As soon as he opens his eyes in the morning, the first thing he sees is a pair of beautiful eyes which belong to the woman he loves. He lost his breath for a while as he stares back into them even though they are unreadably deep as usual. He can forever drown in them, he knows it.

"Hi" He whispers and lifts his fingertips to run along her smooth soft cheeks.

"Hi" She said softly and leans into his touch with close eyes. She seems tired and wary which reminds him of last night incident. God, her crying has broken his heart into million pieces and the pain is still there, even now.

"Look, Bom, last night...."

"No, Jiyong" She shakes her head slowly and back away from his reach, her expression goes blank. "Don't. I don't want to go there"

He frowns and sits up in bed. "But we need to talk about this though" Jiyong is not always good with emotions and inner wounds. But even he knows that what Bom's experiencing right now is not healthy. She's stabbing herself inside and that pain is consuming her slowly. And that is killing him too.

"There's nothing we need to talk about" She said and gets out of the bed in an instant. He misses her closeness immediately. 

"Don't do that, Park Bom" He said with a frown and swings off from the bed too to face her. She can't do this anymore. Denying and locking the pain inside, she needs to stop all of that soon before it finally destroys her.

"Don't do what, Jiyong?" She snaps and her eyes are icy cold.

"This!" He waves his hand to refer the distance between them. "Don't hide yourself behind the mask. Show me! Tell me how you really feel. Not something you show to every-ing-one whom you want them to believe that you are strong!" He stops to take a deep breath before he continues again. "I have seen how you broke down, Park Bom. So don't ing give me that I'm a and I don't care anyone nonsense attitude because I know that there's something deep down. Something that wants to get out from there".

"Why do you even care?!"

"Because you are my wife?! Because we swore to spend the rest of our life together?! Because I want to know you?!  Because...I don't know, Park Bom. You choose the answer."

The silence stretches between them for a while as they glare at each other. They are just two stubborn people and Jiyong knows it. They both never want to give in to each other and that's what making things more difficult than it already is. Only if someone just surrenders their ego first, it won't be this suffocating. Life could have easier for them. He lets out a tired sigh. Maybe he can be the one to...

"No, Jiyong" Her voice finally appears and he shivers slightly at the darkness in there. She's going to hurt him, he just knows it, feels it.

"Park Bom, don't...."

"No, you listen, Jiyong. You seem so confused right now with the current situation. So I'm going to make things straight for you." She takes a step toward him while crossing her arms tightly. "I'm your wife because we got married to make each other's life hell. We swore to live together for the rest of our life because we hate each other that much, for a life time. Do you get it, Jiyong? You don't want to know me. You hate me. You never wanted to understand me and we are here because we are trying to pretend like a lovely couple so that we can go back hating each other after this, without being caught. You see the story here?"

Anger and pain rise in him. Of course he has known that she hates him as much as he loves her and she was just pretending to be the lovely wife just for the sake of his grandma and relatives. But that doesn't mean it hurts less though. It still hits him like a train wreck.

"Was that all you were doing? Was that all you were doing when you were telling me to be careful last night? Was that all you were doing when you were telling me yesterday how you have known me since we were young? Pretending?"

She a perfect brow at him and, "What kind of answer are you expecting, Jiyong? Don't forget that you were the one who asked me to do this."

"I asked you to love me! Not some kind of pretense!"

Some kind of strange expression runs across her face in that moment. But because it was too fast, Jiyong can't be sure what that was. She stares at him for a few seconds before she looks away with the finality.

"Stop it, Jiyong. I can't." She whispers.

"Can't what?!" He spits bitterly.

"I can't love you!" She snaps back and he can see her eyes glisten with sadness. What is that?

"You can't or you won't?" He takes a step towards her, closing the distance between them slowly.

She narrows her eyes at him as she steps back. "What are you doing, Kwon Jiyong?"

"Just answer my question. You can't or you won't?" He hisses while taking the slow steps, stalking her quietly. After a while, her back finally meets with the wall and she lets out a soft gasps at the cool touch.

"Jiyong, stop it"

"Tell me the answer then. Which one?"

"You are asking for something I can't answer!"

Something in him snaps at that moment and without thinking, he crushes his lips on her surprised ones with a growl. She lets out a yelp but he swallows it, making it disappear as a faint noise. He expects her to scream more. He expects her to push him away, to fight him back, just like the way she always had. But as usual, she just surprises him as her arms crept up to his neck and wound around it to pull him closer. Then her lips move with his and he groans at the sensation of how right it feels.

They are just like fire and ice. Day and night. Black and white. They are very opposite in every possible way. But just like those things, they just have to exist in each other's life to emphasize the other's meaning. He feels the urgency and desperation in her. And there's also the uncertainness of something he can't understand. Then the darkness. Oh yeah, there sure is something dark in there and it makes him wants her more, wants to protect her more.

"Bom" He whispers on her lips and pulls back to stares straight in her eyes, so that she can see how he's serious right now. How much her answer means to him.

She takes in a sharp breath at the sight of him and, "Oh no" She murmurs. What was the translation she got, he doesn't care. But he can see whatever that it is making her struggles inside more.

"Just answer me, Bom"

She swallows hard and fights some kind of battle inside her again. He can see it all in her eyes. Then after a while, something in her finally breaks and a lonely tear escapes from her eye. They hurt him, her sadness and pain. He so wants to make them all disappear. But to do that so, she has to open up to him, trust him. And he knows that if he wants her to be honest with him, he has to show her how much he cares first.

“Which one of us is stupider, I don’t know.” Her voice is barely a whisper as another tear makes its way down on her cheek. “But Jiyong, I don’t want to hurt you” I know. He answers silently. How? He didn’t know but deep inside, even when they were hating each other and trying to hurt each other, he just knew it in his heart. A part of him just always blindly believed that there was something good in her.

“I never did want to hurt you.” She continues. “Even when I tried to go against you and blamed you for everything that happened to me, even when I was supposed to hate you and stayed away from you, I just fell……”

“Jiyong?!” The loud sounds of the door knocks which accompanies by his grandma’s loud voice cut her sentence off and Jiyong curses under his breath at the old woman’s bad timing. Bom was finally starting to say something.

“Don’t mind her…..”

“Jiyong?! Bom?! Aren’t you guys up yet?!”

“” He hisses lowly and pushes himself away from Bom who is staring at the floor blankly now. She is closed off once again and he just wants to punch something or someone for that. Running his hand angrily in his hair, he walks to the door and yanks it open with a scowl. His grandma better has a good reason.

“Oh, great. You guys are up” Grandma Kwon said brightly and immediately frowns at his cloudy face. She stands on her tip toes to look over his shoulder, inside the room before narrows her eyes at him. “Is there something wrong here, Jiyong?”

“Nothing” He said and tilts his head to look at Bom but she’s not there anymore. Why isn’t he surprise though? He sighs and, “We just woke up and Bom’s in the bathroom.”

The frown on his grandma’s deepens. “Are you sure there’s nothing wrong, child? Because your face is telling me otherwise. Is Bom ok?”

Jeez! Talking about interrogation. “Grandma, please. I’m ok and I can assure you that Bom is ok, too. There’s nothing wrong. We are just tired”

“No, Jiyong. Who do you think you are talking to?” The woman snaps heatedly and looks around the hall way to make sure no one has overheard her voice. “There’s something off with you two. I just can’t put my finger on it. Yet. But we are not going to talk about this now because these days are supposed to be Minzy’s. Now get ready quickly and comes down to the lawn. Everyone is preparing to be ready for the rehearsal. Your presences are needed there” Then she turns and walks away from him. Her footsteps echoing in the hall way rhythmically.

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flip...flip...flip

tap...tap...tap

scratch...scratch...scratch

Letting out an exasperated sigh, Soo Hyun marks the page he's reading before he finally snaps the book close and looks up at the Blondie across from him with a scowl. "What is your problem, Chae? I can't concentrate here anymore and I'm sure as hell if you flip another paper or tap