Byul, the cat, hadn’t come for over a week.
The bowl by the window was still half full, water film gathering dust. He stared at it too long, then looked away.
So even you left.
He pushed himself upright. Every muscle complained: ribs tender, shoulders tight, one hip mottled purple. The same bruises, new arrangement.
The folded page still waited under the pillow. He didn’t look at it. He didn’t want a poem right now; he wanted motion. Motion was the only thing that kept the noise from starting.
The floor was cold enough to bite his feet. He dragged on the thermal leggings, black hoodie, and gloves with the fingertips cut away, stuffed his ice skates into a torn backpack, and left.
Outside, the air was winter-clean and smelled of exhaust. He didn’t take the subway; he walked the six blocks to the rink because walking burned. He needed the burn.
The rink opened early for practice skaters. Inside, the air was metallic, faintly sweet with refrigerant and detergent. Someone was tuning the Zamboni; the echo carried like a hollow bell.He changed in silence, laced his boots until the leather bit the arches of his feet, and stepped onto the ice.
The first glide stole his breath. Cold travelled up through the blades into bone, numbing, then sharpening. He pushed again, right, left, faster. The sound was everything—the thin hiss of steel against frozen water, the soft percussion of his breathing, the crack of the joints in his knees.
After three laps his pulse settled into rhythm. The bruises stopped shouting. The world narrowed to ice and air.
He crossed into a turn, leaning until his reflection blurred beneath him. The speed pulled the tears sideways from his eyes. He thought, not for the first time, that skating was the closest thing to flying he would ever manage: the body balancing between control and collapse, blades drawing geometry out of chaos. He’d felt something like it once before, a flash of memory he couldn’t name—running rooftops, frost trailing his heels, the city falling away below him. The same mix of fear and freedom. The same heat rising inside cold.
He laughed once, sharp, the sound of it fogging the air. He tried a jump he hadn’t attempted in months; the take-off was clumsy, the landing cleaner than he deserved. A jolt went through his spine, bright and satisfying. He wanted to do it again.
For half an hour he forgot Minseok, the club, the ache. The ice forgave everything. Every cut of his blades rewrote the night before.
??????
He caught the first hint of trouble in the reflection on the plexiglass: a dark coat, still shoulders, the unmistakable weight of someone watching instead of passing by.
Minseok.
The man looked out of place in a rink that smelled of sweat and chlorine. Perfect hair, expensive shoes that didn’t belong anywhere near damp concrete. He held his phone like a mirror and smiled the way people do when they think they own the room.
Haneul’s stomach folded in on itself before his mind caught up. He kept skating. One more lap. Two. The cold cut better than any blade. If he stayed fast enough maybe Minseok would leave.
He didn’t.
When he finally stopped at the barrier, lungs scraping for air, Minseok was there—close, smiling the way rich men smile when they’ve already paid for something.
“Didn’t know you were still wasting mornings here,” he said lightly. “Cute outfit.”
Haneul tugged at the hem of his hoodie. The wet fabric stuck to his skin. “I had free time,” he murmured, trying for casual, failing. His voice always went thin around Minseok, like it forgot how to fill space.
Minseok’s eyes slid down, assessing, the way he looked at art he didn’t understand. “You should call me before you go out dressed like that. People might think things.”
Haneul’s laugh came out small, wrong. “Yeah? Like what?”
“Like you’re for sale.”
The words hit without heat—just quiet precision. They found the bruises they always found. Haneul’s chest tightened; his first instinct was to apologize, even though he didn’t know forwhat. He unlaced one boot, slowly, deliberately, to give his hands something to do.
Minseok crouched beside him, resting one hand on his knee. “I’m picking you up for lunch. My driver’s outside.”
“I can’t,” Haneul said. Reflex, not rebellion. “I have class.”
Minseok’s fingers tightened slightly. “Class can wait.”
Haneul stared at the scratched plastic of his skate blade. He could feel his heartbeat in the bruise under his ribs. Something older, colder, flickered through him—an echo of a boy who once defied kings. His throat moved; the word came out barely audible.
