“I can’t live without you” was a lie. Last winter, even on the day of my father’s funeral, I sprinted to my lover’s flat. While the corpse cooled in the chapel, I thawed my body in his bed. I should have frozen to death right there.
You, Me, and an Empty Room
There is a season when one may claim to love another. I had already missed mine. Ten years. For ten whole years I hung from the word us. In that time I let everything slip through my fingers.
- My father died. Not a single text on the day of the funeral.
- My mother declared a permanent estrangement. “Marry that man and you’re dead to me.”
- My younger sibling cut contact. Their profile picture is still our family photo—only my face has been erased. Yet I was fine. Because he was still there.
A Gaze Ten Years in the Making, One Drop of Ice
24 December 2023. Christmas Eve. In a one-room flat with broken heating, we breathed as quietly as thieves.
Me: “Next year, let’s really get married.”
Him: “…”
Me: “Everyone has turned away, but as long as I have you—”
Him: “…Actually.”
He said it. He really said it.
“I thought I couldn’t live without you either, but now… I’m just sorry.”
So that was it—just sorry.
I blinked. I asked why. Instead of an answer, he extended a chilled hand.
A wedding invitation. A bride’s name I didn’t recognize glittered above a hall I’d never heard of.
The Silhouette of Desire Rises from the Dark
What I discarded was my family. In the meantime, he acquired one.
Do you know why? When the warmest place cools, we long to set fire to the cold. Severing the burning name family, I craved an even hotter love. That desire incinerated me until even my fingers were ash. He never wished for this. He simply no longer needed me. For ten years I had roared, “You can’t live without me,” yet he quietly survived.
Two Divorces, One Survivor
Case 1. Soo-jin
In a bar near Moran Station, Seoul. Soo-jin skipped her parents’ thirtieth anniversary for a two-night Jeju trip with her boyfriend Min-jae.
When she returned, her family had already become “the former family.”
Father: “How about Min-jae becomes our eldest son instead of you?”
Mother: “I’ve erased every photo of you from our walls.”
A year later, Min-jae registered his marriage to a junior from his company’s club. That night Soo-jin locked herself in the station restroom and wept with clenched teeth. No one came for her; the family she had forsaken could never return, and Min-jae no longer needed her.
Case 2. Do-hyun
Goshiwon room 205, Dunsan-dong, Daejeon. Do-hyun gave up a house as large as his older brother’s, dreaming only of the deposit on a newlywed flat with Jia, his lover of seven years. Jia finally turned away: “Living while deceiving my family is too heavy.” Do-hyun tried to go home, but on the doorstep waited only a trash bag. Inside lay the stuffed frog his brother had given him seven years earlier. A note was attached:
You made your choice. Live well. Do-hyun carried that bag up and down the corridor all day. In the end he set it by the door and never went home again.
The Chemical Formula of Desire Wrapped in Taboo
Family is the first desire and the final taboo. The moment we believe them to be already ours rather than on our side, we can discard them. Then we search for a new, absolute love to fill the void—mistakenly convinced it will be the lover of ten years, the spouse of a lifetime. Psychologist Peter Sloterdijk wrote:
“Only when we lose the other do we recognize our own need.” Yet we do not devote ourselves to meeting that need; we devote ourselves to proving we are unneeded. In the end, abandoning family and clinging to a lover is not love but fear—fear of becoming someone who can be declared unnecessary.
Once the Door Closes, the Room Is Always Cold
At this very moment, whose back have you turned? And who will turn away from you?
The family I abandoned will not grant me rebirth.
His wedding invitation is paper that will never fold again. They say marriage is a beginning, not an end, yet someone paces without either. Is that you, or is it me? Once the door shuts, who will be weeping on the threshold?