First Misstep—or Beginning
At the far end of the office corridor, Yuna approaches. Perfume arrives first, tickling the bridge of my nose. Three buttons on her crisp white shirt are undone. I see that clearly, yet her face is gone. No, she stands right before me, but she has turned transparent—as if someone erased the figure from a photograph. In the empty space only fragrance lingers, crawling through strands of hair. I spin around, choking, and only then can I breathe.
The Portrait Desire Stole
The ophthalmologist’s chart says 20/20. Glasses, surgery—useless. The entire world is sharp, except Yuna. Or rather, I can’t see her at all. The face that refuses to print on my retina grows ever clearer inside my skull: the angle of her nose, the dry texture of her lips, the fine creases at the corners of her eyes. What my eyes reject, my brain obsessively redraws.
“Not seeing her is what really itches.” Others look straight at her and still can’t reach her. I alone possess the privilege of not seeing Yuna. That impossible proximity sears my veins. The woman absent from my vision feels closer than skin.
Hee-su’s Notebook, April 7
Café table. Hee-su slides a yellow notebook toward Min-jae. One page lies open.
‘I look into your eyes, yet you never see me.’ Min-jae frowns. However he tilts his head, his pupils never land on Hee-su’s eyes; they orbit the void beside her. “Who wrote this?” Hee-su says nothing. When Min-jae blinks, she is gone. Only the notebook remains on the table. Why does she alone become transparent?
Ji-su and Hyun-woo, Second-Floor Storage
Ji-su follows Hyun-woo’s back into a swirl of cigarette smoke. Hyun-woo turns. Their eyes meet, but he does not recognize her. “Who are you?” Ji-su steps closer. “It’s me.” Hyun-woo rubs his eyes. The cigarette tip trembles inches from Ji-su’s chest, yet he still cannot see her face. He scrubs at his lids. “My eyes feel strange. They hurt.” Ji-su whispers,
“It isn’t that you don’t want to see. You simply can’t see what you fear.”
Emotional Prosopagnosia—or the Heart’s Reflection
Neuroscientists call it emotional prosopagnosia. Brain scans show blood flow dropping in the fusiform face area only when the subject confronts a particular person. It is not pathology. Desire has trespassed on the field of vision. Yuna is too intense; fear drapes itself over the optic nerve. Not the eyes, but the heart has blindfolded me. The exact point where love and refusal begin together.
“It isn’t that I can’t see. It’s that I’m choosing not to.”
Redrawing the Hidden Portrait
Last night I stared at my own eyes in the windowpane. A black hole was lodged there—not the physiological blind spot, but a void that had swallowed Yuna’s silhouette. From its depth her laughter echoed, muffled like an old cassette. I try to pierce that hole and see her again. Yet only my fingertips reach; my sight remains hollow. That emptiness tells me love often does not obscure vision—it invents it.