Lip-Gloss on the Back Seat
“So you ruined us on purpose—just so I couldn’t leave, just so you couldn’t?”
Noon light pours through the café window, gilding even the wallpaper. Only Yujin’s eyes stay cold, forged iron. Opposite her, Minjae crushes his paper cup, untouched Americano bleeding between his fingers.
“It wasn’t what I wanted. It… just happened.”
Just happened? Yujin traps the bitter laugh behind her teeth. Last night she found lip-gloss on the back seat of Minjae’s car—wrong shade, yet the imprint of a hastily wiped kiss was unmistakable. She said nothing; instead she lifted his phone. The passcode was still 0423: the day of their first kiss. In that moment she understood—he would not leave, but he would make her force him to.
Ten Days Since the Cat Named Lulu Went Missing
Doyun has counted ten days since Se-yeon walked out. The ghost of her perfume still haunts the sheets and curtains. He inhales it greedily, then spins the extractor fan to full speed.
A contradictory hunger: drive the scent away, yet preserve every molecule.
Se-yeon’s cat, Lulu, once queen of the tabletop, now hesitates to leap. Doyun places glass bowls on the floor and watches her tremble.
Since you left, even your cat quivers with fear.
The faint tremor in Lulu’s fur tastes like revenge. At dawn one day the window stands open, and Lulu vanishes. Paw-prints trail down the corridor, vanishing at the stairwell. CCTV shows the cat never looking back. Witnessing that indifference hollows Doyun deeper than the day Se-yeon left.
In the end, I could keep nothing.
Empty Café, Waited in Until 2 a.m.
Harine refreshes her ex-boyfriend’s SNS dozens of times a day. She even zooms in on photos of his new girlfriend.
Why does he still go to the same café, shoot from the same angle?
Instead of rage, a perverse delight curls inside her—proof that he replays their patterns. One night she visits the café, sits in the farthest corner without ordering, and waits until two. No one comes. As she leaves, she smiles.
Evidence that I no longer want him.
Yet she knows the smile masks a stranger affection: a wish to shield him from another wound.
Yujin’s Whisper
I knew: Minjae would not leave, but he would make me drive him away. I would do the same. Our love grew too vast; only ruin could make it eternal.
That night Minjae does not come home. Yujin opens and closes the refrigerator twenty times, then dabs the same lip-gloss on her own lips. Under the light, the red tint is identical to the stain she found on his seat.
In the end, while still wanting each other, we had no choice but to part. Perhaps that was the ending we both desired.