The copper smell and my wrong hand

Sung said I smell like copper now. Copper is rust. Rust is the same colour as the smear on the log from August 29th. I did not connect those two things until just now, sitting on the floor with ramyeon and only my right hand working and the fairy lights making everything look like a scene from a drama I would never be cast in. He noticed the scent change in three seconds flat and then his thumb was on my pulse and I wanted to ask him why but the weal was opening and there was broth everywhere and later I thought: he counted my heartbeat while I bled. Is that care or data? I rank people and he ranks too, I am sure of it. Nobody holds a stranger's wrist that precisely without knowing what they're looking for.

The cashier at GS25 looked at my bandaged hand and her eyes went soft and I hated it. I am not a charity case. I am a person with a torn piece of paper in a sealed bag and a photograph on my phone and a decision window of fourteen days and I paid for ana milk with my good hand and left before she could say anything kind because I cannot afford softness right now, not even from strangers.

My brother still has not answered. I keep the phone face-down now. I told myself last night that silence is just silence but tonight I am thinking: silence is also a choice, and he made it, and Chuseok is coming and I will sit in this officetel with my plants and my tangerine cone and my locked drawer and he will send nothing or he will send something careful and measured and I will respond appropriately and we will both pretend this is a relationship.