My mother had arranged for us to meet that afternoon so she could buy me a traditional outfit. Lunar New Year was coming up and she felt it was time I started dressing like a woman. That made me laugh. I hadn’t worn the traditional Seollal costume for years, but my aunt, my mother’s older sister, was coming to visit us from Seoul. My mother would do her best to make me look shiny.

Kerrand came walking toward me along Mother Kim’s alleyway carrying his bedspread, unaware of the sheet of ice underfoot. I was about to warn him when he slipped and fell. I ran over to him.

“It’s too dark.” He winced as he picked himself up.

“It is winter.”

“Yes.”

“You get used to it.”

“Do you?”

He dried himself off, his face ruddy from the cold.

“Yes, you do,” I lied. I looked around us.

“The neon lights, the whole thing. You get used to it.”

He rubbed his gloves together to brush off the dirt. I pointed to the bedspread on the ground.

“So you’ve decided to give me your laundry after all?”

He picked up the bedspread, my attempt at a joke apparently lost on him. He apologized for having spilled ink on the bedding. He seemed embarrassed, I said it didn’t matter.

“Can I leave it with you?”

I held my arms out. He shook his head.

“I didn’t mean for you to carry it, I just wanted to know if you could wash it.”

“Yes, I told you I could.”

“Shall I put it in the machine?”

“No, it needs special stuff for the ink.”

His shoulders dropped.

“Leave it all in your room, I’ll deal with it.”

“It’s in the way there. Let me put it somewhere for you.”

I’d be late for my mother, but I didn’t mind. If anything, I was quite pleased.

In the laundry room, I told Kerrand I’d googled him and found some of his work online. He asked me if I read comic books. Not very often. But I was interested in them.

“You have a book coming out soon, don’t you?”

“So my publisher says.”

“Stuck for inspiration?”

He gave a wry laugh.

“Inspiration’s only a small part of it.”

“Your drawings are really good.”

It occurred to me that I knew nothing about art. I didn’t know how pictures were supposed to be judged.

“What I mean is, I like them.”

I hoped he wouldn’t ask me to describe what I liked about his drawings, not in English anyway. And I hadn’t spoken a word of French for two years. I daubed stain remover on the bedspread, uncomfortably aware of Kerrand’s presence behind me. I hadn’t used any deodorant and the heat and steam were making me sweat. Finally, he left the room. I unfolded the sheet. The shirt he’d been wearing the evening I’d watched him drawing fell out. I rubbed the fabric between my fingers, unlocking its lingering odor of incense and ginger.