“I’ll shower first—way too hot.”
Afternoon sun hammered the deserted-island resort. The pool glittered at twenty-nine degrees, watermelon vapor drifting above it, her laughter leaking through the locked glass door. Lee Duhoon slipped a hand in and out of his swim-trunk pocket, then buried the phone deep beneath a towel.
Four nights, five days: between sweat and silence
He had known even before leaving Jamsil. Yuri—his girlfriend—had never once doubted him in seven years, and she beamed at the vacation plan the way one recites a checklist: “must-try restaurants, photo spots, sunset bar.” Sitting opposite her on the train, Duhoon typed a single Kakao message to one contact: Might see you there?
At the poolside bar he met her—white bikini, scarlet straw hat. Name: Jisoo. “Coincidentally” at the same resort. Can we still call it coincidence? Through the lucent cocktail glass their eyes locked, glanced at the rings on their left ring fingers, then slid away.
The second night, Yuri left early for the beach party. “I’m a lightweight…” she’d said, an excuse they both recognized by now. Duhoon walked the back path of the resort. Jisoo was already waiting. Beneath tropical shade, beer cans sweated slick. The kiss arrived sudden yet familiar. We told ourselves it was only the heat, the breeze—therefore permissible.
After the return: the elephant in the room
The moment the taxi pulled away from Incheon Airport, Duhoon instinctively clasped Yuri’s hand with one of his and deleted the Kakao thread with the other. Watching the name “Jisoo” vanish, cold sweat trickled down his neck.
If she finds out? No—if I simply never see Jisoo again?
Back home, Yuri backed up vacation photos to her laptop. “We had a good trip this year too,” she said. “Yeah,” he answered, the word calloused and dull. After she fell asleep, he stood before the bathroom mirror for forty-seven seconds. The eyes staring back were red—jet lag or guilt, impossible to tell.
Why can’t you feel it yet?
Kim Yuri, thirty-two, physiotherapist, meets old classmates at a Gangnam café every Wednesday. That day, one of them said, “We saw him on vacation—your guy, with some woman.”
Yuri let caramel macchiato rest on her tongue. It tasted flat. Still, she shook her head. “He said she was a Pilates instructor doing local shadowing.” The friend asked no more. Yuri stared at her dark phone screen, heart dropping each time a notification pinged. Is it guilt—or simply not knowing?
The sweetness of taboo, and its aftertaste
Every Sunday now, Duhoon closes his eyes and resurrects that day’s Jisoo: water beads sliding over white bikini, her breath, sweat spiced with tropical fruit. In his mind he is free; in reality he acts as if nothing happened. Yet true desire is avoidance. When Yuri says, “Let’s eat,” he answers, “Sure,” flips his phone face-down, inhales the scent of her hair. The sheer weight of seven years has numbed him—and that same weight now serves as armor, turning the affair into routine.
We all know the dreadful truth: if you’re never caught, nothing ever happened.
How long can you keep hiding from her?
Dust gathers faintly on the passports in the drawer. Yuri still spreads the vacation photos and says, “Next year, let’s do Bali.” Duhoon nods, then picks up his toothbrush. The mirror asks:
Who are you hiding from? Her—or the fact that you’re lying to yourself?
Beyond the bedroom door, Yuri’s sleeping breath rises and falls. Silence stretches; the night is deep. Your vacation ended long ago, but the aftertaste of infidelity lingers, unextinguished.