"Before the ring, this first" The champagne flutes in the restaurant sparkled too brightly. Beneath the table I tapped the ring box with my finger, yet what rose vividly before my eyes was something else. While Yujin looked at me in silence, I drew a small plastic pouch from my pocket. Inside the transparent cellophane lay traces I had gathered without her knowing.
The first fragrance from a locked room Sophomore year of high school, late night at a friend’s house. A dust-like scent slipped through the crack of the bathroom door and tickled my nose. A flimsy fabric his little sister had left behind, the lingering warmth where soap and skin had mingled.
Suddenly, I wanted to be a thief. From that day I learned a quiet alchemy. A girlfriend’s friend’s discarded sock, the frayed end of a junior’s forgotten scarf. I collected the fragments of a fragrance that grew stronger only when hidden, and every night I closed my eyes and summoned it: dampness that clung like spring wind, the faint warmth of an autumn sock slipping halfway off. My obsession sharpened, deep as a bottle of rare perfume.
First love, first betrayal of scent Sophomore year of university, my first girlfriend, Hyejin. Six months into dating, I stepped into her room for the first time. From a single bristle of the brush beside her bed came a familiar aroma. My hand moved before my mind.
"What’s this?" Hyejin stood in the doorway. She had seen me cradling her callus brush, inhaling. That was the moment we ended. You’re kind of creepy. The words still tickle the bridge of my nose.
A confession on top of an envelope In the restaurant I set the envelope gently before Yujin. Inside the clear plastic were her own traces: a stocking she had laddered last month, socks she had left behind a few days earlier, even a shoelace from her family’s cast-off pair. Yujin’s eyes hardened.
"I slept with these," I said. "With your smell, with the space you left." In that instant every sound in the restaurant stopped. Yujin’s lips parted, then closed again. When one scent vanished, the temperature between us cooled as well.