The morning after the funeral felt unreal, like the city had been pasted back together without anyone asking Ji-hoon if it should go on.
Itaewon cleared as sunlight poured into the alleys; the night's neon bled away and ordinary deliveries started again. People in suits walked dogs, baristas swung open café doors, and a man with a camera trailed a woman in a vintage coat as if she were the plot of someone's short film.
Ji-hoon unlocked Nightshade for the first time on his own.
The brass key hissed in the lock with the same stubborn sound as the brass in the wooden box had hummed the previous evening; it felt heavier now, heavier with meaning. When the door opened the inside exhaled a smell that would soon come to mean safety to him: warm wood, lemon peel, a faint trace of soy, and the heavy comfort of well-seasoned glassware.
He left the light low. There was reverence in the small gestures today — like a person who'd been given responsibility and wanted to touch it carefully.
Woo-sung was already there, sweeping the corner where the old jukebox had been kept. His movements were efficient and unhurried; he had been at this bar longer than anyone could count on one hand, and everything here waited for him to decide it could go on.
"Morning," Ji-hoon said, feeling like he'd mispronounced the word.
Woo-sung grinned. "Morning, little master. You look like you haven't slept."
"I haven't," Ji-hoon admitted. "I couldn't sleep."
"Come on. First lesson: coffee."
He expected a lecture on espresso shots. Instead, Woo-sung led him to the back, where an old but reliable espresso machine hummed like a friendly animal. The counters were not pristine; they were comfortable. Cups lounged in mismatched pairs. An old sign read: NO RUSH. NO PRETENSE.
"How do you like your coffee?" Woo-sung asked.
Ji-hoon blinked. "Uh. Black?"
"No milk, no sugar. Good. First rule — always start with what the customer cannot hear."
He spent the next hour doing small tasks that felt like a language: pulling shots and listening for the precise sound of pressure, tamping with the right weight, wiping with circular motions that left no streaks, learning to place a saucer with the quiet of someone setting down a small apology. Woo-sung corrected him gently, showing him how to tilt the cup so it would sit right under the machine's spout, how to predict the tiny amber arc that meant the shot was coming.
"This is not about showmanship," Woo-sung said, watching him. "It's about care. The way you hold a cup, the way you pour water, the way you listen when someone says 'I'm fine' and you know they're not."
Ji-hoon felt like an apprentice in a religion he hadn't chosen, and he liked it.
When the first customers came in around noon, it was a familiar mix: two foreigners who ordered a plate of breakfast sandwiches and told loud stories, a woman in a headset who used the corner table like an office, an elderly man who'd been here the night before with a sorrowful smile. They ordered coffee, and Ji-hoon poured.
He spilled a little on the counter. A tiny blotch that looked, in his mind, like proof that he was still clumsy.
"Relax," Woo-sung told him as he wiped it without drama. "People don't come for perfection. They come for presence."
The day trickled by. The bar felt safe in the light; the Fifth Table slept beneath the floor like a patient secret. Yet the hidden door tugged at Ji-hoon's thoughts. He'd found a napkin that said, "Don't sell," but there was more in the box — the photo, the key, the note — and the feeling of being entrusted to something too tender to mishandle made him anxious and steadier at the same time.
At three, Hana finally emerged from the kitchen carrying a tray of warm buns. Her face was soft as sunlight on wood; she worked with a hands-on tenderness, arranging pastries that looked like small moons. She put one on a plate and slid it to him.
"For breakfast," she said. "Eat. You look like you'll faint if you don't."
He stared at the bun as if it were a miracle. It smelled like butter and salt and memory. He broke it in half and tasted it. Warm. Flaky. Complex and simple at once.
"You learned this here?" he asked.
Hana leaned against the counter and watched him with her quiet gaze. "No. I learned it in a kitchen that was louder than this world. Nightshade taught me how to be small and honest," she said, and the words fell like stones into a still lake.
Their eyes met. For a moment the world outside the bar seemed to stop. Her face softened in a way he couldn't name, as if she recognized something of his grandfather in him, or perhaps recognized a person who might one day carry the same steadiness.
"Why did Grandfather give it to me?" Ji-hoon asked, the question spilling out.
Hana's fingers hesitated on a cup. Then she said, "Because he knew you would listen."
The simplicity of the answer stunned him. Not because it revealed the man's strategy — he supposed the grandfather had his reasons — but because someone had said it aloud. Someone who worked at Nightshade thought he could do this.
When the evening drew close, the bar shifted. Lamps flicked on, small music started on the speakers, and the neighborhood changed its face like a person putting on a different coat. This was Nightshade's real breath — the slow burn between dusk and late-night.
A few regulars arrived early. Soo-chul, the taxi driver who liked to pull up a stool at table two, told his stories with hands that still smelled faintly of diesel. Ayako, the tattoo artist, came in with inked forearms and a sketchbook. Dae-ho, the boxer, came later in the evening; he moved with a careful sleepiness, still recovering from something larger than a physical bruise.
Ji-hoon watched their rituals. He learned where they liked their napkins folded, what songs made one tune hum with memory. He refilled glasses and listened. He made mistakes, as expected. But gradually the gestures became smaller, practiced. He was learning to be the bar.
Around ten, Woo-sung looked at him and said, "Ready?"
"For what?"
"For tonight. The Fifth Table sometimes wakes early. Sometimes it waits until midnight. But when it comes, every tiny gesture you practiced today will matter."
Ji-hoon felt his stomach flutter. He had been expecting, perhaps secretly hoping, that the Fifth Table was only a myth for now — a romantic echo of his grandfather's memory. Instead, the thought that it might require him to be brave made his palms damp.
A woman in a neat suit came in quietly and took the chair at table three. She ordered tea and hummed softly as she read.
Midnight came slow and soft.
At 12:20 a.m., the bell at the front door did not ring. There was no polite knock. Instead, a small, almost invisible rapping came from the storeroom — like someone tapping a top of a glass, in three quick notes.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Ji-hoon had heard it before. His chest filled with a peculiar calm. He excused himself and walked back to the freezer.
He hesitated only for a moment before pushing the panel again. This time the stairs smelled like incense and wet wood. A faint melody — someone quietly humming an old folk tune — floated up.
The Fifth Table was populated that night, not full but present: two figures at table one, another at table three, and the fifth person — hooded, quiet — sat with their back to Ji-hoon again.
Tonight, the room felt alive with conversation, but it was the kind of conversation that circulated like a low fire; guests spoke in fragments, sharing grief and recipes and jokes about the city, each voice giving a little warmth to the others. The Fifth Table's rule held: no phones, no names — only eyes and food. Ji-hoon watched how people listened to one another like they were learning to be human again.
One of the guests — a man around thirty with hands that had once gripped a steering wheel for a living — spoke about losing someone on a rainy highway, about the uselessness of apologies with no echoes. Dae-ho listened and said, simply, "You survived. That's more than many can say."
The hooded figure lifted their head slightly. Eyes met Ji-hoon's across the room. For an instant, the hood shadowed a face with an age that could not be deciphered. But the eyes were tired and raw and familiar in a way he could not place.
The figure left again after finishing the meal, placing a folded napkin on the table where Ji-hoon could see the top crease. He felt an urge to read what might be written, but the room had an unspoken sanctity. He stepped back, respecting it.
When everyone left, Woo-sung turned to him.
"You saw."
"Yes," Ji-hoon whispered. "How do I… serve them? How do I… protect them?"
"You don't need to fight for them," Woo-sung said. "Just hold the door. Keep a warm bowl ready. Learn their faces so you can sip their silences with them. In our world, presence is the greatest armor."
The words felt like a benediction. Ji-hoon placed his hand on the wood of the table. He imagined his grandfather at this same place, perhaps younger, perhaps bold in ways the family would never have tolerated later.
"Do you think I can do this?" he asked, honest and small.
Woo-sung nodded, but it was Hana who answered him this time. She emerged from the kitchen with a small teapot in her hands and a cup on a saucer, steam curling up like a question mark.
"You already are doing it," she said softly. "You just don't know yet."
He blinked. She turned away almost immediately, like someone who'd given an offering and didn't need thanks. The two words lodged inside him, slow and luminous.
Later that night, after the last customer left and the city above hummed with distant traffic, Ji-hoon sat alone at Nightshade's counter. He looked at the brass key in his palm. It felt warm, like a pulse waiting for him to notice.
He had been given a bar by a man who had taught him, in life and in death, where value lived. It wasn't in shares and stock options; it was in the warmth of a bowl shared under a low lantern, in the quiet confession of a stranger who'd finally said, "I miss my mother," and been met without judgment.
Ji-hoon cleaned a glass and did it slowly, deliberately. He felt tired in bones he hadn't expected to be tired, but he also felt something like arrival — a feeling that sometimes comes when a path reveals itself, regardless of how small the first steps might be.
Outside, Itaewon's lights flickered. Inside, Nightshade exhaled and settled. The Fifth Table slept again, content for the night. Ji-hoon pocketed the napkin without unfolding it, keeping the hush intact.
Before he locked the door, he turned and looked back at the bar, at the place his grandfather had loved enough to give him its key. The world had said he was useless. But he held something that belonged to him now: a refuge, a responsibility, and the beginning of an unexpected life.
He set the brass key on the counter and whispered to the empty room, "I'll try, Grandfather. I'll be here."
Outside, the city closed its lids in the soft hush of midnight. Inside, the bar glowed like a secret that refused to fade.