As soon as they arrived at Baekhyun’s unit, Dahyun quickly leapt out of her father’s strong arms and went straight into her room to pamper herself, just in time to jump straight into bed with her favorite—and only—aunt.

This left Baekhyun and Dasom alone by themselves in the spacious living room.

“Uh,” Baekhyun tried to break the ice, unsure of what he should say. He placed his hand on the back of his neck, a habit whenever he’s not certain how to act when presented with an unforeseen circumstance.

“Do you have any clothes with you?” Dasom raised a brow at him, making Baekhyun realize that his question could be easily misinterpreted so he rephrased it again. “Well, you’re not going to sleep in your work outfit, right?”

Dasom only blinked in response.

Most of the time, Dasom just slept in her work attire. Whenever she returned home to her place, she had no energy to pamper herself first because of how tired she always was after working an 8-to-5 shift. Her mind had been squeezing words nonstop every single day she worked and yet, even though it was hard, she still endured because she enjoyed her craft so much for her to simply let go of it.

“I don’t really change out of my work clothes before going to sleep,” Dasom explained. “I’m usually too tired to do anything else when I get home, so I tend to go to sleep first thing when I step in my place.”

The room instantly filled with silence as Baekhyun went still, his eyes focused on Dasom’s figure with a look she could not understand.

“Why? Does the thought of me sleeping in my work clothes bother you?”

Baekhyun answered no. “If you’re going to be my wife, we’re going to have to change that habit of yours.”

“W-what now?”

Dasom stepped back when Baekhyun suddenly got close to her, his eyes intensely staring into her wide ones. “You’re invading my personal space.”

Baekhyun went on to render her speechless when he gently placed his hand on top of Dasom’s head. He leaned down to meet her eyes and started to talk using a low, gentle tone.

“Once we get married, I’m going to make sure that you’re going to be taken care of. For now, let’s start with making sure that you go to sleep in clean, fresh clothes—”

“But my clothes aren’t stained!” Dasom argued as Baekhyun gripped her shoulders, leading her into the guest room—aka the very room she stayed at before when she was still living with them three years ago.

Baekhyun clicked his tongue in disapproval. “You have to wash up first and then change your clothes before going to sleep, Yoon Dasom. I don’t want my wife not taking good care of herself just because she’s too tired that she’ll neglect proper hygiene.”

Dasom groaned. Of course, how could she forget such an important fact?

Byun Baekhyun was a clean freak.

That was one of the main reasons why the two of them did not get along well before he married her older sister.

All Dasom wanted to do was lie down next to her niece already. She was planning to just wash her face before going straight to Dahyun’s room to sleep, but Baekhyun seemed like he had other plans for her before she had her well-deserved rest.

“But Dahyun’s waiting for me!”

Dasom’s excuse did not work on the guy currently manhandling her to go to the bathroom.

“My daughter is a patient child, she can wait.”

“But I don’t have clothes to change into.” Dasom murmured, irritation evident in her tone.

Baekhyun didn’t think twice when he said, “You can grab anything from Hyunseo’s closet. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”

The playful atmosphere between the two of them instantly vanished at the mere mention of his late wife’s name. Even Dasom found her mind turning blank.

She declined to use her sister’s car so she loaned her own—how could she even find it in her to use her sister’s clothes as if nothing happened?

Her chest started to feel heavy as her face started to turn emotionless.

Dasom had no control of the words that came out of , not minding if Baekhyun was even ready to hear it in the first place. Her mind quickly transformed into a void—the very same void that she had been constantly battling from day one.

“I’m already marrying you and now you want me to wear unnie’s clothes—I don’t want to feel like a replacement because I am fully aware of how, no matter what, my sister cannot be replaced by anyone, even me.”

Baekhyun opened his mouth in an attempt to say something, but Dasom was quick enough to cut him off. “You can get out of the room now. I won’t be needing your help to get my done inside the bathroom.”

Another failed attempt from Baekhyun to take back his words because it started to dawn on him that he unconsciously triggered a major insecurity in Dasom, but he decided to push her more about him. He started to take a step away from her, towards the door, postponing his mission to make her wash up and change clothes before going straight to bed. He had a lot of time to do so once they got married.

For now, he could only give her time for herself. To do what he wanted her to do. To think about their conversation.

Upon hearing the close of the door, Dasom’s knees finally gave way. She lets herself cry silently on the floor as she immersed herself in the darkest place inside her mind once again.

Dasom flinched at the sound of her father slapping her college application documents on top of his mahogany office table.

She already expected this sort of reaction to come from him. Still, she decided to push through with her applications for a humanities program in the top universities, but she still wasn’t prepared enough to face her father’s wrath, especially when he was the one who received her acceptance letter to Yonsei.

No one in the Yoon household was made aware of the degree program she applied for. She never told a single soul.

Even her sister, Hyunseo, was left in the dark.

Dasom trusted nobody to keep her secret, afraid that her freedom would be stripped away from her before she even had a chance to be completely free.

“Care to explain what these papers are?”

That was the first time Dasom heard her father speak using a menacing tone.

She was aware of how she wasn’t the favorite daughter. Time had proved that Hyunseo was always the golden apple in her father’s eyes, but nothing defeated the slight tinge of pain she felt whenever her parents openly opposed her likes.

“I’m not talking to a wall now, am I?”

He wasn’t happy, and he wasn’t a patient man too.

Dasom gathered her courage to move her lips. “I got accepted to Yonsei, appa.”

“I know, I can read.” Her father said, “Enlighten me, Dasom. Why the hell am I not seeing a business degree in these papers?”

Dasom bit her lips so hard she could almost feel her bottom lip draw blood. She had to restrain herself from speaking or else she would have let her sarcasm leave her precious lips, adding another reason for Mr. Yoon to detest his youngest child.

She tried to ransack her brain for a believable excuse, but she also realized that prolonging her agony would not totally save her from her parents’ wrath, most especially of her father. “I’m sorry, appa.”

Dasom did a ninety-degree bow to express the sincerity of her apology.

However, it did not satisfy her father. “Change your major.”

His order made Dasom stand straight. “What?”

“You heard me clearly the first time, Yoon Dasom.” She met her father’s stone-cold eyes as he added, using a chilling tone. “Either you change your major or you won’t be enrolling at all.”

She did not know what time it was when she opened her eyes again.

She felt something soft on her back and that was when Dasom realized that something was amiss. I’m not at home… where—how did I even get in bed?

Dasom was about to panic when she instantly remembered where