ꪖకꫝ

The restaurant he chooses is quiet in a way that costs money—muted lights blending with soft voices, a view that looks curated rather than natural. You tell yourself it’s just a dinner. One meal, one hour, and then he’ll vanish.

That’s the story you stick to.

Joshua pulls your chair out for you. You don’t thank him. He doesn’t seem to mind. He watches you the way investors watch graphs—patient, certain that eventually the line will move in his favor.

You order first.

“The grilled fish,” you say, then pause, tilting your head as if reconsidering. “Whole.”

Joshua smiles faintly. “Bold choice.”

“They say the eyes are the window to the soul,” you reply lightly.

The food arrives. The fish is pristine—untouched, staring upward at you with one cloudy eye. You don’t hesitate. You cut cleanly, precisely, lifting the eye out with your fork.

Joshua’s glass stills halfway to his lips.

“They say the eyes are the window to the soul,” you repeat, softer now, like a still oasis. You place it in your mouth. Chew. Consider.

“Mmhmm,” you hum. “I like them. Makes me wonder how souls taste.”

A soft smile curves up your lips.

He lets out a sharp laugh. “You’re trying to scare me.”

“Am I?” you ask with airy curiosity.

The server refills the drink without asking. Joshua thanks him by reading his nameplate. You notice that—how carefully he keeps track of small dominions.

“You don't flinch around me,” he says at last, nodding towards the plate. His voice has settled back into a calm ocean wave. “Most people do.”

“Most people perform,” you counter back, setting down your fork neatly. “I get bored with that.”

Joshua surveys you like a puzzle, as if its few pieces are missing on purpose. “You think I’m performing?”

“I think you’re rehearsed,” you claim. “There’s a difference.”

That earns a genuine stretch across his lips—slower and considered. “Rehearsal is just respect for the audience,” he debates.

“And yet,” you pause, glancing around the dining room, “you chose somewhere where no one’s really watching.”

“Privacy has its own kind of audience.” He leans back with a pleased nod. “Tell me—why did you agree to this dinner?”

You let the silence engulf the table, opting to take a sip of water. It doesn’t bother him. That bothers you.

“Curiosity,” you say finally. “People like you always want something they can't have. I wanted to see if you are after me to just bandage your bruised ego or something else.”

Joshua nods, as if you’ve confirmed a hypothesis, but you don't miss the derision twinkling in his eyes. “Fair. And?”

“And I wanted to see if you’d be disappointed when I didn’t give it to you.”

His shoulders shake with a chuckle. “You assume I know what I want.”

“You assume you don’t?”

Touché hangs between you with a bead of a shared joke neither of you will admit to enjoying it.

He gestures toward your plate. “You talked about souls earlier. Do you believe in them?”

“I believe in leverage,” you say. “People call it different things depending on what comforts them.”

“Interesting,” he mutters, tapping his glass lightly. “I believe in inevitability. Systems move in predictable ways. People too, if you give them enough time.”

“Time,” you echo. “That’s generous of you.”

“I am generous,” he says easily. “With the right investments.”

You laugh, quiet and unamused. “You talk about people like assets.”

“Everyone does,” he replies. “I just don’t pretend otherwise.”

The server returns with his dish—something minimalist and expensive-looking. Joshua doesn’t rush to eat. He stays still—watching you, an unattainable woman grown up with a silver spoon and charm.

“Families,” he continues, picking up the thread you left dangling earlier. “They’re the worst-run organizations in existence. No bylaws. No exit clauses. Just obligation and decay.”

“And yet,” you pause, “people cling to them harder than anything else.”

“Fear of starting from zero,” he says. “Sunk cost fallacy. Sentimentality.”

“Or love,” you offer, flatly.

He tilts his head, dripping with mockery. “You think love is exempt from economics?”

“No,” you answer. “I think it’s often used as a cover charge.”

That earns a fogged silence. Joshua finally takes a bite of his food.

“You’re not wrong,” he says after a moment. “But you’re not entirely right either.”

You arch an eyebrow. “Do explain.”

“Control,” he says in a lower octave, “is easier when people think they’re choosing it.”

The words land with soft steps—careful and deliberate.

Your eyes lock with his—unblinking. “And you invited me here because…?”

“Because,” Joshua pauses, “you don’t think you’re choosing anything. Which makes you interesting.”

You smile again—small and sharp as if carved with a blade. “Careful. Curiosity is expensive.”

“So is boredom,” he replies with a twinning smile. “And I can afford both.”

The check arrives, discreet as everything else. Joshua reaches for it. You let him.

As you stand, he says almost casually, “Same time next week?”

You want to scoff at his audacity, but somehow you consider him—the curated view, the muted lights, the way the evening has been shaped without ever feeling rushed, and everything was molded with his hands—dancing to the beat of his fingertips.

“We’ll see,” you chew over. “I don’t like inevitability.”

Joshua smiles like someone who’s already accounted for that.

“Neither do I,” he agrees with an amiable smile once more.

You leave first.

But at the door, your steps halt, patting your pockets with polished exasperation. “Damn. I think I dropped something.”

Joshua is already moving. “I’ll find it,” he offers.

You wave him off. “It’s nothing important.”

You walk out.

The next sunrise you splash your face with frigid water, its chill biting into your skin, but you don't mind it. Your eyes stare at your own through your reflection—staring. Your fingertip traces them in the mirror, its cool surface matching your pupils.

You wonder what your soul looks like—and his too.

Your phone vibrates on the marble surface. Call of the devil, indeed.

“I think you left behind your keychain…uhh of an eye,” he says. “How about I hand it over with another dinner?”

"You don't have to. Just send—"

"No, let's meet up, or else I'm going to keep it as a gift from you."

You let out a heavy sigh. "Fine, but this time I'll pick the place."

He lets out a small cheer, contented that you caved in with little struggle. "Okay, send me the address!" he beams, and you hang up.

Neon lights flicker with the bass; bodies sway on the dance floor, pulsing with energy in the nightclub. The music vibrates too loudly; the crowd breathes too close to each other, but it feels like the perfect place to hide, like a fish in the sea of people. And yet, here he is—Joshua Hong, right in front of you, as if fate had conspired to force you into this moment yet again.

You spot him before he spots you, his back turned as he scans the crowd, probably looking for your head. When his eyes pin on yours, they emit that familiar flicker—hope. But today, the air shifts differently for them. There’s no softness in your expression.

He approaches with soft steps as his voice cuts through the noise.

“So, this is capable of dragging you out of your hermit but not me, huh?” he asks with a light huff, swinging your keychain—a little eye-shaped charm that’s been with you for years. The metal gleams in the flashing lights, a constant reminder of something you’ve left behind.

You let it swing in front of your face like a trinket for a cat, not moving to claw it away. Instead, you narrow your eyes, lips curling into something that’s not quite a smile, but almost one.

“That's funny,” you reply with a curved edge in your words. “You are the one who found it, huh? What a coincidence.”

He laughs; the dripping suspicion is not lost on him. His fingers secured around its chain. “Maybe we are meant to be together. Fate has made us meet again.”

Your eyes roll back as you lean against the bar, assessing the crowd. This isn't the place for a private conversation. The lights are too bright, the space too full of people; eager ears can easily blend in to eavesdrop.

“You wish," you huff. "Spout your nonsense, I’m listening,” you order disdainfully. Your tone is stitched with taunts, meant to discourage him, but he has the gall to still shamelessly open his mouth to utter another thread of nonsense. A wave of exasperation floods over you, making you curse under your breath, already preparing yourself to snatch the keychain and leave. You don’t need this.

“About us,” he continues, his words soft and clear as conjunctiva, but the underlying urgency doesn't escape your keen eye. He steps a foot closer into your bubble, just a hairsbreadth away. “I know you didn't mean to turn me down, and I think I—”

You cut him off, folding your arms. “This isn't the time or place. And honestly? I don’t think I need to hear it at all.”

He blinks, then stands still like a statue, then the corners of his mouth pull down in a way that makes your stomach coil for a moment. But you know his sadness is plastic.

Joshua reaches into his pocket, and you know exactly what he is about to fish out next. The ring. That damn ring. You’d seen it before—more than you would like to—the one he’s been holding onto for far too long, the one he keeps pulling out, hoping for a different answer every single time. This time—it's a desperate, final plea.

“I’ve been thinking about this a lot,” his words quiver with such downy thoughtfulness that if you were naïve enough, you would have thrown yourself in his arms out of sheer pity. "I love you. And I know you don’t feel the same, but I—I can’t keep waiting for you to change your mind." He stammers, looking down at the ring, his hand quaking as he holds it out to you. "Please... will you marry me?"

The words hang in the air.

A laugh escapes you before you can stop it—quicker, cutting, and punitive than you meant it to be. Your gaze flickers around the room, the noise growing more distant as the entire club seems to slow down, like time itself is holding its breath.

And when you speak, your voice cuts through the volatile silence between the two of you. “I told you already,” you remind him firmly, the words thick with disinterest, like a sentence you’ve repeated so many times like a mindless recording that it has lost its meaning. “I’m not marrying you.”

His face falters—so subtly it’s easy to miss. A flicker of pain slips through, breaking past the desperate mask he’s struggling to hold together. His eyes drift, unfocused, as if he’s trying to make sense of something he can no longer quite grasp.

You step back, your gaze freezing cold as you notice the crowd gape at his humiliation—rejection delivered like a guillotine. The club thumps not only with music but countless eyes on both of you and a chain of whispers being spread among the people. Someone laughs—a sharp, ugly one that bounces off the walls like the snort of a pig. Your rejection is echoing, sinking into the air with its anchor, its weight heaving up on Joshua's shoulders. You let it linger, savoring the moment, watching his embarrassment bloom in front of everyone.

Another laugh echoes. Someone snickers behind you, a little too loud to ignore. You can feel the eyes of the club on you now, the murmur of voices spreading like wildfire.

"Wow," someone lets out a derisive snort. “She just shut him down in front of everyone.”

The whispers sting him. It's satisfying to see him shrink, his shoulders folding inward as if he's trying to make himself smaller. The guy who used to stand tall, full of confidence, now seems like a child pleading for validation (unfortunately with no tears glinting in his eyes yet).

For the first time, you see it—genuine hurt. Not the forced kind he tried to sell you over the months, but raw, real vulnerability. The people surrounding you don’t seem to notice it. They just keep talking, their attention already shifting elsewhere; the whole world keeps rotating while he stands still—stuck in this moment.

“Good,” you say, almost too softly for anyone but him to hear. “It was never going to happen.”

Joshua stands there, arm still outstretched, the ring caught between you like a mistake he made too fast to take back. His fingers twitch, grip tightening, loosening—like he’s resisting the urge to snatch it away or force the moment forward. Silence presses in.

His jaw flexes. He swallows whatever he almost says.

For a flicker of a second, something reckless sparks through him—his gaze snapping to the bottle on the table behind you, his fingers curling around its neck, smashing it against the corner of the table. And then he swings it at your head—

No, he doesn’t.

The cloud dissipates as he stays frozen instead, breathing unevenly, the impulse passing through him without landing, leaving only the weight of the moment hanging in the air.

“I told you already,” you remind him. “I’m not marrying you.”

Something fractures behind his eyes.

That’s when he hears it.

Two men sitting a few tables away. One voice low, crude, and careless. Complaining about women. About stubborn ones. Laughing about how they need to be taught lessons. Suggesting things that make Joshua’s jaw tick.

You notice his attention swaying towards those men.

Joshua leans in closer to you. “You hear that?”

You shrug. “Men talk.”

His face contorts, not in reaction to them, but to the universe and the possibility of anything encroaching on his perceived possessions.

You watch the realization bloom in his mind, its branches stretching out with leaves engraved with threat, protection, and possession.

You take advantage of his astonishment, fishing your keychain from his other hand, and by the time he realizes it, you're already blended into the crowd, slipping out of his reach.

Later, when you’re alone, your fingertip traces the eye of your keychain as you swim in your thoughts.

You had punctured his pride through and through.

You let out a heavy sigh, shaking your head to disperse your thoughts, and began a long trudge to the bathroom.

Frigid water splashes your face and drips down your hands slowly like a draining waterfall. You straighten up, staring at your reflection. Eyes look back—whole and intact.

A small smile curves up your lips.

You wonder what your soul looks like—

And his too.

A stack of papers snaps your face to the other side. Your cheek burns; you press your tongue against it, steadying yourself. After a moment, you lift your gaze again, smoothing your hair back into place.

"What did you say? No?!" your father screams in your face."You think I'll forget about it if you avoid me for days? How dare you humiliate me in front of him?" He shrills, his fingers digging into your hair and yanking your head back with all his might.

You choke back a whimper, but still maintain your glare.

He scoffs and spits in your face at your audacity. With a forceful push, he sends you reeling, your back colliding with the wall in a deafening thud.

A sharp pain shoots up your lower back; you bite down your boiling scream by digging your nails into your palms. Everything throbs, but you won't hand him the satisfaction of witnessing your misery.

"Get out of my face. Scram!" he yells, and you do, limping your way out.

You step outside, inhaling a sharp breath of the city. Sunlight reflects off the gray concrete sidewalk, which is lined with green bushes. You walk towards the cacophony of the main road, leaving a trail of dripping humiliation. At the intersection, the air grows thicker, carrying the sharp scent of gasoline and hot rubber. The muted, sleepy environment of the street abruptly met the frantic buzz of life—cars rushing past, music thumping from a passing vehicle, and the scattered conversations of people walking by. You don't pay mind to the bustling city as your mind occupies itself by flipping through today's events.

An abrupt vibration travels from the soles of your feet up to your chest, followed by a guttural, tearing roar that rips through the quiet afternoon.

You look up just in time to see a bright streak of neon cutting through the traffic flow, weaving erratically in your direction; the rider hunched low over the tank like a jockey in a race. You freeze, your breath hitching.

It all happens too fast.

A splatter of sizzling liquid rises high like tsunami waves onto your face—slopping into your eye.

A bloodcurdling scream erupts from your lungs as you instantly shield your left eye.

You watch a blurry figure rushing in your direction from the other side of the road. You blink—Joshua Hong.

He ran towards you, his saucer eyes puffed up with flaming rage and concern. He gently but firmly moves your hand away from your eye to inspect the damage.

"Are you okay?!"

He clumsily fishes out his phone, swiftly pressing it to his ear. His words are stern and curt as he speaks to someone on his phone. "Get security here, now!"

A blend of your blood with bubbling acid stains your palm. He cautiously pulls your hand away from your eye once again. He watches you, his gaze locked on your face. Your left eye remains squeezed shut so tightly that it sends a tremor through your cheek, while a steady, silent stream of tears leaks out, mapping down the path of your immense pain. He hears you hiss softly under your breath, trying to hide your pain. He scrutinizes the crowd that is beginning to encircle around you both, everyone whispering and covering their mouths in shock.

Without hesitation, he scoops you up into his arms, cradling you against his chest. Keeping you steady with one arm, he begins striding towards the waiting car, barking orders into the phone with deadly calmness. "I want that acid analyzed immediately. Find out who did this."

Joshua carefully places you down in the backseat of the car, climbing in after you. He is quick to grab a handful of tissues, gently pressing them against your eye, applying enough pressure to stop the bleeding. You grunt in protest, your eye still throbbing endlessly. The driver speeds off towards the hospital, leaving the chaotic scene behind. "Stay still," he says, squeezing your shoulder in solace.

At the hospital, his hand remains steadfast in your hold as Joshua accompanies you throughout the entire examination. Refusing to step outside, his hand holds yours more firmly as the doctor examines your eye, his thumb gently caressing your knuckles. (The security gave up trying to take the man outside when he answered with a grim scowl; no one wants to offend this man with tremendous influence after all.)

When they finally gave the news that you had lost vision in your left eye because of the acid attack, his face ashes up and a winter chill settles in his eyes.

He listens meticulously as the doctor explains that the acid had burned through your retina, causing permanent blindness in your left eye. He saw your porcelain pale face remain gray—sheeted with an uneasy layer of placidity. He hears the doctor mention that he spotted a small sign of infection, which might likely spread more.

"Can she still keep her eye, or does it need to be removed?"

The doctor hesitates before answering Joshua's knotty question. "The eye is severely damaged and infected. Removing it would prevent further infection and pain for the patient," he explains while keeping his eyes downcast. Joshua's jaw clenches, his knuckles turn pale merely from his tight hold on your hand. "We recommend removal within the next forty eight hours."

He takes in a deep breath, trying his best to bottle in his swirling rage and grief. His gaze flickers down at you, looking for the shock and pain in your remaining eye. He sets the decision in stone. “Do it.” The words were thin—arctic and absolute. The doctor froze, then nodded. "Remove it."

They don’t let him stay long.

You’re still holding his hand when they start moving you, the bed rolling too smoothly, just like this decision which was made swiftly. The lights above smear together in a static lane of white. You try to sit up, to ask him not to let go.

“Wait,” you screech, or your voice only echoes in your head.

The needle slides into your arm. Cold spreads fast—chasing your thoughts. His grip tightens, desperate, as if he holds hard enough he can keep you here.

Your fingers betray you. They loosen. Your body follows.

“No,” he pleads, but the nurse peels your hand away from his as if it no longer belongs to either of you.

The doors close.

Inside, everything is too bright. They move quickly now in a careful motion blur of efficiency as if the gentleness will soften the inevitable outcome.

They drape a blue sheet over your face, leaving only your left eye exposed. The light still reaches only one place. Only one thing left to take.

You’re not asleep. You’re not awake. Your mind floats somewhere above your body, watching it lie there in obedience. Sounds echo strangely—metal clicking, voices murmuring like they’re in another room.

“Breathe,” someone says.

You do. Once. Twice. The air smells sharp—wrong. Your thoughts begin to slip like water through your fingers. You try to hold on to something—his face, his voice—but it all stretches and thins out into nothingness.

You’re not asleep yet.

But you’re already leaving.

The room pulls away from you in pieces. Sound warps—metal clicking too loudly, voices melting into each other. Your body grows distant, heavy, obedient in a way that suddenly feels appalling.

Something is happening.

Panic sparks bright and instinctive just as your chest forgets how to answer it. You try to inhale deeper. Try to move. Nothing listens. The fear blooms anyway, trapped inside a body that’s already going still.

Then—

Nothing.

The surgeon places the removed eye in a container and hands it to a nurse. His experienced hands began to stitch up the empty socket with clinical precision.

Joshua's restless feet echoes around the hallway, getting jittery as the clock ticks minute by minute. Finally, the doctor comes out. "She's bandaged and all well. We placed in a conformer for now. Let it heal, and then she can get a prosthetic eye."

His shoulders slope down with relief at hearing the surgery went well.

The doctor gives a nod and walks off to his other duties. The nurse leads Joshua to your room. He finds you asleep as a tranquil sleeping beauty. The mattress dips as he sits beside you, lightly tracing the edge of the bandage. He sighs, planting a soft peck on its fabric.

He clasps your hand firmly, afraid that you will slip through his fingers.

You are given the green light to discharge after a few follow-ups on the same evening. Your exhaustion drags you back into a world of dreams every few hours; you barely gave nods to countless questions from the doctor during the check-ups. He gently lifts your unconscious body into his arms, holding you close to his chest. He felt like a monster for causing you to lose your sight.

Joshua takes you back to his mansion, his men following behind with your medical supplies and medications. He carefully laid you down in his own bedroom, removing your clothes and replacing them with one of his oversized shirts that fell down to your thighs. He sat beside you for hours, watching over you as you slept.

As you stir awake, he notices your bandage has bled through and needs re-dressing. He gulps down a lump in his throat, the gravity of the situation pressing down on him once more. You reach up to touch your face, only to find an unfamiliar void. He quickly grabs your hand, stopping you from touching the bandage.

You wince as you attempt to open your left eye again, forgetting that it was gone. He watches your brow furrow in confusion as you try to touch your bandage this time. A soft whimper escapes from your lips as your brain finally registers that something was wrong—missing. He keeps his gaze steady as memories of recent tragedy run behind your remaining eye. Your hands fall onto your lap as the reality brushes its harsh strokes into your brain.

Your body stills, mirroring an aloof statue. Your right eye blinks rapidly, trying to adjust to seeing the world with only your sliced vision. He peers at your steady sangfroid attitude, knowing that you were comprehending the permanent loss of your left eye.

You lift your hand to the bandage again, pressing to feel the empty socket behind the closed eyelid. You go rigid, slowly lowering your hand back into your lap. He waits for your reaction.

"It's gone," you say, your words flowing lightly with the breeze.

Joshua’s hand lingers near your cheek, hovering as if you will blow away like ashes into the wind.

An eccentric silence engulfs the room—just the faint hum of the flowing curtains and the distant murmur of voices down the hall. Gentle sunlight filters weakly through them, not too bright nor sharp enough. You turn your head slightly away from it, your right eye struggling to judge the depth of the light.

You swallow.

“It doesn’t… hurt,” you comment after a moment, almost clinically. “It just feels…” Your fingers twitched in your lap. “Wrong.”

He exhales shakily, tucking his hands back into his lap. “The doctors said that might happen. Phantom sensations. Your brain’s still catching up.”

You nod faintly, absorbing the information the way you always do—carefully, methodically. Your gaze drifts back towards him, though it takes a second to align properly. You miscalculate the distance at first, focusing slightly past his shoulder before correcting it.

He notices it, and that almost shatters him into countless shards.

“I should’ve—” his words ruptured into a quake. He clears his parched throat as his jaw tightens. “I should’ve gotten to you sooner.”

Your brow furrows faintly. “No.”

“It was my fault,” he insists, leaning forward with elbows on his knees. “If I had just—”

“Joshua.”

The way you say his name renders him completely—steady, grounded and certain.

“You didn’t take it,” you breathe. “You didn’t make the call. You didn’t arrange it. You didn’t cause the attack.” A slight pause. “You took me to the hospital right away.”

His eyes glisten with a fresh wave. “Too late.”

You study him—really scrutinize every edge and contour of him—with your only visible eye left in your socket. It feels different now—narrower field with harder edges, but it works nevertheless. You can still see him.

“I’m alive,” you state simply.

A lone tear trails down his cheek before he could stop it. He looks away, ashamed of it, but you reach out this time—slowly, carefully—until your hand finds his wrist. Your depth perception is off, causing you to brush the air first. He immediately moves closer so you wouldn’t have to search.

Your fingers wrap around him.

“It’s gone,” you repeat, your words subdued softly now. Not in shock nor in disbelief—just crude acknowledgment.

Joshua covers your hand with his other one, holding it as if it's something fragile and sacred.

“I’m so sorry,” his apology quivers.

You let the silence linger a moment longer. The weight of everything gravities between you both, pressing down on your hearts. The future has shifted—permanently.

“I’ll have to relearn things,” you murmur. “Walking. Driving. Pouring coffee without missing the cup.” A faint, almost humorless breath leaves you. “Stairs are going to be annoying.”

Despite himself, Joshua lets out a weak, watery laugh.

You tilt your head slightly, testing your vision in a landslide view. “But I’m still me,” you softly hum.

He scrutinizes you—really looks at you. The same stubborn set of your jaw. The same quiet steel in your voice. The same mind is already adapting instead of collapsing.

“You are,” he says, his face twitching with fierce determination.

Your grip clenches just a fraction. “Then don’t look at me like I’m broken.”

Your words drills in his chest. His spine straightens as he wipes his face quickly. He nods, swallowing his guilt down as best he could.

“Okay,” he admits. “You’re not broken.”

You lean back against the bed as the exhaustion starts seeping into your bones. Losing an eye was one thing. Accepting it was another. And you had done both within minutes.

But as your fingers drift once more toward the edge of the eye patch—hesitant this time—your composure wavers for a moment.

“I’m going to look different,” you mutter, much quieter now, not out of fear—just… awareness.

Joshua leans over carefully, pressing his forehead gently to yours, mindful of the bandages.

“You’re going to look like someone who survived,” he reassures you. “Like someone who fought and lived.”

Your breath hitches—just once.

And for the first time since you woke up, your calm demeanor cracks—not into sobbing, not into screaming—but it morphs into a single tear slipping from your right eye, trailing down toward the pillow.

Joshua stays by your side, cradling your hand, letting you swim in your emotions.

Letting you feel all of it.

But not leaving you to face it all alone.

"It's gone," you repeat calmly despite your glassy eye.

He hears his heart crack at the calmness still blanketing your voice. You state it as a fact, not questioning it or showing any emotion. He reaches out slowly, gently brushing a strand of hair away from your face. "Yes... it's gone," he whispers with guilt clogging his throat and tears drenching his eyelashes.

That night, when he thinks you are asleep, you quietly slip out of the bed.

Darkness shrouds the bedroom, making it difficult to navigate and not bump into things. Your depth perception falters; you misjudge the distance and clip your shoulder against the wall. You don’t react—just let your remaining eye adjust to the dead of the night.

You manage to find the attached bathroom.

The light inside illuminates too brightly when you flick it on.

For a moment, you just stand there, gripping the sink.

Then you look up.

The woman in the mirror stares back with one uncovered eye and a stark white patch (re-dressed a few hours ago) cutting across her face. Bruising yellows the skin beneath it. The bandage bulges slightly where the socket was still healing.

You don’t blink.

You study the angles. The asymmetry. The way your expression looks… distant—the sea in your remaining eye feels shores away, the waves ripple faintly through the murky night as the fog engulfs the view.

A bloodied figure reflects behind you in the doorway. Joshua's shirt wrinkles with stains of crimson. You are not surprised to find him looming behind you; you knew he was out somewhere and you were not curious enough to figure out where. Neither does the blood astonish you.

He mirrors your silence.

You reach up slowly and peel the edge of the patch back just a fraction—not enough to damage anything, just enough to see the hollow contour beneath the protective dressing.

Joshua jolts forward. “Don’t.”

“It’s fine,” you breathe with firmness.

Your gaze never leaves the mirror, now tracing his eyes through it with your own remaining one.

There is no horror on your face—not even tears.

Blankness smogs onto your face and morphs into acceptance.

He takes a faint step closer but holds himself back from grabbing you. His hands flex ineptly at his sides.

After a long moment, you let the patch fall back into place.

“I look like a stranger,” you assist.

Joshua grits roughly, yet a twitch of solace lingers in his words. “You look like you.”

You turn off the bathroom light without responding and walk back to the bedroom.

After a few weeks of your surgery, your empty socket spurts out a pink discharge and swells with a hue of bruise around it. You constantly want to dip your finger into the socket to explore it and scratch away the itch but the annoying Joshua always holds your wrist hostage if you get even an inch closer to your patch, which makes you roll your eyes (oh, your bad, you meant to say eye now.)

The day began to blur as you were swamped with post-recovery care and follow-up appointments.

Joshua starts to orbit in your circle, from working often from home to bringing you all your three meals on a tray to adjusting your pillows. He religiously times your medication and tends to you like a stern nurse. When you stand—he stands. When you move, he hovers.

If you drift too close to the bedroom door, he suddenly materializes there.

“Where are you going?”

“Kitchen.”

“I’ll get it.”

“I can get it.”

“I know. I’ll get it.”

It becomes a pattern—an intricate web on which you are stuck like a dying fly.

On the fourth day of the same week, you manage to reach for the doorknob with pin drop silence.

His hand abruptly slams against the door before you could turn it.

“Don’t,” he grits curtly.

You stare at his hand, then crane your neck up at him.

“I need air.”

“You can open the window.”

“I need to go outside.”

His jaw tightens. “Not yet.”

Your right eye twitches slightly. “Why?”

Because I almost lost you.

Because if you fall—

Because if someone looks at you wrong—

Because I can’t watch you break.

Instead, he offers a flat explanation: “You’re still healing.”

You step back, studying him the same way you had in the hospital.

“You’re keeping me in here.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

Silence stretches taut between the pair.

Joshua cards through his hair; frustration begins to seep through the cracks of his careful composure. “You walked into a doorframe yesterday.”

“I’m adjusting.”

“You almost fell on the stairs.”

“I caught myself.”

“You don’t see things coming on your left!”

“And I will learn.”

Your voice doesn't climb octaves, and that makes him feel worse.

He paralyzes with terror—his jaw ticking and his brow furrows a deep valley.

Your edges soften a quarter. “Joshua,” you breathe his name velvety.

He swallows a lump.

“I lost an eye,” you point out. “Not my legs. Not my mind.”

His shoulders slops down with guilt burdening across his face.

“I can’t lose you too,” he confesses with barely audible words.

Something flickers across your face. You take a faint step closer with slow deliberation, navigating the space. You stop a few inches away from him.

“You saved me,” you acknowledge. “I won't turn my back on you anymore.”

He hesitates for a moment, unable to bear the thought of losing you; he pulls you into a careful embrace, his arms holding you as if you were delicate glass.

You stand rigid like a statue for a moment, your mind's wheel gets stuck at his action, but gradually your hands come up to claw his shirt.

Although over his shoulder, your open eye remains fixed on the bedroom doorway—

On the hall beyond it.

On the rest of the house.

And the world waiting outside.

Joshua didn’t mean to make it a prison.

It just… became one.

The curtains began to stay drawn.

At first, it was because the light gave you headaches. Then, because the neighbors might see and 'misunderstand' their relationship. Later came the excuse that your eye needed ‘consistent lighting.’ The room settles into a dim, gray half-world where time blurs and shadows stretch long across the walls.

He moves your things in piece by piece.

Your clothes.

Your make-up and jewelry.

Your books and necessities.

Still, there’s no trace of your any devices. When you ask for your phone, he smiles the way salespeople do before denying a refund. The excuse arrives polished to perfection: "Your eye needs rest; screens would only make it worse, and maybe it’s healthier this way anyway—using your recovery to take a break from the world outside.”

"You won’t need to go downstairs," he says lightly after checking all your belongings are in place. “It’s easier this way.”

Easier.

You stop arguing after a few futile attempts.

One afternoon you notice a white sheet draped over the mirror, tucked neatly at the corners.

You didn't ask him to cover it.

“Why did you do that?” You ask.

“So you don’t have to look at it,” he replies evenly without meeting your eye.

You don't mention that it won't stop you from standing in front of the bathroom mirror, fixedly gazing at it at two in the morning.

You don't tell him when you mourn your missing window to your soul—you wonder what his looks like too.

A few nights later, you often wake to the faint sound of movement.

Floorboards creak beneath slow, restless footsteps.

The sound dies from the outside.

The noise drifts in from somewhere beyond the bedroom door. Then comes the soft click of the handle. The door eases open. Closes again.

You keep your breathing slow and steady, watching through barely parted lashes as he trudges to your bedside and looms over you.

He doesn’t touch you.

He only watches your chest rise and fall.

Counting.

Joshua whispers something under his breath.

“Still here.”

The world beyond the room began to feel theoretical.

You could hear it sometimes—dishes clinking in the kitchen, the indistinct murmur of the television, the distant rumble of a car passing outside.

But you don’t see it.

Every time you reach for the door, Joshua seems to materialize.

“I’ve got it.”

“Do you need something?”

“Tell me what you want.”

One afternoon, you decide to test him.

“I want to sit on the porch.”

He freezes.

The silence stretches taut a bit too long.

“It’s windy,” he says finally.

You tilt your head slightly. “The windows are closed.”

He doesn’t smile.

The eeriest part is not his hovering.

It is his calm.

He never raises his voice—never snapping and doesn't even let anger crease his expression.

He is just watchful.

And measured.

Like he is guarding something fragile.

Like you are not a person anymore.

Like you were an artifact salvaged from rubble.

Your depth perception begins to improve slowly. You practice it when he isn’t looking—tossing a pen from one hand to the other. Reaching for the glass of water without spilling it. Walking the perimeter of the room in the dark.

You stop bumping into things.

But he doesn’t seem to notice.

Or maybe he didn’t want to.

Another night, a metallic click pulls you from sleep.

A soft, deliberate click.

You stay still.

A second click follows a moment later.

Your right eye strains against the dark until the shape near the door slowly becomes Joshua.

His fingers slips away from the doorknob. Something small disappears into his pocket with practiced ease.

Then he turns toward you.

Unaware that you’re awake.

He walks back to the chair beside your bed and sinks into it heavily, elbows braced against his knees, eyes fixed on you in the darkness.

Watching the rise and fall of your chest.

Counting again.

The next night, he didn’t come.

No creaking footsteps outside your bedroom door. No soft click of the handle turning at late hours. No looming figure sitting in the chair beside your bed, counting your breaths in the dark.

The silence feels unnatural after days of constant observation, and eventually the restlessness gnawing beneath your skin becomes unbearable enough for you to slip out from beneath the sheets and tiptoe downstairs.

The house is steeped in darkness. Moonlight spills through the tall windows in pale silver stripes, illuminating just enough of the floor for you to navigate without crashing into furniture. A gentle late-April breeze drifted by, fluttering the curtains in its wake.

Every step makes the old wood sigh beneath your weight, and you pause after each creak, listening carefully for movement somewhere upstairs.

Nothing.

You didn’t come downstairs to escape. You already know the front door will be locked, the windows probably sealed shut in some discreet way Joshua had taken care of long before you ever woke up here. Running would be pointless in your condition anyway.

You are simply bored out of your mind.

There are only so many hours a person can spend staring at closed curtains and counting cracks in the ceiling before the walls begin pressing inward.

So you wander.

The rooms all feel unmistakably Joshua. Carefully arranged. Controlled. The living room is decorated in muted colors and sharp lines, all expensive furniture that looks barely touched, as though it exists more for appearance than comfort. Neatly stacked books line dark wooden shelves, every spine aligned with obsessive precision. A chessboard rests atop a side table midway through a match, black pieces cornering white in a slow, merciless defeat.

The dining room is equally pristine, with polished silverware laid out inside a glass cabinet and long curtains drawn tightly over the windows despite the hour. Not a single object seems misplaced. Not a single sign suggests another person has ever lived here besides him.

Even the kitchen carries the same unsettling orderliness. Every knife hangs in perfect alignment. Every surface gleams spotless beneath the moonlight. The refrigerator hums softly in the silence, sounding strangely loud in the empty house.

Your gaze eventually lands on a door left slightly ajar at the end of the corridor.

Your steps move faintly.

For the first time since arriving here, something has been left open.

You plod toward it cautiously before nudging the door wider with your fingertips and peering inside.

A grand piano sits in the center of the room, bathed entirely in moonlight.

For a moment, you simply stare. Then a quiet clap of excitement escapes you before you can stop it.

The sight of it feels absurdly personal, like stumbling across an old friend in unfamiliar territory.

You drift toward the piano almost instinctively and lower yourself onto the cushioned bench, your fingers hovering over the keys for only a second before muscle memory takes over.

The first notes ring softly through the room, delicate enough to blend with the sleeping house. Gradually, the melody unfurls into Clair de Lune, smooth and aching and familiar beneath your fingertips.

If there is another thing capable of exposing the soul as nakedly as eyes do, it is music.

The piano had been your best friend since you were seven years old, the only thing that understood how to translate feelings too tangled to speak aloud into something beautiful. Your fingers know the language instinctively now, moving across the keys with effortless intimacy as the melody swells quietly through the dark.

For the first time in days, you almost forget where you are.

A sharp clap suddenly echoes behind you.

You jolt violently, your hands slipping from the keys as you whirl around to find Joshua leaning against the wall.

But you are not surprised.

The moment you found the door left ajar, you already knew tonight was intentional.

A test.

A reward.

Maybe simply another one of his experiments.

That is why you never bothered trying to stay quiet. Why you had allowed yourself to sink fully into the music instead of holding back.

Joshua’s expression is unreadable in the dim light, but there is something disturbingly intent in the way he watches you now.

Like he had been listening long before you ever touched the first key.

He pushes himself away from the wall slowly, the sharp sound of his applause fading back into silence as he walks further into the room.

The moonlight catches briefly against his watch, against the faint crease of his rolled sleeves, before he stops beside the piano. Close enough now that you can smell cedarwood and the lingering trace of frosty night air clinging to his clothes.

“You play beautifully,” he praises.

The compliment should sound ordinary. Instead, it settles strangely beneath your skin, coming from him, spoken with that same unnerving attentiveness he uses when watching you sleep.

You let out a small breath and turn slightly back toward the keys, your fingers resting against polished ivory. “You left the door open on purpose.”

A pause stretches behind you.

Then, softly, almost amused, “And you still walked in.”

Your hands resume moving before you consciously decide to play again. The melody returns quieter this time, slower; the notes flowing softly into the dark while Joshua remains standing beside you in silence.

You can feel him watching your hands.

Not your face.

Not your injury.

Just your hands gliding across the piano keys as if he is trying to understand something through them.

After a while, the bench dips slightly beneath the added weight.

Joshua sits beside you without asking.

The warmth radiating from his shoulder feels startling after so many cold, lonely nights upstairs, and suddenly you become acutely aware of every tiny movement—the brush of fabric when he shifts, the slow sound of his breathing beneath the music, the way his knee nearly touches yours without quite doing it.

Neither of you speaks for several moments.

The room fills instead with piano notes and moonlight and something heavier threading silently between the pauses.

Then he reaches forward unexpectedly, his hand sliding over yours atop the keys.

Not forceful.

Not restraining.

Just enough pressure to still your fingers mid-note.

The unfinished chord lingers softly in the air as your breath catches.

“You hide inside music,” he murmurs, eyes lowered toward your joined hands. “It’s the only time you stop looking dead.”

His thumb shifts slightly against your knuckles before he finally lifts his gaze to yours.

And for the first time since arriving here, the silence between you no longer feels entirely stagnant.

The silence stretches after that, neither comfortable nor tense, but something suspends carefully between the two.

Joshua’s hand remains loosely over yours for another moment before he finally withdraws it, though not completely. His fingers linger near the edge of your wrist, close enough that you still feel their warmth against your skin.

“You stopped playing,” he observes quietly.

You glance down at the keys. “You interrupted me.”

A faint smile ghosts across his face at that, small enough to vanish almost immediately. He leans back slightly on the bench, one arm resting along the edge behind you while the other taps absentmindedly against his knee in time with some rhythm only he can hear.

“You knew I was listening,” he says after a while.

It isn’t phrased like a question.

You hesitate before answering. “I figured the open door was too convenient.”

Joshua hums softly in acknowledgment, his gaze drifting toward the piano again. “Most people would’ve been trying to escape.”

“But you made sure I couldn’t.”

The words leave your mouth more lightly than intended, though the meaning beneath them remains sharp enough to settle heavily between you.

For a second, neither of you moves.

Then he exhales through his nose, almost thoughtfully, and tilts his head slightly toward you. “You could’ve screamed while you were down here.”

“You would’ve heard me.”

“I hear everything in this house.”

The statement should feel threatening. Somehow, spoken in his low, even voice beside the soft moonlit piano, it lands differently. More intimate than dangerous.

Your fingers drift unconsciously across a few keys again, producing a quiet string of absent notes. Joshua watches the movement with that same unwavering focus that always makes you feel pinned beneath his attention.

“You watch me a lot,” you murmur before you can stop yourself.

Something unreadable flickers across his expression.

“I like knowing you’re still here.”

The room falls quiet again after that.

Outside, the wind brushes softly against the windows, stirring the curtains just enough for the moonlight to shift across the floorboards. He remains beside you, close enough that your shoulders nearly touch now, his presence no longer looming but surrounding.

Slowly, almost cautiously, he reaches up and brushes a strand of hair away from your face, his fingers pausing briefly near your temple as though resisting the urge to linger longer.

The gesture is so unexpectedly gentle that it unsettles you far more than his watching ever did.

His gaze lowers afterward—not to your injury this time, but to your mouth for the briefest second before returning to your eyes.

Then, very quietly, Joshua says, “Play something else for me.”

“Should I play you instead?” you murmur with a mocking little scoff, expecting at least some reaction from him.

But Joshua only looks at you.

Unblinking.

Waiting.

The silence stretches long enough to turn the joke into something else entirely.

You let out another breath of disbelief in your smile. “God, you’re impossible.”

Yet he still says nothing.

Well, he asked for it—a part of you wants to see if he’ll finally crack—you shift sideways and climb into his lap.

For the first time all night, he goes completely still beneath you.

The piano falls silent behind you as your fingers curl loosely against his shoulders, and suddenly the room feels far more smaller than before.

His gaze searches your face carefully, intensely, as if he’s trying to memorize every flicker of expression you make.

“Well?” you whisper teasingly. “What song do you think I sound like?”

His hands settle carefully at your waist, not pulling you closer yet, simply holding you there as though testing whether you’ll change your mind and move away.

But you don’t.

The moonlight spills across the piano keys behind you, pale ivory glowing softly in the dark while the unfinished melody still hangs faintly in the room like the last breath of a performance.

“Something dangerous,” Joshua says at last, his voice low enough that you feel it more than hear it.

Your lips curve slightly. “That’s not a song.”

“No,” he murmurs, eyes lowering briefly to your mouth again. “But it sounds like one.”

The air between you thickens after that.

Joshua’s restraint had always felt frightening before—his stillness, the way he watched instead of touched—but now, sitting in his lap with his hands warm against your waist, it feels like standing too close to a thunderstorm waiting to break.

You become painfully aware of every tiny movement. The slow drag of his thumb against your side. The measured rise and fall of his breathing beneath yours. The way his gaze lingers on you with terrifying concentration, as though nothing else in the world exists beyond this room.

Your fingers drift unconsciously toward the collar of his shirt, grazing the fabric there.

He exhales softly at the contact.

Such a small sound.

Yet it alters the atmosphere instantly, like the first piano key pressed before a symphony begins.

Then his hand slides upward along your spine, slow enough to make your pulse stumble, and suddenly the distance between you disappears altogether.

The kiss feels less like affection and more like surrendering to something inevitable. Slow at first—hesitant and careful. Then deeper when your hands tighten against him and his composure finally fractures beneath your mouth.

Somewhere in the haze of tangled breaths and moonlight, your back brushes the piano keys accidentally.

A soft discordant note rings through the room.

Neither of you pulls away.

Another note follows when Joshua’s hand slips lower against you, deeper and richer this time, blending quietly with the unsteady sound escaping your throat.

The piano begins answering every movement in scattered murmurs of music—low trembling chords, broken half-notes, sharp gasps of sound whenever your bodies shift against the keys.

And eventually even your moans seem to melt into it, threading together with the instrument until the entire room sounds like one long aching composition played entirely out of breath.

The next morning, when he leaves briefly to shower, you plod quietly to the bedroom door.

Your fingers curl around the knob and turn it carefully, expecting the familiar resistance of a lock, but the handle gives way easily beneath your hand. The door opens barely an inch before stopping abruptly against something solid.

You pause.

It's not locked.

Just… restrained.

Frowning faintly, you try again with more force this time, but the result is the same. The handle turns completely, yet the door refuses to open wider than that narrow sliver.

A strange calm settles over you despite the warning bells beginning to ring somewhere deep in your mind. Crouching down, you try to peer through the narrow gap.

A chair sits wedged beneath the handle from the outside.

It's placed not out of caution but strategically. The door has shut on the canary bird's face, leaving it only to flutter and chirp around in its cage.

You straightened up tardily.

The room cages in, feeling smaller and the air grows thinner against your lungs, but the panic never arrives.

You simply step back and return to the edge of the bed, lowering yourself onto it with eerie composure, your hands folding neatly together in your lap as though preparing for a conversation already rehearsed in your mind.

By the time Joshua returns, damp hair clinging slightly to his forehead while he absently dries it with a towel, your expression has smoothed itself into something unreadable.

He smiles softly the moment he sees you.

“Morning.”

You hold his gaze without acknowledging his greeting.

“How long?” You ask quietly.

His movements falter almost imperceptibly, fingers stilling against the towel. “How long what?”

“How long have you been blocking the door?”

For the briefest fraction of a second, his smile slips.

“I’m not blocking it.”

“There’s a chair under the handle.”

Joshua hesitates before speaking again. “That’s only so it doesn’t swing open.”

Your eyes remain fixed on him.

“It opens inward.”

Silence floods the room.

Something shifts visibly in his expression then, though it is not anger and not irritation either. It resembles fear too closely for comfort—raw, trembling fear struggling beneath all that careful composure.

“I can’t let anything happen to you,” he says at last, the words escaping more like confession than explanation.

You study him with the same detached concentration you once used on your own reflection after the accident. Blankly. Clinically.

“You think the world is what took my eye.”

His breathing turns uneven almost immediately. You struck the center of it too easily.

“It did,” he insists.

“No,” you reply softly. “A moment did.”

Joshua takes a step toward you, fingers tightening unconsciously around the damp towel in his hands. “You don’t understand,” he says, voice beginning to crack beneath the strain. “I saw you clutch your bleeding eye, screaming in pain. I saw—” He swallows hard. “I won’t survive that twice.”

The room becomes unbearably still after that. Every object remains perfectly arranged around you, every curtain neatly drawn, every corner controlled with suffocating precision, yet Joshua himself suddenly looks like the only unstable thing inside it.

Slowly, you rise from the bed.

You move around it carefully, deliberately, until only a foot of space remains between you.

“I survived,” you say firmly.

He shakes his head immediately, as though survival itself had never been the point.

Your gaze drifts briefly toward the restrained door before returning to him again.

“You’re afraid I’ll break,” you murmur.

His eyes glisten faintly in the dim morning light.

You tilt your head slightly.

“But Joshua…”

Your voice remains unnervingly calm—gentle, even.

“I’m not the one who’s breaking.”

The words linger heavily between you.

And for the first time since the hospital, his expression shifts into something uncertain, as though he no longer knows whether he is protecting you from the world outside the room—or from himself.

"You are afraid," you point out.

The atmosphere shifts almost imperceptibly after that. Joshua had been standing close enough for you to feel the lingering warmth from the shower still clinging to his skin, his hands half-raised like he might reach for you if you sway even slightly, but now you straighten fully beneath his gaze, posture smoothing into something composed and deliberate.

Your visible eye fixes on his.

“And you’re hiding something from me.”

He stills.

There is no accusation in your voice, no sharpness meant to provoke him. The certainty alone is enough.

For a moment he simply watches you, jaw tightening faintly before his expression smooths itself back into careful control. “I’m protecting you,” he says again, quieter this time, as though repeating it enough might make it true.

“You say my father is still angry. That he’ll harm me if I go out.” Your voice is steady, almost detached. “But you won’t let me go speak to him. You won’t let me make it right.”

His jaw tightens and something flickers behind his eyes, brief enough that most people would miss it entirely.

You don’t.

“It was me who rejected your marriage proposal,” you continue softly. “If there are consequences, I’ll deal with them myself.”

The words land heavier than any shouting ever could, followed by a silence that stretches thin between you.

Joshua’s grip tightens unconsciously around the damp towel in his hands before he finally exhales through his nose and looks away for the first time since entering the room. “You don’t understand the situation.”

“And Mr. Hong,” you add curtly, with deliberation, “you still haven’t caught the man who threw acid in my face.”

That makes him look back immediately.

You haven’t called him Mr. Hong in days.

You used to reserve it for moments when distance was intentional. Joshua notices the shift instantly. You can tell by the way his expression hardens for only a second before softening again into something almost pleading.

He inhales slowly. “The investigation is ongoing.”

“That’s what you’ve said for weeks.”

“You were unconscious.”

“And before that?”

He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out immediately. His gaze flickers briefly toward the covered mirror near the corner of the room before returning to you again, and the movement is subtle enough that he probably thinks you won’t notice.

You do.

“You tell me my father is furious,” you went on. “That he’s unstable. That he’ll hurt me if I leave this house.” A faint tilt of your head. “But you don’t let me see him. You don’t let me call him. You don’t even let me step outside.”

Joshua takes a slow breath with a step back, though it does little to steady him. “I’m trying to keep you safe.”

“From him?”

“Yes.”

Your gaze remains fixed on his face. “Or from the truth?”

The room feels strangely smaller after that question; the silence pressing inward from every direction. He drags a hand down his face slowly, composure beginning to fray around the edges in a way you’ve never seen before. He heaves out as he throws the damp towel carelessly on the bed.

“You don’t understand how dangerous this is,” he says.

“Then explain it to me.”

His breathing grows uneven. Not dramatically. Just enough for you to hear it in the quiet room.

When he doesn’t answer, you do it for him instead.

“My father opposed your expansion deal, didn't he?” you murmur a guess. “He probably rejected your terms publicly.” Your gaze never leaves his. “I rejected you with much less crowd.”

Joshua’s eyes sharpen immediately. “You think I would hurt you because of that?”

“I don’t know what to think anymore.”

The honesty in your voice lands heavier than anger would have.

A tense silence blankets the room.

“You were there that evening,” you continued after a moment. “You were the first one to reach me. You were the one who pulled me away.”

His throat moves as he swallows.

“You told me it was some hired criminal. Some disgruntled competitor.”

“It was.”

“Then why haven’t you found him?”

His mouth opens and closes like a dying fish.

For the first time since you woke up in the hospital, he looks genuinely cornered by you, and the realization settles strangely in your chest. You had grown so used to his control that seeing cracks appear beneath it feels almost surreal.

“If my father truly wanted to punish me, he would confront me. He wouldn’t hide.” You tilt your head slightly. “And he certainly wouldn’t miss the opportunity to tell me, ‘I told you so.’”

Joshua’s lips part, but no words crawl out.

“You kept me in this room,” you continue. “You covered every mirror. You blocked the door with a chair.” Your voice remains calm enough to be unsettling. “You speak to me as if I’m something fragile enough to break apart if handled incorrectly.”

His jaw tightens. “Because you’ve been through something traumatic.”

“But you never let me see the reports. Or the footage. Or anything that actually happened.”

His voice drops a few octaves. “Because you don’t need to relive it.”

“Or because you don’t want me seeing something.”

That finally breaks something in him.

Not loudly. Not violently. Just a small, unmistakable fracture in the careful composure he has been maintaining since the hospital.

“You think I did this?” Joshua asks evenly.

You hold his gaze without flinching.

“I think,” you say after a moment, “that you’re terrified of losing control.”

The words hit him harder than an accusation ever could. You see it immediately in the way he recoils slightly as if it had struck him somewhere tender.

"I would never hurt you," he says, and this time the words sound bruised rather than defensive.

“I know."

That answer somehow makes his expression worse.

“You wouldn’t throw acid at me yourself,” you continue softly. “But you would decide what I’m allowed to know. Where I’m allowed to go. Who I’m allowed to speak to.” Your eye sharpens faintly. “You would decide which version of the truth I’m permitted to live with.”

Joshua’s hands begin trembling almost imperceptibly at his sides.

“Your father threatened me,” he blurts out. “After you rejected me. He said I would regret involving you in my world.”

“And you believed he would scar his own daughter to make a point?”

Joshua hesitates.

Only briefly, but long enough.

Understanding doesn’t hit you like a wave. It settles slowly inside you after that, cold and heavy rather than sudden.

“Who benefits?” You ask.

His breathing becomes uneven.

“You moved me into your house,” you murmur. “You isolated me from everyone else. You became my only source of information.” Your gaze drifts briefly toward the blocked door before returning to him again. “My only protection.”

“That’s not what this is.”

“You became indispensable.”

The room falls silent again. Outside the windows, wind brushes softly against the curtains, stirring them just enough for the shadows to shift faintly across the floorboards.

You take one slow step toward him.

“I rejected you,” you carry on. “Not because I doubted your power."

Your expression barely changes.

“Because I was afraid of this.”

“Afraid of what?”

A quiet breath leaves you.

“Of loving someone who only knows how to love himself.”

The words linger heavily between you.

Joshua looks at you differently after that—not like something fragile anymore, nor like someone he needs to be carefully preserved. He looks at you like someone steadily slipping beyond his control, and the fear in his expression deepens in a way that feels far more honest than anything else he has said tonight.

Outside the room, the house remains unnervingly quiet.

And for the first time since the accident, you begin wondering whether the danger you had been warned about had ever truly been outside this house at all.

The frightening part is that even now, standing right in front of him, you still cannot tell how much of Joshua is performing and how much of him is real. You had always been good at recognizing others' acts but you never have been good at putting one on your own.

His performance could really rival the stars of the theater, you think.

You walk closer.

"Let me ask you again, Mr. Hong, did you catch the hitman?"

His face ashes at your question. He looks away briefly before meeting your gaze again; his jaw clenching taut. "Yes. He's been dealt with," he says coldly, not elaborating on what exactly he had done to the person responsible for taking your eye.

The answer didn’t surprise you. You had known ever since he appeared behind you in the bathroom mirror—his clothes stained with blood. In that moment, you understood he had been dealt with that very night.

"How so?"

Joshua hesitates before answering honestly, "I had him brought to my warehouse. My men... they broke every bone in his body. Then I personally shot him in the head seven times." His voice was crisp and detached, revealing how ruthless he truly was.

"Oh, so you silenced him. Not a bad strategy," you opine.

His eyes expand an inch at your nonchalant response. He expected shock, maybe even disgust. Instead, you simply accept his brutal methods with a calm nod. He feels a strange sense of respect for your understanding of his world. "You're not... disgusted?" he asks curiously, tilting his head.

"Mr. Hong, it's you who arranged everything. Why act so shocked now?"

He throws his head back and laughs his head off. You have a point. He should stop treating you like a fragile woman. You have the capability of being his equal, understanding his world better than most. He replies to your previous question instead, "Yes, I silenced him. No loose ends. No information at risk of getting out."

You stare at him for a good minute, seeing his mask echo off with his laughter lifts a rock off your chest.

"Did you take my eye because I rejected you?" You inquire out of the blue.

His laughter fades as he takes a step back, his gaze settling on your face with quiet vehement. The calm acceptance of your injury, the understanding of his methods... and now this direct question. He realizes you are not just beautiful, but intelligent and unfiltered. "Yes," he admits curtly.

You scoff, "What a fragile ego you've got."

He freezes.

For a fleeting moment, an unsettling silence descends upon the room.

No woman has ever dared to speak to him like this. People fear Joshua Hong too much to challenge him, too much to even breathe wrong around him. Yet you stand across from him with one ruined eye and the audacity to mock the very ego that destroyed it.

You look at him with sharp amusement, as though his violence is nothing more than an inconvenient character flaw.

And God—he finds it intoxicating.

Something vile and rancid flickers behind his eyes.

“Watch your mouth,” he breathes, the faint warning far more alarming than any shouting ever could be.

You stare at him in silence—not a trace of fear creases your expression.

Joshua scrutinizes your face, waiting for the flinch that never comes. Refusing to look away, your one eye remains fixed on him with a steadiness sharp enough to challenge him outright.

His hand reaches out to clip your chin firmly without his conscious thought, tilting your face up more. "You know what your problem is?" He growls, his words grating like gravel. "No filter. No fear." His thumb drags brusquely across your bottom lip. "And one less eye to roll at me."

His lips mashed against yours in an animalistic claim. It's a hungry attempt meant to consume you whole—a war of colliding teeth and tongue invading your mouth. He sucks up all your breath as his heat steams you up. The calm gentleman act is peeling off him as his grip slides from your chin to the back of your neck, holding you exactly where he wants you while his mouth devours yours, swallowing every smart remark before it can leave your tongue. The heat from him is overwhelming—anger, tension, want—all tangled together.

When he finally pulls back, barely an inch, his breath ghosts against your lips.

“Marry me,” he proposes while still panting.

"No."

Joshua leans back more, his eyes brewing with rage and desire. No one ever says no to him. Especially not after a kiss like that. His hand clenches on your nape with untamed possessiveness. "Yes," he corrects, his face only a few inches from yours with his hot breath fanning over your mouth. "You will marry me and wear my ring. My last name. My everything."

"Why do you want to marry me so badly?" You blurt out with a huff.

He searches your face, seeing the confusion and stubbornness in your one good eye. He wanted to marry you because you rejected him. Because you stood up to him. Because you were beautiful, intelligent, and fearless. But he admits to none of that. "Because I want what I can't have," he says simply.

"You will never have it."

An ominous smile curves up his lips at your defiance.

He likes this part of you—the refusal to bend, the fact that you don’t throw yourself at his feet the way everyone else seems to. Your resistance only sharpens his interest, it feeds something possessive and relentless in him.

"We'll see about that," he murmurs, his thumb pressing coarsely against your bottom lip again, firm enough to demand your attention as his gaze locks onto yours.

“I always get what I want,” he whispers softly, the promise in his voice far more menacing than if he’d raised it.

“Eventually.”

Joshua leans in closer, his words soaking in a perilous intent. "You think I'm joking? I took your eye because I was angry. I'm offering marriage because I'm intrigued. What do you think I'll do when I'm tired of waiting?"

"Explode with anger?" You snigger.

A deep, stormy hue whirls in his eyes.

You had no idea how dangerous he was.

He watches you in silence for a moment—your calm expression, your single beautiful eye studying him without a trace of fear. Most people broke beneath his stare. You only looked back harder every single time.

“Yes,” he agrees with his words kneaded with deceptive softness. “Angry.” His jaw clicks. “You rejected me. You called me an animal. You slapped me.” A deliberate icy pause blows by. “So I took an eye.”

Your expression doesn’t change.

“You can’t change your nature,” you reply evenly. “A pig stays a pig its entire life.”

Something boils in him with raucous gurgling, bubbles forming then popping again and again.

His hand slides from the back of your neck to your throat, fingers wrapping around it with controlled pressure—not enough to truly hurt, just enough to steal the air from your lungs. He pulls you closer until his face hovers inches from yours again, eyes blazing with fury and something else—

Excitement.

"Careful with your words," he growls. "This pig will eat you alive."

You struggle against his grip, but your attitude remains flippant with another smile curving up your lips.

"You can't reverse the food chain either," you taunt.

The silence stretches taut between you, then he throws his head back and lets out a loud guffaw. God, you are smart, sharp-tongued, and incredibly foolish. Although he admits that it's refreshing to see someone not scared of him.

When his gaze settles on you again, it's heavier, with edges curved with obsession. His voice drops an octave when he speaks again. "You know what your problem is?" He didn't give you a chance to answer, snapping his fingers instead. "No filter. No fear. One eye."

Joshua releases your throat instead of squeezing tighter; his fingers trail down your neck with ghost touches as they tickle like a feather. Your lack of fear keeps fascinating him more and more. The most fearless man would at least be terrified of him by now, but not you. "You'll really call me every animal imaginable, huh?" he ponders. "Dog, pig, beast..."

His lips twitched at witnessing your quiet expression. No smart remarks. No insults. Just one beautiful eye staring blankly, giving nothing away. He realizes something—"You're like a snake,"he mutters faintly, almost to himself. "No reaction. No sound. One sudden bite..." he chortles.

"Snakes are two-faced—I'm not," you point out with no shame.

His eyes enlarge an inch at your curt response, then he laughs again. You are right. You aren't sneaky or two-faced like a snake. In fact, you are direct and honest, even when insulting him. "You know what?" he asks out of the blue.

"I'm going to marry you whether you like it or not. You can keep your sharp tongue and your one eye. Maybe I'll even let you keep calling me names." His touch ceases on your neck as he steps back abruptly, making you inhale big gulps of air. "Consider it your engagement gift."

Joshua watches you regain your composure with no fluctuation of anger or fear, not even helplessness in it. He was used to women fainting at his feet, crying happy tears at his proposals. You just sat there like a statue with your one good eye staring blankly at him like you couldn't care less. "You haven't screamed or slapped me for so long," he grumbles.

You stay silent, pondering over your available cards as you calculate your best feasible option. "You want to marry me? Then you must give me in dowry what I ask for," you challenge, setting up a condition.

His eyebrows shot up at your sudden demand. No woman would dare to ask for a dowry from him. They would be too busy thanking their lucky stars for marrying a powerful man like him. "Oh?" He takes a step closer to you again. "And what exactly do you want?"

"I want your eye," your lips curve up.

His expression freezes. He thought you'd ask for money, cars, houses... but an eye? His hand automatically touches his good eye. "My eye?" He repeats dubiously.

No, you don't resemble a snake but an orca—it is known for waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

An involuntary chill travels up his spine.

"An eye for an eye, fair enough, isn't it?" You arch a brow, lolling your head—daring him to reject your bold demand.

Joshua stares at you for a long moment, his mind racing with thoughts he couldn't catch up to. He had expected many things from this woman, but not this. Not such cold, calculated revenge. He let out a low laugh, shaking his head. "Fair enough," he agrees with no hesitation.

A haughty smile blooms on your face.

He really isn't joking or bluffing anymore. You want his eye? Fine. He respects the hell out of that ruthless demand, although he doubts you have the guts to carry it out. Most women want jewelry or cars, but you want him to experience the same blindness he'd given you. "You know what?" he asks suddenly.

"No wonder they say don't get into arguments with intelligent women. You're dangerous. One eye. No filter. No mercy," he snorts, finding this whole situation whimsical and clearly still doubting your ability to carry through it. He heaves out, carding his digits through his strands messily.

"You realize if I give you my eye, I'll be half blind?" He coos as if giving a toddler with explosive tantrums a last chance before they fuck things up.

"Serves you right. You must first blind yourself like you did me," you scoff and roll your eye.

An amused smile spreads across his lips at your bitter response. He finds himself strangely attracted to this woman's brutal honesty and justice more and more. "Fucking perfect," he snickers, echoing a sharp clap and leaves the bedroom to fetch his favorite dagger. After a couple of minutes he comes back with it and sits down on the bed in front of you.

"Do it," he says as he drops the dagger into your hand with glee and ridicule sparkling in his eyes.

"I'll take my sweet time," you pass a half-smile as you slide off its sheath.

Joshua lets out a chortle even though he doubts you meant every word—you'd make him suffer slowly with sheer anticipation of it, then will chicken out like he expects you to.

He spreads his legs further, getting comfortable as if preparing himself for a long torture session. His good eye keeps an eye on you. "Take your time," he glib with a challenge.

He watches you straighten your back and study the dagger. He feels a strange mix of fear and... exhilaration. You trudge off to lock the door, and when you return, he realizes this is actually happening. You are really going to blind him like he blinded you.

His breath hitches as you reach out and grab his wrist, forcing his hand flat on the silk sheet. Your grip is surprisingly strong. He feels the cold metal of the dagger press against his palm, then it ghosts against his knuckles, making him bite his lip as he hisses. Your legs bracket his own as you straddle him, pushing his back to the silk sheet. The icy blade travels up to his face, pressing lightly under his right eye.

Joshua breaks into a cold sweat, his heart hammering fiercely against his ribcage as the dagger now hovers mere millimeters away from his eyeball. He watches the cold steel display a trembling mess—a reflection of his own trembling self. Abruptly, he grabs your wrist with his free hand, stopping the blade.

"Wait," he hoarsely pants.

His grip on your wrist is a constraint, but not a painful one. His good eye locks onto your single eye; a concoction of fear, arousal, and something else stirs in his gaze. He is giving you a chance to stop, but also testing your resolve.

"Scared?" You arch your brow tauntingly.

He let out a titter, his thumb rubbing against your wrist. "Terrified." He admits softly. He is terrified of the pain, yes. But also terrified of the raw power you hold over him in this moment.

"Good," you grin. Joshua almost scoffs at how grinning you have gotten. He hasn't seen you so jolly before, but he also never expected that he would one day end up under today's dooming circumstances.

His right eye flickers down to the blade pressing under it, then back up to your single, merciless eye. He'd never felt so helpless, so completely at someone else's mercy. And he finds it strangely... arousing. "You're actually going to do it," he acknowledges the elephant in the room.

Your lack of response—no smirk, no sigh, no hesitation—sends a shiver down his spine. You are serious. Deadly serious. He takes a deep breath as he steadies himself. He is about to experience the same darkness he'd forced upon you.

"Do it!"

Joshua watches your jaw tick, your knuckles turning white as you grip the dagger handle tighter. He sees your single eye concentrate back on his right eye, realizing you are not going to give him mercy like he'd given you—none at all. He hisses as the blade abruptly presses into his pupil, blooming a dull ache.

He closes his good eye, bracing himself for more pain. He feels the cold metal press in harder, then suddenly—

"Ahhh!"

He cries out as you plunge the dagger straight into his eye socket. Blood splatters across your face like a fountain. He screams his lungs out, trying to hold onto your wrist as he drags his nails across your skin in a futile attempt. His bloody crescent moons travel up to your face, making you screech.

His digits claw at your eye patch, punching into it, which echoes by a loud crack of the conformer breaking with it. A gush of blood pours down your eye patch, his knuckles are now pressing much closer to your hollow socket behind the patch.

He screams—you scream.

"AHHH!"

"AHHH!"

Despite the excruciating pain throbbing behind your eye patch, you fight against his grip, trying to press the dagger more into his eye socket.

"Sir? Ma'am? Is everything okay?" One of his men starts banging on the door, and it only gets more insistent and louder as they receive only screams in reply.

"Hello? Please open the door!" The doorknob twists but refuses to budge open, as you had locked it earlier.

The intolerable pain paralyzes him, making it easier for you to hold him down—the world almost blacks out on his end.

You laugh manically, thrusting it in and out over and over again.

After you had your fun—roughly seventeen stabs into his eye—you do take your sweet time cutting the attached substances to his eyeball and scooping it out while ignoring the obnoxious banging on the door.

Joshua hisses sharply, his body going rigid as the pain shoots through his skull.

He'd given you one eye—now you have returned the favor. He felt hot blood trickle down his cheek, and he bit back another cry as an agonizing pain threatened to overtake his consciousness.

He is officially half-blind like you.

He opens his remaining good eye to look at you. His injured eye is weeping bloody tears, and you are more than happy to wipe them away; in fact, you even coo at him as you wipe them off.

He stares at you, his remaining good eye brewing with a mix of pain, shock, and something else—respect. You have done exactly what he had done to you. He reaches up and touches his injured eye socket gently, wincing at the pain.

You get off him with his eyeball in your hand. Crossing the room, you put his eyeball on an unused ashtray, which was resting on the nightstand.

Your feet amble to the door before they tear it down.

You hand over the ashtray with instructions to store it away. Joshua's right hand-man boils red as you nonchalantly instruct the maid standing beside him, whose face is draining fast of all the colors at the unhinged sight of an eyeball on the ashtray.

The right hand-man looks over your shoulder to find Joshua still bleeding on the bed. He wants to scream at you, but he thinks better of it and gives a curt nod, and shouts at the poor maid to hurry up and bring in the first aid box.

His right-hand man knows Joshua is an unhinged man himself, and he was fully capable of avoiding this catastrophe. He gulps down his questions and scrams off.

By the time the maid returns with the first aid box, he genuinely feels nauseous and lightheaded.

He put a hand over his injured eye socket, still processing the fact that you had actually gone through with it. He had expected guilt, hesitation, mercy—but you gave him none of those things. You gave him exactly what he'd given you. "You're insane," he mutters flatly.

You laugh at his comment, licking his blood off the dagger.

The maid flinches at the odd, suffocating atmosphere and swiftly starts to bandage his eye while he sits there stunned and bleeding. Luckily for him, the maid is a drop-out med student, so she can deal with this deranged injury and situation. Although he will still have to pay a proper visit to the doctor later.

Joshua watches as you lick the blood off the blade insouciantly, as if nothing crazy happened. His good eye expands in shock and revulsion. That laugh—that cold, insane laugh—echoing in his mind. "Fucking psychopath," he scowls.

A boiling rage rises up in his chest.

He is half-blind now. One eye is gone. Replaced with darkness. Just like you. He suddenly realizes how fucking dangerous you are. How quickly you went from a calm woman with soulless eye to laughing your head off while stabbing into his eye. The maid finishes bandaging his eye fast and leaves silently with hurried steps.

You just smile.

He gulps, realizing he has invited a psychopath into a marriage proposal.

Joshua stands up slowly, testing his balance with one less eye. He feels off—disoriented. He looks at you with his remaining good eye. Your single eye sparkles with pure joy. He suddenly had the urge to run—to get as far away from you as possible.

He backs away step by step as his heart races almost out of his chest. He is scared—scared of you, scared of the marriage proposal he'd just made to a literal psychopath. He trips over his own feet and falls back onto the bed with a winch, clutching his bandaged eye.

"Stay away from me!"

"C'mon, Hong. Your pretty eye might taste just as good as you look." You lick your lips, standing up and strolling towards him with a half-smile.

Joshua stumbles back, suddenly reminded of how you liked eating fish eyes in the restaurant that day. He lets out a choked scoff in disbelief—he fell for your game—hook, line, and sinker with your eye as bait.

He scrambles back further on the bed as you approach him with that half-smile—a smile that now sends shivers down his spine instead of butterflies in his stomach. His good eye widens in horror as memories flood back—you complimenting his eyes during that date—dropping your keychain.

"Stop!" he blurts out in desperation.

"Why? We are going to get married just like you wanted," you say, leaning down to his eye level.

Joshua flinches back as you lean in closer, his heart pounding in his chest. He is trapped—trapped by his own stupid marriage proposal to a woman who seems to take the phrase 'having an eye on each other' way too literally.

He could see your single eye up close—cold—insane.

"Don't forget to join our celebration dinner tonight," you beam, kissing his forehead, your lips rather feeling cold.

Joshua gulps.

He knows what's going to be served on the table tonight.

He nods numbly, his body shaking slightly as you kiss his forehead. He knew what was coming tonight—a celebration dinner where he would be the main course. His good eye wells up with tears as he grasps the horror of his situation—he had proposed to a monster who literally wanted to eat his eyes.

Joshua sits there frozen on the bed as you leave the room. He buries his face in his hands as sobs wrack his body.

He has fallen in love with a beautiful, cold monster who loves to eat fish eyes. He still can't believe he is going to marry a psychopathic eye-eating monster. "Why did I propose to her?" He cries into his hands.

Later that night, you hum in satisfaction, finding it delicious as you munch on his well cooked eye.

Joshua doesn't know when he fell asleep but he does know the ringing question in his head when he wakes up with the throbbing pain in his empty socket.

How did you know he was behind the acid attack and took your eye?

His brain files through countless theories as he washes up. He walks downstairs absentmindedly and almost bumps into the dining table.

You chuckle at his clumsiness, making him finally look up at you sitting across the mahogany table. The table is adorned with various dishes but that one dish sitting in front of you makes him gag.

It's his mangled eyeball soaked in sauce and surrounded by a lush lattice.

He watches in horror from the other side of the table as you happily cut his cooked eye and eat it, savoring every bite. Tears start to stream down his face as he realizes the truth—you loved eating eyes so much that you were willing to marry just to get more eye meat. He feels sick and violated.

A bile crawls up his throat, making him bend over and cover his mouth.

His stomach churns as he watches you chomp down his eye like it was some kind of delicacy. He had always been attracted to your unhinged cold look, he was always curious to discover you more... but now he sees the devil behind those lies. He stands up abruptly, trying to inhale some air and avoid looking at the table and you.

You look up from your plate, your mouth slightly stained with the juices of his cooked eye. You smile coyly like you had just eaten a gourmet meal instead of someone's bodily organ. He feels physically ill at the sight of it all over again. "Mmm...so delicious~" You hum happily, munching on it more.

Joshua takes a step back, looking for his moment to escape from this hell.

"Sit," you order curtly.

He sits down feebly with his trembling legs. He feels like he is in a nightmare—one where the woman he loved turns out to be a cannibalistic monster who had just eaten his eye for dinner—unfortunately for him he doesn't wake up from it. You commanded him to sit, and he obeyed like a scared puppy, his good eye filled with terror.

Right now, he is nothing like the arrogant and proud self-made millionaire, who tried to put you in a cage but now, he ended up locking himself in it.

His mind wanders off to the question he woke up with and the events of all the time he spent with you start playing in his head. An odd feeling blooms in his chest: everything went too smoothly in your favor as if… it was all calculated.

He rubs his clammy hands against his thighs and asks the question that has been weighing on his mind. "Did you arrange that hitman to approach me with this crazy acid attack idea?"

Your knife stills on cutting his eyeball.

Joshua looks at you with a mixture of fear and realization. Then all the pieces click together in his head.

You dropping the keychain—the men talking about teaching women a lesson at the back of the club—you humiliating him publicly by rejecting his proposal and then the hitman attacking you with an acid—it all seems too convenient, too perfectly timed. He had never considered it before, but now it seems obvious.

You have orchestrated this entire thing just to get him and his eyeball.

"You... you arranged the acid attack?"

"All is well now," you reassure him, attempting a coy smile but it rather reminds him of a Cheshire cat, who's toying with him and always had been although he realized it too late.

He feels like a fool. Not only are you a cold monster, you had managed to be a master manipulator, who had planned every step of their relationship with chilling precision. He scoffs, wondering if even that night you played the piano was planned—everything was a lie designed to trap him.

"You..." he trails off.

Your expression remains blank as you study his reaction. Your mouth opens and closes just for a moment. "The hitman just made you a suggestion. It's you who choose to take my eye in the first place," you explain coldly. "Actions have consequences, Joshua Hong."

Joshua feels a chill run down his spine at the cold, calculating way you spoke. The hitman was just a pawn in your game, and he was too—the fool who had agreed to take your 'eye'—is a sacrifice at the end.

He feels violated, manipulated, and utterly stupid for falling for your charms.

He sits in stunned silence, his mind racing with the realization that he had been played like a violin from the very beginning. He takes in a shaky breath, steeling himself for what's to come next.

"Now," you pick up your glass, expecting him to follow you.

Joshua picks up his glass mechanically.

"Congratulations to us getting engaged," you cheer, clinking their glasses in celebration.

He numbly clinks his glass against yours, his hand still shaking to no end. He feels like a zombie going through the motions as you celebrate your engagement—an engagement built on lies, manipulation, and the literal loss of his eye. The irony is bitter as he toasts to their 'happily ever after'.

"We're matching like a couple too," you laugh, pointing to your re-dressed eye patch and his lost bandaged one.

"Couple goals," you crowed, clinking your glass against his again, making the red wine swirl and almost spill over.

Joshua forces a weak smile, his heavy heart already weighing with dread and despair. The sight of your finger pointing at your own eye patch and at his bandaged socket was like a punch to his gut—a constant reminder of the horror he had willingly walked into. Your laughter echoes off like mocking jeers in his ears as he realizes just how perfectly you had played him.

"An eye for an eye, babe."

That phrase sends a shudder down his spine. It was clear now that every step of this relationship had been calculated—a twisted game where you have always held the upper hand.

You slide the ring onto his finger. He hadn't even noticed the velvet box sitting on the table beside you. The engagement ring feels like a shackle around his finger instead of a symbol of love. "Right..."

Joshua really fell for the hook, line, and sinker with your eye as bait.

Epilogue: First Look into Dazzling Eyes

The New Year’s gala unfolded in a vast candlelit garden, where frost clung to marble pathways, bare winter branches swayed in the freezing air of the last December night, and delicate gold-trimmed fountains shimmered beneath a thin layer of ice. Beneath fair lights hanging from ancient trees, the city’s elite mingle in glittering couture as live musicians play beside overflowing champagne towers and walls of white flowers.

You swirl your red wine mindlessly against the rim of the glass, raising them like waves that never reach shore. Endless chatter bores your eardrums, making you want this celebration to just be over.

You occasionally nod and send synthetic smiles to the greetings of your plastic friends.

“Are you planning to look miserable all night?” Mina asks, appearing beside you with a flute of champagne balanced between her fingers.

You hum absentmindedly. “Depends. Is there anything here worth entertaining?”

She snorts softly and leans in closer. “You sound like an old heiress trapped in a twenty-three-year-old’s body.”

“Maybe I am.”

Your eyes drift across the garden anyway, over the glittering gowns and clusters of polished smiles. Then they stop.

A man stands a few tables away beneath the hanging fairy lights, dressed in a black suit that fits like it was stitched onto him. He laughs at something an older businessman says, the sound warm and effortless as he clinks glasses with the group around him. There’s nothing loud about him, nothing attention-seeking, yet people orbit him naturally, drawn in by the calm gentleness in his expression.

Beautiful.

Dangerously so.

Mina notices your stare almost immediately. “Oh,” she beams with amusement. “So you do have a pulse.”

You tear your gaze away for half a second. “Who is he?”

“That,” she says dramatically, “is Joshua Hong. The newest heartthrob of the elite socialite circle.”

The name settles strangely in your chest.

“He came back from abroad six months ago,” Mina continues. “Started his own company from scratch and somehow already became a self-made millionaire. I heard he has branches opening all across the country now. Everyone’s obsessed with him.”

“Sounds exhausting,” you reply flatly before taking another sip of wine.

But your eyes betray you, drifting back to him almost instantly.

Joshua tilts his head while listening to someone speak, smiling softly in a way that barely reaches his eyes. The golden lights above scatter against the dark brown of his irises, making them glimmer like sunlight over amber glass.

Then the countdown begins.

“Ten!”

The crowd erupts around you as voices echo through the garden.

“Nine!”

Joshua glances upward just as the first firework explodes across the midnight sky.

Colors bloom over the garden in brilliant gold and silver, reflecting in the crystal fountains, in champagne glasses, and in his eyes.

And for one suspended moment, with fireworks painting light across his face and laughter spilling from his lips, you can’t look away.

“Three!”

Your pulse quickens unexpectedly.

“Two!”

Mina says something beside you, but the sound fades into the night.

“One!”

The sky bursts into dazzling color as cheers erupt through the garden.

You stare at Joshua Hong beneath the falling sparks of light and decide right there and then—

He will be your New Year’s goal.

His eyes twinkle with colorful fireworks, peering into a bright soul behind those pupils.

Such pretty deer eyes.

You wonder what they will look like caught in headlights.

Note: The turns have tabled.

I actually watched an eye removal surgery for this fic and I wanted to show off my new knowledge but that would had been an info dump so I didn't lol

Important Characterization Note: If you haven't noticed the fl is 'weird' at expressing emotions. Well, technically bad at putting an act on to be precise. Throughout the story, they both express their emotions at odd timings because they're both putting on an act in front of each other for their own agendas. However, Joshua's curiosity towards fl is genuine. And they both do have their moments where their masks slip and they're vulnerable.

I tried to include a lot of subtext in their dynamic and in story. Let me know your perspective. I would love to read y'all's theories.

This was my first attempt at writing unreliable narrative, so how was it?

Joshua:

Tagging readers from the waiting list: @dontwonder05 @joshujin @eskoupe

Tagging readers who showed interested in it (sorry, if you didn't want to be tagged): @arkihives @aethnie @bobathi

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⌕≔ Menu

⤳main masterlist

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The restaurant he chooses is quiet in a way that costs money—muted lights blending with soft voices, a view that looks curated rather than natural. You tell yourself it’s just a dinner. One meal, one hour, and then he’ll vanish.

That’s the story you stick to.

Joshua pulls your chair out for you. You don’t thank him. He doesn’t seem to mind. He watches you the way investors watch graphs—patient, certain that eventually the line will move in his favor.

You order first.

“The grilled fish,” you say, then pause, tilting your head as if reconsidering. “Whole.”

Joshua smiles faintly. “Bold choice.”

“They say the eyes are the window to the soul,” you reply lightly.

The food arrives. The fish is pristine—untouched, staring upward at you with one cloudy eye. You don’t hesitate. You cut cleanly, precisely, lifting the eye out with your fork.

Joshua’s glass stills halfway to his lips.

“They say the eyes are the window to the soul,” you repeat, softer now, like a still oasis. You place it in your mouth. Chew. Consider.

“Mmhmm,” you hum. “I like them. Makes me wonder how souls taste.”

A soft smile curves up your lips.

He lets out a sharp laugh. “You’re trying to scare me.”

“Am I?” you ask with airy curiosity.

The server refills the drink without asking. Joshua thanks him by reading his nameplate. You notice that—how carefully he keeps track of small dominions.

“You don't flinch around me,” he says at last, nodding towards the plate. His voice has settled back into a calm ocean wave. “Most people do.”

“Most people perform,” you counter back, setting down your fork neatly. “I get bored with that.”

Joshua surveys you like a puzzle, as if its few pieces are missing on purpose. “You think I’m performing?”

“I think you’re rehearsed,” you claim. “There’s a difference.”

That earns a genuine stretch across his lips—slower and considered. “Rehearsal is just respect for the audience,” he debates.

“And yet,” you pause, glancing around the dining room, “you chose somewhere where no one’s really watching.”

“Privacy has its own kind of audience.” He leans back with a pleased nod. “Tell me—why did you agree to this dinner?”

You let the silence engulf the table, opting to take a sip of water. It doesn’t bother him. That bothers you.

“Curiosity,” you say finally. “People like you always want something they can't have. I wanted to see if you are after me to just bandage your bruised ego or something else.”

Joshua nods, as if you’ve confirmed a hypothesis, but you don't miss the derision twinkling in his eyes. “Fair. And?”

“And I wanted to see if you’d be disappointed when I didn’t give it to you.”

His shoulders shake with a chuckle. “You assume I know what I want.”

“You assume you don’t?”

Touché hangs between you with a bead of a shared joke neither of you will admit to enjoying it.

He gestures toward your plate. “You talked about souls earlier. Do you believe in them?”

“I believe in leverage,” you say. “People call it different things depending on what comforts them.”

“Interesting,” he mutters, tapping his glass lightly. “I believe in inevitability. Systems move in predictable ways. People too, if you give them enough time.”

“Time,” you echo. “That’s generous of you.”

“I am generous,” he says easily. “With the right investments.”

You laugh, quiet and unamused. “You talk about people like assets.”

“Everyone does,” he replies. “I just don’t pretend otherwise.”

The server returns with his dish—something minimalist and expensive-looking. Joshua doesn’t rush to eat. He stays still—watching you, an unattainable woman grown up with a silver spoon and charm.

“Families,” he continues, picking up the thread you left dangling earlier. “They’re the worst-run organizations in existence. No bylaws. No exit clauses. Just obligation and decay.”

“And yet,” you pause, “people cling to them harder than anything else.”

“Fear of starting from zero,” he says. “Sunk cost fallacy. Sentimentality.”

“Or love,” you offer, flatly.

He tilts his head, dripping with mockery. “You think love is exempt from economics?”

“No,” you answer. “I think it’s often used as a cover charge.”

That earns a fogged silence. Joshua finally takes a bite of his food.

“You’re not wrong,” he says after a moment. “But you’re not entirely right either.”

You arch an eyebrow. “Do explain.”

“Control,” he says in a lower octave, “is easier when people think they’re choosing it.”

The words land with soft steps—careful and deliberate.

Your eyes lock with his—unblinking. “And you invited me here because…?”

“Because,” Joshua pauses, “you don’t think you’re choosing anything. Which makes you interesting.”

You smile again—small and sharp as if carved with a blade. “Careful. Curiosity is expensive.”

“So is boredom,” he replies with a twinning smile. “And I can afford both.”

The check arrives, discreet as everything else. Joshua reaches for it. You let him.

As you stand, he says almost casually, “Same time next week?”

You want to scoff at his audacity, but somehow you consider him—the curated view, the muted lights, the way the evening has been shaped without ever feeling rushed, and everything was molded with his hands—dancing to the beat of his fingertips.

“We’ll see,” you chew over. “I don’t like inevitability.”

Joshua smiles like someone who’s already accounted for that.

“Neither do I,” he agrees with an amiable smile once more.

You leave first.

But at the door, your steps halt, patting your pockets with polished exasperation. “Damn. I think I dropped something.”

Joshua is already moving. “I’ll find it,” he offers.

You wave him off. “It’s nothing important.”

You walk out.

The next sunrise you splash your face with frigid water, its chill biting into your skin, but you don't mind it. Your eyes stare at your own through your reflection—staring. Your fingertip traces them in the mirror, its cool surface matching your pupils.

You wonder what your soul looks like—and his too.

Your phone vibrates on the marble surface. Call of the devil, indeed.

“I think you left behind your keychain…uhh of an eye,” he says. “How about I hand it over with another dinner?”

"You don't have to. Just send—"

"No, let's meet up, or else I'm going to keep it as a gift from you."

You let out a heavy sigh. "Fine, but this time I'll pick the place."

He lets out a small cheer, contented that you caved in with little struggle. "Okay, send me the address!" he beams, and you hang up.

Neon lights flicker with the bass; bodies sway on the dance floor, pulsing with energy in the nightclub. The music vibrates too loudly; the crowd breathes too close to each other, but it feels like the perfect place to hide, like a fish in the sea of people. And yet, here he is—Joshua Hong, right in front of you, as if fate had conspired to force you into this moment yet again.

You spot him before he spots you, his back turned as he scans the crowd, probably looking for your head. When his eyes pin on yours, they emit that familiar flicker—hope. But today, the air shifts differently for them. There’s no softness in your expression.

He approaches with soft steps as his voice cuts through the noise.

“So, this is capable of dragging you out of your hermit but not me, huh?” he asks with a light huff, swinging your keychain—a little eye-shaped charm that’s been with you for years. The metal gleams in the flashing lights, a constant reminder of something you’ve left behind.

You let it swing in front of your face like a trinket for a cat, not moving to claw it away. Instead, you narrow your eyes, lips curling into something that’s not quite a smile, but almost one.

“That's funny,” you reply with a curved edge in your words. “You are the one who found it, huh? What a coincidence.”

He laughs; the dripping suspicion is not lost on him. His fingers secured around its chain. “Maybe we are meant to be together. Fate has made us meet again.”

Your eyes roll back as you lean against the bar, assessing the crowd. This isn't the place for a private conversation. The lights are too bright, the space too full of people; eager ears can easily blend in to eavesdrop.

“You wish," you huff. "Spout your nonsense, I’m listening,” you order disdainfully. Your tone is stitched with taunts, meant to discourage him, but he has the gall to still shamelessly open his mouth to utter another thread of nonsense. A wave of exasperation floods over you, making you curse under your breath, already preparing yourself to snatch the keychain and leave. You don’t need this.

“About us,” he continues, his words soft and clear as conjunctiva, but the underlying urgency doesn't escape your keen eye. He steps a foot closer into your bubble, just a hairsbreadth away. “I know you didn't mean to turn me down, and I think I—”

You cut him off, folding your arms. “This isn't the time or place. And honestly? I don’t think I need to hear it at all.”

He blinks, then stands still like a statue, then the corners of his mouth pull down in a way that makes your stomach coil for a moment. But you know his sadness is plastic.

Joshua reaches into his pocket, and you know exactly what he is about to fish out next. The ring. That damn ring. You’d seen it before—more than you would like to—the one he’s been holding onto for far too long, the one he keeps pulling out, hoping for a different answer every single time. This time—it's a desperate, final plea.

“I’ve been thinking about this a lot,” his words quiver with such downy thoughtfulness that if you were naïve enough, you would have thrown yourself in his arms out of sheer pity. "I love you. And I know you don’t feel the same, but I—I can’t keep waiting for you to change your mind." He stammers, looking down at the ring, his hand quaking as he holds it out to you. "Please... will you marry me?"

The words hang in the air.

A laugh escapes you before you can stop it—quicker, cutting, and punitive than you meant it to be. Your gaze flickers around the room, the noise growing more distant as the entire club seems to slow down, like time itself is holding its breath.

And when you speak, your voice cuts through the volatile silence between the two of you. “I told you already,” you remind him firmly, the words thick with disinterest, like a sentence you’ve repeated so many times like a mindless recording that it has lost its meaning. “I’m not marrying you.”

His face falters—so subtly it’s easy to miss. A flicker of pain slips through, breaking past the desperate mask he’s struggling to hold together. His eyes drift, unfocused, as if he’s trying to make sense of something he can no longer quite grasp.

You step back, your gaze freezing cold as you notice the crowd gape at his humiliation—rejection delivered like a guillotine. The club thumps not only with music but countless eyes on both of you and a chain of whispers being spread among the people. Someone laughs—a sharp, ugly one that bounces off the walls like the snort of a pig. Your rejection is echoing, sinking into the air with its anchor, its weight heaving up on Joshua's shoulders. You let it linger, savoring the moment, watching his embarrassment bloom in front of everyone.

Another laugh echoes. Someone snickers behind you, a little too loud to ignore. You can feel the eyes of the club on you now, the murmur of voices spreading like wildfire.

"Wow," someone lets out a derisive snort. “She just shut him down in front of everyone.”

The whispers sting him. It's satisfying to see him shrink, his shoulders folding inward as if he's trying to make himself smaller. The guy who used to stand tall, full of confidence, now seems like a child pleading for validation (unfortunately with no tears glinting in his eyes yet).

For the first time, you see it—genuine hurt. Not the forced kind he tried to sell you over the months, but raw, real vulnerability. The people surrounding you don’t seem to notice it. They just keep talking, their attention already shifting elsewhere; the whole world keeps rotating while he stands still—stuck in this moment.

“Good,” you say, almost too softly for anyone but him to hear. “It was never going to happen.”

Joshua stands there, arm still outstretched, the ring caught between you like a mistake he made too fast to take back. His fingers twitch, grip tightening, loosening—like he’s resisting the urge to snatch it away or force the moment forward. Silence presses in.

His jaw flexes. He swallows whatever he almost says.

For a flicker of a second, something reckless sparks through him—his gaze snapping to the bottle on the table behind you, his fingers curling around its neck, smashing it against the corner of the table. And then he swings it at your head—

No, he doesn’t.

The cloud dissipates as he stays frozen instead, breathing unevenly, the impulse passing through him without landing, leaving only the weight of the moment hanging in the air.

“I told you already,” you remind him. “I’m not marrying you.”

Something fractures behind his eyes.

That’s when he hears it.

Two men sitting a few tables away. One voice low, crude, and careless. Complaining about women. About stubborn ones. Laughing about how they need to be taught lessons. Suggesting things that make Joshua’s jaw tick.

You notice his attention swaying towards those men.

Joshua leans in closer to you. “You hear that?”

You shrug. “Men talk.”

His face contorts, not in reaction to them, but to the universe and the possibility of anything encroaching on his perceived possessions.

You watch the realization bloom in his mind, its branches stretching out with leaves engraved with threat, protection, and possession.

You take advantage of his astonishment, fishing your keychain from his other hand, and by the time he realizes it, you're already blended into the crowd, slipping out of his reach.

Later, when you’re alone, your fingertip traces the eye of your keychain as you swim in your thoughts.

You had punctured his pride through and through.

You let out a heavy sigh, shaking your head to disperse your thoughts, and began a long trudge to the bathroom.

Frigid water splashes your face and drips down your hands slowly like a draining waterfall. You straighten up, staring at your reflection. Eyes look back—whole and intact.

A small smile curves up your lips.

You wonder what your soul looks like—

And his too.

A stack of papers snaps your face to the other side. Your cheek burns; you press your tongue against it, steadying yourself. After a moment, you lift your gaze again, smoothing your hair back into place.

"What did you say? No?!" your father screams in your face."You think I'll forget about it if you avoid me for days? How dare you humiliate me in front of him?" He shrills, his fingers digging into your hair and yanking your head back with all his might.

You choke back a whimper, but still maintain your glare.

He scoffs and spits in your face at your audacity. With a forceful push, he sends you reeling, your back colliding with the wall in a deafening thud.

A sharp pain shoots up your lower back; you bite down your boiling scream by digging your nails into your palms. Everything throbs, but you won't hand him the satisfaction of witnessing your misery.

"Get out of my face. Scram!" he yells, and you do, limping your way out.

You step outside, inhaling a sharp breath of the city. Sunlight reflects off the gray concrete sidewalk, which is lined with green bushes. You walk towards the cacophony of the main road, leaving a trail of dripping humiliation. At the intersection, the air grows thicker, carrying the sharp scent of gasoline and hot rubber. The muted, sleepy environment of the street abruptly met the frantic buzz of life—cars rushing past, music thumping from a passing vehicle, and the scattered conversations of people walking by. You don't pay mind to the bustling city as your mind occupies itself by flipping through today's events.

An abrupt vibration travels from the soles of your feet up to your chest, followed by a guttural, tearing roar that rips through the quiet afternoon.

You look up just in time to see a bright streak of neon cutting through the traffic flow, weaving erratically in your direction; the rider hunched low over the tank like a jockey in a race. You freeze, your breath hitching.

It all happens too fast.

A splatter of sizzling liquid rises high like tsunami waves onto your face—slopping into your eye.

A bloodcurdling scream erupts from your lungs as you instantly shield your left eye.

You watch a blurry figure rushing in your direction from the other side of the road. You blink—Joshua Hong.

He ran towards you, his saucer eyes puffed up with flaming rage and concern. He gently but firmly moves your hand away from your eye to inspect the damage.

"Are you okay?!"

He clumsily fishes out his phone, swiftly pressing it to his ear. His words are stern and curt as he speaks to someone on his phone. "Get security here, now!"

A blend of your blood with bubbling acid stains your palm. He cautiously pulls your hand away from your eye once again. He watches you, his gaze locked on your face. Your left eye remains squeezed shut so tightly that it sends a tremor through your cheek, while a steady, silent stream of tears leaks out, mapping down the path of your immense pain. He hears you hiss softly under your breath, trying to hide your pain. He scrutinizes the crowd that is beginning to encircle around you both, everyone whispering and covering their mouths in shock.

Without hesitation, he scoops you up into his arms, cradling you against his chest. Keeping you steady with one arm, he begins striding towards the waiting car, barking orders into the phone with deadly calmness. "I want that acid analyzed immediately. Find out who did this."

Joshua carefully places you down in the backseat of the car, climbing in after you. He is quick to grab a handful of tissues, gently pressing them against your eye, applying enough pressure to stop the bleeding. You grunt in protest, your eye still throbbing endlessly. The driver speeds off towards the hospital, leaving the chaotic scene behind. "Stay still," he says, squeezing your shoulder in solace.

At the hospital, his hand remains steadfast in your hold as Joshua accompanies you throughout the entire examination. Refusing to step outside, his hand holds yours more firmly as the doctor examines your eye, his thumb gently caressing your knuckles. (The security gave up trying to take the man outside when he answered with a grim scowl; no one wants to offend this man with tremendous influence after all.)

When they finally gave the news that you had lost vision in your left eye because of the acid attack, his face ashes up and a winter chill settles in his eyes.

He listens meticulously as the doctor explains that the acid had burned through your retina, causing permanent blindness in your left eye. He saw your porcelain pale face remain gray—sheeted with an uneasy layer of placidity. He hears the doctor mention that he spotted a small sign of infection, which might likely spread more.

"Can she still keep her eye, or does it need to be removed?"

The doctor hesitates before answering Joshua's knotty question. "The eye is severely damaged and infected. Removing it would prevent further infection and pain for the patient," he explains while keeping his eyes downcast. Joshua's jaw clenches, his knuckles turn pale merely from his tight hold on your hand. "We recommend removal within the next forty eight hours."

He takes in a deep breath, trying his best to bottle in his swirling rage and grief. His gaze flickers down at you, looking for the shock and pain in your remaining eye. He sets the decision in stone. “Do it.” The words were thin—arctic and absolute. The doctor froze, then nodded. "Remove it."

They don’t let him stay long.

You’re still holding his hand when they start moving you, the bed rolling too smoothly, just like this decision which was made swiftly. The lights above smear together in a static lane of white. You try to sit up, to ask him not to let go.

“Wait,” you screech, or your voice only echoes in your head.

The needle slides into your arm. Cold spreads fast—chasing your thoughts. His grip tightens, desperate, as if he holds hard enough he can keep you here.

Your fingers betray you. They loosen. Your body follows.

“No,” he pleads, but the nurse peels your hand away from his as if it no longer belongs to either of you.

The doors close.

Inside, everything is too bright. They move quickly now in a careful motion blur of efficiency as if the gentleness will soften the inevitable outcome.

They drape a blue sheet over your face, leaving only your left eye exposed. The light still reaches only one place. Only one thing left to take.

You’re not asleep. You’re not awake. Your mind floats somewhere above your body, watching it lie there in obedience. Sounds echo strangely—metal clicking, voices murmuring like they’re in another room.

“Breathe,” someone says.

You do. Once. Twice. The air smells sharp—wrong. Your thoughts begin to slip like water through your fingers. You try to hold on to something—his face, his voice—but it all stretches and thins out into nothingness.

You’re not asleep yet.

But you’re already leaving.

The room pulls away from you in pieces. Sound warps—metal clicking too loudly, voices melting into each other. Your body grows distant, heavy, obedient in a way that suddenly feels appalling.

Something is happening.

Panic sparks bright and instinctive just as your chest forgets how to answer it. You try to inhale deeper. Try to move. Nothing listens. The fear blooms anyway, trapped inside a body that’s already going still.

Then—

Nothing.

The surgeon places the removed eye in a container and hands it to a nurse. His experienced hands began to stitch up the empty socket with clinical precision.

Joshua's restless feet echoes around the hallway, getting jittery as the clock ticks minute by minute. Finally, the doctor comes out. "She's bandaged and all well. We placed in a conformer for now. Let it heal, and then she can get a prosthetic eye."

His shoulders slope down with relief at hearing the surgery went well.

The doctor gives a nod and walks off to his other duties. The nurse leads Joshua to your room. He finds you asleep as a tranquil sleeping beauty. The mattress dips as he sits beside you, lightly tracing the edge of the bandage. He sighs, planting a soft peck on its fabric.

He clasps your hand firmly, afraid that you will slip through his fingers.

You are given the green light to discharge after a few follow-ups on the same evening. Your exhaustion drags you back into a world of dreams every few hours; you barely gave nods to countless questions from the doctor during the check-ups. He gently lifts your unconscious body into his arms, holding you close to his chest. He felt like a monster for causing you to lose your sight.

Joshua takes you back to his mansion, his men following behind with your medical supplies and medications. He carefully laid you down in his own bedroom, removing your clothes and replacing them with one of his oversized shirts that fell down to your thighs. He sat beside you for hours, watching over you as you slept.

As you stir awake, he notices your bandage has bled through and needs re-dressing. He gulps down a lump in his throat, the gravity of the situation pressing down on him once more. You reach up to touch your face, only to find an unfamiliar void. He quickly grabs your hand, stopping you from touching the bandage.

You wince as you attempt to open your left eye again, forgetting that it was gone. He watches your brow furrow in confusion as you try to touch your bandage this time. A soft whimper escapes from your lips as your brain finally registers that something was wrong—missing. He keeps his gaze steady as memories of recent tragedy run behind your remaining eye. Your hands fall onto your lap as the reality brushes its harsh strokes into your brain.

Your body stills, mirroring an aloof statue. Your right eye blinks rapidly, trying to adjust to seeing the world with only your sliced vision. He peers at your steady sangfroid attitude, knowing that you were comprehending the permanent loss of your left eye.

You lift your hand to the bandage again, pressing to feel the empty socket behind the closed eyelid. You go rigid, slowly lowering your hand back into your lap. He waits for your reaction.

"It's gone," you say, your words flowing lightly with the breeze.

Joshua’s hand lingers near your cheek, hovering as if you will blow away like ashes into the wind.

An eccentric silence engulfs the room—just the faint hum of the flowing curtains and the distant murmur of voices down the hall. Gentle sunlight filters weakly through them, not too bright nor sharp enough. You turn your head slightly away from it, your right eye struggling to judge the depth of the light.

You swallow.

“It doesn’t… hurt,” you comment after a moment, almost clinically. “It just feels…” Your fingers twitched in your lap. “Wrong.”

He exhales shakily, tucking his hands back into his lap. “The doctors said that might happen. Phantom sensations. Your brain’s still catching up.”

You nod faintly, absorbing the information the way you always do—carefully, methodically. Your gaze drifts back towards him, though it takes a second to align properly. You miscalculate the distance at first, focusing slightly past his shoulder before correcting it.

He notices it, and that almost shatters him into countless shards.

“I should’ve—” his words ruptured into a quake. He clears his parched throat as his jaw tightens. “I should’ve gotten to you sooner.”

Your brow furrows faintly. “No.”

“It was my fault,” he insists, leaning forward with elbows on his knees. “If I had just—”

“Joshua.”

The way you say his name renders him completely—steady, grounded and certain.

“You didn’t take it,” you breathe. “You didn’t make the call. You didn’t arrange it. You didn’t cause the attack.” A slight pause. “You took me to the hospital right away.”

His eyes glisten with a fresh wave. “Too late.”

You study him—really scrutinize every edge and contour of him—with your only visible eye left in your socket. It feels different now—narrower field with harder edges, but it works nevertheless. You can still see him.

“I’m alive,” you state simply.

A lone tear trails down his cheek before he could stop it. He looks away, ashamed of it, but you reach out this time—slowly, carefully—until your hand finds his wrist. Your depth perception is off, causing you to brush the air first. He immediately moves closer so you wouldn’t have to search.

Your fingers wrap around him.

“It’s gone,” you repeat, your words subdued softly now. Not in shock nor in disbelief—just crude acknowledgment.

Joshua covers your hand with his other one, holding it as if it's something fragile and sacred.

“I’m so sorry,” his apology quivers.

You let the silence linger a moment longer. The weight of everything gravities between you both, pressing down on your hearts. The future has shifted—permanently.

“I’ll have to relearn things,” you murmur. “Walking. Driving. Pouring coffee without missing the cup.” A faint, almost humorless breath leaves you. “Stairs are going to be annoying.”

Despite himself, Joshua lets out a weak, watery laugh.

You tilt your head slightly, testing your vision in a landslide view. “But I’m still me,” you softly hum.

He scrutinizes you—really looks at you. The same stubborn set of your jaw. The same quiet steel in your voice. The same mind is already adapting instead of collapsing.

“You are,” he says, his face twitching with fierce determination.

Your grip clenches just a fraction. “Then don’t look at me like I’m broken.”

Your words drills in his chest. His spine straightens as he wipes his face quickly. He nods, swallowing his guilt down as best he could.

“Okay,” he admits. “You’re not broken.”

You lean back against the bed as the exhaustion starts seeping into your bones. Losing an eye was one thing. Accepting it was another. And you had done both within minutes.

But as your fingers drift once more toward the edge of the eye patch—hesitant this time—your composure wavers for a moment.

“I’m going to look different,” you mutter, much quieter now, not out of fear—just… awareness.

Joshua leans over carefully, pressing his forehead gently to yours, mindful of the bandages.

“You’re going to look like someone who survived,” he reassures you. “Like someone who fought and lived.”

Your breath hitches—just once.

And for the first time since you woke up, your calm demeanor cracks—not into sobbing, not into screaming—but it morphs into a single tear slipping from your right eye, trailing down toward the pillow.

Joshua stays by your side, cradling your hand, letting you swim in your emotions.

Letting you feel all of it.

But not leaving you to face it all alone.

"It's gone," you repeat calmly despite your glassy eye.

He hears his heart crack at the calmness still blanketing your voice. You state it as a fact, not questioning it or showing any emotion. He reaches out slowly, gently brushing a strand of hair away from your face. "Yes... it's gone," he whispers with guilt clogging his throat and tears drenching his eyelashes.

That night, when he thinks you are asleep, you quietly slip out of the bed.

Darkness shrouds the bedroom, making it difficult to navigate and not bump into things. Your depth perception falters; you misjudge the distance and clip your shoulder against the wall. You don’t react—just let your remaining eye adjust to the dead of the night.

You manage to find the attached bathroom.

The light inside illuminates too brightly when you flick it on.

For a moment, you just stand there, gripping the sink.

Then you look up.

The woman in the mirror stares back with one uncovered eye and a stark white patch (re-dressed a few hours ago) cutting across her face. Bruising yellows the skin beneath it. The bandage bulges slightly where the socket was still healing.

You don’t blink.

You study the angles. The asymmetry. The way your expression looks… distant—the sea in your remaining eye feels shores away, the waves ripple faintly through the murky night as the fog engulfs the view.

A bloodied figure reflects behind you in the doorway. Joshua's shirt wrinkles with stains of crimson. You are not surprised to find him looming behind you; you knew he was out somewhere and you were not curious enough to figure out where. Neither does the blood astonish you.

He mirrors your silence.

You reach up slowly and peel the edge of the patch back just a fraction—not enough to damage anything, just enough to see the hollow contour beneath the protective dressing.

Joshua jolts forward. “Don’t.”

“It’s fine,” you breathe with firmness.

Your gaze never leaves the mirror, now tracing his eyes through it with your own remaining one.

There is no horror on your face—not even tears.

Blankness smogs onto your face and morphs into acceptance.

He takes a faint step closer but holds himself back from grabbing you. His hands flex ineptly at his sides.

After a long moment, you let the patch fall back into place.

“I look like a stranger,” you assist.

Joshua grits roughly, yet a twitch of solace lingers in his words. “You look like you.”

You turn off the bathroom light without responding and walk back to the bedroom.

After a few weeks of your surgery, your empty socket spurts out a pink discharge and swells with a hue of bruise around it. You constantly want to dip your finger into the socket to explore it and scratch away the itch but the annoying Joshua always holds your wrist hostage if you get even an inch closer to your patch, which makes you roll your eyes (oh, your bad, you meant to say eye now.)

The day began to blur as you were swamped with post-recovery care and follow-up appointments.

Joshua starts to orbit in your circle, from working often from home to bringing you all your three meals on a tray to adjusting your pillows. He religiously times your medication and tends to you like a stern nurse. When you stand—he stands. When you move, he hovers.

If you drift too close to the bedroom door, he suddenly materializes there.

“Where are you going?”

“Kitchen.”

“I’ll get it.”

“I can get it.”

“I know. I’ll get it.”

It becomes a pattern—an intricate web on which you are stuck like a dying fly.

On the fourth day of the same week, you manage to reach for the doorknob with pin drop silence.

His hand abruptly slams against the door before you could turn it.

“Don’t,” he grits curtly.

You stare at his hand, then crane your neck up at him.

“I need air.”

“You can open the window.”

“I need to go outside.”

His jaw tightens. “Not yet.”

Your right eye twitches slightly. “Why?”

Because I almost lost you.

Because if you fall—

Because if someone looks at you wrong—

Because I can’t watch you break.

Instead, he offers a flat explanation: “You’re still healing.”

You step back, studying him the same way you had in the hospital.

“You’re keeping me in here.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

Silence stretches taut between the pair.

Joshua cards through his hair; frustration begins to seep through the cracks of his careful composure. “You walked into a doorframe yesterday.”

“I’m adjusting.”

“You almost fell on the stairs.”

“I caught myself.”

“You don’t see things coming on your left!”

“And I will learn.”

Your voice doesn't climb octaves, and that makes him feel worse.

He paralyzes with terror—his jaw ticking and his brow furrows a deep valley.

Your edges soften a quarter. “Joshua,” you breathe his name velvety.

He swallows a lump.

“I lost an eye,” you point out. “Not my legs. Not my mind.”

His shoulders slops down with guilt burdening across his face.

“I can’t lose you too,” he confesses with barely audible words.

Something flickers across your face. You take a faint step closer with slow deliberation, navigating the space. You stop a few inches away from him.

“You saved me,” you acknowledge. “I won't turn my back on you anymore.”

He hesitates for a moment, unable to bear the thought of losing you; he pulls you into a careful embrace, his arms holding you as if you were delicate glass.

You stand rigid like a statue for a moment, your mind's wheel gets stuck at his action, but gradually your hands come up to claw his shirt.

Although over his shoulder, your open eye remains fixed on the bedroom doorway—

On the hall beyond it.

On the rest of the house.

And the world waiting outside.

Joshua didn’t mean to make it a prison.

It just… became one.

The curtains began to stay drawn.

At first, it was because the light gave you headaches. Then, because the neighbors might see and 'misunderstand' their relationship. Later came the excuse that your eye needed ‘consistent lighting.’ The room settles into a dim, gray half-world where time blurs and shadows stretch long across the walls.

He moves your things in piece by piece.

Your clothes.

Your make-up and jewelry.

Your books and necessities.

Still, there’s no trace of your any devices. When you ask for your phone, he smiles the way salespeople do before denying a refund. The excuse arrives polished to perfection: "Your eye needs rest; screens would only make it worse, and maybe it’s healthier this way anyway—using your recovery to take a break from the world outside.”

"You won’t need to go downstairs," he says lightly after checking all your belongings are in place. “It’s easier this way.”

Easier.

You stop arguing after a few futile attempts.

One afternoon you notice a white sheet draped over the mirror, tucked neatly at the corners.

You didn't ask him to cover it.

“Why did you do that?” You ask.

“So you don’t have to look at it,” he replies evenly without meeting your eye.

You don't mention that it won't stop you from standing in front of the bathroom mirror, fixedly gazing at it at two in the morning.

You don't tell him when you mourn your missing window to your soul—you wonder what his looks like too.

A few nights later, you often wake to the faint sound of movement.

Floorboards creak beneath slow, restless footsteps.

The sound dies from the outside.

The noise drifts in from somewhere beyond the bedroom door. Then comes the soft click of the handle. The door eases open. Closes again.

You keep your breathing slow and steady, watching through barely parted lashes as he trudges to your bedside and looms over you.

He doesn’t touch you.

He only watches your chest rise and fall.

Counting.

Joshua whispers something under his breath.

“Still here.”

The world beyond the room began to feel theoretical.

You could hear it sometimes—dishes clinking in the kitchen, the indistinct murmur of the television, the distant rumble of a car passing outside.

But you don’t see it.

Every time you reach for the door, Joshua seems to materialize.

“I’ve got it.”

“Do you need something?”

“Tell me what you want.”

One afternoon, you decide to test him.

“I want to sit on the porch.”

He freezes.

The silence stretches taut a bit too long.

“It’s windy,” he says finally.

You tilt your head slightly. “The windows are closed.”

He doesn’t smile.

The eeriest part is not his hovering.

It is his calm.

He never raises his voice—never snapping and doesn't even let anger crease his expression.

He is just watchful.

And measured.

Like he is guarding something fragile.

Like you are not a person anymore.

Like you were an artifact salvaged from rubble.

Your depth perception begins to improve slowly. You practice it when he isn’t looking—tossing a pen from one hand to the other. Reaching for the glass of water without spilling it. Walking the perimeter of the room in the dark.

You stop bumping into things.

But he doesn’t seem to notice.

Or maybe he didn’t want to.

Another night, a metallic click pulls you from sleep.

A soft, deliberate click.

You stay still.

A second click follows a moment later.

Your right eye strains against the dark until the shape near the door slowly becomes Joshua.

His fingers slips away from the doorknob. Something small disappears into his pocket with practiced ease.

Then he turns toward you.

Unaware that you’re awake.

He walks back to the chair beside your bed and sinks into it heavily, elbows braced against his knees, eyes fixed on you in the darkness.

Watching the rise and fall of your chest.

Counting again.

The next night, he didn’t come.

No creaking footsteps outside your bedroom door. No soft click of the handle turning at late hours. No looming figure sitting in the chair beside your bed, counting your breaths in the dark.

The silence feels unnatural after days of constant observation, and eventually the restlessness gnawing beneath your skin becomes unbearable enough for you to slip out from beneath the sheets and tiptoe downstairs.

The house is steeped in darkness. Moonlight spills through the tall windows in pale silver stripes, illuminating just enough of the floor for you to navigate without crashing into furniture. A gentle late-April breeze drifted by, fluttering the curtains in its wake.

Every step makes the old wood sigh beneath your weight, and you pause after each creak, listening carefully for movement somewhere upstairs.

Nothing.

You didn’t come downstairs to escape. You already know the front door will be locked, the windows probably sealed shut in some discreet way Joshua had taken care of long before you ever woke up here. Running would be pointless in your condition anyway.

You are simply bored out of your mind.

There are only so many hours a person can spend staring at closed curtains and counting cracks in the ceiling before the walls begin pressing inward.

So you wander.

The rooms all feel unmistakably Joshua. Carefully arranged. Controlled. The living room is decorated in muted colors and sharp lines, all expensive furniture that looks barely touched, as though it exists more for appearance than comfort. Neatly stacked books line dark wooden shelves, every spine aligned with obsessive precision. A chessboard rests atop a side table midway through a match, black pieces cornering white in a slow, merciless defeat.

The dining room is equally pristine, with polished silverware laid out inside a glass cabinet and long curtains drawn tightly over the windows despite the hour. Not a single object seems misplaced. Not a single sign suggests another person has ever lived here besides him.

Even the kitchen carries the same unsettling orderliness. Every knife hangs in perfect alignment. Every surface gleams spotless beneath the moonlight. The refrigerator hums softly in the silence, sounding strangely loud in the empty house.

Your gaze eventually lands on a door left slightly ajar at the end of the corridor.

Your steps move faintly.

For the first time since arriving here, something has been left open.

You plod toward it cautiously before nudging the door wider with your fingertips and peering inside.

A grand piano sits in the center of the room, bathed entirely in moonlight.

For a moment, you simply stare. Then a quiet clap of excitement escapes you before you can stop it.

The sight of it feels absurdly personal, like stumbling across an old friend in unfamiliar territory.

You drift toward the piano almost instinctively and lower yourself onto the cushioned bench, your fingers hovering over the keys for only a second before muscle memory takes over.

The first notes ring softly through the room, delicate enough to blend with the sleeping house. Gradually, the melody unfurls into Clair de Lune, smooth and aching and familiar beneath your fingertips.

If there is another thing capable of exposing the soul as nakedly as eyes do, it is music.

The piano had been your best friend since you were seven years old, the only thing that understood how to translate feelings too tangled to speak aloud into something beautiful. Your fingers know the language instinctively now, moving across the keys with effortless intimacy as the melody swells quietly through the dark.

For the first time in days, you almost forget where you are.

A sharp clap suddenly echoes behind you.

You jolt violently, your hands slipping from the keys as you whirl around to find Joshua leaning against the wall.

But you are not surprised.

The moment you found the door left ajar, you already knew tonight was intentional.

A test.

A reward.

Maybe simply another one of his experiments.

That is why you never bothered trying to stay quiet. Why you had allowed yourself to sink fully into the music instead of holding back.

Joshua’s expression is unreadable in the dim light, but there is something disturbingly intent in the way he watches you now.

Like he had been listening long before you ever touched the first key.

He pushes himself away from the wall slowly, the sharp sound of his applause fading back into silence as he walks further into the room.

The moonlight catches briefly against his watch, against the faint crease of his rolled sleeves, before he stops beside the piano. Close enough now that you can smell cedarwood and the lingering trace of frosty night air clinging to his clothes.

“You play beautifully,” he praises.

The compliment should sound ordinary. Instead, it settles strangely beneath your skin, coming from him, spoken with that same unnerving attentiveness he uses when watching you sleep.

You let out a small breath and turn slightly back toward the keys, your fingers resting against polished ivory. “You left the door open on purpose.”

A pause stretches behind you.

Then, softly, almost amused, “And you still walked in.”

Your hands resume moving before you consciously decide to play again. The melody returns quieter this time, slower; the notes flowing softly into the dark while Joshua remains standing beside you in silence.

You can feel him watching your hands.

Not your face.

Not your injury.

Just your hands gliding across the piano keys as if he is trying to understand something through them.

After a while, the bench dips slightly beneath the added weight.

Joshua sits beside you without asking.

The warmth radiating from his shoulder feels startling after so many cold, lonely nights upstairs, and suddenly you become acutely aware of every tiny movement—the brush of fabric when he shifts, the slow sound of his breathing beneath the music, the way his knee nearly touches yours without quite doing it.

Neither of you speaks for several moments.

The room fills instead with piano notes and moonlight and something heavier threading silently between the pauses.

Then he reaches forward unexpectedly, his hand sliding over yours atop the keys.

Not forceful.

Not restraining.

Just enough pressure to still your fingers mid-note.

The unfinished chord lingers softly in the air as your breath catches.

“You hide inside music,” he murmurs, eyes lowered toward your joined hands. “It’s the only time you stop looking dead.”

His thumb shifts slightly against your knuckles before he finally lifts his gaze to yours.

And for the first time since arriving here, the silence between you no longer feels entirely stagnant.

The silence stretches after that, neither comfortable nor tense, but something suspends carefully between the two.

Joshua’s hand remains loosely over yours for another moment before he finally withdraws it, though not completely. His fingers linger near the edge of your wrist, close enough that you still feel their warmth against your skin.

“You stopped playing,” he observes quietly.

You glance down at the keys. “You interrupted me.”

A faint smile ghosts across his face at that, small enough to vanish almost immediately. He leans back slightly on the bench, one arm resting along the edge behind you while the other taps absentmindedly against his knee in time with some rhythm only he can hear.

“You knew I was listening,” he says after a while.

It isn’t phrased like a question.

You hesitate before answering. “I figured the open door was too convenient.”

Joshua hums softly in acknowledgment, his gaze drifting toward the piano again. “Most people would’ve been trying to escape.”

“But you made sure I couldn’t.”

The words leave your mouth more lightly than intended, though the meaning beneath them remains sharp enough to settle heavily between you.

For a second, neither of you moves.

Then he exhales through his nose, almost thoughtfully, and tilts his head slightly toward you. “You could’ve screamed while you were down here.”

“You would’ve heard me.”

“I hear everything in this house.”

The statement should feel threatening. Somehow, spoken in his low, even voice beside the soft moonlit piano, it lands differently. More intimate than dangerous.

Your fingers drift unconsciously across a few keys again, producing a quiet string of absent notes. Joshua watches the movement with that same unwavering focus that always makes you feel pinned beneath his attention.

“You watch me a lot,” you murmur before you can stop yourself.

Something unreadable flickers across his expression.

“I like knowing you’re still here.”

The room falls quiet again after that.

Outside, the wind brushes softly against the windows, stirring the curtains just enough for the moonlight to shift across the floorboards. He remains beside you, close enough that your shoulders nearly touch now, his presence no longer looming but surrounding.

Slowly, almost cautiously, he reaches up and brushes a strand of hair away from your face, his fingers pausing briefly near your temple as though resisting the urge to linger longer.

The gesture is so unexpectedly gentle that it unsettles you far more than his watching ever did.

His gaze lowers afterward—not to your injury this time, but to your mouth for the briefest second before returning to your eyes.

Then, very quietly, Joshua says, “Play something else for me.”

“Should I play you instead?” you murmur with a mocking little scoff, expecting at least some reaction from him.

But Joshua only looks at you.

Unblinking.

Waiting.

The silence stretches long enough to turn the joke into something else entirely.

You let out another breath of disbelief in your smile. “God, you’re impossible.”

Yet he still says nothing.

Well, he asked for it—a part of you wants to see if he’ll finally crack—you shift sideways and climb into his lap.

For the first time all night, he goes completely still beneath you.

The piano falls silent behind you as your fingers curl loosely against his shoulders, and suddenly the room feels far more smaller than before.

His gaze searches your face carefully, intensely, as if he’s trying to memorize every flicker of expression you make.

“Well?” you whisper teasingly. “What song do you think I sound like?”

His hands settle carefully at your waist, not pulling you closer yet, simply holding you there as though testing whether you’ll change your mind and move away.

But you don’t.

The moonlight spills across the piano keys behind you, pale ivory glowing softly in the dark while the unfinished melody still hangs faintly in the room like the last breath of a performance.

“Something dangerous,” Joshua says at last, his voice low enough that you feel it more than hear it.

Your lips curve slightly. “That’s not a song.”

“No,” he murmurs, eyes lowering briefly to your mouth again. “But it sounds like one.”

The air between you thickens after that.

Joshua’s restraint had always felt frightening before—his stillness, the way he watched instead of touched—but now, sitting in his lap with his hands warm against your waist, it feels like standing too close to a thunderstorm waiting to break.

You become painfully aware of every tiny movement. The slow drag of his thumb against your side. The measured rise and fall of his breathing beneath yours. The way his gaze lingers on you with terrifying concentration, as though nothing else in the world exists beyond this room.

Your fingers drift unconsciously toward the collar of his shirt, grazing the fabric there.

He exhales softly at the contact.

Such a small sound.

Yet it alters the atmosphere instantly, like the first piano key pressed before a symphony begins.

Then his hand slides upward along your spine, slow enough to make your pulse stumble, and suddenly the distance between you disappears altogether.

The kiss feels less like affection and more like surrendering to something inevitable. Slow at first—hesitant and careful. Then deeper when your hands tighten against him and his composure finally fractures beneath your mouth.

Somewhere in the haze of tangled breaths and moonlight, your back brushes the piano keys accidentally.

A soft discordant note rings through the room.

Neither of you pulls away.

Another note follows when Joshua’s hand slips lower against you, deeper and richer this time, blending quietly with the unsteady sound escaping your throat.

The piano begins answering every movement in scattered murmurs of music—low trembling chords, broken half-notes, sharp gasps of sound whenever your bodies shift against the keys.

And eventually even your moans seem to melt into it, threading together with the instrument until the entire room sounds like one long aching composition played entirely out of breath.

The next morning, when he leaves briefly to shower, you plod quietly to the bedroom door.

Your fingers curl around the knob and turn it carefully, expecting the familiar resistance of a lock, but the handle gives way easily beneath your hand. The door opens barely an inch before stopping abruptly against something solid.

You pause.

It's not locked.

Just… restrained.

Frowning faintly, you try again with more force this time, but the result is the same. The handle turns completely, yet the door refuses to open wider than that narrow sliver.

A strange calm settles over you despite the warning bells beginning to ring somewhere deep in your mind. Crouching down, you try to peer through the narrow gap.

A chair sits wedged beneath the handle from the outside.

It's placed not out of caution but strategically. The door has shut on the canary bird's face, leaving it only to flutter and chirp around in its cage.

You straightened up tardily.

The room cages in, feeling smaller and the air grows thinner against your lungs, but the panic never arrives.

You simply step back and return to the edge of the bed, lowering yourself onto it with eerie composure, your hands folding neatly together in your lap as though preparing for a conversation already rehearsed in your mind.

By the time Joshua returns, damp hair clinging slightly to his forehead while he absently dries it with a towel, your expression has smoothed itself into something unreadable.

He smiles softly the moment he sees you.

“Morning.”

You hold his gaze without acknowledging his greeting.

“How long?” You ask quietly.

His movements falter almost imperceptibly, fingers stilling against the towel. “How long what?”

“How long have you been blocking the door?”

For the briefest fraction of a second, his smile slips.

“I’m not blocking it.”

“There’s a chair under the handle.”

Joshua hesitates before speaking again. “That’s only so it doesn’t swing open.”

Your eyes remain fixed on him.

“It opens inward.”

Silence floods the room.

Something shifts visibly in his expression then, though it is not anger and not irritation either. It resembles fear too closely for comfort—raw, trembling fear struggling beneath all that careful composure.

“I can’t let anything happen to you,” he says at last, the words escaping more like confession than explanation.

You study him with the same detached concentration you once used on your own reflection after the accident. Blankly. Clinically.

“You think the world is what took my eye.”

His breathing turns uneven almost immediately. You struck the center of it too easily.

“It did,” he insists.

“No,” you reply softly. “A moment did.”

Joshua takes a step toward you, fingers tightening unconsciously around the damp towel in his hands. “You don’t understand,” he says, voice beginning to crack beneath the strain. “I saw you clutch your bleeding eye, screaming in pain. I saw—” He swallows hard. “I won’t survive that twice.”

The room becomes unbearably still after that. Every object remains perfectly arranged around you, every curtain neatly drawn, every corner controlled with suffocating precision, yet Joshua himself suddenly looks like the only unstable thing inside it.

Slowly, you rise from the bed.

You move around it carefully, deliberately, until only a foot of space remains between you.

“I survived,” you say firmly.

He shakes his head immediately, as though survival itself had never been the point.

Your gaze drifts briefly toward the restrained door before returning to him again.

“You’re afraid I’ll break,” you murmur.

His eyes glisten faintly in the dim morning light.

You tilt your head slightly.

“But Joshua…”

Your voice remains unnervingly calm—gentle, even.

“I’m not the one who’s breaking.”

The words linger heavily between you.

And for the first time since the hospital, his expression shifts into something uncertain, as though he no longer knows whether he is protecting you from the world outside the room—or from himself.

"You are afraid," you point out.

The atmosphere shifts almost imperceptibly after that. Joshua had been standing close enough for you to feel the lingering warmth from the shower still clinging to his skin, his hands half-raised like he might reach for you if you sway even slightly, but now you straighten fully beneath his gaze, posture smoothing into something composed and deliberate.

Your visible eye fixes on his.

“And you’re hiding something from me.”

He stills.

There is no accusation in your voice, no sharpness meant to provoke him. The certainty alone is enough.

For a moment he simply watches you, jaw tightening faintly before his expression smooths itself back into careful control. “I’m protecting you,” he says again, quieter this time, as though repeating it enough might make it true.

“You say my father is still angry. That he’ll harm me if I go out.” Your voice is steady, almost detached. “But you won’t let me go speak to him. You won’t let me make it right.”

His jaw tightens and something flickers behind his eyes, brief enough that most people would miss it entirely.

You don’t.

“It was me who rejected your marriage proposal,” you continue softly. “If there are consequences, I’ll deal with them myself.”

The words land heavier than any shouting ever could, followed by a silence that stretches thin between you.

Joshua’s grip tightens unconsciously around the damp towel in his hands before he finally exhales through his nose and looks away for the first time since entering the room. “You don’t understand the situation.”

“And Mr. Hong,” you add curtly, with deliberation, “you still haven’t caught the man who threw acid in my face.”

That makes him look back immediately.

You haven’t called him Mr. Hong in days.

You used to reserve it for moments when distance was intentional. Joshua notices the shift instantly. You can tell by the way his expression hardens for only a second before softening again into something almost pleading.

He inhales slowly. “The investigation is ongoing.”

“That’s what you’ve said for weeks.”

“You were unconscious.”

“And before that?”

He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out immediately. His gaze flickers briefly toward the covered mirror near the corner of the room before returning to you again, and the movement is subtle enough that he probably thinks you won’t notice.

You do.

“You tell me my father is furious,” you went on. “That he’s unstable. That he’ll hurt me if I leave this house.” A faint tilt of your head. “But you don’t let me see him. You don’t let me call him. You don’t even let me step outside.”

Joshua takes a slow breath with a step back, though it does little to steady him. “I’m trying to keep you safe.”

“From him?”

“Yes.”

Your gaze remains fixed on his face. “Or from the truth?”

The room feels strangely smaller after that question; the silence pressing inward from every direction. He drags a hand down his face slowly, composure beginning to fray around the edges in a way you’ve never seen before. He heaves out as he throws the damp towel carelessly on the bed.

“You don’t understand how dangerous this is,” he says.

“Then explain it to me.”

His breathing grows uneven. Not dramatically. Just enough for you to hear it in the quiet room.

When he doesn’t answer, you do it for him instead.

“My father opposed your expansion deal, didn't he?” you murmur a guess. “He probably rejected your terms publicly.” Your gaze never leaves his. “I rejected you with much less crowd.”

Joshua’s eyes sharpen immediately. “You think I would hurt you because of that?”

“I don’t know what to think anymore.”

The honesty in your voice lands heavier than anger would have.

A tense silence blankets the room.

“You were there that evening,” you continued after a moment. “You were the first one to reach me. You were the one who pulled me away.”

His throat moves as he swallows.

“You told me it was some hired criminal. Some disgruntled competitor.”

“It was.”

“Then why haven’t you found him?”

His mouth opens and closes like a dying fish.

For the first time since you woke up in the hospital, he looks genuinely cornered by you, and the realization settles strangely in your chest. You had grown so used to his control that seeing cracks appear beneath it feels almost surreal.

“If my father truly wanted to punish me, he would confront me. He wouldn’t hide.” You tilt your head slightly. “And he certainly wouldn’t miss the opportunity to tell me, ‘I told you so.’”

Joshua’s lips part, but no words crawl out.

“You kept me in this room,” you continue. “You covered every mirror. You blocked the door with a chair.” Your voice remains calm enough to be unsettling. “You speak to me as if I’m something fragile enough to break apart if handled incorrectly.”

His jaw tightens. “Because you’ve been through something traumatic.”

“But you never let me see the reports. Or the footage. Or anything that actually happened.”

His voice drops a few octaves. “Because you don’t need to relive it.”

“Or because you don’t want me seeing something.”

That finally breaks something in him.

Not loudly. Not violently. Just a small, unmistakable fracture in the careful composure he has been maintaining since the hospital.

“You think I did this?” Joshua asks evenly.

You hold his gaze without flinching.

“I think,” you say after a moment, “that you’re terrified of losing control.”

The words hit him harder than an accusation ever could. You see it immediately in the way he recoils slightly as if it had struck him somewhere tender.

"I would never hurt you," he says, and this time the words sound bruised rather than defensive.

“I know."

That answer somehow makes his expression worse.

“You wouldn’t throw acid at me yourself,” you continue softly. “But you would decide what I’m allowed to know. Where I’m allowed to go. Who I’m allowed to speak to.” Your eye sharpens faintly. “You would decide which version of the truth I’m permitted to live with.”

Joshua’s hands begin trembling almost imperceptibly at his sides.

“Your father threatened me,” he blurts out. “After you rejected me. He said I would regret involving you in my world.”

“And you believed he would scar his own daughter to make a point?”

Joshua hesitates.

Only briefly, but long enough.

Understanding doesn’t hit you like a wave. It settles slowly inside you after that, cold and heavy rather than sudden.

“Who benefits?” You ask.

His breathing becomes uneven.

“You moved me into your house,” you murmur. “You isolated me from everyone else. You became my only source of information.” Your gaze drifts briefly toward the blocked door before returning to him again. “My only protection.”

“That’s not what this is.”

“You became indispensable.”

The room falls silent again. Outside the windows, wind brushes softly against the curtains, stirring them just enough for the shadows to shift faintly across the floorboards.

You take one slow step toward him.

“I rejected you,” you carry on. “Not because I doubted your power."

Your expression barely changes.

“Because I was afraid of this.”

“Afraid of what?”

A quiet breath leaves you.

“Of loving someone who only knows how to love himself.”

The words linger heavily between you.

Joshua looks at you differently after that—not like something fragile anymore, nor like someone he needs to be carefully preserved. He looks at you like someone steadily slipping beyond his control, and the fear in his expression deepens in a way that feels far more honest than anything else he has said tonight.

Outside the room, the house remains unnervingly quiet.

And for the first time since the accident, you begin wondering whether the danger you had been warned about had ever truly been outside this house at all.

The frightening part is that even now, standing right in front of him, you still cannot tell how much of Joshua is performing and how much of him is real. You had always been good at recognizing others' acts but you never have been good at putting one on your own.

His performance could really rival the stars of the theater, you think.

You walk closer.

"Let me ask you again, Mr. Hong, did you catch the hitman?"

His face ashes at your question. He looks away briefly before meeting your gaze again; his jaw clenching taut. "Yes. He's been dealt with," he says coldly, not elaborating on what exactly he had done to the person responsible for taking your eye.

The answer didn’t surprise you. You had known ever since he appeared behind you in the bathroom mirror—his clothes stained with blood. In that moment, you understood he had been dealt with that very night.

"How so?"

Joshua hesitates before answering honestly, "I had him brought to my warehouse. My men... they broke every bone in his body. Then I personally shot him in the head seven times." His voice was crisp and detached, revealing how ruthless he truly was.

"Oh, so you silenced him. Not a bad strategy," you opine.

His eyes expand an inch at your nonchalant response. He expected shock, maybe even disgust. Instead, you simply accept his brutal methods with a calm nod. He feels a strange sense of respect for your understanding of his world. "You're not... disgusted?" he asks curiously, tilting his head.

"Mr. Hong, it's you who arranged everything. Why act so shocked now?"

He throws his head back and laughs his head off. You have a point. He should stop treating you like a fragile woman. You have the capability of being his equal, understanding his world better than most. He replies to your previous question instead, "Yes, I silenced him. No loose ends. No information at risk of getting out."

You stare at him for a good minute, seeing his mask echo off with his laughter lifts a rock off your chest.

"Did you take my eye because I rejected you?" You inquire out of the blue.

His laughter fades as he takes a step back, his gaze settling on your face with quiet vehement. The calm acceptance of your injury, the understanding of his methods... and now this direct question. He realizes you are not just beautiful, but intelligent and unfiltered. "Yes," he admits curtly.

You scoff, "What a fragile ego you've got."

He freezes.

For a fleeting moment, an unsettling silence descends upon the room.

No woman has ever dared to speak to him like this. People fear Joshua Hong too much to challenge him, too much to even breathe wrong around him. Yet you stand across from him with one ruined eye and the audacity to mock the very ego that destroyed it.

You look at him with sharp amusement, as though his violence is nothing more than an inconvenient character flaw.

And God—he finds it intoxicating.

Something vile and rancid flickers behind his eyes.

“Watch your mouth,” he breathes, the faint warning far more alarming than any shouting ever could be.

You stare at him in silence—not a trace of fear creases your expression.

Joshua scrutinizes your face, waiting for the flinch that never comes. Refusing to look away, your one eye remains fixed on him with a steadiness sharp enough to challenge him outright.

His hand reaches out to clip your chin firmly without his conscious thought, tilting your face up more. "You know what your problem is?" He growls, his words grating like gravel. "No filter. No fear." His thumb drags brusquely across your bottom lip. "And one less eye to roll at me."

His lips mashed against yours in an animalistic claim. It's a hungry attempt meant to consume you whole—a war of colliding teeth and tongue invading your mouth. He sucks up all your breath as his heat steams you up. The calm gentleman act is peeling off him as his grip slides from your chin to the back of your neck, holding you exactly where he wants you while his mouth devours yours, swallowing every smart remark before it can leave your tongue. The heat from him is overwhelming—anger, tension, want—all tangled together.

When he finally pulls back, barely an inch, his breath ghosts against your lips.

“Marry me,” he proposes while still panting.

"No."

Joshua leans back more, his eyes brewing with rage and desire. No one ever says no to him. Especially not after a kiss like that. His hand clenches on your nape with untamed possessiveness. "Yes," he corrects, his face only a few inches from yours with his hot breath fanning over your mouth. "You will marry me and wear my ring. My last name. My everything."

"Why do you want to marry me so badly?" You blurt out with a huff.

He searches your face, seeing the confusion and stubbornness in your one good eye. He wanted to marry you because you rejected him. Because you stood up to him. Because you were beautiful, intelligent, and fearless. But he admits to none of that. "Because I want what I can't have," he says simply.

"You will never have it."

An ominous smile curves up his lips at your defiance.

He likes this part of you—the refusal to bend, the fact that you don’t throw yourself at his feet the way everyone else seems to. Your resistance only sharpens his interest, it feeds something possessive and relentless in him.

"We'll see about that," he murmurs, his thumb pressing coarsely against your bottom lip again, firm enough to demand your attention as his gaze locks onto yours.

“I always get what I want,” he whispers softly, the promise in his voice far more menacing than if he’d raised it.

“Eventually.”

Joshua leans in closer, his words soaking in a perilous intent. "You think I'm joking? I took your eye because I was angry. I'm offering marriage because I'm intrigued. What do you think I'll do when I'm tired of waiting?"

"Explode with anger?" You snigger.

A deep, stormy hue whirls in his eyes.

You had no idea how dangerous he was.

He watches you in silence for a moment—your calm expression, your single beautiful eye studying him without a trace of fear. Most people broke beneath his stare. You only looked back harder every single time.

“Yes,” he agrees with his words kneaded with deceptive softness. “Angry.” His jaw clicks. “You rejected me. You called me an animal. You slapped me.” A deliberate icy pause blows by. “So I took an eye.”

Your expression doesn’t change.

“You can’t change your nature,” you reply evenly. “A pig stays a pig its entire life.”

Something boils in him with raucous gurgling, bubbles forming then popping again and again.

His hand slides from the back of your neck to your throat, fingers wrapping around it with controlled pressure—not enough to truly hurt, just enough to steal the air from your lungs. He pulls you closer until his face hovers inches from yours again, eyes blazing with fury and something else—

Excitement.

"Careful with your words," he growls. "This pig will eat you alive."

You struggle against his grip, but your attitude remains flippant with another smile curving up your lips.

"You can't reverse the food chain either," you taunt.

The silence stretches taut between you, then he throws his head back and lets out a loud guffaw. God, you are smart, sharp-tongued, and incredibly foolish. Although he admits that it's refreshing to see someone not scared of him.

When his gaze settles on you again, it's heavier, with edges curved with obsession. His voice drops an octave when he speaks again. "You know what your problem is?" He didn't give you a chance to answer, snapping his fingers instead. "No filter. No fear. One eye."

Joshua releases your throat instead of squeezing tighter; his fingers trail down your neck with ghost touches as they tickle like a feather. Your lack of fear keeps fascinating him more and more. The most fearless man would at least be terrified of him by now, but not you. "You'll really call me every animal imaginable, huh?" he ponders. "Dog, pig, beast..."

His lips twitched at witnessing your quiet expression. No smart remarks. No insults. Just one beautiful eye staring blankly, giving nothing away. He realizes something—"You're like a snake,"he mutters faintly, almost to himself. "No reaction. No sound. One sudden bite..." he chortles.

"Snakes are two-faced—I'm not," you point out with no shame.

His eyes enlarge an inch at your curt response, then he laughs again. You are right. You aren't sneaky or two-faced like a snake. In fact, you are direct and honest, even when insulting him. "You know what?" he asks out of the blue.

"I'm going to marry you whether you like it or not. You can keep your sharp tongue and your one eye. Maybe I'll even let you keep calling me names." His touch ceases on your neck as he steps back abruptly, making you inhale big gulps of air. "Consider it your engagement gift."

Joshua watches you regain your composure with no fluctuation of anger or fear, not even helplessness in it. He was used to women fainting at his feet, crying happy tears at his proposals. You just sat there like a statue with your one good eye staring blankly at him like you couldn't care less. "You haven't screamed or slapped me for so long," he grumbles.

You stay silent, pondering over your available cards as you calculate your best feasible option. "You want to marry me? Then you must give me in dowry what I ask for," you challenge, setting up a condition.

His eyebrows shot up at your sudden demand. No woman would dare to ask for a dowry from him. They would be too busy thanking their lucky stars for marrying a powerful man like him. "Oh?" He takes a step closer to you again. "And what exactly do you want?"

"I want your eye," your lips curve up.

His expression freezes. He thought you'd ask for money, cars, houses... but an eye? His hand automatically touches his good eye. "My eye?" He repeats dubiously.

No, you don't resemble a snake but an orca—it is known for waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

An involuntary chill travels up his spine.

"An eye for an eye, fair enough, isn't it?" You arch a brow, lolling your head—daring him to reject your bold demand.

Joshua stares at you for a long moment, his mind racing with thoughts he couldn't catch up to. He had expected many things from this woman, but not this. Not such cold, calculated revenge. He let out a low laugh, shaking his head. "Fair enough," he agrees with no hesitation.

A haughty smile blooms on your face.

He really isn't joking or bluffing anymore. You want his eye? Fine. He respects the hell out of that ruthless demand, although he doubts you have the guts to carry it out. Most women want jewelry or cars, but you want him to experience the same blindness he'd given you. "You know what?" he asks suddenly.

"No wonder they say don't get into arguments with intelligent women. You're dangerous. One eye. No filter. No mercy," he snorts, finding this whole situation whimsical and clearly still doubting your ability to carry through it. He heaves out, carding his digits through his strands messily.

"You realize if I give you my eye, I'll be half blind?" He coos as if giving a toddler with explosive tantrums a last chance before they fuck things up.

"Serves you right. You must first blind yourself like you did me," you scoff and roll your eye.

An amused smile spreads across his lips at your bitter response. He finds himself strangely attracted to this woman's brutal honesty and justice more and more. "Fucking perfect," he snickers, echoing a sharp clap and leaves the bedroom to fetch his favorite dagger. After a couple of minutes he comes back with it and sits down on the bed in front of you.

"Do it," he says as he drops the dagger into your hand with glee and ridicule sparkling in his eyes.

"I'll take my sweet time," you pass a half-smile as you slide off its sheath.

Joshua lets out a chortle even though he doubts you meant every word—you'd make him suffer slowly with sheer anticipation of it, then will chicken out like he expects you to.

He spreads his legs further, getting comfortable as if preparing himself for a long torture session. His good eye keeps an eye on you. "Take your time," he glib with a challenge.

He watches you straighten your back and study the dagger. He feels a strange mix of fear and... exhilaration. You trudge off to lock the door, and when you return, he realizes this is actually happening. You are really going to blind him like he blinded you.

His breath hitches as you reach out and grab his wrist, forcing his hand flat on the silk sheet. Your grip is surprisingly strong. He feels the cold metal of the dagger press against his palm, then it ghosts against his knuckles, making him bite his lip as he hisses. Your legs bracket his own as you straddle him, pushing his back to the silk sheet. The icy blade travels up to his face, pressing lightly under his right eye.

Joshua breaks into a cold sweat, his heart hammering fiercely against his ribcage as the dagger now hovers mere millimeters away from his eyeball. He watches the cold steel display a trembling mess—a reflection of his own trembling self. Abruptly, he grabs your wrist with his free hand, stopping the blade.

"Wait," he hoarsely pants.

His grip on your wrist is a constraint, but not a painful one. His good eye locks onto your single eye; a concoction of fear, arousal, and something else stirs in his gaze. He is giving you a chance to stop, but also testing your resolve.

"Scared?" You arch your brow tauntingly.

He let out a titter, his thumb rubbing against your wrist. "Terrified." He admits softly. He is terrified of the pain, yes. But also terrified of the raw power you hold over him in this moment.

"Good," you grin. Joshua almost scoffs at how grinning you have gotten. He hasn't seen you so jolly before, but he also never expected that he would one day end up under today's dooming circumstances.

His right eye flickers down to the blade pressing under it, then back up to your single, merciless eye. He'd never felt so helpless, so completely at someone else's mercy. And he finds it strangely... arousing. "You're actually going to do it," he acknowledges the elephant in the room.

Your lack of response—no smirk, no sigh, no hesitation—sends a shiver down his spine. You are serious. Deadly serious. He takes a deep breath as he steadies himself. He is about to experience the same darkness he'd forced upon you.

"Do it!"

Joshua watches your jaw tick, your knuckles turning white as you grip the dagger handle tighter. He sees your single eye concentrate back on his right eye, realizing you are not going to give him mercy like he'd given you—none at all. He hisses as the blade abruptly presses into his pupil, blooming a dull ache.

He closes his good eye, bracing himself for more pain. He feels the cold metal press in harder, then suddenly—

"Ahhh!"

He cries out as you plunge the dagger straight into his eye socket. Blood splatters across your face like a fountain. He screams his lungs out, trying to hold onto your wrist as he drags his nails across your skin in a futile attempt. His bloody crescent moons travel up to your face, making you screech.

His digits claw at your eye patch, punching into it, which echoes by a loud crack of the conformer breaking with it. A gush of blood pours down your eye patch, his knuckles are now pressing much closer to your hollow socket behind the patch.

He screams—you scream.

"AHHH!"

"AHHH!"

Despite the excruciating pain throbbing behind your eye patch, you fight against his grip, trying to press the dagger more into his eye socket.

"Sir? Ma'am? Is everything okay?" One of his men starts banging on the door, and it only gets more insistent and louder as they receive only screams in reply.

"Hello? Please open the door!" The doorknob twists but refuses to budge open, as you had locked it earlier.

The intolerable pain paralyzes him, making it easier for you to hold him down—the world almost blacks out on his end.

You laugh manically, thrusting it in and out over and over again.

After you had your fun—roughly seventeen stabs into his eye—you do take your sweet time cutting the attached substances to his eyeball and scooping it out while ignoring the obnoxious banging on the door.

Joshua hisses sharply, his body going rigid as the pain shoots through his skull.

He'd given you one eye—now you have returned the favor. He felt hot blood trickle down his cheek, and he bit back another cry as an agonizing pain threatened to overtake his consciousness.

He is officially half-blind like you.

He opens his remaining good eye to look at you. His injured eye is weeping bloody tears, and you are more than happy to wipe them away; in fact, you even coo at him as you wipe them off.

He stares at you, his remaining good eye brewing with a mix of pain, shock, and something else—respect. You have done exactly what he had done to you. He reaches up and touches his injured eye socket gently, wincing at the pain.

You get off him with his eyeball in your hand. Crossing the room, you put his eyeball on an unused ashtray, which was resting on the nightstand.

Your feet amble to the door before they tear it down.

You hand over the ashtray with instructions to store it away. Joshua's right hand-man boils red as you nonchalantly instruct the maid standing beside him, whose face is draining fast of all the colors at the unhinged sight of an eyeball on the ashtray.

The right hand-man looks over your shoulder to find Joshua still bleeding on the bed. He wants to scream at you, but he thinks better of it and gives a curt nod, and shouts at the poor maid to hurry up and bring in the first aid box.

His right-hand man knows Joshua is an unhinged man himself, and he was fully capable of avoiding this catastrophe. He gulps down his questions and scrams off.

By the time the maid returns with the first aid box, he genuinely feels nauseous and lightheaded.

He put a hand over his injured eye socket, still processing the fact that you had actually gone through with it. He had expected guilt, hesitation, mercy—but you gave him none of those things. You gave him exactly what he'd given you. "You're insane," he mutters flatly.

You laugh at his comment, licking his blood off the dagger.

The maid flinches at the odd, suffocating atmosphere and swiftly starts to bandage his eye while he sits there stunned and bleeding. Luckily for him, the maid is a drop-out med student, so she can deal with this deranged injury and situation. Although he will still have to pay a proper visit to the doctor later.

Joshua watches as you lick the blood off the blade insouciantly, as if nothing crazy happened. His good eye expands in shock and revulsion. That laugh—that cold, insane laugh—echoing in his mind. "Fucking psychopath," he scowls.

A boiling rage rises up in his chest.

He is half-blind now. One eye is gone. Replaced with darkness. Just like you. He suddenly realizes how fucking dangerous you are. How quickly you went from a calm woman with soulless eye to laughing your head off while stabbing into his eye. The maid finishes bandaging his eye fast and leaves silently with hurried steps.

You just smile.

He gulps, realizing he has invited a psychopath into a marriage proposal.

Joshua stands up slowly, testing his balance with one less eye. He feels off—disoriented. He looks at you with his remaining good eye. Your single eye sparkles with pure joy. He suddenly had the urge to run—to get as far away from you as possible.

He backs away step by step as his heart races almost out of his chest. He is scared—scared of you, scared of the marriage proposal he'd just made to a literal psychopath. He trips over his own feet and falls back onto the bed with a winch, clutching his bandaged eye.

"Stay away from me!"

"C'mon, Hong. Your pretty eye might taste just as good as you look." You lick your lips, standing up and strolling towards him with a half-smile.

Joshua stumbles back, suddenly reminded of how you liked eating fish eyes in the restaurant that day. He lets out a choked scoff in disbelief—he fell for your game—hook, line, and sinker with your eye as bait.

He scrambles back further on the bed as you approach him with that half-smile—a smile that now sends shivers down his spine instead of butterflies in his stomach. His good eye widens in horror as memories flood back—you complimenting his eyes during that date—dropping your keychain.

"Stop!" he blurts out in desperation.

"Why? We are going to get married just like you wanted," you say, leaning down to his eye level.

Joshua flinches back as you lean in closer, his heart pounding in his chest. He is trapped—trapped by his own stupid marriage proposal to a woman who seems to take the phrase 'having an eye on each other' way too literally.

He could see your single eye up close—cold—insane.

"Don't forget to join our celebration dinner tonight," you beam, kissing his forehead, your lips rather feeling cold.

Joshua gulps.

He knows what's going to be served on the table tonight.

He nods numbly, his body shaking slightly as you kiss his forehead. He knew what was coming tonight—a celebration dinner where he would be the main course. His good eye wells up with tears as he grasps the horror of his situation—he had proposed to a monster who literally wanted to eat his eyes.

Joshua sits there frozen on the bed as you leave the room. He buries his face in his hands as sobs wrack his body.

He has fallen in love with a beautiful, cold monster who loves to eat fish eyes. He still can't believe he is going to marry a psychopathic eye-eating monster. "Why did I propose to her?" He cries into his hands.

Later that night, you hum in satisfaction, finding it delicious as you munch on his well cooked eye.

Joshua doesn't know when he fell asleep but he does know the ringing question in his head when he wakes up with the throbbing pain in his empty socket.

How did you know he was behind the acid attack and took your eye?

His brain files through countless theories as he washes up. He walks downstairs absentmindedly and almost bumps into the dining table.

You chuckle at his clumsiness, making him finally look up at you sitting across the mahogany table. The table is adorned with various dishes but that one dish sitting in front of you makes him gag.

It's his mangled eyeball soaked in sauce and surrounded by a lush lattice.

He watches in horror from the other side of the table as you happily cut his cooked eye and eat it, savoring every bite. Tears start to stream down his face as he realizes the truth—you loved eating eyes so much that you were willing to marry just to get more eye meat. He feels sick and violated.

A bile crawls up his throat, making him bend over and cover his mouth.

His stomach churns as he watches you chomp down his eye like it was some kind of delicacy. He had always been attracted to your unhinged cold look, he was always curious to discover you more... but now he sees the devil behind those lies. He stands up abruptly, trying to inhale some air and avoid looking at the table and you.

You look up from your plate, your mouth slightly stained with the juices of his cooked eye. You smile coyly like you had just eaten a gourmet meal instead of someone's bodily organ. He feels physically ill at the sight of it all over again. "Mmm...so delicious~" You hum happily, munching on it more.

Joshua takes a step back, looking for his moment to escape from this hell.

"Sit," you order curtly.

He sits down feebly with his trembling legs. He feels like he is in a nightmare—one where the woman he loved turns out to be a cannibalistic monster who had just eaten his eye for dinner—unfortunately for him he doesn't wake up from it. You commanded him to sit, and he obeyed like a scared puppy, his good eye filled with terror.

Right now, he is nothing like the arrogant and proud self-made millionaire, who tried to put you in a cage but now, he ended up locking himself in it.

His mind wanders off to the question he woke up with and the events of all the time he spent with you start playing in his head. An odd feeling blooms in his chest: everything went too smoothly in your favor as if… it was all calculated.

He rubs his clammy hands against his thighs and asks the question that has been weighing on his mind. "Did you arrange that hitman to approach me with this crazy acid attack idea?"

Your knife stills on cutting his eyeball.

Joshua looks at you with a mixture of fear and realization. Then all the pieces click together in his head.

You dropping the keychain—the men talking about teaching women a lesson at the back of the club—you humiliating him publicly by rejecting his proposal and then the hitman attacking you with an acid—it all seems too convenient, too perfectly timed. He had never considered it before, but now it seems obvious.

You have orchestrated this entire thing just to get him and his eyeball.

"You... you arranged the acid attack?"

"All is well now," you reassure him, attempting a coy smile but it rather reminds him of a Cheshire cat, who's toying with him and always had been although he realized it too late.

He feels like a fool. Not only are you a cold monster, you had managed to be a master manipulator, who had planned every step of their relationship with chilling precision. He scoffs, wondering if even that night you played the piano was planned—everything was a lie designed to trap him.

"You..." he trails off.

Your expression remains blank as you study his reaction. Your mouth opens and closes just for a moment. "The hitman just made you a suggestion. It's you who choose to take my eye in the first place," you explain coldly. "Actions have consequences, Joshua Hong."

Joshua feels a chill run down his spine at the cold, calculating way you spoke. The hitman was just a pawn in your game, and he was too—the fool who had agreed to take your 'eye'—is a sacrifice at the end.

He feels violated, manipulated, and utterly stupid for falling for your charms.

He sits in stunned silence, his mind racing with the realization that he had been played like a violin from the very beginning. He takes in a shaky breath, steeling himself for what's to come next.

"Now," you pick up your glass, expecting him to follow you.

Joshua picks up his glass mechanically.

"Congratulations to us getting engaged," you cheer, clinking their glasses in celebration.

He numbly clinks his glass against yours, his hand still shaking to no end. He feels like a zombie going through the motions as you celebrate your engagement—an engagement built on lies, manipulation, and the literal loss of his eye. The irony is bitter as he toasts to their 'happily ever after'.

"We're matching like a couple too," you laugh, pointing to your re-dressed eye patch and his lost bandaged one.

"Couple goals," you crowed, clinking your glass against his again, making the red wine swirl and almost spill over.

Joshua forces a weak smile, his heavy heart already weighing with dread and despair. The sight of your finger pointing at your own eye patch and at his bandaged socket was like a punch to his gut—a constant reminder of the horror he had willingly walked into. Your laughter echoes off like mocking jeers in his ears as he realizes just how perfectly you had played him.

"An eye for an eye, babe."

That phrase sends a shudder down his spine. It was clear now that every step of this relationship had been calculated—a twisted game where you have always held the upper hand.

You slide the ring onto his finger. He hadn't even noticed the velvet box sitting on the table beside you. The engagement ring feels like a shackle around his finger instead of a symbol of love. "Right..."

Joshua really fell for the hook, line, and sinker with your eye as bait.

Epilogue: First Look into Dazzling Eyes

The New Year’s gala unfolded in a vast candlelit garden, where frost clung to marble pathways, bare winter branches swayed in the freezing air of the last December night, and delicate gold-trimmed fountains shimmered beneath a thin layer of ice. Beneath fair lights hanging from ancient trees, the city’s elite mingle in glittering couture as live musicians play beside overflowing champagne towers and walls of white flowers.

You swirl your red wine mindlessly against the rim of the glass, raising them like waves that never reach shore. Endless chatter bores your eardrums, making you want this celebration to just be over.

You occasionally nod and send synthetic smiles to the greetings of your plastic friends.

“Are you planning to look miserable all night?” Mina asks, appearing beside you with a flute of champagne balanced between her fingers.

You hum absentmindedly. “Depends. Is there anything here worth entertaining?”

She snorts softly and leans in closer. “You sound like an old heiress trapped in a twenty-three-year-old’s body.”

“Maybe I am.”

Your eyes drift across the garden anyway, over the glittering gowns and clusters of polished smiles. Then they stop.

A man stands a few tables away beneath the hanging fairy lights, dressed in a black suit that fits like it was stitched onto him. He laughs at something an older businessman says, the sound warm and effortless as he clinks glasses with the group around him. There’s nothing loud about him, nothing attention-seeking, yet people orbit him naturally, drawn in by the calm gentleness in his expression.

Beautiful.

Dangerously so.

Mina notices your stare almost immediately. “Oh,” she beams with amusement. “So you do have a pulse.”

You tear your gaze away for half a second. “Who is he?”

“That,” she says dramatically, “is Joshua Hong. The newest heartthrob of the elite socialite circle.”

The name settles strangely in your chest.

“He came back from abroad six months ago,” Mina continues. “Started his own company from scratch and somehow already became a self-made millionaire. I heard he has branches opening all across the country now. Everyone’s obsessed with him.”

“Sounds exhausting,” you reply flatly before taking another sip of wine.

But your eyes betray you, drifting back to him almost instantly.

Joshua tilts his head while listening to someone speak, smiling softly in a way that barely reaches his eyes. The golden lights above scatter against the dark brown of his irises, making them glimmer like sunlight over amber glass.

Then the countdown begins.

“Ten!”

The crowd erupts around you as voices echo through the garden.

“Nine!”

Joshua glances upward just as the first firework explodes across the midnight sky.

Colors bloom over the garden in brilliant gold and silver, reflecting in the crystal fountains, in champagne glasses, and in his eyes.

And for one suspended moment, with fireworks painting light across his face and laughter spilling from his lips, you can’t look away.

“Three!”

Your pulse quickens unexpectedly.

“Two!”

Mina says something beside you, but the sound fades into the night.

“One!”

The sky bursts into dazzling color as cheers erupt through the garden.

You stare at Joshua Hong beneath the falling sparks of light and decide right there and then—

He will be your New Year’s goal.

His eyes twinkle with colorful fireworks, peering into a bright soul behind those pupils.

Such pretty deer eyes.

You wonder what they will look like caught in headlights.

Note: The turns have tabled.

I actually watched an eye removal surgery for this fic and I wanted to show off my new knowledge but that would had been an info dump so I didn't lol

Important Characterization Note: If you haven't noticed the fl is 'weird' at expressing emotions. Well, technically bad at putting an act on to be precise. Throughout the story, they both express their emotions at odd timings because they're both putting on an act in front of each other for their own agendas. However, Joshua's curiosity towards fl is genuine. And they both do have their moments where their masks slip and they're vulnerable.

I tried to include a lot of subtext in their dynamic and in story. Let me know your perspective. I would love to read y'all's theories.

This was my first attempt at writing unreliable narrative, so how was it?

Joshua:

Tagging readers from the waiting list: @dontwonder05 @joshujin @eskoupe

Tagging readers who showed interested in it (sorry, if you didn't want to be tagged): @arkihives @aethnie @bobathi

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