Dear Ji-soo,
I’m writing this with charcoal dust on my fingers and silk scraps scattered all around me. I’m in my atelier tonight, pretending to sketch a new jacket sleeve—but all I can draw is the curve of your shoulder, the fall of your hair in the city wind.
I keep seeing you on that rooftop, your face lifted to the stars, as if you were trying to memorize them. And me beside you, wanting nothing more than to memorize you.
It’s absurd how much I’ve thought of you since. How every seam I stitch feels like tracing your skin. How every length of ribbon makes me wonder if it would suit your neck, your wrist, the tilt of your ridiculous hat.
You said you’re still up there a little—floating. So am I.
And yet—gravity always returns.
Tonight, it came in the form of a man from the Ministry. He found me after one of my hidden shows, speaking in bureaucratic poetry about “adaptive civic uniforms.” He said he’d seen me “amid shadows and silk.” He wants a meeting. A conversation. Officially about fabrics. Unofficially about loyalty.
Ji-soo, this is the part where I become tedious and severe: Be careful.
They know something is happening, even if they don’t yet know what. Curiosity is a dangerous fragrance in this city. I wear it every day—but you don’t have to.
If you’re going to keep climbing rooftops with me, keep laughing with your whole body, keep sending me letters that taste like secrets—you have to be smarter than me. Or at least quieter.
I won’t stop. I can’t. But I won’t have you become collateral for my stitches and silences.
So wear your ridiculous hat. But wear it low over your eyes.
Yours—still floating, still burning—
Mi-kyung
Mi-kyung
Ji-soo
