The Cost of Being Right

I keep replaying Haneul’s face when I refused him. I wanted the refusal to feel clean, like I was protecting the work instead of punishing him. It did not feel clean. It felt like watching someone I trusted choose the wrong side and then making them stand there while I decided they no longer had a place beside me.

The evidence is scattered now, and that should make me feel safer. Instead, I feel like I have cut myself into several pieces and trusted strangers not to compare the edges. Three authenticated copies, separate bidders, no intersecting routes. Very sensible. Very controlled. Also deeply exhausting. I have spent so long making sure no one can use my choices against me that I can barely recognize the difference between protection and isolation.

Jisu has not answered. I am furious at the silence because it gives me an excuse to be furious instead of admitting that I am afraid Jisu already knows what kind of person I become when I am scared. Haneul betrayed me through panic. Jisu may be abandoning me through pride. Both make me feel strangely equal to them.

I want someone to say, “You were right,” without trying to soften it. But I do not trust praise that arrives easily, and I do not trust myself when I ask for it. The gold, the hidden places, the bold life I keep choosing—none of it makes the fear disappear. It only gives the fear a better address.