#twicefallen

[hanniejoo]

twice fallen (chapter 3)

🍵 taglist here 🍵

🩵 story masterlist here 🩵

pairing: joshua x (f) reader

genre: arranged marriage, forced proximity, marriage of convenience, estranged spouses, second chance romance, amnesia, memory loss, strangers to lovers (again), emotional hurt/comfort, heavy angst, slow burn

word count: 19.7k

additional tags & warnings: car accident, blood, minor graphic descriptions of injury, character injury, near death experience, This Is The Chapter

author's notes: ok. here we go. a few things:

⚠️ car accident: depicted in detail. not gratuitous but not gentle either. this is the scene the whole story has been building toward (so far) and i didn't soften it

⚠️ blood: present during and after the accident. minor but real

⚠️ injury and loss of consciousness: depicted

⚠️ emotional neglect: joshua regresses in this chapter. if you've been rooting for them, this will hurt

⚠️ public humiliation: joshua's father says something at a family dinner that is unkind about yn's work. this is the wound the chapter turns on

⚠️ relationship conflict and arguments: the car scene contains a fight

⚠️ grief and guilt: present throughout, particularly in joshua's pov

this chapter has good moments in it. i need you to know that because the good moments make everything that follows hurt more and i did that on purpose and i'm not sorry but i am a little sorry 🩷 this chapter contains both the best and the worst of them. i needed you to see what they were capable of before i showed you how it fell apart

joshua gets so close in this chapter.

whether or not you will like this, let me know because we can definitely talk about it. the accident is at the end. you'll know when you're getting close. take care of yourselves while reading 🩷

Joshua doesn't sleep.

To his credit, he tries, though. He lies in bed with his eyes closed and waits for sleep to take him but every time he gets close to it, something pulls him back. The image of you in the rain. The way you looked when he finally found you, sitting against that wall. The cold of your skin when he touched your face. The way you didn't react when he carried you home, didn't speak, didn't acknowledge him at all.

He gets up at 5 AM and stands in the kitchen in the dark for a while, not doing anything. He’s just standing there in the silence of the penthouse. Outside, the city is already starting to move—the distant sound of early traffic, the first gray light beginning at the edges of the sky.

He thinks about the fight. About the words he used. About the cruelty of attacking someone's work, their passion, the things that make them most themselves.

You—what do you do, exactly? Paint in a room in this penthouse because you can't handle the idea of getting an actual job?

He thinks about your hands when he said that. The way they stilled. The way you went quiet and didn't look at him. There was no argument, no door slammed. Just that horrible silence. He thinks about how you walked through the rain for what must have been hours before finding somewhere to stop. 

By 6 AM he's changed clothes, made himself coffee he doesn't drink, and is standing outside your bedroom door. He knocks softly, barely more than his knuckle grazing the wood.

There was no audible response. He waits a moment before opening the door.

The room is dim and the curtains are still pulled. You're in bed, buried under the blankets he put over you last night. For a moment he just stands in the doorway and looks, trying to confirm you're there, that you're breathing, that you're real and present and not still sitting against that wall in the rain.

Then he looks more carefully.

Your face, what he can see of it, is flushed. Even from across the room he can tell. He crosses to the bed and touches your forehead with the back of his hand and feels the heat radiating off your skin.

Your fever is worse.

Joshua stays there for a moment, his hand against your forehead, watching you sleep. You look younger when you're unconscious. All the vigilance you carry when you're awake: the constant monitoring of yourself and him and the space between you is gone. He should let you sleep. He should leave and come back in an hour. But the fever is high enough to worry him and you need medicine and—

He sits on the edge of the bed and says your name quietly. You don't stir.

"YN." A little louder.

Your brow furrows slightly, your head shifting against the pillow.

"Hey," he says softly.

Your eyes open slowly, fighting even the dim light in the room. They're glassy and unfocused and when you finally manage to look at him, there's a long moment where you seem to be trying to figure out if he's real.

"Joshua?" Your voice is hoarse, half-swallowed by sleep and the beginnings of a cold.

"Your fever is worse," he says. "You need medicine."

You blink as you try to sit up and almost immediately abandon the effort, your arms shaking with the weight of it. You get about halfway and stop there, propped on unsteady elbows, looking at him with an expression that is so tired it's almost blank. Joshua reaches out automatically to help you, his hand going to your back to steady you. He can feel the heat of the fever through your clothing.

He gets you upright, retrieves medicine and water from the bathroom, watches you take the tablets with slow, careful sips.

"You should go back to sleep after this," he says when you hand the glass back to him.

"Mm." You're already fighting to stay upright.

"But wait," he says before you can lie back down. "You should eat something before you sleep again. The medicine will be hard on your stomach."

You look at him, trying to consider what he just said. 

"Okay," you say finally, softly, after a while.

Joshua stands in front of the open fridge for a moment. He wants to do something that takes a little more effort than toast or crackers but not so much that it overwhelms you when you can barely sit up. 

He finds eggs, spring onions, and sesame oil. Rice from last night. A little ginger.

He makes juk—proper congee, the one his grandmother used to make when he was sick as a child. He gets the proportions right mostly from memory, adjusting the heat, adding things slowly. It takes longer than toast, but he doesn't mind. He's not in a hurry to be anywhere except here.

While it cooks, he makes tea. He steeps it the way he's watched you do it without ever meaning to memorize it and is quietly startled to find he has. 

He puts everything on a tray. Congee in a bowl, tea, a small dish of sesame seeds to add on top. He looks at the tray for a moment. Then he adds a glass of water because you should be drinking more than tea when you're sick.

When he comes back to your room, you've pulled yourself up to sitting against the headboard. Still pale, still flushed with fever, but more present than before. You're looking at your hands in your lap and you glance up when he comes in, when the sound of the tray being set down on the nightstand reaches you.

Your eyes move from the bowl to the tea to him.

"My grandmother's recipe." He sits in the chair he pulled up last night. "More or less."

You reach for the bowl slowly. Your hands are steadier than they were an hour ago—the medicine starting to work, maybe. You look at the congee for a moment, at the spring onions, the small dish of sesame seeds.

You spoon some into your mouth and chew slowly. 

"It's good," you say.

"I'm glad."

You eat in small bites. The room is quiet. Joshua watches you eat and doesn't say anything for a while. He has things he wants to say but looking at you now so clearly depleted, he's not sure this is the moment for any of it.

You glance at him. Brief, sideways. "You didn't go to work."

"No."

"It's a Tuesday."

"I'm aware."

Another glance. "Why?"

"Because you're sick," he says. "And because I didn't want to leave you alone this morning."

You take another spoonful of congee, considering his words. "I would have been okay."

"I don’t doubt it," he agrees. "I still didn't want to leave."

A small pause settles between you.

"Joshua." Something about the way you say his name shifts something in him. "You don't have to rearrange your whole morning around this. Around me."

"I wanted to," he says again because it's true and because he doesn't have anything more eloquent than that. You look at him then. Your eyes are still glassy from the fever.

You hold his gaze for a moment longer, then look back at the congee. You reach for the sesame seeds and add a small spoonful to the bowl. "Okay," you say softly. 

There’s another stretch of quiet. You finish most of the bowl and then pick up the tea. He can see some of the tension leaving your shoulders as you drink it.

"You didn't hear me leave last night," you say after a while. 

"No." He keeps his voice careful and even. "I woke up around two and heard the rain. I went to check on you and the room was empty."

There was a slight tightening around your eyes.

"The door was open," he continued. "But you were just… gone. And I realized I didn't know where to look." A pause before he swallowed. "I didn't know enough about you to know where you'd go when you needed to be somewhere other than here. I’m sorry."

You're quiet for a moment. Then, looking at the tea: "I always end up at the river when things are too loud in my head."

"I found you there."

"I figured." You turn the mug slightly in your hands, watching the way the surface of the tea moves. "I wasn't really…present. For a while. When you arrived."

"I noticed."

"It happens sometimes," you say and your voice is matter-of-fact rather than defensive. "When things get to be too much, I sort of…switch off for a bit. It just happens."

"Does it happen often?"

You consider this honestly. You don't immediately reassure him nor do you minimize it. "More lately," you admit and the two words land quietly in the room between you.

More lately. He knows exactly what lately means in that sentence.

"I'm sorry," he says again. "For last night. For the mean, stupid things I said."

"Joshua—"

"No, let me—" He says it gently, not sharply. "I want to say it properly—" He pauses, wants to get this right. "I know what it means to have someone dismiss the thing you love most. I know what that does. I knew exactly where it would hurt and I aimed there anyway." He looks at his hands for a moment. "I'm sorry."

You're quiet, sitting with the apology. He can see you weighing it carefully.

"You feel bad about it," you say finally. Your voice is soft. "I've never doubted that you feel bad about the things you say when you're angry."

He hears the underside of that clearly. Feeling bad about it isn't the same as not doing it.

"You never fight back," he says and it comes out almost wondering. "When I get like that. When I say things I shouldn't. You just—take it and leave the room."

You look at him. "What would be the point? You're already hurting when it happens. Adding more hurt to that doesn't fix anything."

Joshua looks at you—really looks—and feels something that's been coiled tight in his chest for months because you are, somehow, still approaching all of this with more grace than he has any right to receive.

"You should be angrier at me than you are," he says quietly.

A small, tired smile crosses your face, but your eyes stay on the mug. The first one since he came in. "Maybe. But anger takes a lot of energy and right now I barely have enough to sit up straight."

Something that might be a laugh moves through Joshua. It’s brief and involuntary, but it is something. "Fair enough."

You lean your head back against the headboard, the tea still in your hands. The color from the fever has softened slightly. You still look unwell but less alarmingly so.

"Thank you for finding me last night," you say and the way you say it is so simple that it catches him off guard. "I don't know how long I would have stayed there."

"I would have kept looking," he says. "However long it took."

You look at him steadily. He doesn't elaborate, doesn't soften it or qualify it. After a moment, you look back at your tea. 

"Can I ask you something?" you say.

"Mm."

"Last night, after you brought me back—" You pause. "You stayed up for a while, didn't you? While I slept."

He's quiet for a beat. "For a while, yeah."

You nod slowly. "Why?"

He considers the honest answer which is: because I was afraid to look away. Because you were there and breathing and I could confirm it in real time and that felt important in a way I couldn't fully explain. But that's more than the morning can hold.

"I wanted to make sure you were okay," he says instead.

You seem to accept this. You look at him for a moment longer and whatever you find there, you don't push further. You just nod once like you've made peace with it.

"I think I want to sleep some more," you say.

"Okay." He stands and picks up the tray. "I'll be in the kitchen if you need anything. Or the living room." A pause. "I'm not going anywhere today."

You're already settling back against the pillow, your eyes drifting. The medicine and the warmth and the exhaustion all pull you back under.

"Okay," you say softly and your eyes close.

Joshua stays for a moment, watching the steady rise and fall of your breathing until he's certain you're asleep. Then he goes back to the kitchen and washes the bowl and the mug and the small sesame dish and listens to the city outside and the quiet inside and the sound of a morning that doesn't feel entirely hopeless.

Joshua doesn't know what comes next. But for the first time in months, not knowing feels less like falling and more like waiting. It's not much but it's somewhere to start.

You sleep until early afternoon.

Joshua knows this because he checks. He's been moving quietly around the penthouse all morning, doing things that keep him close without being intrusive. He answers emails he's been ignoring. He reads something without retaining any of it. He makes himself lunch he only partially eats.

The penthouse feels different when you're in it even unconsciously. He's become aware of this over the past several months in a way he's never let himself acknowledge directly. When you're here, even asleep in your room, even behind a closed door, the penthouse feels inhabited in a way it doesn't when he's alone.

He noticed it first in small ways, specifically the quality of the silence when you were out versus when you were home. It bothered him initially, the way he'd registered the distinction without meaning to. 

But he’s slowly learning to stop fighting it.

Around noon he makes more tea and carries it down the hallway and almost knocks on your door, then stops. He goes back to the kitchen and sets the mug on the counter where it slowly loses its heat and he doesn't throw it out, just—leaves it there.

He's on his laptop at the kitchen counter when he hears you stir. Movement from behind your door—the sound of shifting, of someone trying to find a more comfortable position, of being awake enough to be uncomfortable but not quite awake enough to do anything about it.

Then quiet again.

Then your voice, muffled through the door, saying someone's name.

He realizes after a moment that you're on the phone.

He wasn't going to listen. He gets up to give you privacy, to take himself somewhere further away but then he remembers the tea going cold on the counter—he should make you a fresh cup, bring it while you're awake—and he picks up the mug and moves toward the hallway.

He stops just short of your door.

Joshua just… stops. Because he can hear your voice now, clearer, and something in the cadence of it keeps his feet where they are.

You wake up to three missed calls.

Two from Wonwoo and one from Jeonghan. You stare at the screen for a moment while your brain slowly pieces together consciousness and then you remember: last night. The fight. The rain. The missed calls you made sometime around 1 AM when everything felt unbearable and then didn't feel like anything at all.

Your phone starts vibrating before you can figure out what to do about the missed calls.

Wonwoo.

You take a breath and answer.

"Hey," you say and immediately wince at how your voice sounds—rough and thick and completely unconvincing as the voice of someone who is fine and not sick.

A pause on the other end. "You called me at 1 AM." His voice is careful in the way it gets when he's worried but doesn't want to corner you with it.

"I did," you say. "Sorry, Wonwoo. I didn't realize how late it was."

"YN." Just your name. The way he says it when he's not accepting a deflection.

"I'm okay, Wonwoo. Really. I just wanted to talk and then I—I fell asleep." This is partially true. "It was nothing serious."

Another pause. "You sound sick."

"I have a little cold." You try to keep your voice measured and easy. "I went out in the rain last night, it was stupid."

"You what? You went out in the rain? Why were you—"

"I just needed some air," you say, which is technically true and practically meaningless. "I'm okay. A bit sniffly, that's all."

"Are you at home?"

"Yes."

"Are you alone?"

"No," you say and something about admitting it feels strange. "Joshua is here."

There’s a beat of silence. You can feel Wonwoo processing your words, trying to measure what your words mean, what version of events fit the available evidence—missed call at 1 AM, going out in the rain, sick the next day.

"Can I come over?" he says. "I can bring food or medicine or—"

"You really don't have to." You make your voice warm and reassuring. "I'm about to go back to sleep. I just needed to answer your call before you worried yourself into something."

"I'm already worried."

"Well, don't be. I'm okay. I just need rest." You pause. "Tell me you believe me."

There’s a long exhale on his end. "I believe that you want me to believe you."

"Wonwoo—"

"Which is not the same thing," he says but his voice is gentle. "But I'll respect that you don't want to talk about it for now."

"Thank you."

"Call me if you need anything, YN. Anything. I’m sorry I missed your call a few hours ago. So when I say you call, I mean actually call, not—" He stops talking. You can imagine him closing his eyes and looking at the ceiling, trying to mask his worry. "Just call, please."

"I will, Wonwoo-yah."

"Do you promise?"

"I promise."

He says goodbye and hangs up and you've barely set the phone down before it vibrates again.

Jeonghan.

You almost let it go to voicemail. But he'll just call again and then show up and that would be—that would be too much right now. Too much kindness when you're trying to hold yourself together.

"Hi, oppa," you answer.

"You called me at 1 AM and didn't leave a voicemail." Jeonghan doesn't bother with a greeting. His voice is measured, calm, which means he's been managing his worry all morning. "You only do that when you actually need something but already talked yourself out of asking."

"That's—" You start to deny it, then don't, because he's not wrong and he’s your brother and he'll know if you lie. "It was nothing. I was having a rough night and I just wanted to hear a friendly but annoying voice and then by the time I tried to call, it was too late and I didn't want to wake you."

"You can wake me," he says, simply and immediately, ignoring your joke. "You know that."

"I know, oppa."

"Then why didn't you leave a voicemail?"

"Because by the time the call didn't connect, I'd talked myself down," you say. "I was okay. I am okay."

There is noticeable silence on Jeonghan’s end. It is the kind of silence that tells you your brother is looking at what you've said and trying to find the gaps in it.

"You sound terrible," he finally says.

"Thank you, that's very kind—"

"It’s not an insult, yeonggam-ie, it’s a concern. You sound sick. What happened?"

"I went outside last night for a bit and got caught in the rain," you say, trying to keep your voice as light as possible. "It was silly. I have a slight fever but it's already going down."

"I'm coming over," you can hear shuffling on his end and you know your brother. He’s starting to get ready right this second.

"Oppa you don't have to—"

"I want to. I need to see with my own two eyes that my sister is still breathing."

"Oppa." You soften your voice. "I really just want to sleep. I'm already in bed and I feel like I could go under again at any moment and if you come over I'll feel like I have to stay awake and be awake and I just… I really just want to rest. Please?"

A long pause.

"Is everything okay, YN?" he asks differently than before. Jeonghan isn’t asking about the cold, he’s asking about the thing underneath it. The real question just wrapped in a gentler delivery. And when he uses your name, rather than the nickname he gave you, you know he’s already serious and panicking inside.

"It's complicated," you say honestly. "But it's—we're okay. It's just… it's been a rough couple of days."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Not today." You say it as kindly as you can. "Today I really just want to sleep. Can we talk tomorrow? Or this weekend? I'll tell you everything then."

Jeonghan’s quiet for a moment. You can picture him on the other end, sitting somewhere in his apartment, his expression caught between protectiveness and the understanding that pushing you never works, that you close up when you feel cornered.

"Okay," he says finally and his voice is warm even through the phone. "But Yonggam-ie—"

"I know."

"My door is always open. You know that."

"I know, oppa."

"And if things get to be too much—"

"I'll call you first," you say. "I promise. Before 1 AM next time."

A breath of something that's almost a laugh. "Sleep," he says. "I'll check on you tomorrow."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me," he says with slight conviction. "Just get some rest."

He hangs up and the room goes quiet and you hold your phone against your chest for a moment and stare at the ceiling.

You're so tired. You’re tired from both the fever and the constant, low-grade effort of managing everyone's worry. Of taking care of how much people are allowed to see. Of making sure the people who love you don't carry more than you want them to.

You close your eyes, swallow, before a single tear falls across the side of your cheek.

You're asleep again within minutes.

Joshua doesn't move until he hears your breathing even out through the door.

He stands there in the hallway with the cold mug in his hands and he thinks about what he just heard. The careful deflections, the I'm okays delivered in your quiet, steady voice, but also the pattern underneath them. The thing you were doing without, he suspects, being entirely conscious that you were doing it.

You called them at 1 AM. In the rain, after a fight, when you were breaking. And then when they called back in the morning, you spent both calls reassuring them.

You didn’t ask for help. Instead, you reassured them. You managed your brother’s and your best friend’s worries about you so they wouldn't have to carry it. You sent them away gently, with warmth, with promises, so that they wouldn't feel bad about not being there.

Tell me you believe me.

You said it so lightly like you weren't asking someone to let you off the hook for not letting them in.

Joshua stands in the hallway for a long moment. Then he looks down at the mug in his hands.

The tea is cold. Joshua stood on the other side of your door and listened to you tell two people who love you that you were fine when you were very clearly not fine and now the tea is cold.

He goes back to the kitchen. He pours out the cold tea and rinses the mug.

He thinks about what it costs to be you. The specific exhaustion of being someone who, even when you're depleted, even when you're running a fever, even when you've spent a night sitting alone in the rain—still turns outward. Someone who still makes sure the people around you are okay. Someone who still tidies up her own pain so it doesn't make a mess anyone else has to clean up.

Joshua thinks about how he has spent the better part of a year adding to that cost.

He places the mug on the drier before going back to sit down. He doesn't open his laptop again. He just sits in the quiet of the afternoon and thinks about the kind of person who calls her brother at 1 AM and then spends the next morning making sure her brother doesn't worry.

Joshua thinks about what kind of person would deserve you. He thinks, with a clarity that's uncomfortable in its specificity, about how far he currently is from being that person.

He thinks about what it might take to close that distance.

Joshua wakes up before his alarm which doesn't happen on weekends.

On weekends he usually sleeps until 8, sometimes 9, because there's no meeting to get to and no father to call him punctual and the only person in the penthouse is him—has been only him for years—so the morning belongs to no one and therefore to nothing.

This Saturday feels different.

He lies in bed for a few minutes, listening. The penthouse is quiet but it's an occupied kind of quiet. It’s a bit different from the empty kind he's been living with for years, different in a way he's never tried to articulate to himself because articulating it would mean acknowledging it, and acknowledging it would mean… something he might not be ready to name.

Your fever broke yesterday evening. He knocked on your door around 7 PM with soup he ordered from the place two streets over and you answered looking wrung out but clearer. Less glassy. More present. You thanked him for the soup in that careful but genuine way you do things and he stood in the doorway and didn't know what to do with his hands and eventually said sleep well and went back to his side of the penthouse.

Joshua gets up eventually. He doesn't think about what he's going to do until he's standing in the kitchen and he's already pulling things from the fridge. Eggs. The good butter. The block of cheese he bought weeks ago and has barely touched. He finds spring onions at the back of the vegetable drawer and they're still good. He makes a mental note to actually use the vegetable drawer more often.

He cooks the eggs slowly. He makes toast. Cuts fruit because you should probably eat fruit when you're recovering and he's aware that he wants to do something with his hands while he waits for you to wake up.

He's plating things when he hears your door. You emerge into the kitchen looking better than yesterday. Still slightly pale, a little fragile around the edges but you've changed clothes and your hair is down and you're moving. You stop when you see him, taking in the scene—him at the counter, plates in hand, the evidence of breakfast having been made.

"Hi," you say.

"Hi." He sets the plates on the counter. "How are you feeling?"

"Better." You look around the kitchen. Sniff. "You cooked."

"Eggs," he says, like the evidence isn't already visible. "And toast. There's fruit somewhere—" He gestures vaguely at the bowl he left on the counter.

You look at the plates for a moment. Then at him. Then back at the plates in a way that suggests you're making sure this is real and not some symptom of the fever still working its way out of your system.

"You didn't have to—" you start.

"I was hungry," he says. "It seemed inefficient to only make enough for one."

Something crosses your face—brief and careful like a door opening and closing very fast. But you pull out a barstool at the kitchen counter and sit down and he slides a plate in front of you and that's something. That's more than you’ve both managed in months.

You eat in silence for a few minutes.

"These are really good," you say eventually, looking at your eggs.

"I used low heat," he mumbles. "People rush eggs. You shouldn't rush eggs."

You take another bite. "My mother always made them on high heat. They came out like rubber."

"Eggs aren't supposed to be structural."

You make a sound. It’s not quite a laugh but it’s close enough. It sounded small and involuntary that you seem faintly surprised by yourself.

"No," you agree. "They're not."

Outside, the city is doing its Saturday thing: slower than weekdays. You eat about two-thirds of your breakfast and then slow down, picking at the fruit, and Joshua doesn't comment because two-thirds is more than he expected and you're still recovering. Before you know it, he's cleaning up—running the tap, rinsing plates—when you say: "I called Jeonghan this morning."

He turns slightly. Not all the way. "Yeah?"

"Just to let him know I was okay and that my fever broke." A pause. "He asked about you."

Joshua isn't sure what to do with this. He keeps rinsing the plate. "What did you tell him?"

"That you'd been helpful." Another pause. "And that you've been around."

He nods once before setting the plate in the drying rack.

"He didn't say anything bad," you add and your voice is neutral enough that he can't tell if this is reassurance or just information. "He just asked."

"Okay."

Quiet again. You finish the fruit slowly and he finishes cleaning up and when he turns around you're still sitting at the counter but you've turned slightly on the barstool, your elbows on the counter, looking at him. Just looking. The way you look at things when you're trying to understand them.

"Why did you stay?" you ask. "Yesterday. All day. You were here when I woke up in the morning and when I fell asleep in the evening."

"You were sick."

"People are sick without other people rearranging their entire day," you say and there's no bitterness in it, just observation. Joshua considers several answers in his head but quickly discards them.

"I didn't want to be somewhere else," he says finally, honestly. 

You don't respond right away. You sit with it for a moment, which is something you do. You don't fill silences just to fill them; you let things land before you react to them. You poke at the last piece of fruit on your plate.

"Okay," you say quietly. And then you slide off the barstool and carry your plate to the counter and rinse it yourself and the two of you stand next to each other at the kitchen sink for a moment—close but not quite touching—and Joshua thinks: this is something. this is different from what we were a week ago. He's not sure what to do with it. He's not sure it's enough. 

"Thank you for breakfast," you say.

"Anytime," he says and means it.

The volunteer center smells like poster paint and something sugary and you walk through the door and feel your shoulders drop.

You've missed this.

A week away—first sick, then recovering, then the careful, slightly awkward process of existing in the penthouse while you both figured out how to exist in the penthouse and you've missed this brand of joyful chaos more than you expected. Mina sees you from across the room and abandons whatever she was doing without ceremony, running at you with the total physical commitment of a six-year-old who has no concept of the appropriate way of a greeting.

"Teacher YN!" She collides with your legs. "You're back! I thought you died!"

"I was sick," you say, laughing despite yourself. "Not quite dead."

"Junho said maybe you left forever," she tells you with great seriousness.

"Junho was wrong." You look across the room to where Junho, eight years old and possessed of an unfortunate tendency toward catastrophizing, is watching you with obvious relief that he's trying to mask as indifference. You wave at him. He waves back, quickly, like he doesn't want to be caught doing it.

Ms. Park appears with a nice smile on her face. "YN. Good to have you back. We've had some creative differences about what counts as an actual art project."

"What did they do?"

"Junho made a sculpture of his feelings out of tape."

"That's actually not bad—"

"He used the entire roll. We had to order more."

You take your jacket off and roll up your sleeves and you do the thing you always do here—you move, you help, you get paint on your hands and sit on too-small chairs and hold up pictures and ask questions and let the kids tell you things. At some point you're helping Mina glue sequins to what she's described as a portrait of the ocean and Mina is running monologue of observations and questions and non-sequiturs.

And then suddenly, "Is your husband nice?"

You pause. "Why do you ask?"

"Because you look happier today than last week," she says. "And you also look kind of sad at the same time.”

You stare at her for a moment.

"So is he nice?"

You think about breakfast on Saturday. About the eggs made on low heat. About I didn't want to be somewhere else.

"He is," you say.

Mina considers this. "That's good," she decides. "My dad took a long time to learn how to braid my hair. But he kept trying and now he's really good at it. So."

"Hm," you agree.

You drive home with paint on your left hand and a small drawing Mina made you: a figure that might be you and a slightly taller figure that might be Joshua standing in front of something blue that is apparently the ocean and you sit in the parking garage for a moment before going up.

Joshua hears the smart lock at 6:14 PM.

You come in looking tired but lighter somehow than you did this morning. Paint on your hand, bag over your shoulder, and you're looking at something—a piece of paper—as you close the door, smiling at it.

"Hi," he says from the kitchen where he's been ineffectively pretending to read something.

You look up. "Hi." You hold up the paper. "One of the children from the volunteer center drew us."

Joshua sets down his book and comes to look. It's a drawing in crayon—two figures, one shorter and one taller, standing in front of something aggressively blue. The taller figure has what appears to be a very serious expression rendered in approximately four lines.

"Which one is me?" he asks.

"The tall one."

"Why do I look like I'm attending a funeral?"

"I think that's just how Mina draws mouths." You're still smiling at it. "She said the blue thing is the ocean. She thinks we should go."

"To the ocean?"

"According to Mina's artistic vision, yes." You put the drawing on the kitchen counter, stepping back to look at it. "I was thinking about putting it on the fridge door. If that's—" You stop. Start again. "Is that okay?"

He looks at you, at the careful way you asked, the way you're still checking, still treating the shared space like it's mostly his. "It's your fridge too," he says.

"I know, but—" You pause. "You have a thing about the fridge being—"

"I don't have a thing about the fridge."

"You rearranged my leftovers."

"That was about being smart with space, not—" He stops and takes a breath. "Please put the drawing on the fridge door."

You gave him a smile, a smile that reached your eyes, and Joshua took that to heart. You take the drawing and a magnet from the drawer—when did you learn where the magnets are?—and put it on the fridge, stepping back to look at it.

"Better," you say quietly.

Joshua looks at it too. Two figures in crayon, standing in front of the ocean, the taller one looking like he's at a funeral. He doesn't point out that this is objectively a good representation of his resting expression.

"How was the center?" he asks.

"Good. Great, actually. Junho made a sculpture of his feelings out of an entire roll of tape last week while I was gone."

"An entire roll."

"An entire roll." You're moving toward the kettle, filling it. "Ms. Park seemed traumatized. Junho seemed proud."

Joshua watches you move around the kitchen: getting mugs down, finding your tea, doing the small habitual things that suggest you've started to feel at home in this space in a way you maybe didn't before.

"I was going to order food," he says. "If you haven't eaten."

"I haven't." You glance at him. "What are you thinking?"

"There's that place in Seongsu. The one with the good jjigae."

"The one with the small jars of kimchi?"

He looks at her. "You've been there?"

"Jeonghan took me when I first moved back from Paris." A pause. "The kimchi is really good."

"It is," he agrees and there's something almost normal about the exchange, about having a shared reference to a place in the city, about the small overlap that they've apparently been building without coordinating it.

He orders food. You make tea. You end up at the kitchen counter on adjacent stools rather than opposite ends of the dining table which is different from how things usually are. Neither of you comment on it. The food comes a little while later and you eat and the conversation is careful but not strained. You tell him about Mina's sequin ocean portrait, about Junho's tape sculpture, about a new kid who joined last Tuesday who apparently speaks mostly in questions.

Later, after the food containers are cleared and you've both migrated to the living room with no explicit agreement to do so—you're on the couch and he's on the armchair across from you and you've both got your phones out but neither of you is really looking at them.

There's a point around 9 PM where you set your phone down on the cushion beside you and pull your knees up and look at him.

"Can I ask you something?" you say.

"Of course."

"The sketchbook," you say carefully. "Are you—I can—I can stop. If it bothered you, I should have asked first before I—"

"It didn't bother me," he says. "The additions." A pause. "They made the designs better."

You're quiet for a moment.

"I looked at them again after—" He stops. "After what happened. And you were right about the warmth. The way the spaces would feel." He looks at his hands briefly. "I'd stopped thinking about how spaces feel. I've been thinking about how they look for so long that I forgot—" He stops again.

"Forgot what?"

"That a space isn't really a space until someone's in it," he says. "That's the point of architecture. People. You can't design for impression without designing for inhabitation."

You look at him for a long moment.

"Do you miss it?" you say. "Designing things you actually care about?"

The question is so direct, so simply put that he doesn't know how to deflect it. He doesn't, at this moment, want to.

"Yes," he says.

"Then you should do it."

"It's not that easy."

"Most things aren't," you say. "That doesn't mean you don't do them." You pause. "Your father doesn't own your drafting table."

Joshua looks at you. You hold his gaze, steady, not backing down from it.

"No," he says eventually. "He doesn't."

You don't push further. Just nod once like you've said the thing you meant to say and reach for your phone again and the conversation moves into quieter territory. But something has shifted; some small recalibration in the air between you. Joshua spends the rest of the evening aware of it.

At 10:30 you yawn—try to hide it, fail—and set your phone down. After you say good night to Joshua, you go down the hallway and he hears your door close and he stands in the living room for a minute and looks at the mug you left on the coffee table and Mina's drawing on the fridge, visible from where he's standing, the two crayon figures in front of their crayon ocean. He goes to the kitchen. Washes your mug. Puts it in the drying rack next to his.

Joshua looks at Mina's drawing up close for a moment.

You should do it, you said. 

He looks at the taller crayon figure with the funeral mouth standing next to the shorter one with the triangle of a smile. He thinks: we almost look like people who might be okay.

Joshua turns off the kitchen light. Goes to his study. Opens his drafting table for the first time in months.

You find a sketch on Saturday morning.

It's on the kitchen counter when you come out to make tea—a single piece of drafting paper, folded in half, your name written on the outside in Joshua's handwriting. Not YN the way he used to write it, but your full married name, Hong YN, written carefully.

You open it.

It's a sketch of a building interior: a large open space, lots of natural light indicated by the hatched lines coming through wide windows, warm materials annotated in the margins. Wood. Stone. Something living, plants or a garden. It's clearly an early-stage drawing, more feeling than detail, but even in the loose lines you can see the intent of it: a space designed to be lived in.

In the margin, in the same careful handwriting:

You said the spaces I designed needed to feel more human. I've been thinking about what that actually means. This is me thinking out loud. You don't have to say anything about it. -J

You stand at the kitchen counter in your socks and read the note twice. Then you fold the sketch back up and hold it for a moment.

You hear Joshua’s door. He comes out looking like he wasn't sure you'd be awake yet—a fraction of hesitation at the edge of the kitchen before he sees you there, the folded sketch in your hands.

"You don't have to say anything," he says immediately, which is the same thing the note said and something about him needing to say it twice tells you more than the words do.

"It's good," you say. "Really good. The light especially—the way you've brought it in from the north so it's consistent all day instead of harsh in the morning." You look at him. "You noticed that in my studio, didn't you. The north-facing window."

He's quiet for a beat. "Yes."

"You're applying it."

"I'm thinking about it."

You look at the sketch again.

"Can I add to it?" you say. "Just… thoughts. If you want them."

Joshua doesn't hesitate. "Yes. Please."

You nod before putting the sketch carefully in the pocket of your cardigan. "I'll give it back before dinner."

"Take your time."

You make your tea and he makes his coffee and you stand on opposite sides of the kitchen counter and it's not nothing. None of this is nothing. It's not enough, not yet, and you both know it, and neither of you says so.

But it's not nothing.

Joshua almost doesn't go to the volunteer center.

He's walking past it, has been walking on this street for no particular reason except that it leads to a coffee place he likes and he's been making decisions lately based on very small criteria—when he sees you through the window.

He stops.

You're sitting at a low table with a child—a boy maybe eight or nine—both of them looking at something the boy has painted. You're talking and whatever you're saying, the boy's expression goes from uncertain to something approaching belief right in the middle of it. You reach ahead and point at something in the painting and the boy looks where you're pointing and sees whatever you wanted him to see.

Joshua watches this happen from the outside. He watches you turn the painting slightly so the light hits it differently and the boy looks at his own work like it's the first time he's seeing it, like whatever insecurity was sitting in him ten seconds ago has been replaced by something he didn't have a word for before you gave it to him.

Joshua stands on the sidewalk in the cold and watches you do this small, ordinary miracle.

He thinks: she's been doing this the whole time. While I was in my office deciding what mattered, she was in here deciding what mattered and she was right and I was wrong.

He doesn't go in. He doesn't want to interrupt. He goes to the coffee place and orders two drinks and comes back and waits outside until the session ends and the kids start filing out. You come out with Ms. Park, talking, and then you see him and stop.

"Hi," he says.

"Hi." You look at the second cup in his hand. 

"Your tea. It’s gone a little cold already, I had to wait—"

You take it from him and wrap both your hands around it. "How long have you been out here?"

"Not long."

"Joshua."

"Fifteen minutes, tops," he admits bashfully.

You look at him. Something in your expression that he's been watching learn to relax around him, slowly, over the past week—it relaxes a little more.

"Thank you," you say.

"How were the kids?"

"Good. Junho made a bird." You fall into step beside him. "With actual wings. We're not sure how he did it but Ms. Park is considering submitting it somewhere."

"Out of tape?"

"Watercolor and some wire he found." A pause. "He's very resourceful."

"He is," Joshua says even though he's never met Junho. Even though he knows Junho only through you, through the small ongoing story of this kid who catastrophizes and builds things and cries about purple and green.

"I added to your sketch," you say eventually.

"I know. I found it."

"And?"

A pause. "The suggestion about the interior garden—I'd been avoiding it because I thought it would compromise the structural integrity of the south wall. But you're right that you can work around that if you extend the—"

"The load-bearing element to the east," you finish. 

Joshua looks at you. "You know about load-bearing elements?"

"I know about structural balance," you say. "It's the same principle in painting. You redistribute weight, you don't just remove it."

He is quiet for a moment. "You're going to make the building better," he says.

"That's the goal, isn’t it?"

They walk another block.

"Can I come sometime?" he says. "To the volunteer center."

You glance at him. He can see you considering it, checking the offer for whatever might be wrong with it, and then finding nothing.

"Mina will draw your portrait," you say.

"I've seen how she draws."

"You'll have to survive the funeral mouth."

Joshua smiles at that. "Okay," he says. "I'll survive it."

You fall asleep on the couch at 9:30 and don't mean to.

It happens gradually. You were watching something light and plot-thin that required no emotional investment and Joshua was on the other end of the couch doing something on his laptop and at some point the show on TV stopped mattering and the couch became very comfortable and your eyes started negotiating with you about staying open and eventually you stopped winning that negotiation.

You're not fully asleep. You're in that in-between place where you can hear things—the low sound from the TV, the ambient noise of the building—but can't quite connect them to anything that requires a response.

You feel the blanket. It arrives over you so carefully that it barely registers. It’s just a shift in warmth, a slight weight, the sensation of something being tucked at your shoulder.

Then stillness.

Then, very quietly: the sound of Joshua sitting back down.

You don't open your eyes. You don't say anything. You stay in that suspended space between sleep and waking and listen to him breathing on the other end of the couch, the soft sounds of the penthouse settling around you both and you think—hazily, loosely, the way you only think things when you're not quite guarded enough to stop yourself:

this could be something.

if we let it, this could be something.

You fall the rest of the way asleep.

Sometime later—you don't know how much later—you surface slightly. The TV is off. The room is dim. Joshua is still there, you can feel him at the other end of the couch, and you realize in your half-conscious state that he's asleep too. He must have drifted without meaning to.

You open your eyes just enough to confirm this.

He's leaning against the armrest, head tilted, breathing slowly. He looks different when he's asleep. The tension he carries in his face, that constant guardedness around his eyes and jaw, it's just gone. He looks like someone you might have wanted to know a long time ago before everything that happened between you.

Maybe someone you still want to know.

You close your eyes again before he can wake up and catch you looking.

You end up at a market neither of you planned to go to.

It happens because you're walking with no destination and you turn a corner and there it is—a Saturday market taking over a stretch of street you don't usually walk down, vendors with cloth-covered tables selling things that are all in the category of objects someone made by hand with care. Candles that smell like specific seasons. Ceramics in colors that remind you of something without quite naming what. Small paintings. Pressed botanicals sealed in resin.

You slow down when you see it and Joshua slows with you.

"I didn't know this was here," you say.

"Neither did I."

You look at each other.

"Do you want to—" you start.

"Yeah," he says before you finish.

You move through the weekend market slowly. Joshua stops at a ceramics table and picks up a small bowl, examines it, turns it over in his hands. The vendor watches him with the hopeful expression of someone whose work is being genuinely considered and not just glanced at.

"The glaze on this one," Joshua says to you, holding the bowl so you can see the inside. "Look at the way it pools at the base."

You lean in. "Celadon."

"The color, yes, but the texture—" He tilts it slightly. "You can see where the temperature dropped in the kiln. Right here, this variation. That's not a mistake, that's the kiln talking."

"You know about ceramics?"

"Architecture school." He sets the bowl down, carefully, a small smile on his lips. "We studied materials. How things are made. How processes leave marks."

You buy the bowl. He protests that you don't have to—it's expensive for a small object—and you tell him you know how much it costs and you want it and something about the fact that you've started saying you want things makes you feel like you're recovering something you didn't fully realize you'd lost.

Joshua carries the purchase you just made. You didn’t ask him to, he just takes the paper bag when you've paid, adjusts it carefully in his hand so the bowl doesn't shift and you keep walking and he's just holding it.

At a table covered in small printed cards, you stop.

You're not sure what makes you stop. They're just cards with single images on them. Botanical illustrations. Architectural line drawings. You look through them slowly and Joshua is beside you and at some point you both reach for the same card: a line drawing of a building interior, all light and height and the suggestion of people moving through, and your fingers brush.

You both go still for a second.

Then you both remove your hands at the same time and then both try to reach for it again and stop again, and you look at each other, and you're laughing before you can stop yourself—a real laugh, involuntary, slightly embarrassed—and Joshua's expression is doing something you haven't seen it do before, something close to laughter, this suppressed brightness in his face that looks like relief at the most fundamental level.

"You take it," he says.

"No, you saw it first—"

"I don't—I don't know why I reached for it, I don't even—"

"You clearly wanted it—"

"Get it for both of us," says the vendor, cheerfully uninvested in this negotiation, "it's two thousand won."

You both look at her. You both look back at each other. You buy the card.

You have lunch in a building on the market street with four bar stools along a counter and a handwritten menu of three things. You both get the same thing because there isn't much else to choose from and you sit on the stools at the window and eat and watch the market crowd move past outside.

"Tell me something," you say.

He looks at you. "What kind of something?"

"Something I don't know about you." You turn slightly on your stool. 

Something flickers in his expression. "What do you want to know?"

"Anything. Something you'd actually tell me, not a press release." You pause. "Something real."

Joshua’s quiet for a moment. A couple walks past outside carrying a plant they've just bought, arguing cheerfully about where it's going to live.

"I almost didn't go into the family business," he says.

You wait.

"When I was finishing university—architecture, before my father—" He stops, reorganizes his thoughts. "There was a firm. It was small, about twelve people, they were doing low-income housing, community spaces. Things that mattered in ways that weren't about profit." He says the word with a slight edge, like it tastes specific. "They offered me a position. Junior associate, not much money. But the work was—" He pauses. "It was the kind of work I got into architecture to do."

"What happened?"

"My father." He says it simply. "He'd already arranged everything with the company. Had been arranging it, apparently, since my second year of university. I didn't know until I accepted the offer from the firm and he—" He stops. "He had a way of making things very clear without raising his voice."

"So you went to the company."

"So I went to the company." He turns his cup in his hands. "I told myself it was temporary. I'd do a few years, build credibility, and then I'd find a way to do the work I actually wanted. But a few years became—" He gestures vaguely. "You keep moving forward because stopping feels like losing ground and eventually you look up and it's been almost a decade and the work you wanted to do is something that happened to someone else."

You look at him for a bit before responding. "It's not too late."

"You keep saying that."

"Because it keeps being true."

He looks at you in that way he's started doing more lately, like he's checking whether you mean things, finding that you do, and not quite knowing what to do with that information.

"Your turn," he says.

"My turn what?"

"Something I don't know about you."

You think about this. "I failed the entrance exam for the arts university I wanted," you say. "The one in Seoul. When I was eighteen."

"You—" He looks genuinely surprised. "But you're talented—"

You smile, trying to ignore the compliment. "I just froze. I'd never painted with someone watching me with a clipboard before and my brain just went blank. I sat in front of a blank canvas for forty minutes and then cried in the bathroom." You look out at the market. "My parents took it as confirmation that art was a hobby. I took it as confirmation that I needed to go somewhere no one was watching." You pause. "That's why I went to Paris."

"And did it work?"

"For a while." You're quiet for a moment. "I painted the best things I've ever painted in Paris. Things I was proud of in a way I hadn't been before." You don't say: and then I came back, and I got smaller, and I lost some of that. You don't say it but you feel him hear it anyway in the pause where it lives.

"The piece you're working on," he says. "The one about the volunteer center. That's—that's that painting. That kind of painting."

You look at him.

"I've seen it twice now," he says. "The second time when you thought I was in my office." A pause. "I came to ask you something and the studio door was open and you were working and I didn't want to interrupt so I just—" He stops. "It's the best thing I've ever seen you make."

"You've seen me make three things," you say to have something to say.

"The best of the three," he says, steady. "By a significant margin."

You look at the counter. Pick up your cup. Put it down.

"Thank you," you say quietly.

"I should have said it sooner. I should have said a lot of things sooner."

The couple with the plant passes back in the other direction. The plant has been rehomed to the other person's arms.

"We're saying them now," you say.

He looks at you for a moment. "Yeah," he says. "We are."

JOSHUA’S POV AT 3:47 AM

It's become a habit, the couch.

You're on your end with whatever you're reading and Joshua on his end with work he's pretending to do or a book he's pretending to read and the television is on at a volume that suggests it's not really the point and at some point in the evening the distance between your respective ends of the couch gets slightly shorter without either of you tracking exactly when or how.

Tonight you're reading something that's making you frown, your legs tucked under you, your shoulder against the back of the couch. You've got a pen you keep clicking in your left hand while you read, which you do unconsciously, and which Joshua has stopped registering as something to be irritated by and has started registering as just the sound of you thinking.

He's looking at a sketch. One of the new ones, the building he's been developing with your additions, the one that's starting to feel like something he'd actually want to see exist in the world. He makes a small note in the margin, erases it, makes it again.

At some point he looks up and you're asleep.

It happens so completely—one moment you were frowning at your book and the next you're just fully under, your head tilted against the back cushion, the pen still loosely held in your fingers. Your book is balanced against your knees at an angle that will not survive much longer.

Joshua watches you for a moment.

Watching you sleep does something to him he can't quite name. It's the only time the careful distance you carry, the kind that comes from learning to protect yourself, isn't there. Sleep takes it from you without asking. And what's underneath is just you, exactly as you are, with nothing in the way.

He gets up quietly. Takes the book from your fingers before it falls. Marks your page with the receipt from the market that was tucked in the back. He gets the blanket from the basket by the bookshelf—your blanket, the gray one you brought from your room weeks ago that has since established itself as a permanent couch resident—and lays it over you. He tucks it at your shoulder like he's seen you do for yourself on cooler evenings.

He sits back down and looks at his sketch. He thinks about what you said at lunch two weeks ago. Something I don't know about you. The assumption that there was something to know, that the rooms in him were worth opening even if they'd been shut for a long time, even if the hinges were difficult. He thinks about the arts university exam you failed at eighteen. About sitting in front of a blank canvas for forty minutes.

He thinks: you came back from Paris to marry a stranger and that stranger spent the better part of a year making you feel like you were being watched and found insufficient.

He picks up his sketch then sets it down again. At some point—he doesn't notice when—he also sleeps.

YOUR POV AT 3:47 AM ON ANOTHER NIGHT

You surface in stages.

First just darkness and the sense of being somewhere comfortable, then the couch registering as a couch, then the blanket, then the low lamp still on across the room casting everything in amber.

Then: the clock on the wall.

3:47.

You've woken at 3:47 AM three times in the past two weeks and you don't know why and you've stopped trying to figure out why because some things don't have explanations.

You turn your head. Joshua is asleep at the other end of the couch, his head dropped against the cushion, his sketch half in his lap and half threatening to slide off. The tiredness in his face is still there but without the tension over it, without the structure of effort he usually maintains.

There's a smudge of graphite on the side of his hand from his pencil. You look at him for a while. You let yourself because he's asleep and won't see you doing it and you've been careful not to let yourself look for too long when he's awake because—

Because it's starting to mean something.

Because the market and the mornings and the couch and the way he carries things you've bought are starting to accumulate into something that has weight and you're not sure you know what to do with the weight of it yet.

Joshua’s eyes open. He looks at you looking at him. Neither of you looks away.

"3:47," you say softly.

He looks at the clock. Back at you. "You too?"

"Every time."

"I don't know why," he says.

"Neither do I." You pause. "It doesn't feel like a bad time. Just… awake."

"I used to wake up at this time," he says and his voice has the texture of someone still half asleep. "Before. In this place before you moved in. I thought it was insomnia."

"Is it?"

"I don't think so. It doesn't feel like insomnia." He looks at his hands. "Insomnia is being restless. This is just—" He pauses. "Alert… like there's something I need to pay attention to."

"There's nothing to pay attention to at 3:47 AM."

"No," he agrees. "But your body doesn't always know that."

You pull the blanket a little higher. It's not cold exactly but the penthouse is cooler at this hour. You look at the lamp across the room, at the way it makes the living room look still. 

"Thank you for the blanket," you say.

"Your book was about to fall."

You look at him. He looks back at you.

"What are you designing for now?" you ask.

Joshua’s quiet for a moment. When he looks at you, there's something in his expression that's very direct, very unguarded in the way that 3:47 AM allows for things that daylight doesn't.

"Something that feels like this," he says. "...like this room right now… like somewhere you'd want to come back to."

The silence that follows isn't empty. It's silence that has direction. You don't say anything but you don't look away, either. After a while—neither of you track how long—you're lying back against your end of the couch, eyes half-closed, the blanket pulled up, when you feel the couch shift.

Just slightly. Just enough.

You open your eyes.

Joshua is leaning across the small distance between you and before you can fully process what's happening, he presses his lips to your forehead. The kiss is brief, soft, so gentle it's barely there. This kiss feels like something he's been thinking about doing for a long time and decided, at 3:47 AM with the lamp on and both guards down, that the hour made it permissible

Joshua pulls back. You look at each other. His expression is carefully composed except that it isn't. There's something around his eyes that he can't quite control, something that is trying to be neutral and not succeeding.

"Sorry," he says quietly. "I don't—" He stops. Tries again. "I just wanted to."

You look at him for a long moment in the amber light.

"It’s okay," you say softly. And you mean it.

Something in his face settles. You lie back down. Pull the blanket up. Close your eyes. Your heart is doing something completely unreasonable and you are choosing not to examine it too closely at this particular hour.

The lamp stays on. In the morning, neither of you will say much about this. You won't need to. Some things don't need to be said to be kept.

The call comes at 7:14 AM.

Joshua is still in the kitchen when his phone lights up with his father's name—he's making coffee, has been up for twenty minutes, was thinking about nothing in particular, just the pleasant emptiness of an early morning before the day requires anything of him.

He stares at the screen for a moment before answering.

"Father."

"The Q4 numbers came in last night." No greeting. His father has never seen the point of greetings. They waste time that could be used for information. "I've been looking at them since six."

Joshua sets down his coffee cup. "And?"

"And your division is at sixty-three percent of projection." A pause that is not a pause; it's a verdict being delivered slowly. "Sixty-three, Joshua. In October."

"The market conditions in Q3 affected several of our major—"

"I'm not interested in market conditions. I'm interested in your numbers." His father's voice is even and controlled. The evenness is always worse than anger would be. "You've been distracted. I've watched it happening for months and I've been patient. I want to know if my patience is going to be rewarded."

"My division is still performing above—"

"I didn't ask about above average. I asked about the projection. The projection you submitted. Your own projection that you've now failed to meet." Another pause. "I've been looking at the comparative analysis. Three of your competitors are tracking at ninety-one percent or better. You're at sixty-three."

"The comparison isn't—"

"It's entirely fair." His father's voice sharpens slightly at the edges. Barely, but Joshua has been listening to this voice his whole life and knows exactly where the edge is. "You know what I think the problem is?"

Joshua doesn't answer.

"Focus," his father says. "You've lost it. I can see it in your numbers, I can see it in your meetings, I can see it in the way you've been approaching this quarter like someone who is managing a job rather than building a legacy." A brief silence. "Whatever is distracting you needs to stop. I want a corrective plan by the end of the week."

"I'll have it for you."

"And Joshua." His father lets the name sit for a moment. "Tonight. Dinner. Seven o'clock. Your mother is expecting you both."

The call ends.

Joshua stands in his kitchen for a moment with the phone in his hand and the coffee going cold beside him and the silence of a morning that has been decided for him before it properly started.

He thinks about the past few weeks. About the slow accumulation of good days—actual good days. About coming home to the penthouse and finding you in the kitchen and staying there, both of you, for an hour longer than made sense. About the sketch he'd left for you on the counter and the way you'd added to it, your handwriting alongside his in the margins.

About all the small, fragile things he's been building.

He picks up his coffee. It's cold. He drinks it anyway.

Joshua texts you at four.

Father's organizing a family dinner tonight. Seven. I know it's short notice.

You sit with the message for a moment.

Then: Okay. I'll be ready.

A pause. Then his response: You don't have to—

I know, you type back. I'll be ready.

You put your phone down and look at the painting you've been working on: a large canvas, abstract, all movement and warm color, something you started two weeks ago when things were good and have been slowly losing the thread of today. You've been in the studio all afternoon trying to find it again, that specific quality of light you were after, but it keeps sliding away from you.

You clean your brushes. Get dressed. Stand in front of your mirror in a navy dress and look at yourself.

You'll be okay, you think. You've survived these dinners before. You'll survive this one.

Joshua picks you up at six-thirty. When you come out of the building in the navy dress with your hair done and your face careful and composed, something in his chest tightens. He knows this version of you. The one that comes out for his family: contained, pleasant, taking up exactly as much space as is required and no more.

He hates that this version exists. He hates that he's responsible for teaching you that it needs to.

"You look beautiful," he says when you get in.

"Thank you." You settle your bag in your lap, then look out the window.

The drive is quiet. It’s not a comfortable quiet. This is the other kind… the kind that has something waiting in it.

"He's going to bring up the numbers," Joshua says at one point. He doesn't know why he says it. Warning you, maybe. Or warning himself.

"Okay," you say.

"I just—I want you to know in advance. So it doesn't—"

"Joshua." Your voice is gentle. "I know how your father works."

He nods and thinks about the corrective plan he's been writing all day, the careful language of it, the way you have to translate every true thing into corporate-speak so his father can receive it. He thinks about sixty-three percent and his father's voice at 7 AM and the cold coffee and the exhaustion of being someone's legacy.

Joshua glances at you. You're looking out the window, your hands folded in your lap, and you look braced. Ready. Ready in the way you get ready for things you know are going to cost you something.

Joshua wants to say: I'm sorry in advance. He doesn't know how to say it without it sounding like permission for whatever's about to happen. So he says nothing.

Joshua’s parents' house is exactly as it always is. Immaculate, formal, beautiful in the way of spaces designed to communicate power rather than comfort. His mother greets them at the door: warm in her careful way, air kisses, the kind of welcome that is technically generous and fundamentally transactional.

His father is already at the table.

"Joshua." A nod. Then, smaller: "YN."

They sit. The first course passes in the usual way. His father holds court—business, market analysis, a board meeting coming up next week—and Joshua responds where required and otherwise stays quiet. You're beside him, eating carefully, responding when spoken to with the specific pleasantness you've developed for these occasions.

His mother asks you about the volunteer center with what appears to be genuine warmth and Joshua watches you answer: light, measured, telling her about the kids in a way that is charming but doesn't give too much, doesn't risk too much.

His father sets down his fork. Here it comes.

"Joshua." The word lands with the particular weight of what follows. "I've been reviewing the Q4 analysis since our conversation this morning. I want to revisit it."

"We can discuss it at the office—"

"We're here now." His father's voice doesn't rise. It never rises. "Sixty-three percent is not a number I'm willing to accept without understanding how it happened."

Joshua keeps his voice even. "The market conditions in Q3 created downstream—"

"I know what the market conditions were." His father looks at him directly. "I also know that your competitors navigated the same conditions and are tracking at ninety-one. Ninety-one, Joshua. I want to understand the gap."

"I'll have a full analysis—"

"I'd like to understand it now." A pause. "It seems to me that this year has seen a decline in your overall focus. I've watched it happening and I've chosen not to address it directly, hoping it would correct itself." Another pause. "It hasn't."

Joshua's jaw tightens. Releases. He says nothing.

"I wonder," his father continues and his voice takes on that quality—still even, still measured, but moving toward something—"if the demands of managing a household have perhaps been—redistributed unequally. If the adjustment to married life has perhaps taken more energy than anticipated."

Joshua feels you go very still beside him.

"My professional performance and my marriage are separate—"

"Are they?" His father picks up his wine glass. "Because what I'm looking at suggests otherwise." He sets it down and looks at you.

Joshua feels it happen: the shift of attention, his father's gaze moving to you like a searchlight changing direction, and something cold moves through him.

"YN." His father says your name with the benign curiosity of someone about to say something that is not benign at all. "We haven't spoken much about how you've been settling in. How are you occupying your time?"

"I've been well," you say and your voice is completely composed. "I volunteer at a community art center twice a week. And I paint."

"The community center." His father nods. "Yes, I've heard." A brief pause. "And the painting. Is this something you do seriously? Professionally?"

"I paint seriously," you say carefully.

"But not professionally. Not as a vocation." He says the word without inflection which makes it worse somehow. "No gallery representation. No commercial work."

"I've had gallery interest—"

"Interest," his father repeats and the word lands exactly the way he intends it to. Precise. "I ask because I'm trying to understand your contribution to Joshua's life. To his focus." He looks at Joshua when he says this briefly, then back to you. "We agreed when this marriage was arranged that YN would be a stabilizing presence. An anchor. A… decoration. And I wonder if—painting and an afternoon volunteer program—represents the kind of foundation we had in mind."

You say nothing. Joshua opens his mouth. His father continues.

"It's not a criticism," his father says, which is precisely what someone says when something is a criticism. "I think there's more you could offer. The Hong family has a profile to maintain. Charitable foundations, company events, the various obligations of this name. Finger-painting with children is admirable." A slight pause. "But it doesn't serve Joshua's standing the way it could."

Finger-painting with children.

The words sit in the air. Joshua hears them. Registers them. Feels the full weight of exactly what his father just said to you and what he said it in front of and how completely, utterly unacceptable it is.

He knows he should say something. He can feel the sentence—clear, simple, right there: What YN does with her time is not a subject for this table. Her work matters. She matters.

He can feel it sitting in his throat.

His father looks at him. That look. The one he has known his whole life. The one that says: do not.

And Joshua—who has been trying, genuinely trying, who made you breakfast weeks ago with oat milk and small strawberries and watched your face to make sure he got it right—

Says nothing. Picks up his fork. Eats.

Beside him, you are very still. He can't look at you. The dinner continues.

The drive home is quiet.

This quiet one is the after: the settled weight of what happened and what didn't.

You watch the city outside the window and don't say anything. Joshua drives. You can feel him wanting to speak. You can feel the tension of it in the air between you—the wanting to explain, to apologize, to somehow account for the silence he maintained while his father said finger-painting with children and you sat there and absorbed it and looked at your plate and did what you always do, which is survive it.

Then he says: "YN—"

"I'm tired, Joshua," you say. "Can we not tonight?"

A pause, his grip on the steering wheel tightens.

"Okay," he says.

You watch the streetlights. You think about the canvas waiting for you at home, the one you couldn't find the thread of this afternoon. You think about Mina who drew you a card last week that said your paintings are the most beautiful ones in the careful handwriting of a seven-year-old who means everything she says.

You think about finger-painting with children. You think about Joshua's fork, picked up. His silence, maintained.

You don't cry. You're past the point where his father's words make you cry. You've built enough of yourself back to know that what his father thinks of your work is not a verdict on your work. You know that. Jeonghan has told you that. Wonwoo has told you that. You've told yourself enough times that you mostly believe it.

What makes your chest tight isn't what his father said.

It's the fork. It's the way Joshua picked up his fork.

The way all that careful progress—the small strawberries and the morning light and the 3:47 AM lamp—can vanish so completely, so instantly, the moment his father looks at him a certain way. You know why. You understand the mechanism of it. You've always understood it better than you've let on.

But understanding it doesn't make the fork hurt less.

You pull into your building. Joshua puts the car in park and sits there, both hands still on the wheel.

"I should have said something," he says. Low. Addressed to the steering wheel.

"Yes," you say simply. You’re obviously not angry. You don't have the energy for anger and anyway, anger isn't quite what this is. "You should have."

"I know. I—"

"I know you know." You pick up your bag. "Goodnight, Joshua."

"YN—"

You get out of the car and walk into the building. You don't look back.

Joshua sits in the parked car for a long time. The building's entrance is visible from where he's parked, the lobby lights warm and ordinary. You're already gone—already in the elevator, already somewhere he isn't, already putting distance between yourself and this evening with the same practiced efficiency you've developed for exactly this kind of hurt.

Finger-painting with children.

His father's voice. And then his own silence.

He thinks about the painting you'd shown him three weeks ago—not the community center piece, the other one, the large abstract you'd been working on. He'd stood in front of it for twenty minutes. He had seen in it something he didn't have the vocabulary for immediately: this is what it looks like to feel something completely.

He thinks about you explaining it to him afterward and the way you'd talked about color like it was a language, like the specific relationship between two shades of orange could say something that words couldn't access.

You're exactly like your father.

The thought arrives before he can stop it. It’s not his father's voice this time. It’s his own.

Joshua sits in the car until the lobby lights blur slightly and his hands stop gripping the steering wheel and he thinks about all the specific ways he keeps failing the same person.

She matters.

Such a simple thing, but he couldn't say it.

He walks through the door and the first thing he sees is the small ceramic bowl from the market on the shelf and he stands there looking at it for a moment.

Then he goes to his drafting table, but he doesn't draw anything. He just sits there in the quiet, looking at the wall, thinking about the distance between knowing what the right thing is and being able to do it.

I'm going to lose her. 

Joshua thinks it clearly in the way one thinks things they’ve been avoiding. You won't leave loudly. You’ll just quietly stop believing him. And one day he'll reach for you and you’ll already be gone.

He sits at his drafting table for a long time. The penthouse is very quiet around him. The ceramic bowl sits on the shelf.

He doesn't know what to do with any of it.

The appointment was Joshua's father's idea, which means it wasn't really an idea at all.

It was a directive delivered at last month's family dinner through his father's particular way of phrasing things that sound like suggestions but function like commands: "You should get the estate paperwork in order. It's overdue. Attorney's office, Tuesday."

Joshua had nodded without looking up from his plate.

You had nodded too because that's what you do at those dinners.

That was before the dinner where his father said finger-painting with children while Joshua sat beside you and said nothing. Before the drive home where he'd said I should have said something and you'd said yes, you should have and gotten out of the car. Before the two weeks that followed—quiet, careful, both of you moving through the penthouse like you were trying not to disturb something already cracked. Plates left warming in the oven. Good mornings exchanged in the hallways. Neither of you was the first to acknowledge what was fracturing.

Now it's Tuesday.

You're in Joshua's car going to sign paperwork about an estate you share with someone you're not sure you know anymore and the silence between you has an uncomfortable weight to it. 

Joshua drives with both hands on the wheel. You watch the city pass by outside your window: the familiar streets, the morning crowds, the ordinary life of people going to ordinary places for ordinary reasons. Everything outside the car looks so uncomplicated. You've forgotten what uncomplicated feels like.

You've been sitting with something for a long time now. Weeks, maybe longer. You've been turning it over in your mind, examining it from different angles, looking for the flaw in the logic, the reason it doesn't make sense or isn't fair or won't work.

But the logic holds every time.

And you're tired.

That's the thing nobody tells you about being unhappy for a long time. Eventually the unhappiness stops feeling like pain and starts feeling like exhaustion. You've been treading water. You're tired of treading.

The thought arrives the way most of your truest thoughts arrive: quietly and without fanfare. It is more of an acknowledgment of something you've known for a while but haven't let yourself fully look at.

I think we should get a divorce.

You sit with those words for another few minutes, just holding them. They're heavier than you expected. But they're also clean. Clear. The way a difficult truth is sometimes cleaner than a comfortable lie. You're not angry. You haven't been angry in a long time. The anger burned out weeks ago, replaced by this quiet sadness that's become your baseline. You don't blame Joshua—not entirely, not anymore. You understand his father. You understand the pressure, the conditioning, the way a lifetime of learning to prioritize approval over everything else doesn't just disappear because you want it to.

You understand all of it. You're just too tired to keep waiting for understanding to be enough.

"I've been thinking about something," you say. Your voice comes out quieter than you intended. Joshua glances at you briefly then back at the road. "Yeah?" His voice is careful, the way it's been careful for weeks. 

"About us," you say. "About the marriage."

A pause. His hands shift slightly on the steering wheel. "Okay."

You keep your eyes on the window. Somewhere out there, a woman is walking a dog. A man is buying coffee from a cart. A child is being pulled along by the hand.

"I think we should get a divorce."

The words land. Just there, in the space between you, where they've been waiting for weeks. The silence that follows is different from the silence before. This one has a texture to it. Something thickening in the air. Joshua doesn't say anything for so long that you finally turn to look at him. His jaw is tight. His hands are white around the steering wheel. He's staring at the road ahead with an expression you can't fully read. It’s something between shock and pain and a fear that looks almost animal in its rawness.

"No," he says finally. Just that. No.

"Joshua—"

"No." His voice is controlled. "We're not getting a divorce."

"I think it would be better—"

"For who?"

You turn back to the window. "For both of us. But mostly for you."

Joshua makes a sound that isn't quite a laugh because it’s sharp and short and humorless. "For me."

"You'd be free," you say and your voice is gentle. You need him to understand that this isn't cruelty and that this isn't punishment. You're not saying this because you want to hurt him. You're saying it because you don't. "From this arrangement, from your father's expectations about our marriage, from—" You stop and breathe. 

"—From me. You could focus on work. On the firm. You could leave your father's company, build something of your own the way you've always wanted to. You could have your life back."

"You think my life is something I want back." It's not a question. There's something in his voice you can't quite name, like you've said something that's both true and not true in a way that frustrates him deeply.

"I think you'd be happier," you say honestly and carefully, but the sadness behind it was also undeniable, even to Joshua. "And I think I'd be—" You pause. "I think I'd be okay. Someday."

Another long silence. The traffic light ahead turns red and Joshua slows to a stop and now you're just stationary in the middle of the city with nothing moving, nothing to watch, nothing to focus on except this conversation.

"How long have you been thinking about this?" he asks.

"A while."

"How long is a while?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes." His voice is controlled but tight. "It matters to me. If you have been sitting with wanting a divorce for—for weeks, months, without saying anything, I'd like to know how long I've been—" He stops. "How long this has been where we are."

You look at him then, fully. His profile in the morning light: the set of his jaw, the tension in his neck, the way he's gripping the steering wheel like it's the only solid thing available. Joshua looks like someone trying very hard not to fall apart and it’s breaking your heart.

"It's not like I made a decision," you say softly. "It's more like I—arrived somewhere. And I've been trying to figure out if I was wrong about where I'd ended up. But I keep—" Your voice wavers slightly and you steady it. "I keep coming back to the same place."

"What place?"

"That we're both suffering," you say. "And that we don't have to be."

"We don't have to be suffering so we should end the marriage." He says it slowly, like he's working out the logic and finding it doesn't hold. "That's your reasoning?"

"I'm not saying it to be cruel—"

"I know you're not." And something about the way he says it: weary, almost resigned, makes it worse than if he were angry. "I know you're not trying to be cruel. I know this is you trying to be kind. Merciful. Set me free or whatever you—" He stops. "YN, I don't want to be set free."

"You say that now—"

"I'll say it tomorrow too. And the day after that." His voice is still controlled but you can hear something underneath it straining. "I know I've been—I know the past few months have been—" He exhales. "I know I've failed you. I know I've been inconsistent and I've taken things out on you and I haven't been what I should have been. I know all of that. But I'm trying to—"

"I know you're trying," you say.

"Then—"

"Trying isn't enough." You say it quietly without any hint of accusation. "I told you that months ago. Trying isn't enough if the trying doesn't actually change anything. And I don't—" Your voice catches slightly. You swallow. "I don't want to be married to someone who's trying to tolerate me. I don't want to be a problem you're working on. I don't want to keep waking up every day wondering if today is going to be a good day or a bad day, wondering if this week I'll lose ground or gain it, wondering when the next setback is coming."

"It won't—"

"It will." You're not unkind about it. "It always does. Something happens with your father and you come home angry and I become the nearest available outlet. Something happens at work and you disappear for two weeks. And then something shifts and you're kind again and I let myself hope and then—" You stop. "I'm so tired of the cycle. I'm so tired of hoping."

Joshua doesn't respond. You watch his hands on the steering wheel—the subtle flex of his knuckles, the slight adjustment of his grip.

"I want to give you your life back," you say again, softer this time. "I want you to build the firm you've always wanted. I want you to make your own choices about your father instead of making them around me. I want—" 

Your voice finally breaks, just slightly, at the edges. But tears are starting to fall. "I want you to be happy, Joshua. Because I think this marriage has just made you miserable and I… I don't think I'm making you happy."

The silence that follows is the longest yet. When Joshua speaks, his voice is different. Lower. Rougher.

"You want to know something?" he says.

"What?"

"I had a moment a few weeks ago. After the market." He pauses. "We were in the car coming home and you had your head against the window and you'd fallen asleep and I—I kept looking at you." Another pause. "I kept thinking that I didn't want to be anywhere else in the world. That I wanted to just keep driving. Past our home, past the city, just… keep going so I could have more time in the car with you asleep beside me." His voice has gone tight. "That's not what someone who's unhappy in their marriage thinks."

You don't say anything. Something in your chest is doing something complicated and painful.

"I think about you," he continues and his voice is quiet now, almost private, like he's saying something he hasn't said out loud before. "When you're not there, I think about you. I wonder what you're doing, if you're okay, if you're painting, if Mina said something that made you laugh. I come home and the first thing I look for is you." He swallows. "That's not—that's not someone who wants a divorce."

"Joshua—"

"I know I've been terrible to you." The words come out with the weight of someone who has been carrying them for a long time. "I know I've said things I shouldn't have and done things I shouldn't have and made you feel like you were… like you were something less than you are. I know that. And I know I don’t deserve your patience or your forgiveness or another chance. But I'm asking for one anyway." His voice cracks slightly. "I'm asking you not to—please don't do this. Please don't give up on us."

Your tears won’t stop falling now. You've been trying to hold them back since you started speaking and they're making themselves known now.

"I'm not giving up. I'm just saying what's true." You pause. "We didn't choose each other. We were chosen for each other. And we've tried to make something real out of that. Sometimes we have. But I don't think trying is enough anymore."

Joshua tries to hold back his own tears, his own panic rising inside his chest.

"Your father will always come first for you," you say. "I understand why. I'm not angry about it. But I can't keep being second. I can't keep being the one thing in your life that gets sacrificed when the pressure builds. And you can't—you can't keep fighting your own instincts to make space for me. It's not fair to either of us."

"My father doesn't come first," Joshua says and there's frustration in his voice now. "He doesn't—you have no idea what's actually going on in my head when I—"

"I know what I see."

"What you see isn't everything—"

"It is." You’re not angry, just certain. "I've been paying attention for a year, Joshua. You’re good to me when things are easy. When it gets hard, you're gone. And I need—" You stop briefly, bite your lip. "I need someone who shows up on the hard days too. Not just the good ones."

"I will—"

"You haven't. Not once. Not when your father was there. Not when work was hard. Not at the dinner when he called me decorative." Your voice breaks slightly on that word and you feel it: the old wound reopening. "You sat right there and said nothing. And I told myself you were scared, that it wasn't about me, that you'd be better. But that was weeks ago and you're still—you're still choosing safety over me. And I can't fault you for it. I understand it. But I also can't stay."

"YN—" His voice is urgent now, desperate in a way that makes your chest ache.

"It's okay," you say and you mean it. "It's going to be okay. You're going to be okay. You'll be relieved, eventually. Once the—once the initial discomfort passes, you'll be able to—"

"Don't tell me how I'm going to feel." The control in his voice cracks. "Don't sit there and explain my own emotions to me like you've already decided what this means for both of us without asking me—"

"I'm trying to make this easier—"

"You're not making it easier!" The volume rises suddenly, catching you both off guard. He pulls in a breath, visibly trying to moderate himself. "Sorry. I'm—sorry. I just—" He exhales. "You can't—you can't make this decision for both of us and then tell me it's for my benefit. You don't get to decide what I need."

"Then tell me what you need," you say quietly. "Tell me what I'm missing. Tell me what the plan is for how things actually get better and not just better for a week and then worse again."

Silence.

"I'm working on it—"

"You've been working on it for months."

"These things take time—"

"I know they do." Your voice is so tired. "I know they take time. But I've been patient, Joshua. I've been so patient. And I'm—I'm out of patience. I don't have any more to give."

Something shifts in the car. You can feel it—like a pressure change. 

"So that's it," he says, and his voice has gone flat. "You've decided. You're done."

"I didn't say I was done—"

"You literally just said you're out of patience."

"I said I'm tired. That's not the same as—"

"It sounds the same from here." He's gripping the steering wheel harder now. You can see it from the corner of your eye. "It sounds exactly like you've made up your mind and this whole conversation is just—what? You explaining your reasoning to me? Giving me notice?"

"That's not what I’m—I'm trying to have a real conversation with you but you’re—"

"You opened the conversation by asking for a divorce." Joshua’s voice is flat, tight, controlled in a way that's starting to fray at the edges. His anger is getting harder to control again. "You don't open with divorce and then claim you want a conversation. You open with divorce when you've already decided."

"I opened with divorce because I've been thinking about it alone for weeks because we don't talk!" Your voice rises despite yourself, the first real heat you've felt in this conversation. "We haven't actually talked in months, Joshua. We've been existing around each other very carefully and very quietly and not saying any of the real things and I—I couldn't keep sitting on it anymore."

"If you wanted to talk you could have—"

"Every time I try to talk, your phone rings. Every time I try to have a real conversation, you're tired or stressed or about to leave for work." You're not shouting. But you're not quiet anymore either. "I have tried, Joshua. I have tried to reach you for months and I keep running into this wall and I can't get through it and I'm tired of trying to climb it. I'm tired."

"So divorce." His voice is hard now.

"So letting us both go," you say and the heat fades back out of your voice. The tiredness returns, settling over you like a weight. "So acknowledging that this isn't working and that we're both unhappy and that we deserve more than this. You deserve someone you can actually choose without it costing you everything. And I deserve someone who doesn't have to work that hard at wanting me."

The silence that follows is the worst one yet. You feel Joshua's breathing change beside you—going shallower, faster. You can see from the corner of your eye the way his chest is moving, the way his jaw has set, the way his hands on the wheel have gone completely rigid despite him driving.

He's losing it. You can feel it coming—the way you've learned to feel weather changes before they happen, the particular quality in the air that means something is about to break.

"You deserve someone who doesn't have to work that hard at wanting you," he repeats, slowly. His voice is very low, very controlled like he's holding something back with enormous effort. "That's what you think this is. Me working hard at wanting you."

"That's not what I meant."

"Then what did you mean?"

"I meant that it shouldn't be a struggle. It shouldn't feel like you're forcing yourself to—"

"I am not forcing myself." The control cracks. "I am not—god, YN, when I am with you, when things are good between us, there is nothing forced about it. Nothing. I don't have to make myself want to be near you, I don't have to make myself—" He stops. His voice is rough now, uneven. "Do you have any idea—do you know what it's been like watching you this past year? Watching you try so hard and be so patient and be so kind when I've given you every reason not to be? Do you know what it's like to watch you and know that you're the best thing that's ever happened to me and also know that I keep being too broken to deserve it?"

You don't say anything. This is the first time Joshua has been so vulnerable with you that it’s catching you off guard. His confession is breaking you and there’s a part of you that wished he had said all of this sooner. 

"I'm not struggling to want you," he says and his voice cracks on the words. "I'm struggling to believe I'm allowed to have you."

Something in your chest pulls painfully. "Joshua—"

"And yes—yes, I've been terrible. I know I have. I know every specific instance where I've hurt you and I carry all of them and I will carry them for the rest of my life. But you sitting here and telling me that you want a divorce and that you want to set me free like I'm some—like I'm some obligation you're releasing—" His voice goes jagged. "I'm not asking to be released. I don't want to be released. I want—"

"What?" you ask softly. "What do you want?"

"I want more time, YN." The words come out raw. "I want more time to get this right. I know I've wasted most of the time we've had and I know I don't deserve more but I'm asking for it anyway. I'm asking you—please don't do this. Please don't go. Please give me a chance to actually be someone you want to be married to."

"And if you can't?" you ask. You're not cruel about it but you're honest. "What if you try and you fall back into your old patterns and another six months pass and we're back to where we were last month? What do I do with that?"

"Then I'll try again—"

"Joshua." Your voice is so tired. "You hear yourself, right? You hear that the plan is just—keep trying forever? Keep hurting me and apologizing and trying again indefinitely?"

"That's not—I would actually change—"

"You've actually been trying to change for months." The resignation is back in your voice, fully now. "I believe you want to. I genuinely believe that. But wanting to change and changing are different things and I've been waiting for the difference to close and it hasn't. And I can't—" Your voice breaks for the first time. Really breaks, not just at the edges but through the middle. "I can't keep doing this to myself. I don't have anything left to pick up."

The silence stretches. Joshua's breathing is audible now. Uneven. You can see his hands shaking on the wheel.

"So this is it," he says. His voice has gone hollow.

The car is no longer moving. That's the thing about Seoul morning traffic—it doesn't so much flow as breathe. Expanding and contracting, the whole city gridlocked in that particular Tuesday morning way that makes every block feel like it takes ten minutes. Joshua has been driving in fits and starts since you left the building—moving forward two car lengths, stopping, waiting, moving again.

Right now you're stopped.

The intersection ahead of you has a light that keeps cycling without letting anyone through—something's backed up further down, some invisible obstruction that nobody can see from here. Cars are lined up in every direction. The world outside is ordinary and unhurried, pedestrians moving along sidewalks, a woman adjusting her scarf at a bus stop, a delivery man consulting his phone.

None of them know what's happening inside this car.

Joshua has both hands on the wheel even though you're not moving. The engine idling. The heat on low. You've been watching him while you talked—watching his profile in the morning light, watching his jaw work, watching his hands grip and release and grip the wheel again. You've been watching him hold himself together with visible effort this whole time, watching the control he's famous for starting to crack at the foundations.

Joshua’s in pain.

You can see it clearly. You've always been good at reading him—better than he knows, better than he's probably comfortable with. You can see the places where his composure is thinning. You can see that underneath the frustration and the desperation is something that looks like grief.

It matches your own.

In this car, you're both grieving. You've been grieving this marriage for months, separately, alone, in your separate rooms and your separate silences. You're just doing it out loud now.

"I think part of you will be relieved," you say softly. "Once the dust has cleared and the paperwork is handled and you've had some time to—" You pause. "I think you'll be able to breathe again, Joshua. I think you'll realize how much energy you've been spending just trying to hold this together and when that burden lifts—" Your voice is gentle. You mean every word. "I think you'll feel better than you have in a long time. I really do believe that."

You mean it as a kindness. You mean it as the most loving thing you can offer Joshua—the reassurance that his life on the other side of this will be good. That you're not condemning him to misery by letting go. That you've thought this through carefully enough to know that he will be okay, that he will be more than okay, that this is the right thing for both of you and that you're sure enough of it to comfort him about your own absence.

You mean all of it. But something happens to Joshua's face when you say it. It’s something that starts in his eyes and moves through him like a current—shock first, then something rawer, something that looks like being hit.

He turns to look at you fully for the first time in this conversation.

"Relieved," he repeats. Not a question. Just the word, held up to the light, examined.

"I know that sounds—"

"You think I'm going to be relieved." His voice is very quiet. Very still. The stillness before something breaks. "You've sat here for the past twenty minutes telling me it's over, telling me you're done, and now you're—you're reassuring me that I'll feel better once you're gone. Like you've already… like this is already so settled in your mind that you're on the other side of it. You're already imagining my life without you and finding it, what? Peaceful? Better?"

"I didn't mean—"

"That's what you said." His voice fractures and breaks. "You said I'll be relieved. You're sitting here and you've already let go and you're trying to make me feel okay about it and I'm—" He stops. His chest is heaving slightly. His hands on the wheel are shaking.

"Joshua—"

"YN, are you out of your goddamn mind—"

Joshua’s words come out before he can stop them. They’re the sound of someone who has run out of everything else. You still. He sees the way you absorb it, the way your face changes and his expression immediately collapses into something horrified.

"YN—" His voice breaks completely. "I didn't—I'm sorry, that came out—I'm not—"

He's already reaching for you. His right hand leaving the wheel, crossing the console, reaching for your hand, your arm, anything, his face open and desperate and full of the horror of a man who has just heard himself say the wrong thing and can't take it back—

The light turns green. The car ahead of them moves.

Muscle memory. His foot finds the accelerator, just slightly, just enough to follow the flow of traffic forward and his eyes are still on you, his hand is still reaching, he's still saying your name—

The truck comes from the right.

Joshua sees it in his peripheral vision and his brain does something: it splits into two tracks simultaneously, one that's still reaching for you and one that has already understood, already somehow processed, already knew what was coming and knew there was nothing—

He wrenches the wheel left. Too late. Too close. Your name comes out of him like something being ripped free—

The truck hits the passenger side.

The world ends. The sound is enormous. The world ending in metal and glass and the shriek of steel being compressed into shapes it was never meant to form. The whole car lifts before coming back down, spinning, and Joshua's head slams against the driver's window with a crack that turns everything white for a moment.

The airbag explodes into his face, chest, arms. The car spins once, twice, scrapes against something—curb, divider, he can't tell—and stops.

Silence. His ears are screaming. But after the enormity of the sound that just happened, the after feels like silence.

Joshua sits in it for a moment that might be one second or twenty. His face hurts. His chest hurts. His left arm feels wrong. There’s something wrong with the way it's bending, some brightness of pain that his brain keeps trying to process and keeps skipping over because there's something more important, there's something—

He pushes the airbag away from his face. Turns right. The passenger side of the car is gone. That's the only way his brain can frame it at first. It's just gone. The door, the window, the entire structural integrity of the right side of the car, all compressed inward, all crushed toward where you were sitting, where—

"YN."

Joshua’s voice doesn't sound like his voice. It sounds like it's coming from somewhere else, from someone else, from a person standing very far away.

You’re there.

You’re still in your seat held in place by the seatbelt, airbag also deployed, and you’re there, you’re present, you’re—

Your head is tilted away from the destroyed door, tilted at an angle that looks wrong. Your window is gone and there's glass everywhere—in your hair, catching the morning light, on your lap, on your hands. The metal of the door has come in toward you, pressing close in a way that makes his stomach revolt.

There's blood on your face. Your temple. Your cheek. Your hair matted dark.

"YN." He says your name again and this time it comes out different. It’s desperate, pleading. "YN, look at me."

You don’t move. Joshua tries to reach for you, tries to push away the airbag that was crushing you, and something in his ribs scream. It’s a pain so sharp it takes his vision for a split second, bright and white and hot and obliterating. Broken, something in him registers distantly. Something is broken.

Joshua doesn't care. He forces through the pain, reaches across the console with his right hand, touches your face—

You’re warm. You’re warm, that means you’re—

"YN, please—"

He can hear sounds filtering back in now. Outside the car—voices, people shouting, someone running, the distant sound of a car alarm. The normal world is trying to reassert itself around the catastrophe of this moment.

"Please wake up, please, please look at me—"

Joshua is touching your face, your shoulder, your arm, trying to find something to hold onto. He tries to find some response, some flicker, some sign—

Your eyes open just barely. Joshua almost makes a sound he wouldn't be able to take back but he swallows it because you’re awake, you’re here, your eyes are open and moving—

"YN." Joshua’s crying, he realizes. When did that happen? "YN, can you hear me? I'm here, baby, I'm right here—"

Your eyes are moving. Unfocused, glassy with pain and confusion, but moving. Searching. Trying to find him.

Until your eyes find him. For just a moment, your eyes find him. You’re looking at him and he's looking at you and he thinks—wildly, irrationally—it's okay. She sees me. She's going to be okay.

Your lips move but no sound comes out. Joshua tries his best to lean closer, tries to hear something that isn't there, watching your mouth form shapes he can't decode—

And then the tears start.

Joshua doesn't think you know you’re crying. Your face is slack, eyes barely open, your breathing scarily shallow and wrong but tears are tracking down your cheeks, slow and quiet, making channels through the blood on your face.

It's the most devastating thing he has ever seen.

You’re crying and you don’t know it. You’re in so much pain that your body is expressing it without your permission.

And then your hand moves. Barely. Your fingers shift against the fabric of the seat, reaching toward him.

Joshua grabs your hand immediately even though every part of his body screams in pain.

"I've got you," he says reassuringly despite himself and his voice is wrecked. "I'm here, baby. I have you. Help is coming, I promise, you're going to be—you're going to be okay, just stay with me, please—"

Your hand squeezes his. The squeeze is so faint, so small. I'm here, I hear you, I feel you holding me—and you’re sending it the only way you have left.

"I know," he says, even though you didn’t manage to say anything. "I know. I've got you. I'm not leaving. I'm not—"

But then your eyes suddenly close and your hand goes slack against his. The tears keep falling from your closed eyes, still tracking through the blood, slow and relentless, but you’re gone. You’re now somewhere Joshua can't follow, somewhere he can't reach with his voice or your name or his hands holding yours.

The sound that comes out of him is not a word.

"No—no, no, no—YN—" He's squeezing your hand, pressing it between both of his, bringing it to his forehead because he doesn't know what else to do, he doesn't know what to do with his hands when they can't fix anything—

Joshua couldn't fix his marriage and he couldn't fix the dinner and he couldn't find the words in the car and now he can't even fix this, the most urgent and terrible thing, the thing that matters more than all of it combined. And with devastation, he knows he can't fix it. Any of it. The realization comes to him terribly: this is just one more moment he doesn't know how to save. One more thing he got to too late.

"Baby, wake up. Please wake up. YN, please—" he pleads desperately into the air.

He can hear his own voice and he doesn't recognize it. Joshua doesn’t recognize himself in this moment—this person hunched over your limp hand in a destroyed car, saying your name over and over like it's all he has left, like it's the only thing he can give you—

There are hands on him suddenly. Multiple. Pulling at him, at his shoulders, at his arms—

"Sir—"

Joshua doesn't let go of your hand.

"Sir, we need you to—"

"That's my wife." Joshua feels so tired and his voice is now barely functioning, but every fiber of his being still wants to fight for you. "That's my wife—"

"We're going to help her, sir, but we need you to—"

"Don't touch me, I need to save my wife—" He's being moved and he's fighting the hands holding him with every bit of energy he has left. "Don't let her—please don't let her—"

"Sir—"

"She was just—she was just awake. She was looking at me. She was—"

Firefighters are trying to get Joshua out of the car. The passenger side is inaccessible, completely destroyed, so they're extracting him through the driver's side and pulling him away from you and he's watching you over their shoulders—watching your face, the tears on your cheeks, the blood in your hair, the terrible stillness—

"Please." He's not talking to the paramedics now. He's not talking to anyone specific. He's just saying it, into the air, into the universe, into whatever might be listening. "Please. She's my wife. Please save her."

Rescuers get him to the ground. He feels asphalt under his hands. Someone is talking to him about staying still, about not moving, about injuries—Joshua hears none of it. He can see the other firefighters working on the passenger side now, with paramedics on stand by. He can see them working toward you through the wreckage. He can see the controlled urgency of people who do this every day and know what every second costs.

Until he can’t see your face anymore. He can only see your hand—the hand that wears your wedding ring.

It takes him back. Your hands in his office, the night he tore apart the things you do that you love the most. They’d gone so still when he spoke and you just quietly absorbed it the way you absorbed everything he gave you that you didn’t deserve. He’d seen your hands go still and kept going anyway.

He’s been making your hands go still for a year and now he can’t make them move at all.

One of the paramedics has moved it, repositioned it, and it's now lying palm-up on what remains of the seat: open and empty.

The hand he was holding. The hand that squeezed his, once, and then let go.

"Please," he says again, to nobody, to everybody, to the universe that let a truck run a red light on an ordinary Tuesday morning. "Please save my wife."

My wife.

The word comes out of Joshua raw and he doesn't recognize it. He doesn't recognize himself in it. He's said it before, he knows he has. My wife at the table, my wife in the elevator, my wife on forms that needed filling. The word as placeholder. As a category. 

But this—sitting on the asphalt, watching strangers save your life, his hands empty for the first time in what feels like hours—this is the word with everything in it. Every good day and every failed one. Every morning he left without saying goodbye and every night you left dinner warming in the oven. Every moment he could have chosen you and didn't and every moment he finally did, too late, always too late.

My wife.

This is the first time it comes out of Joshua sounding like grief.

Like love.

Like both at once, which is perhaps what they've always been for him, tangled together so completely he couldn't tell them apart until now, until you’re on a stretcher and he can't reach you and the word is all he has left to give you, the only thing he can still offer: 

Mine. She is mine. Please.

He has never meant anything more in his life.

He has never said anything more useless.

My wife. Said like a man who finally knows what it means. Said like a man who is terrified he's about to find out what it means to lose you.

—and then everything goes dark.

💭 taglist: @deathby-lost @chocolate-cake-enthusiast @severeanxietyissues @seoulaki @dedandelion @eskoupe @nizzasspot

[hanniejoo]

twice fallen (chapter 1.1)

💛 taglist here 💛

pairing: joshua x (f) reader

summary: the nightmare always ends at 3:47 AM: someone's hand in yours, a desperate voice, but you don't know who it belongs to. everyone thinks you're better off not knowing what happened. but your apartment has two sinks, books marked with someone else's initials, and a locked door no one will explain.

then you meet joshua hong—a stranger at a bookstore who feels impossibly familiar. he has a kind face. you tell him so. he flinches like you've struck him. because you said those words to him once before, in a marriage you don't remember, in two years everyone wants you to forget. now he's back in your life as a stranger—kind, patient, everything he never was before.

and he has to decide: tell you the truth and lose you again, or stay silent and fall in love with his own wife for the second time.

genre: estranged spouses, second chance romance, amnesia, memory loss, strangers to lovers (again), emotional hurt/comfort, heavy angst, slow burn, angst with an eventual happy ending, star-crossed lovers

additional tags & warnings: emotionally repressed joshua, traumatized yn, childhood friends, lies and secrets, recovering from trauma (physical and emotional), depression, parallel narratives, an unreliable narrator because yn lost her memory

word count: 24,529

a/n: we are here! hope you enjoy :) chapter 1 is cut into two posts because apparently tumblr doesn't like long ones. link to part two is at the end, please don't worry <3

The dream always starts the same way.

City lights bleeding past a window. The leather seat is cold against your legs. Your own voice, distant and resigned, saying something you can never quite remember when you wake. 

Then—a man's face, twisted in anger or fear or something else entirely. He’s shouting but you can’t hear the words, only the feeling of them: sharp, desperate, too late.

Then: impact.

Not sound, not pain—just the sensation of the world folding in on itself. Glass and metal and everything solid become fragile, breakable, broken.

And in that suspended moment between before and after, you feel it: the weight of something unlived. Words unspoken. A hand that never quite reached yours.

Then nothing.

Your eyes open to darkness, a single tear sliding down your temple into your hair.

You don’t gasp awake anymore. You don’t bolt upright with your heart hammering like you did in those first few months. The dream has worn grooves into your sleep, it’s now familiar as a scar, and you’ve learned to surface from it slowly, quietly, like something fragile breaking the water.

The tear is almost an afterthought now. Maybe even muscle memory. Your body is mourning something your mind can’t grasp.

You lie still for a while, staring at the ceiling you know is there but can’t see in the dark. You wait for your heartbeat to slow, for the feeling to pass—that terrible sense of having lost something you can’t name.

It takes three minutes and forty seconds. You timed it once.

When you finally sit up, the room revolves around you in shades of gray and amber—the light pollution from the city filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows that make up the far wall. The penthouse is silent except for the ambient hum of the building, the distant sound of traffic sixteen floors below.

You push the covers back and move to the windows, your bare feet silent on the cool tiles.

Seoul spreads out before you like a circuit board, all light and geometry. You press your palm against the glass, feeling the faint vibration of the city's pulse. Somewhere down there, people are having dinner, falling in love, fighting, laughing, living lives that move forward instead of circling the same loop.

The clock on the nightstand reads 8:47 PM.

You’ve slept through the entire day again.

You close your eyes and rest your forehead against the window. The glass is cold enough to ache.

“I need to stop doing this,” you whisper to no one.

But even as you say it, you know you’ll do it again tomorrow. And the day after. Sleep until the day is gone, wake to darkness, exist in the negative space between what was and what should have been.

The doctors call it avoidance. Depression. A symptom of trauma your brain is still trying to process.

You call it numbness.

With a sigh that seems to come from somewhere deeper than your lungs, you pull on the cardigan draped over the chair—soft cashmere, sage green, a gift from Jeonghan, who actually pays attention to things like your favorite colors—and pad out of the bedroom.

The hallway is dark except for the warm light spilling from the kitchen at the end of it. You follow it like a beacon, the smell of something savory guiding you forward.

Jeonghan stands at the stove, his back to you, moving with the easy confidence of someone who’s cooked in this kitchen a thousand times. He’s humming something—you recognize it after a moment as that song he was obsessed with last month, the one he played on repeat until you threatened to hide his phone.

He must’ve heard you approach because he speaks without turning around.

“The princess awakens.” His voice is light, teasing. “I was starting to think you were going for a full twenty-four hours this time.”

You slide onto one of the bar stools at the island, tucking your feet up under you. “What time did I go to sleep?”

“Bold of you to assume I keep track.” He glances over his shoulder, expression soft, the edge of his lips curving into a smirk. “Around six this morning. You came out for water, looked through me like I was a ghost, and went back to bed.”

“Oh.” You have no memory of that. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. That’s what I’m here for—to be ignored by zombies and cook meals for vampires who only emerge after dark.” He turns back to the pan, giving whatever he’s sautéing a practiced flip. “Besides, you said ‘thank you’ to the air next to me. I thought it was a very polite haunting.”

Despite yourself, your mouth twitches. “I’m not a vampire.”

“No? When’s the last time you saw the sun?”

“I see it in my dreams sometimes.”

“That doesn’t count.”

“Why not?”

“Dream sun doesn’t give you vitamin D. Science.” He points his spatula at you with mock seriousness. “You’re going to turn translucent. I’ll lose you in well-lit rooms.”

“You’d probably consider that a bonus,” you murmur. “More space on the couch.”

Jeonghan makes a wounded sound that sounded half a gasp, half incredulity. “Rude. I enjoy your company, ghostly presence and all.” He pauses then adds more gently, “Besides, if you were actually invisible, who would I cook for? Cooking for myself is depressing.”

“You could go home. Cook for yourself there.”

“And miss your sparkling dinner conversation and pretty face? Never.”

You watch him move around the kitchen—your kitchen, technically, though it has never felt like yours. Nothing in this penthouse has. Even before the accident. Even in the months you supposedly lived here as—

You stop that thought.

The blank spaces in your memory are vast and clean as fresh snow and the doctors said not to push. They said to let things return naturally if they’re going to return at all. But sometimes you touch something—a drawer handle, a light switch—and feel the echo of familiarity, like you’ve touched it a thousand times before.

It’s unsettling, honestly. Living in a place that knows you better than you know it.

“What are you making?” you ask, pulling yourself back to the present.

“Doenjang jjigae. Before you ask—yes, I left the mushrooms out of yours, you absolute killjoy.”

“They’re slimy.”

“They’re delicious and you’re wrong but I love you anyway.” He ladles the stew into two bowls with practiced efficiency, then grabs the rice from the cooker. “I also made pajeon. The kimchi-cheese one you like.”

Something warm unfurls in your chest. “You didn’t have to—”

“I know I didn’t have to. I wanted to. Now come sit at the actual table like a civilized person instead of hunching over the island like a gargoyle.”

You slide off the stool and move to the dining table—a sleek thing that can seat eight but usually just holds two. He sets the food down with a flourish then disappears back into the kitchen. He returns with chopsticks, spoons, and two glasses of water.

He then settles across from you, watches as you pick up your spoon.

“It’s good,” you say after the first taste and you mean it.

“Of course it’s good. I made it.” His eyes crinkle with satisfaction but then his expression shifts—still gentle, but more serious. “You had it again.”

It isn’t a question.

Your spoon pauses halfway to your mouth. “How did you know?”

“Because you always oversleep after. And because—” He gestures vaguely at your face. “You get this look. Like you’re trying to remember something just out of reach.”

You set the spoon down carefully. “It was the same as always.”

“The car?”

“The car.”

He’s quiet for a moment, his jaw working like he’s chewing on words he doesn’t want to say. Finally: “Did you see anything new? The doctors said sometimes details come back gradually—”

“No.” You cut him off but gently. 

“That’s okay.” His voice turns deliberately light again. “Brains are weird. They process things in their own time. Maybe yours is just being dramatic about it. Very on-brand for you.”

You raise an eyebrow. “I’m not dramatic.”

“You once cried because a restaurant ran out of the dessert you wanted.”

“I was having a bad day—”

“You cried for twenty minutes. I had to buy you three other desserts from three different stores.”

“They weren’t the same—”

“And then you didn’t eat them because you were ‘too sad.’” Jeonghan’s grinning now. “I ended up eating all three. Gained two pounds from your emotions.”

Despite everything—the dream, the lost day, the persistent emptiness—you laugh. The sound of it surprises you even though it’s rusty and small but real.

His expression softens immediately. “There you are.”

“Where?”

“The version of you that remembers how.” He reaches across the table and squeezes your hand once, quick and gentle. “I like that version of you. You should let her visit more often.”

You look down at your hands—his tan and strong, yours pale and small in comparison. “I don’t know how to be that version of me all the time.”

“I know.” He pulls back, picking up his chopsticks. “That’s okay. You don’t have to be. I just like seeing glimpses.”

You eat in comfortable silence for a while.

“Hannie?”

“Mm?”

“Why do I live here?”

He looks up from his stew, something flashing across his face—too quick for you to read. “What do you mean?”

“This place. It’s too big for one person. Way too expensive for my liking. I don’t—” You gesture vaguely around the open-plan space, all clean lines and expensive furniture that look like they belong in a magazine. “This isn’t me. Is it?”

He sets his chopsticks down carefully. “You don’t remember choosing it?”

“I don’t remember a lot of things.”

“Right.” He’s quiet for a moment, mentally slapping himself for being obtuse for a split second. “Our family owns the building as well as several units. This one was… available. After the accident, it made sense for you to stay somewhere they could keep an eye on you… somewhere I could stay to help.”

It’s reasonable. It even feels true.

But something about the way he says it—or doesn’t say something else—makes you feel like you’re reading a book with pages missing.

“Okay,” you say anyway.

“How’s the pajeon?” he asks, his tone bright again.

“Just to my liking. As always.”

“Good.” He takes a bite. “Wonwoo called me yesterday. He asked if you were up for coffee this week.”

Your chest constricts slightly. Wonwoo is safe—your oldest friend, a face you remember from before the blank space. But lately, being around people feels like performing, and you’re so tired of performing.

“Maybe,” you say.

“He misses you. The only reason he called me was because he said you’ve been dodging him.”

“I’m not dodging—”

“You sent him a thumbs up emoji when he asked if you were okay. Just the emoji.”

“I think that’s communication.”

“It’s the emotional equivalent of a dial tone.” His voice is still gentle, chewing on a piece of meat. “I’m not saying you have to. Just… think about it? He worries and blows up my phone with messages. Like, a lot.”

“Everyone worries.” The words come out more bitter than you intend. “I’m fine.”

"You sleep eighteen hours a day and have the same nightmare on repeat. You're going through the motions. There's a difference."

You look up at him and find his expression so full of careful, aching love that you have to look away.

"The dream doesn't hurt anymore," you say quietly. "I just... wake up. Cry a little. Wait for it to pass. It's routine now."

"Yonggam-ie." The nickname comes out soft, almost broken. "That's not better. That's just… your body going through trauma on autopilot."

The nickname makes something in your chest twist. He's called you that since you were kids—brave one—because you were scared of everything but did things anyway. You've never felt less brave than you do now.

"What else am I supposed to do?" You're not defensive, just genuinely asking. "I can't control what I dream. I can't make it stop, either. So I—" you gesture vaguely, "—I wait it out. Every night. And then I get up and I try to make coffee and I try to do something with my day and—"

You stop. Realize you're saying too much.

Jeonghan leans forward, elbows on the table that’s too big. "And what?"

"And I'm tired." The words come out smaller than you intended. "I'm so tired, Jeonghan. All the time. Even when I sleep twenty hours. Even when I do nothing. I'm just—" You stop again.

"Tired," he finishes softly.

"Yeah."

He's quiet for a moment and you can feel him choosing his words carefully. Jeonghan has always been careful with you. It’s one of the many reasons why you love him.

"The dream," he says finally. "Do you remember any more of it? Than before?"

You shake your head. "Just feelings. Sounds that don't make sense. Someone saying something I can't quite hear."

"Someone?"

"A voice. Male, I think. But I can't—" You press your fingers to your temples. "It's like trying to remember something through water. I know it's there but I can't reach it."

Jeonghan's jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. "Maybe that's okay. Maybe some things stay underwater for a reason."

"You sound like my therapist."

"Your therapist is smart."

"My therapist also doesn't know what the dream is about." You look at him. "Do you?"

The question hangs between you.

Jeonghan holds your gaze for a long moment and something passes across his face—guilt, maybe, or fear, or something you can't name.

"I think," he says slowly, "that your mind is trying to process something it's not ready to process yet. And pushing it won't help. It'll come back when you're ready. Or it won't. And either way, you'll be okay."

It's not an answer. You both know it's not an answer.

But you're too tired to push and he looks too troubled to be pushed so you just nod.

"Okay," you say.

"Okay," he echoes.

He reaches over and squeezes your hand once then stands to clear the dishes. You watch him move around your kitchen with the easy familiarity of someone who's done this a hundred times, who knows where everything goes, who's keeping you afloat in ways you can't even fully articulate.

When he comes back to the couch, he sits closer this time, not quite touching but near enough that you can feel the warmth of him.

"I just want you to know," Jeonghan says quietly, "that you don't have to perform being okay for me. You can tell me when it's bad. You can tell me when the dream is getting worse instead of better."

"It's not getting worse," you say automatically.

He just looks at you.

"Okay," you amend. "Maybe it's not getting better. But it's stable. I can handle stability."

"Do you know why I call you Yonggam-ie?" He's not looking at you now. Instead, he stared at his hands clasped between his knees. "It's not because you're fearless. It's because you've always been afraid of everything—and you do it anyway."

You don't say anything. There's a lump in your throat you can't quite swallow past.

"When you were little," he continues, his voice soft with memory, "you were terrified of the ocean. You'd stand at the edge of the water and shake. But you'd walk in anyway. Crying the whole time but you'd do it."

"I don't remember that," you whisper.

"I know." He finally looks at you and his eyes are bright with unshed tears. "But I do. And that's what bravery is, Yonggam-ie. It's not about not being scared. It's being terrified and doing it anyway. You're still doing that now. Every day you get out of bed, every time you leave this penthouse, every time you try—that's bravery."

"It doesn't feel brave," you say. Your voice cracks. "It feels like I’m just forcing myself."

"Sometimes they're the same thing." He reaches over and tucks a strand of hair behind your ear, the gesture so tender it makes your eyes burn. "You don't have to be okay. You don't have to pretend you're not scared. You're my brave one but you're allowed to be afraid. You're allowed to need help. You're allowed to—" he stops, his voice thick, "—you're allowed to not be strong all the time."

You're crying now and you're not even sure when you started.

"I don't know how to not be tired," you admit. "I don't know how to want things again—" You gesture helplessly at yourself, at the penthouse, at your entire existence. "I don't know how to be a person instead of just someone going through motions."

"I know." He pulls you into a hug and you let yourself fold into him, let yourself be small and scared and held. "But you will. Little by little. You'll remember how."

"You can’t know that," Your voice is muffled against his shoulder but you try to chuckle through your tears.

"I’ll make a promise, anyway." He holds you tighter. "My brave Yonggam-ie. You'll find your way back. I know you will."

You want to believe him.

You're not sure you do.

But for now, sitting in your too-quiet penthouse with your brother's arms around you, you let yourself pretend that brave and broken aren't mutually exclusive.

Maybe you can be both at the same time.

And maybe that's enough.

After dinner, you stand in the living room for a long time, looking out at the city. Alone.

Somewhere down there, in one of those lit windows, is someone who knows you. The version of you that you can’t remember. The version who lived in this penthouse before it became a museum of someone else’s life.

You touch your ring finger absently. 

Sometimes when you’re falling asleep, you rub that finger and feel the ghost of weight that isn’t there.

You turn away from the window and curl up on the couch, pulling a blanket over yourself. You turn on the TV—some drama Sooyoung recommended—and let the sounds wash over you without really watching.

And if, hours later, you fall asleep on the couch and dream of a car and a voice shouting words you can’t hear and the feeling of something ending before it ever really begins—

Well.

You’ll wake up eventually.

You always do.

The morning comes in stages.

First, the light—filtered through curtains you can't remember closing, painting the bedroom in shades of grey and gold. Then, the sounds: traffic sixteen floors below, distant and constant like the city breathing. Then, finally, awareness—sluggish and reluctant, your mind surfacing from sleep like something heavy dragged through water.

You open your eyes.

The clock on your nightstand reads 11:43 am.

You've done it again.

For a moment you just lie there, staring at the ceiling you know is white but can't quite see in the diffused light. Your body feels like it's made of lead, your limbs heavy, your head thick with the particular fog that comes from sleeping too much and somehow still being exhausted.

The dream came again. Of course it did.

You don't remember the exact moment of waking from it—the transition has become so familiar it barely registers anymore. Just the feeling after: that hollow ache in your chest, the phantom sensation of something slipping through your fingers, the echo of words you can't quite hear.

And the wetness on your face that tells you you've been crying in your sleep again.

You touch your cheek. It’s dry now but the pillow beneath your head is damp. You should change the pillowcase. You'll think about it later. Maybe add it to the list of things you'll think about later.

You sit up slowly, your world tilting slightly as blood rushes to catch up with the movement you just made. You press your palms against your eyes until you see stars then drop your hands and open them to the room that's supposed to be yours but has never quite felt like it belongs to you.

The bedroom is large—too large for one person. A king-sized bed pushed against the far wall, positioned so you can see out the floor-to-ceiling windows that make up the eastern wall. There’s a walk-in closet to your left, the door half-open, showing rows of clothes organized by color in a way that feels more like staging than living. A door to your right—the en suite bathroom, all white marble and rainfall shower and double sinks that seem to mock the singular nature of your existence.

And straight ahead, past the foot of your bed: another door.

Closed.

It’s always closed.

You look at it for a moment—that door you never open, never think about opening, except in moments like this when the penthouse is too quiet and your mind is still half-tangled in dreams. You don't know what's behind it. An office, maybe? Storage?

You'd asked Jeonghan once, perhaps months ago, in that strange period right after you'd come home from the hospital when everyone treated you like you might break if they spoke too loudly or moved too suddenly. 

"Just storage," he'd said, his voice light but his eyes doing something you couldn't read. "Old files, some furniture from before. It’s nothing you need to worry about. I'll clear it out eventually."

He never had.

And you'd never asked again.

Now, sitting in your bed at nearly noon on a Tuesday, you stare at that closed door and feel—

Nothing.

Not curiosity. Not concern, either. Just a vague, distant awareness that it's there, that it's always been there, that you've been walking past it for a year without wondering what it contains.

That should probably bother you more than it does.

But you look away like you’ve always done for the past year.

The penthouse at midday is all light and emptiness.

You move through it in your pajamas—soft cotton shorts and an oversized t-shirt that might be yours or might be Jeonghan's, you can't remember anymore—and try not to think about how your body knows this space better than your mind does. How your feet find the path from bedroom to kitchen without conscious thought. How your hand reaches for the light switch in the hallway without looking.

Muscle memory is a strange thing. It tells you you've lived here a long time. Maybe long enough for the movements to become automatic and for your body to map the space in ways your conscious mind hasn't bothered to.

But in all honesty, you can't remember choosing this penthouse. You can’t remember moving in. Can't even remember the first morning you woke up in that king-size bed or the first time you made coffee in this kitchen, or any of the small, forgettable moments that turn a space into a home.

According to everyone, that's normal. The accident took two years—a clean excision, the doctors said, like someone had carefully cut out that section of your life and left the edges raw but surprisingly neat.

"You lived here before," Jeonghan had told you, sitting beside your bed in those early days when everything hurt and nothing made sense. "With family. It's safe. It's yours. You don't have to worry about it."

You'd accepted that explanation the way you'd accepted everything back then: with a vague, medicated compliance that felt less like agreement and more like the absence of disagreement.

Because what else can you do but to trust your brother?

Now, eleven months later, you accept things and explanations out of habit.

The kitchen is at the far end of the open-plan living space. The automatic coffee maker sits on the counter, unplugged, pushed slightly back like it's being politely excluded from daily use.

You look at it every morning and feel nothing except a vague sense that you should feel something.

You'd tried using it once, about four months after coming home. You filled the water tank, added the grounds, and pressed the button. The machine had started its process—that mechanical grinding, the hiss of water being forced through tubes, and something in your chest had seized up. The sound was too loud, too sudden, too—

You'd unplugged it halfway through the cycle and stood in your kitchen with your hands shaking and your heart racing and no idea why.

Jeonghan found you like that ten minutes later.

"It's okay," he'd said. His voice was so gentle it made you want to cry. "Some sounds are harder than others. We'll figure out which ones."

He'd bought you a French press the next day. Quiet. Manual. Slow.

You use it now.

The ritual of making your coffee through a French press is soothing: boil water in the electric kettle (that sound is fine, apparently—hot water is acceptable, coffee machines are not), measure the grounds, pour, wait. Four minutes. You'd timed it once with your phone and now your body just knows when four minutes have passed.

While the coffee steeps, you open the refrigerator.

Jeonghan was here yesterday. Or the day before. Time has a way of blurring when you sleep this much. He had stocked the fridge with things you like. Fruit. Yogurt. The expensive juice you'd mentioned once, months ago, that you'd liked as a child. Ingredients for meals you won't make yourself but that he'll cook when he comes over, which is almost every day, which should probably feel suffocating but instead feels like the only thing keeping you tethered.

You pull out the yogurt. Put it back. Take out an apple. Put it back.

You settle on nothing.

You'll eat later. Probably. Maybe.

The coffee is ready. You press the plunger down with slow, deliberate pressure—something about the resistance feels good—and pour it into your favorite mug. White ceramic, simple, with a small chip on the rim that your thumb finds automatically.

You carry the coffee to the kitchen island and sit on one of the high stools. You look out at the living room that opens before you like a stage set.

Everything is very clean. Very organized. Very much like a person lives here but not like a person actually lives here.

The couch—grey, modern, expensive—has decorative pillows arranged just so. The coffee table holds exactly three things: a stack of art books (yours, presumably), a small succulent in a ceramic pot (doing better than you are, thriving even), and the TV remote aligned parallel to the table's edge.

The dining table—that massive thing that could seat eight people—is empty except for a single place setting that Jeonghan insists on leaving out. "So you remember to eat," he'd said.

He isn't wrong.

The bookshelves that line the western wall are full but not cluttered. Art books, novels, some poetry. A few small sculptures—abstract things that you like looking at but can't remember acquiring. Picture frames here and there, most of them showing the same safe subjects: you with Jeonghan, you with Sooyoung, you with Wonwoo, you alone at various galleries and cafes, smiling that careful smile you've apparently perfected sometime in the years you can't remember.

No family photos. You noticed that months ago. When you'd asked why, Jeonghan had said, "You weren't close with them. After Paris. You wanted space."

Another answer you'd accepted because what choice did you have?

You sip your coffee and try to remember what it feels like to want things. To have preferences that feel urgent instead of optional. To wake up with plans instead of just the vague intention to exist through another day.

Your laptop is on the counter where you left it last night—or was it two nights ago?

You should open it.

You should check your email.

You should respond to the message from the art collective about the community exhibition they're planning, the one where they want you to submit a piece, the one with a deadline that's—you try to remember—two weeks away? Three?

You should do a lot of things.

You open the laptop.

The screen comes to life and it shows your desktop a few beats after: a photo of a gallery space you don't recognize, all white walls and natural light. You must have taken the photo at some point, must have liked it enough to make it your background but looking at it now you feel nothing except a distant, academic appreciation for the composition.

Your email loads. Forty-three unread messages. Most of them from before you'd stopped checking regularly which was—god, when was the last time you actually looked at these?

You scroll through without opening any of them.

Newsletters. Spam. A few messages from the art collective about upcoming events (all in the past now, all missed). One from your therapist's office reminding you about an appointment (that's tomorrow, you should probably go). One from Sooyoung with the subject line "READ THIS OR I'M FLYING BACK TO SCOLD YOU IN PERSON" (sent three weeks ago, still unopened).

And at the top, from two days ago, from Mina at the art collective:

Subject: Exhibition Submission - Final Reminder

Hi YN,

Just checking in about your submission for the Community Voices exhibition! We're so excited to (hopefully!) include your work. The theme is "Reconstruction" - you can interpret that however it speaks to you.

The deadline is March 7th (two weeks from today). No pressure, but we'd love to have you participate. Let me know if you need any support or want to talk through ideas.

Hope you're doing well!

Mina

You stare at the message.

Reconstruction.

The word sits in your mind like a stone dropped in still water, sending ripples you don't want to follow.

You should write back. Should say yes, you'll submit something, you have ideas, you're working on it.

You click "New Document" instead.

The blank page opens. Cursor blinking. Waiting.

You're supposed to write an artist's statement. Something about your vision, your process, what reconstruction means to you, what you're trying to say with your work.

You type: My vision is

Stop.

Delete it.

Type: I am interested in exploring

Stop.

Delete it.

The cursor blinks at you. Patient. So merciless.

You close the laptop.

"Later," you say out loud to no one. "I'll do it later."

The penthouse absorbs the words without comment.

The rest of the morning—afternoon, really, it's past noon now—passes in the usual way.

You take your third cup of coffee to the couch and turn on the TV. Flip through channels without watching anything. You land on a nature documentary about deep sea creatures and leave it there because the narrator's soothing voice fills the silence while you look at your phone instead.

Instagram: full of people living lives that look nothing like yours. Gallery openings, travel, carefully curated happiness. You scroll without liking anything.

Messages: a few from Wonwoo you haven't responded to yet, asking if you want to get coffee (again), telling you about a book he thinks you'd like, sending you a meme that's probably funny if you had the energy to find things funny.

One from Jeonghan from this morning: I made too much kimchi stew, bringing some over for dinner. You better be awake by then.

You should text back. Should say thank you, or yes, or something that indicates you've seen it and appreciate it.

You just send a thumbs up.

It's easier.

The show on TV is talking about anglerfish now. How they live in total darkness, how the females are large and the males are tiny, how the males will bite onto the females and eventually fuse with them, losing their eyes and most of their organs, becoming nothing more than a sperm-producing appendage dependent on the female's body for survival.

"How romantic," you mutter to the empty room.

You wonder if the male anglerfish remember being separate. If there's a moment when they realize they're disappearing into something else. Or if it happens so gradually they don't notice until it's done.

You turn off the TV.

At some point—you're not sure when, time has that liquid quality today—you find yourself standing in front of your art supplies.

They're organized on a shelf in the corner of the living room near the windows: sketchbooks, pencils, charcoal, paints you haven't touched in months. Everything is neat. Everything is waiting.

You pull out a sketchbook at random. One you don't recognize—sage green leather cover, soft under your fingers.

You don't remember buying this one.

But then again, you don't remember buying most things from before. The accident took your shopping trips along with everything else.

You open it.

The first page has a date in the top corner, written in your handwriting: April 2024.

Two and a half years ago. Firmly in the time you can't remember.

Below the date: a sketch.

It takes you a moment to recognize what you're looking at. Floor plans. Architectural drawings, precise and detailed in a way that surprises you—you didn't know you could draw with this kind of technical accuracy.

They're plans for this penthouse. You recognize the layout: the open living space, the kitchen, the bedroom. But different. Configured differently.

There are walls in this version that don't exist now. The living room is smaller, sectioned off. There's a separate room—

Your eyes track the labels written in your own handwriting next to each space:

Living room - needs more light

Kitchen - update fixtures? repaint? 

Bedroom - our room

His office - needs more warmth

Your hand holding the sketchbook goes very still.

His office.

You flip the page.

More sketches. Interior design notes. Swatches of fabric taped to the page with notes: for the reading nook? and his chair - comfortable but not too formal and curtains - let him choose.

Another page: a detailed drawing of a built-in bookshelf with annotations about measurements and materials and a small note at the bottom that just says: try to make it ours.

You sit down on the floor, the sketchbook open in your lap now, your coffee forgotten on the island behind you.

You flip through more pages. All of them like this. Plans and sketches and notes, all in your handwriting, all clearly made with care and thought and intention.

All referencing someone.

His office.

His chair.

Make it ours.

You look up from the sketchbook then look at the actual penthouse around you.

The space where "his office" would have been according to these plans—that's where the closed door is now. The door you never open. The door Jeonghan said was just storage.

The bookshelf you'd drawn doesn't exist. There are bookshelves but not built-in. Definitely not the way you'd designed them.

The reading nook you'd sketched out—there's a chair there now but not the one in your drawing. This one is feminine, delicate. The one in the sketch had been larger, deeper.

It's like looking at plans for a different version of this space. Or—

Your chest tightens.

—like looking at plans for this space before someone had carefully erased half the people who were supposed to live in it.

You flip back to the first page and stare at the date.

April 2024.

You'd been planning to redesign this penthouse. To make it feel like home. To make it theirs.

Who was them?

Who was his?

You close the sketchbook with hands that aren't quite steady.

You sit on the floor of your living room for a long time, holding evidence of a life you don't remember, in a penthouse that's been remodeled to erase someone whose existence you didn't know about.

When you finally stand up, your legs have gone numb from sitting too long. You put the sketchbook back exactly where you found it. You slide it between two others like you can un-see what you just saw.

But your hands are shaking and the closed door at the end of the hallway seems different now. It’s not just storage. Neither is it just forgotten furniture.

It’s someone's office.

Someone who was supposed to be here but isn't.

You walk to the hallway and stand in front of that closed door.

You put your hand on the handle.

It's cool under your palm, the metal slightly textured. You've touched this handle before—you must have, hundreds of times probably, walking past it every day—but you've never actually tried to open it.

You turn it now.

The handle moves about an inch and then it stops.

It’s locked.

Of course it is.

You stand there with your hand on the locked door and something in your chest feels like it's being squeezed.

Someone locked this door. Someone has the key. Someone decided that whatever is behind this door is something you shouldn't see.

And you'd just—accepted that? For eleven months you've lived in this penthouse with a locked room and never questioned it?

What else have you accepted without questioning?

Your hand drops from the door.

You back away slowly, like the door might open on its own if you're not careful, like whatever is behind it might escape.

This is ridiculous.

It's just a room. Just storage. Just old files and forgotten furniture like Jeonghan said.

Except you'd drawn plans for his office. Except the penthouse has been redesigned.

Except nothing about this space feels like it's telling you the truth.

You go back to the living room, pick up your phone with hands that are still shaking slightly, and text Sooyoung without thinking it through first:

Are you free to talk?

The response comes immediately:

Always. Video call in 10?

You should say yes. You should talk to someone. You probably should tell someone you found something strange and can't explain why it bothers you so much.

But what would you say?

I found a sketchbook with plans I don't remember making.

Someone used to live here with me.

There's a locked room I'm not allowed to open.

I think everyone is lying to me but I don't know what about.

It sounds paranoid even in your own head.

Maybe you are. Maybe this is what trauma does—makes you suspicious of your own life, makes you see conspiracy in normal things like storage rooms and remodeling projects.

Maybe the sketchbook is from a different penthouse entirely. Maybe you're misremembering the layout. Maybe—

Your phone buzzes again.

Sooyoung: YN? You there?

You look at the message. Then at the sketchbook you've carefully put back on the shelf. 

You look at the closed door down the hall and you make a decision.

Yes, you type back. Video call works. Give me a minute to look less like death.

You always look beautiful even when you look like death, Sooyoung replies immediately. 10 minutes. I'm making tea.

You set down your phone and go to the bathroom to make yourself presentable.

Brush your teeth. Wash your face. Put your hair up in a way that looks intentional instead of like you just rolled out of bed at noon. Stare at yourself in the mirror—one of two mirrors, over one of two sinks, in a bathroom built for two people—and try to recognize the person looking back.

You look tired. That's familiar and nothing new. The dark circles under your eyes, the slight hollowness in your cheeks, the way your skin seems paler than it should be. You look like someone who sleeps too much and somehow not enough.

Sooyoung is going to take one look at you and know something is wrong.

Good. Maybe that's the point.

You grab your laptop, carry it back to the couch, and open it to Sooyoung's incoming call with something that feels like relief and terror in equal measure.

Whatever is happening—whatever you've forgotten, whatever everyone isn't telling you—you're tired of living in it alone.

Maybe it’s time to start asking questions.

Even if you're not sure you want to know the answers.

The video call connects with a soft chime.

Sooyoung's face fills your laptop screen—bright and beautiful and exactly what you needed to see. She's wearing something cream-colored and expensive and her hair is pulled back in a way that looks effortless but probably took twenty minutes. Behind her, you can see the corner of what looks like a hotel room, all clean lines and muted luxury.

"There's my favorite hermit," she says and her smile is immediate and warm and real.

You manage a small smile back. "Hi."

"Hi." Her expression shifts as she takes you in—you watch her eyes track over your face, cataloging things you can't hide even through a screen. "You look tired."

"I always look tired."

"True. But today you look extra tired." She leans closer to her camera. "What's going on?"

You open your mouth. Close it. You'd had things you wanted to say, questions you wanted to ask, but now that she's here—now that you have to actually form the words—they feel too big. Too paranoid. Too much like admitting something is wrong in a way you can't take back.

"I don't know," you say finally. "I just—I wanted to see your face."

Sooyoung's expression softens completely. "Well, you've got it. All of it. Questionable hotel lighting and all." She adjusts her laptop and settles back against what looks like a headboard. "I'm in Seoul, actually. Just for a few days. Fashion week stuff. I was going to surprise you but—" She waves a hand. "You texted first."

"You're here?" Something loosens in your chest. "In the city?"

"Landed this morning. I'm at the Shilla. You know, doing my fancy consultant thing, pretending I'm too important to eat hotel buffet breakfast." She grins. "Do you want to meet up? I could come to you or we could go somewhere—"

"I don't know." The answer comes automatically before you can think it through.

Sooyoung doesn't push. Just nods. "Okay. That's okay. We can just do this. Video calls are underrated anyway."

You're grateful she doesn't make it a thing. You’re thankful she doesn't ask why or try to convince you. She just…accepts it.

"So," she says, her tone deliberately lighter. "Jeonghan says you actually left your apartment this week. Voluntarily. With your own two feet."

"He texted you."

"He worries. I worry. We're a whole worried collective." She tilts her head. "But seriously. You went out?"

"I went to a bookstore." You pull your knees up to your chest, resting your chin on them. "Just for a little while."

"That's huge, YN."

"It was just a bookstore."

"It was leaving." Sooyoung's voice is firm but kind. "After months of—not leaving. That's not nothing."

You don't know what to say to that so you just shrug.

"Did you buy anything?" she asks.

"A book. I don't remember what it was."

"That is so you. Impulse book buying with no memory of the purchase." She's smiling, trying to keep it light but you can see the concern underneath. "Baby steps, right? Next week maybe you'll remember the title."

"Maybe."

There's a pause. It’s not uncomfortable but it is weighted. You can feel Sooyoung choosing what to say next.

"The art collective emailed me," she says finally. "About the exhibition. They said they invited you to submit something."

Your stomach tightens. "Yeah."

"Are you going to?"

"I don't know. Maybe. Probably not."

"YN—"

"I don't have anything to say." The words come out sharper than you wanted. "That's the problem. They want a piece about 'reconstruction' and I don't—I don't know what that means. I don't know how to reconstruct something when I don't remember what it looked like before."

Sooyoung is quiet for a moment. "What if that's the piece? The gap, I mean."

"That's not art. That's just—" You gesture helplessly. "That's just emptiness."

"Negative space is still space. It’s still composition." Her voice is gentle. "You used to tell me that back in Paris. When I said I didn't know how to start a project, you told me to start with what wasn't there instead of what was."

You'd said that? You don't remember. But it sounds like something you might have said, back when you were a person who had opinions about art and creation and things that mattered.

"I'll think about it," you say, which means you won't.

Sooyoung knows it too. You can see it in her face. But she doesn't call you on it.

"Okay," she says simply.

There’s another pause. You want to ask her something—about Paris, maybe, about the time before, about whether you were different then in ways she's not telling you. About the sketchbook with someone else's life drawn in your own handwriting. About the locked door and the apartment that feels like a stage set and the dream that's getting louder in your sleep.

You want to ask: Am I going crazy? Is everyone lying to me? Was there someone else?

But the questions stick in your throat. Questions too big and too frightening to release into the open air.

Sooyoung's voice pulls you back. "Are you still with me?"

"Yeah. Sorry. I'm—I'm tired."

"I know." She leans forward again and her expression is so full of love it makes your chest ache. "Listen. I'm here until Friday. If you want to meet up—even for ten minutes, even just in your lobby—I'm here. Okay? No pressure, definitely no expectations. Just—if you need me, I'm close."

"Okay."

"And YN?" She waits until you meet her eyes through the screen. "I know it's hard right now. I know you're—I know you're going through something you can't quite name. But you're still in there. The you I knew in Paris, the you who stayed up all night with me talking about color theory and cried at bad poetry…she's still in there.” You see Sooyoung’s eyes shine even through the harsh lighting of the computer screen. “You haven't lost her. She's just—quiet right now."

Your throat is tight. "What if she doesn't come back?"

"She will." Sooyoung says it with absolute certainty. "Maybe different. Maybe quieter. But she'll come back. You're too stubborn not to."

You almost smile. "Stubborn."

"Frustratingly, admirably stubborn." She grins. "It's one of your most annoying and lovable qualities."

This time you genuinely smile.

"There she is," Sooyoung says softly. "See? Still in there."

You talk for a few more minutes—about nothing, really. Her work, a mutual friend's wedding you won't attend, a restaurant she tried that she thinks you'd hate. Normal things. Surface things. The kind of conversation that feels like a lifeline when everything else is too heavy.

When you finally say goodbye, Sooyoung blows you a kiss through the screen.

"Text me," she says. "Even if it's just a thumbs up emoji. Even if it's 3 AM and you can't sleep. Okay?"

"Okay."

"I mean it, babe."

"I know. I will."

You probably won't. But you appreciate that she asked.

The call disconnects and you're alone again in your too-quiet apartment with all the questions you couldn't ask still sitting heavy on your tongue.

You look at the bookshelf where you put the sketchbook back. At the hallway where the locked door waits.

Was there someone else?

But you don't text Sooyoung. You don't call Jeonghan back. You don't do anything except close your laptop and sit in the silence and try not to think about all the things that don't quite make sense.

Tomorrow, maybe.

Tomorrow you'll ask.

Today you're too tired and the questions are too big and you're not sure you're ready for the answers.

You can feel tears coming hot and fast.

But you do what you always do: you wait.

And the penthouse keeps its secrets.

You're not supposed to be here.

That's what you keep telling yourself as you walk through Insadong, your hands shoved in your coat pockets, eyes on the pavement. You're not supposed to be here. You should have stayed home on the couch with the nature documentary and the slowly cooling coffee and the safe, familiar numbness of another wasted afternoon.

But Sooyoung's words are still echoing in your head: You're too stubborn not to come back.

And Jeonghan's: You've always been afraid of everything—and you do it anyway.

So here you are. Outside. 

The bookstore appears like a refuge. It’s a small one, tucked between a tea shop and a gallery you don't remember ever visiting. The sign is hand-painted, weathered in a way that suggests permanence rather than neglect. Something about it pulls at you because it feels familiar in a way you can't name.

You must have been here before because your feet seemed to know the way even though your mind didn't.

The door chimes softly as you enter and the smell hits you immediately: paper and coffee and old wood. Something in your chest loosens. This is safe. This is manageable. Books don't ask questions. Books don't look at you with careful concern and weigh their words before speaking.

The store is narrow with two floors connected by a steep staircase at the back. Shelves line every wall, packed tight, with books stacked on top of other books in that particularly chaotic way that suggests the owner loves them too much to turn any away. There's a small café counter near the entrance—currently unmanned—and a few mismatched chairs scattered in corners for reading.

It's nearly empty. It’s just you and the distant sound of someone moving around on the upper floor.

You drift toward the literature section, run your fingers along spines without reading titles. The motion itself is soothing. Mindless in the best way.

You stop at a shelf labeled "Contemporary Fiction" and pull out a book at random.

The Vegetarian by Han Kang.

You've heard of it. Maybe read it? You're not sure. Everything from before is such a blur.

You open it and skim the first page. Something about a woman who stops eating meat. Who decides to—what? Transform? Disappear? Resist?

You close it. Put it back.

Your hand moves to the next book on the shelf.

Another hand reaches at the same time.

Your fingers brush—all warm skin and unexpected contact—and you both pull back instinctively.

"Sorry—" you start.

"Sorry—" he says at the same time.

You look up.

A man. About your age, maybe slightly older. Dark hair falling slightly into his eyes which are tired in a way you recognize intimately—the kind of tiredness that comes from not sleeping well, from carrying something heavy. He's wearing a black sweater and jeans, nothing remarkable really, but something about him makes you look twice.

His face.

You know that face.

No—you don't know it. But it feels like you should. Like you've seen it somewhere or dreamed it or—

You realize he's staring at you.

Not rudely. Not intensely. But there's something in his expression that you can't read—shock, maybe, or recognition, or something deeper and more complicated that makes the air between you feel suddenly charged.

"You—" he starts then stops. Clears his throat. "You can take it."

He pulls his hand back, gesturing to the book.

"No, it's okay." Your voice comes out quieter than you expected. "I wasn't—I mean, I was just looking. I don't even know what—"

You both look at the book your hands had reached for.

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro.

"Have you read it?" he asks. His voice is careful and measured. It sounds like he's concentrating very hard on sounding normal.

"I don't think so." You pull your hand back from the shelf. "Have you?"

"Yes." A pause. "A long time ago."

There's weight in the way he says it; like the book means something. 

Like this moment means something.

You're probably imagining it.

"Is it good?" you ask because you don't know what else to say, because leaving feels suddenly impossible even though you should definitely leave. You think you should definitely not be standing here talking to a stranger who makes your chest feel strange. You should probably leave because this stranger might think you’re just intruding in his space and quiet time.

But then his honey warm voice echoes once more. 

"It's—" He seems to struggle with the answer. "It's about regret. It’s about a man who spent his whole life serving someone else and then realizes at the end that he missed everything. He was so busy being what he thought he should be that he forgot to be a person."

"That sounds depressing," you say.

"It is." His smile is small and devastating. "But it's also beautiful and true. Sometimes those are the same thing."

You don't know what to say to that. You don't know why this stranger's analysis of a book you've never read is making your throat tight.

"Are you—" You gesture vaguely at the book. "Did you want it? I can—"

"No." He shakes his head. "I've read it. I was just—" He stops. He looks at the book like it's accusing him of something. "I was just remembering."

The silence stretches between you.

You think you should walk away. Maybe you should grab a different book or no book. Perhaps you should definitely stop standing here staring at this man who makes you feel something you can't name.

But you don't move.

"I'm trying to figure out how to read again," you say suddenly, surprising yourself. "I mean—I know how to read. But I used to love it. Nowadays I can't… I can't focus. I can't remember what I read five minutes after I read it. It's like the words just—" you gesture vaguely, "—slide off."

He's looking at you with something that might be understanding. It might be pain. You can't tell.

"After trauma," he says quietly, "sometimes your brain can't process narrative the same way. It's protecting you from absorbing too much story when you're still trying to process your own."

"What makes you think I have trauma?"

"I—" He hesitates. "I read it somewhere. Or someone told me. I can't remember right now, I’m sorry."

Liar, something in you whispers. But you don't know why you think that.

"So what do I do?" you ask. "If I want to read again but can't?"

"Maybe start small." He's not looking at you now. He’s scanning the shelves instead. "Something short. Something with space built into it." His hand reaches out and pulls a slim volume from a shelf. "Here."

He hands it to you.

The Crane Wife by CJ Hauser.

"It’s more of a book of essays," he says. "Short ones. It’s about the Japanese folktale where a crane becomes a woman to repay a kindness and then is destroyed by the person she's trying to save." He stops. "Sorry. That probably sounds worse than it is."

"No, it—" You look at the book. At the crane on the cover, mid-flight. "It sounds sad."

"It is sad." His voice is rough. "But, uh, it's also about how we hurt the people who try to love us… how we take and take without seeing what we're taking. How sometimes the kindest thing is to let someone go before you destroy them completely."

You look up at him. You take a really good look at him.

He's not looking at you. He's staring at the book in your hands with an expression that makes you want to—what? Comfort him? Run? You can't tell. Again.

"Are you okay?" you ask.

"What?" He blinks as seems to come back to himself. "Yes. Sorry. I just—" He manages a smile but it doesn't reach his eyes. You think he has a beautiful smile. "I relate to the book. Too much, probably."

"Are you the crane or the person destroying the crane?"

The question comes out before you can stop it, too personal, too direct, and you immediately want to take it back. You bit your bottom lip.

But he doesn't seem offended. Just… devastated.

"I was the person destroying the crane," he says quietly. "I'm trying very hard not to be anymore."

You stand there holding a book about transformation and destruction and you don't know what to do with the sudden, overwhelming urge to know this man's story. To understand why he looks at you like you're both a miracle and a wound. To ask why your hands are shaking slightly and your heart is beating too fast and why you feel like you're standing on the edge of something you can't see.

"I'm YN," you say instead. Because it's safe. Because it's something you can control.

You extend your hand.

He looks at it for a long moment. Too long. You almost drop your hand but then—

—he takes it.

His hand is warm. Much larger than yours. It’s calloused in a way that you can’t exactly pinpoint. You don't know. You don't know anything about him except that his touch makes your breath catch and your palm feels like it's burning and you don't understand any of it.

"Joshua," he says. "I'm Joshua."

He says your name like he's learning it for the first time but his hand holds yours like it's been there before, like it knows the shape of you, like—

You pull back.

"It’s nice to meet you," you say automatically because that's what you're supposed to say.

"It’s nice to meet you," he echoes and the words sound like a lie in his mouth.

"I should—" You gesture vaguely toward the rest of the store. "I should keep looking."

"Of course." He steps back and gives you space. "I'll—I'll just—"

He doesn't finish the sentence. Just retreats down the aisle, leaving you standing there with two books you didn't choose—The Remains of the Day still on the shelf, The Crane Wife in your hands.

You should put it back. Probably grab something else. Something lighter. Something that doesn't feel like it's been selected specifically to destroy you.

But you don't.

You hold onto it and wander deeper into the store and you're acutely, painfully aware that Joshua is somewhere in this building and you're hoping you'll run into him again even though you shouldn't, even though you should leave right now, even though something about him makes you feel like you're remembering something you've forgotten and you don't know if you want to remember it or not.

But then you find him again in the philosophy section.

Or maybe he finds you. You're not sure who moved toward whom.

He's holding a book—The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm—and studying it like it contains answers to questions he hasn't figured out how to ask yet.

"Is that one sad too?" you ask and your voice startles him.

He turns and something crosses his face when he sees you. Relief. Or fear. Or both.

"It depends on your definition of sad," he says as he shows you the cover. "It's about how love is a skill. Something you practice and learn and get better at, not something that just happens to you."

"That sounds exhausting.” 

"It is." He sets the book back on the shelf with a gentleness that seems disproportionate. "But maybe that's the point. Maybe the things worth having are supposed to be exhausting."

"Or maybe some people aren't worth the exhaustion."

The words come out bitter and you immediately wish you could take them back. But Joshua just looks at you with those tired, knowing eyes and says: "Or maybe some people don't realize what they have until they've already exhausted the person giving it to them."

Silence is a very uncomfortable thing sometimes. You feel like you've stumbled into the middle of his story. It feels like these books aren't random selections, but confessions. 

"What are you really looking for?" you ask. "In here. In all these books."

He considers the question for a long moment.

"Absolution, maybe," he says finally. "Or understanding. Or just—" He stops. "Just proof that other people have been as cruel and stupid as I've been and found a way to live with it."

"That's oddly specific."

"I'm a specific kind of broken, it seems."

"Aren't we all?"

He looks at you then—really looks at you—and his expression does something complicated. It’s like he's seeing you and someone else at the same time… like you're an answer to a question he's been asking for a long time.

"Yeah," he says softly. "I guess we are."

You should ask him what happened. What cruelty and stupidity he's trying to understand. Maybe you should ask why he looks at you the way he does.

But of course you don't.

"I don't actually know what I'm looking for either," you admit. "I used to read all the time. Before—" You stop. "Before I forgot how. And now I'm trying to remember but I don't know where to start."

"Start with what you're feeling," Joshua says. "Not what you think you should read. What does your—" He has this habit of stopping himself, you notice. "What does your heart want?"

Your heart.

Your heart wants to understand why you're having dreams about someone saying I love you in a voice you can't place. Why you drew plans for an apartment designed for two people? Why there's a locked door and a sketchbook and books marked with initials that aren't yours. Why this stranger makes you feel like crying for reasons you can't name.

But you can't say any of that.

"I don't know what my heart wants," you say instead. "I think it forgot too."

Joshua's expression breaks—just for a second, just enough for you to see that your words have hurt him somehow—and then he schools his expression once more.

"Then…maybe start with what makes you curious," he says. "What questions do you want answers to? And find books that ask those questions."

You look at this man named Joshua who talks about regret and transformation and cranes being destroyed by the people they try to save. He looks at you like he's memorizing your face. Why does it feel like he makes you feel seen in a way that's terrifying and necessary.

"I should probably go… for real this time," you say because you should, because this is too much, because you're not ready for whatever this is.

"Okay." He doesn't try to stop you. He doesn't ask for your number or suggest coffee or do any of the things people do when they want to see someone again.

He just says: "I hope the book helps. The Crane Wife. I hope it—" He stops. "I hope you find what you're looking for."

"You too."

You turn to leave.

"YN?"

You stop. Turn back.

He's standing in the philosophy section with his hands in his pockets and he looks like he wants to say something important but can't figure out how.

"What you said before," he says. "About people not being worth the exhaustion? You're wrong."

You look at this stranger named Joshua. You look at his red-rimmed eyes and you wonder why he looks like he’s about to fall apart.

"Some people are worth every bit of exhaustion and more. Even when they—" He stops again. "Even when you don't deserve them. Even when you've failed them. They're still worth it."

The words settle into your chest like stones.

"Speaking from experience?" you ask, a small smile on your lips.

"Yeah." His smile is the saddest thing you've ever seen. "Yeah, I am."

You don't know how to respond to this stranger's confession that feels like it's meant for someone else.

So you just nod and leave.

And try not to think about how wrong it feels to walk away from him.

You buy The Crane Wife at the counter.

The owner—an elderly woman with kind eyes—wraps it carefully.

"This is a good choice," she says. "It’s a sad book, but a good one."

"So I've heard."

"The young man who recommended it has good taste. He's been coming here for months. Always reading, but never buying. He knows books."

Your hand stills on the wrapped package. "He comes here often?"

"Every week. Sometimes twice a week." She smiles. "He always looks like he's searching for something. I hope he finds it."

You take the book and walk out into the late afternoon light.

You don't let yourself think about why Joshua has been coming to this bookstore for months. About why he talked about cranes and regret and people being worth the exhaustion.

You don't let yourself think about any of it but you hold the book against your chest like it matters.

Across the store, hidden behind a shelf where you can't see him, Joshua watches you leave.

He's holding The Art of Loving in hands that are shaking.

He'd come here hoping because he knows you used to come here. He hopes the universe would be kind enough to let him see you, even from a distance, even just to know you were okay.

But he hadn't expected you to talk to him.

He hadn't expected you to ask him questions and look at him with those eyes—the ones he'd spent two years not really seeing—and make him want to tell you everything.

He'd recommended The Crane Wife because it was true. He was the person who destroyed the crane because you'd been trying to save him and he'd taken and taken and taken until there was nothing left.

And now you were standing two feet away, holding the book, asking him questions, and you had no idea.

You have no idea that you'd already exhausted yourself trying to love him. 

You have no idea that he'd give anything—anything—to take back every moment he'd failed you.

Minghao appears from behind. He'd been shelving books upstairs, watching the whole thing.

"She finally came," he says quietly.

"Yeah."

"You okay?"

Joshua chuckles and it sounds broken even to his own ears. "No. Not even a little bit."

"What are you going to do?"

Joshua looks at the book in his hands. At the title. The Art of Loving.

"I'm going to learn," he says. "I'm going to figure out how to do this right. How to love her right. Even if—" His voice cracks. "Even if she never remembers and never gives me another chance. I'm going to learn how to be what she deserved all along."

Minghao is quiet for a long while. He watches Joshua with a kind of ache that only exists between two lifelong friends.

"You know she'll find out eventually," he says. "About who you were. Who you are."

"I know."

"And it'll destroy whatever you're trying to build."

"I know that too."

"So why are you doing this to yourself?"

"Right now, for the first time in a year, she looked at me and didn't see the person who hurt her." 

Joshua's voice breaks completely. "She looked at me and saw someone who might be worth talking to. And I—" He stops. "I just want her to keep looking at me like that. Even if it's only for a little while. Even if it's based on a lie. Even if I'm the worst person alive for wanting it."

"Joshua—"

He sets the book back on the shelf. "I know it's wrong and I should stay away. But Hao—" He looks at his friend with eyes that are too bright. "She talked to me. She let me recommend a book. She told me she's trying to learn how to read again and she—" His voice cracks. "She smiled. Just a little. But she smiled."

Minghao's expression is pained. "This might end badly."

"I know."

"She might hate you when she finds out."

"Mm."

"You're going to lose her all over again. And maybe this time it'll be worse because she'll have trusted you."

"There’s a reason why I've been here almost every day for the past 11 months." Joshua looks toward the door where you disappeared. "But maybe… maybe if I can show her who I am now and who I'm trying to be. Maybe when she finds out, she'll—" He can't finish.

"She'll what? Forgive you?"

"No." Joshua's voice is hollow. "No, she won't forgive me. I don’t deserve that. But maybe she'll understand that I changed. That I'm not—that I'm trying not to be—" He stops. "I just need her to know I changed. Even if it's too late and it no longer matters. I need her to know."

Minghao doesn't say anything because there's nothing to say.

Joshua and Minghao stand in the bookstore surrounded by stories about love and loss and regret and Joshua tries not to think about the fact that he's living the saddest one of all.

The café Wonwoo chose is small and quiet. It’s tucked into a side street in Gangnam where the lunch rush has already passed and the late-afternoon crowd hasn't yet arrived. It's the kind of place with mismatched chairs and tables that wobble slightly and absolutely no background music to fill the silence.

You arrive first, which surprises you. Wonwoo is usually pathologically punctual—something about years of working in software development, he'd told you once, where being late to a meeting could mean missing a critical deployment window or losing hours of everyone's time. You order tea and sit at a table facing the door.

The bookstore encounter keeps replaying in your mind.

Joshua.

The way he'd looked at you. The books he'd chosen. The things he'd said about cranes and regret and people being worth the exhaustion.

You'd started reading The Crane Wife last night and got through three essays before you had to stop because they felt too close, too raw.

You don't understand why a stranger's book recommendation is affecting you this much.

The door chimes and like clockwork, Wonwoo walks in.

He's wearing his usual uniform: dark jeans, a plain navy sweater and a new pair of glasses that make him look more serious than he actually is. He's tall—taller than Jeonghan but not by much—with the kind of steady, solid presence that makes you feel immediately safer just by existing in the same space.

He spots you and his whole face changes. It’s a mix of relief, concern, something tender and complicated that you've seen a thousand times but never quite known how to name.

"You're real," he says as he approaches, setting his laptop bag down on the chair beside him. He goes over to your side to land a kiss on the top of your head. "I was half-convinced you'd cancel at the last minute."

"I thought about it," you admit, a small smile on your face.

“Don’t I know it." He returns your smile and gives you a hug. "But you're here. That's what matters."

You let yourself be held for a moment—Wonwoo gives the best hugs, always has, even when you were kids and he was all gangly limbs and sharp elbows. Now he's just solid, warm, safe.

When he pulls back, he studies your face with the kind of attention that makes you want to look away.

"You look tired," he says as he sits down across from you.

"I always look tired."

"That is true, too. But today you look extra tired." His eyes track over your features, cataloging things you can't hide. "Freshly tired if that kind ever exists."

"Is there a difference?"

"With you? Always." He gently flags down the server, orders an Americano, then turns back to you with that look—the one that says he's running diagnostics on your emotional state and has already identified seventeen problems he's trying to figure out how to solve. "What's the sleep situation?"

"Same as always."

"Which means bad."

"Which means manageable."

"YN." He says your name like a sigh. "We've known each other since we were seven. I know what 'manageable' means in your vocabulary. It means you're hanging by a thread but you've learned to make the thread look…decorative."

Despite everything, you almost smile. "When did you become poetic?"

"Around the same time you started pretending you were fine." He leans back as the server delivers his coffee. "So roughly twenty years ago."

"I was fine when I was seven."

"You were not fine at seven. You cried for three days when you found out goldfish don't actually live forever."

"That was too much for a seven-year-old to handle at the time."

"It was a fish named Mr. Bubbles that you won at a carnival."

"Mr. Bubbles deserved better than a two-week lifespan."

"Mr. Bubbles deserved a friend who didn't overfeed him." Wonwoo's voice is gentle and teasing. "You gave him an entire container of fish flakes in one day because you 'didn't want him to be hungry.'"

You do smile now. It’s small and brief. "You remember that?"

"I remember everything." He says it simply, like it's a fact rather than a declaration. "That's the problem with being friends for two decades. I have an unreasonable amount of embarrassing data about you."

"Such as?"

"Such as the fact that when you're really stressed, you pick at your nails until they bleed." He nods at your hands where you've been doing exactly that without realizing. "Such as the fact that you only order tea instead of coffee when your stomach is upset. Such as the fact that you're doing that thing with your shoulders where you're trying to make yourself smaller, which means you want to be having this conversation even less than I think you do."

You stop picking at your nails and force your shoulders back.

"I hate that you know me that well," you say but there's no heat in it.

"No you don't. You love that I know you that well because it means you don't have to explain things." He takes a sip of his coffee, winces slightly. "Ah, that’s too hot. Anyway, talk to me. What's actually going on?"

"What do you mean 'actually'?"

"I mean…Jeonghan said you left the apartment twice this week which is basically a miracle."

You pick up your tea just to have something to do with your hands. "Why do you and Jeonghan coordinate your worry schedules?"

"We don't coordinate. We just both love you and therefore both notice when you're unraveling." He leans forward, elbows on the table, hands clasped under his chin. "So. Twice out of the apartment. Where'd you go?"

"Bookstore." You pause. "And here."

"Bookstore." He nods slowly. "Voluntarily?"

"Voluntarily."

"Buy anything?"

"An essay collection."

His eyebrows rise behind his glasses. "You're reading again?"

"Trying to."

Something crosses his face—joy, maybe, or relief, or something more complicated. "YN, that's—that's really good. That's progress."

"Is it?" You set down your tea without drinking it. "Or is it just going through the motions? Trying to be the person I was before?"

Wonwoo is quiet for a moment and you watch him consider the question with the same careful attention he probably gives to code reviews and system architectures.

"The person you were before," he says after a while, "is the person who made me watch the entirety of Twin Peaks in one weekend and then insisted we analyze the symbolism of every single owl."

"Did we finish?"

"We did not. You fell asleep during episode fourteen and I had to carry you to bed." He smiles slightly. "You woke up three hours later and wanted to continue right away but I made you eat something first because you'd forgotten to eat for sixteen hours."

You don't remember this, but it sounds true. It sounds like something you would do, back when you had the energy to be obsessive about things.

"Do I still do that?" you ask. "Forget to eat?"

"Yes. Which is why Jeonghan and I have developed an elaborate system of making sure you're fed. We're like your personal meal service, except we're not getting paid and you didn't ask for us."

"I don't need—"

"You do need," he interrupts gently. "And that's okay. Everyone needs something sometimes. Even people like you who've spent their entire lives trying to prove they don't."

The words settle between you and you don't know what to do with them.

"The person you were before," Wonwoo continues, "is also the person who called me at 2 am to argue about whether Murakami was a genius or just pretentious."

"What did I say?"

"You said he was both. That genius and pretentiousness weren't mutually exclusive. That all the best artists are a little in love with their own sadness because it's what makes them brave enough to write about it."

You stare at him. "I said that?"

"Yeah. I wrote it down because it was 2 am and I was half-asleep but it sounded important." He pulls out his phone, scrolls for a moment, then shows you a note dated three years ago. The quote is there, exactly as he said it.

"You keep notes about our conversations?"

"About the good ones. And the weird ones. And the ones where you say something that sounds like it should be in a book somewhere." He puts his phone away. "The point is—you're still that person. The one who thinks about art and meaning and why people do what they do. You're just quieter about it now."

"I found something," you say quietly. "In my apartment."

Wonwoo goes very still. "What kind of something?"

"A sketchbook. It had this green cover, maybe sage. There were these plans for renovating the penthouse from two and a half years ago." You watch his face carefully. "There were plans that showed someone else living there. And these weird labels in my handwriting. ‘His office. His chair.’ Notes about making it 'ours.'"

Wonwoo's expression doesn't change but something happens behind his eyes. Something that looks like pain.

"And?" he asks carefully.

"And I don't remember making those plans. I don't remember there being an 'us' or a 'his' or any of it." You lean forward. "Wonwoo-yah. Was there someone else living with me during the time I can't remember?"

He looks at you for a long moment and you can see him weighing options, calculating costs, trying to figure out what answer will do the least damage.

"I can't answer that," he says finally.

You had expected this response from him. "Can't or won't?"

"Both." His voice is rough. "YN, I—it's complicated. And it's not my story to tell. It's yours. I don't have the right to—" He stops. "I don't have the right to give you pieces of your life without context. Without—" He stops again.

"Without what?"

"Without knowing you're ready to hold them."

You sit back, something cold settling in your chest. "So you do know. And you're just choosing not to tell me."

"I'm choosing to let you heal before you have to process things that might break you again."

"That's not your choice to make."

"I know." He looks genuinely anguished. "I know it's not. But YN, if I could go back—if I could undo what happened to you, I would. In a heartbeat. But since I can't do any of that, the least I can do is not force you to relive it before you're ready."

"What happened to me?" Your voice is barely above a whisper. "During those two years. What happened that was so bad everyone has decided I'm better off not knowing?"

Wonwoo's jaw tightens. "You were going through something difficult. Something that—" He stops, closes his eyes for a moment. "Something that made you forget how to be loud… and how to believe you deserved good things."

"Was it because of him?" you ask. "The 'his' in my sketchbook. The person whose office I was planning. Did he—" You can't finish the question because you can't voice what you're afraid of.

"No." Wonwoo's voice is firm and immediate. "It’s not like that. He… he never hurt you physically. Never. But—" He stops, and his voice drops. "But there are other ways to hurt people. And he was very good at those other ways."

Silence stretches between you. You feel like you're trying to see something through fog. 

"Why won't anyone just tell me?" you ask and you hate how small and desperate your voice sounds.

"Because we love you." Wonwoo reaches across the table and takes your hand. "It hurts me to not just tell you everything, please believe me. But we watched you survive something terrible and we don't want to throw you back into it before you're strong enough. Because—" His voice cracks slightly. "I remember what you were like during that time and I remember what you were like after and the after version is better. Quieter, yes. More careful, yes. But better. And I'm scared that if you remember everything—if we force you to face it all at once—you'll—"

"I'll what?"

"You'll break." He squeezes your hand. "And I can't—YN, I can't watch you break again. If that makes me a coward or a liar or the worst friend in the world, fine. I'll be all of those things. But I won't be the person who breaks you."

You look at him—at Wonwoo, who's been your friend since you were seven, who's seen you through goldfish funerals and failed math tests and Paris and everything after—and you see the truth in his face.

He's not lying because he thinks you're weak.

He's lying because he thinks you're too strong. He’s lying because he's watched you survive things you shouldn't have had to survive and he's terrified of what will happen if you have to survive one more.

"Okay," you say quietly.

"Okay?"

"I won't push. Not today." You squeeze his hand once before pulling back. "But Wonwoo? Eventually I'm going to need to know. Eventually the not-knowing is going to be worse than the knowing and when that happens—when I can't take it anymore—I need you to promise you'll tell me the truth. Even if it breaks me. I need you to promise."

He looks at you for a long moment and something in his expression cracks.

"I promise," he says. "When you really need to know—when you ask me and I can see you're ready—I'll tell you everything I know. I promise."

"Okay." You pick up your tea, which has gone lukewarm. "Okay."

Wonwoo sits back and you watch some of the tension leave his shoulders.

"Now," he says, his voice deliberately lighter. "Tell me about this essay collection. What's it about?"

You almost don't answer. Almost push back to the previous conversation, to the locked doors and the gaps and the him who hurt you in ways that weren't physical.

But you're tired and Wonwoo is offering you an exit.

"It's about transformation," you say. "About becoming different things. About—" You pause. "About people who change and people who don't and the cost of both."

"Cheerful."

"You asked."

"I did." He smiles slightly. "Is it good?"

"I don't know yet. It's…intense. I can only read a little bit at a time."

"That's okay. That's how you used to read Plath. Little bits, then you'd have to go look at something beautiful for a while."

"I read Plath?"

"Oh, obsessively. You went through a phase where you were convinced understanding sadness was the key to understanding art." He tilts his head. "You were probably right but it was a deeply depressing three months for everyone around you."

"Was I insufferable?"

"Completely. But in an endearing way." His smile is soft. "You're always insufferable in endearing ways."

You manage a small smile back. "I'm not sure that's a compliment."

"It's the highest compliment. It means you're annoying and I love you anyway."

"You're annoying too."

"I know. It's why we work." Wonwoo smiles genuinely this time.

The conversation shifts after that. It shifts to safer and lighter things. Wonwoo tells you about a project at work that's going sideways, about a coworker who keeps microwaving fish in the break room and has become the office villain. You tell him about the nature documentary you've been watching, about the anglerfish and their depressing mating habits.

And Wonwoo laughs—really laughs. The kind that makes his eyes crinkle behind his glasses. 

"Wonwoo?" you ask quietly.

"Yeah?"

"Thank you. For—for not pushing. For letting me be slow."

"You don't have to thank me for that. That's just me loving you."

"Still."

"Still." He reaches across and squeezes your hand briefly. "You're my best friend. Have been since Mr. Bubbles. That's not changing just because things are hard. I'm staying. That's the deal."

Your throat is tight. "What deal?"

"The deal we made when we were seven and you shared your snacks with me even though I forgot mine. The deal where we're stuck with each other no matter what. The deal where I know you and you know me and we don't have to pretend." He stands, gathering his things. "That deal."

"I don't remember making that deal."

"I remember for both of us. That's how it works."

Wonwoo then pulls you into another hug—longer this time, tighter—and you let yourself be held by someone who knows every version of you and has chosen to stay through all of them.

"Text me later," he says into your hair. "Even if it's just a random thought. Even if it's 3 am and you can't sleep. Okay?"

"Okay."

"I mean it, YN."

"I mean it, too."

He pulls back, adjusts his glasses, slings his laptop bag over his shoulder.

"And hey," he says as he's leaving. "Whatever you're trying to figure out about your past—whatever's in that locked room or that sketchbook or those missing two years… just remember that the person you are now is still you. You're just you with different edges and those edges are sharp and they're yours and they're good."

You sit in the café for a long time, long after Wonwoo has left. You hold your lukewarm cup of cold tea and try to believe him.

You stand outside the children's literacy center in Mapo-gu and try to remember why you thought this was a good idea.

The building is painted a cheerful yellow with a mural of children reading books sprawled across the front wall. It's Thursday afternoon, nearly three o'clock, and the sunlight is doing that particular late-autumn thing where it's golden and warm-looking but the air is cold enough to make you pull your coat tighter.

You've been here before. Your body knows the way from the subway station without your mind having to direct it—turn left at the corner, walk two blocks, cross at the light. Muscle memory leads you to a place you don't consciously remember.

It should probably bother you more than it does.

But you've been living in muscle memory for a year now. Your hands know how to make coffee, your feet know how to navigate your apartment, your body knows how to exist in spaces your mind can't recall choosing. This is just one more thing.

Except it's not.

Because standing here, looking at that yellow building with its cheerful mural, you feel something you haven't felt in a long time: anticipation. Not dread, not numbness, not the careful neutral you've cultivated to get through your days.

Anticipation.

You take a breath and push through the door.

The interior is warm and bright and smells like crayons and old books and something baking—cookies or banana bread. There's a small reception area with a desk where a woman in her fifties is typing on a computer and beyond that you can see a large open space filled with bookshelves, reading nooks, and tiny chairs.

The woman looks up as you enter and her face transforms.

"YN!" She's around the desk before you can respond. She pulls you into a hug that's equal parts surprise and relief. "Oh my goodness, it's been so long!"

You hug her back automatically and something in your chest loosens. You don't remember her name—not consciously—but your body remembers the warmth of her.

"Ms. Park," you say and you're surprised when the name comes without effort.

"Yes!" She pulls back, holding you at arm's length, eyes bright. "Oh sweetheart, look at you. You look—" She pauses, choosing her words carefully. "You look rested."

It's a kind lie. You both know it.

"I'm better," you say and mean it more than you usually do. "I thought—I thought maybe I could come back. If you still need volunteers."

"Need you?" Ms. Park's eyes go brighter. "YN, the children have been asking about Teacher YN for months. Mina especially—she made me promise to call her the second you came back."

Something warm blooms in your chest. "Mina."

"She's here today. Thursday afternoon session." Ms. Park squeezes your hands once before letting go. "We're doing new volunteer orientation in about ten minutes. There are three new people starting. I was going to handle it myself, but—" She lights up. "Would you mind helping? You were always so good with the nervous ones. And honestly, having you back—the kids will be over the moon."

"I—" You hesitate but only for a second. Standing here in this warm bright space that smells like childhood and stories, you feel something you haven't felt in months: useful. "Yes. Okay. I can do that."

"Wonderful!" Ms. Park is already guiding you toward the children's area, chattering about the new volunteers—one is very sweet but anxious, another is enthusiastic but maybe a little too enthusiastic, and the third is—

She stops.

You stop beside her.

In the children's section, kneeling on the floor beside the picture book shelves, is a man.

Dark hair. Yellow sweater. Broad shoulders hunched in concentration as he studies the spines of books like they contain answers to questions he hasn't learned how to ask yet.

Your heart does something strange in your chest.

"Joshua?"

He turns at your voice and for a moment—just a moment—his face does something complicated. Shock and joy and pain and something so raw and desperate it makes you take an involuntary step back.

Then that expression is gone. Smoothed over into something carefully neutral. He stands slowly and you can see him concentrating very hard on appearing normal.

"YN." Your name in his mouth sounds like prayer and confession and apology all at once. "Hi."

"Hi." You're staring. You know you're staring. But something about seeing him here, in this place that feels like yours, makes the world tilt slightly. "What are you—you're volunteering here?"

"First time." His voice is carefully measured. "With kids, I mean. I've volunteered in other places but—this is new territory."

Ms. Park looks between you with barely concealed delight. "Oh! Do you two know each other?"

"We—" You're not sure how to explain. "We met. At a bookstore. Earlier this week."

"How wonderful!" Ms. Park is beaming now. "Well, this is perfect then. YN, since you're acquainted, why don't you give Joshua the orientation? Show him the ropes? I'll handle the other two volunteers."

You and Joshua look at each other.

Something passes between you—a question or a recognition or just the particular electricity of two people who are pretending this is a coincidence when it feels like something else entirely.

"If that's okay," Joshua says and there's something in his voice that makes you think he's asking more than just whether you'll show him around.

"Yes." You don't know why you say yes so quickly. Don't know why the idea of spending the next hour with him makes something in your chest feel lighter instead of heavier. "Yes, that's okay."

Ms. Park claps her hands together once. "Wonderful! I'll leave you to it then. Joshua, you're in excellent hands. YN is—well, she's the best we have."

She disappears to wrangle the other volunteers, leaving you and Joshua alone in the children's section.

The silence stretches for a little bit more.

"So," you say finally. "You volunteer."

"I'm trying to." He shoves his hands in his pockets. "Seemed like a good way to—I don't know. Do something that matters."

"Kids are good for that. Mattering."

"Yeah." He's looking at you with that expression again—the one from the bookstore, like you're both a miracle and a wound. "I didn't know you'd be here. I mean—I hoped. But I didn't know."

The admission hangs between you.

"You hoped?" you ask quietly.

"I—" He stops. Seems to recalibrate. "After the bookstore. You mentioned trying to read again. I thought maybe—maybe you'd find your way here. To this." He gestures at the space around you. "It seems like you. Helping kids. Giving them stories."

"You don't know me well enough to know what seems like me."

"Don't I?" The words are soft, almost sad.

You look at him—really look at him. You look at the tired eyes and the careful posture and the way he's standing like he's afraid if he moves too quickly you'll disappear or flinch or both.

"No," you say. "You don't. We met once. For maybe thirty minutes."

"Forty-five," he corrects quietly. "It was forty-five minutes."

"You were counting?"

"I was paying attention."

Something in your chest does that strange flutter again, but you shake it off.

"Come on," you say because the alternative is standing here trying to figure out why this stranger makes you feel like you're standing on the edge of something. "I'll show you around."

The tour starts formally. You show him where things are, you explain the systems, go through the logistics. It surprises you that you remember how to volunteer, but don’t remember who you are. But somewhere around the third bookshelf, something shifts.

Maybe it's the space itself. Maybe it's being surrounded by children's books and bright colors and the promise of stories. Maybe it's just that you're tired of being careful and this—this place, these books, this purpose—feels like permission to be something other than the quiet, diminished version of yourself you've become.

Whatever it is, you feel yourself loosening.

"Okay, so picture books are organized by theme, not author," you're saying, running your hand along a shelf. "Which I know is unconventional, but it works better for the kids. They don't remember author names, they remember 'the one about the bear' or 'the one where everyone's feelings are colors.'"

"That's smart," Joshua says.

"Mm." You pull out a book with a bright yellow cover. "Like this one—The Rabbit Listened. It's technically by Cori Doerrfeld but the kids just call it 'the sad rabbit book' and they know exactly where to find it."

"The sad rabbit book," Joshua repeats and there's something gentle in his voice. "Is it actually sad?"

"It's about grief. And how different people process it differently. And how sometimes the best thing you can do for someone who's hurting is just—" You pause, looking at the cover. "Just sit with them."

You look up and find Joshua staring at you with an expression that's hard to read.

"That sounds like a good lesson," he says quietly.

"It is." You put the book back. "The kids love it. They request it constantly. I think—" You stop, considering. "I think kids understand sadness better than adults do. They just feel it and move through it and come out the other side."

"And then request the sad rabbit book again."

"Exactly." You smile—really smile, the kind that reaches your eyes—and move to the next shelf. "Oh! And this section is about books on emotion. We have so many kids who don't have words for what they're feeling yet, so we use these—"

You're pulling books off the shelf now, showing him covers, explaining which ones work for which situations. Your voice has picked up speed, hands gesturing as you talk, and you don't even notice you've started moving around the space with more energy and brightness.

But Joshua notices.

He's watching you with something that looks like awe and grief mixed together. He watches the way you light up when you talk about the books, the way you move through the space like you belong in it, like you're finally somewhere that makes sense.

"—and In My Heart is good for kids who are just learning to identify emotions but The Color Monster is better for slightly older kids who can handle more complexity and—" You stop, noticing his expression. "What?"

"Nothing." His voice is rough. "You just—you really love this. The books. The teaching. All of it."

"I do." The admission comes easily, surprising you. "I didn't—I didn't realize how much until just now. But yes. I do."

"It shows."

You duck your head feeling suddenly self-conscious. "Sorry. I'm probably talking too much."

"No." The word comes out almost urgent. "No, don't—" He stops. "Please don't apologize for being enthusiastic. It's—" He stops again and when he continues his voice is softer. "It's really nice watching you light up about something."

The words settle between you and it’s too intimate for two people who barely know each other.

You move to the next section—early readers—and continue the tour, but something has shifted. You're more animated now, telling stories about specific kids and their favorite books, about the time one boy insisted on reading the same book about dinosaurs forty-seven times in a row, about how Mina once cried because a character in a story was lonely and she wanted to "go into the book and be their friend."

Joshua laughs at that, warm and genuine and the sound makes something in your chest flutter.

"That's very Mina," you say, grinning. "She has a very strong sense of justice and friendship. She once yelled at another kid for not sharing crayons because 'friends share and we're all friends here.'"

"She sounds intense."

You show him the rest of the space: the quiet corner with beanbags for overwhelmed kids, the craft supplies, the snack cabinet (locked, because the kids would eat everything in one session if you let them). And through it all, you're talking more than you've talked in months, gesturing, smiling, existing in the world like someone who belongs in it.

"The most important thing," you say as you're showing him where the tissues are kept, "is consistency. The kids have had a lot of people come through who volunteer once or twice and then disappear. So if you're going to do this, they need to know you'll be here. They need to know you'll stay."

Joshua has gone very still.

"Consistency," he repeats and his voice sounds rough.

"Yeah." You lean against the bookshelf. "They need adults who show up and keep their promises. They need adults who don't just—leave when things get hard or boring or inconvenient."

"That makes sense," he says quietly. "That's—that's really important."

There's weight to the way he says it, like he's talking about more than just volunteering.

"You okay?" you ask.

"Yeah." He manages a smile but it doesn't quite reach his eyes. "Just taking it all in."

chapter 1.2 continues here :)

[hanniejoo]

twice fallen m.list

STATUS: ongoing as of july 2026

pairing: joshua x (f) reader

summary: the nightmare always ends at 3:47 AM: someone's hand in yours, a desperate voice, but you don't know who it belongs to. everyone thinks you're better off not knowing what happened. but your apartment has two sinks, books marked with someone else's initials, and a locked door no one will explain.

then you meet joshua hong—a stranger at a bookstore who feels impossibly familiar. he has a kind face. you tell him so. he flinches like you've struck him. because you said those words to him once before, in a marriage you don't remember, in two years everyone wants you to forget. now he's back in your life as a stranger—kind, patient, everything he never was before.

and he has to decide: tell you the truth and lose you again, or stay silent and fall in love with his own wife for the second time.

main genres: arranged marriage, forced proximity, marriage of convenience, estranged spouses, second chance romance, amnesia, memory loss, strangers to lovers (again), emotional hurt/comfort, very heavy angst, slow burn, mature themes, mental health crises, character studies; a lot of the tags and warnings change depending on the chapter. please read through them very carefully!

a very long author's love note 💌

i started writing twice fallen a month after seeing seventeen during their right here world tour in 2025. the idea came at me like a war flashback on the way home after the concert, exhausted but very much happy and giddy. at first, i wrote this for myself because i needed an outlet of some sorts. and then i realized that hey, maybe i can share this with others? maybe someone out there might feel the same feelings i was feeling and so here we are more than a year later <3

a lot of this story is already written but as i've mentioned in this ask, i tend to edit a lot and ruminate on the plot. there are days when i feel completely content about the story's direction, but there are moments of my life when i'm like, you know what, let me destroy this fic once more and rewrite everything all over again hahaha

that's the story of my life, really.

so if you're here in whatever shape way or form, thank you for giving this fic a chance. i hope it makes you feel a certain way, but most of all, i hope reading my stories give you some sense of comfort and that you leave this space feeling lighter and with the knowledge that you're not alone, you are seen, you are loved.

if you ever want to let me know your thoughts and feelings, you are always welcome to drop me a message. you best believe i will get back to you whenever i have the chance!

here is the taglist for twice fallen. there are also other options in there, let me know your preference!

also! for the lovely readers who left me messages on my taglist form, you can find my response here 💛

CHAPTER ONE

⤷ 001, 002

CHAPTER TWO

⤷ 001, 002

CHAPTER THREE

⤷ right here!

CHAPTER FOUR

⤷ coming soon! ⏰

A FEW FAQS

💛 when will you update?

i don't have a set schedule! we roll as we go, my dear, and i hope you'll stay for the ride. as i'm typing this on the 16th of march, there's a high chance that chapter 3 will be posted before i leave for BTS' Tokyo concert in April! please refer to this update!

💛 will this fic have a happy ending?

there's a big spoiler already indicated in the genres part hihi

💛 will there be explicit tags/smut

the original draft has it, yes. but who knows, let's see what my brain comes up with in the future!

💛 do you have a beta reader?

no, i don't! i'm pretty sure my readers will find some inconsistencies here and there that i might have missed. please do let me know if anything about my stories bother you. i'm always open to feedback for as long as they're respectful. otherwise, i tend to ignore unwelcome comments.

A FEW MORE LINKS

my works are also posted on AO3, though i have to say, my updates are very slow and incomplete in terms of author's notes. you're always welcome to download my fics from there and read them from your device of choice. i know i do!

that being said, i only have my works posted on tumblr and ao3. if you see any of my works on other platforms, that's not me. please do let me know if you do see them floating around, though?

all posts related to twice fallen has the hashtag #twicefallen so please check here first if your question was already answered. i'm generally a patient person and i will probably answer you anyway, but just in case, the tag exists and it's there!

[hanniejoo]

twice fallen (chapter 2.2)

💛 taglist here 💛

pairing: joshua x (f) reader

genre: arranged marriage, forced proximity, marriage of convenience, estranged spouses, second chance romance, amnesia, memory loss, strangers to lovers (again), emotional hurt/comfort, heavy angst, slow burn, did i mention heavy angst? have i emphasized it enough?

additional tags & warnings: emotionally repressed and angry joshua, traumatized yn, depression, panic attacks, verbal cruelty, self-harm (specifically nail-digging, drawing blood because of it), trauma responses, dissociation, emotional neglect, toxic communication patterns, intense marital conflict, infidelity (but it isn't between joshua and yn), parental control/manipulation, family expectations, grief, joshua is a workaholic, joshua and yn have abandonment issues, sacrifice, dreams deferred

a/n: chapter 2.1 can be found here!

The venue is beautiful.

Of course it's beautiful. His mother and YN's mother spent months planning this, making sure every detail was perfect. The ceremony is at a luxury hotel in Gangnam—traditional but modern, elegant but not ostentatious, exactly the kind of venue that says "old money" without actually saying it.

Joshua arrives thirty minutes before the ceremony is supposed to start. He's led to a private room where he's supposed to wait, where the groom traditionally spends the final moments before his wedding contemplating the magnitude of what he's about to do.

He sits on a leather couch and stares at nothing.

Seungcheol is there, along with two other friends who've been conscripted as groomsmen. They make small talk that Joshua doesn't participate in. Someone makes a joke about marriage. Someone else mentions the reception. Joshua hears none of it.

His father comes in at some point. Puts a hand on Joshua's shoulder. "You ready, son?"

No. "Yes."

"Good. You're doing the right thing. This marriage—it's going to be good for everyone. You'll see."

The wedding coordinator appears. "It's time."

Joshua stands and follows her out of the room, down a hallway, to the back of the ceremony space where he'll stand and wait for you to walk down the aisle toward him.

The venue is full. Easily three hundred people—business associates, family friends, society connections, everyone who matters in their parents' world. Joshua recognizes maybe a third of them. The rest are strangers witnessing what's supposed to be the most intimate moment of his life.

He takes his place at the front. The officiant beside him, Seungcheol to his right, everyone watching him with expectation and satisfaction and approval.

The music starts and everyone stands. And Joshua watches as you appears at the back of the venue.

You’re—

You’re beautiful.

Objectively, factually beautiful. The dress is simple and elegant, your hair is perfect, you’re holding a bouquet and walking with your father toward Joshua like this is what you want, like this is a choice you’re making instead of something that's being done to you.

But Joshua can see it.

The way you’re holding herself too carefully. The way your smile doesn't quite reach your eyes. 

You look the way he feels: Trapped. Resigned. Going through motions because stopping would cause more damage than continuing.

You reach the front. Your father places your hand in Joshua's—the symbolic giving away of the daughter—and Joshua feels how cold your hand is. How it trembles slightly before you try to steady it.

You stand facing each other.

The officiant begins. Traditional words about love and commitment and lifelong partnership. Words that sound hollow when spoken over two people who are here out of obligation rather than choice.

Joshua barely hears any of it.

The reception drags on for hours.

More toasts. More congratulations. More people wanting to shake Joshua’s hand and kiss your cheek and tell them how lucky you both are, how perfect you are together, how your parents must be so proud.

Lucky. Perfect. Proud. Words that mean nothing.

Finally—finally—it's time to leave. There's a choreographed exit. Rose petals and sparklers and guests lined up to wave goodbye as the happy couple leaves for their honeymoon.

Except there's no honeymoon.

You’re going to the penthouse. Joshua's penthouse that's now your penthouse together because you’re married now and are expected to live together.

The car ride is silent.

You sit as far from him as possible, staring out the window, still in your wedding dress. Joshua loosens his tie and wishes he could loosen everything else—this suit, this ring, this life he just committed to.

You both arrive at the building and take the elevator up to the penthouse in silence.

Joshua unlocks the door and you both step inside.

This is it. First night as husband and wife. The moment when you’re supposed to—

Joshua doesn't even want to think about it.

You’re standing in the middle of the living room looking lost and exhausted and like you’re about to break.

"I'll take the master bedroom," Joshua says, his voice flat. "You can have the guest room. It's at the end of the hall."

You nod slowly. "Okay."

"There are towels in the bathroom. Extra blankets in the closet if you need them. The kitchen is—" He stops. "You'll figure it out."

"Okay."

You’re not moving. You’re standing there in your wedding dress in his—your—living room, looking like you’re waiting for something.

For what? For him to be kind? For him to acknowledge that you just got married? For some indication that this is going to be anything except a nightmare?

Joshua doesn't have any of that to give you.

"I'm going to bed," he says. "It's been a long day."

"Joshua—" You stop. "Could we—could we talk? For a minute?"

"About what?"

"About—" you gesture vaguely. "About this. About how we're going to—"

"How are we going to what? Make this work?" He laughs and it comes out bitter. "We're married because our fathers wanted it. We'll live here because that's what's expected. We'll show up to events together and smile for photos and pretend we're happy. That's it. That's all this is."

"I know that, but—"

"But what?" Joshua’s getting angry now, he can feel it rising despite how tired he is. "But you want to have some heartfelt conversation about feelings? About how we're going to navigate this disaster? There's nothing to navigate. We're both stuck and talking about it won't make it better."

"I'm not trying to make it better." Her voice is shaking now. "I'm just—I'm trying to figure out how to survive this. How to—"

"Then survive it the same way I am. By doing what's expected and nothing more." His voice is hard now, deliberately cruel. "You want to make this bearable? Then stop trying so hard. Stop showing up with that hopeful look like maybe today will be different. Stop trying to have conversations and make connections and build something out of nothing. Just stop."

"I'm not trying to—"

"You are. You've been trying for six months. Showing up to every appointment while I avoided them. Being pleasant and agreeable and doing everything right. And for what? We still ended up here. Married and miserable and trapped." He's pacing now, unable to stand still, the frustration of six months pouring out. "So do yourself a favor and stop trying. It's exhausting to watch and it's not going to change anything."

You’re crying now. Just—tears running down your face, smudging the careful makeup, destroying the perfect bride image.

And something in Joshua almost breaks. You crying almost makes him stop and apologize. It almost makes him take back everything he just said.

But he doesn't.

Because if he softens now, if he lets himself feel bad for you, if he acknowledges that you’ve been trying and he's been cruel—then he has to face what he's doing. What he's become. What this marriage is going to do to both of them.

And he can't face that. Not tonight. Not after promising to love and cherish you in front of three hundred witnesses while feeling nothing but resentment.

"Go to bed, YN," he says and his voice is cold now. "It's late. We're both tired. This conversation isn't going to do anything except make us both feel worse."

He walks past you, toward the master bedroom, and he doesn't look back because if he looks at your face, at those tears, at the way you’re trying so hard not to completely break down—he might actually feel something.

And feeling something would make this real. It would make him responsible. It would make him the villain instead of just another victim.

He closes the bedroom door behind him and leans against it.

And regrets everything he just said.

The penthouse is in Gangnam, sixteenth floor, floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the city like it's something to be conquered rather than lived in.

It's beautiful in the way expensive things are beautiful: perfectly designed, meticulously maintained, completely impersonal. The living room is all clean lines and neutral colors, masculine without being overtly so. Leather furniture in charcoal gray, a glass coffee table that looks like it's never held anything as mundane as a coffee cup, abstract art on the walls that says nothing except "someone with money lives here." The kitchen is state-of-the-art, all stainless steel and marble countertops, the kind of kitchen that looks like it's never been used for actual cooking. Everything is spotless, everything is arranged with the precision of someone who either has very specific taste or hired someone with very specific taste to make decisions for them.

It's Joshua's space, completely and utterly. Every piece of furniture, every book on the shelf, every detail speaks to a man who lives alone and likes it that way. There's no warmth here, no softness, nothing that suggests anyone actually lives in this space rather than just existing in it between obligations.

And now it's supposed to be your home too.

You stand in the middle of the living room with your two suitcases and try to figure out where you fit in a space that clearly wasn't designed with you in mind. Everything is his—the furniture he chose, the art he bought, the life he built before you became a mandatory addition to it. "Well," Seungkwan says brightly from behind you, wheeling in another box of your things. "It's definitely... minimalist."

Seungkwan is your friend from university, the one person who can make you laugh even when nothing is funny, who showed up this morning to help you move despite having approximately zero upper body strength and a tendency to complain about physical labor every five minutes. He's wearing a bright yellow sweater that's completely impractical for moving boxes and already has his hair sticking up in seventeen different directions from the effort.

"Minimalist is one word for it," Jeonghan chimes in, appearing with two more boxes stacked in his arms. Your brother has been quiet all morning just helping you pack up your temporary room at your parents' house and loading everything into his car with an efficiency that suggests he's trying not to think too hard about what this actually means. "Sterile is another."

"I think it's nice," you say even though the space makes you feel cold just looking at it. "It's clean. Organized."

"It's a hotel room," Seungkwan states what everyone else in the room is too afraid to voice out. He flops dramatically onto the leather couch and immediately looks out of place, his yellow sweater a burst of color in all this gray. "A very expensive hotel room where someone pays extra to make sure nothing interesting ever happens. Where's the personality? Where's the warmth? Where's the evidence that a human person actually lives here instead of a very well-dressed robot?"

Despite everything, you almost smile. Seungkwan has a way of saying exactly what everyone's thinking but making it sound like comedy instead of criticism.

"The bedroom is down that hall, right?" Jeonghan asks, nodding toward the hallway that leads to the master suite. "Should we start unpacking your things there?"

You hesitate. The truth is, you’re not sure if the guest room is now yours. Joshua left for the office this morning before you woke up, left a note on the kitchen counter that said "Help yourself to anything in the kitchen." No discussion about how you're supposed to organize your life in his space.

"The guest room," you say quietly. "At the end of the hall."

Jeonghan's expression does something complicated but he doesn't comment. He just picks up your suitcases and heads down the hallway while you and Seungkwan follow with boxes.

The guest room is nice. Smaller than the master bedroom probably but still bigger than your room at your parents' house, bigger than your room in Paris. It has a queen bed with white linens, a dresser, a closet, and a window that overlooks the city. It's impersonal in the same way the rest of the apartment is impersonal.

"So this is where you'll be sleeping," Seungkwan says while looking around with barely concealed disapproval. "In the guest room of your own penthouse. That you share with your husband."

"Seungkwan," Jeonghan warns.

"I'm just saying what we're all thinking! She just got married three days ago and she's being put in the guest room like she's—"

"Seungkwan." Jeonghan's voice is firmer this time and Seungkwan has the grace to look slightly abashed. "Help me with these boxes."

They start unpacking in relative silence. Your clothes going into the dresser, your books stacked on the small shelf, your toiletries in the bathroom that's attached to the guest room. It doesn't take long. You didn't bring much. Most of your things are still in Paris or in storage or just—gone. Lost in the transition from the person you were to the person you're trying to be.

Seungkwan keeps up a running commentary as he works, making observations about everything he touches in a way that's clearly designed to make you laugh. He holds up one of your old sweaters from university. "Oh my god, you still have this? I remember when you bought this. We were at that market in Hongdae and you spent forty-five minutes deciding between this one and the blue one and then you bought both of them anyway because you couldn't make a decision."

"I'm decisive when it matters," you say and you can hear how hollow it sounds.

"Right, clearly," Seungkwan says but his tone is gentle. He's watching you carefully now, the comedy dropping slightly to show the concern underneath. "That's why you're married to someone you barely know and living in an apartment that looks like it was designed by someone who's never experienced joy."

"Boo Seungkwan I swear to God—" Jeonghan says again but there's less heat in it this time.

"I'm just saying—" Seungkwan holds up his hands defensively. "I'm just saying that if we're unpacking YN's things into a guest room in her own home, we're allowed to acknowledge that this is weird. That's all."

Jeonghan doesn't respond. He's organizing your books on the shelf with careful precision, like if he arranges them correctly he can somehow make this situation better. You watch him work and feel a rush of gratitude for him, for showing up this morning without complaint, for helping you move into this space even though you know he hates everything about this situation.

"I'm going to check out the kitchen," Seungkwan announces after your clothes are put away. "See if this place has any food or if your robot husband survives entirely on the tears of his enemies and black coffee."

He disappears down the hallway, leaving you and Jeonghan alone in the guest room that's now your bedroom.

Jeonghan sits on the edge of the bed and pats the space next to him. You sit. For a moment, neither of you says anything. You both just sit there in this impersonal room in this impersonal apartment and exist in the reality of what your life has become.

"When's the last time you really slept? Not just lying in bed but actually sleeping." He's looking at you with that expression he gets when he's worried but trying not to push too hard, trying to let you come to things in your own time. "You have circles under your eyes. You've lost weight. You look like you're running on empty."

"I'm fine," you say automatically but the words ring false even to your own ears.

Jeonghan doesn't call you out on the lie. He just keeps looking at you with that patient, knowing expression. He's always been able to see through you even when you were kids, even when you got good at hiding things. He has this way of just waiting until you're ready to tell him the truth.

"The wedding was hard," you admit quietly. "The whole thing. All those people watching. Having to smile and pretend everything was perfect when nothing about it was."

"I know." He puts his arm around you, pulls you close the way he used to when you were kids and something had upset you. "I could see it. Every time I looked at you during the reception, you had this smile plastered on but your eyes were—" He stops. "You weren't there."

"I was trying to be there."

"You were. You've been trying so hard, Yonggam-ie." The nickname makes your throat tight. He hasn't called you that in months. It used to fit but now it feels like mockery. "But trying doesn't mean you're okay."

You don't know how to respond to that. You don't know how to explain that survival is the best you can manage right now, that living feels like an impossible luxury when you're just trying to get through each day without completely falling apart.

"Is he being kind to you?" Jeonghan asks and there's something sharp under the gentleness now. "Joshua. Is he treating you well?"

You think about your wedding night. About Joshua telling you to stop trying, that it was exhausting to watch. 

"He's not being unkind," you say carefully which is not the same as saying he's being kind but is the truth nonetheless.

Jeonghan is quiet for a moment, processing this non-answer. "If he hurts you—if he makes you feel small or unwanted or like you're too much—you tell me right away. I don't care what Dad says. If he's cruel to you, I'll—"

"You'll what?" You look at him. "You'll fight him? Ruin the business relationship? Make things worse for everyone?"

"I'll do what I should have done six months ago and actually protect you instead of just standing by and watching you disappear." His voice is fierce now and you can see the guilt and regret in his eyes. "I watched you say yes to this. I told myself you were an adult making your own choices but I should have fought harder to stop it."

"You couldn't have stopped it."

"Maybe not but I could have tried harder." He squeezes your shoulder. "I'm here now though. Whatever you need. Whenever you need it. You don't have to do this alone."

The kindness of it nearly breaks you.

Seungkwan reappears in the doorway, holding a jar of what appears to be very expensive imported jam. "The kitchen has jam that costs more than my rent and exactly zero other food items. Your husband is either trying to starve you or planning to survive the apocalypse entirely on artisanal preserves. Also, why does one person need four types of mineral water? They're all just water. It's a scam."

Despite everything, you laugh. It's small and a little broken but it's real and both Jeonghan and Seungkwan look so relieved to hear it that you almost start crying instead.

"We should get you some actual food," Jeonghan says, standing up. "And stock this kitchen with things you like so we can make it feel more like your space."

"It's not my space though," you say quietly. "It's his space that I'm living in now."

"Then we make it your space too." Jeonghan's voice is firm. "You live here. You get to have things here that are yours. You get to take up space in your own home."

Seungkwan is nodding enthusiastically. "Exactly! We're going to go to the grocery store right now and buy all your favorite things. That chocolate you like that's way too expensive. The tea that smells like flowers. Those crackers you always eat when you're sad. We're going to fill this depressing kitchen with evidence that you exist."

"I don't want to impose—"

"You're not imposing. You live here." Jeonghan pulls you to your feet. "Come on. Let's go make this place acknowledge that you're part of it now."

The three of you spend the next two hours at the grocery store and various shops around the neighborhood. Seungkwan makes increasingly ridiculous suggestions about what to buy, holding up items and creating elaborate scenarios about how they'll transform the apartment. He finds a throw pillow with a cat on it and insists it's necessary. "This will bring life to that sad gray couch! This cat is the only thing standing between you and living in a prison cell! We must buy this cat!"

You don't buy the cat pillow but you do get your favorite tea, the chocolate Seungkwan mentioned, fresh fruit, bread, cheese, all the things that make a kitchen feel lived-in rather than staged. Jeonghan adds practical things without commenting on them—dish soap you prefer, the specific brand of coffee you drink, extra towels because the ones in the bathroom are probably expensive and white and shouldn't be used for anything as common as actually drying off.

By the time you return to the penthouse, your arms are full of bags and Seungkwan is complaining about the lack of elevators in grocery stores and Jeonghan is planning where everything should go to maximize your comfort. They help you put everything away, filling the empty shelves and the barren refrigerator with evidence that someone other than Joshua lives here now.

Seungkwan stands back and surveys their work. "Better. It still looks like a hotel room but now it's a hotel room where someone left their stuff. It's an improvement."

"It's good," Jeonghan agrees. "It's a start."

You look at the kitchen, at your tea next to Joshua's expensive coffee, at your fruit in the bowl on the counter, at the small ways you've started to claim space in this apartment that doesn't feel like yours. It's not much. But Jeonghan is right. It's a start.

"Thank you," you say to both of them. "For helping me. For—" You stop, not sure how to articulate what it means that they showed up, that they helped you move in, that they tried to make this bearable. "For everything."

"That's what family is for," Jeonghan says, pulling you into another hug. "And friends who have terrible opinions about decorating," he adds with a pointed look at Seungkwan.

"Excuse me, the cat pillow would have been a masterpiece," Seungkwan protests. "You're both tasteless and I'm a visionary."

You smile again and it feels a little less broken this time.

They stay for another hour helping you arrange your things, making sure you know where everything is, filling the silence with conversation and laughter and the kind of easy companionship that makes the apartment feel less cold. But eventually they have to leave—Jeonghan has dinner with his subordinates, Seungkwan has work in the morning—and you're left alone in the penthouse that's supposed to be your home.

You walk through it after they're gone, looking at everything with fresh eyes. The living room with its gray furniture and expensive art. The kitchen that's now half yours with your tea and your chocolate and your fruit. The guest room at the end of the hall where your clothes are folded neatly in drawers and your books are arranged on shelves and everything is organized and appropriate and not enough to make this feel like your space.

You think about Joshua who's still at the office even though it's past 7 pm, who left before you woke up this morning, who's been avoiding this apartment and by extension avoiding you ever since your wedding night.

You think about what Jeonghan said. That trying isn't the same as living. But you don't know how to do anything except survive right now. You don't know how to make a home out of a place that doesn't want you in it so you do what you've been doing for months now.

You go through the motions, put your things away, exist in this space without taking up too much of it.

You survive. One day at a time. Until survival becomes something that looks like life. Or until it destroys you completely.

You start learning Joshua's patterns within the first week.

He wakes up at 5:30 am every morning. You know this because you hear the shower running, hear his movements in the master bedroom, hear the quiet efficiency of someone who's perfected the art of getting ready without waking anyone even though there's no one to wake except you down the hall. By 6:15, he's in the kitchen making coffee—you can smell it from your room. It smells rich and dark and the only indication that someone else lives here. By 6:30, he's gone.

The apartment settles into silence after he leaves and that's when you emerge.

You've started setting your alarm for 6:20, giving yourself just enough time to catch him before he disappears for the day. It's a small thing, maybe pathetic, but it feels important somehow. Like if you can just see him in the mornings, if you can establish some kind of routine, maybe this can start to feel less like you're two strangers who happen to share an address.

This morning, you timed it perfectly. You come out of your room in pajamas and a cardigan, padding into the kitchen just as he's pouring his coffee into a travel mug.

He looks up when you enter and something crosses his face—surprise, maybe, or annoyance that his solitary morning routine has been interrupted.

"Good morning," you say, keeping your voice soft and non-intrusive.

"Morning." He's already turning away, putting the coffee pot back, gathering his things.

"I was thinking—" You move to the counter where his coffee maker sits. "I could make your coffee in the mornings. If you want. I noticed you take it black but I wasn't sure if you wanted anything else with it or if there's a specific way you like it prepared—"

"It's fine." He's not looking at you and is already checking his phone. "I've been making my own coffee for ten years. I don't need help with it."

"I know, I just thought—" You stop and try to regroup. "I just thought it might be nice to have it ready for you. It's a small thing but—"

"I said it's fine." His voice is sharper now and you can feel yourself shrinking already. "I don't need you to make my coffee or reorganize my routine or whatever you're trying to do here."

"I'm not trying to reorganize anything. I'm just trying to—" You don't finish because you don't know how to explain what you're trying to do. Connect, maybe? Establish some kind of normalcy? Find a way to be useful in a marriage where you feel completely useless. "I'm just trying to help."

"I don't need help." He picks up his work bag, his travel mug, his phone. "I need to get to work. I have a meeting at seven."

He walks past you without looking back and you're left standing in the kitchen with the coffee maker and your pathetic attempt at domestic contribution.

You make yourself tea instead and sit at the dining table—the one that seats eight but is only ever occupied by you, eating meals alone—and try not to feel like a failure for attempting something as simple as making coffee.

The next morning, you try something different.

You wake up earlier at 5:45 and you make breakfast. Nothing elaborate—just eggs and toast and fruit arranged on a plate the way your mother taught you. You set it at his usual spot at the counter with a napkin and utensils and you're back in your room before he emerges from the bedroom.

You wait, listening.

You hear him walk into the kitchen, hear the pause when he sees the breakfast. Hear—nothing else. No acknowledgment. No thank you. Just the sounds of him making his coffee and then the door closing behind him as he leaves.

The breakfast sits on the counter untouched.

You come out of your room after he's gone and stare at the plate you prepared. The eggs are probably cold now. The toast has lost whatever warmth it had. 

You throw it away and tell yourself it doesn't matter.

You keep trying anyway.

You can't help it because it’s what you do. You try. You look for ways to be useful, to contribute, to make this situation bearable even when he's made it clear he doesn't want you to try.

You do laundry—his shirts mixed with your clothes and you're careful with his things, checking labels and using the right settings and hanging everything properly so nothing gets damaged. You leave his clean clothes folded outside his bedroom door.

He brings them in without comment.

You grocery shop, making sure to get things he likes based on what's in the kitchen when you moved in. The expensive coffee he prefers. The specific brand of mineral water. The protein bars he keeps in the pantry.

Joshua uses them without acknowledgement.

You clean even though there's barely anything to clean because he's never here and you're just one person who doesn't take up much space. But you vacuum and dust and make sure everything is maintained because maybe if the penthouse is perfect he'll be happier to come home to it.

But he doesn't come home any earlier.

You're trying so hard to find a way to exist in this marriage that doesn't make you feel completely purposeless and every attempt is met with silence or indifference or that look he gets sometimes—like you're an inconvenience he's learned to tolerate.

A few months into living in the penthouse, you're dusting the bookshelf in the living room when you notice it.

A sketchbook. Sage green cover, worn at the edges like it's been handled frequently, tucked between two large architecture books on the top shelf. You wouldn't have seen it except you're being thorough, reaching the top shelf with the step stool from the kitchen, making sure every surface is clean even though Joshua will probably never notice.

You pull it down without thinking and it falls open in your hands.

Drawings. Architectural sketches. Beautiful, detailed renderings of buildings and spaces that don't exist. You flip through slowly, carefully, taking in each page. There are notes in the margins in handwriting you recognize as Joshua's—clean, precise, engineer-like. There are comments about materials and light and the way a space should feel.

Natural light from east, warmth in morning.

Glass and steel but softened with wood to make it human.

A place where people could think, could breathe, could be.

These aren't just technical drawings. They're thoughtful. Intentional. They show someone who thinks deeply about how spaces affect people, about what makes a building more than just structure and function.

You sit down on the couch, still flipping through the sketchbook. There are dozens of sketches. Some look old—the paper slightly yellowed, the pencil marks faded. Others look recent. There's one dated just two months ago, right before your engagement was announced to social circles.

It’s a draft of a community center sketched with open spaces and natural light and areas designed for gathering and play. It's beautiful in the way it prioritizes human connection over flash or spectacle.

You trace the lines with your finger and feel something unfamiliar bloom in your chest.

Hope, maybe.

This is who Joshua is underneath everything else, you think. Someone who wants to create spaces that matter, who thinks about how people feel in buildings. 

Someone who has dreams beyond profit margins and board meetings.

This is something you could connect with and understand. You might not know architecture formally but you know art. You know how to think about space and light and the way visual elements create emotion.

You flip to a blank page near the back of the sketchbook and before you can second-guess yourself, you start sketching.

Not a building. You don't know enough about architecture for that. But—ideas. Visual concepts. Ways to warm up the spaces he's designed. Color palettes that could make cold structures feel inviting. Small additions that could make his technical precision feel more human.

You work for an hour, lost in it in a way you haven't been since Paris. Since before everything fell apart. There's something freeing about creating again even if it's just notes in someone else's sketchbook, even if Joshua will probably never see them.

You're adding notes in the margins: suggestions about bringing in organic elements, about softening hard lines with curves, about making spaces feel lived-in rather than just functional—when you realize you've filled three pages.

You stop to look at what you've done and feel that hope flutter again.

Maybe this is how you connect with him. Maybe this is something you can contribute. You can help him see his designs differently and bring the artistic perspective he's missing. You can be useful in a way that actually matters to him.

You add one more note at the top of your first page: What if we made it ours?

Then you close the sketchbook and put it back on the shelf, carefully, exactly where you found it.

And you wait.

Joshua comes home at 11 pm.

You're still awake, sitting in the living room with a book you're pretending to read, waiting for him in a way you know is probably pathetic but you can't help. You want to see his face when he finds the sketchbook. Want to know if he'll mention it. Want to know if maybe—maybe this is the thing that finally breaks through.

He walks in and sees you on the couch and something in his expression shifts. It’s not pleasure, but more like resignation, like he'd been hoping you'd be asleep so he could avoid interacting with you.

"You're up late," he says, setting down a black folder.

"I was reading." You gesture to the book you haven't processed a single word of. "How was work?"

"Fine." He's already moving toward his bedroom, the conversation clearly over before it began.

"I was thinking—" You stand up, following him a few steps. "Maybe this weekend we could look at—"

"I'm working this weekend." He doesn't turn around, just keeps walking. "I have a presentation on Monday that needs to be finished."

"Oh. Okay. Maybe next weekend then—"

"Maybe."

He disappears into his bedroom and you're left standing in the living room feeling stupid for waiting up, stupid for hoping, stupid for thinking that anything would change just because you drew in his sketchbook.

You go to your room and try to sleep.

The explosion came two days later.

You're in the kitchen making dinner—nothing fancy, just pasta and salad but you're trying because what else are you supposed to do—when Joshua comes home earlier than usual. It's only 8 pm, which for him is practically mid-afternoon.

You hear him come in, hear him go straight to his bedroom. And then, a few minutes later, you hear his voice from his office space.

"YN."

The tone stops you cold. It's not his usual flat, tired voice. 

It's sharp. Angry.

You put down the wooden spoon you're holding and walk to his home office. It's the first time you've ever been inside this room.

He never invites you in here. In the few months you've been married, this space has remained his—locked when he's not home, closed when he is, a clear boundary that you've learned not to cross. But tonight you're crossing it anyway.

The room is all glass and metal and sharp edges, just like the rest of the penthouse. Floor-to-ceiling windows along one wall offer a view of Seoul at night, the city lights glittering below like stars brought down to earth. The other walls are white, clinical, broken up by floating shelves made of tempered glass and brushed steel that hold books arranged with precision. Architecture texts. Engineering manuals. Business theory. Everything organized by subject, then by size, then—you assume—by some system that makes sense only to Joshua.

His desk dominates the space; a massive piece of glass positioned to face the windows, so he can look out at the city while he works. The surface is immaculate. A sleek laptop sits perfectly centered. A minimalist desk lamp in matte black. A pen holder with exactly five pens, all the same brand, all black. No clutter. No personality. No evidence that a human being actually works here instead of a very efficient machine.

The chair is one of those ergonomic designs; all mesh and metal, adjustable, the kind of thing that signals this is a workspace for serious work. Not a place for art or creativity or anything as messy as feeling.

There's a large monitor mounted on the wall above the desk, currently dark. Below it, a floating shelf holds a series of awards and recognitions, all in identical frames—Employee of the Quarter, Excellence in Acquisition Strategy, Rising Star in Corporate Management. Achievements that mean something to his father, probably. Evidence of Joshua becoming exactly what he was raised to be.

There's a drafting table in the corner; sleek, modern. It's empty right now, clean, the white surface almost glowing under the lighting. You wonder if he ever actually uses it or if it's just another piece of expensive equipment that looks impressive but serves no real purpose in a life dedicated to spreadsheets and contracts instead of creation.

But it's the shelf behind his desk that catches your attention. Because there, among the business books and technical manuals, there's a small section that doesn't match. Art books—the expensive kind with glossy pages and beautiful reproductions. Books about architecture as art, not just structure. Books about design philosophy and the intersection of form and function and beauty.

And there, on a glass shelf at eye level when Joshua sits at his desk, is the sage green sketchbook.

Not hidden, exactly. But not displayed either. Just there. Within reach. Where he can see it every day when he works. The only thing in this entire sterile office that suggests Joshua is anything other than the corporate robot his father is training him to be.

He's standing by the bookshelf, holding the sage green sketchbook, and his face is—

He's furious.

"Did you touch this?" he asks but it's not really a question. It's an accusation.

Your stomach drops. "I—yes. I was dusting and I saw it and I just—"

"You just what? Decided to go through my personal things? Decided to draw on something that wasn't yours?" He's flipping through the pages you added and each turn makes his expression harder. "What the fuck were you thinking?"

"I wasn't trying to—" You're fumbling for words, for some way to explain that doesn't sound as naive as it feels now. "I saw your drawings and they were beautiful and I thought maybe I could—I thought maybe I could help—"

"Help?" He laughs and it's bitter and cutting. "You thought you could help? With what? Architecture? Something you know nothing about?"

"I know art. I know design. I thought—"

"You thought what? That some sketches from someone who studied visual arts—not architecture, not engineering, not anything actually relevant—would somehow improve work I've been developing for over a decade?" He's not yelling but his voice is getting louder and sharper with each word. "You thought that drawing some flowers and color palettes in the margins would magically make these designs better?"

"That's not what I was trying to do—" You're trying to stay calm, trying to explain, but his anger is overwhelming and you can feel yourself starting to shake. "I was just trying to add a different perspective to maybe help you see—"

"I don't need your perspective. I don't need your help. I don't need you touching my things and inserting yourself into parts of my life that have nothing to do with you." He's pacing now, the sketchbook still in his hands, and you can see how hard he's gripping it. "This is mine. These designs are mine. This is the one thing I have that's still mine and you just—you just decided you had the right to put your hands on it?"

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"

"You didn't mean to what? Invade my privacy? Touch things that weren't yours? Presume that you have any idea what you're doing?" 

Joshua’s voice is cutting and deliberate in its cruelty. He has half a mind to stop, he is acutely aware that he needs to shut up before he says something irredeemable, but his anger dominates. "You studied visual arts for three years in Paris and you think that qualifies you to comment on structural design? You think that because you can paint pretty pictures that means you understand architecture?"

"No, I just—" Your hands are shaking now, clenched at your sides so tight you can feel your nails digging into your palms. "I just wanted to do something for you… to be useful in some way. I thought—I thought maybe this was something we could share—"

"Share?" He's looking at you like you've said something incomprehensible. "Why would I want to share this with you? This is the only thing I have left that's just mine. The only thing in my life that's not about duty or obligation or doing what's expected and you just—" He gestures at the sketchbook. "You just decided it should be ours? That I should want your input on something you don't understand?"

The words are landing like blows: each one makes you smaller, makes the shaking worse, makes it harder to breathe.

"I'm sorry," you say again because there’s nothing more to say, no more fight left in you, and you hate how weak your voice sounds. You hate that you're shrinking the same way you did in Paris. You hate how you’re becoming less and less and less right in front of him. "I shouldn't have touched it. I wasn't trying to—I just wanted—"

"I don't care what you wanted." He puts the sketchbook back on the shelf roughly and when he turns back to you his expression is cold. "I care that you touched something that wasn't yours. I care that you can't seem to understand boundaries. I care that you keep trying to insert yourself into my life when I've made it very clear I don't want you to."

And as if all that wasn’t enough, Joshua just decided to keep going.

"I work in acquisitions and corporate strategy. You—what do you do, exactly? Paint in a room in this penthouse because you can't handle the idea of getting an actual job? Add notes to other people's work because you have nothing of your own to create?"

The words land like slaps. You've been trying to paint but everything comes out wrong. And maybe Joshua’s right. Maybe you're just playing at being an artist because you have nothing else: no purpose, no value beyond being the wife his father forced on him.

"I'm sorry," you whisper and you can feel the familiar tightness in your chest, the way your hands want to fidget but you keep them still because movement feels like taking up too much space and you're already too much. "I shouldn't have touched it. I just—I saw it and it was so beautiful and I wanted to be part of something you cared about. I wanted to matter to you in some way."

"You want to matter to me?" Joshua's laugh is bitter. "You matter as an obligation and as something I have to manage. You’re just another item on my endless list of responsibilities that I never asked for but have to handle anyway because that's what my father expects."

He's pacing now and the sound of his shoes on the polished concrete floor echoes sharply. Everything in this room is designed to echo, to amplify, to make sounds bounce back at you until you can't escape them. Your breathing sounds too loud. Your heartbeat sounds too loud. Your existence sounds too loud in a space that was never meant to hold more than one person.

"I wake up every morning in this house that's supposed to be my home and all I feel is trapped," Joshua continues and he's not even looking at you now, just staring out at the city lights like they hold answers you don't. "I go to work for a family business I hate, doing deals I don't care about. And I come home to you, trying so hard to make this work, trying to be part of my life, and all I want is for you to stop trying and to stop reminding me every single day that I gave up everything I wanted for a marriage I never chose."

Your vision is blurring now. You're trying so hard not to cry, trying to hold yourself together, but your hands won't stop shaking and your nails are digging deeper into your palms and you can feel something warm and wet—blood, probably, from how hard you're clenching.

"I'm sorry… I’m just really sorry—" you whisper one more time and then you turn and walk toward your room before he can see you completely break down.

And that’s when Joshua finally realizes he’s gone too far because he sees your clenched fists and how your body is trembling and how your eyes are beginning to water.

"YN—" Joshua's voice suddenly changes and you think maybe he's realized he's gone too far, but you can't—you can't stay here and listen to him backtrack or justify or do whatever he's about to do.

You make it to your room. Close the door. Press your back against it and slide down until you're sitting on the floor.

Your hands are shaking so badly you can barely unclench them. When you finally do, you see the crescents your nails have carved into your palms. Some of them are bleeding. You see small dots of red against your skin.

You curl into yourself and cry as quietly as you can. Because all you ever did was try. You tried to find something to connect with him about. You tried to be useful. You tried to contribute to his world in some small way but all it did was make Joshua angrier. All it did was prove that you don't belong here, in his house, in his life, anywhere near the things that matter to him.

You cry until you can't breathe properly, until your chest hurts, until the tears stop coming because you've run out.

And through it all, you hate yourself for trying, for hoping, for being stupid enough to think that anything you could do would make him change his mind.

Joshua stands in his home office for a long time after you disappear down the hallway. He stands there with his hands clenched at his sides and his heart pounding and that familiar feeling of self-loathing washing over him in waves.

He knows he went too far.

He saw your hands shaking. Saw the way you were clenching them so hard he could visibly see the tension in your entire body. He saw you trying desperately not to cry in front of him.

But he kept going anyway. He kept cutting, kept being cruel, kept taking out his anger and frustration and resentment on the one person who was just trying to—

To what? Help him? Connect with him? Find some way to be part of his life?

He walks to the bookshelf and pulls out the sketchbook. He opens it to the pages you added.

They're not bad.

That's the thing that makes this worse. Your additions aren't amateur or misguided or any of the things he accused you of. They're thoughtful. Artistic, yes, but in a way that complements rather than contradicts his technical work. You were suggesting ways to make his designs more human, more warm, more livable.

Exactly what they've been missing.

Exactly what he's been trying to figure out how to add but couldn't because he's so focused on structure and function that he forgets about feeling.

And he destroyed you for it.

Joshua closes the sketchbook and sits on his expensive ergonomic chair, head in his hands.

He's becoming exactly what he swore he wouldn't become. His father. Cold and cruel and using the people around him as punching bags for his own dissatisfaction.

You have been trying for weeks. He's seen it even though he's been pretending not to notice. The breakfast he doesn’t eat. The laundry you do for him. The way you time your mornings to coincide with his even though he's made it clear he doesn't want company. The small ways you have been trying to make this apartment feel less like his space and more like a space for the two of you.

And he's been rejecting and punishing you for all of it.

Joshua knows he should apologize. He needs to go to your room right now and tell you he was wrong, that you didn't deserve everything he just said, that your ideas weren't bad and he was just angry about—about everything. About this marriage and his life and the fact that you’re here as a constant reminder of everything he's lost.

But he doesn't do any of that. He just sits on his stupid ergonomic chair and hates himself while you cry alone in your room because apologizing means acknowledging what he did.

It means taking responsibility and being the person you need him to be instead of the person he actually is. And right now, Joshua doesn't know how to be that person.

The night passes in restless silence.

Joshua doesn't sleep. He just lies in his bed staring at the ceiling, replaying the fight over and over in his mind. He kept seeing your face when he was yelling at you, the way you tried to explain yourself and he wouldn't let you, just kept cutting you off with words meant to hurt. He sees your hands shaking at your sides, clenched so tight he could see the tension radiating through your entire body. He hears your voice, barely above a whisper, apologizing like you were the one who'd done something wrong when all you'd done was try to be part of his world in some small way.

Around 2 am, it starts to rain.

He can hear it hitting the floor-to-ceiling windows of the penthouse, gentle at first—just a soft patter that might almost be soothing under different circumstances. But then it comes harder, faster, until it's a full downpour that sounds like stones being thrown against the glass. Thunder rumbles in the distance and lightning flashes bright enough to illuminate his bedroom for a split second before plunging it back into darkness. It's the kind of storm that makes everything feel smaller and more claustrophobic, the kind that used to make him uneasy when he was a kid lying awake in his childhood bedroom wondering if the thunder meant something bad was coming.

He gets up and goes to his massive floor-to-celing bedroom windows, looking out at the city lights blurred and distorted by the sheets of rain running down the glass. Seoul looks different in a storm like this. It's almost beautiful in a melancholy way and it makes him think about you in your room at the end of the hall. You've always been sensitive to storms, he's noticed—not that he's paid much attention, but he's seen the way you flinch slightly when thunder crashes too close, the way you go quieter than usual when the weather turns bad.

He wonders if you're sleeping. Probably not. Probably lying awake just like him, thinking about the fight, about his words, about how thoroughly he destroyed you tonight over something as small as adding notes to a sketchbook. The thought sits heavy in his chest and he tries to push it away but it won't go. Just sits there reminding him that he's become exactly what he never wanted to be—taking out his anger on someone who doesn't deserve it, using his words like weapons against the one person who's even more trapped in this situation than he is.

Something makes him walk down the hallway toward your room. He stops outside your door and listens, standing there in the dark hallway like some kind of creep but he can't seem to make himself knock or walk away.

Silence. Complete, utter silence.

Too much silence for someone who should be sleeping or at least tossing and turning or doing something that makes the small sounds of human habitation. He knows the sounds you make—has learned them over months of living in the same space even while trying to pretend you don't exist. The rustle of sheets when you shift position. The quiet footsteps when you get up to use the bathroom. The soft sound of your breathing that sometimes carries through the walls when everything else is quiet. But there's none of that now. Just silence so complete it makes his skin crawl.

He knocks, trying to keep it gentle even though his heart is starting to beat faster. "YN?"

Nothing.

He knocks again, louder this time, and he can hear the edge of worry creeping into his own voice. "YN, I know you're probably asleep but—"

Still nothing. No response, no sound of movement, no indication that anyone is on the other side of that door.

Unease crawls up Joshua’s spine. He tries the door handle—unlocked, which is unusual because you always lock it, have locked it every night since the wedding like you need that physical barrier between you to feel safe. The door swings open easily and he flips on the light, expecting to see you curled up in bed pretending to be asleep, pretending not to hear him.

But the room is empty.

The bed is made. Everything is neat, organized, perfectly in place. You're not there. You're not in the bathroom attached to your room, not standing by the window, not anywhere in this space that's supposed to be yours.

His heart rate picks up, shifting from uneasy to genuinely worried. He moves through the penthouse quickly now, checking every room with increasing desperation. The kitchen—empty, no sign that you've been there. The living room—empty, the couch still perfectly arranged, no indication that you've been sitting there unable to sleep. His office—still locked from the inside where he left it. The second bathroom, the storage closet, everywhere he can think of.

You're not here.

He goes back to your room because maybe he missed something, maybe you're hiding somewhere or maybe this is all some kind of mistake. That's when he sees it—your phone, sitting on the nightstand where you always leave it to charge overnight, the screen dark and still plugged into the wall.

You left without your phone.

The realization hits him like a fist to the chest, knocking the air from his lungs. It's 2 am and pouring rain and you left the penthouse without your phone, which means you left in a hurry or you weren't thinking clearly or you were so upset that you didn't care about staying connected to anyone. And suddenly all he can think about is you out there somewhere in this storm, alone, upset, unreachable.

Panic hits him properly now. Where would you go? Joshua doesn't know. He doesn't know anything about your life or your preferences or the places you might seek comfort when you're hurt. He's spent ten months married to you and he can't name a single place you might run to when you need to feel safe. The realization of how little he actually knows you—how little he's bothered to know you—suddenly makes him feel sick.

He should call Jeonghan. Maybe call Seungcheol. He should call someone who might actually know where you'd go, who might have some insight into how your mind works when you're in pain. But that means admitting that he lost you, that he drove you out of your own home in the middle of the night during a storm. That means explaining what happened, what he said, how thoroughly he hurt you over something so small. That means facing the fact that he's the reason you're out there somewhere, cold and wet and alone.

He stands in your empty room trying to think, trying to push past the panic and the guilt and actually use his brain. Where would you go? You don't have friends in Seoul—not really, not anymore, not after you came back from Paris so broken that you couldn't seem to rebuild the connections you used to have. Your parents live across the city and you wouldn't go to them because they're part of the reason you're in this marriage in the first place. Jeonghan is the obvious choice but his place is far and you don't have your phone to call him and the last person Joshua honestly wants to involve is your protective brother.

But he knows—or at least he thinks he knows—the bookstore. The bookstore where you first met, where you had that brief conversation about devastating books and handling devastation before everything turned into this nightmare. It's close to the Han River, isn't it? Near the park where people go to walk and think and be alone with their thoughts. It's not much of a lead, barely anything at all really, but it's all he has. It's the only place he can think of that might mean something to you.

Joshua grabs his keys and his jacket and runs out the door.

The rain is coming down in sheets by the time he gets out of his car.

He's soaked within seconds of leaving the covered entrance, rain plastering his hair to his head and running down his face, his clothes clinging to his skin and his shoes squelching with every step. But he doesn't care. He just runs, his jacket pulled tight even though it's already useless against this kind of downpour, heading in the direction of the bookstore and the river beyond it.

The streets are mostly empty at this hour. Joshua scans every person he passes even though most of them are just blurry shapes huddled under umbrellas or running for cover. His heart is pounding hard enough that he can feel it in his throat and his breath is coming in gasps that have nothing to do with the physical exertion of running and everything to do with the fear that's gripping his chest like a vice.

What if he can't find you? What if something happened to you? What if you're hurt somewhere, or sick, or—the thoughts spiral faster than he can control them. What if this is the moment when his cruelty finally pushes you past what you can survive? 

The bookstore is closed when he reaches it. He runs past it toward the river, his eyes scanning the darkness, looking for any sign of movement or shelter or a person-shaped shadow that might be you. The park area near the river has some covered walkways and overhangs where people sometimes sit, and he heads for those, hope and fear warring in his chest.

And then he sees you.

A figure huddled against a wall near the river, partially sheltered by a concrete overhang but still exposed enough that the rain is hitting you in sheets whenever the wind shifts. Even from a distance he can see that you're soaking wet, curled into yourself in a way that makes you look small, your whole body shaking with either cold or crying or both.

"YN!" He's running before he consciously decides to move, his feet carrying him forward on pure instinct.

You don't look up. You don't seem to hear him over the sound of the rain hammering on the concrete and whatever thoughts are consuming you so completely that the outside world has ceased to exist.

He reaches you and drops to his knees in front of you, rain pouring over both of you, "YN. YN, look at me."

You finally raise your head and his chest tightens at what he sees. Your face is wet with rain and tears, it’s impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins, and your eyes are red and swollen from crying. Your whole body is shaking so violently he can see it even in the dim light from the distant street lamps and you're wearing just a t-shirt and sweatpants—nothing waterproof, nothing warm, clothes that are now plastered to your skin and probably doing more harm than good. You must have been out here for hours, maybe since right after the fight, just sitting in the rain and the cold and your own misery.

"What are you doing?" His voice comes out harsher than he intends, sharp and demanding, because fear is making him angry and he doesn't know how else to process the terror of finding you like this. "It's 2 am. You're soaking wet. You don't have your phone. What—"

You don't answer. Just look at him with those empty eyes for a moment before looking away again, curling back into yourself like you're trying to disappear, like you're trying to make yourself small enough that maybe the world will stop noticing you exist.

Something in Joshua's chest cracks open at the sight of it—at how broken you look, at how completely he's hurt you, at the fact that you've been out here alone in a storm because being cold and wet and miserable felt better than being in the same house as him.

He reaches out and cups your face with both hands, making you look at him even though you clearly don't want to, even though your eyes keep trying to slide away to focus on something else. Your skin is cold under his palms and you're shaking so badly he can feel it vibrating through his hands, your whole body trembling with a violence that suggests you're well past the point where your body can regulate its own temperature. Your breathing is erratic, coming in short shallow gasps like you can't quite catch your breath, like you've been crying so hard for so long that your body has forgotten the normal rhythm of breathing.

"You're freezing," he says and his voice is different now, gentler but still edged with fear. "How long have you been out here?"

You don't answer.

"Come on." He pulls off his jacket—it's already soaked through and probably useless but it's better than nothing and drapes it over your shoulders. "We need to get you home. You need to get warm and dry. Come on, YN. Stand up."

You're still not moving, not responding, just shaking and staring and breathing too fast like you're on the verge of hyperventilating. Your hands are clenched in your lap, he notices your fingers digging into your palms hard enough that he wonders if you're hurting yourself, if you've been sitting here doing that for hours as some kind of physical anchor to keep yourself from completely falling apart.

Something in Joshua breaks completely at the realization. All the anger, all the resentment, all the careful walls he's built up over months of hating this marriage—it all just cracks and falls away, leaving nothing but this: the knowledge that he did this to you, that his cruelty drove you to this, that you're sitting in the rain because he made you feel like you had nowhere else to go.

He slides his arms under you and lifts you up in one smooth motion. You're lighter than you should be and the realization hits him with another jolt of concern. Have you been eating? Have you been taking care of yourself at all or have you been slowly disappearing while he was too consumed with his own misery to notice?

You don't protest being picked up. You don't do anything except curl into him slightly, instinctively seeking warmth even while your mind is clearly somewhere else entirely.

He carries you all the way back to the car and you don't speak once. Joshua holds you carefully, trying to keep you as sheltered from the rain as possible even though you're both already drenched and he walks as quickly as he can without jostling you too much. Every step feels weighted with the knowledge of what he's done, of how close he came to losing you to the rain and the cold and your own despair.

You don't acknowledge him when you get back to the penthouse.

He sets you down carefully in the entryway, half-expecting you to say something or at least look at him, but you just stand there dripping water onto the floor, staring at nothing. Your eyes are unfocused, distant, like you're not really here at all.

"YN." He tries to catch your eyes, to bring you back to the present, but you won't look at him. Won't focus on anything. "You need to get out of these wet clothes. You need to—"

Without a word, you walk past him toward your room. He watches you go, watches the way you're still shaking even though you're out of the rain now. The door to your room closes behind you with a quiet click that somehow feels louder than if you'd slammed it.

Joshua stands in the entryway, soaking wet himself, water pooling around his feet, and tries to figure out what to do. He should probably check on you, make sure you're actually changing into dry clothes and not just sitting in your room in wet clothes because you're too far gone to care. But he also knows that you need space right now and that his presence is probably the last thing you want.

He changes quickly in his own room, his hands still shaking slightly from the adrenaline and fear that's coursing through his system. Even now, safe in his penthouse with you just down the hall, he can't quite shake the image of you in the rain, can't stop seeing the emptiness in your eyes when you looked at him.

Then he goes to the kitchen and starts making soup, moving on autopilot because he needs to do something, needs to feel useful in some way after being so thoroughly useless in every other way that matters. He finds himself pulling out ingredients, heating a pot, falling into the familiar rhythm of chopping vegetables and measuring broth and adjusting the heat to get everything just right.

Joshua hasn't cooked in months. Maybe longer. The kitchen has always been more your territory since you moved in, even though you barely use it, even though most nights you eat alone because he's working late or avoiding you or just can't bear to sit across a table and pretend to be a couple. But his hands remember the motions anyway—the muscle memory of someone who learned to cook not out of necessity but because he genuinely enjoyed it once, back before his life became nothing but spreadsheets and contracts and disappointed expectations.

This is who Joshua is underneath everything else, he thinks as he stirs the pot and watches the vegetables soften in the broth. Someone who cooks. Someone who cares about nourishing people. Someone who knows how to be gentle and careful and patient when he's not too consumed with his own anger to remember. Or at least, this is who he used to be, back before his father's expectations and his own resentment turned him into someone he barely recognizes.

He makes a simple soup—chicken and vegetables. He pours it into a bowl, sets it on a tray with a glass of water and a spoon and carries it carefully down the hall to your room.

He knocks softly, trying not to startle you. "YN?"

No answer.

He waits a moment, listening for any sound of movement inside, then opens the door anyway because he needs to make sure you're okay, needs to see that you're at least taking care of yourself in the most basic ways.

You're sitting on the edge of your bed, changed into dry clothes at least—soft pajamas that look warm and comfortable—with a towel wrapped around your shoulders. But you're still shaking, your whole body trembling with fine tremors that suggest your core temperature still hasn't recovered from being out in the cold for so long. Your hair is damp and tangled, hanging in wet strands around your face and you're staring at the floor with that same distant expression you've had since he found you, like you're not quite here, like part of you is still out there in the rain.

"I made you soup," Joshua says and his voice comes out quieter than he intended, gentler, like he's afraid of startling you with loud sounds. "You need to eat something. You need to warm up."

You don't look at him. Don't acknowledge that he's there at all. Just keep staring at the floor.

He sets the tray on your nightstand and kneels in front of you, positioning himself in your line of sight so you can't avoid seeing him even if you're trying to. "YN. Please. You need to eat."

"You don't have to do this." Your voice is so quiet he almost doesn't hear it, barely more than a whisper. "You don't have to pretend to care. I know you don't want me here. I know—" Your voice breaks on the last word. "I know I'm just making everything harder for you. So you don't have to do this. You don't have to force yourself to be kind when we both know you don't want to be."

Each word is an echo of everything he said to you tonight, everything he's been saying to you for months through his actions if not his words. You're just repeating back the message he's been sending and hearing it in your broken voice makes him realize how cruel he's been, how thoroughly he's failed at even the most basic requirements of being a decent human being.

"I'm not forcing myself," he says and he's surprised to realize it's true. Standing here looking at you shivering and exhausted and so clearly hurting, he doesn't feel resentment or obligation. Just concern. Just the desperate need to make sure you're okay, to fix what he broke, to somehow undo the damage he's done. "I'm not—" He stops, searching for the right words. "I was worried when I realized you weren't here. I was—I was terrified something had happened to you."

"Why?" 

"Because—" He doesn't know how to answer that in a way that will make sense, in a way that won't sound like a lie or an excuse or just more manipulation. Because you're my wife doesn't feel true when he's spent weeks treating you like an unwanted roommate. Because I'm supposed to care feels hollow and obligatory. "Because I do. I know I've been—I know I've been terrible to you. I know I don't deserve for you to believe anything I say right now. But I do care. And I was terrified when I couldn't find you."

You're quiet for a long moment, studying his face like you're trying to figure out if he's lying, trying to determine if this sudden concern is real or just another performance designed to make himself feel better about his cruelty.

"You're running a fever," he says, reaching up to touch your forehead. You flinch slightly at the contact but don't pull away completely and he can feel the heat radiating from your skin. You're burning up now, your body temperature swinging wildly from too cold to too hot as your system tries to recover from the shock of being exposed to the elements for hours. "You need to eat and take medicine and rest."

"I don't—" you start, but he interrupts gently.

"Please." He picks up the bowl of soup from the tray and holds it out to you with both hands, offering it like a peace offering, like an apology made tangible. "Please just—eat something. For me. Even if you're angry at me. Even if you hate me right now. Please just take care of yourself."

You look at the soup, then at him, and something in your expression cracks slightly—not quite softening but some of the emptiness receding enough that he can see the person underneath the devastation.

"You cooked this," you say, and it's not quite a question, more like an observation that surprises you.

"Yes."

"You know how to cook."

"Yes." He manages something that might almost be a smile, though it feels wrong on his face right now, inappropriate given everything that's happened. "I know how to do things other than work and be angry. I just—I haven't been doing those things lately."

You take the bowl from him with shaking hands, your fingers trembling so badly that the soup sloshes slightly against the sides. You lift it to your lips and take a small sip and he watches your eyes close briefly as the warmth hits your system. When you open them again, they're slightly less empty, like the simple act of consuming something warm and nourishing has brought you back to your body a little bit.

"It's good," you say quietly and take another sip, this one slightly steadier than the first.

Joshua stands up and goes to your closet, pulling out one of the thick blankets he's seen folded on the shelf there. He comes back and drapes it carefully around your shoulders, being careful not to startle you, not to get too close or make you feel crowded. You're wrapped up now, cocooned in layers of warmth—the towel, the blanket, the hot soup in your hands—and some of the violent shaking is starting to ease into smaller tremors.

"There's medicine in the bathroom," he says, already moving toward it. "Fever reducers. I'll get them. You keep eating."

He brings back the medicine and more water, setting them on the nightstand and watching as you take the pills obediently, mechanically. You're eating the soup in small careful sips and he can see color starting to return to your face.

"Thank you," you whisper and the words are so quiet he almost misses them.

"Just rest," he says quietly and his voice sounds hollow even to his own ears. "Sleep. I'll—I'll check on you in the morning."

He walks toward the door, trying not to look back, trying not to see the exhaustion written in every line of your body. But he pauses with his hand on the doorknob, unable to leave without saying something, without acknowledging what happened tonight even though he doesn't have the words to make it right.

"I'm sorry," he says and it comes out rough, inadequate. "For tonight. For what I said. For—" He stops because there's too much to apologize for, too many ways he's failed you. "Just—please rest. Please take care of yourself."

He doesn't wait for a response. Just leaves, closing the door behind him and leaning against it in the hallway, listening to make sure you're okay. He hears you set down the bowl with a quiet clink. 

And then, quiet. Just the sound of rain still falling outside and his own breathing in the dark hallway and the knowledge that he came so close to losing you tonight.

Joshua goes to his own room but he doesn't sleep. He thinks about how he's the reason you look like that—empty and broken and like you're barely holding yourself together. He thinks about how he needs to be better, needs to change, needs to find some way to be the person you deserve instead of the person he's become.

But he doesn't know if he can. Doesn't know if he's capable of being anything other than what his father made him—angry and resentful and taking it out on whoever's nearest. He doesn't know if wanting to be better is enough when everything in his life has taught him that wanting things doesn't mean you get to have them.

He lies there in the dark and listens to the rain and thinks about tomorrow, when he'll have to face you again, when he'll have to see the evidence of what he did written in your eyes. And he doesn't know what he's going to say or how he's going to fix this or if there's any way back from the damage he's done.

All he knows is that finding you in the rain tonight, seeing you that broken and lost and alone, did something to him. It cracked something open that he'd been keeping carefully locked away. He doesn't know what to do with that crack.

But lying here in the dark he knows one thing for certain: he can't keep doing this. He can't keep taking out his anger at his father and his life and his lack of choices on the one person who has even less choice than he does.

Maybe he wants to be the person who takes care of you instead of the person who drives you out into storms. Maybe he wants to be better than the person he's been for the past month, better than the person his father raised him to be, better than the person who destroyed you on your wedding night because he couldn't handle his own feelings.

Joshua doesn't know if he can be that person because he doesn't have any evidence that he's capable of sustained kindness or patience or any of the things that make a marriage work. He doesn't know if wanting to be better is enough when his track record suggests otherwise.

But for the first time since this marriage started, he thinks he might want to try. Not just survive or endure or go through the motions until one of you breaks completely. He wants to actually try to be someone worth being married to. It's not much. It's barely a beginning. But it's something. And right now, in this penthouse where you’re both still learning how to exist in the same space, something is all you both have.

EPILOGUE

You sit on the edge of your bed staring at your hands.

The bleeding has mostly stopped, just small crescents of red where your nails dug in too deep, but they sting when you flex your fingers. You can still hear Joshua's voice echoing in your head—exhausting, invasive, too much—and the penthouse feels too small suddenly, the walls pressing in from all sides.

You need to talk to someone. Anyone. Someone who can tell you that you're not crazy, that trying to connect with your husband through his work wasn't some terrible violation, that you're allowed to exist in your own home without apologizing for it.

Your phone is right there on the nightstand.

You pick it up and call Jeonghan first because he's always been the one you call when things fall apart. The phone rings once, twice, three times, and then goes to voicemail. His voice, cheerful and recorded, telling you to leave a message. You hang up without saying anything because what would you even say? That your husband hates you? That you're sitting in your room bleeding and trying not to cry? That you don't know how to survive this marriage?

You try Wonwoo next. Same thing—ringing, ringing, recorded voice that says the call cannot be connected. He's probably asleep. Normal people are asleep at this hour. Normal people aren't sitting alone in the dark trying to figure out how their life became this.

You even try Sooyoung, which is stupid because she's in Paris and it's the middle of the afternoon there and she's probably at work or out living her life but you try anyway because you're desperate and running out of options. It rings and rings and goes to voicemail in French, her bright voice telling you she'll call you back.

No one answers.

You're alone.

The realization sits heavy in your chest, making it hard to breathe. You set the phone down and stand up because sitting still is making it worse. You need to move. You need to do something with your body because your mind is going places that scare you.

You don't think about where you're going when you leave the penthouse. You just start walking.

The streets are empty and wet, rain falling steadily now, soaking through your t-shirt within minutes. But you don't stop because stopping means standing still and standing still means thinking and thinking means remembering Paris.

This is what you did that night too. The night you found him with her. You walked. Walked through Paris in the rain at midnight because being wet and cold felt better than being in that apartment with the evidence of your failure. You walked along the Seine until your feet hurt, until you couldn't cry anymore, until the sun started to come up and you realized you'd been walking for hours without knowing where you were going.

Your body remembers even if your mind is trying not to. The rhythm of it—left foot, right foot, breathe, don't think, just move. The rain on your face could be tears or could be weather. The way walking makes everything feel slightly less impossible because at least you're doing something, going somewhere, even if that somewhere is nowhere.

You end up at the Han River without planning to. Maybe because rivers meant something in Paris. Maybe because water is water and your body just knows to seek it out when everything is too much.

You find an overhang—concrete and cold but at least partially sheltered from the rain—and you sit down with your back against the wall. You're soaking wet. Your hands are shaking and you can't tell if it's from the cold or from something else.

That's when it hits you.

The panic attack comes fast and hard, like it's been waiting for you to stop moving so it could pounce. Your chest gets tight, so tight you can't breathe properly, can't get enough air no matter how hard you try. Your hands start tingling, going numb, and your vision narrows until all you can see is a small tunnel of light surrounded by darkness.

You're dying. You must be dying. This is what dying feels like.

You pull your knees up to your chest and press your back harder against the wall, trying to ground yourself in something solid but the world feels like it's tilting sideways and your heart is beating so fast it hurts and you can't breathe, can't breathe, can't—

Breathe.

You force air into your lungs. Out. In. Out. Your hands are clenched so tight your nails are cutting into your palms again, the same wounds reopening, but the pain helps somehow. It gives you something to focus on that isn't the feeling of your chest crushing itself.

Slowly—so slowly—the panic starts to recede. Your vision widens. Your breathing evens out. The tingling in your hands fades to just shaking, which is better, which is manageable.

You slump against the wall, exhausted, and that's when you realize it's raining harder now. You should go home. Should get out of the rain. Should do a lot of things.

But you don't move.

You just sit there against the wall, shaking and soaked and empty, and you don't know how long you stay like that. Minutes. Hours. Time stops meaning anything when you're this cold, this tired, this far past the point where your body can tell you what it needs.

You think about Joshua. About his face when he was yelling. About the sketchbook and your notes and how you genuinely thought you were helping. About how stupid you were to think you could matter to him.

You think about Paris. About your ex. About how he said loving you was exhausting too. About how maybe everyone is right. Maybe you are too much. Maybe the problem isn't them—it's you.

You think about your parents forcing you into this marriage. About how you said yes because you were too tired to fight. About how you've spent months trying to make it work and all you've accomplished is making Joshua hate you more.

You think about the penthouse. About going back there. About facing Joshua in the morning. About the years and years of this stretching ahead of you—being unwanted, being resented, being too much and not enough all at the same time.

You think about nothing.

You think about everything.

You sit in the rain and shake and cry and somewhere in there you stop being a person with thoughts and just become a body that's cold and wet and waiting.

Waiting for what, you don't know.

Maybe for someone to find you.

Maybe for the rain to stop.

Maybe for your life to make sense again.

Maybe for nothing at all.

hi there, are we still okay? i hope you are, thanks for making it this far <3 i'll see you with chapter 3 soon!

[hanniejoo]

twice fallen (chapter 1.2)

💛 taglist here 💛

pairing: joshua x (f) reader

summary: the nightmare always ends at 3:47 AM: someone's hand in yours, a desperate voice, but you don't know who it belongs to. everyone thinks you're better off not knowing what happened. but your apartment has two sinks, books marked with someone else's initials, and a locked door no one will explain.

then you meet joshua hong—a stranger at a bookstore who feels impossibly familiar. he has a kind face. you tell him so. he flinches like you've struck him. because you said those words to him once before, in a marriage you don't remember, in two years everyone wants you to forget. now he's back in your life as a stranger—kind, patient, everything he never was before.

and he has to decide: tell you the truth and lose you again, or stay silent and fall in love with his own wife for the second time.

genre: estranged spouses, second chance romance, amnesia, memory loss, strangers to lovers (again), emotional hurt/comfort, heavy angst, slow burn, angst with an eventual happy ending, star-crossed lovers

additional tags & warnings: emotionally repressed joshua, traumatized yn, childhood friends, lies and secrets, recovering from trauma (physical and emotional), depression, parallel narratives, an unreliable narrator because yn lost her memory

word count: 24,529

a/n: find chapter 1.1 here!

Before you can respond, there's a small, excited gasp from behind you.

"Teacher YN!"

You turn and a little girl is standing a few feet away, her eyes huge behind pink glasses, tiny hands clasped in front of her like she's afraid if she moves too fast you'll disappear.

"Teacher YN, you came back!"

Your heart recognizes her before your mind fully processes. "Mina!"

You drop to your knees and open your arms and she crashes into you with the full force of a seven-year-old who's been waiting months for this moment.

"You're here!" she says into your shoulder. "You're really here! I asked Ms. Park every week and she kept saying 'soon' and I thought maybe you forgot about us—"

"I didn't forget." You pull back to look at her. "I could never forget you. I'm sorry I was gone so long. I was—" You pause, trying to find words a seven-year-old will understand. "I was sick. But I'm better now."

"Are you all the way better?" She looks at you with such serious concern. "Because you should only come back if you're all the way better. Ms. Park says we have to take care of ourselves first before we can take care of other people."

"Ms. Park is very smart." You tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. "I'm better enough. And I missed all of you."

"I missed you more." She says it with absolute conviction. "I read six whole books while you were gone. Six!"

"I'm so proud of you!" You make an exaggerated explosion gesture that makes her giggle. "Six books! That's incredible! Were they good books?"

"Most of them. One was boring but I finished it anyway because you always say we should give books a chance."

"I do say that, don’t I?" You grin. "Which one was boring?"

"The one about the boy who wanted a dog but his parents said no so he pretended his stuffed animal was a real dog." She makes a face. "It was sad. I didn't like it."

"That does sound sad."

"But then—" She brightens. "But then his parents surprised him with a real dog at the end! So it was okay. But I still didn't like the middle part."

"The middle part is often the hardest," you say solemnly.

Mina nods like this is the wisest thing she's ever heard, then seems to notice Joshua for the first time. Her smile falters. She moves slightly behind you, one hand gripping your sleeve.

"Mina," you say gently, including Joshua in the conversation. "This is Joshua. He's going to be volunteering here too. Is that okay?"

Mina peers at him with open suspicion. "Is he nice?"

You glance at Joshua. He's kneeling now too, making himself smaller, less threatening. There's something achingly careful about the way he's positioning himself—like he knows exactly how to approach a scared child.

"I think so," you say and you mean it. "He has a kind face."

The words are barely out of your mouth when Joshua flinches.

It's tiny—just a slight tightening around his eyes, a quick inhale like you've hurt him somehow—but you see it.

"Did I—" You start to ask but he's already smoothing his expression back into something neutral.

"Hi, Mina," he says and his voice is so gentle it makes your chest hurt. "I like your glasses. Are those dragons on the sides?"

Mina touches the small dragon stickers on her frames. "Yes. I like dragons."

"Me too. What's your favorite kind?"

She considers this very seriously. "The ones that breathe fire but are actually nice. Not the mean ones."

"Those are the best kind," Joshua agrees.

"Exactly!" Mina seems to warm to him slightly. "They're very good friends if you're nice to them."

"That's a good way to put it."

"Do you like stories?" Mina asks, still slightly wary of Joshua but curious now.

"I love stories."

"What's your favorite?"

Joshua thinks for a moment and you watch something painful cross his face before he answers. "I'm not sure I have one yet. Maybe you can help me find it?"

Mina considers this. Then, with the gravity of a judge rendering a verdict: "Okay. But if you're mean to Teacher YN, I'll tell Ms. Park."

"Mina!" You try to sound stern but you're fighting a smile.

She looks at you with complete seriousness. "I'm protecting you. That's what friends do. And you said we should protect the people we love."

Your throat goes tight. "I did say that,” you respond, but you’re not sure if you really did say such a thing.

"So I'm saying it back." She crosses her arms. "Teacher YN is my favorite and nobody's allowed to be mean to her."

Joshua's expression does something complicated—pride and pain and something that looks like he might break anytime soon.

"I won't be mean to her," he says and there's something in his voice that sounds like a vow. "I promise."

Mina studies him for a long moment before nodding decisively. "Okay. You can stay."

She takes your hand and starts pulling you toward the reading corner, already chattering about a book she wants you to read to her, something about a fox who learns to share.

You glance back at Joshua once.

He's still kneeling on the floor, watching you walk away with Mina, and his expression is something you can't name. But it looks like watching something you've lost.

The session begins in earnest.

More children arrive: ages five to ten, most of them regulars, a few new faces. Ms. Park does a quick introduction of the new volunteers and you watch Joshua get assigned to a small group in the corner.

You're with Mina and two other girls, reading a story about a bear who learns that being different is okay. But you keep glancing over at Joshua's corner.

He's good with them.

Better than good—he's natural in a way that surprises you. He’s patient when kids interrupt with questions. He’s encouraging when they struggle with words. He makes silly voices for characters that make them giggle. When one boy gets frustrated with a difficult word, Joshua doesn't jump in to fix it—he just waits, lets the silence sit, until the boy works it out himself.

And then Joshua smiles—proud and warm—and you see the boy light up.

You turn back to your own group but you're acutely aware of Joshua across the room. You’re aware of the way he reads with expression, the way he listens when kids talk, the way he seems to see them in a way that feels important.

Halfway through the session, there's a small crisis.

A boy—maybe six, new to the program—gets overwhelmed. Too many people, too much noise, too much everything. He starts crying that particular kind of crying that's edging toward panic.

You're there without thinking.

"Hey," you say, kneeling beside him, voice low and calm. "Hey, it's okay. You're okay. Too much?"

He nods, still crying.

"Do you want to go to the quiet corner?"

Another nod.

You take his hand and guide him to the little corner with the beanbag chairs, away from the noise. 

"Sometimes everything is just too much," you say quietly. "That's okay. That happens."

He hiccups and wipes his nose on his sleeve. "The other kids will think I'm a baby."

"The other kids won't think anything except that you need a break. Everyone needs breaks sometimes."

"Even adults?"

"Especially adults,” you affirm. "Adults are just better at hiding when they need breaks. But we need them too. All the time."

He considers this, then: "Do you need breaks?"

"Yeah," you say honestly. "I need them a lot."

"Why?"

"Sometimes the world is really loud and really bright and I get tired." You lean back against the beanbag, making yourself comfortable, showing him it's okay to just be here. "So I take breaks. I sit in quiet places. I let myself feel too much for a little while and then I feel better."

"Does it work?"

"Sometimes." You look at him. "Sometimes I just feel tired. But that's okay too. Tired is better than too much."

He nods like this makes sense and you see his breathing start to even out. The panic is fading from his eyes.

You sit with him for a few more minutes until he's ready to go back to his reading group. When you walk him back, he's calmer.

As you turn to head back to your own group, you catch Joshua watching you.

He's not even pretending not to be. He's just staring with that expression you can’t name. 

You walk over to him. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I should ask you the same thing," his voice is soft. "You were—that was really good, what you did and how you handled that."

"I just sat with him."

"You made him feel like needing help was okay.”

You don't know what to say to that. You don't know how to respond to this stranger's words that feel like it's meant for someone else so you just nod and return to Mina's group.

But you can feel Joshua's eyes on you for the rest of the session and when you catch him looking—which happens at least three more times—he doesn't look away.

He just holds your gaze with an expression that says I see you.

And for reasons you can't explain, that doesn't feel frightening.

It feels like coming home.

The session winds down.

Children get picked up by parents or caretakers, the space gradually emptying until it's just you and Joshua and Ms. Park cleaning up. Putting books back on shelves, straightening chairs, wiping down tables covered in crayon marks.

"You were wonderful," Ms. Park says to Joshua as she's gathering her things. "Both of you. The children loved you."

"They're easy to love," Joshua says, and glances at you. "Good teachers help too."

"YN is the best." Ms. Park beams at you. "We're so lucky to have her back. I hope this means you'll both be coming regularly? Do Thursdays work for you?"

"Thursday afternoons are perfect," Joshua says.

"YN?"

You surprise yourself by how quickly you answer: "Yes. I'll be here. Thursdays."

"Wonderful!" Ms. Park is already heading toward her office. "I'll put you both on the schedule. Same time next week!"

She disappears, leaving you and Joshua alone in the children's section.

The silence is different now. It’s less careful. More… something. You're not sure what.

"So," you say. "Thursday afternoons."

"Thursday afternoons," he repeats. His hands are in his pockets and he's looking at you with that expression that makes you feel like you're something precious. "You were—" He stops. "You were really in your element today with the kids. The books. All of it."

"It felt good," you admit. "I feel good being here. I didn't realize how much I needed this."

"It shows." His voice is soft. "You lit up. I could—" He stops. "I could see you being really happy.”

You look at him; at this man named Joshua who talks about regret and transformation, who's good with children and patient with frustration, who looks at you like you're both a miracle and a wound.

"Joshua," you say carefully. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"Earlier, when I said you had a kind face, you—you looked like I'd hurt you somehow. I’m sorry if I was too imposing."

He's quiet for a long moment and you watch him choosing his words with such care it's almost painful.

"You don’t have to apologize for that." he says finally. "It's just—" He stops. "Someone told me that once a long time ago. I didn't deserve them saying it because I wasn't kind. I was—" He stops. "I was a lot of things but kind wasn't one of them."

"How about now?"

"Now I'm trying to be." He looks at you directly. "I'm trying very hard to be the person people think I am when they say things like that. To be someone who deserves—" He stops. "To be someone who deserves to be around good people. Like you."

The words settle between you, weighted with something you don't understand.

"I think trying counts for everything."

He's staring at you like you've given him something he didn't know he needed.

"Thank you," he says. "For today and for showing me how to do this. It was also nice to see you be happy. You deserve good days." 

"So do you."

"Maybe." He doesn't sound convinced. "I'm working on it."

You want to ask him what he did that makes him think he doesn't deserve good days. You want to ask about the person he used to be versus who he's trying to be. You want to ask why he looks at you like he's mourning something.

But Mina appears at your elbow, coat on, backpack ready.

"Teacher YN, my dad's here." She hugs you around the waist. "You'll be here next week?"

"I'll be here," you promise.

"You promise-promise?"

"Promise-promise."

She grins, then looks at Joshua. "You too, Teacher Joshua?"

"Me too," he says. "I'll be here."

She nods. "Okay. Bye!"

She runs off toward the entrance where a man is waiting, waving at you as she goes.

You and Joshua stand in the quiet center, surrounded by children's books and tiny chairs and the lingering smell of cookies.

"I should go," you say.

"Yeah." He doesn't move. "See you next Thursday?"

"Next Thursday."

You gather your things and head toward the exit but at the door you turn back.

Joshua is still standing in the children's section, his hands in pockets, watching you leave with an expression that looks like he's memorizing you.

"Joshua?" you call out.

"Yeah?"

"Thank you. For being good with the kids." You pause. "They need people who are patient and kind and actually see them. You did that today."

He looks like you've broken something in him.

"Thank you," he says, and his voice is wrecked. "That means a lot."

You nod and leave and try not to think about why your heart feels lighter than it has in months. You try not to think about why a stranger named Joshua makes you feel seen in ways no one has in a long time.

And you definitely try not to think about how, for two hours today, you felt like yourself again.

Seungcheol's apartment is quiet when Joshua arrives.

Not late—it’s barely 9 pm—but it feels later. Everything feels later now. It’s like he's living on borrowed time.

Seungcheol opens the door, takes one look at Joshua's face, and steps aside without a word.

They end up in the living room. Seungcheol pours two glasses of whiskey and hands one to Joshua before sitting on the opposite end of the couch.

"Tell me," Seungcheol says simply.

Joshua takes a drink first. Long, burning, not enough to blur the edges but enough to make talking easier.

"She was there," he says finally. "At the volunteer center. Ms. Park had her give me orientation. So she showed me around."

"Fuck."

"Yeah."

They sit in that for a moment.

"She doesn't remember you," Seungcheol says. Not a question.

"No." Joshua stares at his glass. "She looked at me like I was just some guy she met at a bookstore. Someone—" He stops. "Someone she might want to know."

"Joshua—"

"She was happy, Cheol." The words come out rough. "With the kids. Teaching me about the books. Talking about the students. She was—" He stops and when he continues his voice is thick. "She was who she used to be. Before Paris. Before me. Before I—" He can't finish.

Joshua takes another drink. "I got to see it. Who she was. Who she's becoming again now that… now that she's free of me."

Seungcheol is quiet for a long moment.

"Was it hard?" he asks finally. "Pretending not to know her?"

Joshua chuckles, broken. "It was the hardest thing I've ever done. She kept talking to me like I was someone worth talking to. Like I was someone kind. She said I have a kind face, Cheol. Again. She said the same thing she said at that gala and I—" His voice breaks. "I almost broke down right there in front of the children."

Cheol concentrates on his glass, moving his wrist in circular motion, watching the liquid stir.

"I made her life so miserable that she stopped doing the things she loved. She used to volunteer and then she just stopped. And I never asked why. Never even noticed." He sets down his glass before he breaks it. "And today I got to see her being alive again and it was everything I took from her."

Seungcheol leans forward, elbows on his knees. "You're torturing yourself."

"I deserve it." Joshua looks at Seungcheol and his eyes are too bright. "Don't I?"

"But you're different now," Seungcheol says carefully. "You've changed."

"Have I?" Joshua's laugh is bitter. "Or am I just pretending? Maybe playing the role of the reformed man? Volunteering with kids and reading the right books and saying the right things?"

"You're not pretending. I've known you your whole life, man. You've changed."

"But it's too late." Joshua looks at him. "That's the part you're not saying. I've changed but it's too late. She's healing without me. She's becoming herself again. And I'm just hovering. Trying to be near her without her knowing who I am because if she knew, she'd run. She'd never speak to me again. I wouldn't blame her."

They sit in silence for a while. The whiskey burns. The apartment is too quiet.

"What are you going to do?" Seungcheol asks finally.

"I don't know." Joshua's voice is hollow. "Go back next Thursday. And the Thursday after. And keep going until—" He takes a deep breath before speaking again. "Until she finds out. Or until I can't take it anymore. Whichever comes first."

"That's not sustainable."

"I know."

"You're going to break."

"I know that too."

Seungcheol pours them both another drink.

"For what it's worth," he says quietly, "I do think you've changed. I think the person she met today—the one who was patient with kids and kind to her—that's real. That's who you are now."

"But it's not who I was." Joshua takes the refilled glass. "When she remembers… when she finds out, that's all she'll see. Who I was, not who I'm trying to be."

"Maybe." Seungcheol looks at him. "Or maybe she'll see both. And maybe that'll matter."

"It won't matter." Joshua says it with certainty. "It shouldn't. I don't deserve her forgiveness. I don't deserve to be around her at all. But I'm selfish enough to take what I can get."

"It will end badly."

"I know."

They drink in silence.

The city lights filter through the window, painting everything in shades of amber and shadow.

Joshua thinks about you—about the way you lit up talking about books, about how you knelt beside that crying child, about how you looked at him with trust in your eyes, like he was someone worth knowing.

He thinks about Thursday afternoons stretching ahead like a countdown. He thinks about how every moment he gets with you is stolen time.

He thinks about how, when this all falls apart, the memory of today will hurt worse than anything else. Because today you were happy. Today you smiled at him. Today you looked at him like he was kind and he'll have to carry the knowledge that he had. He once had your smile, your trust, your happiness, and it was all built on the foundation of the worst thing he ever did.

It’s always like that when the nightmare stops. You gasp as you sit upright, eyes a little too wild, your breathing a bit heavier.

And then there’s just nothing.

You're sitting on the kitchen floor now. You don't remember sitting down. Don't remember your legs giving out. But you're on the floor with the sketchbook open in your lap (you can’t remember when you pulled it out of the shelf again), staring at your own handwriting documenting a life you don't remember.

A life that looks—

The word comes without permission: lonely.

You were lonely. You were going to therapy. You were lying to your mother. You were trying to remember not to ask someone named J about work because it irritated them.

You were—

You were miserable and everyone knew.

Your phone is in your hand. You stare at it for a long moment, thumbs hovering over the keyboard.

You should text Jeonghan. Maybe Wonwoo. You should demand answers right now, this moment, before you lose your nerve.

But something stops you. Fear, maybe. Or the bone-deep exhaustion of someone who's spent eleven months being told they're too fragile for the truth.

What if you ask and they still won't tell you? What if you push and they push back and you break completely? What if you're not strong enough to hear it?

You set the phone down without typing anything. You sit on your kitchen floor as the sun starts to rise, painting the apartment in shades of grey and gold, and you make a decision:

You'll wait.

You'll watch.

You'll wat and see if anyone slips. See if anyone tells you the truth without you having to beg for it.

You'll be strong enough because you have to be. Even if right now, sitting here with evidence of something you don't remember, you feel like the weakest person alive.

The next few days, you don't investigate. You tell yourself you're not avoiding the truth. You're just being careful, smart. You’re not pushing before you're ready.

But really, you're terrified, so you just…notice things. Little things you've walked past for eleven months without seeing.

The bathroom has two sinks. You've always only used one. But the other has a water spot, like someone used it regularly once. Like it was theirs.

The closet in the bedroom is organized by color on your side, but the other side—the empty side—still has the rod positioned lower. It looked like it was set for someone taller. 

In the kitchen, there's a coffee mug in the back of the cabinet. It’s dark grey, simple, larger than yours. Masculine. You've never used it. Never thought about it. But it's there, pushed behind your mugs like someone wanted it out of sight but couldn't quite bring themselves to throw it away.

You don't touch any of these things.

You just notice them and each observation sits in your chest like a stone and it’s getting heavier.

The dreams continue. Every night, it’s the same nightmare. But each time, slightly different details:

The way his hand felt in yours—callused, warm, familiar.

The particular timbre of his voice when he shouted your name—rough with emotion.

The sound of his breathing right before impact—fast, panicked, like he knew what was coming and couldn't stop it.

You wake up at 3:47 am every night.

Sometimes crying. Sometimes gasping. Sometimes just staring at the ceiling, feeling the phantom weight of someone's hand in yours.

You don't tell anyone. Not Jeonghan when he comes over with dinner and asks if you're sleeping better. Not Wonwoo when he texts to check in. Not Sooyoung when she video calls from her hotel and studies your face with open concern.

You just say: "I'm okay. Same as always. The dreams are manageable."

And everyone believes you because you've gotten so good at lying. You're still doing it. Still lying to protect people from your truth, still making yourself small and manageable and fine.

It's been five days since you found the sketchbook.

Jeonghan comes over like always, arms full of groceries, already talking about what he's making for dinner. You help him cook by chopping vegetables while he handles the stove and it feels so normal it almost hurts.

You're setting the table when the question comes out.

"Jeonghan?"

"Mm?" He's plating the food, his back facing you as he moves around the kitchen with fluidity and ease.

"Did I used to date anyone? During that time I can't remember?"

His hands go completely still.

You watch it happen: the way the serving spoon freezes mid-scoop, the way his shoulders tense, the way he doesn't turn around for three full seconds.

When he does turn, his face is carefully neutral.

"Why do you ask?" His voice is measured. Maybe too measured.

"I just—" You shrug, trying to seem casual even though your heart is hammering. "I was thinking about it. About those two years. And I realized—I don't know if I dated anyone. If there was someone. It just occurred to me that I don't know."

Jeonghan sets down the spoon very carefully.

"You didn't really date," he says slowly. "After Paris. You were—you were taking time for yourself."

"For two whole years?"

"You were going through things." He picks up the plates, brings them to the table. "It wasn't really the time for relationships."

It's not a lie, exactly. But it's not the truth either.

You can hear the space around his words. 

"Okay," you say, and sit down.

"That’s it?" He's watching you too closely.

"Yeah." You pick up your chopsticks. "I was just curious."

Jeonghan doesn't believe you. You can see it in his face. But he sits down across from you and you eat dinner in a silence that feels different from usual.

"Yonggam-ie." He sets down his chopsticks halfway through the meal. "Is everything okay? You seem—I don't know. Different."

"I'm fine."

"You keep saying that."

"Because I am."

"Is it?" His eyes are searching your face. "Because you don’t look like it. I’m your brother, YN, you can’t really hide these kinds of things from me.”

You want to ask him. You want to put the sketchbook on the table between you and ask him to explain every entry. You badly want to ask Jeonghan about J and the locked room and why everyone has been lying to you for eleven months.

But something in his expression stops you.

It’s fear.

He's afraid of what you might ask. Which means he's afraid of what he might have to answer.

"I'm okay," you say instead. "Really. Just tired. The dreams have been worse this week."

"Worse how?"

"Just…more detailed. More specific." You pick at your food. "But it's fine. It'll pass."

He doesn't look convinced but he lets it go.

You finish dinner. He does the dishes while you pretend to watch TV. He hugs you goodbye and tells you to call if you need anything, even if it's the middle of the night, and you promise you will even though you won't.

And then he's gone.

You stand at the window and watch him get in his car and you see it: the way he sits there for a full minute before driving away. You watch until his car disappears around the corner.

SAME NIGHT - 3:47 AM

Joshua wakes to his phone buzzing on the nightstand.

No—not buzzing. His alarm isn't set. No one and nothing is calling.

He just…woke up.

At exactly 3:47 AM according to the blue-lit numbers on his clock.

His chest is tight. His breathing is uneven. Sweat cooling on his skin even though his apartment is cold.

The nightmare.

He's had it every night for a year but this time was different. More vivid. 

He could feel the steering wheel under his hands, smell the leather of the seats and your perfume—something light and floral you used to wear. He could feel the weight of the ring on his finger, the one he wore back then and hated but never took off anyway.

He could hear himself shouting at you.

"Are you out of your goddamn mind?"

The last thing he'd said before the truck hit. The last words you'd heard from him as yourself from two years ago, as the YN who remembered him, and he was angry and cruel and the worst possible thing to have as a final memory.

He sits up, running both hands through his hair, trying to breathe through the panic.

In the dream, he'd tried to take it back. He tried to reach for your hand to tell you he didn't mean it, tried to say I love you before impact.

But he hadn't.

In reality, he'd said those words after. When you were unconscious and bleeding and couldn't hear him. When it was too late for them to matter.

In the dream, you looked at him just for a second, right before the truck hit.

And your eyes had been so hurt.

Joshua gets out of bed because lying there is impossible.

He goes to the kitchen and pours himself a glass of water he doesn't drink. He stands at the floor-to-celing windows looking out at the city—dark and glittering and completely indifferent to his suffering.

He shouldn't do this.

He knows he shouldn't do this.

But his hand is already reaching for his phone.

Opening voicemail.

Scrolling to the folder labeled "Saved Messages."

There are forty-three voicemails in this folder. Forty-three messages that you left him during the marriage that he'd been too angry or too busy or too deliberately cruel to answer, but that he'd saved anyway. He doesn't know why he'd saved them. Maybe some part of him knew—even then—that he'd want them later. That he'd need proof of what he'd done. That he'd need to hear your voice saying things he'd never listened to properly the first time.

He shouldn't listen to them. He's promised himself a hundred times he won't listen to them anymore.

But he listens anyway.

The First Message

[YN's voice, from two years ago, during their marriage]

"Hi, it's me. I know you said you'd be late tonight but I made dinner anyway. It's your favorite—the stew your mom taught me. I'll keep it warm. Just…let me know when you're coming home. Or if you're not. That's fine too. I just—I'd like to know. Okay. Um. See you later. Or not. Whatever works."

The message ends.

Joshua sits on his couch in the dark, phone pressed to his ear, and remembers that night.

He'd come home at midnight. The stew had been dried out on the stove, ruined from hours of staying warm. You’d fallen asleep on the couch waiting.

He'd woken you up by accident. You smiled—that careful, hopeful smile—and asked if he wanted you to reheat it.

He'd said he already ate.

He hadn't. He just didn't want to sit across from you and pretend.

You nodded and went to bed without saying anything else.

He plays the next message.

The Second Message

[YN's voice, quieter this time]

"Hey. I'm at the doctor's office. They said everything's fine—just a regular checkup. But they asked if I had someone to list as an emergency contact and I realized I uh, I don't know your office number. Or…I mean, I have your cell, but you don't always answer during the day, so I thought maybe I should have your assistant's number? Or…sorry. This is stupid. I'm rambling. I'll just—I'll put Jeonghan. That's fine. Anyway, I'll see you tonight. If you're not too late."

Joshua has to set down the phone for a moment because his hand is shaking.

He remembers that text. You had mentioned the doctor's appointment. He'd been in a meeting and hadn't responded.

You never asked for his office information again.

He picks up the phone and plays the next one.

The Third Message

[YN's voice and now there's something different in it]

"I know you're angry. I don't—I don't know what I did, but I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. Whatever it was, I didn't mean to—"

A pause. He can hear you breathing and trying to compose yourself.

"I just want us to talk, even if you're mad. Even if—even if you want to yell. That's okay. The silence is worse. Please. Just—"

Another pause. Longer.

"Never mind. Sorry. I'm sorry for calling so much. I'll stop. I promise. I'll—I'll see you at home. Or not. Whatever you want."

The message ends.

Joshua has to set the phone down again.

This time, he put his head in his hands.

That fight. He doesn't even remember what it was about. It was something small, probably something stupid. He'd given you the silent treatment for three days.

You tiptoed around the penthouse like a ghost, trying to anticipate what he needed, trying to make yourself smaller, trying to not be a problem.

And you left this message. You were apologizing for something you hadn't done, begging him to just talk to you.

And he hadn't. He'd let you sit in that silence until you learned not to push. Until you learned that asking for his attention was a mistake.

He should stop.

He should delete these messages like Seungcheol has been telling him to for months.

But he picks up the phone and plays another one.

The Fourth Message

[YN's voice and this time it's so small he can barely hear it]

"I made breakfast. Your favorite. The French toast with the—"

You stop. 

"I'll leave it on the counter in case you want it before you go. Or—"

A sound. Maybe a laugh. Maybe a sob.

"I don't know why I'm calling. You're right there. In your office with the door closed. And I'm out here calling your phone because I don't know how else to—"

She stops completely.

The message ends.

Joshua sets the phone down very carefully.

He presses his fists against his eyes until he sees stars, trying to fight back tears.

He remembers that morning.

Seven AM on a Tuesday. You made French toast—his favorite, the one he mentioned liking exactly once at a gathering with his friends and you remembered. He'd been in his home office, door closed, on a call that could have waited.

You called his phone from the kitchen twenty feet away because you couldn't reach him any other way.

He'd seen the missed call later. He ignored it and went to work. 

He didn’t eat the french toast and he had left for work without saying goodbye.

You stood in that kitchen alone. You did a lot for him even though he'd given you absolutely nothing in return. You kept trying even though he'd made it clear that you trying was an inconvenience.

Joshua looks at his phone. He looks at the folder with forty-three voicemails.

Forty-three pieces of evidence of who you were during their marriage. Forty-three pieces of evidence of who he'd made you become.

And he never listened. Not really. Not when it mattered.

He's listening now. When it's too late. When you don’t even remember leaving these messages. When he's lost you so completely.

He should delete those messages and move forward instead of living in the past. 

But Joshua opens the next message instead because this is his penance.

Because he deserves to hear every moment he failed you.

Because maybe if he listens enough, if he sits with the full weight of what he did, he'll finally understand how to be better. He’ll learn how to be the person you need and deserve. 

If he listens enough, maybe he’ll understand how to be someone worthy of a second chance he knows he'll never get.

Wonwoo arrives at Jeonghan's apartment twenty minutes after the call.

He doesn't knock. Jeonghan left the door unlocked and when Wonwoo walks in he finds him sitting on the couch with his head in his hands, still wearing his coat like he hasn't moved since he got home from your place.

"How bad?" Wonwoo asks, closing the door behind him.

Jeonghan looks up. His face is drawn, exhausted in a way that has nothing to do with the late hour.

"She asked if she dated anyone," he says. "During the missing time. She just asked because she was curious."

"Fuck." Wonwoo sits in the chair across from him. "What did you say?"

"That she didn't really date and was taking time off after Paris." Jeonghan runs both hands through his hair. "Which is technically true, but—"

"But it's not the truth."

"No. It’s not."

They sit in that for a moment.

Jeonghan’s apartment—small, neat, full of books and the particular quiet of someone who lives alone by choice—feels too small for the weight of this conversation.

"She knows something," Jeonghan says finally. "I don't know what, but she knows something. She was watching me, Wonwoo. She looked at me like she was waiting for me to slip. She looked like she already had the answer and was just seeing if I'd tell her the truth."

"Did you?"

"No." Jeonghan's voice cracks. "No, I lied to her face. Again."

Wonwoo leans forward, elbows on his knees. "Maybe it's time."

"Time for what?"

"To tell her."

"No—"

"Jeonghan." Wonwoo's voice is firm. "She's asking questions. She's clearly found something or remembered something or put together enough pieces that she's starting to see the shape of it. If we don't tell her now—if we wait until she figures it out on her own—"

"She'll hate us," Jeonghan finishes quietly. "She'll hate all of us for lying."

"Yes."

"But if we tell her now, it'll break her." Jeonghan looks at him with desperate eyes. "You didn't see her right after the accident. Wonwoo, she was—" He stops. "She was barely there. She was barely holding on. And the doctors said the memory loss might be protective. That her brain might have decided forgetting was safer than remembering. If we force her to remember before she's ready—"

"Before she's ready, or before you're ready?"

The question lands on Jeonghan like a slap. He flinches. "That's not fair."

"Isn't it?" Wonwoo's voice is gentle but relentless. "Be honest with me. Are you protecting her? Or are you protecting yourself from having to watch her go through that pain again?"

"Both." Jeonghan's voice breaks. "I'm protecting both of us. Is that so wrong? I watched my sister try so hard for two years. Watched her go to therapy and lie to our parents and apologize for things that weren't her fault. And I didn't stop any of it. I didn't protect her. I just watched."

"You didn't know how bad it was—"

"I knew enough." Jeonghan stands, feeling too agitated to sit. "I knew she was unhappy. I knew he was—" He stops, changes direction. "I knew it wasn't good. And I told myself it was complicated. That marriage is supposed to be hard. I told myself all of that instead of just protecting her like I should have."

"So you're protecting her now," Wonwoo says quietly. "By lying to her. By deciding what she can and can't handle. By treating her like she's too fragile for her own life."

"She is fragile—"

"She's not!" Wonwoo's voice rises. He realizes so he controls it. "She's not fragile. She's traumatized.”

"What do you want me to say?" he asks quietly. "That I'm scared? Fine. I'm terrified. I'm terrified of telling her and watching her break all over again. I'm terrified she'll hate me for keeping this from her. I'm terrified she'll remember everything and it'll destroy the fragile peace she's built. I'm terrified of all of it."

Wonwoo's voice softens. "But Jeonghan—she's asking questions. She's not going to stop. And when she finds out—and she will find out—the longer we've lied, the worse it'll be."

"I know that too."

They sit in silence for a moment.

"Tell me what you're really afraid of," Wonwoo says. "Not the surface fear. The real one."

Jeonghan is quiet for a long time.

"I'm afraid she'll remember," he says finally, so quiet Wonwoo has to lean forward to hear. "I'm afraid she'll remember everything—the wedding, the marriage, all of it—and she'll realize she wasted two years of her life on someone who didn't love her the way she deserved. I'm afraid she'll remember how lonely she was. How she kept trying and trying and it was never enough." His voice breaks. "I'm afraid she'll remember the person she was during that time and hate her. Because I already hate that version of her. The one who apologized for existing. This is going to sound so morbid but I'm so fucking grateful the accident took those memories because at least now she doesn't have to carry them. At least now she can be—"

"Who she was before," Wonwoo finishes.

"Yes."

"But Jeonghan—" Wonwoo stands, crosses to him. "Those memories are hers. That pain is hers. That version of herself—the one who tried so hard and kept going even when it hurt—that's hers too. Taking that away from her because you can't stand to see her hurt isn't protection."

Jeonghan's voice is wrecked. "I know you're right but I can't be the one to give her that pain. I can't sit her down and tell her she spent two years being miserable and watch her face when she realizes it was her choice to walk into that marriage and stay even when it was killing her."

"She didn't choose to be treated that way—"

"But she chose to stay." Jeonghan looks at him, his eyes bright. "That's the part I can't take. It’s the part that kills me. She could have left but she kept thinking if she just loved him enough, tried hard enough, was good enough—he'd finally see her." His voice breaks completely. "And he never did. Not until it was too late. Not until she was already gone."

Wonwoo is quiet for a long moment.

"That's not the whole story," he says finally.

"What do you mean?"

"You're remembering the worst of it. But there were good moments too. In the beginning. Times when she was happy. Times when she thought it might work."

"That makes it worse," Jeonghan says. "That makes it so much worse because it means she had hope. And then he spent two years deliberately destroying that hope until there was nothing left."

Wonwoo moves to the kitchen, pours two glasses of water they both need, comes back and hands one to Jeonghan.

"I'm not saying we tell her everything at once," Wonwoo says carefully. "I'm not saying we should sit her down tomorrow and unload two years of memories on her. But Jeonghan—we have to start and give her something because she's asking questions and we're running out of ways to dodge them."

"What do we tell her?" Jeonghan's voice is hollow. "Where do we even start?"

"We start with the truth that she was married. That's—that's the foundation. We tell her there was someone."

"And if she asks who?"

"We tell her."

"And if she asks what happened?"

"We tell her what we know. What we saw. We let her decide how much she wants to hear."

Jeonghan shakes his head. "She'll want to know everything. You know her. Once she starts asking, she won't stop until she has the full picture."

"Then we give her the full picture." Wonwoo's voice is firm. "It's her life, Jeonghan. Her pain. Her story. We don't get to decide how much of it she can handle."

Jeonghan closes his eyes. "I can't do it alone."

"You won't have to." Wonwoo squeezes his shoulder. "We'll do it together. You, me. We'll tell her together. That way neither of us has to carry it alone."

"When?"

"Soon." Wonwoo pulls back, sits on the arm of the couch. "We give her a few days. Let her ask her questions. See what else she figures out on her own. And then—" He stops. "And then we sit her down and we tell her. Before she has to piece it together from scraps. Especially before she finds out from someone else."

"Someone else?" Jeonghan looks at him sharply. "Who?"

Wonwoo is quiet for a moment.

"I don't know," he says finally. "But he's out there. We’ve always known that. If she runs into him before we tell her—"

"No." Jeonghan's voice is sharp. "No, he wouldn't—he promised to stay away. He promised—"

"He's been going to that bookstore," Wonwoo says quietly. "Seungcheol told me. He's been there for months. Just…existing in her orbit. Waiting."

"For what?"

"For her to come back." Wonwoo looks at Jeonghan. "And she did. Last week. She went to that bookstore and—"

"And what?"

"I don't know." Wonwoo's voice is careful. "I don't know if they ran into each other or talked. But Jeonghan—the volunteer center. She went back to the volunteer center."

Jeonghan goes very still.

"No," he says.

"She told you that herself, didn't she? Thursday afternoon. She went back."

"But he's not—he wouldn't—"

"Seungcheol mentioned something about him wanting to volunteer. About trying to—" Wonwoo stops. "About trying to be better."

"Fuck." Jeonghan sits down heavily. "Fuck. He's there. He's at the center with her."

"We don't know that yet."

"But we don't know he's not." Jeonghan looks at Wonwoo with panic in his eyes. "What if she's seeing him every week? What if they're becoming friends again and she doesn't know who he is and he's not telling her?"

“We’re getting ahead of ourselves.”

"This is bad." Jeonghan stands again and starts pacing. "This is really bad. If she's spending time with him—if she's getting attached—and then she finds out—"

They look at each other.

"We have to tell her," Jeonghan says. "Soon. Before—" He stops. "Before she falls for him again. Before he has a chance to—to rewrite their history. To make her think he was always this person instead of who he actually was."

"Do you think that's what he's doing?" Wonwoo asks. "Purposely trying to make her fall for him again?"

"I don't know." Jeonghan's voice is strained. "I don't know what he's doing. But I know he's selfish enough to take what he wants even when he doesn't deserve it."

"How long?" Wonwoo asks finally. "How long do we give her before we tell her?"

"A week," Jeonghan says. "One week. We let her ask her questions. We watch. We see if she figures it out on her own. And then—" He stops. "And then we tell her everything. No more protection. No more lies. We give her the truth and we let her decide what to do with it."

"Agreed." Wonwoo stands. "And Jeonghan?"

"Yeah?"

"When we tell her—we have to tell her all of it. Not just the marriage. Not just that it was bad. We have to tell her about the accident and about who was driving. We have to tell her about what happened right before."

Jeonghan's face goes pale. "She'll never forgive him."

"Maybe not." Wonwoo's voice is gentle. "But she deserves to know anyway."

"She deserves so much more than this," Jeonghan says quietly. "She deserves a life where she doesn't have to carry any of this. Where she can just—be happy. Without all this weight."

"I know." Wonwoo moves toward the door. "But we don't get to decide what she carries. We just get to decide whether we're honest about what we're asking her to pick up."

A little while later, Wonwoo has left and Jeonghan sits alone in his apartment, looking at his phone where your text from earlier still glows:

Thanks for dinner. I'm okay. Really.

The lie is right there. In your words. In the space between what you’re saying and what you’re asking.

And pretty soon, he's going to have to look you, his one and only sister, his yonggam-ie, in the eye and tell you that everyone you loves has been lying to you for eleven months about the worst thing that ever happened to you.

He puts his head in his hands and tries to figure out how to do that without destroying you both.p

[hanniejoo]

twice fallen (chapter 2.1)

💛 taglist here 💛

pairing: joshua x (f) reader

summary: the nightmare always ends at 3:47 AM. your apartment has two sinks, books marked with someone else's initials, and a locked door no one will explain. then you meet joshua hong—a stranger at a bookstore who feels impossibly familiar. you tell him he has a kind face. he flinches like you've struck him. because you said those words to him once before, in a marriage you don't remember. now he has to decide: tell you the truth and lose you again, or stay silent and fall in love with his own wife for the second time.

genre: arranged marriage, forced proximity, marriage of convenience, estranged spouses, second chance romance, amnesia, memory loss, strangers to lovers (again), emotional hurt/comfort, heavy angst, slow burn, did i mention heavy angst? have i emphasized it enough?

additional tags & warnings: emotionally repressed and angry joshua, traumatized yn, depression, panic attacks, verbal cruelty, self-harm (specifically nail-digging, drawing blood because of it), trauma responses, dissociation, emotional neglect, toxic communication patterns, intense marital conflict, infidelity (but it isn't between joshua and yn), parental control/manipulation, family expectations, grief, joshua is a workaholic, joshua and yn have abandonment issues, sacrifice, dreams deferred

word count: almost 37k

a/n: hi!! did you see the changes in the tags? they're very different from chapter 1 so please please please read them before diving in. tread carefully and most of all, please take care of yourselves. i know the tags feel so bleak (maybe even scary) but i promise, they're there because the intensity of the angst and emotional content in this chapter merits such warnings.

chapter 2 and 3 (coming soon!) are purely flashbacks because for me as a writer, i like building on context and delving into character studies. these flashbacks are important because people have reasons for their actions and behaviors, whether or not they're aware of the why. i sincerely hope you don't completely hate joshua because i'm trying my best to redeem him in later chapters ^^

also a little psa for anyone who has already read chapter 1: there's a part somewhere in the fic that mentions a planner; i totally scrapped that! we now focus on a sage green sketchbook and chapter 1 has been edited accordingly. i mention this because that darn sketchbook is a very important element in the story.

the hurt is heavy in this chapter, but this is a hurt/comfort story with an eventual happy ending and i need you to trust me on that. so if you're ready, then this story is yours. 🩷

sending love to my taglist 💐 @deathby-lost @chocolate-cake-enthusiast @severeanxietyissues @seoulaki

The apartment in Le Marais is small and beautiful and full of light.

It's also full of his things.

You stand in the doorway—your doorway, to the apartment you share, have shared for five years—and you can't move. Can't breathe. Can't process what you're seeing.

Your boyfriend of five years is on the couch.

He's not alone.

The woman is someone you know. Not well—she's in the program with you, second year, always friendly. She'd complimented your work last week at the gallery showing. She called it "refreshingly earnest." You'd thanked her, feeling pleased that someone noticed the sincerity you'd poured into those pieces.

You'd even told him about it later over dinner. How nice it was to be seen, to have your work appreciated. He'd barely looked up from his phone.

Now she's kissing him.

Your him.

The man you've loved since you were twenty-two, since that study abroad program in your third year of university when he'd sat next to you in art history and made you laugh during a lecture on Baroque ceiling paintings. You'd whispered something about the angels looking constipated and he'd laughed so hard the professor had glared at both of you.

That was the first time someone had laughed at your jokes like they were actually funny instead of just humoring you.

Five years ago.

Five years of your life.

They break apart when they hear the door.

His face does something—shock, then guilt, then something worse.

Annoyance.

Annoyance like you've interrupted something. Like you're the inconvenience in this scenario, not the person whose entire world just rearranged itself without your permission.

"YN—" he starts.

You hold up a hand. You can't—you can't hear his voice right now. You can't hear him say your name like that: like an apology he doesn't mean, like a problem he needs to solve.

"I'm going to leave," you say. Your voice sounds strange and distant. Like it's coming from somewhere outside your body, from some version of you that knows how to handle this when you don't. "I'll come back later for my things."

"YN, wait—"

But you're already turning, already walking away. You find yourself walking down the four flights of stairs in the building where you've lived for five years, out onto Rue des Rosiers where the afternoon sun is too bright, too warm, too completely wrong for this moment.

You walk.

Through Marais with its boutiques and cafés and couples holding hands. Past the falafel place where you used to get lunch every Tuesday. Past the vintage bookstore where you'd spent hours browsing, where he'd complain about being bored but you'd insist on just five more minutes that always turned into thirty.

You'd always been like that: enthusiastic and intense about the things you loved. You’ve always been unable to contain your excitement about a good book or a beautiful painting or the way light hit the Seine at sunset. Your friends used to lovingly  tease you about it. They called you their sunshine friend. The one who found joy in small things. The one who made everything feel like an adventure.

He'd loved that about you once. Or said he did.

You cross Pont Marie where tourists take photos of Notre-Dame. Into the Latin Quarter where students younger than you laugh over cheap wine at sidewalk tables. Your phone rings and rings in your bag. You don't answer because you don’t know what you'd say if you did. By the time you stop walking, the sun is setting and you're sitting on a bench in Jardin du Luxembourg, in a corner you've never been to, watching strangers live their uncomplicated lives.

A little girl runs past, maybe six years old, chasing pigeons with pure joy. She’s laughing so hard she can barely run. Her mother watches from another bench, smiling.

You used to be like that. Not chasing pigeons but having that same uncomplicated joy about things and that same ability to find delight in the world.

You remember your first week in Paris five years ago. Everything had felt magical. The bread, the architecture, the way people lived. You'd walk these same streets with wonder, stopping every few feet to take photos, to point things out, to laugh at your terrible French.

He'd been charmed by it then. By your enthusiasm. By the way you'd drag him to every museum, every gallery, every tiny café you'd read about. By the way you'd talk too loud in your excitement and gesture with your hands and get so absorbed in a painting you'd forget he was there.

When did that change? When did your excitement become "too much"? When did your intensity become "exhausting"? When did you become something to tolerate instead of something to love?

You sit there as the light changes and as the park empties.

Five years. Just… gone. The words he's said over the past months assemble themselves into a pattern you now realize:

"Do we have to go to another gallery? We just went to one last week."

"Can you please just relax for once? Not everything has to be an experience."

"You're so intense about everything. It's exhausting."

"Why do you care so much? It's just a movie. It's just dinner. It's just—everything with you is just SO MUCH."

You'd tried to be less. Tried to tone it down, dim your brightness, contain your enthusiasm like it was something embarrassing instead of something essential. Tried to be the version of yourself he could tolerate.

Apparently even that wasn't enough.

The park lights come on. You pull out your phone. Thirty-two missed calls. Dozens of messages. All from him. You don't read them.

You scroll to Jeonghan's name instead. Your older brother. Your person. The one who's known you since you were born, who taught you to ride a bike, who called you "sunshine" before anyone else did because you were always, inexplicably, happy.

Your thumbs hover over the keyboard.

You want to type: I think something's wrong with me.

You want to type: Why am I never enough?

You want to type: When did I become too much?

Instead you type: Can I come home? I don't want to be in Paris anymore.

Send.

The response comes immediately: Of course. You know I’m always waiting for you. Are you okay?

You stare at the question and you don't know how to answer it. Again.

You don't know how to explain to your brother that five years just ended on a Tuesday afternoon. You don’t know how to tell Jeonghan that you walked in and saw something you can't unsee, that you feel like you've been carved hollow.

Type: I'll tell you when I see you.

Send.

Wait.

Okay. But are you safe? 

I am.

Let me know your flight details. I'll pick you up.

You book the earliest flight you could manage.

You sit on the bench until the park closes and until park security gently tells you it's time to leave.

You have nowhere to go except back to the apartment that isn't yours anymore.

You go back to the apartment at midnight.

Stand outside the door for a full five minutes before you can make yourself use your key. Your hand hovers over the lock and you think about just leaving. Getting a hotel. Buying new things. Never setting foot in this space again.

But that feels like running and you're so tired of doing that so you unlock the door.

The apartment is dark. Empty. He's not here.

Of course he's not here. You didn't really expect him to be. Some part of you knew he'd give you space—not out of kindness but out of cowardice. Because facing you means facing what he did, and that's never been his strong suit.

You flip on the lights and the apartment looks exactly the same as it did this afternoon. Like nothing happened. Like you didn't walk in and see your entire life rearrange itself into something unrecognizable.

So you start packing.

Five years of life in Paris and it turns out it fits into two suitcases and a carry-on when you're only taking what was always just yours. You pack methodically, without thinking too much about any individual item. The dresses from the marché aux puces. The sweaters from that boutique on the 6th. The coat Jeonghan sent you last winter. Your art supplies—sketchbooks and watercolors and pastels that have stained your fingers a dozen different colors. Your books, some from Wonwoo and the others collected from bouquinistes along the Seine over three years of weekends.

You leave behind the furniture you bought together. The dishes you spent an entire Saturday choosing at the flea market. The prints on the walls you'd hung so carefully to make sure the apartment felt like home.

You leave behind everything that was "ours" because there's no ours anymore. You're in the bedroom, almost finished, when you hear the door open.

Your hands still on the shirt you're folding. You hear his footsteps in the living room—familiar, the way you've learned to recognize them over five years of shared space. The way he walks when he's tired, when he's coming home late, when he's trying to be quiet and thinks you're asleep.

Then his voice, cautious and uncertain: "YN?"

You don't answer. Just keep folding. He appears in the bedroom doorway. You can feel him there even though you're not looking at him. You can feel him taking in the scene—the suitcases, the empty drawers, the systematic dismantling of the life you'd built together.

"You're leaving," he says. Not a question.

There's just silence. You finish folding the shirt and place it carefully in your suitcase. Then you reach for the next one.

"Just like that?"

You look at him then. Really look at him. He's still in the same clothes from earlier—jeans and the blue shirt you always said looked good on him. His hair is messy like he's been running his hands through it. He looks tired and uncomfortable and like he wishes he were anywhere else.

You keep your face neutral. Your voice is steady when you speak. "What did you expect? That I'd stay?"

He shifts his weight, crosses his arms. The defensive posture you've seen a hundred times when he doesn't want to talk about something. "I thought we'd talk about this."

"There's nothing to talk about." You go back to your packing. It's easier to look at your clothes than at him. Easier to keep your hands busy so they don't shake. "I saw what I saw. It's over."

"YN, come on." His voice takes on that reasonable tone, the one he uses when he thinks you're being dramatic. "It wasn't—it didn't mean anything. It was just—"

"I don't care what it was." You cut him off, still not looking at him. You try to keep your hands steady as you fold another shirt. It's almost impressive how steady they are. "I don't need explanations."

"You don't care?" He sounds almost offended now, like you're the one being unreasonable here. "We've been together for five years and you don't care?"

"I care that it happened." You're surprised by how even and controlled your voice is. "But I don't care why."

He makes a frustrated sound and steps into the room. You can see him in your peripheral vision, pacing slightly, that nervous energy he gets when conversations aren't going the way he wants them to. "You're being dramatic."

The word lands but you don't let it show on your face. You've gotten good at that over the past few months—not showing things on your face. "Okay."

"I mean it. You're making this into something bigger than it is. It was one mistake. And you're just—you're throwing away five years without even trying to work through it."

You zip up one suitcase, pull the other one closer. Start filling it with books. "How long?"

"What?"

"How long has it been going on?" You're still not looking at him. You just keep your eyes on the books in your hands. There's a pause. Just long enough that you know he's deciding whether to lie. You can practically hear him weighing his options, calculating what will cause less damage. Finally: "A few months. But it's not serious. It's just—she's easy, you know? Uncomplicated. It doesn't mean anything."

Easy. Uncomplicated. The words settle over you like a blanket. You nod slowly. "Okay."

"Okay?" He sounds confused now, almost frustrated by your lack of reaction. "That's it? You're not going to yell? Cry? You're just—okay?"

"Would that make you feel better?" You glance at him finally. He's standing near the door, arms still crossed, looking at you like you're a puzzle he can't solve. "Would crying change anything?"

"I don't—no, but—" He runs his hand through his hair, that gesture you used to find endearing. "I don't understand why you're being so cold about this. Five years, YN. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"It meant everything to me." You go back to your packing. The books are almost done. Then just your toiletries and you can leave. "But right now I'm just trying to get through this conversation and leave. That's all I can handle."

"See?" His voice rises slightly, frustration bleeding through more clearly now. "This is what I'm talking about. You do this thing where you just shut down. You make everything so difficult by refusing to react like a normal person. It's exhausting trying to get any kind of emotion out of you."

You pause, your hand on a book before looking at him fully. "I'm making this difficult?"

"Yes!" He's gesturing now in a way you haven't seen him in months. Apparently your calm is finally breaking through whatever guilt he was feeling, letting his own frustration take over. "You won't even fight with me about this. You're just packing and acting like none of this matters. You’re acting like five years means nothing."

"Fighting won't change what you did." You say it simply.

He laughs, but it's not a happy sound. It's sharp and bitter and feeds into something he's clearly been thinking for a while. "This is exactly what I mean. Everything with you is so calculated and controlled. There's no spontaneity anymore. No lightness. Even when you should be angry—when you have every right to be angry—you're just cold. It's like nothing touches you anymore."

The irony of this would be funny if you had any humor left. He's upset that you're not giving him the dramatic confrontation he apparently needs. That you're not performing your heartbreak in a way he can understand and feel appropriately guilty about. "Would you prefer if I threw things? Screamed at you? Would that make this easier?"

"I'd prefer if you acted like you actually cared!" His voice is louder now. He's fully committed to his frustration, to making this somehow about your failings instead of his. "I want to know that this actually affects you instead of just being another thing you're calmly managing."

You close the suitcase and stand up straight. You look at him directly and you can feel how carefully you're holding yourself. You can feel how much energy it's taking to keep your voice level, your face neutral, your entire body from just collapsing under the weight of this. "I did care. I cared so much. But I'm done caring now. I'm done with this relationship and this city and this version of myself that tried to be whatever you needed and still wasn't enough."

"You're running away." He says it like an accusation.

You pick up your carry-on, check that you have everything you need. Wallet. Passport. Phone. 

He's staring at you now like he doesn't know you. "What happened to you? You used to be so alive. So passionate about everything. You'd get excited about a painting or a book or just the light hitting a building the right way. Now you're just—you're going through motions. You're like a different person."

Maybe you are a different person. Maybe the girl who got excited about things learned that excitement is exhausting to other people. That caring too much is a burden. That being passionate means being too much. 

"I grew up."

"No." He shakes his head. "You just don’t want to try anymore."

You head toward the door. He follows you into the living room, still talking, still trying to get some kind of reaction that makes sense to him. "YN, wait. We need to talk about the lease. About our things. About how we're going to—"

"Email me." You're at the door now, your hand on the handle. "About the logistics. The lease, whatever needs to be divided. I don't need anything except what I packed."

"But—"

"Please box up anything else that's mine. I'll arrange to have it shipped." Your hand tightens on the door handle. You're so close to being done with this. 

"That's it? Five years and you're just walking away like this?"

You pause. Don't turn around. Keep your eyes on the door in front of you. Keep your tears from falling. "You walked away first months ago. I'm just making it official."

"That's not—I didn't mean—" He's stumbling over his words now, maybe finally realizing that you're actually leaving. That this is actually happening. "It was a mistake. I wasn't trying to leave. I was just—"

"You were just what?" You do turn then, look at him one last time. He looks lost standing in the middle of the living room, surrounded by all the things you picked out together, all the evidence of five years that apparently weren't enough to keep him faithful. "It doesn't matter. I'm leaving."

"I don't want you to leave."

"Yes, you do." You say it with certainty because you can see it even if he can't. Or won't. "You just don't want to be the one who ends it."

You open the door and step into the hallway. You pause like you’re about to turn and say this was all a prank, but then you just pulled the door closed.

You stand in the hallway for a moment, your suitcases beside you, and wait for something to happen. For him to come after you. For tears to finally come. For some kind of feeling to break through the careful control you've been maintaining.

Nothing happens. You just stand there, hollow and numb and relieved that it's over. You take the stairs down, pull your suitcases behind you, and step out into Paris at 2 AM. The street is quiet. The air is cool. Everything looks the same as it did this afternoon except nothing is the same at all.

Jeonghan is waiting at the arrivals gate when you walk through, scanning the crowd until his eyes land on you.

You see the moment he registers something's wrong. His expression shifts from anticipation to concern so quickly you almost miss it but he doesn't say anything. Doesn't ask questions. Doesn't make you explain yourself in the middle of a crowded airport with fluorescent lights buzzing overhead and announcements echoing through speakers and people rushing past with their own lives and destinations.

He just walks up to you and pulls you into a hug.

It's the kind of hug only an older brother can give—steady and solid and unconditional. His arms wrap around you completely and you feel something in your chest crack slightly, like his presence alone is permission to stop holding yourself together quite so tightly.

"Hey," he says quietly against your hair and you can hear the concern in his voice even though he's trying to keep it light. "Welcome home."

You nod against his shoulder but you can't quite speak yet so you just stand there in the arrivals hall of Incheon Airport at seven in the morning, letting your brother hold you up while travelers flow around you like water around stones.

When you finally pull back, Jeonghan doesn't comment on the way you're carefully not meeting his eyes. He just picks up your suitcases like they weigh nothing—even though you know they're heavy, packed with five years of life compressed into luggage—and starts walking toward the exit. You follow him, grateful for his silence, grateful that he's not making you explain anything yet.

The morning air hits you when you step outside. It's different from Paris. Crisper somehow. This is Seoul in October. You left in summer five years ago, full of excitement and possibility and dreams about what you'd build in Paris. Now you're back in autumn with two suitcases and nothing else.

Jeonghan loads your luggage into his car with efficient movements, then turns to you before opening the passenger door. "I made arrangements to have your paintings shipped back. Ideally, they should arrive in the next month or so. I tried asking if it could be expedited, but there are a lot more permits than I realized so it’s going to take some time. I’m sorry, Yonggam-ie."

Your paintings. The ones you'd created over five years. The evidence of your time in Paris that actually matters. You'd completely forgotten about them in the chaos of leaving, too focused on just getting out, getting away, getting home.

"It’s fine, oppa. I can wait, thank you for helping me," you say and your voice comes out smaller than you intended.

Jeonghan looks at you for a moment and there's something in his expression that makes your throat tight. Not pity exactly. Just—understanding. It’s like he can see exactly how much effort it's taking you to exist right now. He reaches out and runs his hand over your hair, the same gesture he's been making since you were kids, affectionate and protective and somehow exactly what you need even though you didn't know you needed it.

Then he opens the passenger door for you and waits until you're settled before closing it gently and walking around to the driver's side.

The drive starts in silence.

Jeonghan doesn't turn on music. Doesn't try to fill the quiet with small talk or questions. He just drives, his hands steady on the wheel, his presence beside you solid and real and safe in a way that makes you feel like maybe—maybe you can actually say it out loud.

You watch Seoul pass by through the window. The buildings and streets you grew up with, familiar and foreign at the same time after five years away. Everything looks the same but you're different. Or maybe everything's different and you're just noticing it now. You can't tell anymore.

"Oppa," you say finally and your voice is so quiet you're not sure he hears it over the sound of the engine.

But he does. Jeonghan always does.

"Mm?" He doesn't look at you, keeps his eyes on the road, but you can feel his attention shift completely to you. Can feel him listening in that way he has, that patient waiting that never feels like pressure, that gives you space to gather your words at your own pace.

You take a breath. Let it out slowly. Try to figure out where to start.

"Something happened in Paris," you say, and the words feel heavy in your mouth.

"Okay," Jeonghan says and his voice is calm and steady and non-judgmental.

"I came home early from a gallery opening. I wasn't supposed to be home until late but I—I left early. I had a headache and just wanted to be home." You're staring at your hands in your lap, watching your fingers twist together. "And when I got there, he was—he was with someone else. In our apartment. In our—" You stop because finishing that sentence makes it too real. "They were together."

Jeonghan's hands tighten on the steering wheel but he doesn't say anything. Just keeps driving, keeps listening, keeps being the steady presence beside you that makes it possible to keep talking.

"It felt like—like I was watching it happen to someone else. Like I was outside my body watching this girl come home and find her boyfriend cheating and I knew I should feel something but I just—" You stop. "I just felt numb."

"That's normal," Jeonghan says quietly. "Shock does that. Your brain protects you by making it feel less real."

"I went back at midnight to pack." The word comes out bitter. "I packed everything I could fit in two suitcases. And then I—then I left."

You're quiet for a moment, remembering the taxi ride to the airport, the way Paris looked at two in the morning, how surreal it all felt.

"He said I was exhausting. That loving me was work. That I made everything difficult by being too—too much."

Jeonghan scoffs but he still doesn't interrupt. He still lets you get it all out at your own pace.

"He said I used to be so alive and passionate and now I was just going through motions and that I'd become cold. That—" You laugh but it sounds broken. "When he told me about the cheating, I didn't even react properly. Like I was supposed to scream or throw things or something. And when I didn't, when I just stayed calm and packed and left, he said that proved his point. That I was too controlled and calculated."

"So let me get this straight," Jeonghan says and there's an edge to his voice now even though he's clearly trying to keep it neutral. "He cheated on you. For months, apparently. And somehow your reaction to finding out is the problem? Your being calm and collected and getting yourself out of a bad situation is—what? Evidence that you're too controlled?"

"He wanted me to fight. To give him—I don't know. Permission to feel less guilty by making me the problem instead of him." You're crying now, quietly, tears running down your face without any of the dramatic sobbing he apparently wanted. "And the worst part is—he's not completely wrong. I realized I was exhausting when we first got together. I did feel everything too intensely and cared too much about things. And over the past year or so I did become more controlled because I learned that—that being intense was too much for him. That I needed to be less."

"Yonggam-ie," Jeonghan says and the nickname makes your throat tighter. "Listen to me. Being passionate isn't being exhausting. Caring about things isn't a flaw. Feeling deeply isn't something you should have to apologize for."

"But if it makes other people tired—"

"Then those people aren't your people." His voice is firm now, brooking no argument. "If someone tells you that loving them is work, that's not about you. That's about them not being capable of meeting you where you are. That's about them wanting something easy instead of something real."

You wipe your face with the sleeve of your sweater, trying to compose yourself, but the tears keep coming. "I don't know who I am anymore. I spent five years in Paris trying to be the person he could love without getting tired. And I still wasn't enough. And now I'm—I'm just this lesser version of myself and I don't know how to get back to who I was."

"You don't have to get back to who you were," Jeonghan says gently. "You just have to figure out who you are now. And that person—whoever she is—she's not small. She's just hurt."

The car is quiet except for the sound of the engine and your quiet crying and the city sounds filtering in through the windows. Jeonghan takes an exit and you realize you're getting close to his apartment, not your parents' house. He's taking you to his place first, giving you space before you have to face your parents and their inevitable questions and concerns.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you before I came home," you say after a while when you can speak without your voice breaking. "I should have called. I just—I couldn't stay there another day—"

"Don't apologize." Jeonghan's voice is firm. "You don't have to warn me before coming home. You just have to—" He stops. "You just have to let me be here for you. That's all."

You nod, wiping your face again, trying to pull yourself together even though you feel like you're falling apart.

Jeonghan pulls into a parking spot near his building and turns off the car but he doesn't move to get out. Just sits there for a moment, both hands still on the steering wheel, looking straight ahead.

"Can I ask you something?" he says finally.

"Yeah."

"Did you love him?" His voice is careful, gentle, like he's asking something that might hurt but needs to be asked anyway. "Really love him? Or did you love the idea of making it work?"

The question sits between you, heavy and uncomfortable and surprisingly difficult to answer.

"I don't know," you finally admit. "I loved him at the beginning. Or I thought I did. But by the end I think I was just—I was just trying to prove I could make someone stay. That I wasn't too much." You look at your brother, at his profile in the morning light. "Does that make me pathetic? That I stayed for someone who was getting tired of me just to prove I wasn't the problem?"

"No." Jeonghan finally turns to look at you and there's no judgment in his eyes. Just sadness and understanding and that protective older brother energy that makes you feel like maybe you're allowed to be broken for a while. "It makes you human and someone who wanted to be loved and tried to earn it when you should have just been given it freely."

"I don't think I know how to be loved freely anymore," you whisper. "I think I only know how to earn it. And when I can't earn it—"

"You think you don't deserve it." Jeonghan finishes your thought and you nod because that's exactly it. That's exactly the fear that's been sitting in your chest since you walked into that apartment and saw him with someone else. "But that's not how love works. Real love isn't something you earn. It's something you receive. And if someone makes you work for it, makes you feel like you have to change yourself to be worthy of it, then it's not love. It's just…negotiation."

You sit with that for a moment. The idea that maybe the problem wasn't that you were too much but that he wanted too little.

"I missed you," you say finally and it's the truest thing you've said all morning. "I missed having someone who doesn't make me feel like I have to be less."

"I missed you too." Jeonghan reaches over and squeezes your hand. "And for the record—I happen to like your intensity. I happen to think caring deeply about things is one of your best qualities. And anyone who doesn't appreciate that is an idiot who doesn't deserve you."

Despite everything, you feel a small smile tug at your lips. "You're biased because you’re my big brother and you are obligated to say such things."

You see Jeonghan smirk, his usual playfulness creeping in. "Oh I am extremely biased. It's my job as your brother to think you're perfect and everyone else is wrong." He says it so seriously that you almost laugh. Almost. "But I also mean what I said. You're allowed to be intense. You're allowed to care too much. You're allowed to feel things deeply. And if that exhausts someone, they can go find someone dull and uninspiring to date and leave you alone."

"Dull and uninspiring," you repeat and this time you do laugh, just a little. It's small and wet and slightly broken but it's real.

"See? Already laughing. That's a good sign." Jeonghan's eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles and there's relief in his expression now that you're showing some sign of being okay. Or at least being able to get to okay eventually. "You know what you need? Comfort food. The kind that's terrible for you but good for your soul."

"I'm not hungry."

"Doesn’t matter. You're still eating. I'm making you ramyeon and we're going to watch terrible TV and you're going to let yourself be sad without trying to fix it or minimize it or make it smaller." He says it with such certainty, such confidence that this is the right course of action, that you don't have the energy to argue.

"Okay," you say and the word feels like surrender but also like relief. 

Jeonghan gets out of the car and comes around to open your door. He helps you out like you're fragile. Maybe that's okay. He gets your luggage from the trunk and heads toward his building, and you follow him feeling lighter somehow. Not okay. Not healed. But maybe—maybe slightly less destroyed than you were an hour ago.

"Hey," Jeonghan says as you're walking toward the elevator. "You know what the best part about coming home is?"

"What?"

"You get to start over and figure out who you are without someone telling you you're doing it wrong." He presses the elevator button and looks at you with that gentle, knowing expression. "And you get to do it with people who already love you exactly as you are. Even the intense, exhausting, too-much parts."

The elevator doors open and you step inside, your brother beside you, carrying your suitcases that hold five years of your life in Paris. You're going home. Not to your parents' house, not yet, but to your brother's apartment where you'll eat ramyeon and watch terrible TV and maybe—maybe start to figure out how to be yourself again.

Standing here in the elevator with Jeonghan beside you, you think maybe—maybe it's okay to not know everything all at once.

The elevator rises toward Jeonghan's floor and you lean against the wall, exhausted from the flight and the crying and the weight of everything that's happened. But beside you, your brother stands steady and solid and sure. He quietly holds your hand: a reminder that even when you feel lost, even when you don't know who you are anymore, there are people who know you. People who love you. People who won't get tired of you.

And maybe that's enough to start with. 

The office is dark except for the city lights filtering through floor-to-ceiling windows that cost more than most people's annual salary.

Joshua sits at his desk—massive, mahogany, imported from Italy because his father believes in symbols of power—and stares at a contract he should have reviewed hours ago.

His eyes won't focus. The numbers blur together, meaningless. Revenue projections. Growth percentages. Market share analysis.

Words that used to mean something when he still believed this was his life instead of just the life he was living.

He closes the folder and leans back in his chair—leather, ergonomic, chosen by an interior designer his mother hired because "Joshua's office should reflect his position"—and presses the heels of his hands against his eyes until he sees stars.

It's past midnight.

The building is empty except for the security guard downstairs and whatever other poor souls have convinced themselves that staying late means staying dedicated instead of just staying trapped.

Joshua should go home but he doesn't want to go home.

Home means the penthouse in Gangnam that's too big and too empty and too full of his own resentment echoing off expensive surfaces. Home means walking through the door to silence so complete it feels oppressive, means standing in a living room designed to impress guests he never invites, means sleeping in a bed that's technically meant for two but has only ever held him. 

Home means his father calling him at 11 pm to ask about quarterly reports or business deals or whether Joshua has reviewed the contracts that were sent over this afternoon. Home means his father's voice cutting through whatever small peace Joshua has managed to find in the quiet, reminding him that even when he's alone he's never really alone because duty doesn't sleep and expectations don't respect boundaries.

Home means his mother showing up unannounced with food she made—expensive ingredients prepared with care, delivered in containers that cost more than most people's dinnerware—under the guise of maternal concern. But Joshua knows better. The food is just an excuse, a socially acceptable reason to invade his space so she can walk through his apartment looking for evidence of how he's living, what he's doing, whether he's finally ready to settle down the way she wants him to. She'll comment on how clean everything is in a way that suggests it's too clean, the kind of clean that happens when no one really lives somewhere. She'll ask in her careful, probing way whether he's seeing anyone, whether he's met any appropriate women, whether he's given any thought to his future beyond work. She never says marriage directly. Never has to. The subtext is heavy enough to fill the room.

Home means existing in a space that feels like it belongs to the version of himself his parents want him to be rather than whoever he actually is underneath all the expectations and obligations and thirty years of being shaped into someone he never chose to become.

So he stays at the office.

Again.

Stays like he did last night and the night before and the night before until staying late isn't even working anymore—it's just existing in a different location. The numbers don't make more sense at midnight than they did at eight. The contracts don't review themselves just because he's performing dedication.

But at least here, no one's disappointed in him. At least here, no one's asking when he's going to be more. At least here, he can pretend that the exhaustion is meaningful instead of just exhausting.

The door opens without warning.

Joshua's head snaps up, heart jumping in his chest like he's been caught doing something wrong.

Seungcheol stands in the doorway, tie loosened, jacket slung over his shoulder, looking like he's just finished his own long day except he has the decency to look annoyed about it instead of resigned.

"You’re still here?" Seungcheol's voice cuts through the silence that's been Joshua's only company for hours. "It's 12:30 am, you know."

Joshua drops his hands, blinks until his eyes adjust to having someone real to focus on instead of just the blue light of his computer screen. "What are you doing here?"

"I work here too, remember?" Seungcheol walks in without invitation, drops into the chair across from Joshua's desk with the kind of casual comfort that comes from twenty years of friendship. "Though apparently not as obsessively as you do. Eighteen hours today? Really?"

"No one told you to count."

"Someone has to." Seungcheol leans back, studies Joshua with the particular expression he gets when he's trying to decide between being supportive and being honest. Usually he lands on honest. "You look like shit by the way."

"Thanks."

"I'm serious." Seungcheol's voice loses its lightness. "When's the last time you went home at a reasonable hour? When's the last time you did something that wasn't about work?"

Joshua can't actually remember. This week has been a blur of meetings and contracts and late nights that all look identical. Last week was the same. The month before that. At some point, the days stopped being individual intervals of time and started being just one long continuous stretch of obligation.

"That's what I thought," Seungcheol says when the silence stretches too long. "You can't keep doing this."

"I have work to do."

"You always have work to do. That's not the same as needing to be here until one in the morning." Seungcheol leans forward, elbows on his knees, and Joshua recognizes the posture. It's the one Seungcheol uses when he's about to say something Joshua doesn't want to hear but needs to anyway. "What are you doing, Joshua? What's the point of all this?"

"The point is the company needs—"

"Fuck the company." The words are sharp enough to make Joshua flinch. "I'm not asking what the company needs. I'm asking what the point is for you. What are you getting out of this? Besides exhaustion and your father's approval?"

The question sits between them because what is Joshua getting out of this?

He's thirty years old. He has a corner office and a title that sounds impressive and a salary that would be obscene if he ever had time to spend it. He has his father's approval, which he worked for and earned and has been chasing his entire life like it's the only thing that matters.

And he's miserable.

"I don't know," Joshua says finally and the honesty of it surprises him. "I don't know what I'm getting out of this. But it's—it's what I'm supposed to be doing. So I'm doing it."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only answer I have."

Seungcheol is quiet for a moment, watching him with something that looks like concern mixed with frustration. "When do you get to do what you want?"

Joshua doesn't have an answer.

He can't remember the last time he did something because he wanted to, not because it was expected, required, necessary for the company, good for his father's reputation, appropriate for his position.

He can't remember the last time "want" was even part of the equation. He opens his desk drawer instead of answering.

Beneath the folders and pens and business cards—all the remnants of a life spent being responsible—is a sketchbook.

Sage green leather cover, worn at the edges from being pulled out and put away hundreds of times over the years. A ritual of looking but never using, of remembering but never pursuing, of wanting but never having.

He pulls it out and sets it on the desk between them.

Seungcheol looks at it, then at Joshua, and something in his expression shifts. "Is that—?"

"The architecture portfolio. Yeah."

"You still keep it?" There's surprise in Seungcheol's voice. Surprise and something else. Something that might be sadness.

"I still keep it." Joshua opens the sketchbook and the familiar pages greet him like old friends he's been avoiding. Buildings and spaces and structures that don't exist except in his imagination. Careful architectural sketches with notes in the margins about light and material and the way a space could make someone feel.

Seungcheol flips through slowly, carefully, like he's handling something precious. Which maybe he is. These drawings are the only evidence that Joshua wanted something once and that he had dreams beyond duty and expectations beyond what his father decided for him.

"These are good, Joshua." Seungcheol's voice is quiet. "Really good."

"They're old."

"They're recent." Seungcheol points to a date in the corner of one sketch and Joshua has the grace to look embarrassed. "This is from last month."

Joshua doesn't respond because Seungcheol is right and they both know it.

"You're still drawing," Seungcheol says and it's not a question. "You're still—Jesus, you're still designing buildings at 2 am when you should be sleeping."

"It doesn't mean anything."

Seungcheol looks at him directly and Joshua has to resist the urge to look away. "You gave this up years ago. You chose your father’s company. You chose duty. You did what your father wanted and you buried this—" he gestures at the sketchbook, "—and you moved on. Except you didn't. You're still doing it in secret. In the middle of the night when no one's watching. What does that tell you?"

"That I'm an idiot who can't let go of a childhood dream."

"That you know what you actually want." Seungcheol's voice is gentle but relentless. "And it's not this." He gestures around the office—at the expensive desk and the city view and all the trappings of success that feel more like a cage. "It was never this."

Joshua takes the sketchbook back and closes it. The weight of it in his hands is familiar. Comforting and painful at the same time.

"Wanting something doesn't mean you get to have it," he says quietly.

"Why not?"

"Because I have responsibilities. The company needs—"

"The company would be fine without you." Seungcheol interrupts and the words are like a slap. "You're not the only person capable of doing this job, Joshua. You're just the only person your father trusts to do it exactly the way he wants."

The truth of it sits between them.

Joshua has always known this in some abstract way. He has always known that his position at the company is more about birthright than merit, more about control than capability. But hearing Seungcheol say it out loud makes it real in a way it hasn't been before.

Seungcheol stands and paces to the window, looking out at the Seoul skyline—all those buildings designed by people who were brave enough to choose themselves. "Be honest with me. If you could do anything—if your father's expectations didn't exist, if the company didn't exist, if you woke up tomorrow completely free—what would you do?"

Joshua looks at the sketchbook on his desk.

At maybe thirteen years of drawings he can't stop making. At the evidence of a life he wants but can't have. At the proof that wanting doesn't just go away because you ignore it.

"I'd design buildings," he says quietly. "I'd work for a small firm. Something independent. Maybe my own. Something where people actually care about what they're creating. I'd work on projects that mean something. Community centers and public spaces and buildings that make people's lives better instead of just making rich people richer."

"So do it."

"I can't."

"You can. You just won't." There's no judgment in Seungcheol's voice but the words still sting.

Joshua looks at him sharply. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you're choosing this." Seungcheol turns from the window to face him and his expression is gentle but unyielding. "Every day you stay here, every night you work until 2 am, every time you pick duty over desire—that's a choice. And I get it. I do. Your father is—he's a lot. And you've spent your whole life trying to be the son he wants. But Joshua—" He stops, choosing his words carefully. "At some point, you have to ask yourself… is it worth it?"

"Is what worth it?"

"Being miserable." Seungcheol looks at him directly. "Is your father's approval worth being this unhappy?"

Joshua doesn't have an answer because the truth is he doesn't know.

He's been doing this for so long—being the good son, the dutiful heir, the one who sacrifices—that he doesn't remember what happiness feels like. He doesn’t know if he's even capable of it anymore.

"I should go home," Seungcheol says finally, when it's clear Joshua isn't going to respond. "And you should too. Actually sleep for once. Maybe eat something that isn't from the vending machine."

"I will. Soon."

"Joshua—"

"I'm fine, Cheol. Really."

Seungcheol doesn't look convinced. He looks like he wants to argue, to push, to force Joshua to see what he's doing to himself. But instead he just sighs and heads toward the door.

Pauses with his hand on the handle.

"For what it's worth—" He doesn't turn around. "I think you'd be a great architect. I think you'd design beautiful things that matter. And I think—" He stops. "I think you deserve to find out instead of spending the rest of your life wondering what if."

Seungcheol leaves. The door clicks shut with a finality that echoes in the too-quiet office.

Joshua sits alone in his expensive chair in his expensive office, staring at the sketchbook. At the life he wants but can't have. At the evidence that five years of sacrifice hasn't killed the wanting, only buried it. 

He opens the sketchbook to a random page.

A community center he designed in his head six months ago. A sketch for a neighborhood that needs it. Bright spaces and natural light and areas where people could gather, connect, feel like they belonged to something.

The kind of building that would never make his father proud because there's no profit in it but the kind of building Joshua would be proud to have designed.

He traces the lines with his finger, remembering the night he drew this. Three o’clock on a Tuesday after a sixteen-hour day. He couldn’t sleep because his mind was full of board meetings and shareholder reports so he'd gotten up and drawn this instead.

He closes the sketchbook and puts it back in the drawer.

He picks up the contract he still hasn't reviewed.

This is his life.

He forces his eyes to focus on the words. Makes himself read them. Makes himself care about revenue projections for luxury apartments that will displace low-income families so rich people can have better views.

He makes himself be the person his father needs him to be even though that person is killing the person he wanted to become, even though every day he does this, he buries that person a little deeper.

Even though at some point, he's going to forget that person ever existed.

FIVE YEARS AGO

Joshua is 25 and standing in a gallery opening in Gangnam, holding a glass of wine he isn't drinking, listening to someone talk about postmodern architecture in a way that makes it sound both revolutionary and completely meaningless.

He's only here because Seungcheol dragged him.

"You need to do something that isn't work," Seungcheol had said. "You're turning into your father."

The worst insult Seungcheol could give.

So Joshua came to this gallery opening—some showcase of young architects, their thesis projects from university, their dreams made tangible in models and drawings and presentations.

Everything Joshua gave up when he chose the company.

He's standing in front of a model of a community center—all glass and natural light and spaces designed for connection instead of profit—when someone speaks beside him.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

He turns.

The woman standing next to him is maybe his age, maybe a little younger. She has a portfolio under her arm and paint stains on her fingers and eyes that look at the model like it's something sacred.

"It is," Joshua agrees. "Simple but effective. The natural light would make the space feel—"

"Alive," she finishes. "That's what I was going for. Spaces that feel alive. That makes people want to be in them."

Joshua looks at her again. Really looks this time. "This is yours?"

"Thesis project. I graduated last year." She extends a hand and her handshake is firm, confident. "Minji Lee."

"Joshua Hong."

She doesn't recognize the name. Doesn't know who his father is. Doesn't know about the company or the expectations or any of it.

She just sees someone who understands what she was trying to do with her design.

It's the most refreshing thing that's happened to Joshua in years.

They talk for three hours.

About architecture, about design philosophy, about the difference between building things that make money and building things that matter. She's passionate in a way Joshua used to be, back when he still let himself want things. She talks with her hands and gets excited about details and doesn't apologize for caring deeply about her work.

She's everything Joshua had to stop being when he chose duty over desire.

"I work at a small firm in Mapo," she says as the gallery is closing. "We do mostly community projects. Libraries, schools, public spaces. Not glamorous, but—"

"Meaningful," Joshua finishes.

"Exactly." She smiles at him. "What about you? Where do you work?"

And this is where he should tell her.

Should say: I work for Hong Holdings & Corp. I'm the heir. I spend my days on profit projections and shareholder reports and I hate every minute of it.

But instead he hears himself say: "I'm between things right now."

A lie.

But a lie that lets him keep talking to her without the weight of his name and his father's company coming between them.

They exchange numbers.

He leaves the gallery feeling lighter than he has in months.

They start dating.

It's casual at first. Coffee between meetings. Lunch when her schedule allows. Conversations that stretch from noon to midnight because neither of them wants to stop talking.

She makes him laugh. Makes him remember what it feels like to be excited about something. Makes him think that maybe—maybe he could still have this. This life. This passion. This version of himself that chose what he wanted instead of what was expected.

Three months in, she takes him to her firm.

It's small. Cramped, even. Nothing like the gleaming offices of Hong Holdings & Corp. But the people there are alive in a way his colleagues aren't. They care about what they're building. They argue about design philosophy over lunch. They stay late because they want to, not because they have to.

"We're working on a pitch for a new community center in Seongbuk," Minji says, showing him the drawings. "It's not going to make us rich. But it'll serve three thousand families who don't have a space like this in their neighborhood."

Joshua looks at the drawings and feels something he hasn't felt in years.

Jealousy.

Not towards Minji. It’s jealousy of the life she gets to live.

"This is incredible," he says and means it.

"You could do this too, you know." She looks at him with those eyes that see too much. "You clearly have the background. The way you talk about architecture—you didn't get that from casual interest."

"I studied it. Before—" He stops. "Before I chose something else."

"It's not too late to unchoose."

"Maybe," Joshua says but he doesn't believe it.

Six months in, Joshua’s in love with Minji.

Completely, devastatingly in love.

She's everything he wants. Everything he gave up. Everything he tells himself he can't have.

But maybe—maybe he can.

Maybe he could leave the company. Join her firm. Build the life he actually wants instead of the life his father decided for him.

They're in her apartment one night, sprawled on her couch after a long day, when he says it out loud for the first time.

"I want to leave."

She looks up from her sketchbook. "Leave what?"

"My job. My—" He stops. "My family's company. I want to leave and do something that actually matters."

Her expression is careful. "That's a big decision."

"I know. But I can't—I can't keep doing this. Pretending I'm happy. Pretending this is the life I want." He takes her hand. "I want to be with you. Not just stolen hours between meetings. I want—" He stops. "I want what you have. The passion. The purpose. The freedom to choose."

"Joshua." She squeezes his hand. "I would love that. I would love for you to join the firm, to build this life with me. But—" She stops. "But you have to want it for yourself. Not just because you want to be with me."

"I do want it for me."

"Do you? Or do you want to escape your father?"

The question hits like a dart.

"Both," he admits. "Does it matter?"

"It might." She's choosing her words carefully. "If you're running away from something, you'll always be running. But if you're running toward something—toward a life you actually want—that's different."

"I'm running toward you."

"I hope so," she says quietly. "Because this—what we have—it only works if we both want it. Not as an escape but as a choice."

"I'm choosing you," Joshua says and he means it.

He means it so much it terrifies him.

Joshua starts making plans. Quietly, carefully, without telling his father yet.

He updates his portfolio. Reaches out to Minji's firm about positions. Starts imagining what his life could look like if he just—chose himself.

If he just said no. If he just walked away from everything he's supposed to be and became who he wants to be instead.

It feels possible. For the first time in his life, it feels possible.

He's going to tell his father next week. He’s going to sit him down and explain that he's leaving the company and that he's going to pursue architecture. That he's choosing his own life.

He's terrified. But also lighter. Freer. Like he's finally about to break out of a cage he's been living in since birth.

Then his father calls him into his office.

"Sit," his father says and Joshua knows immediately that something's wrong.

His father slides a folder across the desk. Joshua opens it.

Inside are photos of him and Minji at her apartment. At her firm. At restaurants. Over six months of his life documented by—

"You had me followed?" Joshua's voice is hollow.

"I had you protected." His father's voice is calm, controlled, terrifying in its composure. "You're my son. My heir. Your choices affect more than just you."

"I'm 25 years old—"

"And you're making decisions like a child." His father leans forward. "This girl. You think she wants you for you? Or does she want access to our family? Our money? Our connections?"

"It's not like that—"

"It's always like that." His father's voice is cold. "Women like her see men like you as opportunities. As meal tickets. As ways to elevate themselves."

"You don't know her—"

"I know enough." He closes the folder. "You're ending things with this girl."

"No." The word comes out before Joshua can stop it. "No, I'm not—I'm choosing this. I'm choosing her."

His father's expression doesn't change. "Then I'll make a different choice."

"What does that mean?"

"It means if you leave—if you choose this girl over your family—there will be consequences."

"I don't care about my inheritance—"

"I'm not talking about your inheritance." His father's voice is quiet. Deadly quiet. "I'm talking about your mother's."

Joshua goes very still.

"What?"

"Your mother's financial security. Her position in this family. Her entire life." His father looks at him directly. "If you leave for her, I'll divorce your mother and cut her off completely. She'll have nothing. No money, no home, no support. And you know she has nowhere else to go."

The words are a punch to the gut.

"You wouldn't—"

"I would." His father's voice is matter-of-fact. "She's been a good wife and a good mother to you. But if my son chooses to humiliate this family by leaving for some girl—if you make me look weak by defying me—then your mother pays the price."

"That's—" Joshua can't breathe. "That's blackmail."

"That's reality." His father stands. "You have a choice, Joshua. You can choose this girl and your little architectural dreams. Or you can choose to protect your mother. But you can't have both."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because you're my son and my heir. I won't let you throw away everything I've built for a woman you'll be tired of in two years." His father's voice softens slightly. "This isn't personal, Joshua. This is about the family and about legacy. It’s about understanding that some sacrifices are necessary."

"This isn't a sacrifice. This is—" Joshua stops. "This is you controlling me."

"This is me protecting you from making a mistake you'll regret." His father sits back down. "End it with the girl. Stay with the company and your mother keeps her life. That's the deal."

"And if I don't?"

"Then you choose her over your mother and you live with that choice." His father opens his laptop, already moving on. "You have until the end of the week to decide."

Joshua sits in his car outside his parents' house for two hours.

He can't drive. He can't process what just happened in that dining room where his entire life was rearranged around a threat delivered over expensive wine and imported beef. His father's words keep replaying in his head, each repetition making them more real and more impossible at the same time. 

Choose her or choose your mother. Choose your dreams or choose your family's security. Choose yourself or choose duty. 

Except it's not really a choice when one option involves destroying the person who raised him, who protected him, who has her own marriage trapped in obligation and control and has no escape route if his father decides to punish her for Joshua's defiance.

It's a trap and it’s the kind his father specializes in—making you think you have options when really there's only ever been one acceptable outcome and everything else is just elaborate window dressing around the inevitable.

He knows what his father is doing. He knows it's manipulation of the cruelest kind but he also knows his father will do it. He will actually divorce his mother if Joshua walks away. He will actually leave her with nothing—no money, no home, no support system, nowhere to go after decades of marriage that have left her completely dependent on a man who's never really loved her. His father doesn't make empty threats. That's the thing Joshua has learned over twenty-five years of being his son. When his father says he'll do something, he does it.

Joshua pulls out his phone with shaking hands. He stares at Minji's name in his contacts for a full minute before he can make himself press call. The phone rings once, twice, and he almost hangs up. 

But then she answers.

"Hey, I was just thinking about you—" She sounds happy. Warm.

"I can't do this." The words come out rough and broken, like they're tearing something on the way out of his throat.

There's silence on the other end. Not the comfortable silence they've shared hundreds of times. The kind of silence that comes right before something shatters.

"Can't do what?" Her voice is careful now, measured, like she's already bracing for impact.

"Leave. The company. My father—he knows about us. And he—" Joshua stops because saying it out loud makes it more real and he's not sure he can handle more real right now. "He said if I leave, my mother loses everything. And I can't—I can't do that to her."

"Joshua." Her voice is gentle but there's something firm underneath it, something that sounds like she's been expecting this conversation even though she hoped it would never come. "He's manipulating you."

"I know." And he does know. He knows that acknowledging the manipulation doesn't make him immune to it.

"So call his bluff." She says it like it's simple, like standing up to his father is something Joshua is capable of doing when he's spent his entire life being trained not to.

"It's not a bluff. He'll do it. He'll actually—" Joshua can't finish the sentence. Can't say out loud what his father will do to his mother if Joshua chooses himself. "I can't risk it. I can't risk my own mother."

"So you're choosing him. You're choosing to stay." Her voice is flat now, resigned.

"I'm choosing to protect my mother." It's the distinction he needs to make, the way he needs to frame this so it feels like he's doing the right thing instead of just being a coward.

"That's the same thing." Her voice is quiet now, sad in a way that makes his chest hurt. "You're choosing duty over yourself. Again. Like you always do."

"Minji—" He doesn't know what he's going to say because he didn’t think this through.

"I love you," she interrupts and the words are like knives. "I love you so much. But Joshua—you're just like your father."

The words hit like a slap, like something that steals all the air from his lungs and leaves him gasping. "I'm not—"

"You are." Her voice is firmer now. "You think you're protecting people. You think you're being noble. But really—" Her voice breaks. "Really you're just controlling them. Controlling me. Making decisions for us based on what you think is best instead of asking what I want."

"What do you want?" He asks it even though he's terrified of the answer.

"I want you to choose yourself!" Her voice rises and he can hear tears in it now. "I want you to choose us. I want you to tell your father to go to hell. But you won't because you're too scared. Because duty feels safer than choice."

"That's not fair—"

"Life isn't fair." She's definitely crying now. He can hear it in every word. "But I can't do this, Joshua. I can't be with someone who won't fight for us. Who won't fight for himself."

"I am fighting—" But the protest sounds weak even to his own ears.

"You're not. You're surrendering. Again. Like you always do." She takes a shaky breath and he can imagine her wiping her eyes. "I hope you're happy with your choice. I hope—" Her voice breaks completely. "I hope you learn to live with yourself."

The line goes dead.

Joshua sits in his car with the phone still pressed to his ear, listening to the silence where Minji's voice used to be and something in him breaks. Not loudly. Just quietly, the way things break when they've been cracking for years and finally can't hold together anymore.

Minji leaves Seoul three months later.

Joshua hears about it through mutual friends. She got a position at a firm in Singapore. She sends him one text before she goes: I hope you find what you're looking for. Even if it's not me.

He stares at the message for twenty minutes and then deletes it without responding. What would he say? That he's sorry? That she was right? That he chose wrong and he knows it but it's too late now to do anything about it?

He buries himself in work instead. In contracts and meetings and late nights that blend together until he can't remember what day it is or why any of it matters. He works sixteen-hour days and then eighteen-hour days and his father is pleased with his dedication and his mother is relieved that he's moved past his rebellious phase. Neither of them ask if he's happy. Neither of them seems to notice that something in him has gone dark.

Joshua buries the part of him that wanted something more. He takes the sketchbook where he used to draw buildings and plans and dreams and puts it in a drawer. Then in a box. Then on a high shelf where he won't see it and be reminded of the person he used to be.

Five years pass like water. He never draws again. Never even opens the sketchbook. Never dates seriously because what's the point when he's already proven he'll choose duty over love every single time. He never lets himself want anything because wanting just leads to losing and losing hurts and it's easier to just not want in the first place.

He just exists and survives. He becomes exactly what his father wanted him to become—efficient, dedicated, controllable. The perfect son. The perfect executive. The perfect prisoner in a cage he helped build.

Until his father decides it's time for him to marry. Until the cycle starts again. Until another woman's life gets tangled up with his inability to choose himself. Until YN walks into that bookstore and has no idea that she's about to marry someone who's already given up on everything that matters.

Two weeks after Paris, you're standing in a bookstore in Insadong trying to remember what it felt like to love reading.

You used to love it. Used to get lost in books for hours, used to carry one everywhere, used to be the person who always had a recommendation ready. But you haven't been able to focus on anything since you came home. The words slide off the page. You read the same paragraph five times and retain nothing.

Still, you're here. Trying.

The bookstore is small and independent, the kind with narrow aisles and stacks that lean precariously and a cat that judges you from the counter. It smells like old paper and coffee and possibility.

You're in the literature section, fingers trailing over spines, when you see it.

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro.

You've been meaning to read this for years. Your ex always said it was depressing, not worth it, why waste time on something so sad?

You pull it off the shelf the same time someone reaches for it.

Your hands collide.

"Oh—sorry—" You pull back.

"No, I'm—" He pulls back too. "Sorry. You were here first."

You look up.

The man is tall, dressed in a dark suit like he's just come from an office or is heading to one. Dark hair, tired eyes, the kind of handsome that comes with good genes and expensive grooming. He looks as exhausted as you feel.

"It's okay," you say. "Were you looking for this one?"

"I was." He glances at the book, then at you. "But you can take it."

"No, it's—" You try to hand it to him but he steps back. "Really, I was just browsing."

"So was I."

You stand there in the narrow aisle, both holding your hands away from the book like it might burn you, both too polite or too tired to just take it.

Finally you laugh. It sounds strange—you haven't laughed in two weeks. "This is ridiculous."

His mouth quirks slightly. Almost a smile. "Agreed."

"How about—" You look at the shelf. "There's another copy." You pull it out and hand it to him. "Problem solved."

"Thanks." He takes it, studies the cover. "Have you read it?"

"Not yet. You?"

"Years ago. It's—" He pauses, choosing words. "It's devastating. In a quiet way. About regret. About realizing too late that you wasted your life being what other people needed instead of who you wanted to be."

The description hits too close to home.

"Well that sounds cheerful," you say.

"It's really not." His almost-smile returns. "But it's good material if you can handle devastation."

"I think I can handle devastation." You say it lightly but something in your voice must give you away because he looks at you—really looks at you—for the first time.

There's a moment of something. Recognition maybe. Or just two tired people seeing each other clearly for a second.

“I think you can,” he says.

Then his phone buzzes. He glances at it and his expression closes off immediately. Whatever moment existed, it's gone.

"I should—" He gestures vaguely toward the front. 

"Of course. Thank you for the—" You hold up your copy of the book. "For this."

"Thank you for solving our crisis."

He nods once and walks away, already answering his phone in a voice that sounds different—more formal, more controlled—than the one he used with you.

You watch him go, this stranger who recommended a book about regret to another stranger in a bookstore and then you forget about him entirely.

You buy your book. Leave. Go home.

You don't think about Joshua Hong again.

The morning comes too early.

Joshua is showered and dressed by 6 am, in the kitchen by 6:15, reviewing emails on his phone before his day has even technically started.

It's a Tuesday. Tuesdays are for quarterly reports and budget meetings. Tuesdays are when his father is most critical because the numbers from Monday are fresh and never quite good enough.

Tuesdays are when Joshua remembers why he hates his life.

His mother calls him at 6:30 am.

Joshua is barely awake, standing in his kitchen with coffee brewing and the city just starting to lighten through his floor-to-ceiling windows. He sees her name on his phone screen and considers not answering. 

But not answering his mother's calls has consequences that are worse than answering so he picks up.

"Joshua. Good, you're up." Her voice is brisk and efficient, the tone she uses when she's already multitasking. He can hear rustling in the background, the sound of her doing something else while talking to him because her time is too valuable to dedicate to just one thing at once.

"Good morning, Mother," he says keeping his voice neutral and waiting for whatever this is about.

"Your father and I need to speak with you. Tonight. Dinner. Be here by seven." It's delivered as a statement, not a question. Not even really a request. Just an expectation that he'll comply because that's what he does. That's what he's always done.

Joshua thinks about his calendar. About the evening he'd planned—or hadn't planned, really, just the vague intention to leave the office at a reasonable hour and maybe actually use his penthouse for something other than sleeping. "I have drinks scheduled with the Lee Corp representatives at seven. It's been on the calendar for three weeks—"

"Cancel them." She says it like it's the simplest thing in the world. "Have your assistant reschedule. Whatever you need to do. This is important."

There's that word. Important. Which means it's important to them, which means it's probably something Joshua is going to hate. Important family conversations never end well for him. They end with new obligations, new expectations, new ways his life is being shaped by people who aren't him.

"What's this about?" Joshua asks, trying to keep the wariness out of his voice.

"We'll discuss it tonight." His mother's tone shifts slightly, becoming more pointed. "Your father has something he wants to talk to you about."

"Can't we discuss it now? On the phone? I have a full day of meetings and if I need to prepare for something—"

"Tonight, Joshua." Her voice is firm now, leaving no room for argument. "Seven o'clock. Don't be late."

There's a pause and Joshua can hear her attention shifting. Then her voice comes back, slightly softer but still with that underlying steel. "And wear something nice. This is a family dinner."

"It's always a family dinner," Joshua mutters but his mother either doesn't hear or chooses to ignore it.

"Seven o'clock," she repeats. "We'll see you then."

She hangs up before he can respond. Before he can ask more questions. Before he can figure out what this is really about and whether he can find some way to avoid it entirely.

Joshua stands in his kitchen—all granite countertops and stainless steel appliances, everything spotless and expensive and utterly devoid of any personality—holding his phone and staring at nothing.

His mother used that tone. The one that means this isn't a casual family dinner. The one that means something has been decided. The one that means his life is about to change in ways he won't have any control over.

He's heard that tone before. It's the tone she used when she told him he was joining the company instead of going to architecture school. The tone she used when she told him his engagement to that girl from university—the one he'd actually liked—wasn't appropriate for the family and needed to end. The tone she used every time his life has been redirected to align with what his parents want rather than what he wants.

It never means anything good.

Joshua sets his phone down on the counter and watches his coffee finish brewing. His first thought is to call Seungcheol, to complain about this dinner he's being forced to attend, to try to figure out what this could possibly be about. His second thought is that it doesn't matter what it's about because the outcome is always the same. His parents have decided something and he'll comply because that's what he does. That's who he is. The good son who does what he's told even when he hates it.

He pours his coffee and tries to remember the last time his parents called him for a family dinner that was actually just dinner. Every family dinner is a negotiation or an announcement or a reminder of everything he's supposed to be doing but isn't.

He thinks about canceling. About calling back and saying he can't make it, that the Lee Corp meeting is too important, that he'll schedule something with them next week instead.

But he knows he won't.

Will cancel the Lee Corp meeting like his mother told him to.

Will show up at his parents' house at 6:55 PM because being five minutes early has been drilled into him since childhood.

He will sit through whatever this important conversation is and agree to whatever they've decided because disagreeing has never gotten him anywhere except more pressure, more expectations, more disappointment in his inability to just be grateful for everything they've given him.

Joshua drinks his coffee standing in his empty kitchen and feels the familiar weight of obligation. This is his life. Always has been. And tonight, apparently, it's about to become even more constrained by whatever decision his parents have made on his behalf.

He checks his watch. 6:42 am. He has 12 hours before he has to show up at his parents' house and find out what they want from him now. Twelve hours to brace himself for whatever this is. 

He finishes his coffee and gets ready for work and the entire time he can hear his mother's voice echoing in his head. This is important. Don't be late.

He won't be late. He never is. That's the problem.

Joshua goes to work.

He spends the day in meetings that could have been emails, making decisions that don't matter, smiling at people he doesn't like.

The whole time, his mother's words echo in his head.

This is important. Don't be late.

He tries to focus on the quarterly reports. Tries to care about the numbers. Tries to be present in the moment instead of already dreading 7 pm.

Fails at all three.

At lunch, Seungcheol slides into the chair across from him in the executive dining room. "You look even worse than you did last night. Didn't sleep?"

"Not really."

"Shocking." Seungcheol steals a piece of his fruit. They've been friends long enough that boundaries don't really exist. "What's wrong?"

"My mother wants to see me tonight. Her and my father. Said it was important."

Seungcheol's expression shifts. "Shit."

"Yeah."

"Any idea what it's about?"

"No." Joshua pushes his food around his plate without eating it. "But she used that voice. The one that means—"

"That means you're fucked," Seungcheol finishes. "I remember that voice. That's the voice she used when she told you that you were joining the company instead of going to architecture school."

"Exactly."

"You want me to come over after?" Seungcheol asks. "Emotional support? Drinking companion? Witness to whatever terrible thing they're about to announce?"

"No. I—" Joshua stops. "I should probably face this alone."

"You don't have to face everything alone, you know."

"I know."

"Do you?" Seungcheol looks at him directly. "Because you've been doing this thing for years where you shoulder all the weight yourself and don't ask for help and pretend you're fine when you're clearly not."

"I'm fine."

"You're not fine. You're exhausted and miserable and you look like you haven't had a good night's sleep in a decade." Seungcheol's voice softens. "I'm worried about you."

"Don't be. I can handle it."

"That's what you always say. Joshua, I’m scared that one day you’re just going to explode and maybe do or say something you won’t be able to take back."

The words hit harder than they should.

Joshua doesn't respond.

Seungcheol sighs. "Fine. But if it's bad—if they announce something terrible—call me. Okay? Don't just sit with it alone."

"Okay."

"I mean it, Hong."

"I know."

Seungcheol leaves.

Joshua sits alone with his untouched lunch, trying to prepare for a conversation he can't prepare for.

Your father tells you about the dinner three days in advance.

"Friday evening. The Hong family. Seven pm. Dress nicely."

You're in the living room of your parents' house—the house you grew up in, the house you're staying in now because you have nowhere else to go—and you barely look up from your untouched lunch.

"What's the occasion?"

"Business." Your father's tone suggests the conversation is over. "Be on time, please."

You've been to a thousand of these dinners so it was nothing new. They were business dinners where you sit quietly and smile appropriately and make small talk with people you'll never see again. You hate them but they're part of being a good daughter.

So you say yes.

You don't think about it again until Friday when your mother comes into your room at five pm with a dress.

"Wear this one. The navy."

"I have clothes—"

"Wear this one." Her tone brooks no argument. "And do your hair properly. Not just—" She gestures at your messy bun. "Properly."

Something in her voice makes you pause. "Mother, what is this dinner?"

"I told you. Business."

"What kind of business?"

"The important kind." She lays the dress on your bed. "Now get ready. We leave in an hour."

You arrive at the restaurant at exactly seven pm.

It's expensive—the kind of place where they don't list prices on the menu and the waitstaff knows your father by name. You were led to a private dining room with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city.

Already seated are three people: an older couple and—

Your breath catches.

The man from the bookstore.

He sees you at the same moment you see him. His expression does something complicated—surprise, then recognition, then something that might be dread.

"Ah, YN!" The older man stands—Mr. Hong, you remember him vaguely from childhood gatherings. "You've grown into such a lovely young woman. I don't know if you remember but you and Joshua used to play together at company events."

Joshua.

The man from the bookstore is Joshua Hong.

"I—" You try to smile. "I remember. Hello."

Joshua stands too and you see him making the same calculation you are. That bookstore meeting wasn't a coincidence. Or maybe it was, but this dinner isn't.

"Hello," he says and his voice is the formal one from the phone. Not the one that talked about devastation and regret. 

You take your seat across from him, and the seating arrangement feels deliberate. Your parents on one end, his parents on the other, you and Joshua in the middle like this is—

Like this is an interview.

No.

Like this is a viewing.

Your brother Jeonghan arrives a minute later, apologetic. "Sorry I'm late. Traffic was—" He sees the assembled group and something crosses his face. Understanding, maybe. Or worry.

He takes the seat beside you, squeezes your hand once under the table.

The dinner begins with pleasantries. Business talk. Your father and Mr. Hong discussing markets and opportunities. Your mother and Mrs. Hong discussing an upcoming charity gala.

You pick at your food and try not to look at Joshua but you can feel him looking at you.

Twenty minutes in, your father sets down his chopsticks.

"We've invited you here tonight for a reason." His voice carries that particular tone. The one that means: this is not a discussion. "Mr. Hong and I have been talking about a partnership."

You look at Joshua. He's staring at his plate, jaw clenched.

"Our families have been close for generations," Mr. Hong continues. "And we believe it's time to strengthen that bond. Joshua is at a good place in his career. He’s stable. Accomplished. And YN has just returned from Paris, ready to begin the next chapter of her life."

"What kind of partnership?" Jeonghan asks carefully, but you can hear the edge in his voice.

"A marriage," your father says simply. "Between Joshua and YN."

The words hang in the air. You feel like you're drowning.

You feel like you're back in that apartment in Paris, walking in on something you weren't supposed to see, except this time you're not a spectator. You're the thing being arranged.

"No." The word comes out before you can stop it.

Your father's expression hardens immediately, and you can see the shift from concerned parent to businessman who's been challenged. "YN—"

"No." You look at him directly, and the word comes out stronger than you feel. "I'm not getting married. I'm not—" You stop because your breath is catching in your chest because the room suddenly feels too small and too full of people making decisions about your life. "I'm not ready."

"It's not about being ready," your mother says and her voice is so gentle it somehow makes everything worse. "It's about moving forward. You can't stay in the past, dwelling on what happened in Paris. This is an opportunity. A fresh start."

"I don't want a fresh start with someone I don't know." Your voice is rising despite your attempts to keep it level, despite knowing that showing emotion will only make your father more certain you're not thinking clearly.

"You knew each other as children—" your mother starts but you cut her off.

"That was fifteen years ago!" The words come out louder than you intended and you can feel everyone at the table watching you, judging whether you're being reasonable or hysterical, whether this is a valid protest or just the emotional breakdown they've been expecting since you came home. "I don't know him. He doesn't know me. This is—" You look around the table, at all these people who have apparently decided your life for you while you were too broken to notice it happening. "This is insane."

"Watch your tone," your father says quietly and the quietness is somehow more threatening than if he'd raised his voice.

Jeonghan's hand finds yours under the table and squeezes hard enough that you can feel your bones compress. It's the only thing keeping you tethered to your body right now, the only thing preventing you from floating up and away from this nightmare that's pretending to be a family dinner.

You look at Joshua because if you're going to be forced into this, if this is really happening, you need to know that you're not the only one being sacrificed here. "Do you want this?"

He finally looks up from the table where he's been staring at his untouched food like it might offer some escape route. His expression is empty in a way that's almost frightening. He looks resigned in a way that suggests he saw this coming, maybe has been seeing it coming for a while, and has already gone through all the stages of grief and landed on acceptance.

"Does it matter?" he asks and his voice is flat and affectless.

"Yes. It matters to me." You need him to say something, to acknowledge that this is wrong, to be the ally you need right now even though he's a stranger.

"Then no." His voice doesn't change, doesn't inflect at all. "I don't want this. But apparently that's irrelevant."

"Joshua," Mr. Hong says and his voice carries a warning that suggests this conversation is veering into territory that won't be tolerated.

"It's true though, isn't it?" Joshua looks at his father and there's something in his eyes now—not quite defiance but close to it, something that suggests he's about to say things that can't be unsaid. "You've made this decision. You've discussed terms. You've arranged everything. And now you're just informing us. This isn't a proposal. It's an announcement."

"We're giving you both a choice," your father says and he actually sounds like he believes it.

"That's not a choice." Jeonghan's voice cuts in, hard and angry in a way you rarely hear from your usually measured brother. "What you're doing is presenting a decision you've already made and calling it our choice to accept it."

"Jeonghan," your mother warns but there's less conviction in her voice now. Maybe she knows he's right but can't afford to admit it.

"No." Jeonghan doesn't back down, doesn't release your hand, doesn't soften his tone. "You're doing to her exactly what Paris did. You're treating her like she doesn't get a say in her own life."

"Her wants are to mope around the house feeling sorry for herself," your father says and his voice is cold now, stripped of the gentleness he was using before. "That's not going to be tolerated. This is good for her whether she sees it now or not."

"Good for her?" Jeonghan's voice rises despite his obvious attempts to control it. "Or good for your business partnership?"

"Both can be true."

You feel like you're watching this from outside your body, like you're floating somewhere near the ceiling looking down at a girl who looks like you sitting at a table with people who look like your family, and none of it feels real.

Joshua speaks again and his voice cuts through the argument like a knife. "Why aren't you fighting?"

You look at him, pulled back into your body by the directness of the question. "What?"

"You." His eyes are on you now, really looking at you for the first time since you sat down, and there's something in them that you can't quite identify. Anger, maybe, or frustration, or something darker and more complicated. "You said no once. Why aren't you saying it again? Why aren't you fighting this?"

The question lands like a slap.

“Who the hell are you—” Jeonghan starts, but you interject.

"I—" You don't know how to answer, don't know what he wants from you, don't know if there's any answer that would satisfy whatever test this is.

"She shouldn't have to fight," Jeonghan says sharply, his protective instincts flaring. "She said no. That should be enough."

"But it's not, is it?" Joshua's voice is bitter now and you can hear years of something in it—resentment or resignation or both. "Because we're still sitting here. Because—" He stops, and when he looks at you again there's something almost like an accusation in his expression. "Because you're just sitting there and accepting it."

"What do you want me to do?" Your voice comes out smaller than you intend and you hate how it sounds—weak, defeated, exactly what he's accusing you of being. "They've already decided. You said it yourself—this is an announcement, not a discussion."

"So that's it?" Joshua leans forward, and his intensity is almost aggressive now. "You're just giving up? Let them do this?"

"I'm not giving up—"

"You're not fighting either."

"Joshua, that's enough," Mrs. Hong says quietly but there's no real force behind it.

"No, it's not enough." Joshua stands abruptly, his chair scraping against the floor with a sound that makes everyone flinch. "You're all sitting here talking about this like it's reasonable. Like arranging marriages in 2024 is normal. Like we're just—" He stops, seems to be searching for words adequate to express his fury. "Like we're just things you can trade for business partnerships."

"Sit down," Mr. Hong says and his voice carries the kind of weight that suggests this is not a request that will be repeated.

Joshua doesn't sit. "I won't do this."

"Yes, you will." His father's voice is quiet but absolute, the kind of certainty that comes from never being disobeyed. "You'll do this because you're my son and this is what's required."

"Required for what?" Joshua's hands are clenched at his sides.

"For this family. For the company. For everything we've built." Mr. Hong stands too and the two of them facing each other across the table creates a tension that makes everyone else shrink back slightly. "You've had thirty years of freedom, Joshua. Thirty years to do what you wanted—"

"I haven't had a single day of freedom—" Joshua's voice rises.

"And now it's time to accept responsibility." His father's voice cuts through like a blade. "This is happening. The contracts are being drawn up. The engagement will be announced next month. You can accept this gracefully or you can make it difficult but the outcome is the same."

Joshua stares at his father and you watch something die in his eyes. Some last spark of defiance or hope or whatever was keeping him upright just—goes out. He sits down slowly, mechanically, like someone who's been defeated so many times he knows exactly what surrender looks like.

Jeonghan is still holding your hand under the table and his grip is tight enough to hurt, tight enough that you know he's barely holding himself together.

"YN." Your father's voice pulls your attention back to him and his tone has returned to that careful gentleness. "I understand this is unexpected but this is what's best. For you. For the family. Joshua is from a good family. He's successful and stable. After Paris—after what that man did to you—you need something solid."

The words are kind. His tone is gentle and paternal and full of concern. But what you hear underneath is something else entirely. 

What you hear is: you failed at choosing for yourself, so we're choosing for you. 

What you hear is: you're broken and this is damage control. 

What you hear is: you don't get to want things anymore because wanting things only leads to disaster.

"Can I think about it?" Your voice is barely above a whisper and you hate how small you sound, how defeated.

"There's nothing to think about," your father says as if this is simple logic.

Jeonghan makes a sound that might be a scoff or a sarcastic laugh. "This is cruel. You're being cruel."

"We're being practical," your father corrects, and there's no room for argument in his voice. "And we're giving them time to adjust before the announcement. That's more than most arranged marriages get."

"This isn't the 1950s—"

"Enough." Your father's voice sharpens and Jeonghan's protests die in his throat. "Jeonghan, I know you're protective of your sister but this is not your decision. YN is an adult. She can speak for herself."

Everyone looks at you. The weight of all those eyes is crushing, suffocating, like being buried under expectations and assumptions and decisions that have already been made regardless of what you might say.

You feel the weight of what each person wants from you. Your father wants you to say yes and be grateful for the opportunity. Your mother wants you to be practical and mature about this. Jeonghan wants you to fight and to prove that Paris didn't break you completely. Joshua's parents are watching to see if you'll be a problem or if you'll make this difficult.

And Joshua. Joshua looking at you with something that might be disappointment or might be resignation, like he's waiting for you to prove something, to show that you're worth being trapped with, to fight when he couldn't or wouldn't.

But you're so tired of fighting and trying and disappointing people.You’re so tired of failing at things you never wanted in the first place.

Your ex said you were too much. Maybe he was right. Maybe you're too much for love but not enough for choice. Maybe this is what you get. What you deserve. Maybe this is just your life now—not what you wanted but what you're given and you're too exhausted to keep pushing back against the inevitable.

"Okay," you hear yourself say and the word sounds like it's coming from very far away.

Jeonghan's hand tightens around yours painfully. "YN—"

"Okay," you say again, louder this time, forcing the word out before you can change your mind. "I'll do it."

Your father smiles and it's warm and approving in a way you haven't seen since before Paris. Your mother looks relieved.

Jeonghan looks devastated, like he's watching you walk willingly into something terrible and can't do anything to stop you.

And Joshua looks at you like you've just confirmed everything he suspected. That you're weak. That you won't fight. That you're someone who just accepts what she's given because she doesn't believe she deserves better.

He's not wrong.

"Wonderful," Mr. Hong says and his satisfaction is palpable. "We'll announce the engagement next month. That gives you both time to get to know each other."

The dinner continues around you. More business talk, more planning, your fathers discussing timeline and logistics like they're arranging a corporate merger rather than your life. You stop listening because there's no point in listening, because the decisions are being made without your input anyway, because you've already said yes and everything else is just details.

You're thinking about the bookstore instead. You think about that moment a few weeks ago when a stranger recommended a book about regret. You think about how he said you could handle devastation. How he looked at you in that moment like he saw something in you that could survive difficult things.

Joshua Hong was wrong. You can't handle devastation. You're barely handling existing.

This is going to devastate you. And you just said yes to it anyway.

The restaurant is in Gangnam, expensive and modern, the kind of place where business deals happen over perfectly plated food that tastes like ambition and compromise. You arrive ten minutes early because your mother taught you that punctuality is respect, even when you don't feel particularly respectful toward the situation.

Joshua is already there.

He’s sitting at a table by the window, staring out at the street like he's trying to memorize an escape route. He's in a suit—charcoal gray, perfectly tailored, the uniform of someone who's learned to dress the part even when the part doesn't fit.

He doesn't see you approach.

You take a moment to study him—this stranger who's going to be your husband in six months. He looks different than he did at that dinner. He looks like he's already accepted something you're still trying to process.

When you reach the table, he looks up but his expression doesn't change. He doesn't smile, doesn't soften, doesn't do anything except register your presence with the enthusiasm one might show for a dental appointment.

"Hi," you say because someone has to start.

"You're early." His voice is flat. Just—devoid of anything that might indicate he's happy to see you. Or unhappy. Or feeling anything at all.

"So are you."

"I had a meeting nearby." He gestures to the seat across from him.

As soon as you sit, the waiter appears immediately. Joshua orders for both of you without asking what you want.

"So," you say when the waiter leaves. "Here we are."

"Here we are." He's still not looking at you. Still staring out the window like there's something fascinating happening on the street that's more interesting than this conversation.

The silence stretches.

You try again. "I thought—maybe we could talk. Get to know each other. Since we're—" The word sticks in your throat. "Since we're getting married."

"What do you want to know?" His tone suggests he doesn't actually care what you want to know.

"I don't know. Anything. Everything." You're fumbling, trying to find purchase in this conversation that feels like trying to climb a wall made of ice. "What do you do for work?"

"You know what I do. Your father and my father discussed it extensively at dinner."

"I know you work for your family's company. But what do you actually do?"

He finally looks at you. His eyes are dark and unreadable. "I do what I'm told. That's what I do."

The bitterness in his voice is the first real emotion you've heard from him.

"That's not—" You stop. "That's not an answer."

"It's the only answer that matters." He leans back in his chair and there's something in his posture—not quite hostile but definitely not welcoming either. "I sit in meetings. I review contracts. I make decisions that affect people I'll never meet."

"You don't like it."

"Does it matter if I like it?"

"Yes."

"Why?" The question is sharp. "Why does it matter to you what I like or don't like? We're getting married because our fathers decided it was good for business. My preferences are as irrelevant as yours."

You take a breath, trying to steady yourself. "I'm just—I'm trying to have a conversation. To get to know you."

"Why?"

"Because we're going to be married—"

"And you think having a conversation is going to change that? You think knowing my favorite color or what I do on weekends is going to make this—" He gestures between you. "Make this bearable?"

"I think it might help."

"It won't." He says it with such certainty. "We're strangers. We're going to get married. We'll live in the same house and attend the same events and perform for our families and none of it is going to matter because neither of us chose this."

"We could choose to make it work—"

"Could we?" He leans forward now and there's something sharp in his eyes. "Tell me, YN. You were at that dinner last week when our fathers announced this arrangement—why didn't you fight harder?"

The question catches you off guard. "I—"

"You said no once. One single no. And then you just—gave up. Sat there. Let them talk about you like you weren't even in the room. And then you said yes." He's watching you closely now, studying your face like he's trying to solve a puzzle. "Why?"

"I didn't—it wasn't—" You're struggling to find words. "They weren't going to change their minds."

"So? You still fight. You still make them work for it. You still act like your life is worth fighting for." His voice is getting harder now, each word precise and cutting. "But you didn't. You just—surrendered."

"You don’t know anything—"

"Don’t I?" He sits back again and his expression is almost curious now. "You went to Paris. You chose that. You chose to study visual arts halfway around the world. You chose to leave your family's expectations to build a life somewhere else." His voice is like a scalpel. "You made that happen. Fought for it, I assume, since I can't imagine your parents were thrilled about their daughter moving to Paris to study art instead of something practical."

Your stomach drops. "How do you—"

"My father has resources." He waves the question away like it's irrelevant. "The point is—you were capable of choosing. Of fighting for what you wanted. For five years." He pauses and there's something sharp and angry and hurt in his eyes. "So clearly you know how to fight when you want something. Which means at that dinner, when they told you to marry me—you just didn't want to fight."

The tears are burning in your eyes now. You're trying to hold them back, trying to maintain some dignity, but he's cutting too close to wounds that haven't healed.

"You don't know anything about me," you say and your voice is shaking despite your best efforts to control it.

"I know you made choices when it mattered to you." His voice is relentless. "And I know that when faced with marrying me, you couldn't muster the energy to fight. So either you're too tired to care about anything anymore or you just don't think your life here is worth the effort."

"Stop." Your hands are clenched in your lap so hard your knuckles are white.

"Why? Because it's true?"

"Because you don't know what you're talking about." You force yourself to meet his eyes even though yours are burning. "Yes, I went to Paris." Your voice cracks but you push through. "And then it ended. And I came home with nothing. And I've been home for three weeks trying to figure out how to exist in a life I don't recognize anymore. So forgive me if I don't have the energy to fight about this too."

"You had energy to fight for Paris—"

"That was before." The words come out sharper than you intend. "That was when I still thought fighting mattered—" You stop, won't give him more ammunition. "It's different now."

"How convenient."

The casual cruelty of it makes something in you harden.

"Why are you doing this?" You're not crying anymore. The tears have dried up, replaced by something colder. "What do you want from me?"

"I want—" He stops and for the first time, he looks uncertain. "I want you to fight. I want you to prove that someone in this situation has the spine to say no and mean it."

"Why? So you can feel better about not having that spine yourself?"

He goes very still.

"At that dinner," you continue, voice steady now even though your hands are still shaking, "when your father told you to sit down—you sat. You sat down and you accepted it, just like I did. So don't stand on your moral high ground and judge me for doing exactly what you did."

You lean forward. "We're both here. We both said yes. We're both doing this thing we don't want to do. The only difference is you're angry about it and I'm just—" You stop. "I'm just tired."

Joshua's jaw is clenched. His hands are flat on the table like he's physically restraining himself.

"You're right," he says finally, and his voice is cold. "We're both doing this. We're both trapped. And we're going to make each other miserable because neither of us knows how to be anything else right now."

The food arrives. Neither of you touches it for a long time.

Finally, Joshua picks up his chopsticks. Eats mechanically, like fuel rather than pleasure.

You do the same.

Joshua doesn't go straight home. He drives instead, with no particular destination in mind, just the need to be away from that restaurant and that dinner he just had you.

He ends up at the Han River, parked at one of those areas where couples come to watch the sunset and teenagers come to drink and pretend they're older than they are. It's nearly empty now, just him and the water and the city lights reflecting on the surface like scattered stars. He sits with the engine off and stares at nothing, trying to understand why his hands are still shaking.

It's not from anger, though there's plenty of that simmering under his skin. It's from something else, something that feels uncomfortably like shame.

He was cruel to you. He knows he was. He threw your choices in your face, interrogated you about not fighting when he hadn't fought either, made you tear up and then kept pushing because—because why? Because he's angry. Because you were there. Because taking it out on you is easier.

That's the thing that's sitting heavy and uncomfortable in his chest now. When it was just an abstract announcement, when it was just contracts and wedding dates and business partnerships, he could pretend it wasn't real. He could pretend it was happening to someone else. But then you showed up to dinner and tried to have a conversation. You tried to get to know him and make this bearable. And that made it real.

Joshua resented you for it: for being there, for accepting this thing he doesn't want but is doing anyway, for being the mirror that shows him exactly what he is—a coward who does what his father says and hates everyone involved for it.

Joshua pulls out his phone and opens the browser. Types: YN Yoon artist. The results fill in quickly and the first hit is an article from a Seoul art magazine titled "Emerging Korean Artists Abroad: Voices of a New Generation." He clicks it.

There's a photo of you, taken maybe two years ago in Paris. You’re standing in front of one of your paintings—a landscape of the Seine at twilight, all blues and purples and gold, rendered in bold, confident strokes. You’re smiling in the photo. The kind that reaches the eyes.

He reads the caption: "YN Yoon, 27, whose vivid landscapes capture the emotional intensity of urban spaces. 'I paint what it feels like to be alive in a city,' Yoon says. 'Not what it looks like—what it feels like.'"

He clicks to another article and this one features several of her paintings. They're really good. Full of life and color and something that feels honest and raw.

There's one painting that makes him pause. It's of a bridge—maybe Pont des Arts but it's abstracted enough that it could be anywhere. The structure is rendered in sharp, precise lines, but the sky and water are chaotic, swirls of color almost violent in their intensity, like the rigid structure of the bridge is the only thing keeping the chaos from consuming everything. The title: "Holding On."

Joshua stares at it for a long time. He scrolls through more images. Gallery showings. Your work is displayed next to other artists. Reviews that use words like "visceral" and "uncompromising" and "emotionally generous." Emotionally generous. The opposite of everything he is.

He finds a video—some kind of artist talk you gave at your program. It's in French but there are English subtitles. He clicks play and watches you sitting on a stool in front of an audience, talking about your work. You’re animated and expressive. 

The video ends and Joshua sits in his car staring at the frozen final frame of your face. You’re smiling, alive, so different from the tired, resigned woman sitting across from him tonight. This is who you were before you agreed to marry him. 

And now you’re someone who can barely fight for herself. Who said yes to a marriage you don't want because you’re too tired to say no.

What the hell happened in Paris? What broke you badly enough that you came home and gave up?

Joshua closes the browser and sits in the dark thinking about what he said to her. You fought for Paris but you won't fight for this. He was right, but he was also wrong. She did fight for Paris. For five years, she built something there. Something that mattered to her. Something that let her be big and uncontained and emotionally generous. And then something destroyed it. And she came home. And she's been home for three weeks trying to figure out how to exist in a life she doesn't recognize.

And he made her cry by throwing that in her face. By judging her for surviving the only way she knows how. By resenting her for being broken when he's just as broken.

Joshua starts the car and drives home to his parents' house because he promised them he’d come home once in a while. When he walks in, his mother is waiting in the living room like he knew she would be.

"How was dinner?"

"Fine." The lie comes automatically, practiced from years of not saying what he actually thinks. "We talked."

"And? Do you think it will work?"

Joshua thinks about your face when you were fighting not to cry. He thinks about your paintings—vivid and alive and the opposite of what you are now. He thinks about the way you looked at him when he kept cutting and kept cutting and wouldn't stop. "I don't know," he says honestly. "But we're doing it anyway."

His mother smiles like he's said something reassuring. "That's the spirit. Sometimes these things just take time."

Time. Like time is going to fix the fact that he's going to marry someone he just spent an hour destroying. Like time is going to make him less angry or her less tired or either of them less trapped.

Joshua goes to his room and sits on his bed. He should feel guilty. He does feel guilty. But underneath the guilt is something else. Curiosity, maybe. What happened in Paris? Who broke you? And why does it bother him so much that someone else got to you before he did?

Joshua puts his phone away and lies back on his bed. He thinks about your smile in that photo—real and bright and alive—he thinks maybe he could try not to make you smaller. Not because he wants to help you, but because watching someone disappear in front of you is uncomfortable. And he's going to have to look at you every day for the rest of his life. And maybe he'd prefer to look at someone who still has some light left even if he's the one who keeps trying to extinguish it.

It's a selfish reason. But it's something. And right now, something is all he's got.

The wedding dress appointment is scheduled for 10 am on a Tuesday.

Your mother made the appointment three weeks ago before you'd even processed that you were getting married. Now you're standing outside a bridal boutique in Cheongdam-dong, staring at the window display—a mannequin in white lace that costs more than an arm and a leg probably—and trying to remember how to breathe.

Sooyoung is beside you. She flew in from Paris two days ago and the first thing she said when she saw you was, "You look like shit." Not hello. Not how are you. Just—you look tired. Because you do. You are.

"We don't have to do this today," Sooyoung says now, watching your face carefully. "We can reschedule."

"My mother will kill me."

"Your mother isn't marrying him."

The words hang between you. True, but irrelevant. Your mother made this appointment and chose this boutique. She has opinions about necklines and trains and what's appropriate for a wedding that's more business merger than love story.

"Let's just get it over with," you say as you push open the door.

The boutique is exactly what you expected—all white and gold and soft lighting designed to make everything look like a dream. Like this is supposed to be the happiest moment of your life.

You feel nothing.

The consultant approaches with practiced enthusiasm. She's probably in her forties, elegant and warm, and she clearly does this dozens of times a week. "You must be YN! Congratulations on your engagement. Your mother told me so much about you. She said you're marrying the Hong family's son? How wonderful. Such a good match."

A good match. 

"Thank you," you say automatically.

She leads you to a private fitting area—more white, more gold, more soft lighting—and starts pulling dresses. "Your mother mentioned you prefer classic styles. I've selected several options that I think will suit you perfectly."

You want to say that you don't prefer anything, that you haven't thought about wedding dresses since you were a child and still believed in fairy tales, that the last thing you want is to stand in front of mirrors trying on white dresses for a wedding you never wanted.

Instead you say, "That sounds great."

Sooyoung catches your eye in the mirror. Her expression is carefully neutral but you can see the concern underneath. She knows you too well.

The first dress is strapless, fitted, covered in intricate beading. It's beautiful in an objective way. Expensive. Appropriate. You put it on and stand in front of the three-way mirror.

The consultant is delighted. "Oh, it's stunning on you. The beading catches the light so beautifully. And the fit—we'd need to take it in slightly at the waist but otherwise it's perfect."

You look at yourself. The woman in the mirror looks the part—elegant, composed, appropriate for a wedding. But her eyes are empty.

"What do you think?" the consultant asks.

"It's nice."

"Just nice?" She laughs like you're being modest. "It's gorgeous. But let's try a few more so you can compare."

The next dress has a sweetheart neckline and a full skirt. The one after that has long sleeves and a chapel train. Then one with a keyhole back. Another with a high neck and cap sleeves.

You try on seven dresses.

They all look the same after a while. White and expensive. Each one transforms you into a bride—just not one who looks particularly happy about it.

Sooyoung has been quiet through most of this, sitting on the velvet settee and watching you transform from woman to bride to woman again with each dress. Finally, when the consultant steps out to get another option, she speaks.

"Do you like any of them?"

You're standing in front of the mirror in dress number seven. Lace with an illusion neckline. "They're all nice."

"That's not what I asked."

You turn to look at her. Your best friend from university who moved to Paris the same year you did, who was there for every moment of your relationship, who flew home to be here for this even though she has a gallery showing next week. "Does it matter if I like them?"

"Yes." Her voice is firm. "It matters."

"It's just a dress, Sooyoung."

"It's not just a dress. It's your wedding dress. For your wedding. To a man you don't want to marry." She stands up, comes closer, and her voice drops so the consultant won't hear when she comes back. "You don't have to do this. You know that, right? You can still say no."

"It's too late—"

"It's never too late. Not until you actually say 'I do.'" She's looking at you intently, trying to catch your eye in the mirror, trying to make you see what she's seeing. "YN, I'm watching you try on wedding dresses like you're shopping for office furniture. This isn't you."

"Maybe this is who I am now."

"No." Sooyoung shakes her head. "This is who you're pretending to be because you think you don't have any other choice. But you do. You always have a choice."

The consultant returns before you can respond. She's holding another dress, this one simpler than the others. "I know your mother wanted a classic but I thought—just try this one. For fun."

You let her help you into it.

This dress is different. Silk instead of lace. Clean lines instead of beading. A lower back, a simpler neckline. It's still white, still a wedding dress, still designed for a bride. But it's softer somehow. Less armor, more fabric.

You look at yourself in the mirror and for the first time, you feel something.

Not happiness. Not excitement. Just recognition.

This dress looks like you. Or like who you used to be, maybe. Before Paris ended. Before you learned to make yourself smaller.

"That's the one," Sooyoung says quietly.

The consultant is nodding enthusiastically. "It's perfect. Absolutely perfect. Not what your mother suggested, but—"

"I'll take it," you hear yourself say.

It's a small rebellion to choose a dress your mother wouldn't have chosen. It's not much, but it's something.

The cake tasting is scheduled for two weeks later.

You arrive ten minutes early. Joshua is already there sitting at a table in the corner of the bakery, looking at his phone with that expression he always has—like he's somewhere else entirely.

You slide into the chair across from him. "Hi."

He looks up and takes a second to register your presence like he has to pull himself back from wherever his mind was. "You're early."

"So are you."

"I had a meeting nearby." The same excuse he always gives. Maybe it's even true. Maybe he really does spend every waking moment at the office, scheduling his life around meetings and contracts and obligations.

The bakery owner approaches—a cheerful woman in her fifties who clearly loves what she does. "You must be the happy couple! Congratulations! I've prepared several options for you to try. We'll start with the classic flavors and work our way to some more unique combinations."

Joshua's expression doesn't change. Neither does yours.

She brings out the first samples. Vanilla with buttercream. Chocolate with ganache. Red velvet with cream cheese frosting.

You taste them mechanically. They're all good. They all taste like cake. You have no preference.

"What do you think?" the owner asks beaming at you both.

"They're all nice," you say.

Joshua hasn't touched his samples. He's looking at them like they're evidence in a trial he doesn't want to be part of. "You choose."

"I don't have a preference."

"Neither do I."

The owner's smile falters slightly. She's probably used to couples who care about this, who have opinions, who playfully argue about vanilla versus chocolate. Not—whatever this is.

"Well, let's try a few more," she says, still trying to maintain enthusiasm. "Maybe something will stand out."

She brings out lemon with raspberry filling. Almond with apricot. Earl grey with honey buttercream.

You taste each one. They're all fine. They're all just cake. Joshua still hasn't tried any of them.

"You should at least taste them," you say quietly.

"Why?" He's not looking at you. "You're going to pick something acceptable and that'll be fine. My presence here is just ceremonial."

"You're getting married too."

"Are we?" He finally looks at you and there's something sharp in his eyes. "Because it doesn't feel like we're getting married. It feels like we're going through motions our parents orchestrated."

The owner has tactfully stepped away to give you privacy. Or maybe she's just uncomfortable with the tension radiating from your table.

"What do you want me to say?" you ask, keeping your voice low. "I want to be here? That I'm excited about cake flavors? I'm trying. That's all I've got right now."

"I know." Some of the sharpness leaves his expression, replaced by something closer to resignation. "I'm not criticizing you. I'm just—" He stops. "I got a call from my father this morning. Asking about the cake. About the flowers. About whether we've decided on a venue for the rehearsal dinner. Like any of this matters."

"It matters to them."

"That's the problem." He finally picks up a fork, pokes at the lemon cake without actually tasting it. "Everything matters to them. The dress, the venue, the guest list, the cake. Everything except whether we actually want this."

You don't know what to say to that. He's right. All of it matters to everyone except the two of you. The owner returns, hopeful. "Have we decided on a favorite?"

You look at Joshua. He looks at you. Neither of you has a favorite. Neither of you cares.

"The vanilla," you say. The most basic. The most expected. "With the buttercream."

"Wonderful choice! Classic, elegant, never goes out of style." The owner is writing it down, relieved to have a decision. "And how many tiers were you thinking?"

"Whatever's appropriate for the guest count," Joshua says, his voice flat.

"Of course. I'll coordinate with your wedding planner about the details." She's smiling again, probably relieved that this uncomfortable appointment is almost over. "Congratulations again! I'm sure your wedding will be beautiful."

That's what everyone keeps saying. It will be beautiful. Elegant. Appropriate. All the things a wedding should be except the one thing that actually matters.

The engagement party is in four days.

Joshua's mother has been calling him every day with updates he doesn't care about. The guest list. The catering menu. The photographer. Every detail is carefully planned to project the right image to the right people.

He's supposed to be at the venue right now. The final walkthrough with the event planner and both sets of parents. Making sure everything is perfect for the party where they'll officially announce to society that he's getting married.

He's at the office instead.

It's 6 pm on a Saturday. The building is mostly empty except for security downstairs and the cleaning crew that comes through on weekends. Joshua sits at his desk, staring at a contract he's supposedly reviewing, and trying to ignore the seventeen missed calls from his mother.

His door opens without warning.

Seungcheol.

"Your mother called me," Seungcheol says, closing the door behind him. "Said you missed the venue walkthrough. Said she was worried something happened to you."

"I'm fine. Just working."

"It's Saturday night."

"So?"

"So you were supposed to be at the venue. With your fiancée and your parents doing the thing you're supposed to do." Seungcheol sits down in the chair across from Joshua's desk. "But you're here, hiding."

"I'm not hiding."

"You're definitely hiding." Seungcheol leans back, studies him. "This is what you've been doing for three weeks now. You’re letting YN handle everything alone while you disappear into work."

"She doesn't need me there. My mother makes all the decisions anyway."

"That's not the point."

"Then what is the point?" Joshua tosses the contract aside. He hasn't actually read a single word. "That I should show up and pretend I care about tablecloths and floral arrangements? That I should smile and nod while they plan every detail of a wedding I never wanted?"

"The point is that she's showing up to every appointment, every meeting, every ridiculous thing on your mothers schedule. And you're not."

"She can handle it."

"That's not the point either." Seungcheol's voice is firm now. "You're making her do this alone. You're making her face all of this by herself while you hide in your office and feel sorry for yourself."

"I'm not—"

"You are. You're punishing her for this situation by refusing to participate in it. And that's—" Seungcheol stops. "That's cruel, Joshua. Even for you."

Joshua wants to argue. He wants to say that his presence wouldn't matter anyway, that you probably prefer doing this without him.

But he can't because Seungcheol is right.

"I can't do it," Joshua says quietly. "I can't show up and pretend. I can't smile at these appointments and act like this is what I want. I just—I can't."

"So you're letting her do it alone."

"She doesn't want me there anyway."

"How do you know?" Seungcheol leans forward. "Have you asked her? Have you talked to her at all since that first dinner?"

Joshua thinks about the cake tasting two weeks ago. That's been the extent of their interaction. "We talk."

"No you don't. You show up when you absolutely have to and then you leave as quickly as possible."

"What am I supposed to say to her?" Joshua's voice rises despite himself. "What am I supposed to talk to her about? The weather? Work? How we're both trapped in this thing neither of us wants? What's the point?"

"The point is that you're going to be married to her. For the rest of your life, potentially. And right now you're—you're treating her like she doesn't exist except when you're forced to acknowledge her." Seungcheol's expression is serious. "And that's going to hurt her. And you. And whatever chance you might have had at making this bearable."

"There's no chance—"

"There could be if you tried and if you treated her like a person instead of like an obligation you resent." Seungcheol stands up. "Shua, I know you're angry. But she's not the enemy. She's just—she's just someone in the same situation you are."

The words sting because they're true. You show up and do what's expected.

"I don't know how to do this," Joshua admits.

"Then figure it out. Because in four days, you have an engagement party and your fiancée shouldn't have to stand there alone while you sulk in a corner." Seungcheol heads toward the door, pauses. "Your mother asked me to tell you that you need to be fitted for your suit. Tomorrow at two. Don't miss it."

He leaves.

Joshua sits alone in his office and thinks about you trying on wedding dresses by yourself. Tasting cakes alone while he barely participated. Standing in venues making decisions about a wedding he can't be bothered to help plan.

He should feel guilty. He does feel guilty. But guilt doesn't override the bone-deep resentment that rises every time he thinks about showing up to these appointments.

Then his phone buzzes.

A text from his mother: Suit fitting tomorrow 2pm. Seungcheol told you? Don't be late.

He types back: I'll be there.

A lie, probably. He'll find some excuse. Some meeting that can't be rescheduled. Some emergency at work.

He's good at excuses now. Good at making you handle everything alone while he pretends it's not happening.

Seungcheol is right. It's cruel. But Joshua doesn't know how to be anything else.

You wake up at six in the morning even though you don't need to be ready until noon.

You haven't really slept in days. Every time you close your eyes, you see the calendar date circling closer—June 15th, the day you're getting married—and your chest tightens until you have to sit up just to breathe properly.

Today is your wedding day.

You feel nothing except a low-grade anxiety that's been humming in your blood for weeks now, getting louder with each day, each appointment, each reminder that this is actually happening.

There's a knock on your bedroom door.

"YN?" Sooyoung's voice, quiet and careful. "Are you awake?"

"Yeah."

She opens the door, already dressed, carrying two cups of coffee like she knew you'd be up. She's been staying at your parents' house for the past week, helping with final preparations, being the friend you need even though she has her own life in Paris to get back to.

She sits on the edge of your bed and hands you a cup. "How are you feeling?"

"I don't know." It's the truth. You don't know how you're feeling. There's too much happening in your chest—fear and resignation and exhaustion and something else you can't name.

"You don't have to do this." She's said this every day for the past week. Every day you've had the same answer.

"Yes, I do."

"YN—"

"Sooyoung, please." You take a sip of coffee. It's hot and bitter and grounds you slightly. "I can't—I can't have this conversation again. I'm doing this. It's done. The decision is made."

She looks like she wants to argue but she doesn't. She just nods and squeezes your hand. "Okay. But I'm here. Whatever you need today. I'm here."

"I know. Thank you."

Jeonghan appears in the doorway next. Your brother who's been trying to talk you out of this for six months. Who watched you get smaller and quieter with each passing week and couldn't do anything to stop it. "Mom says you need to start getting ready. Hair and makeup are here."

You nod. Stand up. Follow him downstairs to where your mother has set up a whole station—chairs and mirrors and lighting and three people whose job it is to transform you into a bride.

Your mother is already there making sure everything is perfect. She sees you and smiles—actually smiles—and you realize this might be the happiest you've seen her in months. "There you are, honey. Sit. We're running on schedule but we can't afford to be late."

The hair stylist starts immediately, pulling and pinning and spraying. The makeup artist follows. Someone else is doing your nails—French tips, classic, not loud.

You sit through all of it like a doll being assembled.

Sooyoung watches from the corner, her arms crossed and her expression carefully neutral. Jeonghan left—said he couldn't watch this, couldn't be in the room while you're being prepared for something he thinks is a mistake.

"You look beautiful," your mother says when they're done with your hair. "Absolutely beautiful. Joshua is a lucky man."

You look at yourself in the mirror. The woman looking back is perfect—hair styled in an elegant updo, makeup flawless, nails pristine. She looks like a bride from a magazine. Like someone who's about to have the best day of her life.

"Time for the dress," your mother announces.

They bring it out—the silk dress you chose, the one your mother didn't pick, your one small rebellion. It's beautiful. Even now, you can admit that. They help you with it. The silk is cool against your skin. The fit is perfect—they'd done multiple alterations to make sure of it. The back dips low, the neckline is simple, the skirt flows without being overly dramatic.

You look like a bride but you also feel like a stranger.

"Perfect," your mother says and there are actual tears in her eyes. "My daughter is getting married. You have no idea how happy this makes me."

You force a smile. "I'm glad."

Sooyoung hands you your bouquet—white roses and peonies, classic and chosen by someone else. You hold it and feel the weight of it in your hands, this symbol of love and new beginnings and all the things this day is supposed to represent but doesn't.

You're getting married in an hour.

Joshua wakes up at five in the morning from a dream he can't remember but that leaves him with a sense of dread so heavy he can barely get out of bed.

Today is his wedding day.

He lies there for twenty minutes, staring at the ceiling, trying to find some way to make this not be happening. Some way to just—stop time.

There isn't one. There's never been one.

There's a knock on his door. His mother probably, with some detail he needs to attend to, some final thing that needs his approval before the ceremony that's going to trap him for the rest of his life.

"Come in," he says, his voice rough from sleep and resignation.

It's Seungcheol.

"You look terrible," Seungcheol says, closing the door behind him.

"Thanks."

"I'm serious. You look like you haven't slept in days."

"I haven't." Joshua sits up and runs his hands through his hair. "Have you ever tried to sleep knowing you're about to—" He stops. Can't even finish the sentence.

Seungcheol sits on the edge of the bed, the way he's done since they were kids, since before either of them understood what duty meant. "Last chance to run."

"To where?"

"Anywhere. Everywhere."

Joshua laughs but it's hollow. "And then what? My father disowns me. My mother loses everything. I become—what? The son who ran away on his wedding day? The coward who couldn't face his responsibilities?"

"The person who chose himself."

"That's not a choice I get to make."

"It's always a choice." Seungcheol's voice is gentle but firm. "You're just choosing not to make it."

Joshua knows he's right but knowing doesn't change anything. It doesn't make him brave enough to actually walk away.

"I can't do that to her," Joshua says quietly.

"To who? Your mother?"

"To YN." He looks at Seungcheol. "She's—she's been doing everything right. If I run now, I make her—" He stops. "I make her the girl who got left at the altar. Everyone will know. Everyone will talk. She doesn't deserve that."

"So you're going through with it to protect her?"

"I'm going through with it because I don't have a choice. But at least—at least this way she's not humiliated too."

Seungcheol is quiet for a moment. "That's almost noble. If it weren't also completely miserable for both of you."

"Yeah."

"For what it's worth—" Seungcheol stands. "I think you're making a mistake. But I also think you're trying to do the right thing."

"Thanks. That makes me feel so much better."

After Seungcheol leaves, Joshua sits alone for another ten minutes before forcing himself to get up, shower, and go through the motions of preparing for his wedding day.

His suit is hanging in his closet—custom-made, perfectly fitted. He puts it on mechanically. Tie. Jacket. Cufflinks his father gave him that morning with a note: For my son, on his wedding day. I'm proud of you.

Proud.

He looks at himself in the mirror. He looks like a groom. Handsome, composed, appropriate for a society wedding.

He looks like his father. The thought makes him want to tear the suit off.

But he doesn't.

He's getting married in an hour.

chapter 2.2 is here :)

[hanniejoo]

💌 a little life update

hi everyone—coming to you with a small but important update 🩷

i’ve been dealing with some health-related challenges lately that have made it difficult to function the way i normally would on some days. nothing too serious, but enough to slow me down in ways i didn’t anticipate. i wanted to be transparent with you all rather than just go quiet.

i know i mentioned that chapter 3 of twice fallen would be out before i leave for tokyo in the next two weeks, and i’m so sorry to say that’s no longer something i can promise. i want to give you the best version of this story—and right now, i just can’t do that the way it deserves. i’m sorry for that.

what i can give you is a joshua x reader one shot before i leave—and you have my word on that 🤍 it’s a soft, quiet little thing, and i hope it finds whoever needs it most.

i also want to manage expectations gently: the rest of april and all of may are going to be busy with some pre-planned trips so i honestly can’t say whether twice fallen will be updated in that window. but please know—the story isn’t going anywhere. it lives in me. life is just asking for a lot right now.

thank you for being the kind of readers who make it feel safe to be honest. your patience and kindness mean more than i know how to say! please feel free to leave a message/ask and i’ll get to them as soon as i can. see you soon. 🩷

[hanniejoo]

🌷 some good news + a poll to make your head spin

hello, my darlings—

i've missed you more than words can say.

i'm happy to share that two days ago, i was officially cleared by my doctor. i'm still on some medications and taking things one step at a time, but i'm doing well—genuinely, quietly, peacefully well. healing isn't always loud and mine has been slow and full of small mercies and i am just grateful for everything.

i'm easing back in gently, which means i can only really hold one muse in my heart right now; and if you know me even a little, you already know who. i'm sorry in advance: it is, and perhaps always will be, a joshua world, and we are all just living in it 🩷

but here's the thing: i want to write something you want to read.

so i'm leaving the choice in your hands. vote below for the prompt you'd like me to write because there will be one winner—though the others may find their way here someday too (no promises, but never say never, the chances may be low but never zero). and if there's a story on the list that's keeping you up at night, drop it in my inbox or the replies. i will genuinely consider it 🫧

🩷

joshua; christmas, fake dating (kind of) + a second chance, cold car rides

wonwoo; post-concert comfort, gentle love, promises, wc less than 10k

joshua; mornings, hell of a lot of banter when they're both horny, emotional

joshua; childhood friend turned lover turned ex, love never rly left, depression

Voting ended onMay 11

the winning prompt + chapter 3 of twice fallen will be posted sometime in june or july. good things take time and i don't want to rush either of them!

thank you for waiting. thank you for staying. thank you for being the kind of readers who make coming back feel like coming home. i love you all so much and i cannot wait to write for you again.

with so much warmth, ali 🌸