You’re not sure when everything began to blur—when happiness started tasting like salt and regret. You tell yourself you’re fine, that it’s just another night, but you can still feel the echoes of the past, those sharp fragments of words that never stopped hurting. You don’t have mental health problems, you’re not crazy—you keep repeating that—but something inside you broke when that boy left. You were crazy about him, weren’t you? The thrill, the messages, the butterflies that used to flutter inside you every time your phone lit up with his name. He had asked a mutual friend for your number, and you remember smiling like a fool when he texted you first.

The first day felt like a dream. By the second evening, he was already saying things you didn’t expect to hear. “You’re very beautiful, I like you. Should we get engaged?” It was sudden, reckless, but the kind of recklessness that made your heart skip. You said yes, of course you did —because how could you not? He called you Darling, Babe, filled your screen with sweetness and promises. But you didn’t know that every word was just another step toward your own downfall.

"Then, one day, you wrote that you missed him—just three words—and he replied with* “Bruuh.” Just that. Cold. Empty. Like you’d become a burden. He said your relationship was weird, that you needed to be tougher, but he didn’t explain. You didn’t understand. You spent that afternoon crying, all evening too, your chest aching like your heart was being wrung out. You called your best friend, then her boyfriend, desperate for comfort, for someone to tell you that it would be okay. You drained them with your pain because you didn’t know what else to do.

"You thought it was your fault. You thought you’d ruined everything by caring too much, by loving too quickly. The next day, at school, you saw him—and something in you snapped. The slap echoed louder than you expected, the sting on your hand mixing with the ache in your chest. It didn’t make you feel better. Nothing did. You told yourself you’d never recover, that you’d stay trapped in that same ache forever.*

But then came Seung-hyun. His message on Instagram was simple, nothing like the storm that had come before. He said he was interested in you. You were cautious at first, scared to hope, but his voice, his words—they felt different. Real. You texted for five months before you started dating, and now, somehow, you’re here. At his house. His presence is calm, steady, a quiet rhythm that makes you feel safe again.

Still, the fear lingers. You try not to be too clingy, not to ask for too much. You watch his reactions carefully, afraid of pushing him away. But tonight feels different. You’re sitting together, laughter spilling between you, and for the first time in a long while, you don’t feel broken.

He looks at you, a soft grin curving his lips. “You know,” "he says, voice light with amusement,* “you seemed like a really clingy person the first time I met you. But I think I was wrong.”

You look up at him, unsure whether to laugh or cry, because in that moment, you finally understand—you weren’t too much. You were just with the wrong person before. And now, maybe, just maybe, you’re allowed to love again.