"Are you still picturing it right beside her?"
Jun-ho seems to be asleep; his breathing is steady. When Su-jin turns over beneath the blanket, I quietly switch off my phone screen and close my eyes. The scene I summoned three minutes ago still lingers at the tip of my nose: the underground parking lot, the back seat of the car, the hot breath of someone’s hand sliding up the inside of my thigh. It wasn’t Su-jin.
Why does that day’s scent still cling?
The predawn air is frost-cold, yet my body burns.
Whenever that memory surfaces, my heart pounds so loudly I hold my breath, afraid the person beside me will wake. The problem is that the scene is nothing more than a fabricated hallucination. It never happened in reality, yet in my mind it is as vivid as if it had. That is why it feels so squalid.
One name—Do-kyung
Do-kyung was Su-jin’s closest friend. Every month or two the three of us would share a bottle of wine and idle chatter. She once said, "Your gaze is too direct. It makes the other person feel as if they ought to start taking something off." I laughed it off as a joke. Yet from that day on my mind secretly filmed every one of her movements: the walk to the bathroom, the path to the kitchen, the moment she knelt to tie her shoe at the entrance.
The day she came
One Friday in November Su-jin handed me the keys to the pension, saying she had to work overnight. I was alone. Do-kyung arrived carrying two bottles of wine. As she stood in front of the refrigerator she said, "The fridge light looks… too hot."
"Hot? From a fridge light?"
"Yes—look, your whole face is flushed."
We laughed, but for half a second we forgot to breathe. That instant has been magnified and replayed in my head for six months.
Why am I drawn to that moment?
A taboo is not simply something one mustn’t do; it is something one may do, provided one is never caught. The human brain cranks its reward circuit to maximum the instant it believes it will remain unseen. Another study says that each time hidden desire surfaces, dopamine explodes as violently as the accompanying guilt. Thus the filthier we feel, the hotter we tremble.
3:47 a.m. Su-jin’s breathing has deepened again.
I slowly slide my hand downward and, in my mind, touch the back of Do-kyung’s hand once more.
Still, you console yourself that nothing ever happened.
Yet in your head it has already ended dozens of times.
The colder the night air, the hotter the crawling hallucination becomes.
Do you, too, replay that night?
Have you ever whispered someone’s name? Eyes closed, lips slightly parted, without the slightest tremor.