--- ### 01. The Wineglass Shatters at My Feet Shards skim the bridge of my foot. Crimson wine spreads across the carpet, blooming into a formless flower. Min-jae drops to his knees. The stem of the broken glass is still in his hand.
“I’m sorry, really… just this once…” His eyelids tremble. A single tear slides down his cheek, and I see it: his pupils sink a knuckle deeper, darkness newly born begins to move. It isn’t a tear at all—it’s the fetus of a lie, small, not yet fed on blood, but already breathing. I feel the hot wine seeping between my toes. It hurts. Yet the pain feels more real than Min-jae’s tears. --- ### 02. 37th Birthday, Recorded Cries One month later, Yuri presses her phone to her ear and listens to the second voice.
- Min-jae’s voicemail, 2 minutes 34 seconds. A lonely echo from a back-alley bar curls inside it.
- “I’m really sorry. Whenever I’m with you I can’t breathe. I’m such a bastard.”
Yuri doesn’t pause the player. She simply flips to the next track. Three years ago, two years ago, one year ago—Min-jae’s apologies line up in a row. Thirty-six files in all, one for every birthday he has ruined.
The thirty-seventh hasn’t arrived yet. Today he will deliver it.
On the laptop screen Yuri catches her own reflection. She studies her pupils. Nothing lives there—no tears, no rage, none of Min-jae’s darkness.
--- ### 03. That Night, Soo-jin Spoke
“Jun-ho brought an invitation to his engagement party.” Soo-jin draws hard on her cigarette, then places the dying butt between my fingers. We perch on the rooftop railing; below, the city lights flicker like hundreds of restless wings.
- Five years ago Jun-ho apologized to Soo-jin through tears. He said he would die without her.
- Two months later he married a colleague from work.
- Now, about to marry again, he has come looking for Soo-jin once more.
Soo-jin closes her eyes. Long shadows fall from her lashes.
“On the back of the invitation he wrote: ‘I still think of you. That night we…’” I put the cigarette between my lips but never light it. I simply hold the burnt end. The taste of scorched paper fills my mouth. --- ### 04. The Temperature of Revenge Regret is the most exquisite revenge—but only when you force the other to feel it. For Min-jae’s thirty-seventh birthday Yuri decides to do nothing. No message, no call, no gift. It is enough to watch him on CCTV, standing in front of her door. It is raining. At 4:12 a.m. Min-jae slides down the wall and sits. Rainwater and tears mingle, pooling at his feet. Soo-jin leaves all forty-seven of Jun-ho’s KakaoTalk messages unread and visits him the dawn of his wedding day. In the bridal waiting room Jun-ho is still having his make-up done. Soo-jin pushes the door open and steps inside. She watches fear spread slowly through his pupils. “What line have you prepared this time?” she whispers. Jun-ho cannot answer. His lips tremble; the first syllable of the apology he rehearsed never escapes. --- ### 05. Why Do I Wait for Your Tears? On the walk down from the rooftop I ask, “Why do we insist on believing to the very end?” Instead of answering, Soo-jin opens her palm. The faint mark of a ring Jun-ho once drew there five years ago is still visible. The ink has vanished, but the scar in her skin remains. “We don’t really believe,” she says. “We just want to see the blood again.” The scar glints in the moonlight. It is no longer a scar—it is the fingerprint of a lie. --- ### 06. At the Door of the Taboo Riding the subway home that night, I receive Yuri’s message.
- “They say Min-jae is dead. Jumped from the roof of his building.”
- “My name was in the note…” I hear the train doors slide shut. Yuri’s next message never comes. Either the signal failed, or she could no longer type. My face trembles in the glass of the screen door. The shadow under my eyes deepens until it resembles Min-jae’s darkness. --- ### 07. The Final Tear Someone somewhere is still preparing the words “I’m sorry.” Someone somewhere is still staring at a phone, waiting to hear them. But now I understand: what we wait for is not the apology, but the next lie quickening. An unknown creature growing inside a pupil. The instant it draws its first breath, we return to the beginning. Too late, I realize what spread through Min-jae’s eyes was never blood—it was all of our lies.