“Jisoo, here.” Yoona’s half-drunk words split the air. I was perched on the edge of the bed; the instant her fingertips grazed my cheek, heat flooded me to the throat. A flame sweeter than liquor and twice as suffocating dripped onto the cold ashtray.
Jisoo—her boyfriend, my lover of four years—was still locked in the bathroom. My mouth moved first. No caution, no second thoughts. The slide of Yoona’s lips, the furtive breath of her tongue, set a fire in the center of my skull. This is a kiss, just a kiss. No—this is a crime.
Yoona closed her eyes. I closed mine. Even with both pairs of lids sealed, an uncontrollable black thread coiled across the mattress like a serpent. Every label we’d ever worn was flipped that night. Friend, lover, boundary—the words swelled and burst on the ice.
Why, of all people, Yoona? She was the one I knew most vividly: the rhythm of Jisoo’s heartbeat, the cologne he favored, the angle of the arm that circled restlessly in his sleep. I knew it all. That is why I understood nothing. The moment I wanted to steal both Jisoo’s kiss and Yoona’s gaze—an unnameable greed whipped through my mind.
A kiss is never mere contact; it is the act of tearing down a private-property sign.
A moment later, Jisoo pushed the door open, a can of beer dangling from his hand. Did he instantly taste the ragged breathing we hadn’t yet smoothed? Or had he known all along? I could still feel the faint tremor Yoona’s lips had left on mine. Jisoo leaned, wordless, against the wall. The silence flowing among the three of us grew hotter, until it began to scorch the wallpaper.
Days later, a message arrived from Minseo. She had been caught between her cousin, Hyejin—same age as us—and Hyejin’s boyfriend, Jaemin, of three years.
We did it too. Or rather, I did it first.
Minseo sat on the sofa and breathed against the nape of Hyejin’s neck. Jaemin pretended to watch television; Hyejin let her eyes fall shut. Minseo knew Jaemin was watching from behind.
“That made it sharper.”
In that hushed moment, all three performed the role of secret. No one reached out first, yet everyone felt the heat brushing the backs of their hands. Hyejin sensed it; Jaemin feigned sleep; Minseo turned that dream into flesh.
Why do we taste another’s possession more sweetly? The thrill of trespass—only when we step past the sign that reads ABSOLUTELY NOT do we feel truly alive. But that is not love. Love is the warmth we feel for the one we can never own; it is not the ember that flares only after we have claimed them.
Jisoo still doesn’t know. That night, after Yoona’s breath grazed my cheek, I opened my eyes and met Jisoo’s. He stood against the wall, watching us quietly. His gaze said: You are no longer mine.
I still cannot forget. The instant those eyes met mine, my body folded in on itself, bitter and trembling. Yoona’s breath lived at the base of my throat, and Jisoo’s stare was sharp enough to steal even that. I froze, realizing one thing: we belonged to no one. That made us more precarious—Jisoo, Yoona, and I. One person’s kiss tangled the names of three, and that tangle had already passed the point of return.
I bit my lip and wondered: Then who am I?
There was no answer. Only the stranger reflected in Jisoo’s eyes.