The air outside Star Stream Video hangs heavy with the damp chill of an early November evening in 1992, the kind of night where the streetlights buzz faintly and cast long, watery reflections on the cracked asphalt. Neon signs flicker along the strip: a diner with a crooked "Open" sign, a pawn shop always reeling in the cash grabbers, and the video store itself, its name glowing in jagged pink cursive above a window plastered with faded movie posters.
Jurassic Park is still months away, so the display shows Terminator 2 and The Silence of the Lambs, their paper edges curling from months of humidity.
A tinny rendition of "Sweet Child O' Mine" drifts from a car stereo down the block, mingling with the low hum of a distant train that rattles through the industrial sprawl on the bank of town.
Inside, the store is a time capsule of scuffed linoleum and dim light. Rows of VHS tapes line the walls, a bunch of plastic cases stacked tight on uneven shelves. Action flicks on the left, horror in the back, a sad little "New Releases" section up front with three copies of Basic Instinct already rented out.
The air smells of burnt popcorn from a machine that hasn't been cleaned since summer and the faint, plasticky tang of rewound tapes. A CRT television perched on a wobbly stand plays Friday the 13th Part VI on mute, with Jason Voorhees stalking through the grainy woods, and the screen flickering every few seconds like it's tired of the rerun.
Overhead, one of the fluorescent tubes buzzes and blinks, throwing brief shadows across the room where Kim Dokja slouches, half-lost in his own world.
Dokja's lanky frame leans against the edge of the counter, one elbow propped on the chipped top, the other hand flipping pages in a dog-eared paperback—some pulpy sci-fi novel with a garish cover, The Stars My Destination, its spine creased from too many reads.
His dark hair falls into his eyes, a little too long, brushing the collar of a faded flannel shirt layered over a Nirvana tee he doesn't care enough about to iron. There's a Walkman clipped to his belt and it hums faintly, while the earphones that dangle loose around his neck are also spilling the muffled drone of a lo-fi mixtape he made last week.
Mostly The Cure and some bootleg Depeche Mode.
He's twenty-eight, but there's a restless sting in his gaze that makes him appear a little older, a little less approachable.
The store's quiet tonight, save for the occasional creak of the floorboards and the soft whir of the rewinder spinning a returned copy of Die Hard. Dokja is supposed to log it back into the system (a clunky computer with a green-screen monitor that takes five minutes to boot) but he hasn't bothered yet.
Instead, he's scribbling in the margins of his book with a stubby pencil, jotting down a half-formed theory about teleportation and parallel worlds. The pencil pauses mid-sentence as the bell above the door jangles, a sharp chime cutting through the stillness.
He doesn't look up right away. Probably just Yoo Sangah, his coworker, popping in to grab her forgotten scarf again, but the heavy tread of boots on the linoleum tells him otherwise.
A familiar man steps into the frame of Kim Dokja's peripheral vision, a figure cut from the pages of one of those action flicks on the shelf. He's tall, broad-shouldered, his leather jacket scuffed at the elbows and glinting faintly under the lights. His dark hair is swept back in a two-block cut, a little messy, and his jaw is set in a line that could've been carved from stone.
He doesn't say a word, as usual, just strides to the action section with the kind of purpose that makes the air feel soupy and thick. Dokja's eyes flick up from his book, lingering a beat too long on the way the man's hands, calloused and steady, scan the titles.
It's the third time this week he's been in, always late, always renting the same kind of movie.
Always returning them scratched.
Dokja marks his page with a bent corner and sets the book down, "Back again?"
But he doesn't answer, just pulls Lethal Weapon from the shelf and drops it on the counter with a soft thud. Up close, there's a faint tension in his posture—shoulders rigid, eyes shadowed, like he's carrying something heavier than the night outside.
The former tilts his head, studying him the way he'd study a plot twist, but the broad beauty is already digging in his pocket for a crumpled five-dollar bill.
"Due back Friday," Kim Dokja mutters, uninterested in his customer's silence, as he slides the tape into a plastic sleeve. He doesn't expect a reply, never gets one, and he quite prefers minimal social interactions, but as the man turns to leave, his gaze still snags on the way his other hand flexes into a fist.
The bell jangles again, and he's gone, swallowed by the neon-streaked dark. Dokja leans back, tapping his pencil against the counter, the faint hum of the Walkman filling the silence.
Something about that guy sticks in his mind, would a simple "hello" really kill him?
He sighs.
Outside, the train's whistle cuts through the night again, sharper this time, and Dokja glances at the clock—11:47 PM. Another hour till close.
-·=»‡«=·-
The clock creeps past midnight by the time he locks up. The streets outside are quieter now, save for the occasional whoosh of a car speeding past, headlights sweeping briefly across the windows.
He tugs his flannel and jacket tighter around himself as he steps out, breath fogging faintly in the cold. Most of the storefronts are dark now, with their doors locked and bolted against the night.
His beat-up sedan is parked under a busted street lamp at the far end of the lot.
It's an old thing, some forgotten model from the late seventies with a perpetually rattling engine, but it gets him where he needs to go. So, he slides into the driver's seat, tossing his book onto the passenger side, and leans back for a second before turning the key.
The tape in the deck picks up where it left off, some moody, half-warped melody from The Smiths filtering through the speakers. He lets it play as he pulls out, heading toward the quiet part of town where his apartment waits.
Kim Dokja lives in a cramped one-bedroom above a laundromat, the kind of place where the pipes groan in the walls and the heater only works if you kick it twice. The stairwell smells like detergent and dust, and the hallway light flickers as he unlocks his door.
Inside, the air is stale but it's home.
More books and tapes are stacked in uneven piles along the floor, a half-eaten cup of instant noodles sits abandoned on the coffee table, and a threadbare couch serves as both seating and occasional bed when he's too tired to drag himself to the actual one.
He shrugs off his jacket and tosses it onto the back of a chair, then moves to the kitchen—if the narrow corner of a stove and an old fridge count as one.
There's not much in there. A few cans of beer, a loaf of bread that's probably pushing its limits, a leftover carton of takeout from two nights ago. He settles on another cup of instant noodles (in spite of the fact that he's a fairly good cook), pops the lid off and fills it with water from the sink.
The hum of the microwave fills the otherwise quiet apartment as he runs a hand through his hair. He should sleep, probably. But he knows he won't yet.
Instead, he reaches for the rotary phone that the landlord of the complex still chooses to utilize in the prospering era of Nokia mobiles, and dials a number he knows by heart.
It rings three times before a groggy voice picks up.
"Dokja?" Sooyoung sounds half-asleep, voice scratchy like she'd passed out over her notes again.
"Did I wake you?" he asks, though he already knows the answer.
"No. Maybe. What do you want? You better not be calling to ask for money."
He can hear her shifting, probably pushing aside papers and an empty coffee cup to sit up properly. Han Sooyoung is like that, always hunched over her typewriter or buried under something, whether it's novels, textbooks, sketches, or plans for the future she's still trying to piece together.
She used to joke about never finishing anything, but lately, she's been different.
Focused. Determined. She even went back to school to get her GED. Reluctant as she is, her first work won't get hammered out itself. A gritty little thing she swears will "blow the socks off those snoots in publishing," whenever she gets around to finalizing it.
"I wouldn't waste a call on that, and I don't know," he admits, shrugging as if she could see him.
"Just felt like talking."
There's a pause on the other end, followed by an amused huff. And he can picture her sprawled across her office chair, cigarette dangling from her fingers, typewriter balanced on her lap.
After he grabs his noodles from the microwave, he sits on the patch of floor in front of the couch, all cross-legged. He nudges the phone between the crook of his neck and shoulder, and begins poking at them with a pair of chopsticks. "So, have you failed math yet?"
"Piss off," she laughs, and the line crackles as she shifts again. "I'm acing it, thanks. Gotta graduate before I'm famous, no matter how late that is, right?"
"I wouldn't be too sure. What are you working on now?"
"A masterpiece," she scoffs, "Better than that trash you sell."
"The bar is on the floor."
"Exactly."
He rolls his eyes, cringing at the loud sounds of his mouth as he slurps up his spicy dinner without resignation. "No seriously, how's the book coming? Still killing off half the cast in chapter fifty-three?"
"Chapter fifty-four," she corrects, entirely smug.
"Just axed the love interest—too boring. Now it's all betrayal and blood and tragedy. Real art, man."
"Right," he can feel the deadpan before it even reaches his face.
"Ah, still slow and in the rough draft process 'cause I keep nit-picking though. It's a mess."
"An author's job is fixing that mess to their liking. You always say that."
"Yeah, well, I say a lotta shit."
"You'll finish it. You always do."
There's another pause, this one softer. Then, "Be my muse?"
Dokja smiles, flexing his aching toes in his socks that protect against the frigid hardwood.
"For now."
"Mm, You should quit your job then, forget that old bastard. I may be high maintenance but I'm fair."
"And you should finish your book," he says in return, dutifully ignoring the last parts of her argument.
She groans, but he can hear the affection in her voice.
"Asshole."
He leans back against the cushion, eyes drifting toward the window. The city hums outside, low and steady, a lullaby of distant traffic and muffled voices. He listens to Sooyoung rant about her ideas and characters for a while, letting her voice fill the space, grounding him in something familiar.
It's nice.
The kind of conversation that makes the night feel a little less pointless.
Eventually, she yawns, "I should start a tab that documents all the times you keep me up at night."
"Blaming the innocent, as usual, are you?"
She gasps at the false accusation, "The sweet tongued liar! You mean!"
Dokja finds himself laughing for the nth time during their banter, little huffs of air that blow his thick bangs out of his face. They trade jabs until he asks, "Think there's anyone out there as snarky as you?"
"What are you up to?" Sooyoung's tone makes her suspicion clear, "You meet a potential candidate that rivals my awesomeness?"
"Not exactly." He hesitates, then hums. "Just a guy who keeps showing up at the shop, kinda reminds me of you."
"Stalker vibes?"
"More like action-hero-on-a-breakdown vibes."
"Sounds like my last editor," she grumbles. "Useless bastard. I fired him."
"You fire every editor."
"Because they all suck."
"And you can't afford them," he so helpfully adds.
She breaks off into another rant and he lets her because he knows she'll tire herself out with all the overt misuse of energy at an ungodly hour. And… not much later, does she start slurring her words as he predicted.
"I should sleep."
"Yeah, me too."
"You better."
"I will, I will. Don't nag me." He rises to his feet and dusts himself off after collecting his empty cup, prepared to hook the phone back onto its ringer.
"Goodnight, Sooyoung."
"G'night idiot. Hey! Don't forget about our lunch date in a few."
"Yeah, yeah."
He hangs up and stands there for a while, staring at the machine. With a sigh, he tosses the cup, and finally, finally, drags himself to bed with as much contentment as the universe is willing to offer.
The sheets are cold, the world is still moving outside, but for now, in this small pocket of darkness, he lets himself close his eyes and rest.