With only the dim lighting from the sitting room lamp skimming over the two figures standing awkwardly in the hallway, the heavy scene they had been becoming way too familiar with was crippling. Sweat and blood stuck to tacky skin in the darkness, a spilt pot of food on the hardwood which had been thrown not even an hour before the slightly taller man had turned up at the top-floor condominium. The collar of his t-shirt had already been ripped before his arrival and a bruise was forming around his eye that HwaYoung could make out even in the lack of light. She wasn’t faring much better with her hair askew, scraped up knuckles wrapped tight around her own arms and a split lower lip.

Taking another hitched breath, the blonde kept her eyes down, the same way she had since she opened her front door to the guest twenty minutes ago, “what you fail to understand is that he’s given me everything I need.”

“Except the respect you deserve,” HoSeok kept his tone quiet as he examined the female in front of him, she was trying her best to stop her own frame from trembling. She was failing, but damn was she trying; those delicately inked fingers he loved to watch during dexterous tasks clamping into her biceps underneath the oversized cardigan hanging off her shoulders.

“What everyone else sees isn’t necessarily how we are behind closed doors,” she brushed the comment off before even thinking about it.

The male half of the conversation was getting frustrated with the going back and forth. They must have had similar talks at least fifty times over the last few months. “I don’t know who you’re trying to convince, but I’m not buying that you actually mean that. You’re worth so much more than being locked away and treat like a possession,” he took a step towards the woman, but she only did the opposite and shuffled away until her back met the wall, showing she wanted to keep a good distance between them. Her shoulder was jabbed by the corner of a framed photograph of her and her lover in the throes of a laughing fit at a mutual friend’s wedding; it was almost ironic - she knew where every single thing was in that place…her home - every single photograph and gift they’d been given; where KiHyun tossed his clothes and lost his keys every single time he stumbled in drunk and she had to help him to bed. She even knew where he kept his gun. That hiding spot was void at the moment and with the mood KiHyun was in, him storming out after their argument; after some of the things he’d swore in an inconsolable rage, the sooner she got rid of the man who had partially caused it, the better.

“What do you want me to say?” For the first time in the near-half an hour they had been stood there, the woman looked up, “that we should continue like this? That I love you back?” Coughing a bitter laugh, HwaYoung thrashed her head to the side to make a point. “This apartment, the bills, the furniture, even the clothes I’m wearing right now: he paid for it all. He and I have been through a lot of together, and of course, we rip chunks out of each other from time to time…” A distant smile dared to tug at swollen lips as the blonde stared down at her bust squashed by constricting arms around her torso “…But I can’t leave him.” Her mind processed that she was still shaking from the adrenaline of the earlier spat - it was the worse one they’d ever had and they’d both said horrific things to each other - however, all she could think of is how she wanted him to come home and stop being mad at her. This, however, would never happen if he returned and his cousin was standing in the hallway, pleading with his lover to leave him. It would most definitely have the opposite effect and the blood on the walls wouldn’t just belong to the homeowners.

Fishing a carton of cigarettes out of her cardigan pocket, HwaYoung sniffled her nose blocked from the shut-down of a sob before she answered the door. Lighting the end of her vice with a shaking hand, mascara-smeared eyes slid to the man who had been nothing but kind and patient with her from the moment they had met. “How can you expect me to betray him for you?”

With furrowed brows, the younger man raised his voice slightly. He was angry. Probably the most agitated he’d ever been in his entire life – but for an unknown reason, still not at her. “The one thing that would have made me give him a second thought…You never even mentioned it.” Knowing he wasn’t going to get anywhere with the situation tonight, HoSeok turned around. “Not once in any of our conversations have you ever mentioned loving him. It was always about duty and the feeling of obligation. So before you say anything else, seriously think about whatever kind of lie you’re trying to sell me.” Reaching for the door handle, her company glanced back over his shoulder. “I’m risking everything because I care about you, not because I feel like I owe you.” Holding himself back from saying any more on the matter, his gut refusing to pressure her any more than she already was, HoSeok opened the heavy-duty barrier he was still holding on to and stepped out into the communal hallway.

HwaYoung watched the back of the man disappear as the door shut behind him, the clink of the automatic latch ragging a sense of PTSD through her nerves. Running a hand over her face as soon as she knew she was alone, she couldn’t keep it together any longer. Sliding down the wall she’d backed herself up against, the female plastered with the back of her wrist as her head hung. Craning her neck back as if that would stop the tears from coming out, smoke was choked out with a sob, her aching shoulders shaking and her knees raised up to her chest as far as they could.

The pulsing of her heartbeat forcing its way around her body out-bid the rhythm of the living room clock ticking away to itself and a sure feeling of nausea crept up in unison with the realization that the last piece of her heart had just broken away.