The bare back on the bed trembled. In the 0.1-second burst of flash, I surrendered my body to another man’s arms. When that instant was scanned and resurrected on a single A4 sheet, I found myself staring at my own back from the bottom of the page.
“You have a beautiful back.”
That was the first thing Kim Hyun-soo ever said to me. In the gym’s back storage room, lying on a pallet, I laughed as I stretched my phone behind me. Each flash felt like lightning, and every brush of his fingertips surged with electricity. Until that day, I believed the photos would never follow me home.
11:52 p.m., basement level B5 of the office garage. It was my second time with Lee Jun-hyuk. In the back seat of the car, while one fluorescent bulb flickered, we held our breath. Jun-hyuk lifted a small camera.
“Senior, should I take one here too?”
There wasn’t even a shutter sound. Yet that tiny movement returned later as a thunderous echo.
“Working late again tonight?”
My husband closed the lid on his cup-ramen and asked. I nodded. Confessing was easier than I expected.
“I was with someone else.”
He shut the refrigerator door and turned. A yellow envelope landed on the table; he drew out a single sheet with deliberate slowness. The corner of the paper trembled. I assumed the shaking was my fault.
First page.
‘Exhibit 1. Close-up of lower-back tattoo on bed’
Another page.
‘Exhibit 7. DNA match from hair in rear seat’
And the last page.
‘Conclusion: It seems we photographed each other for the same reason.’
I couldn’t set the pages down. My fingers shook so hard I feared I’d tear the paper. My husband stepped closer and pointed to the bottom line. Tiny text was printed there.
‘Counter-evidence – 21 photos of the husband’s own affair’
August 3, 2023, Presidential Suite. The birthmark on my husband’s left shoulder was clearly visible. Only then did I meet his eyes.
“We must have been secretly photographing each other for the same reason.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it. No words came. Instead, I slowly turned the pages again. Bare back over bare back, tremor over tremor. We traced each other’s betrayals with our fingertips. For the first time, we spoke in unison.
“Is this… the end?”
The final photograph showed an empty bed. The flash had fired, but no one was there. No tremor, no bare skin, no breathing. Only crumpled sheets on white linen. In those creases we buried one another.
That night, we burned every last page. Black ashes fluttered above the ashtray. Among the cinders, we embraced for the first time. Our bodies still quivered, but the trembling was no longer betrayal.