the tongs' jaws, angle it over the coals. Heat licks upward; the paper convulses, curling like a startled moth. The columns blister first—zeros bubbling, sevens warping—then collapse into incandescent runes. In seconds nothing remains but a glowing ring of ash that drifts through the grate's spokes and settles among the embers. A perfect grey halo falling into red.
A pine-scented sigh rises in my chest—Ha-eun exhaling through me—and for a heartbeat our pulses braid. Relief, awe, something wordless.
Madam Kang fans once, satisfied. "Ledger closed?" she asks.
"Circle opened," I say, and even I am not sure whose voice that is.
She grins as though the phrase makes practical sense, then tromps to the snow pile for another scoop of leaf mulch. Her boots crunch a rhythm that feels older than the café.
I edge closer to the brazier, let the warmth seep into my ankle, into the marrow of a winter that had frozen from the inside out. Not passenger. Partner, I think. The words taste like hot persimmon—surprisingly sweet, searing the tongue.
My free hand rises to my sternum. Tap, tap. Two deliberate knuckles over the heartbeat. A new semaphore.
Aloud, I say, "Shared wheel?"
The answer surfaces through shared lips—lower timbre, measured cadence that is mine and not-mine: "Agreed." The sound vibrates through both of us—a violin string plucked at last. Madam Kang looks up, eyebrows knitting at the tiny shift in tone, then shrugs. She has heard stranger things from karaoke drunkards; partnership is cheap curiosity here.
Snowflakes wander down. Ember glow paints them crimson as they pass, then they fade to ordinary white on the ground—metric to miracle and back again.
The courtyard gate groans open, and Min-ji skids in, parka flaring like a comet tail. "I rescued the unused stash!" she announces, brandishing an entire bouquet of sparklers. "Figured Seoul regulations can't chase us this far north."
She freezes at the twin expressions on my face—one eyebrow hitching over the other, like two souls jostling for eye space—then grins wider. "Group photo in my memory, let's go!"
Madam Kang chuckles. "Light them from the Mother Coal." She shoves aside, making room.
We cluster around the brazier. Min-ji strikes a lighter; I lean my sparkler into the flame. Silver sparks roar to life, spilling bright needles that paint our coats in strobing constellations. Min-ji whoops.
I begin the countdown, voice clear—"Ten!"—and a half-beat later Ha-eun echoes through the same throat, softer but unmistakable: "Ten…" Min-ji blinks, startled delight bubbling. The sparks spit rhythm as we descend—"Nine… eight…" dual-layered, octave apart. When we reach "One!" the final spray cascades upward, dissolving into glittery steam.
Laughter follows—mine pulling from belly, Ha-eun's laced within like harmony no one has taught me. Min-ji claps, ignorant of metaphysics, thrilled by resonance. Snow hush swallows the last echoes. All that remains is coal-crackle, resin-sweet smoke, and three sets of footprints circling the brazier like petals around a core.
Madam Kang smothers the grate with a metal lid. "Café opens again in four hours," she says. "If you two—" she wags a finger between my eyes, somehow intuiting plurality—"need more midnight board meetings, keep them warm." She trudges inside.
Min-ji squeezes my elbow. "Happy real New Year, unni." She spins away, trailing a comet tail of giggles toward the front lane.
01 : 45.
The courtyard empties. I flex my toes in the bandage; ache still there, but less dictatorial. I start toward the back door, and on impulse tap my chest twice.
Your turn, I think.
Weight shifts, balance recalibrates. Ha-eun rolls the ankle carefully, choosing each step up the stairwell. Muscles obey with surprising grace, as though they have waited ninety-seven sober dawns for this choreography.
At the attic landing she gives control back—subtle ebb I feel in the breath. We exhale together, a braided ribbon of steam.
"We hold the wheel together," we say—one voice, two timbres, perfect circle. The corridor listens, quiet as blank paper.
Inside, the Wheel Journal lies open on the floorboards, its first page pristine, its margins wide enough for two hands. The candle stub waits beside it like a promise of light that will not tally anything but hours lived.
Snow whispers against the roof. Coal scent clings to my hair. And the night, only half-spent, curves forward—an endless ring inviting ink.
Chapter 89: Dual Laughter
Lamp-glow pools across the attic floor like warm milk, catching flour-dust motes still drifting from yesterday's inventory marathon. I perch cross-legged on a pillow fortress, Wheel Journal balanced on my thigh, drawing sloppy spirals—figure-eights that refuse to close because sleep keeps skipping the last loop. The walls creak each time the coal stove downstairs exhales.
Double-tap. I drum two knuckles over my sternum.
I hear, Ha-eun answers inside—pine-scented, newly bold.
"Your turn," I whisper, angling the notebook toward the lamp.
She draws breath through shared lungs. 'Circles remember what ledgers erase,' she reads aloud. The words exit our mouth in a lower, steadier register, and the room suddenly feels larger, as if two people have stepped into the single square of light.
We both giggle—one laugh layered atop the other. The echo ricochets off roof beams in stereo, then settles into a hush bright enough to taste.
Tentative wonder, check.
The stair to the storeroom groans under my taped ankle. I ease downward, clutching the rail with my left hand and a dented flour scoop with my right. Ha-eun murmurs the count of each step—One… two…—syncing breath and balance. At the landing the moth-eaten curtain flutters; Min-ji pops out, flashlight under her chin like a ghost-story gremlin.
"Caught the midnight raiders!" she crows, then squints. "Wait—were you… talking to yourself again?"
"Not exactly," I say.
Precisely, Ha-eun adds, audible this time.
Min-ji's jaw drops. "Holy split-screen, Batman! Do it again." She presses both palms together in a pleading emoji. "I swear on my phone battery I'll never leak it."
Playful embarrassment, check.
I tap twice. "Item one," I announce in my usual tone, holding up the scoop. "Five kilos of superfine flour."
Ha-eun answers at once, voice dipping an octave: 'White as first frost, light as broken oaths.'
Min-ji whoops, claps once, and slaps a neon-yellow sticky-note to the wall—hand-drawn star face. "Ten out of ten for drama!"
We keep going—rice, sesame oil, dried anchovies—cadence tightening like jump-rope partners finding shared rhythm. Each product code gets a poetic echo: 'Tiny moons in brine,' 'Seeds of late-summer thunder,' 'Silver ghosts for broth.' Sticky-notes scatter across shelving like confetti scorecards—hearts, winks, crooked crowns.
Rising hilarity, check.
The dining hall is a cavern of inverted chairs and upside-down mugs awaiting dawn. Min-ji clears a runway between tables. "Volume test!" she declares, thrusting a ladle at us like a conductor's baton.
I inhale. "Ha—"
Ha-eun leaps in, louder: "HA—"
I finish at half-whisper: "ha…"
The triple burst rattles teacups. We burst into another round—ha-HA-ha, ha-HA-ha—until echoes volley off wood-panel walls like ping-pong balls. Our lungs burn; our throat vibrates like twin guitar strings on one fretboard.
From the kitchen a muffled roar: "Either keep it down or sync it up!" Madam Kang's voice, half serious, half amused.
Boisterous freedom, check.
Flour fog drifts through the kitchen doorway where Madam Kang stands with dough-flecked arms akimbo. We straighten like guilty kids. "Good morning," I say.
Good morning, Ha-eun mirrors, half a breath behind.
The cadence is almost seamless—one ribbon of sound shading from light to deeper timbre. Kang arches a single eyebrow. "Harmony, not haunting," she pronounces. "Report back at four-thirty for rice-cake duty. If two voices can keep one rhythm, they can knead one bowl." She flicks a bit of batter at us, smiling, then disappears amid clanging pots.
Affirmation lodges warm behind my ribs.
Snow-lit back alley. Streetlamp halos catch the glitter of falling flakes; they look like stray sparks from last night's brazier. Min-ji tears open three cups of instant ramen, sets them on an upturned crate, then pours kettle water, steam billowing up like genie smoke. Garlic, soy, and packet spice punch the air.
She slurps first, then watches me. I blow on noodles. "Let us join this feast of sodium," I joke.
Ha-eun leans in on the next breath: "May our tongues survive the salt tide."
Min-ji snorts broth and nearly chokes, laughing—and she laughs with the lower voice, not at it. The acceptance slides over my skin like a quilt fresh from a line in spring wind.
Warm camaraderie, check.
We trade jokes—Ha-eun trying memes she half understands ("What does no cap mean, child?"), Min-ji translating into Gen-Z slang, me acting as embattled translator between centuries. Our laughter spirals, soft ha-HA-ha shoots of verbal sparklers, until snow begins to soak the crate and ramen cups stand empty but for sesame husks.
Back in the attic, roof creak now matches my pulse in slowed metronome. We kick off shoes, scattering crumbs of ice. Min-ji downstairs flips switches; kitchen fluorescents bloom, signalling dawn prep.
I sink onto the pillow fortress, ankle throbbing a dull reminder. Double-tap. Control yields to Ha-eun; she guides our leg onto a folded quilt, fingers massaging round the tape's edge while humming an old soldiers' lullaby—low, resonant, older than both of us.
Sleep's tide rises. I hover between layers of consciousness, listening to harmonised breath: in, out, our chest expanding like a single bellows.
"Laughter is ledger-proof," we murmur—two timbres fused on the dash:
—Laughter is ledger-proof.
The lamp clicks off. Snow-blurred moonlight dances along the rafters while, below, pots clatter and water roars into the big rice pot, tteokguk dawn assembling itself. The scent of garlic driftwood sails upward.
My eyelids surrender. In the soft dark the circle of our joined pulse keeps glowing, steady as a rice-cake ring awaiting soup, steady as the promise of morning.
Chapter 90: Rice-cake Dawn
The alarm on Min-ji's abandoned phone bleats like a mechanical baby goat somewhere inside my pillow fort. I grope until plastic meets fingertips, silence the racket, and blink at a ceiling striped by moon-soaked rafters. Everything aches in the slow, bruised way a body does after laughing too hard for too many hours. My ankle hums a dull note.
Two quick taps over my sternum: my turn?
Awake,Ha-eun answers inside, voice already stretching the ligaments from within. Warmth pulses through the swollen joint; I feel the foot roll once, gentle as a cat arching its spine. The ache retreats half a step.
I tap twice again—confirmation—and slide out of the futon. The attic's plank floor snaps with cold. Breath ribbons as I shuffle into thermal leggings, café hoodie, and the thick socks Joon-woo knitted from leftover engine-grease-black yarn. By the time I reach the stairhead, weight has shifted; Ha-eun steers the descent, every tread mapped before heel meets wood.
Sleep-blurry resolve: check.
Fluorescents buzz like beehives in the kitchen below. Steam beads on windowpanes, turning them into murky mirrors where ghost selves drift. Madam Kang stands at the central island, stockpot the size of a toddler already rolling with bone broth. The smell—garlic, marrow, a hint of pepper—wraps around me as thick as Grandma's winter quilt.
"Circle squad, you're late by three minutes," Kang barks, but the corner of her mouth lifts. She thrusts a plastic basin of warm brine at me. "Salt water therapy. Knead dough, work the ankle."
I set the basin on a prep table and plunge my hands into the heat. White rice-flour dough squishes like snow just beginning to thaw. I divide it, palm-roll ropes as thick as my thumb. Each squeak against the stainless surface is a tiny violin note.
Min-ji bounces in with a portable speaker. Synth trot floods the room, cymbals fizzing right where steam hisses from the stock. She hip-checks me. "DJ Mint reporting. Slicing beats at 120 BPM!"
I laugh; Ha-eun chuckles half a beat later, a harmony line.
Bustling, homey: check.
The ropes have cooled to the perfect firmness. I lift the cleaver, angle it forty-five degrees. Double-tap. Control flows; Ha-eun guides the first cut—chunk—diagonal, crisp. Cylinders tumble into a tray. She narrates, voice slipping through my lips in a low commentary.
"Grains pressed to patience, now coins of dawn."
Min-ji swoons theatrically. "Poetry breakfast? Yes, chef!" She matches the blade's rhythm with the track's backbeat, bumping volume each time a stack of rice-coins reaches ten. Within minutes concentric rings form in the silver pan, white moons nesting inside larger moons.
Playful concentration: check.
Stock station now. The broth roils, opaque and rich. Kang demonstrates: crack beef leg between ladle and rim, marrow clouds forth like winter sunrise bleeding into snow. My forearms cramp. Double-tap. Ha-eun takes the ladle, wrists steady, keeping hot mist off the injured foot.
"Good form, Voice Twins," Kang says. "Remember—one body, many hands." She pats my shoulder twice, echoing our cue without knowing.
Mentored confidence: check.
Garnish table. Steam fogs my glasses; scallions glitter emerald under fluorescent light. Beaten eggs drizzle into the broth, yellow ribbons swirling like solar flares. We ladle soup into ceramic bowls already lined with white coins. Seaweed threads float on top—tiny calligraphy strokes.
Min-ji sprinkles sesame seeds in spiral orbits. "Hot Saturn systems," she declares. Dual voices burst into laugh-sync—ha-HA-ha—and Kang pretends to scowl, but the corners of her eyes crinkle.
Warm levity: check.
A shrill beep-beep-beep! cleaves the merriment. The stockpot froths, volcanoing onto the burner. I skid toward the stove; the floor slicks under my boot. Panic slaps my heartbeat into double-time.
No cue, just instinct—Ha-eun slams into control, weight shifting to good foot, free hand gripping the counter. The body stabilises. She twists the dial, flame dies, spill subsides to a hiss. My chest thrums with adrenaline and gratitude.
I send two deliberate taps then a third—new signal—thank you / emergency override.
Sorry for jumping the rail, she whispers inside.
"Override acknowledged," I mutter, wiping sweat. Kang fans smoke away as if this is merely another seasoning.
Tense then reassuring: check.
Cooling racks line the service window. Joon-woo appears, toolbox forgotten, carrying a tray of extra broth, steam haloing his quiet grin. He simply nods, sets it down, checks my ankle with a mechanic's once-over glance, then vanishes into the corridor of clanks and tink. Safe to fail, safe to heal—his unspoken promise lingers like engine oil, earthy and sure.
Subtle solidarity: check.
Twenty-three bowls of tteokguk gleam beneath stainless lids. Kang ties a scarf over her curlers and points at the roof door. "Break until sunrise. Carry carefully—those rings are fortunes." She thrusts insulated jugs at me.
I slide gloved hands through handles. Rice-cake coins clink like porcelain wealth. Min-ji pockets a fistful of leftover sparklers, eyes shining.
Snow dusts the rooftop steps. My lungs draw cold that tastes of pine tar and pepper broth. First light nudges the eastern ridge—barely a bruise-pink hush, but promise enough. We step onto the tar-paper roof; to the east, the horizon sharpens, ready to ignite.
Sparklers rattle in Min-ji's coat. Ha-eun inhales alongside me; the soup's warmth seeps through my layers, a living hearth I carry.
The silver lids reflect the paling sky, each one a rising moon. Below, the kitchen exhaust fans hush, as if holding breath for the light.
I set the jugs down, rub my chest twice, then thrice—steady, grateful, prepared. Dawn is coming, and we are ringed, fed, and many-handed.
Chapter 91: Snow-Glow Sunrise
Snow crunches beneath our boots like brittle sugar as we step onto the café roof, breath puffing dragon ghosts into air that still tastes of midnight pepper broth. The tarpaper is glazed with a knife-thin sheen of ice; starlight bruises linger along the eastern ridge, holding the colour of half-healed violets. Min-ji drags three plastic milk crates into a crooked row against the parapet, then plops herself onto the middle throne. I fold stiff knees onto the right-hand crate, ankle twinging once—a reminder, not a threat.
Steam coils from two stainless thermoses balanced between us. It rises, hesitates in the windless hush, then funnels skyward like silent incense. Somewhere below, pots clatter and Madam Kang's voice ricochets off tiled walls; service countdown has begun, but here on the rooftop the morning still belongs to possibility.
I tap my sternum twice—steady palm, clear invitation. Ha-eun, already half awake inside, hums assent.
"Indigo," I begin, eyes on the horizon's thin bruise.
"Bruise softening to plum," she supplies, her words slipping through the same mouth in a lower cadence.
"Plum fading into persimmon pulp."
"Persimmon fermenting into gold yeast."
Our sentences braid, stitch, then merge until colour itself feels like breath moving through two sets of lungs. When we reach the word corona the syllables lift in perfect unison— --corona—ringing the air like the quietest gong. A pulse of reverent wonder blooms in my chest, spreads to finger-tips warming the metal thermos lid.
"Time for fireworks!" Min-ji announces, producing a sparkler bouquet from her coat like a magician pulling silver reeds. She strikes a lighter; the first stick erupts with a hiss, scattering white-hot needles that halo her grin. Against the paling sky she resembles a street-shrine goddess of mischief.
She offers me the next sparkler. I juggle the thermos to free a gloved hand. The match flares; sulfur kisses wool. A sudden gust flips the tiny flame sideways. It licks the fringe of my scarf, then fizzles, dropping an ember that lands beside our stacked tteokguk bowls.
The hiss on ice is tiny—yet loud as a gunshot in this fragile dawn. My ankle wobbles. Heart bolts.
Three fingers drum my breastbone—one, two, three—without conscious thought.
Instantly Ha-eun dives forward through nerves and sinew. Balance shifts to the good foot. Our free hand scoops snow, smothers the glowing ember before fabric can smolder. A second scoop buries the sparkler's sizzling tip; steam snakes up, smelling faintly of burnt cedar.
Only silence and frosted breath remain. Urgency exhales.
Min-ji's eyes are lunar-round. "Holy—sorry! I thought the wind died." She hugs the damp sparklers to her chest like a chastened puppy.
"It's okay," I say. Both voices chase each other, half-step out of sync—apologetic duet. We trade sheepish glances, then test the air with a tentative ha.
"HA," echoes Ha-eun.
"ha—" I finish, and the rooftop fills with fog-ball laughter, warm as kettle steam. Tension melts, drips away through tar cracks.
The sun chooses that moment to breach the ridge. Light spills in a slow yolk—peach edged by molten silver—over jagged pine silhouettes. Snowfields ignite, each flake flashing rose-gold, so bright the roof seems afloat on a sea of crushed pearls. Breath clouds bloom before our faces, brief opaque rings that widen, fade, and join the sky.
We speak together, not planning, simply arriving in the same syllable:
"The day opens like a ring."
Sound and sun lock, circle inside circle—ledger tarnish finally scoured clean.
We crack the thermos lids. Broth perfume—beef, garlic, seaweed brine—curls into dawn's cold. I cradle a ceramic bowl as if it were a hand-warmer; white rice-cake coins drift in gentle orbits, egg ribbons swirling like tiny solar flares. Min-ji slurps first and sighs so loudly the mountains might echo. My turn. Umami coats the tongue, anchoring spirit to body with umber roots.
Madam Kang's triple whistle knifes up through the stairwell grille—service in five. I tap twice, ceding control so Ha-eun can take the last sip; her appreciation thrums through our chest in a quiet, wordless purr. The ankle feels heated from inside, as if sunrise has seeped through bone.
We clatter down the narrow stairwell, bowls and crates stacked on hips. Half-way, the door below swings wide and Joon-woo appears, arms full of dented heater parts and a small jar of green-brown ointment. Metal clinks like wind chimes against his tool belt.
He tilts his chin toward the attic, a question without words. I grin; Ha-eun mirrors the expression on the same lips. Snow dust shakes from our coat sleeves as we pass.
"Warmth is on its way," I tell him—and us—and the echo that follows feels like a promise hammered into iron.
We step onto the café landing, light pooling golden ahead, and somewhere far above the roof we just left, the newborn sun keeps climbing, rounding into a perfect, unbroken ring.
Chapter 92: Knock on Wood
Aprons, still damp with dish-steam, sag from my forearms as I climb the narrow stairwell. Each step exhales a puff of frost; the January air up here feels sharp enough to etch glass. By the time I reach the attic landing my breath hangs like a pale question mark, and the bones in my ankle remember every minute spent on café tiles. I shove the door with a hip.
The attic greets me with its usual morgue chill: cardboard towers, frost-furred rafters, the silent skeletal stove that failed sometime in November. I toss the aprons onto a chair, rub gloved hands together, and prepare to endure another day of visible breath.
Knock-knock-knock. Three solid raps vibrate through the wood beam beside the door, followed by a faint clatter of metal. I swing the door back.
Joon-woo fills the threshold like a winter mountain—parka dusted in sawdust, refurbished paraffin heater slung across his back with climbing straps. A small amber jar peeks from his breast pocket, clinking softly. He offers a wordless nod, boots squeaking on the ice as he steps inside.
I tap my sternum twice—steady, grateful—and haul a storage crate aside to clear space. Welcome, Ha-eun whispers within, warm as pocketed tea.
Joon-woo lowers the heater with the reverence of a monk setting a bell. He unslings a canvas roll of tools, unfastens leather ties, and spreads wrenches and brass valves across the floorboards.
"Big upgrade," I say. He just shrugs, mouth twitching toward what might be a smile.
He kneels, sorting parts in precise constellations. Steady orbit, Ha-eun notes in low internal hum. I describe aloud what I see—"brass comet, copper moon"—and feel her matching cadence in my pulse.
The door bangs open again. Min-ji bursts in, arms heaped with quilts patterned like neon tangerines. "Emergency date décor!" she sing-songs, dropping the pile beside me. "Don't mind me. Have fun, lovebirds." A wink, then she disappears before sarcasm can thaw.
I bury a laugh in my scarf as Joon-woo's ears redden above the collar of his parka.
He pries up one warped plank, revealing splintered cedar veins. Sandpaper rasps—a dry, rhythmic hiss. The smell of fresh-opened wood floods the attic, sweet and resinous. Knock on wood, Ha-eun murmurs. The phrase hooks a memory: my knuckles tapping a bridge rail at 04 : 18, testing how much force the world could take before it shattered. A cold throb spears the back of my throat.
Two quick taps over my heart. Response instant: steady breathing, count four. Air flows again; the plank's scent fuses with present time. Joon-woo slides a replacement slat into place, taps it home with the butt of a screwdriver. The cedar holds. So do I.
He threads the final valve, wipes paraffin residue from his fingers, and looks to me. "Ready?" One word, rough as gravel rolling downhill.
I nod. He twists the dial. There's a soft click, then a hush of intake. A wedge of blue fire blossoms, deepening into a steady orange disc behind the grate. Heat unfurls across the attic like silk shaken open, smoothing the sting from my cheeks, unknotting shoulder blades. The glow paints our faces bronze, rounds every hard corner into a forgiving curve—a new circle inside this place of ledgers.
Quiet awe settles between us, punctured only by the heater's first metallic ping as metal learns warmth again.
Joon-woo rises, retrieves the amber jar, and opens it beneath my nose. Menthol pine, sharp and forest-bright. He gestures to the low stool. I hesitate; old reflex tallies cost—time, materials, care. Then I inhale resin and sit. Socks peeled, tape loosened. The salve feels cool at first touch, then radiates sunheat that seeps bone-deep. He works silently, thumbs tracing gentle spirals around swelling.
"Thank you," I say, voice small.
Thank you, Ha-eun echoes aloud, softer and lower. Joon-woo's hand stills only a second, then resumes. No question in his eyes—only acceptance that two notes can belong to the same chord.
He replaces tape with a fresh elastic wrap, screws the jar shut, and sets it beside the heater like an offering.
I pour leftover barley tea into an enamel mug, set it on the heater's top plate. Vapour wisps upward, catching orange light. Joon-woo sips first, exhales. We share the mug back and forth, words unnecessary. Outside, Madam Kang's broom swishes in practiced strokes; below, someone's hammer meets anvil in Joon-woo's empty workshop, answering the heater's subtle clang. Concordant rhythms of a building breathing.
Ha-eun ventures one audible line: "The cold withdraws its claws." Joon-woo tilts his head, almost smiling again.
When the tea is gone, he unhooks a palm-sized disc carved from oak—two concentric rings etched with a knot design. He hangs it on the heater's knob. "Luck," he says, voice no louder than kettle steam. Then he knocks the door jamb three times—soft but certain—and disappears down the stairs.
Heat hums steady now, a low choir note. I haul Min-ji's quilts over to the mattress, sink into them, ankle cradled in menthol warmth. The carved charm twirls once, catching firelight, throwing a spinning halo onto the ceiling rafters.
Somewhere under the pillow my phone buzzes, once, twice, then rapid-fire—a swarm of notifications climbing. The heater's orange circle reflects on the black screen, flaring each time the counter ticks upward. I let it buzz for now, eyes on the widening halo overhead.
—We'll face the noise warm, this time.
The heater agrees with a gentle ping as the metal settles, and the attic, finally, feels like somewhere a future might grow.
Chapter 93: Warm Inside
Heat wraps the attic in a lazy embrace, humming from the paraffin stove like a distant hive. I wake inside that hum, blankets piled to my chin, ankle tingling pleasantly beneath pine-salve gauze. Through half-lidded eyes I spot the phone where it slid across the floor during my nap: screen upside-down, notification light pulsing. One-three-seven alerts and climbing.
I tuck the device into my coat pocket—out of sight, not yet out of mind—and let the heater's orange ring claim my view instead. The grate flickers; shadows circle the rafters as if tracing a private orbit.
First true thaw, Ha-eun murmurs, voice low, content.
A single knock—soft but sure—echoes off the doorframe. No three-tap alarm, only an engineer's test for solid timber.
"Come in," I call.
Joon-woo shoulders inside, cheeks pink from courtyard chill, lidded pot cradled in gloved hands. Two wooden bowls dangle from a strap across his wrist like twin bells. Without a word he crouches beside the heater, checks the fuel valve, and offers a brief thumbs-up. Confidence in orange steel. Confidence in us.
He unwraps quilts into a makeshift picnic ground. Steam ghosts from the pot lid when he cracks it—rich, gamey, wood-smoke sweet.
Juniper… iron… thawing moss, Ha-eun catalogues, lingering on each scent the way a jeweller weighs stones.
I repeat the trio aloud. "Your soup smells like juniper, iron, and thawing moss."
The side of Joon-woo's mouth tilts. "Mountain pantry." He ladles cloudy broth into the bowls; radish moons bob among strips of venison dark as wet bark.
We sit cross-legged on opposite quilts, knees nearly touching. I cradle the bowl; warmth seeps through wool cuffs into my wrists. The first sip is velvet salt, followed by the subtle bite of pine needles. My stomach, which has lived on staff meals and adrenaline, jolts awake.
"You hunt?" I ask.
He nods. "Snare lines above the quarry road." After a pause, he adds, "Only enough." Words as sparse as winter branches, but honest.
I tell him about the café's ill-fated holiday stew—how Min-ji substituted gochujang for tomato paste and dyed the potatoes lipstick red. He huffs a small laugh that ruffles steam between us.
Silence stretches, but it's a woven-blanket kind, soft and breathable. Ha-eun stays quiet, observing through shared senses yet letting the moment belong to skin and tongue, not ledger and caution.
Mid-spoonful, a drop of broth escapes, pattering my sleeve. Joon-woo reaches with a handkerchief, dabs the spot. His fingers graze my wrist—calloused warmth, cedar-scented. Two heartbeats drum in my throat. The instinct to tally this gesture as a favour owed flares, then dissolves in heater glow. I smile instead—nothing added, nothing subtracted.
Good choice, Ha-eun whispers.
The phone, forgotten in my pocket, vibrates against ribs. Buzz-buzz-buzz—urgent, insectile. Bridge rails flash in peripheral memory, neon reflecting on black water. Breath hitches; I two-tap.
Breath slows to a four-count under Ha-eun's steady metronome. Joon-woo notices—not the taps, but the ripple of tension—sets his bowl down. "After lunch," he says, voice gravel-soft. "Storm can wait."
I nod. "After lunch."
Soup dwindles; bowls reveal woodgrain spirals at their centers, tiny galaxies. Steam fogs the attic window, drawing ghost circles on the glass. Between sips, Joon-woo recounts the first snow-hare he trapped at age eleven: how he released it when he saw its eyes the colour of twilight, too beautiful for a snare. The story is thirteen words long, yet I feel the whole forest around it—snow hush, rabbit heartbeat, small boy's mercy.
I tell him how I used to measure a post's virality by the noise of incoming likes—how that noise drowned out pulse and hunger both. He listens, not flinching when Ha-eun adds, Silence tastes better than metrics. If he's surprised by the layered voice, he shows it only by tipping his head, as though tuning to a new frequency.
The last broth mouthful slides down, warming my belly like a coal wrapped in velvet. Joon-woo sets his empty bowl on its side and draws a folding knife. On the rim's underside he carves a tiny check mark. "Your bowl," he explains. "IOU—one safe meal."
I trace the shallow groove. "Payment accepted."
And interest rejected, Ha-eun notes approvingly.
We rise; quilts rustle. Joon-woo packs pot and ladles, taps the heater casing once—"good fire"—then shoulders the bundle. At the door he pauses. "Face phone tomorrow," he says. Not a question, but a pact.
"Tomorrow," I agree. Ha-eun echoes the word in sync— —Tomorrow.
He nods, descends the stairs. Moments later his hammer finds metal in the workshop below, a rhythmic counterpoint to the stove's low hum.
I settle into quilts, ankle tucked beneath fleece. The attic smells of venison, cedar, and paraffin—ingredients of a new hearth. The phone trembles in my pocket again. I fish it out, place it on the wooden floor near the heater where orange light flares across its black glass. Icons ripple in the glow, tally climbing like frost crystals growing—141… 149…
The device buzzes once more, skittering slightly, a moth butting a lantern. I watch the circle of reflected flame shimmer on the screen, then pull another blanket to my chin and let the moth continue its dance—outside the ring, outside this moment.
Warmth anchors me. The storm can wait.
Chapter 94: Promise of Spring
The paraffin stove drones like a drowsy bumblebee while dawn pours diluted apricot through the dormer. I reach for my phone, already vibrating against the quilt, and squint at the lock screen.
211 notifications.
My pulse stutters, expecting digital shrapnel. I thumb the screen anyway. Messages unfurl—mostly café regulars: "That tteokguk saved my hangover, boss!" … "Tell Soup Sorceress the heater video was wholesome af." … "When are you streaming recipe tests?" A thread of warmth coils where dread used to roost.
Not a firing squad,Ha-eun notes, airy with relief.
I smile at the heater's orange glow, letting compliments settle like fresh grounds in a French press.
Downstairs, milk steam hisses over trot radio. Min-ji leans over the espresso machine, looping a video of a swan drawn in micro-foam. "Unni, admit it—we need a certified foam queen," she declares, swirling an imaginary wand.
"A certificate is just paper," I tease.
"Paper that doubles your hourly," she counters, wagging a spoon. The idea flares—bright, implausible, delicious. Numbers without debt.
In the cramped office nook I open the browser. SCA Foundation Barista: 35-question written, 4-drink practical, milk temp 55-65 °C, espresso yield 1 : 2 in 25-30 s.
Friendly ratios,Ha-eun murmurs. Circles of extraction, not ledgers of loss.
I tap the desk, excitement fizzing like crema blooming under a portafilter.
Passing the kitchen hatch, I read extraction times aloud. Madam Kang, elbows deep in dough, arches a brow. She disappears, returns with a folded brochure—dated but pristine. "Exam is in Seoul end of March," she says. "I'll cover half the fee if you draft a study calendar by Monday. Deal?"
I wipe flour dust from the pamphlet. "Deal."
"Good. Spring menu needs certified hands."
Her approval lands warmer than the stove upstairs.
Workshop resin and steel scents greet me. Joon-woo crouches over a gearbox, sleeves rolled, forearms road-mapped with scars. I pretend to borrow a screwdriver; words about the certification slip out with the same tremble as fresh espresso.
He studies me, then rummages in a crate and produces two items: a weather-beaten study booklet, corners gnawed, and a restored hand-grinder whose crank spins smoother than song. He offers them without speech. Our fingertips brush; the contact is a quiet promise louder than any cheer.
Evening stacks lavender against the windowpanes. Heater hum blankets the attic; bean oil and cedar mingle as I season the grinder. On the Wheel Journal's first clean spread, I draw a circle, divide it like a compass rose: Aroma, Extraction, Milk, Service. No columns, no minus signs. Only rings.
Numbers belong in heat and grams,Ha-eun affirms, letting me hold the pen alone.
The phone buzzes again, but this time it's Min-ji launching a meme quiz: SPELL CREMA OR CRÈME BRÛLÉE, QUICK! I laugh, texting back answers while plotting study blocks around shift schedules and ankle rehab.
Snowmelt plinks from gutter to courtyard. I climb the fire-escape for air that smells faintly of thawing earth and burnt milk. Streetlight halos shimmer in wet patches—early confetti for spring. I tap my chest twice; Ha-eun's presence circles, quiet and ready.
We breathe the cold together, relish the heater's exhalation drifting through the open dormer.
—"Forward," we whisper in unison.
Somewhere below, the espresso machine backflushes with a satisfied sigh, and water — drop by deliberate drop — ticks toward tomorrow's bloom.
Chapter 95: Crane over Han
Golden dusk drapes Mapo Bridge in molten copper, as if the Han itself has risen to polish every rail. I match my pace to Joon-woo's long strides along the pedestrian lane, the river's winter wind tugging at our coats but never quite slipping past the heater-warmth still folded in my pockets: the study notes, the hand-ground beans for tomorrow's calibration, and the small steel tamper he asked me to carry without explanation.
Traffic hum vibrates through the concrete under our soles. Above it, the hiss of his thermos cap twisting open sounds like espresso releasing trapped ghosts. Steam rises—dark-roast, cedar, and the faint paraffin whisper that has become the scent of sanctuary. He passes the cup my way. I sip. Bitter edges, honey center. Exactly sixty-five degrees, if my tongue has learned anything from six weeks of drills.
Bridges count heartbeats, Ha-eun muses inside, gentle, observant.
My fingers wrap the railing's chill metal. Mid-span: the precise point where neon once dissolved into riverwater, where ledger ink told me liquidation was solution. The steel is cold, but it no longer feels like invitation to plunge. It is simply a rail, smudged with city grime and sunset glow.
Column dissolved; circle endures, she whispers.
"Ledger closed; account alive," I answer aloud. The words drift away on wind, leaving calm behind. Across the water, apartment windows ignite one by one—tiny furnace doors swinging open for evening.
A hush descends so complete I hear my own blood: steady, no arithmetic in its rhythm. Then a wing-beat breaks the stillness. High overhead, a lone crane glides westward, neck outstretched, sails catching amber light. At the far bank a construction crane swings in slow counter-arc, hoisting rebar like thread for a loom. Flight and building share the same silhouette, sky writing itself a future in two dialects.
Joon-woo follows my gaze. He digs in his satchel and produces the mystery tamper: palm-sized, satin-steel, its base engraved with concentric rings that shimmer like ripples struck by invisible pebbles. He balances it on the rail between us.
"New tool," he says. Two syllables, weightier than paragraphs.
I pick it up; metal holds a whisper of his body heat. Rings catch the sun, reflecting circles onto my gloves, the rail, his cheekbone. "I'll use it for the exam," I promise.
A small nod. Commitment accepted.
The phone in my coat chirps—Min-ji's custom whistle. I tap the screen. Voice note bursts out, all bubble and confetti: "Café passed inspection! Kang ma'am says don't slack, Certified-Soon-To-Be! Latte-art station reserved at six tomorrow. Woo-hoo!" In the background Madam Kang bellows, "Foam not flub!" before the recording ends.
I laugh, tuck the phone away. Community sounds like a safety net now, not a jury.
We watch the river awhile. Headlights crawl across the upstream bridge; the water mirrors them in broken gold bands. Where I once saw a bleach-clean slate, I now see conveyor belts—currents carrying silt, stories, thaw water, and the stubborn promise of cherry buds swelling beneath bark.
"I used to call this view Version Zero," I confess. "Erase everything, start clean."
Joon-woo leans an elbow on the rail, eyes on the crane fading into violet sky. "Version One, then."
"Yes. And counting."
Increment, not subtraction, Ha-eun agrees, but she leaves the thought soft, letting me shape the rest.
The thermos empties. Sunset slides toward ink. Neon signs flicker alive behind us, painting our shadows green and pink on the path. I slip the tamper into my coat, its warmth settling over my pulse like a second heartbeat.
"We choose flight," we say together—my voice and Ha-eun's melded, seamless. The sentence hovers, then drifts downstream with the cold breath of the Han.
We turn toward the city lights, shoes scuffing concrete in unhurried cadence. Somewhere below, river ice cracks in delicate applause; somewhere ahead, milk wands hiss and grinders whirr, rehearsing for dawn. Each step away from the mid-span rail feels less like departure and more like lift.
Behind us, the bridge lamps blink on, circling the roadway in patient rings—guidelines for anyone still searching for a way across.