FRAGILE TRUTH | Kwon Jiyong

12

"I'm just tired, Y/n."

"That's what you said last week."

He pushed his plate away. "Can we not do this right now?"

I swallowed. My fingers curled around the stem of my glass of wine. "Do what? Talk?"

"You're making it into something it's not."

My voice broke before I meant it to. "Then tell me what it is."

He stood up from the table, rubbing his face with both hands, tension rolling off him in waves. "I don't know what you want me to say."

"I want the truth," I said. "I want to know what's happening to you. Because you're not the same anymore, Jiyong. You're shutting me out and I'm standing here trying to love someone who won't even look at me."

His jaw clenched. His eyes met mine — tired, guarded, and something else I couldn't place. Regret?

"I just need time," he murmured.

"To do what?"

His voice was nearly a whisper. "To fix it."

I sit there — quietly, silence. My hands slightly shaking under the table as I don't want us to break apart again. No. I can't afford to lose him again, to lose us again.

That night, I cried in the shower. 

I still believed he would come back to me — not just physically, but emotionally. I believed this was just a phase. A storm we could weather. After all, we were engaged. He loved me. Didn't he?

3rd Person POV

Meanwhile, in the dim light of his studio, Jiyong sat on the couch, hands trembling slightly as he clutched a prescription bottle with no label — the kind the hospital gave you when they weren't sure what was wrong yet.

He had a file on his desk. Scan results. Blood tests. Words he didn't understand and didn't want to.

A note from his doctor: "Please come in for a follow-up. We need to discuss your imaging results."

He hadn't told anyone. Not even his manager. Not his hyungs. And definitely not Y/N.

The headaches were getting worse. Sudden. Sharp. Like his brain was short-circuiting without warning.

He blacked out in the shower once. Just for a second.

But he remembered the way his heart stuttered after. The fear that maybe he wouldn't wake up next time.

If it's something serious... I can't drag her into this. If she knew... she'd stay. And I wouldn't be able to let her go.

─── ⋆⋅ ❤︎ ⋅⋆ ───

One night, Y/n walked into his studio unannounced, carrying takeout and two cups of barley tea. She thought that it would be nice to visit him. Maybe he will like it. 

 He was sitting at the piano, fingers hovering above the keys, but not playing.

She stopped when she saw his face.

He looked pale. Sweaty. Like he hadn't slept in days. There was a tremor in his hand as he reached for a pen.

"Jiyong?" Her voice trembled without permission. "Are you sick?"

He froze.

The pause was too long.

Then: "No. Just tired."

Her throat closed.

"Please stop lying to me," she said, tears already burning at the edges of her vision. "You're scaring me."

He turned his face away. "I can't do this now."

And just like that, she left the food on the table, unopened. The tea went cold. And she walked out of the studio — heart thudding like it already knew what was coming.

─── ⋆⋅ ❤︎ ⋅⋆ ───

Later that night, long after she'd gone to bed, he found her sleeping with one hand was thrown toward the empty space beside her.

He sat beside her. Just sat. Breathing slowly. Memorizing.

"I don't know if I'm going to make it through this," he whispered to no one. "But if I don't... I want her to remember me like this. With the music. With the love. Before it all breaks."

And for the first time in years, Kwon Jiyong cried. Not because he was sad — but because he was terrified of what it would mean to love someone so much, and still have to let them go.

He turn to look at her, watching the gentle rise and fall of her breathing. The curve of her other hand resting over the blanket. The ring still on her finger.

A sudden wave of guilt hit him like a knife between the ribs.

He didn't deserve her. Not now. Not when he wasn't sure if tomorrow would come without a hospital bed or a diagnosis.

But he also couldn't let go.

So he did nothing.

He kissed her cheek, whispered, "I'm sorry," and crawled into bed beside her.

She turned toward him in her sleep, and wrapped her arms around his waist.

And he cried silently into her hair.

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Never I cried while writing my own story but this one is something I would read again to hurt myself without a reason :D