2:18 a.m.
I lie in bed, holding my breath. Min-jun is still awake. Each time he turns, cold fingers graze my waist—his hand always the last edge of winter. Pretending to sleep, I feel the slender chill spread through my body like an ice shard pressed to skin, slow, tenacious. We have never grown warm beneath the same blanket. His breath slips through the winter quilt like a nocturnal draft, brushing my burning nape. Once, twice—icy exhalations. Between them my chest flares like a furnace. Yet the fire is mine alone.
2:32 a.m.
He rolls onto his back; the mattress sighs. Min-jun’s spine meets my breasts—cold shoulder blades, cold flesh. All that frigidity drinks my heat. Without allowing even an inch of space, we seem clasped together, yet share not a flicker of warmth. I breathe carefully, afraid my breath might frost his ribs. On the 1,825th day of marriage, I melt alone beneath the quilt again. The ember rising in my chest turns to ash at his single glacial glance. Still, I strike another match. Between my fingers, inside my thighs, on the tip of my tongue—secretly, invisibly.
2:47 a.m.
My fingertips tremble. Once, Min-jun used to squeeze my hand so fiercely the phrase first love felt lukewarm. Each time the subway burst from a tunnel he rubbed my knuckles, waking the hot veins beneath. In those days a fingertip could change each other’s season. Now—now I am alone. In the center of the cold bed I let my hand drift downward. Min-jun sleeps deeply; even his breath is light as rime. Through the quilt’s seam, past my lingerie, deeper—tending the fire inside, I melt quietly.
3:11 a.m.
A single drop of sweat. One burning bead slides from temple to ear. It is not Min-jun’s tear; it is mine. A warmth tasted after long absence. The heat runs down my nape and stains the cold bedding. Min-jun does not know that while he lies beside me I have died and been reborn dozens of times.
3:29 a.m.
The frigid dawn knocks at the window; cool air seeps in. The room remains an ice floe. Min-jun is silent as a dream. I lift the quilt a fraction and drink the cold air into my chest. Slowly, very slowly, I move my body again—dancing alone. On ice, I become flame. We bought this bed together, yet now only ice and fire lie here. Before I notice, I have melted ahead of Min-jun. At dawn I will refreeze beside him, composed and expressionless. Inside, still the woman who burns.
4:02 a.m.
Min-jun’s breathing thins. He seems to murmur my name in a dream, then even that fades. I turn to study his face—icy forehead, icy lips. When those eyes open I will be ice again. Still, every night I melt here. A spark only I can see, a spring only I can feel. On this glacial husband’s bed I end each day. At sunrise I return as the immaculate, frosty wife, but for this single scorching moment—I am a woman flowing like wax. A flame fallen on ice, unseen, burning quietly, burning hot.