Red ink, red sleeve

Three years. He used to hold the staff door for me with a nod and a little "Seo-yeon-ssi, good shift." Three years of nodding and now his hand is on my bicep and he says Im-ssi twice like my name is a password he never learned. The wall was colder than I expected. Brick always is.

I am not going to file with the hotel. I wrote that in my head in the elevator going down and I have not un-written it. Filing means they pick a side. The side they will pick is the side that owns his paycheck. So Yu-jin gets a building, not a man. That is the line now. I keep catching myself rehearsing how I'll say it to her tomorrow — measured, like her — and I want to be sick.

Red ink. I have never used red. I have had this notebook two years and the nib has only known blue. I wrote they are using my own guards and the red looked like it meant it, which is a stupid thing to want from a pen. But I wanted it.

I came home and photographed my own sleeve under the bathroom lamp because that lamp is the only honest light in this flat and I needed something honest. The bloom is small. It will scab. I labeled it BUILDING and pinned it beside Day 1 and the panel is starting to look like a quilt no one should ever have to make. I keep wanting to take it down. I also never want to take it down.

I ate ramyeon at the desk. The drawer with the tooth and the lock of hair stayed closed. I did not open it to feel brave. Tomorrow is the Jongno clinic at 11 and I should sleep.