Back when we felt constantly and desperately in need of something, feeling unfulfilled and underdeveloped, when we felt like we were going to go crazy unless we immersed ourselves in something, she acted as though I was a boy that she liked. She pulled me in by my neck, tearing up on the bench in the school garden. In the night time under the magnolia tree, she begged me to put my finger into her pussy. She didn’t like that I had other friends and tried to keep me from going to the school snack bar with them. She followed me around, keeping me from going to the Fine Arts Club room. I found her irritating, but I never could refuse her lips that tasted like cherry candies.

•

Hyunmi lifts her head from the steering wheel to lean into me. I feel her earlobes against my neck. Her cheeks are wet and warm. She takes off her pearl earrings, and unbuttons her blouse. She moves over to straddle me, and kisses me lightly. She pushes her pale, firm breasts against my face.

“Please, suck me.”

“I don’t really feel like it.”

“This is the last time we’ll be together. This one last time.”

Okay, this will be the last time I’ll see you. So I’ll do what pleases you. In this heated moment, I feel like I understand her, even love her. Such confusing sensations. Our lonely connection. Our heated breath. Condensation drips down the window. I wish for the car to fly across the night sky into an alien world a million miles away, to travel through a dark nebula, never to return.

Virus Complex

Virus Complex

I turn in the leave of absence form, so a long break is ahead of me. School break, banghak, letting go of the learning. Does it always feel this light when we let go of the things we’ve been holding on to? I walk quickly across the campus, blowing on my cold hands to warm them. I suddenly feel melancholy, thinking that I might not be able to see all this again—the school library as warm as a greenhouse, the frozen winter trees on campus. I watch the small creek that winds through campus. The cold wind cuts through my body. I’ve been wearing this thin reversible coat the past few months.