Silence breathes against my skin. The perfumed ghost of red wine has soaked the sheets and fused with his breath. I open my eyes carefully and look at Min-jae. In his pupils my reflection looks startlingly calm.
“Stay until the end tonight.”
He answers in a weary voice. I nod and wind a single strand of his hair round my finger. In truth I grasp nothing; every filament has already drifted into empty air.
Do you remember the first taste? Long ago, we met outside the bar restroom. Our shoes touched over puddles the mop had missed; the liquor was green, and our fingertips stung with cold. He squinted and said,
“Your shoes are wet. Dry them quickly.”
The heat of his hand on the back of mine still scalds when I recall it. Love, from the very start, was temperature.
When did the sweet betrayal begin? On his phone the name Hye-jin meant nothing at first. Yet her messages melted like ice cream: “Min-jae, tonight I’ll fall asleep to the melody you wrote for me.” I smiled and stroked his cheek. Inside, something black was already catching fire. A feeling too luscious to be called hatred—chocolate dissolving on the tongue, slow, endless sweetness.
The plan was simple. A seaside pension in Jeju. Min-jae was delighted by the trip I suggested. He was exhausted from composing until dawn. After one sip of wine his eyelids drooped; he fell asleep leaning on me. I slipped my fingers through his hair and whispered,
“Sleep; I’m here.”
That night the wind tapped the windowpane. I opened the laptop quietly. Inside, Min-jae’s world blazed—instrumentals, lyrics, demo files incandescent with promise. For a moment I stopped breathing. When all of this vanishes, what expression will settle on his face?
Three Seconds of Lust
I dragged the cursor. Ctrl+A. Every file turned blue. The certainty that this was the end flooded my body. Min-jae slept peacefully, one hand dangling above his brow.
Drag. The trash icon swelled, shrank, glittered.
One second. If I release my finger, five years of him disappear.
Two seconds. He will lose the melody he wrote for Hye-jin, the lyrics from the night of our first kiss.
Three seconds. I did not let go. I drank the three seconds with my entire body. Hot adrenaline brimmed at the base of my throat. In that instant I was a god who could cradle everything of Min-jae in my palm.
In the end I did not drop the files into the trash. I copied the whole glowing archive to a hidden USB. Then, casually, I deleted the originals. The hollow chime of an empty trashcan echoed through the room. Min-jae slept on, unknowing.
A Heart in a Red Dress
I returned to my own apartment. Without unpacking, I pulled out a crimson dress. In the mirror I looked like a stranger. I lifted the camera, pressed the shutter, posted one shot.
Now you can forget me too.
Min-jae came three days later.
He stood at my door, gaunt. When I opened, he gasped,
“Why did you do it?”
I said nothing. Instead I pressed a small USB into his hand. Inside were the restored files. His eyes trembled.
“This is…?”
“Yes. Revenge is finished. So are we.”
Why do we want to destroy the person we once loved?
Love was scalding; where it cooled, vapor rose. Cold vapor stiffens fingertips, eventually freezes the heart. Hatred may be love’s superior emotion—its doubled polarity of hot and cold. When we lose what we love, we long to make it forever ours. By annihilation.
A Stranger’s Eyes in the Mirror
Now I cannot see Min-jae. The moment I hated him, I ceased to be myself. I yearned to return to the day we met. Yet knowing I never can, hatred chained me.
I never wanted to destroy you. I never wanted to lose myself.
What Finally Remains
Much later I contacted him.
I’m sorry. I can’t love you anymore. That is why I began to hate you. That was me.
Min-jae sent no reply. But I knew he carried the same feeling. Where love and hatred coexist—that is where an affair ends.
The Sound of a Door Closing
Haven’t you, just once, longed to fling blade-sharp words at someone you adored? When that wish flares, whose face do you see? And is that face your own?
I closed the door and thought: I had been looking at someone who was not me. And perhaps that someone will stay inside me forever.