“Just let me stay beside you tonight, that’s all.”
Her message arrived at 3:47 a.m. Two years and three months had passed, yet I still remember the exact minute. It was dawn then, too, when she placed the key on the console and said, “Enough. I’m exhausted.”
Now, without even that key, she stands at my door. She came in person, though I never replied to last night’s text.
A Night When the Forgotten Is Remembered
The fingertips knocking on the locked door are thinner than before. Once, tipsy on beer, she used to press her cheek to my abdomen. Either she has become more delicate, or I have grown sharper.
“Come in.”
Silence poured between us. Without removing her shoes, she spoke from the middle of the living room.
“You know, I couldn’t do anything without you.”
A lie. I know what she did these two years: photographs with new men, posts later erased. I did the same—more, and deeper.
“So?”
“I just… wanted to see how much you still want me.”
Dissection of Desire
Why do we fling ourselves at the one who left? Not out of nostalgia. Something darker.
Proof that they still crave me.
Like stumbling upon an oasis in a desert: it is not the water itself, but the knowledge that this water exists for me that quenches the thirst.
She never came back. She came to verify my desire.
The Tale of Ji-hye and Min-su
Ji-hye left Min-su one rainy night a year and eight months ago. While she waited for a cab, Min-su caught her wrist.
“Whenever it rains again, I’ll come find you.”
Ji-hye laughed. “Then I’ll come just to watch you get soaked.”
Three months ago, at 2 a.m., Ji-hye called Min-su without greeting.
“Come now.”
He arrived in twenty minutes, drenched. Ji-hye opened the car door.
“I like seeing you wet.”
They slept together for the first time since parting. At dawn Ji-hye said, “It’s fine. That’s enough. I just wanted to check.”
“Check what?”
“That you still want me.”
Another story: Su-jin and Jae-hyun.
After Su-jin left, Jae-hyun loitered outside her apartment every night for six months. One evening Su-jin stepped out herself.
“Why?”
“Just… to confirm you’re still here.”
Su-jin took his hand—not for comfort.
“I feel the same. It’s good to know you still sense me here.”
They spent the night together. At sunrise Su-jin said, “Don’t come anymore. I have to let you go.”
“Why?”
“Because releasing you is how I prove I still want you.”
The Forbidden Sweetness
We are children retrieving a toy we discarded—not because we need it, but from the anxious thought that someone else might have picked it up.
More cunning still: the wish to open our eyes when the bell rings, to confirm, Ah, I’m still alive.
She never returned. She came to test my desire.
And I remain parched—not simply for her, but for the fact that she wants me.
Final Line
Even now, are you waiting for a message from the one who walked away, or are you reading this to verify that someone you left still burns for you?