“He’s lying right here.” At that moment, too, he was by my side. 1:47 a.m. on a Saturday. Jeong-woo was snoring, hair still damp, as if toweling it dry were too much effort. The reek of alcohol had settled over the blanket like a familiar perfume. I lifted myself from the bed with practiced stealth. Each bare footstep made the old floor groan, yet the sound never woke him. In the darkness—only the living-room lamp left burning—my phone flared to life like a struck match.
I’m closing my eyes without you again tonight, my love.
From Jihoon. My husband’s college roommate, twelve-year confidant, a face as common to us as a neighbor’s across the hall. When the screen went black, the reflected tremor in my eyes betrayed me. My fingertips tingled.
This isn’t even the beginning, I told myself. Nothing has happened. Nothing.
But my heart never listens.
At first, it truly was nothing. Jihoon dropped by now and then; we killed a bottle of soju together. When Jeong-woo dozed off, we sat side-by-side in front of the television, replaying college memories.
“Remember when Jeong-woo split his eyebrow open?”
“You sang our congratulatory song at our wedding.”
We borrowed two people’s past to invent a third memory. Yet every time our hands brushed over an empty glass, a spark shot across my skin unannounced. Eye contact lingered an extra 0.2 seconds. In that sliver of time, guilt arrived second—“more” came first. More closeness, more minutes, more depth.
That night was no different. When Jihoon asked, “It’s late—mind if I shower?” I nodded. The moment the bathroom door closed behind him, something inside me cracked noiselessly.
It’s fine, I told the woman in the mirror. I love Jeong-woo. And Jihoon is just his friend.
But the lie rose from my lips only to drift apart like mist.
Even lying beside Jeong-woo, I could feel Jihoon’s breath at my ear, speaking in my husband’s voice. When I shut my eyes, the memory of his fingers brushing my hair was sharper than imagination. Memory turned into desire; desire became the blueprint of betrayal.
Late at night, once Jeong-woo slept, I crept to the living room. Lying on the couch, I stared at the ceiling until the fluorescent reflection above me glittered like Jihoon’s eyes.
Perhaps it started long ago. I remembered that first electric jolt: the fifth or sixth glass, when we unconsciously leaned into each other. The air between us had grown hot; any attempt to cool it began and ended at our fingertips.
We never kissed, yet we knew each other as intimately as if we had.
Seven years married, and I still love Jeong-woo. He makes me laugh, and when I am most anxious he is my safest place. But love is not everything. I feared admitting that love is tedious. Tedium is not betrayal; it is the dust that settles on everyday skin. And to shake it off, I wanted to press my husband’s best friend against my heart.
Love cannot be perfect; perfect love is eventually a lie.
Tonight Jeong-woo sleeps again, breathing evenly. I still hold my phone. The last message to Jihoon remains unread.
Is it forgivable because I love? Or do I insist I love so I can justify the betrayal?
I slipped a hand under the blanket and grasped Jeong-woo’s. Warm. Yet why were my fingertips still cold?
Clutching my sleeping husband’s hand, I whispered softly:
I love you. But I still need you.
Yet the words were not for him. They were a letter to the other woman inside me—the one who can no longer hide desire, the one who still wants to love.
That desire, in the end, tells me who I am. Between love and betrayal, one heart keeps trembling. That heart confesses:
Even now, at this very moment, while loving one person, you cradle the wish to betray another.
That wish will become the raw material of my future self. And I have decided not to fear it. I cannot. Desire never vanishes—
and neither does love.