After that first awkward day filled with nothing but silence, they hiked like that often. Not always speaking. Sometimes Minho would ask him about his calligraphy, and he would reply with quiet metaphors.
"Ink is like water from the heart. It only settles where it is allowed," he said one day, offering no explanation as to the meaning behind his words.
Minho remembered that moment with vivid clarity. They had stopped beneath a towering old pine, its bark cracked with age, the trunk thick enough to shelter a small family from rain. The fog had lifted just enough for sunlight to filter through in pale bands, casting a gold-tinged glow on Jiho's cheekbones and the curve of his jaw. He had spoken the words as if quoting something ancient, something passed down through generations. Minho did not ask what it meant. He simply let the sentence settle around him like incense smoke.
He had always thought of ink as something utilitarian. Something used to sign documents, underline reminders, make lists. But Jiho made ink into a ritual. A language beyond grammar. Each time Minho visited his small workspace tucked behind the shrine, he was drawn first not to the writing, but to the materials. There was a stone for grinding ink, smoothed from years of use, blackened in the middle and stained along its edges. There were brushes with wooden handles, some wrapped with thread for better grip, the bristles stained in varying hues of charcoal, obsidian, and plum.
The paper, hanji, was made from mulberry trees. Jiho explained once that he harvested the bark himself during winter, boiled and dried it, then pressed it into sheets using a process older than memory. Each page was irregular and imperfect, full of tiny veins and shadows. The fibers caught the light like silk. When Jiho placed his brush against the surface, there was no hesitation. His movements were fluid and slow, each stroke deliberate, like he was revealing something already there, something waiting just beneath the surface.
Minho would watch, seated nearby on a cushion padded with rice husks, the scent of pine oil and dried herbs lingering in the air. Sometimes he brought roasted chestnuts or sweet rice puffs wrapped in paper from Halmeoni's kitchen. They would eat in silence. He came to understand that Jiho's quiet was not an absence of thought but a kind of listening. A tuning into everything most people ignored.
He liked that Jiho did not explain things. Letting meaning float between them. Delicate and unforced. Like mist curling around pine boughs.
There were no sudden revelations between them. No declarations. Their closeness grew in small, wordless ways. The way Jiho would brush a stray pine needle from Minho's hair with careful fingers, lingering just long enough to send a shiver down his spine without crossing a line. The warmth of Jiho's hand stayed with him longer than he admitted, even to himself.
Or the nights when they sat side by side on the wooden porch, knees touching lightly, watching the moon rise behind the clouds. Jiho would trace patterns on Minho's soft palms with a calloused fingertip, a touch both soothing and electric. Each circle, each line, seemed to speak a quiet question or perhaps an offering. He never asked what the shapes meant. He just allowed himself to feel them.
The porch overlooked a narrow stream that murmured softly through the village. Some nights, the stream was louder than their thoughts, rushing with melted snow and rainwater. Other times, it moved slowly, gently, as if carrying secrets too fragile to be heard. The scent of water and pine and burning charcoal filled the air, and somewhere in the distance, a dog would bark once and then fall silent again.
There was a small clay stove beside them, where Jiho often boiled tea. The leaves were always different — chrysanthemum, barley, jujube. Jiho never explained what he chose or why. But Minho always tasted something unexpected. Sometimes a hint of citrus at the end. Sometimes something smoky and grounding. Once, a brew so floral it made his throat tighten and his eyes water. Jiho noticed, smiled slightly, and handed him a candied ginger root without speaking.
Every part of Jiho's life seemed shaped by attention. Not just to beauty, but to what beauty hid behind — effort, patience, care. Minho found himself slowing down, learning to mirror that presence. He stopped checking his phone. He left his watch in the drawer. He measured his days not by time but by temperature, wind, light, and the weight of fog on the windows.
There were moments when he thought he might say something. Something about how the silence felt like a language only they spoke. How the quiet between them felt full, not empty. But each time, he stopped himself. It felt enough to simply exist near Jiho. Not to define what it was.
One evening, after a long hike into the forest, Jiho surprised him by showing a hidden glade. It was surrounded on all sides by ancient trees, their trunks covered in thick moss, their roots twisted like the limbs of sleeping dragons. In the center, a single stone lantern stood, its surface cracked, the top slightly tilted. Someone had left a red ribbon tied to it. Jiho didn't say who. He just sat on the ground and closed his eyes, his breath even and slow.
Minho sat beside him, their knees brushing, and let his body echo that stillness. The air was cool but not cold. The smell of the earth was rich and dark. A bird called out somewhere overhead, a note that sounded almost like longing.
Later that night, they returned to the garden house. Jiho lit the candles around the porch, their flames casting golden halos against the wooden beams. The wind picked up slightly, carrying with it the scent of mugwort and pine smoke. Shadows danced along Jiho's face, softening the sharpness of his features, giving him the look of a character from an old tale.
Minho sat cross-legged, watching Jiho from across the table. He felt the distance between them like a thread pulled taut — delicate, trembling, but unbroken. Jiho caught his gaze and smiled. Not wide, not theatrical. Just the kind of smile that said, I see you. I see all of you.
And for once, Minho did not look away.
That night, when they parted, Jiho brushed his fingers against Minho's wrist, a touch so brief it could have been imagined. But it wasn't.
Minho went to bed with the warmth still blooming in his skin. Outside, the mist thickened again. It curled against the window, soft and insistent, like a memory returned.
He slept with the scarf still around his neck.
And dreamed of ink, drifting across paper, forming words he could not read but somehow understood.