“Careful, it’s hot,” Joon-young warned, but Ji-su ignored him and speared a thick slice of tonkatsu. In a flash the chopsticks flashed over my demi-glace and carved away the exact piece I had been eyeing. The oil crackled. Every other sound in the café died.
That was mine.
A Hidden Territory Inside the Mouth
Food was never mere calories. As a child, whatever my sister tasted first never reached me; Mother would slide my plate toward her. “Sharing is pretty,” she said—words that always sounded like a lie to soothe hunger. So I learned to hide what was mine: behind closed lids, at the back of the fridge, even under my tongue. From lovers, too.
Obsession is born not of starvation but of absence. When I first met Ji-su, he wolfed down my kimchi-jjigae and cried, “How can this be so good?” I didn’t realize then that the crumpled moment was the instant I surrendered my most secret sovereignty.
Tae-yeon’s Chicken, the Price of One Bite
After two years together, Tae-yeon and I rented a studio and moved in. That first night she ordered salmon salad—nothing else, just salmon glazed with her sweet sauce. I ordered pizza: Super Supreme with cheese-stuffed crust. As I tore at a slice, she pointed a fingertip at me. One bite of mine.
Still fine. Then her lips descended on the dough for 0.7 seconds, and I replayed it ten thousand times in my head.
Only seven slices left for me now.
She said the cheese was “insane,” and I could not take another bite. I nursed the cola instead. After that, Tae-yeon helped herself to “just one bite” again and again: a chunk of breast meat from the yangnyeom chicken, the lone slice of pork in the ramen, the strawberry-jam-heaviest corner of my sandwich. I began ordering more than two could finish. She cooed that my “let’s not waste” was adorable.
I wasn’t wasting—I was discarding.
Ji-su’s Curry, the Final Spoonful
Ji-su and I were fifteen months in. Friday night after work I came home and started curry. I seduced the onion with the tip of the knife, diced potato and carrot into perfect geometry. Everything was flawless until the roux.
As the scent curled up, Ji-su opened the door, drunk on it. He lifted the lid before the pot had even boiled fifteen minutes. His chopsticks dipped, stirred the cream-thick gravy, and surfaced with the largest potato. “Oh, wow,” he smiled.
I stood with the lid in my hand, vision bleaching. Red sauce sluiced down my wrist, scalding, but the hotter burn was fury.
I made that for myself.
Carelessly he said, “Delicious,” and wandered to the living room. I carried the pot to the sink and poured the curry straight into the trash. The hot stew warped the plastic lid. A knock came.
“Hey, let’s eat.”
I couldn’t answer. Inside me something sharper than hunger arrowed around.
What I’d guarded wasn’t the food—it was me.
The Inner Surface of the Bowl, the Depth of Desire
Winnicott wrote that through “excessive concern” the attachment object becomes entirely one’s own territory. A lover’s bite is never simple hunger; it is the moment my lifetime of absence is stolen. To eat is to absorb; to be eaten from is to be erased.
We ingest our own projections in our meals: mother’s love, father’s approval, a sibling’s envy. A single pizza hides an invisible family history. When a lover takes one bite, that history is transferred. Thus one bite becomes a fatal betrayal.
The Question Is as Deep as Hunger
Even now I can’t finish a whole chicken I’ve ordered alone. Fearing someone else’s hand, I throw away the first piece. Instead of the lesson to eat evenly, the conviction that only my mouth may touch it has taken root.
And you? When your lover eyes your plate, can you offer that one bite—or will you overturn it without hesitation?
In that moment, which will you choose: love, or hunger?