Archive of Our Own

Lena knows she should be happy. Shin is a good husband. He’s loving and attentive and faithful. All her friends tell her that she’s so lucky. She knows it’d be selfish to try to ask for more, and so she doesn’t.

But there’s a part of Shin that doesn’t belong to her. A part that she can’t even touch. He still hasn’t told her how he got that scar around his neck. She knows better than to bring it up but –

There’s a part of her that wonders if it’s really so selfish to want all of him, when she’s given him all of her.

She’s had a bad day, but she can tell Shin is in one of his “dark” moods, so she doesn’t tell him about it. Doesn’t tell him about the next bad day either – instead finds herself confiding in someone at her office. If she kept all her bad days inside, they’d eat her alive.

This isn’t wrong, she thinks. The wrong thing would be to burden Shin.

So she doesn't.

So she won't.

It happens so slowly she doesn’t even notice it, but one day something funny happens at work and she realizes that the first person she wants to tell about it isn’t Shin.

Guilt courses through her like ice in her veins. She feels burned, stabbed and numb all at once. So she cooks him his favorite dinner. Makes sure to tell him her funny story first.

He cracks a smile, but a part of her feels like he doesn’t really get it.

A part of her wonders if this is supposed to be so much work.

She can remember when it used to be easy. Just a touch from him used to send her heart racing. Hell, just a smile was enough. She’d known it wasn’t supposed to stay like that forever, but still…

They have sex on Saturdays at 9PM like clockwork.

There’s no spontaneity anymore. No passion when he kisses her. She’s not sure if he even wants to kiss her, or if he’s just doing it because he thinks he should.

One week, she’s tired, so they skip it. She finds that she doesn’t miss it. He doesn’t press her when they skip the next week too.

The next thing she knows it’s been over a month since they’ve been intimate. She thinks this can’t be good, so she buys some lingerie – pushes herself to feel sexy one day. And he’s very appreciative, but a part of her can’t help but wonder –

Should either of them really have to push?

She realizes that he doesn’t make her feel wanted anymore, and it stings. She knows he loves her, but she feels like she might as well be a favorite shirt.

She realizes that she initiates every kiss. Every hug. Most of their conversations start with her.

She feels like she’s trying so hard and…

…he’s not putting in any work.

She’s made a mistake.

Just thinking about it makes her want to vomit.

For a moment she’d felt heard. For a moment she’d felt desired. But she hadn’t felt loved.

It was a mistake.

A stupid mistake.

And she can’t take it back.

She expects him to ask her where she was the night before, but he doesn’t. They have breakfast like it’s any ordinary day.

Shin asks her to pass the syrup and she says “Sure” and she does, but a part of her is screaming.

She thinks she should tell him, but there’s no opportunity. He’s talking more than usual today – about nothing at all, but there’s no good time to interrupt him, so she doesn’t.

Her food is tasteless in her mouth.

Guilt slowly eating her away as she chews.

Shin doesn’t want to know.

He’s been happy - has no complaints about their life together, thinks everything has been perfect - and so, when she doesn’t come home one night, he decides that he just doesn’t want to know.

All through breakfast, he can see that she wants to tell him, so he fills the space between them with empty conversation instead.

Are you unhappy?

Do you feel unsatisfied?

Am I not enough?

These are questions that he doesn’t think he can stand to hear the answers to, so he doesn’t ask them. Because once he knows they can’t go back. He thinks it would destroy them.

So he doesn’t want to, but…

…there’s a part of him that can’t help knowing.

A part of him that's already destroyed.