The university campus transformed almost overnight. The frantic energy of finals and the heavy tension of the project were replaced by a hollow, echoing stillness as students fled for winter break. Jiyoon had gone to her grandparents' house in Busan, and even Sunho-sunbae had vanished into some high-end internship in Gangnam.
For me, winter break meant more shifts at the restaurant and more time spent trying to make our apartment feel less like a crime scene and more like a home. The door had been fixed—the splintered wood replaced by a solid, reinforced frame that Uncle had insisted on—but the memory of the "thud" still lingered in the hallway.
I was sitting in the back of the empty restaurant during the mid-afternoon lull, my laptop open. Professor Choi had sent out an optional winter research task regarding automated security protocols—a topic that felt a little too close to home, but I needed the distraction.
The bell chimed.
I didn't look up, assuming it was a delivery driver or an early customer. "We open for dinner at five," I said habitually.
"Does that apply to technical consultants too?"
My heart gave a sharp, sudden kick against my ribs. I looked up. Hanbin was standing by the door. He wasn't wearing his usual black hoodie; instead, he had on a dark grey wool coat that made him look older, more like a professional and less like the "Ice Prince" of the lab. His bandages were gone, replaced by thin strips of medical tape over his knuckles.
"Hanbin," I breathed, quickly closing a tab on my laptop that had nothing to do with research. "What are you doing here? You should be resting. Or at home with Harin."
He walked over, his movements fluid and calm. He pulled out the chair opposite me and sat down without being asked. "Harin is at a taekwondo camp. And my parents are working. The house is too quiet."
He glanced at my screen. "Security protocols? You're working on the optional task?"
"I needed something to keep my brain from looping," I admitted, feeling a flush creep up my neck. "But I'm stuck on the encryption layer. It keeps rejecting the key."
Hanbin didn't say a word. He simply reached out and turned my laptop toward him. For the next ten minutes, the only sound in the restaurant was the rhythmic, rapid-fire clack-clack-clack of his typing. I watched his fingers—long, steady, and precise. There was no hesitation in his movements. He coded the way most people breathe.
"There," he said, turning the laptop back to me. "Your logic was fine, but your syntax was too rigid. You have to allow the system some room to negotiate with the user."
"Allowing room for negotiation," I whispered, looking at the code. "Is that what you're doing too?"
Hanbin's gaze lifted from the screen to my face. The air between us suddenly felt thick, like a physical weight. The "Ice Prince" persona was there, but it was translucent. I could see the boy from the memorial park underneath—the one who was tired of being alone.
"I don't know how to negotiate, Danoh-ya," he said, his voice dropping to that low, intimate register. "I only know how to build walls or tear them down. Everything in between... it's just static to me."
"Maybe the static is the best part," I said, leaning in slightly. "It's where the music is, if you listen close enough."
He looked at me for a long beat. I saw his eyes drop to my mouth for a split second before darting back to my eyes. It was a moment of profound weakness, a crack in his architecture that he couldn't patch. He reached out, his hand hovering over mine on the table. He didn't touch me—not yet—but I could feel the heat radiating from his skin.
He was vulnerable. And for the first time, I realized I was just as weak for him. I wasn't just grateful he saved me; I was beginning to crave the silence we shared.
"Hyung! You're here!"
The spell broke instantly as Doyoon came charging down the stairs, his school bag swinging wildly.
Hanbin pulled his hand back, his expression smoothing into a mask of cool indifference so quickly it made my head spin. "Doyoon-ah."
"Hyung, you have to help me with my math homework. I have a winter packet and it's literally a war crime," Doyoon pleaded, pulling up a chair next to Hanbin.
Hanbin looked at me, a silent question in his eyes. I gave him a small, encouraging nod.
"Fine," Hanbin sighed, though he didn't look entirely annoyed. "Show me the 'war crime,' Doyoon."
As I watched the two of them—the brilliant, silent genius and my loud, chaotic brother—I realized that the "static" was already starting to resolve into a melody. We weren't a couple. We weren't "in love" in the way the movies described it.
We were just two people who had stopped being afraid of the cold because we were standing in the same room.