I Deleted the Text That Said, “I Still Want You”
2:17 a.m. Min-su snores at my side. The rhythm is only a fraction heavier than the first night we slept together eight years ago. I ease the quilt away and slip to the living room. Even the familiar hum of the refrigerator feels foreign tonight.
Noona, drinks after the company dinner?
The message arrived at 4:32 p.m. From Ji-hoon, twenty-nine, the newest hire in my department. I’m thirty-eight. He has no idea how my heart plummeted when I read it.
What Does Not Sleep
Eight years married. We know each other too well. Min-su still leaves the faucet running for thirty seconds while he brushes. He washes his left cheek first. In bed it’s the same: he gauges my reaction and, the moment he decides I’ve had enough, he’s done.
I close my eyes and imagine another pair of hands every time. Hands with clean nails, no calluses yet, belonging to a man of twenty-nine.
It isn’t betrayal. It’s only imagination.
When Ji-hoon First Walked In
“Team-lead, could you show me how this printer works?”
Ji-hoon arrived three months ago. Each time he greets me he dips his head, the same way Min-su did when we were young.
You look so young, team-lead. Do you like younger men?
The room laughed; I laughed. But something curled inside me—an emotion both anxious and sweet I hadn’t tasted in years.
The Secret Nights of Women
“I’m thirty-six. My husband’s three years older.”
This was Yujin’s confession over coffee after our yoga class. Seven years married, husband a college senior from the same club.
We’ve known each other since we were seventeen. That’s why it’s suffocating. Every response is predictable.
She drew out her phone. The lock-screen showed a man in his mid-twenties.
My younger brother’s friend. Twenty-four. First kiss last week.
She paused, rotating her cup.
Oddly, I think I love my husband more now. Feeling desire again reminded me I’m alive—and that keeps the marriage breathing.
The Psychology of Longing
This craving that visits after thirty is more than lust. Esther Perel says, “In long relationships we die not from conflict but from familiarity.”
Marriage has secured our safety; now we yearn to feel precarious again. Only the brave who dare danger taste life anew.
My pull toward twenty-nine-year-old Ji-hoon isn’t just his youth. He hasn’t failed yet, hasn’t been wounded. He gleams like pure possibility.
Tonight, I Close My Eyes Again
Min-su still sleeps peacefully. I gently lace my fingers through his—the very hand I adored in my twenties. I never answered Ji-hoon’s text, but I know this:
I desire not Ji-hoon himself, but the version of me that flares alive through wanting him.
Then why are we so frightened of the moment that betrays no one but returns us to ourselves?
Whose Name Are You Whispering?
You lie in bed. Beside you is the one you vowed to love. Yet your heart calls another name.
How long can you keep that name silent?