2.

After I broke up with Gyu-ho, I published a short story collection.

I’d been writing throughout my time with Gyu-ho. There I was every day, coming home determined to get some writing done, tossing off my socks before sitting my butt down in front of the computer. Gyu-ho would come back from his Chinese classes, pick up my crumpled socks and put them into the hamper, and sigh. There he was, holding out something sweet to eat to my irritated face. He always said nothing worked better to calm my nerves than something sugary. Then he would sit down on the bed with the stuffed Doraemon doll and say to it:

—My, my, my, what a grand artist we get to live with, am I right?

—You’ve ruined my day’s work.

I would complain as I lay down in bed next to him. His little finger rubbing away the frown between my eyebrows. The smell of water on his hand. I bit his finger, and Gyu-ho pretended it hurt. (Or maybe it actually did.) Whenever I failed to write what I’d wanted to write, or despaired that there were so many things in this world that seemed within reach but really weren’t, Gyu-ho bought me takeout dinners of Japanese curry or fried rice.

—Why aren’t you eating?

—Uh, Gyu-ho.

—Yeah?

—I . . . hate curry.

Gyu-ho died several times in my short stories.

He drank pesticide, hung himself, was run over, slit his wrists . . .

Gyu-ho became a straight man, a gay man, a woman, a child, a soldier . . . He became anything and everything a human being could possibly become before dying on the page, every time.

And as a dead person, he became the object of my love, my reminiscences, my dreams—always an object. In my memories, Gyu-ho is cold, perfectly frozen in time.

That is how my memories of him are preserved under glass, safe and pristine, forever apart from me.

◊

Sometimes it feels as if everything was all my fault, and sometimes I think: it’s all so unfair.

That was the first thing I thought when I woke up in the morning. It was followed by all sorts of illogical, extemporaneous thoughts swirling up and consuming my time on this Earth. Was it before or after Gyu-ho had left me when these unwanted thoughts began to deluge me in my quiet moments? My watch said it was past noon. No longer the morning, in other words.

The night before, I’d gone to that same rooftop bar with Habibi. It was completely open this time, with a higher level that had been closed off before, and so we sat down at a table underneath the stars and shared a bottle of champagne. This time, I’d come prepared with a button-down shirt and a pair of linen trousers. I requested a blanket because of the chill. Habibi grinned at how I didn’t let a blanket around my shoulders make me put down my champagne flute. I couldn’t help grinning at him either, as our different backgrounds and ages left us with very little in common. I asked him about his life in the United States. (Elites love talking about that stuff, I’ve learned.) Habibi’s reply was shorter than I expected.