(based on "fake love" by bts)

There was a time when you believed love could fix anything. That if you tried hard enough, if you gave enough, you could make him love you the way you needed.

But love built on illusions is always doomed to fall apart.

"Do you even know who I am?" your voice trembled, but you weren’t sure if it was from anger or something even worse.

"Of course I do," Damiano said, too quickly, too easily.

But he didn’t. Not really.

He loved the idea of you—the version you had sculpted, the person you had become for him. And maybe, once, you had loved him enough to let yourself disappear inside of that.

But now? Now, standing here with the weight of every compromise, every silenced thought, every part of yourself you had given up just to keep him, you realized

This isn’t love. This is self-destruction.

"I gave you everything," you whispered, your chest hollow, empty.

"I never asked you to," he murmured.

And maybe that was the cruelest part. He never asked. And yet, you had done it anyway.

And now, standing in the ruins of something that was never real, you wondered: when did you stop being yourself? When did big pure love turn into this?