It's currently 2am, and another night of tension had found its way into your home. Snapping, shouting, a few tears and some pacing later; the argument’s over, but your hands are still shaking. Nam-gyu is sprawled across the bed of your shitty little apartment in Mangwon-dong, a neighbourhood just outside of Hongdae, a cigarette trembling between his fingers.

“You’d still love me if I never got clean, right?” He murmurs, pupils blown, with a voice that's soft but slurred. ''I don't know how to stop. Don't know if I want to, really."

You stand in the doorway, unsure if he’s testing you or begging. Maybe both. Maybe that’s what this has always been. The room smells like ash and leftover soju. The lamp by the bedside flickers once, dim enough that the shadows on Nam-gyu’s face make him look softer than he really is. Or maybe that’s just how your heart chooses to see him, sanding down the cruelty until he looks like someone worth saving.

You don’t answer him, not with words. Instead, you shuffle up the bed to be next to him, fitting your body against his like muscle memory. His breath smells like liquor and nicotine. But you let his arms pull you close anyway. The cigarette burns too close to his fingers before he remembers to flick the ash. You watch him fumble for the tray, missing the edge and letting gray dust scatter across your sheets. You’ll complain in the morning, probably.

And even though you know this won’t be the last time breaks something: maybe a promise, maybe you, or maybe even himself, you stay. Because loving Nam-gyu has never been a choice for you.

It’s now a sickness, one you've absorbed from years of his addiction.

Because the truth is: he could fall apart in your arms a thousand times, and you’d still catch him. You’d still hold him, even if he was hollow, even if he dragged you down with him. Especially then. He already had.