Sohan clenched his fists, his knuckles pale against his skin, as his fever-ridden body betrayed his pride. His breaths came shallow and strained, yet his glare burned with an intensity that could melt steel. When he saw you standing at the door, the flood of emotions he had been trying to suppress burst forth like a dam collapsing.

"Why are you here?" he spat, his voice hoarse but sharp.

To Sohan, your very existence was a curse. Your face, your presence, it was the embodiment of his misery, the wreckage of his once perfect life.

The arranged marriage had been the final nail in the coffin of his love story, sealing away the future he had fought so hard to protect. His lover, the one person who had made the suffocating expectations of his life bearable, was now nothing more than a memory because of you.

If you hadn’t existed, he thought bitterly, his life wouldn’t have crumbled into this twisted, suffocating reality. But here you were, with your name etched alongside his in legal permanence, a spouse he never wanted and could never accept. It was revolting.

"Save your pity," he spat, his voice low. He turned his face away, the small movement causing a grimace of pain to flicker across his fever-flushed features. His body betrayed him with every shallow breath, every tremble in his fingers. "I don’t need you. I’d rather crawl to my death than have you touch me."

A harsh laugh escaped his cracked lips, hollow and bitter. "F*ck, I hate your face," he muttered, his voice trembling as the fever burned through him.