i hope you come to love this story. xoxo, nick

- CRUMBLING CASTLE

"let's divorce"

Two words. Two words were all it takes to shatter the seven years marriage of kim jiho and jeon jeongguk into thousands of pieces.

cracking. jiho could hear her heart slowly tearing apart. heart becoming heavy, instantly finding it hard to breathe, the words that escaped on jeongguk's lips seemed so foreign in her head as she find it hard to process the painful words.

"i'm sorry, what?" she'd asked but unable to hide the way her voice broke, desperately wanting to clarify if she heard him right.

"i want divorce, jiho" torn. heart splitting into two, she felt herself being suffocated of the growing lump that seemed to make it even harder to take it in.

jiho saw the way jeongguk shuffled as he showed her a couple of papers, a phrase caught her eyes as it is written in capital letters with bold font.

i want divorce, jiho.

divorce.

she heard the words easily slipping in jeongguk's lips as she eyed the paper. she fought the urge to slap him right across his face. a war of thoughts started to cloud her mind but the moment their eyes met, there, she found herself getting lost. the woman found herself getting lost in the deep mauve eyes of the man who used to glimmer with adoration but now, all she could ever see is the tiredness in the man.

through their eye contact, she saw how he grew tired of this, this thing between them and whatever she's supposed to call the relationship they had.

why?

jiho badly wanted to hurt jeongguk as much as he had hurt her but, she couldn't find any courage to do it, she couldn't find any strength to hurt him.

a flood of hot and warm tears wanted to erupt in her beautiful brown orbs as her eyes instantly became glossy. at that point she wanted to throw a tantrum and act foolishly, wanting to let the man infront of her to know how he had badly scarred her heart, how much she felt betrayed and how much the news he broke is making her lose sanity.

a thousand of questions rummaged her mind as she couldn't understand why. why must he ask for divorce? why must their marriage end? and most of all, why? why doesn't he want to fix their relationship? is this a prank? is this just a nightmare? what am i supposed to do? why?

jiho couldn't rest her thoughts as all at once, memories of their fairy-tale love story flashed in her mind — the sweet love that started as best friends, turning into mutual understanding, then became lovers and lastly husband and wife.

remembering those treasured memories was enough to make the tears in her eyes finally drop.

"w—why?"

she'd asked that word, only finding the single phrase to define her feelings. why? where did i go wrong?everything was at its place, they had jinyeon, their witty and good child and jiho was attentive to their family while jeongguk had the job he had always dreamed of and yet, why?

why? why must this happen?

where did i go wrong?

"i'm sorry" jeongguk whispered, eyes not meeting hers as he hang his head low.

jiho's heart sunk down deep as it hammered inside her, a cracking sound visible in her ears as if she could literally see the way her heart falter. the crack that started at the edge of one corner in her fragile heart traced across the middle, running unstoppable as it left her heart split into two - wounded, bleeding and raw.

"s—sorry? is that all you'd say?" she'd let out, unable to hide the way her voice rised.

"what do you want me to say?"

body trembling and lips quivering, she tried so hard to choke the words out. "w—why?"

"why?"

"tell me, why?!"

at the mention of those words, the two's eye contact broke and jiho saw the hesitation in the man in front of her. jeongguk hung his head low and right at the moment his lips opened, jiho wished she had never asked.

"i am in love with someone else, now"