The Last Look I Remember
Café terrace. Condensation on the glass blurred my view. Jieun silently turned her spoon.
"You… want something too fast."
"What’s wrong with that?"
"In that speed… I feel myself disappearing."
After that day Jieun became a ghost—appearing, vanishing. Read, unread, blocked. Complete disappearance in three weeks.
The Fragrance That Trickled from Blood-Tipped Nails
What was I so frantic to tear apart and devour?
In every woman’s retreating silhouette I read the same fear: like someone locked in a sealed room catching a whiff of seeping gas and recoiling. The scream rising from me was: a man you can never become.
He always lunges to fill something. No one—not even he—knows what the hole is.
First Trace: Haeun’s Notebook
Instead of goodbye, Haeun handed me a notebook. On the cover: ‘Your Conversation Checklist’.
- 3 min 42 sec: "What kind of person are you?" (before she mentioned her job)
- 8 min 15 sec: "What would change if you were with me?" (the moment she began her first-love story)
- 12 min 55 sec: "Don’t you feel we’re perfect right now?" (as she looked away)
At the very end Haeun wrote in unfocused ink:
You tried to absorb me—my time, taste, past. That wasn’t love; it was abduction.
Even after reading it, I still called it just getting to know each other. Foolishly.
Second Trace: Sujin’s Voice Note
Sujin ended it with a voice message. Forty-seven seconds of café music in the background.
"…Every time I speak, your eyes spark. The spark is so bright it feels like it will swallow me."
"So?"
"So I’m running now."
Afterward I heard she wore the perfume I loved, Spring Afternoon. A single drop, they said, could silence me all day.
Why Are We Drawn to This?
To possess quickly may be to lose myself.
Psychologists name it absorption dread—the instinctive recoil when someone tries to cross our borders and step inside, whether in love, obsession, or plain curiosity.
Each time I wanted not speed but totality—to own her day, her gaze, even the hush of her breathing. At the end of that desire, only a version of her remained—one from which I had vanished.
Common Thread of the Vanished
Haeun, Sujin, Jieun—all gone within a month. Their last trace was always identical.
A single line of text.
"You act like you know me, but you’ve never seen me."
I turned that sentence over hundreds of times. Then I understood.
I never loved her; I wanted to become her.
The Moment the Door Closes
Today, the same café terrace. A new woman sits. Who will she be this time?
As she lifts her mug, I feel my teeth grind again.
I want to swallow her.
Her, her past, her future.
She glances down; for a second, unease flickers.
Will it be different this time?
I don’t know. I still don’t.
But now I know for certain:
The reason she dodges me is that she senses the woman I wish to create is not her.
So—what about you?
Are you still unaware of how large your own desire, hiding behind the face of the one you love, has grown—large enough to make them run?