— Shall we stop using protection from today? — No. I won’t.
The words dropped onto the mattress and the bed gave a quiet thud.
Jae-min laid his right hand on Ji-soo’s right breast, then quickly withdrew it, afraid she might feel the tremor in his fingertips. Ji-soo neither closed nor opened her eyes; she stared at the ceiling light, pupils trembling like dust rising above hot air.
Why did I say it? I’m not having a baby. Say it once more and everything will truly shatter.
Jae-min gripped his left wrist with his right hand. The pulse throbbed faintly. Ji-soo lifted the blanket, baring a thigh, then covered it again. Their knees brushed. At that brief contact both bodies recoiled—as though they had already judged each other’s temperature too scalding.
The bed remained unchanged. Yet it was now strewn with splinters of glass.
Jae-min took Ji-soo’s hand. He felt the merciless fate etched into the back of it—five years of marriage, a baby name once chosen and then erased. Ji-soo threaded her fingers through his, one by one. Their fingertips pressed, then released. Conversation ended there.
The mattress made a sound. Thump.
When Jae-min rolled over Ji-soo’s shoulder, the blanket slapped the bed. Desire in place of a child. Silence in place of a child.
Ji-soo closed her eyes. Jae-min kept his open. The air between them hardened.
What will you cradle instead of a child? And how will you be certain it will ever be enough?
Jae-min brushed Ji-soo’s hair aside and whispered: Sorry. Ji-soo whispered back: Me too.
On the glass-strewn mattress they held each other tight. Even when shards grazed their skin, they pressed closer. Faced with the certainty that no child would be born, they discovered their bodies were filled with broken glass. And on that glittering surface they caressed each other. If blood came, they clutched all the deeper.