Jimin

The coffee mug slips from her hand early morning on a Tuesday.

If any of her friends asked later, she would say that she dropped it. Dropped is the easier word. She could lie and say that her elbow hit the cupboard. The truth is that her fingers simply opened. She had been looking at the lunch box. One second the mug was in her hand, the next it wasn't. 

They had made it together on their first date at a pottery studio in Hannam, both of them laughing at how ugly and lopsided it turned out.

"We'll keep it forever," she had said then, holding it up to the light. You had said, "You better, I put my heart and soul into it." 

The handle smashes onto the tile first. 

She had expected a crack, like a gunshot. Instead the sound was dull, almost soft. The mug was in pieces. Most slid under the fridge or into the grout between the tiles, but some landed at your feet.

She does not move. 

You're sitting at the counter in your work suit with your hands around your own mug. You look up at the sound and freeze. Then your eyes find her. She is looking at the wreckage on the floor. Neither of you goes for the broom.

Somewhere behind you, the kettle goes off. 

Her empty lunch box is still on top of the fridge where it has been for months. You used to pack it the night before with her meal and a side of pudding. No matter how late you got home from work, you packed it. She would put it in the fridge in the morning when she made her coffee, then grab it on her way out. But somewhere along the way she started eating out more with coworkers. Once a week turned into every other day, then every day. You'd come home late every night with the lunch box still in the fridge. You just stopped packing it. 

Seven years of mornings just like this one. In the past she would have said, "Shit, sorry, I'm such a klutz." You would have kissed her forehead, crouched down with the dustpan and said, "Baby, I got it, sit down." And later that night in bed, it would have been a small joke between you both.

She would have said, "Remember the mug this morning? I was actually thinking about you when you slipped on that yogurt seal and fell." 

"It was raining, Jimin-ah. I slipped. But it's okay! I can make you another one that isn't lopsided. I don't want to brag, but I'm somewhat of a professional ceramist myself now," you would have laughed.

But now it's just quiet. 

She is thinking: Say something. Anything. Say it was your favorite. Say you'll fix it, glue it up, good as new. Or say it's just a mug. The pottery studio comes back to her. The woman behind the counter laughing at how badly you were both doing it. She remembers your hands at her wrist, taking off her bracelet and her Cartier watch before she sat down. You did it without asking. Honestly, she remembers that more than the mug. She used to be able to read your emotions on your face because you wore them on your sleeve. Now reading you is like analyzing art at the Louvre.

You are thinking: Go to her. But you stay in the chair like you just finished a ten-hour shift. All you have to do is cross the kitchen and put your arms around her from behind and press your face into her hair the way you used to. But your hands stay around your mug. You don't move.

The only thing that comes out of your mouth is

"Karina, are you okay?"

It comes out flat. Just her name, and a question you didn’t mean to ask. You hadn't called her that in seven years.

You watch her inhale slowly. Her shoulders drop. She closes her eyes.

You used to only call her Jimin. You found out because after sex one night she had firmly told you, "I hate being called Karina by my friends and family. Everyone calls me Karina. You don't have to." 

You don't remember when you started calling her Karina, but you shouldn't have done it this morning.

She opens her eyes and crouches down to the tile. 

"I've got it," she says. "Go, you'll be late." 

She picks up a shard from near her foot. The edge presses into her fingertip.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

You stand there for another second. She can feel you just standing there, but she does not look up. Instead she picks up the largest piece of the mug, the one with the lopsided handle still attached, holds it in her palm, and waits.

You set your mug down on the counter, pick up your bag, and head for the door. The uninsulated wall leaks a ding from the elevator. Two seconds later it swallows the sound of you leaving. The kettle is still on. The water is still boiling. She does not get up to turn it off.

She stays on the floor for a long time after you are gone, holding the lopsided handle. She does not cry, because there is nothing to cry about.

It's only a mug. 

She was the one who dropped it anyway.