Forced to be together for the sake of the public eye, Jung Wooyoung and Choi San have been wrapped up in a scheme to bring their parent's million dollar companies together. Wooyoung hates San, and San hates Wooyoung. The arranged relationship was on...
There are mentions of a toxic relationship, previous domestic violence, slight mentions of emotional cheating, descriptions of a failed marriage/divorce and mental health (anxiety/depression) written within this chapter. Please do not read any further if these topics are sensitive to you.
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The morning comes quicker than San would like it to. An array of text messages lay unread within the depth of his device, but he can't bother himself with looking at it. His bed was lonely, warm, and indescribably comfortable. His room was on the opposite side of the apartment from Wooyoung's, windows nearly covering the entirety of his exterior walls with a vast view of the city ahead of him. The sky was painted in warm arrays of oranges and yellows, clouds lingering in wispy waves that caress the hues coloring the sky just above downtown.
Admittedly, San wanted to avoid everything about today. He told Sun-hee that he'd call her soon, needing time and space to completely understand the changes he had brought onto himself. His emotions had never been so confusing before, but now, he has never felt himself be pulled in two different directions before.
A sense of familiarity stems from his relationship with Sun-hee. Though it is awfully toxic and rigid, a sense of comfort pours from within, and San can't convince himself to leave. He knows that Sun-hee tries her hardest everyday to be better, but sometimes it felt like it wasn't enough. He loved her, he knew he did. Or, well. . . he thought he did. But the more they argued, and the more she pushed him away, the more San wanted to cut all of his ties to pursue something that had laid dormantly in the back of his mind.
Even still, being his first true relationship, Sun-hee had shown him what to expect out of loving someone. He would shower her with affection, always texting or calling her, making sure she felt so incredibly loved to the point of his feelings never being openly questioned. But, that was before the arrangement and its complicated details, and now San finds himself faced with another problem. A different problem.
San had always struggled with being open. That wasn't to the fault of anyone else, or his parents, but he had found it hard to be honest about anything having to do with himself. Worrying anyone with the details of his own strifes felt painful to him, nearly choking him as he struggled for air, wondering why he could never fully allow himself to rely on someone else.
With Sun-hee, San had built up a certain level of patience. She knew everything about him, of course, but to a certain extent. She would never know him completely; not the dark, unrelenting parts of himself that he knew no one would love. A fear, plaguing his mind, consistently dragging him through hell as it sat on his shoulders, orchestrated his life and made him live within its own constraints. It was an irrational fear, stemming from nothing in particular, but the thought of it alone terrified San to his core, making it all that much more impactful.
