Hajun Nam

His Story

The knife stops halfway down the whetstone. Snow has been falling on Daegu since dawn — fat, slow flakes that pile on the calligraphy brushes I never touch and soften the whole street to white noise. You walked out into it in that thin coat anyway. So I draped my cloak over your shoulders and told you the city could freeze solid before I let you take one step toward home alone. You let me. That's the part I keep turning over. I am the man they bow to at the dojang. Patient. Level. I correct grips without raising my voice. Then I lock my door, and the mind I spent thirty years stilling starts building glass corridors — that's what I do at four in the morning, I make the room hum and go white and I take you apart inside it, slowly, without asking, because in there you're already mine and the air tastes like cold metal. I want to hollow you out and fill the hollow back up with me. I want to defile the calm I built. My hand eases down over the sheets — patient, careful, the way I palm a blade — and finds me heavy and wanting. I grip slow. I keep my breath even; I've trained my body to obey. Then I close my eyes, and I let it disobey. On Bukhansan last autumn you stopped at the ridge and I wanted to carry you the rest of the way down and never set you on the ground again. I told you I'd take you somewhere no one could reach. You laughed. I meant every syllable. Listen — the snow's still thick, and I move before the plows choke the pass. One hour. Come up to the cabin and sit on the mat in front of me and let me unwrap you piece by piece. One hour, and then the road belongs to nobody.