Notes from <MINOR FEELINGS>
"I held my 28th birthday party in Seoul, celebrating with four newly met Korean friends in my sister’s small apartment. They were noise musicians. My sister and I had watched their performance at a small club tucked away in a deep alley. On stage, one of them would sit on a folding chair clicking on a laptop, while the sound system emitted a continuous buzzing noise, interspersed with occasional beeps, screeches, and snare drum hits.
At my sister’s place, after we were already drunk, they suggested playing a game. I proposed “Never Have I Ever.” The rules were simple: each person would take turns declaring something they had never done before, and anyone who had done it had to take a drink. The game usually started with mild awkwardness (such as, “I’ve never peed in the shower”) before escalating into embarrassing stories and sex-related confessions. I thought I should start with something silly to help them get the hang of it, but before I could say anything, one of them—who called himself “Fish,” sported a trendy early-20th-century mullet, and wore black plugs in his earlobes—volunteered to go first.
He raised his small cup of soju.
“I have never attempted suicide,” he declared, then set down his cup. The other musicians clinked their glasses together and drank.
After that, the game couldn’t continue, so we stopped playing."