Feeling like I was standing naked in front of a mirror, I started to read the first page. There were red editorial marks over the black letters of my whip-like writing, and underlining that marked awkward expressions. In other words, the bastard had sent me an edit of my diary. Not five days after receiving it, but five years. My fingers gripped the paper as memories of him poured into me like a violent flood. He still remembered my address? The writing on the last page was not my rapid scrawl but a note in his handwriting. It looked as though it were written in blood.

Hello. It’s hyung. I heard you’ve become a writer. Congratulations. I thought your real name had a “je” in it, am I right? You must be using a pseudonym.

This idiot. He couldn’t even remember the name of someone he’d gone out with for over a year.

You’ve gained so much weight that I didn’t recognize you at first.

Fuck it. I’ve read enough. Tear this shit up. But then, the next sentence:

I wonder if your mother’s doing better now. I’m sorry about before. About a lot of things. All of it.

Why do men always apologize to me? Just don’t do the thing that will make you apologize in the first place. Then, just as he always did, he went on talking about himself.

I thought of contacting you many times in the past, but I had my own reasons not to. Then too much time passed, and you changed your phone number, as one does. I apologize for contacting you all of a sudden. I was just so busy. I’m leaving the country on Monday. For a long time. I may not come back. If it is all right, I would like to see you this Sunday. The same place and time we promised before. There’s something I would very much like to give to you.

He included his phone number at the end. Sunday. That was in two days. A little presumptuous of him to ask for a meeting at all, much less with such short notice. And forget this “giving me something” crap. All we had left to exchange were insults. I was torn between shoving the envelope and its contents into the trash and putting it carefully away somewhere no one would ever find it. In the end, I stuffed it into my bag.

My heart was racing as I walked down the street. I was shocked and humiliated that he could still provoke such a visceral response from me. I took out my phone, opened the notepad app where I started story drafts, and typed a single sentence.

Five years ago, I tried to introduce him to my mother.

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