The Voice That Cuts Through the Prologue
“How long are you going to keep treating me like this, noona?”
Neon trembles beyond the glass terrace. He tilts the corner of his mouth upward, exhaling smoke he never inhaled from a cigarette he never lit. At thirty-nine, I find the phantom nicotine sweeter than any real drag. The hypocrisy of twenty-two becomes, intact, my own crime.
Blood That Cannot Be Hidden
I never forget you’re only twenty-two. But I ache to forget.
I bought you that cheap cologne kids mock you for. I kept sniffing it for days, just because it came from me. At drinks my friends laughed.
They said “cougar.”
I swallowed the word. A cat is so often prey, not predator. When a young lion pounces, the older cat bleeds—quietly, invisibly.
In a Quiet Corner: Sujin & Junho
Sujin is a six-year veteran team leader at an ad agency. Thirty-eight. Junho is a rookie designer. Twenty-four.
On his first day Junho burst in through the back door, reeking of sweat and nicotine.
“Sorry, sunbaenim. The bus—” “It’s fine. But you should lose that cigarette smell fast.”
With that single line Sujin believed she stood on higher ground. Every Friday she waited for his message.
‘Sunbaenim, smoke break today?’
Level B3 of the parking garage. In the car, the flames burned brief. She let go first; he caught her hand again.
In those repeated turns Sujin dreamed of falling from ever-greater heights. Then one day Junho said,
“Let’s stop seeing each other.” “What?” “You look more anxious these days.”
That night, drinking alone, Sujin asked herself,
‘Who was it I was really afraid of?’
She drank beer on the office rooftop. The night air at thirty-eight is cold; where he once stood, only empty bottles remain.
The Scent of Taboo
Taboo imitates power. Through a younger partner we try to reclaim our own youth. Yet we fear that same youth may betray us.
I envy his. The failures he has not yet tasted, the lessons still unknown—I covet them all. And coveting ages me faster.
A Final Question
He asked again,
“Can we keep doing this?”
I couldn’t answer—because I never forget how young he is. And because I decided not to be afraid any longer.
But the real fear is not that he might leave. It is that I might dwindle into someone even younger than he is.
If he walks away, I revert to the old cat. And that, oddly, terrifies me more.
So I told him,
“I know you’re still young. But between us, perhaps I’m the younger one.”
He laughed. Behind the laughter, a tremor—mirrored in mine. He did not release my hand. Yet no one knows toward what ending we’re now walking.