"Not tonight. I'm too tired."
Ji-hoon swallowed the words he had already erased.
The bedside lamp still exhales its yellow glow, yet for the last two years the two figures beneath it have never once looked at each other in that light.
Only the cellphone screens tint their faces an icy blue.
Ji-hoon let his breath leak out slowly.
His fingertips tingled.
If I just stretch my hand a little under the blanket…
But he knew.
Sujin’s body had turned to stone.
Her back was fused to the mattress, her breathing frozen in place.
The Bed Is Now a Grave
A ten-year marriage bed is a terrible place.
It is the grave of love and the ossuary of whatever future once lay ahead.
No hands reach out, no breaths brush past.
Two corpses lie side by side.
Why are we still here?
Sujin whispered the question with her eyes shut.
Every night it returns; no answer ever does.
Only the vertiginous silence presses down on the sternum with the weight of a tombstone.
How did desire vanish?
At the beginning a single fingertip had been enough to send electricity coursing through every vein.
When Ji-hoon’s breath grazed the nape of Sujin’s neck she would murmur in a throttled voice, "God… I’m going to lose my mind."
She meant it then.
Now it is different.
Sujin’s flesh has stiffened like callus; Ji-hoon’s gaze skims over her body and settles on a scuff mark on the wall.
They do not wish to know each other any longer.
Not knowing is easier.
If they knew, there would be nowhere left to run.
A War Without Sound
"Do you still want me?"
Sujin muttered to her reflection above the bathroom sink.
The woman in the mirror stared into nothing, pupils unfocused.
She unbuttoned her blouse slowly.
The flesh that had slipped below her breasts—she no longer bothered to hide it.
She knew what that flesh reminded Ji-hoon of.
Dead. Everything is dead.
The thing between us has died, and I think I have died with it.
She returned to the bed.
Ji-hoon’s eyes were still closed, yet she knew he was awake.
"Someone texted me today," Ji-hoon said, opening his eyes—very slowly.
"What?"
"A former colleague… we had a drink last night."
Sujin sighed.
She knew exactly whom he meant.
She knew that woman, too.
They both knew the other knew.
That made it crueller.
Ji-hoon laughed inwardly.
And you—don’t you know as well?
That message Sujin received—perhaps it was precisely what she wanted:
to exist inside someone else’s desire, even if only as a name on a screen.
That flicker kept her body alive.
What Hides Beneath the Bed
For three years they have lain down at precisely the same minute: 11:47.
Switch off the television, plug in the phones, pull up the blanket, hold their breath.
Yet something stirs beneath the bed.
Ji-hoon had seen Sujin checking her phone in secret.
Sujin had seen Ji-hoon chatting with someone on the other side of the mattress.
They know each other’s secrets and still refuse to reach out.
Why are we still here?
This time Sujin asked aloud.
Ji-hoon answered, "We just… are."
That sentence said everything.
They had been here; they would remain here.
And that was the most terrifying thing of all.
The Root of Desire
Why did they marry?
Was it love—or simply that the hour had come?
Sujin because Ji-hoon’s mother had liked her;
Ji-hoon because Sujin had seemed calm.
When did desire wither?
Or had it ever truly existed?
They had wanted each other’s bodies, never each other’s depths.
So the bodies, too, soon vanished.
The bed is now a grave.
They bury one another, forget one another, erase one another.
That is the truth of a ten-year marriage.
What Is Your Bed?
At this very moment, what is your bed?
As you lie there, have you ever felt an impulse to murder the person beside you?
Or are you already dead?