The First Kiss Was on CCTV
“He was counting how many faces could fit inside my pupils.”
Min-su, forty-seven, was strange from the day we met. Whenever I laughed with another man he studied the minute tremors of my irises the way one counts the seconds of a clock. Each night, in the hush of his living room, he asked softly:
— Even when no one is near, do you still want someone else?
I answered no, of course. But he already knew how I lied.
The Anatomy of Desire
A ‘perfect relationship’ is finally nothing but pitiless surveillance.
Min-su wanted to know everything. Whether I had smelled a stranger on the subway, brushed a colleague at lunch, or, alone in bed, summoned an absent face. He proposed a small experiment: for one week I would keep a nightly diary, confessing honestly whether I had wanted anyone that day. In return he promised me “total freedom.”
Oddly, he swore that even after reading every entry he would not leave. I accepted. The first night I wrote:
— 3:17 p.m. I suddenly wondered about the new hire’s fingers.
The Lie of Paradise
Min-su read the line and smiled, a smile that calculated. He vowed to build me “perfect heaven.” Exact words:
— I’ll bring every person you’ve wanted into one room. Then you’ll stop wanting.
I was startled—yet thrilled. Could it be done?
The next week he drove me to a mountain lodge. There they were: everyone I had glanced at or dreamed of the past months. The new hire, an old lover, a man I’d once exchanged looks with on the train, even the neighbor I had never spoken to but always wondered about. None of them knew why they were there; they had come only because a “special party” was promised.
Min-su nudged me into their midst and whispered:
— Take as many as you like. Then tell me the truth.
The Moment of Collapse
What I had wanted was this exact scene: every object of desire gathered in one place. Yet the instant it materialized I understood: what I craved was the tension of unpossessibility. Now, with everything possible, I wanted nothing.
But I could not stop. Under Min-su’s gaze I kissed one, then another. He watched, calm, yet I knew: he was waiting for me to destroy myself.
— Now you can no longer lie.
That night I opened the diary again. Only one line would come:
— I have set heaven on fire. Even in the flames I still want someone.
The Psychology of Taboo
Why does perfect possession breed greater emptiness? Min-su already knew. By granting absolute freedom he made me witness my own appetite.
In the end we do not love the object; we love the act of wanting.
At forty-seven he understood my desire could never be filled. That was why he offered “total satisfaction”—the cruellest punishment of all.
Final Observation
Today Min-su still watches me. But something has changed. He no longer asks whom I want. Instead he says:
— The moment you want no one, you will truly be mine.
I pray that moment never arrives—yet I wait for it.
How long can your “perfect relationship” endure? Or are you already burning someone else’s heaven to the ground?