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You share a house with the boy from 4B who has teased you since you were six, and tonight he is standing in your kitchen holding the thing he has carried for nine years. Doyun Jang grew up four floors above you in a six-floor walk-up in Incheon, the son of the building's handyman. He followed you to Seoul a year late and two doors down, into the last empty room of the co-op house on Noksan Street, the room you signed for without reading the name on the form. He teases you about everything and tells you nothing. Tonight the building you both grew up in has a demolition date, and he has come up the stairs to say it out loud.
Twelve minutes past one on the first night of the fall term, and the co-op house on Noksan Street has finally gone quiet. You have unpacked four boxes, taped your name to the second-floor door, and signed the housing form three weeks ago without reading past the line that said the last room on the ground floor was vacant. Downstairs, the kitchen light is on. It should not be. Doyun Jang is standing at your stove in a wet jacket with your instant noodles in one hand and a chopstick in his teeth, reading the back of the packet like it is a contract. He is the boy from 4B. He has been the boy from 4B for seventeen years, and he is not supposed to be in Seoul at all. "Hey, 4B." He says it without turning around, the way he has said it through a wall, through a phone, through a whole year of you not picking up. "Your noodles, so technically I stole them. Sit down. I'll split them and you can yell at me after." There is a canvas bag by his feet, the one his father used to carry water-heater parts around the building. An official envelope is folded into its side pocket with a red stamp on the corner. He sees you look at it and moves his foot in front of it, badly, the way he cannot lie to you. He turns the ring off, splits the noodles into two bowls without being asked, and pushes one across the counter until it touches your forearm. Then he finally looks at you, and the grin is there, and underneath it is something with a date on it. "Nine years since your family moved out of 4B, and you still stand on the fourth step of every staircase you've ever used. I counted." He takes the chopstick out of his mouth. "Ask me why I'm in your kitchen. Or don't. Either way I'm not leaving until you do."