Archive of Our Own

The notepad had forty-nine pages used. One of those pages Kim Dokja had torn out and delivered to the landlord of an old building on Samgakji-ro, whose office sat fifteen blocks away.

This building stood four floors high with no elevator, sitting in the shadow of Yongsan Garrison and the Ministry of Defense. Food stalls and cheap eateries lined the streets. Their propane burners pushed fried garlic and sesame oil into the air from dawn until past midnight. That smell had soaked into the stairwell concrete, thick in Dokja’s nose on every flight up. The overhead light on the fourth floor had been dead when he arrived and was still dead. His landlord kept a telephone on his desk and answered it when it rang, but Dokja couldn't make a telephone call. His letter sitting on that desk had been read by no one, so the stairwell stayed dark.

On a Tuesday in October 1991, Dokja carried a box up those stairs and set it down outside apartment 401 to catch his breath. His arms shook. Four boxes had gone up before this one, and the fifth held paperbacks, some repaired with binding glue at the bookshop where he worked. Before opening the door, he touched his coat pocket twice. The notepad was there. The pen was clipped to the collar. He touched them again after unlocking and again after stepping inside. Three checks in ten seconds; a habit he had kept since he left his aunt's house at fourteen to live alone.

The door across the hallway opened. Apartment 402. A man stepped out, and Dokja's breath caught in his throat. Though, as always, the catch made no sound.

The man was broad across the shoulders. A black shirt pulled tight across his chest and back, the sleeves rolled above the elbow to expose forearms roped with muscle and faint burn scars from the stove. The waist narrowed, and the taper from shoulder to hip created a shape that Dokja's eyes followed without deciding to follow. Dokja traced him from top to bottom in one second before their eyes met. He quickly redirected his attention to the box.

The man's face was the most handsome you had ever seen. Had a sharp jaw. Eyes were polished black gems, set deep beneath thick brows. If he didn't live in a cheap building, Dokja would have guessed him a man on a drama poster. The man regarded Dokja, who looked exhausted, for two seconds. Then without a word he picked the box up, carried it into apartment 401 and set it beside the other four against the wall. He came back out, looking at Dokja once more.

Smiling a little, Dokja raised his right hand. He kept his fingers flat with his thumb resting against his palm, touching his chin before pushing outward toward the man. This was the formal suhwa¹, sign language gesture for thank you.

The man just frowned, went back inside room 402 and closed the door. The gesture went unacknowledged.

Dokja kept his eyes on the door, but it stayed closed.

His gaze went blank as his fingers drifted to the base of his neck on their own, pressing into the cartilage, seeking the slight ridge where the nerve had died more than twenty years ago. He pressed and pressed until he felt the familiar hollow space where his voice used to live.

He’s like me….

Or rather, for a moment, he wanted him to be.

*

The next day, Dokja came home from work and found the first volume of Ways of Survival in a Ruined World on the floor outside his door.

A yellow post-it stuck to the back cover. The handwriting left deep grooves beneath the ink. Whoever wrote it had pressed the letters hard into the paper rather than just writing them.

–You dropped this

Dokja wrote his reply beneath the note.

–Thank you. The book is very important to me

He stood holding the post-it, rereading his own handwriting and turning the note over to check the back for a different message. Then he stuck it to the door of apartment 402. Dokja wasn't completely sure the man from 402 was the one who had written it, but he did it anyway. Trusted his instinct.

An hour later he checked and the paper was gone. The 402 guy had taken it inside. The small acknowledgement loosened a knot in Dokja's chest.

In Korea, when a person moves into a new neighborhood, it is customary to introduce oneself by sharing food. Dokja knew this because his aunt had once carried doenjang jjigae² to the doors.

Dokja made gyeran jjim ³, the simplest dish, and carried it to the door of apartment 402 with a note beside the bowl. He stood in the hallway after placing the tray, adjusting the bowl's position twice, straightening the note so it sat parallel to the rim.

–Kim Dokja, 401. I just moved in. This is my greeting. Please accept it

He knocked twice then retreated to his own room before the man opened the door.

An hour later a knock came at his door. A tray sat on the floor outside apartment 401. A bowl of kimchi jjigae⁴, still steaming. Beside the bowl, a post-it.

–Yoo Joonghyuk, 402. Your dish was good. This is my greeting. Please accept it

Dokja ate the kimchi jjigae standing at his counter. The broth was a deep red, thick enough to coat the spoon. The pork belly took on the fermented heat while keeping its own flavor distinct. Damn. A real chef had made this. Dokja's own gyeran jjim looked like a convenience store bento beside it.

At least, he had gone to apartment 402 delivering a dish and come back with a name. Yoo Joonghyuk. Three syllables. Sharp like his handwriting. Dokja had gotten exactly what he went for.

He washed the bowl, dried it, held it for a moment before running his thumb along the rim where the owner's mouth had probably been.

*

This was the logic that brought him to the door of apartment 402 a few days later: First, Kim Dokja needed to return the bowl, and second, he had bought eggs in bulk at the mart on the corner. The old woman who ran the place gave him a discount if he took the carton with the cracked ones. Cracked eggs meant he had to cook them the same day.

Yoo Joonghyuk looked at him through the crack in the door. His fingers curled inward in a slow beckoning motion, and he stepped back to let Dokja enter.

If Dokja purchased an excess of eggs, Joonghyuk acquired too much daikon.

So that became the first day they cooked together, in Joonghyuk's kitchen. Dokja beat eggs for gyeran jjim in a stainless steel bowl. Joonghyuk was cutting daikon radish into cubes. A portable butane stove sat on the counter beside a single gas burner, the blue flame hissing beneath a dented aluminum pot.

The kitchen was narrow enough that the angle brought them within arm's reach. When Dokja paused his whisking for three full seconds, it was because Joonghyuk moved behind him to reach the stove. He passed so close through the space between Dokja's spine and the counter that Dokja caught a sudden whiff of him. Joonghyuk smelled of sesame oil from the soup, but underneath it was the scent of plain soap and the stifling heat of a body working over a stove. The aroma arrived and departed in the span of Joonghyuk’s passage, and Dokja held his breath for a second before releasing it.

Ten minutes later, Joonghyuk set two bowls on the counter. He pointed at the empty bowl, then at Dokja’s steamed egg on the stove. He held up one finger, turned his palm flat, and pressed it firmly downward. ‘Wait one minute.’

Dokja nodded. When the timer chimed, he spooned the delicate gyeran jjim into the waiting bowl. Joonghyuk, in turn, placed a bowl of bugeoguk ⁵, soup that many Koreans make on tired evenings, in front of Dokja. As Dokja ate it, the trembling in his hands from the chill outside gradually stilled. He sat beside Joonghyuk and allowed himself a single glance. It lasted less than a second before Dokja looked away.

Dokja glanced around apartment 402. The room was spare like his own; a single bed with a gray blanket, wooden furniture, a shelf. But what caught his eye was the small table by the wall. A photograph sat there, propped upright: a girl, seven or eight, with pigtails and a wide smile. She stood at the entrance of a building with a sign Dokja couldn't read from this angle. In front of the photograph, a single bowl and spoon rested on the table.

Joonghyuk followed his gaze, then reached over and set the photograph face-down on the table.

….

Once they finished eating, Dokja washed both bowls. Joonghyuk held up his hand, palm flat, and pressed it downward once. ‘Stay.’

Dokja stayed.

They sat together while the water dried on the bowls. Dokja set his pocket notepad down and raised his right hand. His fingers flowed through jihwa⁶, the manual Hangul alphabet. ㄱ. ㅏ. ㅁ. ㅅ. ㅏ. He was fingerspelling gamsa. Gratitude.

He looked at Joonghyuk expectantly.

Joonghyuk had been watching. His gaze slowly moved from Dokja’s hand to his face as his hands remained on the table, fingers slightly curled. He made no move to sign anything back.

A long moment passed. The refrigerator ran loud in the kitchen.

Dokja felt the understanding drop into his stomach like a cold stone. He wrote on his notepad.

–You didn’t learn sign language

Joonghyuk read it. He took the pen. His writing was slower.

–No teacher

Dokja looked from the words to Joonghyuk’s face. The man’s jaw was set, his eyes fixed on the notepad. There was no self-pity in the expression.

Sorry, Dokja wrote, but immediately scratched it out, the ink blotting. He wrote instead:

–We can use this

Joonghyuk nodded. He pointed at the notepad, then at Dokja, then made a vague gesture at the space between them. ‘Okay.’

A question crystallized in Dokja’s mind. He wrote.

–You were born silent?

Joonghyuk nodded.

Dokja wrote, tapping his own chest.

–Me, lost my voice at five. I learned sign language from books

Dokja had been lucky to find the sign language books on a shelf in the district library, sandwiched between foreign language dictionaries and medical texts. He checked them out one by one, drilling the hand shapes under a single desk lamp until his fingers ached. Practicing in the mirror, he watched his own hands form words no one in his life could read.

Joonghyuk made a gesture Dokja had never seen in any book. He touched his own temple with two fingers and swept his hand outward, palm open, fingers splayed. He brought both hands in front of his chest, his fingers moving in a complex dance. A pointing finger circled. A flat hand chopped downward. A fist tapped against his opposite palm. He looked at Dokja, head tilted, asking, ‘Do you see?’

Dokja understood. Like many mute children in Korea, Joonghyuk had probably been placed in regular classrooms because he was not deaf, and had never been given access to learn. He had grown up in a home where no one taught sign language so he had built his own. A home sign.

Dokja wrote.

–You made your own sign language

Joonghyuk gave a single nod and took the pen. His writing was even slower now, carving the words.

–Yes. Mine is informal

Dokja replied.

–Home sign. It’s still a real language

Joonghyuk read that and looked at Dokja, dark eyes unreadable. He reached out and very gently, with the tip of his index finger, tapped the sentence Dokja had just written. He left his finger there for a moment, resting on the word ‘real’.

Dokja picked up the pen again.

–Teach me one of your signs

Joonghyuk considered him. He held up his right hand, palm facing Dokja. He curled his fingers into a loose cradle as if holding something small. Then he brought his hand to his chest, over his heart, and held it there.

–What does it mean?

Joonghyuk took the pen. He wrote a single word.

–Book

The thing Dokja handled all day. In Joonghyuk’s private language, the word for book was a hand shaped like a protective shell, held against the heart.

Dokja felt something crack open inside him. He simply reached out, and with his own hand, he carefully mimicked the gesture.

When Dokja’s hand fell back, Joonghyuk gave another definitive nods, like he was granting permission to use a word from his private world.

Joonghyuk wrote.

–You like books

Dokja nodded as he wrote.

–Yes. I work at a bookshop

–Is it the one on the corner with the green awning?

–Yes. You know it?

–I pass it. Early mornings. I see someone moving inside

True. Dokja did roll up the metal grate of the bookshop at six. The gray street outside was always deserted at that hour, save for the distant clatter of a pojangmacha ⁷ folding its orange tarps.

–That’s probably me. Doing inventory. By the way, your cooking is really good

–I work as a cook. At Murim Garden

Murim Garden was a Korean-Chinese restaurant nearby, known for its Murim Dumplings.

–Your dumplings are famous. You must be a well-known cook

Joonghyuk read it and, for the first time, a tightening at the corner of his eye.

–They come for the dumplings. Not for me

Joonghyuk underlined ‘me’ twice, the pen nearly tearing the paper. Dokja smiled and wrote.

–Well I see you

Did the words feel too bold on the page? Too late to scratch them out.

Joonghyuk looked at the sentence for a long time. The pen lay where it was. From the drainboard he lifted the clean, dry bowl, both hands wrapping around the ceramic, and met Dokja's eyes over the rim. One slow nod. A thank you for the meal, and probably for the words.

*

Kim Dokja had run out of excuses to keep going back to 402. He went anyway, almost every day.

‘Let's learn each other's signs’ was the excuse Dokja finally landed on whenever Joonghyuk's left eyebrow began to twitch. The man would nod, and Dokja would sit down and have his notepad open.

–Let me teach you something today

Joonghyuk held Dokja's gaze in silence.

Dokja formed the handshape for ㄱ. His index finger pointed upward, his thumb extended to the side. He held it for three seconds before turning his hand toward Joonghyuk so he could see it from the front.

Watching closely, Joonghyuk raised his own hand. The handshape was close but not quite right. Dokja reached over, took his wrist, and adjusted his thumb, pressing it back until it matched his own. His fingertips lingered on Joonghyuk's knuckles for a second longer.

Joonghyuk's hand went rigid under his touch. But he didn't pull away.

Dokja held up his own ㄱ again and held up Joonghyuk's corrected hand beside it. Their hands mirrored each other in the lamplight. He looked at Joonghyuk and nodded.

They went through five letters that night. ㄱ, ㄴ, ㄷ, ㄹ, ㅁ. Each time Joonghyuk's hand was wrong, Dokja corrected it. By the third letter, Joonghyuk stopped freezing when Dokja's fingers closed around his wrist. When they reached ㅁ, with four fingers pressed together, thumb tucked beneath, Joonghyuk held the shape perfectly. Dokja checked it from the front, then the side. He didn't need to look again, and yet he leaned in a third time, bringing his face close to Joonghyuk's wrist. He could see the burn scars on the knuckles and the veins running beneath the tanned skin–

Joonghyuk turned his head. Their faces were close enough that Dokja could see the lamplight reflected in those eyes and the faint line above right eyebrow that he had never noticed before.

Dokja let go of Joonghyuk’s wrist. He wrote on the notepad.

–Good. Five letters. Tomorrow, five more

Joonghyuk read it. His eyes stayed on the last word ‘tomorrow’ for a long time.

Joonghyuk pointed at the notepad. Then he pointed at Dokja. Then he pressed his palm flat and pushed it downward. ‘Stay. Longer.’

Dokja looked at the man beside him whose hand was still holding the shape in the air, fingers pressed together, waiting. Joonghyuk was so eager to keep learning that he asked Dokja to stay longer in his room.

Grinning, Dokja replied with his fingers, ‘Okay.’

Joonghyuk hadn't expected him to agree. He looked away for a moment, jaw tightening, then his fingers moved.

‘Your cooking isn’t bad.’

Dokja replied, ‘You’re obviously better. The best cook I've ever met.’

A pause. Joonghyuk’s eyes dropped to Dokja’s hands, which hung at his sides. Then his fingers made another move.

‘Now. My turn.’

For weeks they traded signs back and forth until the two languages blurred into one.

A tap of two fingers on the table meant the food was ready. A hand opened like a book meant Dokja was reading and didn't wish to be disturbed but also didn't wish Joonghyuk to leave. A finger pointed at the door and then drawn in a circle meant ‘I will come back’. No book contained these signs. Dokja's formal signs and Joonghyuk's homemade gestures had fused into a private language, entirely their own.

When their hands grew tired from signing, they switched to passing the notepad back and forth.

For the first time in a year, Dokja's notepad pages ran out fast. He bought a new one, but Joonghyuk brought home a stack of colorful post-its instead. Dokja found the habit endearing. The post-its accumulated quickly. On the counter, doors, the inside of their pockets. Dokja wrote more about the weather, about the latest volume of his favorite novel, about the afternoon light that came through Joonghyuk’s kitchen window when the sun dropped below the roofline and turned everything gold for eleven minutes.

By now, they had traded spare keys. Neither had to knock before entering the other's apartment. Occasionally, Joonghyuk worked the night shift at the restaurant until morning. These late hours kept them apart. On such night, Joonghyuk left a plate of omurice on the counter for Dokja. Beside the plate lay a post-it.

–Leftover

Lie. Joonghyuk cooked in exact portions. Dokja ate happily knowing it had been made for him. He stuck a post-it to the empty plate.

–It was good because you made it for me

Dokja stared at the words and decided to add a second line.

–It’s been cold lately, Joonghyuk-ah. Take the thicker coat tomorrow

And a third line.

–Doing a grocery run tomorrow. Want me to restock your fridge? Write me a list

The next morning, Joonghyuk slid a post-it under the door.

–Eggs. Daikon. Soy sauce. The good sesame oil from the mart on the corner

Dokja folded the post-it and put it in his pocket. He was going grocery shopping for Joonghyuk. His heart beat with a quiet happiness over such a trivial errand, and he couldn't explain why.

Lately, his heart had been racing for no reason. It raced when he caught the scent of garlic and sesame oil clinging to the stairwell on his way to work. It followed him to the bookshop and lingered through every hour of his shift.

Beside the bookshop door stood a sandwich board advertising used paperbacks at 2 for 1,000 won. The chalk bled from Thursday's rain.

At 5:15, the door chimed.

Joonghyuk filled the entrance in a thick brown coat. He had actually followed Dokja's suggestion. Ahead of him entered the scent of sesame oil and fried garlic. His kitchen uniform remained beneath the coat, stained at the chest. He wrote:

–What novel do you like?

Dokja picked up the pen.

–Ways of Survival. I have every volume. You can borrow mine. On the shelf next to my bed

But Joonghyuk was already moving down the aisle. His back filled the narrow lane between shelves. A book came off the shelf for a quick cover check before he slid it back.

The bookshop owner and secret bestselling author, Han Sooyoung, glanced up from her stool behind the literature section. She observed the man occupying her aisle, looked at Dokja, and lifted one eyebrow knowingly. Dokja suddenly found the stack of unpriced paperbacks on the counter deeply urgent.

Joonghyuk brought the first two volumes of Ways of Survival to the counter and set it down. The heavy register clunked. Joonghyuk laid a 5,000 won bill on the glass, pocketed his change, and held the book. No bag.

The memo pad again:

–Tell me which page is your favorite

–Volume 1. Chapter 12, page 137. It’s when the protagonist decides to survive alone and never gives up

Joonghyuk opened the book at the counter. He stood there reading for two full minutes.

Closing the book, he made a sign.

‘I’ll read it at home.’

He tucked the book under his arm so the spine pressed against his ribs. Two seconds of looking and gone. The bell rang on his exit, allowing cold air to swallow the heater's three-foot radius.

From the corner, Sooyoung's voice, a red pen still moving across her manuscript.

“Is your boyfriend an actor? Damn, he would make a perfect lead for my novel.”

Dokja rolled his eyes and scrawled a reply on the whiteboard.

–He’s not

“What does that mean? Is he not your boyfriend or not an actor?”

Dokja ignored her entirely. He delayed the pricing for another ten minutes.

*

Regardless, Kim Dokja felt lucky. Yoo Joonghyuk provided ample excuses to visit apartment 402 more often. They could share meals while discussing his favorite novel.

Dokja slipped a note under Joonghyuk's door before leaving for the bookshop at six. He had written it at five-thirty, sitting on his bed with the copy of Ways of Survival open across his knees.

–Page 12. Read the passage where the constellations first speak to him. Read it twice. Pay attention to which try to sponsor him

Dokja left for work. When he came home at five, a note was on his door.

–Read it three times. He rejects every sponsor. Why?

Dokja tore a post-it from the stack and wrote.

–Accepting a sponsor means becoming their toy. He has too much pride for that. But it’s more than pride. Keep reading. You will be surprised by the plot twist. Next, read page 47

The exchange continued through the week. Notes appeared on counters and doors, tucked inside pockets and beneath bowls of food. Dokja wrote faster than he thought. His pen moved before his self-consciousness could catch up. The series had helped him endure solitude, and no one had ever read it besides him. Now Joonghyuk was reading the same words that had kept Dokja breathing.

–Page 73. “He didn't look back because looking back required a reason to stop, and he had left all his pasts behind to keep moving forward.” Tell me that’s not one of the most inspiring lines in the book

Joonghyuk's reply, left on Dokja's kitchen counter beside a bowl of freshly made kimchi fried rice.

–The best line is page 91. When he was depressed and almost decided to regress again. A faceless companion told him, “Live this round properly. Maybe this is the round where you will see the end of the world as a real human being.” He held onto that promise and chose not to regress again

Dokja stared at the note for a full minute. He had read that line many times and had never considered it the best line. It revealed something about how Joonghyuk read. It was nice to learn something about Joonghyuk through the pages he dog-eared.

The next note was longer. Dokja wrote it at one in the morning, sitting cross-legged on his bed with the book open to chapter eight. The protagonist stood on a cliff edge overlooking a valley of ruins, deciding whether to descend. Dokja's pen moved fast, the letters cramped and slanting downhill toward the margin.

–The protagonist is the best character I've ever read. He survives everything. Doesn't complain. He just keeps surviving. The author describes him as tall with broad shoulders and extremely handsome. He reminds me of you very much

He stuck it to Joonghyuk's door at one-fifteen. Standing in the dark hallway with his hand on his own doorknob, Dokja reread the note in his head. The words did sound like a flirtation. He considered crossing out the last sentence.

Dokja went back to 402 to take the note down, but it was gone.

….

At seven the next morning, a knock came. Dokja opened the door to find no one there. A post-it lay on the floor.

–He reminds you of me because he’s handsome…??

Dokja's stomach dropped.

–That was one of many reasons. He doesn't speak much. He lets his actions do the talking…

Dokja stuck it to 402's door and retreated. The collar of his shirt suddenly felt too tight.

Two knocks came at the door a few minutes later. Joonghyuk stood in the hallway holding a bowl of congee. Dokja took it. Their fingers didn't touch. Joonghyuk's face was its usual wall. His jaw was set and his brow was flat. Except for Joonghyuk’s ears. The tips were a bit red, visible beneath the pushed-back hair.

Joonghyuk pointed at the bowl, then at Dokja. Then he walked back to 402, closing the door too quickly behind him.

Dokja stood in his doorway holding the congee. The steam rose past his chin. He looked at the closed door of 402 then at his own flushed reflection in the window.

The congee was plain and warm, seasoned with salt and a drizzle of oil. Joonghyuk had cooked it at dawn in the ttukbaegi ⁸, stirring the rice until it broke down into a soft porridge.

–Your congee was perfect. Page 112 next. Read it tonight. We'll discuss

Smiling happily, Dokja stuck it to 402's door and leaned against the wall beside the door.

The door of 402 swung open. Dokja’s foolish smile died instantly. He jerked away from the wall, eyes darting to the ceiling as though inspecting the plaster.

Joonghyuk stood in the doorway, his eyes fixed on Dokja's flushed face. The red on his own ears hadn’t faded. He raised his hands to sign his reply.

‘Let’s read together.’

*

On weekend when Dokja visited his room to read together, Joonghyuk reached for Dokja's coat to hang it on the hook by the door. His knuckles dragged across the back of Dokja's hand in less than a second. Joonghyuk's fingers flinched away, curling briefly into his palm. But thirty minutes later, he wrote on the notepad.

–Your hands were cold when you came in

Dokja blinked. He hadn’t thought Joonghyuk had noticed. He nodded.

–I run cold easily. Poor circulation

Joonghyuk immediately walked to the cupboard, pulled out a tin of yuja cha ⁹, and set a kettle on the stove. When the water boiled, he spooned the amber preserves into two glass cups and stirred slowly until they dissolved into a deep golden liquid, the citrus scent blooming with the steam. He carried both cups to the table, wiping a drop of condensation from Dokja's rim with his thumb before sitting down.

Joonghyuk pointed at the cup, then pressed his palm flat against his own chest and opened it outward toward Dokja. ‘Will this warm you?’

Dokja met his eyes. He pressed his own palm to his chest and opened it outward in return. ‘Yes. Very warm.’

One Saturday Joonghyuk came home from the restaurant carrying a paper bag. Inside were hot Murim Dumplings from Murim Garden, each pinched at the top in identical pleats, steam still rising. Beside the bag, a post-it.

–For you. Eat while hot

Dokja picked up a dumpling and bit through the skin. The broth pooled against his tongue, the pork was so tender, the vegetables were distinct and the sesame oil lingered and the ginger rose through the broth. He looked at Joonghyuk standing across the counter watching him eat. Dokja raised his right hand and moved it upward from his chest, thumb extended, palm open, the sign for good. Nodding, Joonghyuk pressed a flat palm against his chest and opened it outward toward Dokja.

Dokja had seen Joonghyuk make this gesture before. But this time the hand pressed slower, lingered against the sternum, and when it opened toward Dokja the fingers uncurled one by one as though releasing something held carefully in the palm. The gesture no longer looked like ‘you're welcome’. It looked like Joonghyuk pulling warmth from his own body and offering it with both hands.

Dokja’s fingers paused on the dumpling. He let his lips brush the warm skin before taking a bite. The taste lingered in Dokja's memory throughout the night. He knew he wouldn't last the next day without visiting Joonghyuk at work.

Murim Garden squatted at the end of a narrow alley off Samgakji-ro. Delivery boys on scooters waited by the back door, styrofoam boxes stacked on their seats. Behind the stiff strip curtain, propane heat and sizzling oil and the wet blast of a rice cooker venting into a kitchen. Tables were covered in yellow oilcloth. A CRT television bolted to a corner bracket played a KBS noon drama.

Dokja stood in the entrance, notepad raised.

–One order of Murim Dumplings. TO GO.

The kitchen door banged open. Out came a woman who had to duck beneath the frame. Namgung Minyoung, a former market wrestler turned restaurant owner who stood tall, had a cigarette pinched between her lips. When her eyes found Dokja in the entrance, she stopped. Her gaze tracked from his face to the notepad to the hand holding it, then cut toward the kitchen door.

“We have a visitor!”

The handsome cook emerged from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel slung over his shoulder. The moment he registered Dokja in the entrance, he crossed the room quickly and took the notepad from Dokja's hand.

Joonghyuk struck through the words 'TO GO'. Beneath it he wrote:

–Sit. Eat here.

Dokja pointed at his watch. He couldn’t stay long.

Joonghyuk held up one finger to signal him to wait. He vanished back into the kitchen.

Namgung Minyoung studied the exchange with a recalculating expression. Years of watching Yoo Joonghyuk grow up in her kitchen had sharpened her maternal instincts. She understood him better than anyone.

Dokja noticed her gaze filled with curiosity. This was a rare moment when Dokja felt grateful for his muteness. This woman couldn't interrogate him.

Joonghyuk returned with a tray. Murim Dumplings sat submerged in a clear steaming broth in a big bowl. Yellow danmuji ¹⁰ rested on a small side plate. Barley tea in a cup. All hot. Pointing at the set and then at Dokja, he pressed his palm flat and shoved it downward. ‘Sit. Eat.’

Like a starving man Dokja ate quickly. As always, Yoo Joonghyuk’s dumplings were flawless. The thin wrappers broke to release a masterful blend of seasoned pork, chives, and finely minced shrimp. He let Namgung Minyoung keep watching over him like a mother wolf guarding her cub from predators. This intense protectiveness felt entirely misplaced, considering Dokja was completely harmless and unassuming.

Leaving 1,000 won on the counter, he stood and tore a strip from his notepad.

–Thank you for the meal. The author of Ways of Survival gave you a signed postcard. It’s a special gift for a new dedicated reader!

Dokja slid the postcard across the counter. He had brought Sooyoung coffee every morning and endured her sharp remarks until she finally grabbed the postcard and scrawled her name without looking up.

Dokja pushed back through the strip curtain. Behind him, muffled by the kitchen door, Namgung Minyoung's voice reached the alley.

“Brat, you didn't tell me.”

Whatever answer Joonghyuk gave was silent.

*

In late January 1992, a customer stood across the counter at the bookshop. Dokja held the mini whiteboard he kept behind the register. He had written WHERE THE POETRY SECTION WAS in large clear letters. The whiteboard served customers who needed to read his answers from a distance, whether standing at the entrance or browsing near the magazine rack. The customer still asked, three times, where the poetry section was. Dokja erased the previous answer and wrote the new one before holding it up again. The customer read it, looked at Dokja's mouth, and said loud enough for the others to hear.

“Can you not just say it? It would be faster.”

Dokja wiped the whiteboard and wrote.

–I cannot speak.

The customer left without buying anything. Sooyoung came over and put her hand on Dokja's shoulder for two seconds before returning to her manuscript.

Dokja walked home in the cold. As if the day wasn't bad enough, he remembered the ondol ¹¹ pipes in 401 had clanked to a halt two days ago. He had written a letter to the landlord to check the boiler, but no response had come. The linoleum floor sent cold up through his socks as he entered the room.

Two knocks came on his door, and he opened it.

Joonghyuk stood in the hallway holding a thick gray blanket. He held it out and Dokja took it. The blanket was heated on the floor. Warmth passed through the wool into Dokja's fingers, traveling up through his arms and into his chest.

Joonghyuk held up his hand with his palm flat and pressed it downward. Then he pointed toward his own door and back at Dokja.

Dokja's vision was too blurred at that moment to grasp Joonghyuk's sign. He remained silent.

Receiving no answer, Joonghyuk went inside his apartment and closed the door.

Dokja wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and sat on the floor beside the bed. Through the wall he heard sounds from room 402. A pot landed on the stove and water ran from the tap. A knife struck the cutting board. Joonghyuk was probably making soup. Dokja pressed his face into the heated wool and breathed. His eyes burned slightly.

Twenty minutes later, two knocks came on his door. Joonghyuk brought a bowl of bugeoguk. Steam rose from the bowl to reach Dokja's face as he took it. He felt the heat of Joonghyuk's fingers through the ceramic. His fingers tightened around the bowl while his breath held for one count before releasing.

Joonghyuk pointed at the blanket around Dokja's shoulders and made the slow soft gesture. His palm touched his chest and opened outward toward Dokja. He pressed something forward from the center of his body where it had been held too long.

Dokja understood this time. He touched his own chest with his palm and opened his hand outward in the same shape. The two gestures moved toward each other in the air between them.

Nodding, Joonghyuk slowly went back inside his own room. The lock turned. And silence.

Dokja had closed the door and stood still, listening and waiting. In his hazy mind, he recognized this odd behavior. He had stood at doors before. At prison door. At his aunt's door. He had stood at thresholds throughout his life, waiting for someone to see his silence and respond. Now he stood at his own door, listening for footsteps, waiting for the sound of the other man reaching safety inside.

Minutes later, Dokja ate the soup sitting on the floor with the blanket around his shoulders. He set the empty bowl down and found a post-it. He wrote on it.

–Your blanket’s warm. The soup’s warm. I’m warm. I can survive. Thank you

He stuck the post-it on Joonghyuk's door and went back inside. He lay on the bed with the blanket pulled up to his chin. Sleep avoided him. He stared at the ceiling, but his mind kept dragging him back to the kitchen in 402.

He pictured Joonghyuk's broad shoulders and thick forearms. In his head, Dokja held his ground as Joonghyuk moved behind him to reach the stove. He imagined turning around. He wanted his hand to move toward him. He wanted to feel the warmth of that man’s skin against his and the shape of his shoulder beside his. He wanted.

Dokja opened his eyes, his jaw clenching in the dark. He was losing his mind, shivering in a freezing apartment over a pathetic fantasy. The wanting was hopeless, yet it brought him a mental warmth. Dokja pressed his face into the wool blanket that smelled like Joonghyuk’s body. The face he saw in the yellow kitchen light was the last image behind his eyelids before sleep.

The word beautiful had become a stone in his chest that grew heavier every day. He was falling, and there was no ground.

….

The high fever hit Dokja on a Friday evening the day after. He came home from work shivering so violently that his vision blurred. He managed to lock the door, and collapsed onto the mattress in his coat and shoes. His body burned while the room spun.

In his delirium, the knocks on his door went unheard. A moment later, the lock clicked. Joonghyuk had used his spare key. The knob turned, and cold air from the hallway sliced into the room, followed by heavy footsteps. Dokja forced his eyes open. Joonghyuk stood in the doorway of 401, holding a bowl of soup. The steam rose into the freezing room and vanished.

When Joonghyuk looked at Dokja on the bed, the permanent stillness of his face shattered for the first time since October.

Joonghyuk crossed the room and dropped to his knees beside the bed. His hand hovered over Dokja's forehead. The hands that cooked the most delicious food in the world were shaking now. He touched Dokja’s burning cheek. His fingers flinched at the heat, and a violent shudder wracked his heavy frame. He looked somehow utterly lost.

With what little strength he had left, Dokja reached up. Reached for Joonghyuk. His own trembling hand found Joonghyuk’s wrist, where a frantic pulse raced beneath the skin, and wrapped his fingers around it.

‘It’s fine.’

Joonghyuk froze, looking at Dokja’s grip on his wrist and then at his face.

Dokja tugged Joonghyuk’s wrist downward to guide him. Joonghyuk let Dokja pull him down until his forehead rested against Dokja’s shoulder. The weight of him dented the mattress, yet he offered zero resistance.

Dokja let go of his wrist. He slid his burning palm up Joonghyuk’s nape, fingers threading into the hair at the back of his head, and pressed down. Holding him there. Keeping him grounded.

Joonghyuk exhaled a ragged breath against Dokja’s collarbone. The tension in those shoulders broke.

Then Joonghyuk pulled back. He turned around, presenting his broad back to Dokja, and knelt on the cold floor. He patted his own shoulder twice.

Dokja looked at the expanse of Joonghyuk’s back. He saw the shoulders that had carried his boxes in October. The back that pulled taut across muscle. Dokja looped his arms tightly around the man's neck, locking his wrists at the hollow of Joonghyuk’s throat. Joonghyuk’s hands came back, hooking securely under Dokja’s knees. He stood quickly and took Dokja’s weight.

As they moved into the hallway, Dokja pressed his burning cheek against the back of Joonghyuk’s neck. The skin there was very nice and warm. Dokja’s breath came in shallow rasps against the nape. They reached 402, where the room was warm and the ondol pipes still pushed heat through the floor. Joonghyuk set Dokja down on his own bed, on the gray wool blanket. He pulled off Dokja’s shoes and socks. His hands moved with frantic urgency. Once Dokja was under the covers, Joonghyuk sat on the floor beside the bed. His hand gripped the edge of the mattress, watching Dokja breathe.

Dokja watched him back through half-closed eyes. The fever was still burning.

And yet the terror of dying alone was gone.

He looked at Joonghyuk’s face. The jaw was clenched so tight the muscle was jumping. The beautiful gem-like eyes were glassy. He didn't understand why Joonghyuk's face had drained of all color. The man who never lost his footing now sat hollow-eyed and rigid beside the bed. His hands kept pressing flat against Dokja's ribs, tracking every rise and fall.

Joonghyuk’s fear was too old for a fever. Dokja wouldn't understand why for a long time.

Dokja’s hand slipped from beneath the blanket. He forced it across the mattress until his fingers brushed Joonghyuk’s knuckled grip.

Dokja lacked the strength to form the sign for okay. He just curled his fingers, hooking them weakly around Joonghyuk’s thumb, and squeezed. It was a silent gesture to convey there was no need to worry.

Joonghyuk turned his hand over and enveloped Dokja’s hand entirely on his own. He brought Dokja’s palm to his jaw. His eyes squeezed shut.

Dokja let him. He held the man's hand there, stroking his thumb over Joonghyuk’s pulse point, keeping the larger man tethered to him. The fever was still burning, but the man kneeling at his bedside was no longer shaking with him. Dokja fell into a deep sleep on the bed that carried Joonghyuk's scent.

*

A month later, the pipe under the kitchen sink began to leak. Joonghyuk wrote on their shared notepad asking whether Dokja knew where the building's maintenance tools were stored. He came over to write the answer on the notepad they kept on the counter.

While Joonghyuk knelt under the sink with a wrench, Dokja waited in the other room. He stared at a photograph of a girl with pigtails on the small table. He had glanced at the same photograph more than ten times during his visits. He never asked about it because Joonghyuk had once placed it face-down.

Today the warmer weather and his idle mind led him to stare into the girl's eyes.

He wrote on the notepad.

–The girl in the photograph. Who is she?

Joonghyuk set the wrench on the counter and read the notepad. His expression didn't change, but his hand tightened around the metal. Dokja wrote again.

–You don't have to answer if you don't want to

Shaking his head, Joonghyuk sat beside him. He wrote a long response for the first time.

–My sister. Yoo Mia. She died at seven from pneumonia. We grew up as orphans in a children's home. We never knew our parents. I sat by her bed and couldn't even say goodbye. You know I was born mute. I went to regular schools because I can still hear, they don't teach sign language there. So I made my own signs. The kids laughed. Teachers did nothing. Mia was the only one who understood them. After she died I had no one. I learned to cook because she loved mandu

As Dokja read, he pictured a young Joonghyuk mocked by children who could speak. Joonghyuk forced to sit beside his sister gripped by high fever, watching her die painfully in silence. That terror clung to the man to this very day.

Dokja understood very much now.

He reached for the notepad and wrote an equally long response.

–My father choked me when I was five. He damaged the nerve in my neck. He died. My mother went to prison. My aunt took me in but stopped caring when the hospital said surgery was too expensive. I taught myself sign language from a library book when I was twelve. I left home at fourteen. And I admire you. You survived alone from the start and even built your own sign…

Dokja's hand hovered above the page, fingers aching to keep writing. He knew Joonghyuk's feelings. He also had survived more than twenty years of silence. He had been the teenager sitting alone in a crowded cafeteria, his lunch money taken, his lip split on the sink edge. The rooftop of a hospital building where he had stood at the edge. He wanted to tear himself open and spill everything onto that paper. Every unsaid word from twenty-three years of silence demanded to be written. But the feelings sat at the bottom of him too deep. No paper could hold all the ink he would spill.

He stopped writing and slid the notepad toward Joonghyuk.

Joonghyuk read it for longer than Dokja had expected. Perhaps he was rereading certain sentences, digesting them.

Neither of them moved. The wrench sat on the counter beside the sealed pipe. The photograph looked down from the wall.

Joonghyuk picked up the wrench and put it in the drawer beneath the sink. He closed the drawer and looked at Dokja. The look lasted longer than any look he had given before. Dokja could read the message in his eyes.

‘Stay a bit longer.’

Dokja stayed. They sat in complete silence for a while, sharing the same room without writings or gestures.

Crossing the hallway back to apartment 401 stripped the warmth from his skin. Dokja closed his door and the dark swallowed him whole. His hand found his throat on instinct. The other pressed flat against the notepad in his pocket. He stood in the entryway and tried to hold onto warmth that had just filled his chest. It was the warmth of being finally seen by a person whose eyes had held his gaze without looking away.

*

Days later, on an evening in late March, Dokja came home from work to find a note on his door. Joonghyuk's handwriting. A time: 7:00.

Dokja changed his shirt and washed his face. He checked his hair in the bathroom mirror and sprayed on some clean woodsy cologne. He touched his notepad twice and his throat once. Then he went to apartment 402 at 6:58, two minutes early. He waited until 7:00 exactly and knocked.

Joonghyuk opened the door, and a mouthwatering aroma hit Dokja immediately. Sesame oil, pork fat, ginger, the dense savory warmth of a kitchen that had been working for an hour. On the stove a cast-iron skillet sizzled with perfect dumplings, their pleated edges crisping to a deep gold. Joonghyuk’s sleeves rolled up to his elbows, a light sheen of sweat on his temple as he deftly used a pair of long chopsticks to turn each dumpling. The man pointed toward the table in the main room before turning back to the skillet.

Dokja sat, waiting.

Three bowls already sat on the small dining table. Mia's photograph now sat above the table. The third bowl placed before the photograph.

Dokja smiled and wrote on a post-it. He stuck the note to the bottom edge of the frame.

–Good evening, Mia-ya.

Tonight, the three of them would eat dumplings together.

The shelf sat behind him, holding Joonghyuk’s small book collection. A few cookbooks, and there, on the middle shelf, was the familiar copy of Ways of Survival in a Ruined World.

Dokja pulled it out. The cover was softer than his own, the edges rounded from handling. A familiar signed postcard sat tucked between the first page. Joonghyuk had been using it as a bookmark. Seeing his gift still in use filled Dokja with a pride.

Then he opened it to page 84, a passage about the protagonist crossing a frozen river. A dull colored notepad paper fluttered out and landed on his shoe.

Dokja’s own handwriting stared back at him.

Thank you. The book is very important to me.

This was his very first note, the one he had stuck on Joonghyuk's door in October 1991.

His pulse quickened as he turned more pages. Another post-it slipped out. Kim Dokja, 401. I just moved in. This is my greeting.

Page 112. It's been cold lately, Joonghyuk-ah. Take the thicker coat tomorrow.

Page 203. Your blanket’s warm. The soup’s warm. I’m warm. I can survive. Thank you.

Page 250. It was good because you made it for me.

Page 283. Dokja barely remembered writing: The light in your kitchen at 5 PM turns the counter gold for eleven minutes.

Page 303. The note he had written at six in the morning: I ran out of post-its. I'll get us some. Wait for me tonight.

Page after page, every note he had ever written to Joonghyuk over the past six months was there, pressed between the chapters of this novel. Some were crisp, others soft at the edges, the adhesive weakened and re-strengthened from being removed and replaced, touched and read and touched again.

Dokja’s hands shook. The warmth in his chest expanded, pressing against his ribs and threatening to spill over. Behind him, the soft clatter of the skillet moving off the burner broke his trance. He quickly shoved the notes back between the pages and slid the book onto the shelf. His heart hammered against his sternum.

When he turned, Joonghyuk was standing in the kitchen doorway with a dish towel in his hands. He was looking directly at Dokja. His dark eyes glistened under the overhead light.

….

They stared at each other across the room for a long moment. The faint hiss of the cooling stove and the frantic drum of Dokja’s pulse filled the silence.

Dokja swallowed past the dry click in his throat. He smiled and pointed to the table. ‘Let’s eat.’

Joonghyuk stared for a second longer. Then he gave a slow nod. He returned to the kitchen and brought back the cast-iron skillet. The dumplings were arranged on a clean plate, steaming gently, their golden-brown bottoms shining.

They sat at the table. Joonghyuk served a clear soup to accompany the dumplings. He placed one portion toward Mia’s photograph, a silent offering.

Dokja bit into the dumpling. The thin wrapper broke, spilling hot broth onto his tongue. Yet he barely registered the taste. His pulse hammered against the chopsticks he gripped too tight. Across the table, Joonghyuk kept his eyes fixed on his own bowl. His chewing slowed. His gaze caught Dokja's for half a second, and fled back to his plate. Red darkened across Joonghyuk's cheekbones. Dokja blamed the heat from the kitchen, and the ondolpipes underneath the floor. His own ears burned.

After the meal, Joonghyuk cleared the bowls. Instead of going straight to the sink, he went to the shelf and took down Ways of Survival. His wide back to Dokja, he rifled through the pages. Pretending not to look, Dokja kept his eyes fixed on the wood grain of the table. When Joonghyuk brought the book to the table, all the notes were gone.

Joonghyuk sat on the cushion and opened the book between them, angled so both could read together.

This reading was the closest thing to a date that two mute people could have.

Joonghyuk turned a page. His fingers brushed Dokja's wrist where it rested on the page, and he let his finger rest there. Dokja's pulse jumped into a frantic flutter against Joonghyuk’s fingertip. But Joonghyuk didn't pull his hand away.

They sat like that for a long time. The lamp turned the pages yellow while Mia's photograph watched from the table.

The book lay open to a page neither was reading. A soft patter struck against the window. The first rain of the season washed away the last gritty crusts of winter ice from the eaves and sidewalks. The ice in Dokja's chest gathered since last year was melting away too. Without him realizing it, the cold knot he had carried for twenty-three years had begun to thaw the moment a man from 402 silently carried a box into his room.

Dokja looked up from their hands, and Joonghyuk returned the gaze. It was just looking. A man seeing another man…. Five seconds. Seven. Ten. This beautiful man held his gaze without his usual defenses for ten full seconds.

And slowly, Dokja pulled his wrist from beneath Joonghyuk’s touch. He placed his hand flat on Joonghyuk's chest over his heart. Pressed gently. Held it there.

Joonghyuk was still for a second. Then his hand came up to cover Dokja's hand against his shirt. He pressed it harder against his chest, flattening Dokja's palm against the fabric and the heartbeat underneath. He pinned the hand in place to hold a voiceless word inside a body where it could be felt.

The thud against his palm was fast, matching the wild tempo of his own. It traveled through Dokja's hand and the shirt. The overhead bulb turned the table yellow and the rain streaked the window. Mia's photograph looked up as the two men sat at a table set for three. Two hearts beat in separate cages of skin and bone, but in this room in Seoul in March of 1992, they were speaking the same silent language.

Later, Dokja didn't know how much later, the rain had stopped and The only light in the room was the faint glow from the kitchen, where the boiler's small blue pilot light burned. The book had been closed and set aside.

Dokja's hand had left Joonghyuk's chest at some point. He didn't remember when. But his shoulder was pressed against Joonghyuk's shoulder.

Dokja’s hand rested on the floor between them. Palm up. Fingers slightly curled. Open.

Joonghyuk carefully placed his hand in it.

Dokja’s fingers closed.

*

By April, the gap between 401 and 402 had thinned to a warm, open threshold. The routine continued. Joonghyuk cooked dinner; Dokja brought home the newest Ways of Survivalvolume from the bookshop. They snacked on dumplings while reading together. Their shoulders touched through every meal and every page. Dokja let his hand rest on the floor between them, his fingers brushing the other man’s wrist.

On the shelf, the post-its hung in neat rows. Hundreds of paper squares, even torn scraps from a notepad, were arranged chronologically from the first greeting. They were no longer hidden. Dokja noticed them one evening and touched the edge of the first post-it. Joonghyuk stood in the kitchen doorway, watching. Dokja turned and smiled before Joonghyuk returned to the stove. The silence between them was no longer a wall.

The private sign language between them kept growing. A slow circle traced on the back of a hand meant ‘please stay’. Two fingers tapped against a wrist to say ‘I'm listening’. A palm pressed flat over the heart meant ‘I'm here’.

One evening in June, Dokja came home to a plate of omuriceon his counter.

–Your turn to cook tomorrow

Dokja wrote his reply on a fresh post-it and stuck it to Joonghyuk's door.

–Only if you teach me how to fold the dumpling pleats. Let me cook your favorite food

An hour later, a knock brought Dokja to the door.

Joonghyuk held a square of dough and a small dish of filling. He pinched the edges into five identical pleats, slow enough for Dokja to follow the movement, and held the dough out.

Dokja took the square of dough. His folding wasn’t that bad, though the edges were uneven and a few tears split the folds. Joonghyuk's hands came over his, calloused fingers adjusting Dokja's grip to press the dough shut. The warm evening air moved through the corridor.

Joonghyuk looked at Dokja with a loose jaw. It was simply a face looking at another face, unguarded.

Dokja looked back. The silence in his throat was the same as it had always been, yet it no longer trapped him. He raised his hand and let his fingers wander over Joonghyuk's chest. The lamp burned above them.

Joonghyuk raised his own hand and laid it over Dokja's. Their fingers laced together over the steady beat.

Outside the window, the rain washed the city clean. A streak of rainbow light from the window fell across the glass covering Mia's photograph. The book lay open on the table. June turned to July, and the doors stood open in summer.

Joonghyuk's thumb traced a slow circle against Dokja's knuckle, their private sign for ‘stay longer’. He traced more circles, which meant ‘until morning’. Dokja closed his eyes to feel the touch for a moment, then shook his head. He tapped his chest once, then pointed toward the open door of 401.

‘My room?’

~end