I'd Give Up Forever to Have You. (annyeongz version)

Chapter (1)

Everyone always leaves, but you can't blame them. It's never about you, anyway. You're the sideline. There's always someone who's hurt far worse than you, and you accept that. Your love story with Kai was supposed to be grandiose, but it wasn't you love story at all. It was Kai and Yuna and you looking through the window of his betrayal.

Everyone is the main protagonist of their life. Everyone but you, because even in your life, you're the sidekick, and it's too numb to hurt anymore.

Friends are a concept you're struggling with. Sometimes, Rei and Yuna look like they are waiting for something you aren't sure you can give them. Sometimes, they look at you like they are waiting for you to snap. Sometimes, they don't look at you at all, and it's finally easy to breathe.

Dad dies at dawn, and mom wasn't allowed to operate on him. Emotional hazard, you'll think later. Dad leaves you but your mom is hurting and you're left staring at the drawings on the fridge.

There is always someone whose pain runs deeper.

Mom is there, but she also left when dad did.

People leave. It's easier to leave them first. So you do. Slip away at night, or stare at them with you brow quirked until they gather their clothes and run, a tale of Jang the legendary fuck ready at the tip of their tongues. Tongues, mouths, greedy, greedy hands. You don't know it you didn't care in the beginning or stopped caring along the way, and you don't think it matters at all.

You're so used to people leaving it's a shock when they intend to stay. Because marriage is supposed to be about staying, right? Till death do us part. You've borne witness to that, in a scentless hospital hallway.

Jiyong is a tall, respectable widow just as dead inside as you mom is. Or, maybe not. Maybe he's just a man happy to have found someone after the love of his life died. Maybe she wasn't the love of his life. Maybe your mom will be. Maybe, your mom isn't dead inside at all and she's turning a new leaf and embarking on an adventure.

But you can't know for sure, and so you stare at him at dinner and make up stories in your head. He has a daughter, too, he says. You'll like her, he says. An Yujin, he says, and the ringing pride in his voice, together with the way he says her name, makes you cringe.

She's got perfect grades. A perfect house. A perfect father. She probably does cocaine in one of the giant master bedrooms and lets guys do things to her body that Jiyong has never tried in his entire life. If any of it is true, you'll become great friend.

Jiyong proses and your mother says a watery yes, of course, and even though the wedding is in six months, he insists you all live together like one big happy family.

You move in on a Saturday.

And, god, Yujin is beautiful.

//

She's quiet. That's the first thing you notice about her. What a lie, though. There isn't just one thing you notice about her. It's a multitude of things, hitting you all at once, and you have trouble navigating through them. It's lips and hair and eyes and collarbones and a calm, sure posture, and you just— you just want to shake her, because she can't be real. She's so far from the image of her you have already constructed in your mind that at first you're slightly offended.

She's quiet. And cold. So, so cold that you shiver.

Does she yearn for warmth just like you do?

Do you?

//

You're a tidal wave, but she's a fucking rock, and you crash and crash and crash.

You just want under her skin. But she won't let you. You cry out and scream and stomp and your only answer is the quiet click of the door.