“She told me he had been mine first.”
Jin leaned her chin on the back of my hand and murmured it so softly the bar lights turned her pupils into sparks. While I stared at the floor, unsure where to settle my restless gaze, Min-jae excused himself to the restroom. Jin slid one seat closer.
“You like him too, don’t you?”
Close enough that her breath grazed my cheek. Remove the single bottle of soju between us and her lips would brush my ear. I couldn’t speak. I hadn’t even kissed him yet.
Why did she notice first?
The first time Min-jae approached me, Jin whispered from the next stool, “Wow, you really look thrilled.” That was all. Yet that night her eyes said something else:
I want to watch it—all of that thrill.
It happens often between women: the wish to witness the moment someone is claimed can outweigh the wish to claim him yourself.
Two nights that feel like confession
First night, two Wednesdays ago
Venue: Hongdae live café Great Jack
Min-jae was hammering his guitar on stage; I held my breath. At the end of the song he smiled right at me. Jin curled her fingers over the back of my hand.
Jin: “He’s stunning.”
Me: “…Yeah.”
Her fingertips were thermometers, gauging the heat of a tremor I hadn’t yet named.
Second night, yesterday
Venue: Jin’s studio.
Min-jae never showed. Jin pulled beers from the fridge.
“You really like him?”
I feigned ignorance. She already knew.
“Min-jae and I… we had a moment, once.”
The beer scalded the back of my throat. My first confession about a man I hadn’t even kissed.
Why did she need to taste him first?
Psychologist Singer says desire is always triangular: A wants B, C wants A, B wants C. Ours is simpler.
“The problem is that you felt him before I did.”
Not jealousy exactly—more the sense that before he could become mine, he had already become hers. A forbidden instant exposed first through a friend’s gaze.
So Jin seduced me. She wanted to confirm, with her own mouth, the desire of mine that Min-jae had uncovered.
Final question
If, that night, Jin had kissed Min-jae, whom would you crave more? The man you hadn’t yet tasted, suddenly tasted by someone else. Would you rage—or watch?
When you meet Min-jae again, what will you tell Jin?