(The alarm on the desk rings: 7:30 p.m. He still hasn’t caught his breath after stepping off the subway.)
Am I too late? A single line of text slices through the silence.
If I am, what then? I’m scared of you.
Almost simultaneously an emoji: a red heart so huge it looks ready to tear.
The heart looks like blood.
He buys two bottles of soju at the convenience store and slips into the elevator. Fourteenth floor. When the doors slide open, the sharp medicinal scent stabs his nose. The living room glitters with shards of glass; a tumbler has shattered.
— Sorry, it slipped.
A woman in a white nightgown smiles without a word. Skin white, eyes so dark they feel like holes.
Shards of Glass-Like Memory
When she took her medication on time, she was whole. They quarrelled over the TV remote, asked for kisses, laughed at the smell of side dishes. But when the sun went down, a crack appeared. She was reborn, so she claimed, with a knife in her hand.
If I die, who will you love?
The question lands like a garrote. He slides a hand under the quilt and catches her wrist. Scars: as though carved by something sharp.
Those scars are beautiful.
He is startled at himself.
Dissection of Desire
Caring for a lover discharged from the psych ward is an immense fear—and an immense power. Checking that she has swallowed her pills, soothing her when she clings like a three-year-old sobbing.
I can control her.
And be controlled.
A dark equilibrium.
He remembers what the hospital taught him: a schizophrenic patient, even when in love, struggles with reality testing. In other words, the love itself is unverifiable.
Still he clings. Because that unevidenced love burns too hot.
Yumi & Jaehyun, and Me
Yumi had once been a creative at an ad agency. First psychotic break at twenty-six, second admission at twenty-eight. The man’s name was Jaehyun. They met in the hospital corridor while he was admitted for depression.
Yumi looked like a fairy in a white gown, eyes enormous, words few. After discharge Jaehyun kept returning. Yumi’s mother couldn’t understand why her daughter pulled this man toward her.
— Mom, when I take my meds I can’t tell who anyone is. Only he remembers me.
Jaehyun overheard. From that day he fell into the delusion that he was Yumi’s sole anchor.
After discharge Yumi rang Jaehyun dozens of times a day. Sleepless nights brought 5 a.m. calls; if he didn’t answer, she dialled 119 to report a family suicide. By the time the police arrived, Jaehyun was gasping on her doorstep.
Yumi sat scratching her head.
— Sorry, you got scolded, huh?
The Thrill of Trespassing Taboo
This is not mere pity. There is a thrill in crossing the border between normal and abnormal. The madder she grows, the more rational I feel; the more rational I feel, the deeper she plunges into madness—perverse superiority.
Jaehyun recalled the days Yumi skipped her meds. Naked, she stood before the mirror stroking her own throat.
— I want to crawl out of here. I’m a fraud.
She meant she had deceived herself. All love deceives the self.
Yumi asked:
— You deceived me too, didn’t you?
When the Mind Itches
Psychiatry textbooks say some healthy people see a wounded infant inside the mad. The infant must be protected, awakening the caretaker’s desire.
But that is only half true. We do not love the wounded infant; we use it to confirm something within ourselves.
Jaehyun heard a strange anecdote from Yumi’s parents: as a child she was locked in the bathroom and cried all day. After that, whenever anyone closed a door she screamed. So Jaehyun always left the bathroom door open.
In that moment he realised:
Perhaps I’m not trying to mend her past, but my own.
The Sound of the Door Closing
One night Yumi went mad after glancing at Jaehyun’s phone. She believed he had been texting someone in his sleep—only spam, in fact. She stroked his cheek with the tip of a knife.
— You’ll abandon me too. Everyone does.
Jaehyun stayed still. The metal was cold; the world spun.
Then Yumi whispered:
— What if no one ever leaves?
The knife clattered. Yumi collapsed into his arms, sobbing.
For the first time she said:
— I’m sorry. I want to leave too.
Final Sentence
That night Jaehyun unclasped the watch from Yumi’s wrist. The watch stopped; time stopped.
But Jaehyun still leaves the door open.
Because perhaps the one standing before the closed door is not Yumi, but me.
Have you ever loved someone who had lost their mind—or remained inside a love that had lost its own?