“Have you ever kissed anyone?”
Cigarette-smoke silence filled the car. Hee-soo killed the engine without warning. Blue veins stood out on the back of my hand, clenched around the door handle.
“No.” The word slipped out, but the truth was I’d had YouTube tutorials on kissing bookmarked for two straight years.
In twenty-three years, when had I heard the word first most often? When I got my first exam paper, when I took my first sip of soju—someone always whispered, First love yet? I would smile and nod.
Bruised Innocence
I truly didn’t know what love was. Or I pretended not to. Because the moment I admitted it, I feared I’d break.
That was shame. When friends tilted beer glasses and let slip stories of their first nights, I fled to the bathroom. Once, inside, I practiced being someone’s first-kiss dummy. My reflection showed lips hard as a blackened wall.
What if I kiss someone right now? What if I ruin it? That person will realize I’m an aging child.
Min-jae’s Party, and Tae-eun
Min-jae was a junior from my club. At his twentieth-birthday party he handed me a champagne flute.
“Hyung, I’ve got a crush. But I don’t know how to kiss. Never done it.”
Drunk, Min-jae faced the wall I’d built for twenty-three years. That night I lied to him: When it comes to love, hyung’s a pro.
Half a year later I met Tae-eun. She was twenty-two, working part-time at a café. While teaching me how to pull an Americano she laughed at the bead of sweat on my forehead.
“Sunbae, your fingers are shaking.”
“Ah—sorry.”
“Or maybe it’s cute.”
She knew this was my first romance. Not once did she say it aloud, but her eyes spoke: This person is loving someone for the very first time.
Someone’s First, My Last
Why do we fear a late start? Fear doesn’t come from a lack of experience but from an immeasurable desire. Terror begins the instant we wonder whether our partner will remember us as a skilled lover or a clumsy child.
“I don’t want to teach you. I want to learn too.”
So we deceive each other: It wasn’t my first kiss, but it was the best, These feelings are brand-new, Starting now isn’t too late.
Before the Shimmering Door
For a month Tae-eun and I have held nothing but hands—on the subway, in the cinema, beneath street-lamps. Sometimes she brushes her lips across my knuckles; each time the world tilts.
“Sunbae, how long…”
“How long what?”
“You know, the thing we haven’t done.”
I couldn’t answer. Truth is, I don’t know either.
Yet in that moment I felt no fear—only a spark. After twenty-three years of holding back, I thought: Let someone’s first love be my last; that’s enough.
How to Love Someone for the First Time
If I start now, will it be too late? No—starting now is the earliest possible moment.
We can be someone’s first love or someone’s last. What matters is that it is no longer shame. A late start is not a wrong start; it is proof of how long we’ve waited.
Tae-eun draws me in slowly. Her breath grazes my cheek. I close my eyes. Even if this kiss is clumsy, someone will remember it.
So—are you afraid of someone’s first kiss right now? Or only pretending not to be?