The instant Chae-a sank to her knees and wept, I felt a private little orgasm. Each tear that hit the ground sounded to me like a champagne cork ricocheting off marble. A muffled thud from the balcony below, the shadow of her kneeling on the patch of grass by the apartment’s front gate. I pressed myself against the fourth-floor railing, swallowed hard, and clapped a hand over my mouth—terrified my breath might leak out. Why? Because at that very moment one corner of my chest was turning molten.
Cry louder. Shatter more gorgeously.
Beyond the Glass, the First Taste
First spring of elementary school, beside the playground fence that bordered the chicken farm. The whole class had gathered. Under a sky steeped in charcoal smoke, a boy one year older dragged his little brother along. The older one yanked at a duck’s beak, the younger plucked feathers and let them scatter on the wind. The chicks died. I hid behind everyone else, breath held, lips quivering, skin prickling. No one saw me, yet my heart pounded as though I had been caught red-handed.
No one noticed me. But I noticed. And tasted it for the first time.
The next day our homeroom teacher mentioned the incident in front of the class. Pity welled in the other children’s eyes, but that pity looked so exquisite it made my stomach roar again. Watching another’s pain was a live soundtrack sharper than any television drama. The fact that I stood there, silently consuming it, thrilled me again and again.
After-School Rituals They Called “Honey-Fun”
Fourth grade, after-school club.
“Coming today?” Jin-woo whispered.
We had our secret rules. “Honey-fun” was a game of tag spun around who would cry, who would be framed. The “it” was always the innocent one. We slipped in through the classroom’s back door, hid someone’s pencil case or snapped a cherished pencil. When the victim burst in the next day and sobbed like an overturned beetle, we heard honey dripping inside ourselves.
That day it was Hee-jin’s turn. We knew her family was poor; she owned only two blouses. Jin-woo stole her cleanest one, draped it over the top of the wardrobe, sprinkled cookie crumbs on it. Ants marched, leaving dark stains. As Hee-jin choked out “My mom…,” I shut the classroom door behind me. The click was too loud, and I got scolded, but in that second my heart soared. Jin-woo and I locked eyes and smiled. This was no “game.” It was our private sacrament.
We had become gods. Dark, smirking gods with the power to upend another person’s fate.
Why Did Another’s Pain Taste So Sweet?
Kierkegaard spoke of “the fascination of dread.” Another’s agony keeps me in a safe zone while still making my skin crawl. Each time I clutched two opposing thoughts: “Thank God it isn’t me,” and “What if it were me?”
I grew by devouring pain. My father always said, “If someone’s hurting, you should help.” But his words drifted in empty air. Beyond the glass I learned how to magnify hurt. Pain became the blanket that wrapped me; only inside it could I breathe.
Emotional deficit. Perhaps the diagnosis is accurate. I secretly believed a single tear of someone else’s might become my own tear, that a drop of salt water could melt the ice inside me.
But the hope dissolved, leaving only candy-sweet residue.
The Tremor Still Living in Your Wrist
Last week, Seoul Metro Line 2. A high-school girl whispered into her phone, tears trembling: “Mom, I can’t take it… the teacher…” I lowered my head; her tears felt close enough to splash my cheek. The phone screen quivered. Her voice alone made my chest itch again. Then I raged—at myself. Are you still that child?
I fled. Before her tears could crawl inside me, I quietly ran away.
The single lesson I have learned: pain is beautiful only when it lives somewhere else. The moment it steps into me, I flee. And then I look down from a window once more.
Are you, even now, smiling at someone else’s tears? Unable to look away, guarding a tiny, uneasy glint in the hollow of your palm?