I Am a Liar. And I Loved Someone.

Comrade Kang Dae-hun,

I am writing to you not as a superior, but as a man who has reached the edge of his silence.

I know you are loyal. I know you will not speak if I ask you not to. And I know even that knowledge offers no true protection anymore. Still—I write. Because I no longer know where else to place this weight inside me.

There was a connection—I use that word because no other seems small enough or loud enough—with a woman who was not mine to claim. She was married. I knew it. I also knew it was wrong. But I told her to come. I told her she was more than what the system allowed her to be.

I believed I could hold it. Me, who makes people weep with words I no longer believe in. I thought I could keep one truth for myself.

The Party found out. Suddenly. Without pause. I was summoned, questioned, dissected. There was no punishment—yet. Only instruction: End it. Immediately. Without comment.

And I did. I let her go. No letter. No look. No word. As if it had never existed. I do not know where she is now. I only know I broke her—and broke something in myself with her.

I am a Party official. I am a liar. And I loved someone.

I will not archive this letter. I ask you to read it—then burn it. Or keep it. I no longer know which is worse.

Ri Yong-hwan