Last year, when my first book came out in Korea, I began receiving feedback from readers for the first time. There were good comments and bad comments, and some that were hard to endure, but there was one particular kind of comment that remains in my memory.

“Thank you for writing about us, about me.”

These were the words from readers sharing that they were queer or stuck in difficult situations. In real life, I am a fearful and highly anxious person, but it was their sincere words, words that they had put together with great effort and courage in order to share them with me, that made this book possible. I hope that I have now somehow passed over that effortfulness and courage to you, the person who is now bent over this book somewhere, reading these words.

When I write—or when I’m going about my day—I sometimes feel as vague and uncertain as if I’m all alone wandering through a cloud of dust, but sometimes I feel a warmth, like my hands have touched something. I want to call that something love. I know all too well how this emotion called love, how the word itself, can easily crumble into nothing, but all I can do is tightly grip this tiny bit of warmth and embrace it with all my might. Just so I can live on as myself. Just so I can live this life as myself and myself alone.

Summer 2019

From Seoul, the big city that I love,

Sang Young Park

* The engineering student’s text message in “Jaehee” is a line taken from 2da’s Uncut and Unlimited Play (Random House Korea, 2008).

* The HIV PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) scene in “Late Rainy Season Vacation” was written using information from “Truvada for PrEP Fact Sheet: Ensuring Safe and Proper Use” (FDA, 2012) and “Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV Prevention” (CDC, 2014). It is also said to have been proven that the same pill taken within seventy-two hours of “high-risk sexual behavior” followed by a daily twenty-eight-day regimen is effective in preventing HIV infection (consultant: Kim Wu-yong, preventive medicine specialist).

* While the geographic locations of this work are based in fact, all characters and incidents are fiction.

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