We had sex. For the first time in the two years we had been a couple, we had unprotected sex.

I gazed at Gyu-ho crushing my body, feeling his mass. His heat, his breath, the gaze of his large, black pupils. What was once a part of him flowed into me and became me.

After we had sex, I closed my eyes to rest for a moment. But when I opened them again, it was already dim around us. It was impossible to tell if it was night or day, but the rain had finally ceased. Gyu-ho’s face was near mine. He was asleep. I stared at him for a long time. I wiped the droplets of sweat on his nose, gazed up at the whirling ceiling fan above, and wished the universe would pause in that moment.

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I still sometimes think that if I just reach out, I could touch the bridge of his nose.

That was only an illusion. The reality before me was my swollen, wrinkled hand. Gaining weight made my fingers and even fingertips ugly. I had to get rid of the habit of falling asleep wherever I was. It was after four o’clock by the time I got out of the bath. Habibi had dozed off. When had he fallen asleep? Had he been drunk enough to leave me in the bath? He might’ve been awake for the fireworks, but I had a feeling he hadn’t been. I gently swept his hair from his sleeping face. Hair flecked with gray. Wrinkles that were deeper beneath the light of the lamp.

Why had he brought me here? Had he simply wanted someone to be waiting for him when he came back to the room? For someone to turn the lights on, to mess up the room a bit, to speak into the silence even in an unfamiliar language? Because he traveled so much for business. Because he knew the coldness of a pillow he’d lain on once before, or the texture of starched sheets, sharp enough to wound. Or because of all these things. Then why was I here with him? I looked down at the shattered screen of his phone on the floor.

There was no way of knowing whether there’d been fireworks or not. Everything seemed to have passed by in the blink of an eye. At some point, my life had turned into one dimly remembered night after another.

I lowered the lights slightly and left the room. Once I closed the door behind me, strangely enough, I ceased to remember Habibi’s face.

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