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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 :)

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