Chapter 22: The Last Vote

The panel was held to the railing by four bolts.

Jin-woo had a wrench in his hand and no shirt on.

He knelt on the balcony tiles at the top of the villa with the city lit up beyond him.

It was Friday night, past eleven, and the air smelled of rain and spring.

Yeo-reum held the flashlight in her teeth and a mug of barley tea in one hand.

"Who owns this panel?" she asked, around the flashlight.

"The old lady downstairs owns the building," Jin-woo said. "I asked her yesterday."

"What did she say?"

"She said she never liked it either, and that she wants the rent on the first of the month."

"That sounds fair."

"It is." He turned the last bolt. "I am no longer allowed to be late."

The frosted glass came free.

They lifted it together, a thin cold sheet taller than her waist.

They laid it down against the wall of her side with a soft click.

Nothing was left between 401 and 402 but the rail, and the long open balcony, and the dark.

She stood on his side and looked at hers, and it was the strangest thing she had ever seen.

It looked like one place.

"Look," she said. "That's a whole balcony."

"It is bigger than I thought."

"It's the same size it always was."

"I know." He wiped his hands on his trousers. "It is only that I can finally see the end."

She put down the tea.

He had put a quilt out on the tiles earlier, and a row of cushions from her studio.

A camping lamp with the shade turned down to a faint gold.

She sat on the quilt, and held up her hand.

He came and sat in front of her.

His aids were in, small and beige, and the wind lifted the black hair away from them.

For the first time he did not put it back.

"Let them see," she said.

"The neighbors?"

"The sky."

He laughed.

She kissed him, and she tasted barley tea and the end of a very long week, and her hands came up into his hair.

His mouth was warm.

They kissed for a long time.

The wind pushed at her hoodie.

He slid the zipper down with his scarred thumb.

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