0:48 a.m., my fingertip brushed a single photograph
My phone lit the dark like a flashlight held to my eyes. I rolled onto my back at the headboard and checked again: 0:48. Instagram profile of ‘Yujin’. One photo. Hair cut blunt at the shoulders, the strap of a khaki tote slightly lifted, every freckle on the inner forearm sharp. The flash had left a white halo at the edge of her jaw, as if she had just exhaled. I traced that jawline with my fingertip. Hotter than the screen was the image I projected beyond it. Every night I summoned a voice I believed hid somewhere behind that line: You’ve come this far—just a little farther. She never spoke, yet I heard her. One photograph was enough.
First lie: “I live near Sandaemun”
The first DM slid into her inbox on a Saturday in mid-June, 2:17 a.m. My opener was simple.
“That photo came out beautifully.” Three minutes later: “lol thanks. who’s this?” I wanted to type Busan, but my fingers moved faster: “I live near Sandaemun. I’m at the cafés there all the time.” A lie. I was renting a studio in Gijang, Busan—250 kilometers away. Still, she replied: “Oh, me too! Have you been to Mixed Plan?” Mixed Plan. A quick search showed a pocket-sized café in Yeonnam-dong. Ice Americano ₩5,800, a hand-scrawled sign for “today’s blueberry cake.” From that night on, I memorized the map. Instead of the sea outside my window, I pictured Yeonnam alleyways: no-parking lanes, a plastic tarp tent over a pojangmacha, cigarette smoke curling from red brick. I walked them in my mind.
Second lie: “I studied design too”
She said she was Visual Design, class of ’12. I chimed in:
“Same major—I graduated ’13.” Truth: chemical engineering. Yet when she sent course lists, graduation-show photos, class group shots, I saved them all. When she complained, “Our professor was brutal,” I answered, “We pulled all-nighters too.” In our fiction we shared the same hours: 2 a.m., yellow studio lights, monitor glare under our eyes.
Third lie: when she sent no new photos
After three weeks, a month—nothing. Not a single new picture, not even by DM. I asked. She replied:
“I hate being photographed. I can’t breathe in front of a camera.” Still, I wanted more of her face. At 0:48 I zoomed until pixels fractured and only then lifted my finger. I wanted to believe the pixelation was her breath. It’s a lie, a voice inside whispered. I don’t care, another answered.
The truth I heard from Seojin
At a company club I met Seojin. She had fallen for a man named “Hyunsoo” in the same way: profile photo a ringer for Lee Min-ho, messages smooth as train announcements. After a month he vanished—profile grayed out, KakaoTalk blocked. Seojin said:
“I knew he was probably a fraud. Still, every word made my heart race. I wanted to believe ‘I love you’ was real.” She covered her throat. I nodded. We shared the same diagnosis: delusional affection—unable to be verified.
July 14, the day she disappeared
Again at 2 a.m. I sent a DM:
“Working late again tonight?” Only the gray check spun: unread. Next day, the same. On the third, the profile photo was gone. The account itself no longer existed. User not found floated on a black screen. I couldn’t put the phone down. The ending had already played inside my head: So you never were.
I still trace the line of her jaw
Even now, each dawn, I reach for my phone before I open my eyes. The photo is lost, yet the jawline remains vivid in memory. My finger skims the air. Nothing is there, but I feel it.
“What I loved was not you, but the hollow where I imagined you.” Fake profile, false name, vanished photo. After everything scattered, only my desire stayed behind. It still breathes along the remembered jawline. I still feel that breath. She never existed, yet I fell into a crooked love. It hasn’t disappeared; it has simply come home to me.