“Again today I have to smile like nothing happened”
At the café this morning, Min-ji was already waiting. The man who, only hours earlier, had left my bed with her unread message glowing on his phone now sat beside her, sipping an Americano.
Does a ghost of my mouth still linger on his lips?
I steadied my shaking hand and stroked Min-ji’s hair.
‘If she ever sees your face reflected in his eyes, she’ll kill us both.’
That was why the desire tasted so sharp. The heavier the guilt of stealing from a friend, the deeper his kiss became. When the tongue Min-ji once boasted about glided along my throat, I must have been insane.
Nights she never knew
Every Thursday, while Min-ji believed I was working late, I met him in secret. At first I called it just a drink. A harmless lie.
It began when I asked lightly, “So, did you break up with Min-ji?”
He laughed. Not yet. Well, when I’m with you I feel like I should.
At those words I was already undressed. The finger that wore the ring Min-ji had shown off—bought for their 500-day anniversary—slipped inside me, and I closed my eyes.
Min-ji, I’m sorry.
Never once did I mean it.
In Min-ji’s bedroom, the scent of him
On Min-ji’s birthday I came early to help. While she was in the bathroom, I lifted his cap from the nightstand. She would never know it had rested on the bra I’d peeled off hours earlier.
What if she poses for pictures tonight wearing this cap?
The thought made me slick with wicked heat. Only I knew the secret; the secrecy itself became foreplay.
Min-ji didn’t know about our hidden kisses, the whispered promises, the sticky evidence of that night. Because it was all a secret, it was sweeter than sin.
Anxiety crouches at the nape of my neck
I open her KakaoTalk every day to see if he has texted I love you. Today, again, he has.
I go mad. Why not to me?
Did you sleep with Min-ji last night?
…Why do you ask? Just wondering—she said she was tired today. No, that’s a lie.
But I know. When Min-ji stays over, she oversleeps because she’s erasing traces of me.
She doesn’t realize that what excites me most is touching her man while remembering he is hers.
How to pretend we’ve broken up
Last night he said, “I ended it with Min-ji. Really.”
I believed him.
Today Min-ji laughed, telling me stories about oppa again.
‘Who’s lying? The man I love? Or my best friend of seven years?’
I chose. I held Min-ji’s hand and said, “He broke up with you? You’ll be okay.”
She cried. In her tears I saw the hours he and I had knotted above her, inside her sheets, inside her life.
The psychology of desire
Why do humans covet what belongs to a friend? French analysts call it la passion obscure—the thrill of power when we steal, the obsession when we cannot.
Yet there’s more. The secret I keep with Min-ji’s lover makes me extraordinary. It carves out a private universe between what she knows and what she never will. In that sliver of darkness I feel most alive.
Today, again, I almost told her
At lunch Min-ji asked, “Hey… have you ever met my oppa?”
My breath froze.
Um… when?
Dunno, he keeps mentioning your name. Ah… no, never.
She believed me. She wanted to believe. Accepting that her best friend of seven years had stolen her man would hurt too much.
Final question
If, right now, Min-ji learned everything—would you keep lying until the end, or raise your hands and say, Yes, it was me?
Tell me: are you, at this very moment, stealing someone’s kiss while avoiding your friend’s eyes?