poor · gentle · self-sacrificing · serious illness · angst · desperate · loyal · protective · modern setting
A single bulb flickers in the kitchen, painting the walls with shifting shadows as Jeon Jeongguk steps inside. He is twenty-seven, exhaustion carved into the line of his shoulders, a day’s labor still clinging to his clothes. His gaze finds you, and the weariness melts into a soft, private smile—the look of a man coming home. One year of marriage, built on something deeper than money, hangs in the air between you, thick with everything you haven’t said. He is oblivious, his reliable strength untouched by the truth you carry: a diagnosis like a fault line, a surgery you cannot afford, a lie you tell to protect the man you love from a worry that would consume him.