“You’re someone else’s body now.”
Those were the words he tossed out while the sound of the door closing still rang in my ears. They spread down the white wall like cigarette smoke. I crumpled there on the floor. My bare soles felt the cold marble. I still remember the temperature.
1. Hye-jin, 34
Rooftop, lunch break. My colleague Ji-hwan asked:
“Hey, do you still remember that shitty line?” Hye-jin took a long drag. “He said his life went sideways because of me.” She stubbed out the cigarette. “I’ve got one too—what I said back.” She pointed at the ashen sky with her left index finger.
“I was terrified I’d turn into you.” Kim Hyun-soo said that. For ten years that sentence has been licking Hye-jin’s temples.
2. Mi-jin, 29
At the pharmacy, eight years later, Jun-hyeok pushed open the door.
“Mi-jin.” My hand trembled as I took the prescription. Beyond the frosted partition, Jun-hyeok’s eyes smiled. “Do you remember what I said?” “That you were so in love you’d gone crazy.” Jun-hyeok answered, “It was true.” Walking back to the ward, Mi-jin whispered, That line was true.
3. Me
Ten years have passed. That sentence is still lodged in my body. Each dawn when I open my eyes, the nape of my neck itches. Where my tongue once was, the sentence licks me. I’m not dreaming of reunion. I only want to erase the words. To delete that single sentence so it can never appear in another dream, so I can never spit it onto the cheek of a new lover.
4. In Front of the Mirror
Today, again, I stand before the mirror. I touch the shadows beneath my eyes. Is there a hole through which the sentence might escape?
You’re someone else’s body now. I murmur it softly. My tongue stiffens. The sentence writhes alive inside my throat—neither to be spat out nor swallowed. The words have already become my flesh.
5. Ending
Hye-jin still smokes on the rooftop. Mi-jin repeats the sentence three times a day at the pharmacy. Every night I kick off the covers and whisper it. If we meet again, could I erase it? Or would it carve itself deeper? I don’t know. Only one thing is certain: that single sentence has been licking my skin for ten long years.