The drive back from the memorial park was quiet. Hanbin leaned his head against the car window, his eyes closed as he watched the blurred streetlights of Seoul flicker across his face. Beside him, I kept my hands folded in my lap, resisting the urge to reach out. I could still feel the phantom chill of his skin against mine from when I'd touched his hand at the park.
He had pulled away so slowly, so carefully, as if he were afraid that if he moved too fast, he might shatter—or worse, that I might.
"We're here," Jeonghan said softly, pulling the car up to the curb in front of the restaurant. He looked at me through the rearview mirror, his usual playful spark replaced by a look of immense gratitude. He didn't say it, but I knew he was thanking me for bringing his friend back from the ledge.
Hanbin opened his eyes. He looked at the glowing neon 'D' of our sign, then at the darkened windows of the restaurant.
"I should go home," he muttered, though he didn't move to open the door.
"You're not going to an empty apartment to eat convenience store ramen on a day like today," I said, my voice firmer than I felt. "Uncle and Doyoon are waiting. They made a special stew. No celebration, Hanbin. Just dinner. Between friends."
He hesitated, his gaze dropping to his bandaged hands. Then, with a sigh that seemed to drain the last of his resistance, he stepped out of the car.
The moment we stepped inside, the bell chimed, and the warmth of the restaurant hit us like a physical embrace. The air smelled of ginger, garlic, and the rich, earthy scent of doenjang-jjigae.
"They're here!" Doyoon's voice boomed from the kitchen.
My brother skidded into the dining area, stopping just short of tackling Hanbin. He looked at Hanbin's face—pale, tired, and shadowed—and his usual high-energy greeting died in his throat. Doyoon might be a dork, but he had a strange intuition for people's hearts.
"Hyung," Doyoon said quietly, bowing with a maturity I rarely saw in him. "Glad you came. The table is ready."
Uncle Dohyun emerged from the back, wiping his hands on his apron. He didn't make a scene. He didn't mention the birthday, or the police station, or the blood on Hanbin's knuckles. He just walked over and patted Hanbin's shoulder.
"Sit, son. You look like you've been fighting the wind all day. Eat first."
We sat at the large round table in the back—the one we usually reserved for family. Uncle had prepared a spread that was comforting but simple. There were no bright decorations, no cake, no singing. Just bowls of steaming rice and a large pot of stew.
Hanbin sat stiffly, looking overwhelmed by the domesticity of it all. This was a boy who lived in code and shadows; the bright, noisy reality of a family kitchen was a foreign language to him.
"Here," I said, placing a bowl of soup in front of him. "It's good for the cold."
He picked up his spoon with his bandaged hand, his movements stiff. I watched him out of the corner of my eye. I saw him take the first sip, saw the way his shoulders dropped just a fraction of an inch as the warmth hit his system.
"It's good," he whispered, looking at Uncle. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me," Uncle said, serving Doyoon a massive helping of beef. "In this house, anyone who protects Danoh is family. And family doesn't thank each other for dinner."
The conversation was light. Doyoon talked about a school project, carefully avoiding any mention of Harin (though I saw Hanbin's eyes flicker with a ghost of amusement at Doyoon's nervousness). I talked about Jiyoon and the university gossip. We created a bubble of normalcy around Hanbin, a protective layer that allowed him to just be without the weight of his "Ice Prince" title.
But as the meal progressed, I noticed Hanbin's gaze drifting to the empty chair at the head of the table—the one where my parents would have sat. He looked at me, then at the chair, and I knew he was thinking about the empty chair at his own table five years ago.
For a moment, our eyes met. There was no static, no logic gates, just a shared understanding of what it meant to have a hole in your life that never quite fills up.
"I used to hate the sound of people laughing while I was eating," Hanbin said suddenly, his voice so quiet the others didn't hear. He was looking only at me. "It felt... disrespectful. Like the world was moving too fast while I was stuck."
"And now?" I asked.
He looked at Doyoon, who was currently trying to balance a cherry tomato on his nose to make Uncle laugh. He looked at the steam rising from the soup.
"Now," he said, his voice a bit steadier, "it just feels like... a different kind of quiet. A good kind."
He didn't reach for my hand. We weren't there yet. We were two broken systems trying to find a way to interface without crashing. But as he took another bite of the food my family had made for him, I realized that the distance between us had changed. It wasn't a wall of ice anymore. It was just a small gap, waiting for the right line of code to bridge it.
When dinner was over, Hanbin stood up to leave. He looked better—not "fixed," but less like a ghost.
"I'll walk you to the door," I said.
We stood on the sidewalk for a moment. The city was humming around us, but here, under the 'D' sign, it was quiet.
"Hanbin," I said as he turned to go.
"Yeah?"
"Happy... well, just... I'm glad you were born," I said, stumbling over the words. "Because if you weren't, I wouldn't be standing here tonight."
He looked at me for a long time. The wind caught his hair, and for the first time, I saw a tiny, almost imperceptible curve at the corner of his mouth. It wasn't a full smile, but it was the start of one.
"Goodnight, Danoh-ya," he said.
He walked away into the dark, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders squared. He wasn't the boy who had sat on the stone bench earlier. He was Hanbin again—the reliable, silent, brilliant boy who had saved me.
I watched him until he disappeared, then I went back inside and locked the door. For the first time in a long time, the silence of the apartment didn't feel lonely. It felt safe.