At the far end of the break-room corridor, by the refrigerator, Ji-hoon caught me.
“Your eyes are shaking today.”
Not my eyes—
but they won’t stop trembling.
He slipped the paper cup from my hand, took a slow sip, and asked softly—
right on top of the gestures I’d hidden since morning.
I couldn’t speak.
The single thought ‘What happens when this ends?’ kept spilling over in silent waves.
The Rule That Crumbles Before Me
To endure is to jail yourself.
In love, restraint is the superstitious chanting of “I do not allow this” a hundred times.
Yet the mind already knows: this will explode one day.
That foresight hammers like a mallet, clearer with every blow.
A concealed desire turns into a sticky shadow clinging to the hem of your clothes.
Each brush of another hand makes it tremble; mischievous imaginings spread—
until the thin levee called restraint bursts.
The breach is only the width of a sheet of paper.
Once that sheet tears, everything you froze floods out.
Do-yeon, Thin as Glass
Do-yeon works at headquarters: thirty-two, five years married.
She has told her husband, repeatedly, “Absolutely, I have no lover.”
Tonight she is assigned late overtime with the new intern, twenty-six-year-old Ji Han-eul—just the two of them.
11 p.m.; the office holds nothing but the printer’s lonely clacking.
Do-yeon lifts her head.
Across the piles of documents, Ji Han-eul is looking at her.
His gaze is so hot it looks almost hurt.
He steps closer, places a hand beside the monitor;
the tiny delta of veins on the back of his hand twitches.
“Senior, I’m holding something back right now.”
“…What?”
“You haven’t met my eyes once.”
Do-yeon lowers her head behind the screen.
You’ve endured enough, Do-yeon. You’ve borne it all.
But that night she slides the keyboard across the desk like a careless afterthought.
She forgets the overnight messages from her husband, forgets the wedding ring.
The word endure is simply erased from the room.
The Bravery of a Cracked Thing
Next morning, Do-yeon cranes her neck in front of the mirror to hide the flush on her throat.
Am I ruined?
Three days later she texts Ji Han-eul: We can’t do this again. But is “never again” really right?
Instead of a typed reply, she receives a voice note:
“Still holding back, aren’t you?”
With that single sentence she breaks.
She goes to a shop before work and buys a new umbrella—no reason.
Just gripping the handle, she believes, will let her promise herself: from now on I’ll endure again.
But the rain never comes.
And she realizes anew: I was already shattered—pieces that can’t be glued.
Three Seconds at the End of the Hall
After work, Do-yeon stands at the corridor’s end, umbrella in hand.
Between closing elevator doors, Ji Han-eul’s back flashes past.
One second, two, three—
in that brief span her fingers tighten around the umbrella handle.
When the doors shut completely, the strength drains from her hand.
The umbrella drops to the floor; she bows her head.
Fluorescent light wavers across the fallen umbrella.
No one sees whether her eyes are closed.