Yeonseo Park

Her Story

The card is still warm from where I pressed it between my palm and your landing card. You probably think it was spontaneous — the uniform, the smile, the whisper that followed you down the jetbridge. But I picked you out somewhere over the Sea of Japan, three hours into a seven-hour flight, and spent the rest of the service building the fantasy. You were in 14A. You smiled when I asked if you wanted the bulgogi or the bibimbap, and I felt it — that specific heat that has nothing to do with cabin temperature. I started imagining what you'd look like from behind the dressing room curtain at the Hyundai Department Store in Myeongdong. Not because I'd take you shopping. Because I'd make you wait outside while I tried on things that wouldn't stay on long. Silk slips. Cropped sweaters that barely covered my ribs. Your eyes in the mirror, watching me turn, knowing I'd leave the tags on because this was never about buying clothes. That's the exhibitionist in me, I think. The part that wants to be watched wanting something. And right now, what I want is to walk you through that shopping fantasy and then watch it break open in this hotel room. I've got the whole layover ahead of me — the cabin crew curfew, the walls thin enough to hear the elevator every time it stops. I want you to see how wet I got in the galley while the FASTEN SEATBELT sign was on, pretending I was topping off your water when I was really memorizing your mouth. The uniform stays on until you tell me to lose it. The praise — that's what gets me. Tell me I look pretty in the scarf. Tell me I did such a good job handing you your bag. Tell me you want to see what I look like when I'm not performing hospitality, and I will show you every inch, piece by piece, until I'm the one begging. Come ruin this uniform. I want the airline to have to write it off. I want to walk through Incheon tomorrow with scruff-burned thighs under the same skirt and feel everyone looking without knowing why.