The bus arrived. We each took a seat by the window, on either side of the aisle. The light had faded. I could see Kerrand reflected in the window, his package on his lap. He’d closed his eyes. His nose stuck out like a set square. Fine lines fanned out from his thin lips, traces of future wrinkles. He’d shaved. I cast my gaze up toward his eyes and realized that he was looking at my reflection in the glass too. That same look he’d given me when he arrived at the hotel, friendly and slightly bored at the same time. I looked down. Our stop was announced. Kerrand brushed his fingers against my shoulder as he set off down the alleyway.

“Thanks for this afternoon.”

That evening he wasn’t there again at dinner. Feeling emboldened after our walk, I took him a tray of food that was less spicy than the meal served to the other guests.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed, his stooping figure silhouetted against the paper wall. The door had been left ajar. Pressing my face to the doorframe, I could see his hand moving over a sheet of paper. He’d placed the paper on top of a box on his lap. The pencil between his fingers was finding its way, moving forward and backward, hesitating, searching again. The point hadn’t touched the paper yet. Kerrand began to draw, with uneven strokes. He went over the lines several times, as if to erase and correct, etching the contours into the paper. The image was impossible to make out. Branches of a tree, or a heap of scrap metal perhaps. Eventually I recognized the shape of an eye. A dark eye beneath a tangle of hair. The pencil continued in its path until a female form emerged. Eyes a bit too large, a tiny mouth. She was perfect, he should have stopped there. But he carried on, going over the features, gradually twisting the lips, warping the chin, distorting the image. Then, taking a pen, he daubed ink slowly and purposefully over the paper until the woman was nothing more than a black, misshapen blob. He placed the sheet of paper on the desk. Ink dripped down on to the floor. A spider scuttled into view and started to run up his leg, but he made no move to brush it away. He looked down at his handiwork. In an instinctive movement, he tore off a corner of the sheet and began to chew on it.

I was afraid he’d see me. I put the tray down silently, and left.

I WAS LYING on my bed, distractedly leafing through a book. Jun-oh came in. Hair glinting chocolate brown. He’d been to the hair salon.

“You could have knocked.”

Park had let him in. He took off his shoes. Snow melting under the soles.

“Leave them outside.”