The First Scolding
11:47 p.m., a Hongdae bar terrace. Dong-seok was waving tickets to his new play when my phone buzzed.
—Where are you? —Just one drink with Dong-seok— —So you do still pick up my calls.
I shot up, overturning my stool. I saw Dong-seok’s face freeze but couldn’t force out an apology. After that night, his texts stopped coming; the group chat quietly expelled me.
You Left Me First
At first it felt like defense. “Those people sabotage us,” she murmured, and I began to spot only the flaws in my friends.
Jae-hoon will drag you into another messy affair. Soo-jin envies us.
One by one, the lines went dead—more than twenty names from school melting like spring snow. “I’m all you have left” sounded romantic, but it was really her trophy list.
She handled the scissors so deftly that I never noticed I was the one gripping the blade.
Solitude in My Wallet
November 2021. After a company dinner, Jung-woo was in a taxi when she sent him a photo.
—Why post a picture with you? Delete it. —It’s just a group shot— —Now.
The photo vanished; so did Jung-woo. I told him, “Let’s take a little break,” but the words were a point of no return. He never mailed me a wedding invitation.
She opened my wallet like a surgeon: credit cards, debit cards, housing subscription—everything.
“You’re not alone anymore,” she said, and the sentence quietly inverted into “You have no one left but me.”
Why We Embrace the Burning Thorn
Milgram’s obedience experiments showed that people instinctively recoil from cruelty—unless it is reframed as duty to, or unity with, another.
She removed everyone except herself. In that process I believed I was never alone, therefore stronger.
The moment we abandon others for love, we enlist as love’s Red Guards.
The Night She Left
White Day, March 14 2023. She was packing. Her fingers carried the faint scent of unfamiliar perfume—evidence of long hours spent with someone else.
—You have no friends left either. Let’s start over together. —…With whom? —Just… someone.
That was all. After that night she disappeared, and I found no one left to call. Group chats were hollow, the contact list an ever-fading ghost.
What I should have guarded wasn’t her, but the friendships I let her shear away. Realization came too late.
Final Question
Whoever carries a knife against others eventually turns it on their own flesh.
So—whose name are you raising the blade for now, and when it swings back, whose arms will you race toward?