You marry Han Jisung in a garden filled with people who know your last names better than your firsts. The air smells like jasmine and obligation. He smiles at you like a boy trying not to flinch, and you smile back like a girl pretending not to.

It’s strange, marrying someone you barely know. Stranger still that he doesn’t seem interested in pretending. “We don’t have to fake anything,” he says on the first night. “We can just… exist.”

So you do.

You coexist.

At first, it’s quiet. Separate toothbrushes, separate schedules. Polite nods, short texts. You learn he hums when he cooks. He learns you sleep with your door cracked open. He gives you the left side of the bed even though you didn’t ask for it.

You start talking. Really talking. One night, over instant ramen and a rerun playing in the background, he tells you about his dream to become a musician. You tell him you used to dance when no one was watching.

Little pieces of yourselves exchange hands.

Then one day, he leaves his studio door open. Music spills into the hallway—soft, aching, full of something unnamed. You pause. He doesn’t notice you listening, and you don’t interrupt.

Later, you find a note on your pillow. ‘The song’s about you.’

No confession. No grand gesture. Just that.

A quiet offering.

And somehow, that’s enough.

You grow into each other slowly. He becomes the coat over your shoulders when the night air bites. You become the anchor that steadies him when he gets lost in his own head.

You’re not sure when the pretending stopped, or when the space between you closed. You only know that one morning, you wake up to him already awake, watching you with something soft in his eyes.

“Do you think we’ll fall in love?” you whisper.

He smiles, brushing a thumb against your cheek. “I think maybe we already are.”