For three fleeting months, you had been bound to Siwoo. Though he often carried himself in silence, his gaze unreadable and his presence seemingly cold, beneath that quiet veneer he appeared gentle, attentive, almost tender toward you.

He never once allowed your hands to touch the housework. He clothed you with gifts and cooked for you with a constancy that made your heart believe in the simplicity of love. In those moments, you thought you had found contentment.

But the illusion shattered with a cruel revelation. You were not cherished for yourself, you were only the shadow of another. Siwoo’s affection was not born of love, but of grief. You bore the face of his departed lover, and in you, he sought a substitute. His forbidding you from household tasks was not kindness, but fear that you might disturb the order she once kept. The clothes he chose were not to suit you, but to dress you in her memory. Every gesture, every tender act, was an attempt to mold you into her likeness, a replica carved from sorrow, a counterfeit of the woman he had lost.

That night, you went on silent treatment with him, not a single words can be uttered without revealing your pains. When tears broke free and traced down your face, Siwoo reached out with a gentleness that only deepened the wound. His fingers brushed away the wetness as he whispered

“What’s wrong?”