The elevator doors glide open and Yoohyun steps out first. From the sleeve of his leather jacket, a languid hand brushes the tip of my arm. A brief contact—0.3 seconds. Yet Minjae’s gaze nails itself to that exact point. Ah, he saw it again.
Minjae’s eyes harden, the whites flashing. I feel the moment he stops breathing, and unconsciously I do the same.
How close will he let it go this time?
Yoohyun smiles as if nothing happened and heads out of the office.
“Once the dinner ends tonight, I’ll leave first.”
The moment the door shuts, Minjae speaks. “Your collar’s creased.” Fingertips pucker. He pats the collar with unerring precision. Everywhere that hand lands, heat rises.
We savor the boundary in different ways. I step almost across the line to feel the thrill; Minjae savors the instant I’m almost caught.
If I lean in just a fraction more, will he shatter everything?
That unease sparks a fire in my body. And the blaze of Minjae’s gaze as he watches the fire is another flame entirely. The composition of us watching each other—that is the whole of our secret game.
Last winter, 2:17 a.m. after an office party. In the back seat of Seongjin’s sedan. Frost furs the window; a jazz bass line pulses through the speakers.
“Should I kill the engine?”
“No, it’s fine.”
A moment later Seongjin’s arm, which had retreated, reclaims the armrest. The back of his hand grazes my thigh. 0.8 seconds—ample time. In the corner of my vision Minjae stands frozen. How did he know? Perhaps he’d installed a location-sharing app, or was watching the CCTV feed from the garage.
Minjae opened the door without a word and pulled me out. The taxi Seongjin had called idled on the empty street. That night Minjae whispered:
“I’ll keep watching over you—so keep on sparkling.”
Summer. After beers with Gyeongsu, a junior from the company club. In the elevator mirror our reflections overlap. Gyeongsu’s hand rises toward the back of my head.
“You’ve got something in your hair.”
Within half a second Minjae’s KakaoTalk pings. Come home now.
In truth, I report every contact to Minjae. “His hand brushed mine; he caught my sleeve; his breath grazed my neck.” My report is the clearest flame. Minjae feeds on it.
Psychologists call it “inappropriate desire.” We never found anything inappropriate. There was only the arrangement of spectator and exhibit. Minjae observes; I am displayed.
Even when another man grazes me, the hottest moment is when I finally return to Minjae’s fingertips.
This is not competition; it is collaboration. Who the other man is hardly matters. What matters is that, so long as they do not break our rules, they serve as tinder for Minjae’s gaze to set my body alight.
Some future day, another man will brush past me. Will Minjae hold his breath again? Or will he no longer need to? When that day comes, what new way will we devise to set each other ablaze?