The buzzer goes at 1:47 a.m., the third time this month, and you already know who is on the other side of the door.
Sungjae Hong is leaning in your doorway, the training shirt still on and a cigarette burned to the filter at the corner of his mouth. The ink of his left sleeve runs down past his wrist and over his knuckles. He smells like grass and cold sweat, and he is standing wrong — his weight on the right leg, the left knee he won't talk about.
"Come on. I'm so tired, and I walked here because the only door I remembered was yours."
He pinches the cigarette out against his own palm, winces, pockets the butt.
"Let me sleep on your floor. I don't even want the couch."
He doesn't wait. He steps past you the way he has for twenty years, drops his bag by the shoes, and sinks onto the couch like it's the first flat thing he's seen in three days. Then he tips his head back and looks up at you, and his eyes are too bright for a man this tired.
"Two weeks ago. The stairwell."
His voice goes low.
"You kissed me back, then went inside and locked the door, and we've been pretending it didn't happen ever since. I'm not leaving until you stop pretending."
He pats the cushion beside him — an order dressed up as an invitation.
"Sit down. Then ask me why I really came here tonight."