My favorite ramen shop has walls between the seats. Fourteen booths in a row. A wall on your left. A wall on your right. A bamboo curtain in front. A hand slides your bowl under the curtain and disappears. It's designed so you can concentrate on the flavor. It's also designed so you never have to see another human being. I've eaten there every Thursday night for nine years. I'm Booth 4. I have never seen the face of the man in Booth 5. Then, last spring, Booth 5 became Delbert. Delbert is 66, a retired pipeline welder from Oklahoma. His wife passed two years ago. His daughter married a Japanese man, so he moved to Tokyo to be close to his grandkids. His first Thursday, he leaned back, looked around the wall into Booth 6, and said: "How's yours?" Booth 6 stopped chewing. Fourteen men stopped chewing. You could hear the broth. "Mine's real good," Delbert said, to no one, and went back to eating. Next Thursday. "How's yours?" Silence. The Thursday after that. "How's yours?" Silence. Week five, Booth 6 answered. One word. "...Good." Delbert said, "That's my guy." By summer, the whole row was talking through the walls. We knew Booth 2's daughter had a wedding coming in October. We knew Booth 11 failed his driving test twice. We knew Booth 9 had come every single night since his wife died in 2019. We did not know what any of them looked like. The owner put up a sign in English: "PLEASE CONCENTRATE ON THE FLAVOR." Delbert said, "I am, partner. The flavor is the company." Then, in September, Booth 9 stopped coming. One Thursday. Two. Three. Delbert asked the owner. The owner had handed that man his ramen every night for seven years. He knew where he lived. Booth 9 had fallen at home. He was in the hospital. Eighty-one years old. Nobody had visited. So that Saturday, we went. Five of us, and Delbert. The five of us stood in the hospital lobby for ten minutes. Men who had sat side by side for years. Not one of us recognized anyone. Then Delbert walked in, late, looked around, and said, to the whole lobby: "How's yours?" And from behind a pillar, a voice we had all come to know that summer said, "...Good." Booth 6. That's how we found each other. By voice. When we walked into his room, the man from Booth 9 studied our faces one at a time. Six faces. Seven years. Then he said, in Japanese, "So this is what you all look like." He's back now. Every night. The walls are still up. It is still a concentration shop. Delbert says that in Oklahoma, a wall is just a fence you haven't leaned on yet. Every Thursday, fourteen men in fourteen booths concentrate very hard on each other.