Prologue

A dysfunctional arranged marriage founded on the grounds of friendship, business, and love. What happens when the love is regrettably one-sided, and infidelity comes crashing the complicated and miserable whole ordeal of a narrative?

Catastrophe.

A series of broken hearts, broken dreams, and broken well-beings that will never be the same again.

Kim Eunae had lived her whole life with Jung Jaehyun, her best friend, whom she had always fought the world with. They had known each other since they were little, and from then on, had become each other's rock.

There were a series of ups and downs along the way to maturity-a long, bumpy, rough road of testing everything they got to give in and eventually crumble into ashes like how the world wanted them to be. There were a couple of crestfallen setbacks that broke them almost irreparably, having the slimmest chance of putting themselves back together like how they previously had been, yet there were also a hundred more unforgettable breakthroughs-every single of which successfully molded their well-beings into the person they had become.

Even though the world had always been against her, almost as if finding every little way to tear her into pieces from within, it really did not matter as long as she had him. Having Jaehyun by her side was enough. Perhaps more than enough to keep her in going without having the need to ever look back.

It was not long enough when Eunae found herself falling in love with Jaehyun. It started nice and slow. Mayhap like a flower that took its time to bloom. It began with a handful counts of naïvely stealing glances, just ever so swiftly, as he radiated like an ethereal rainbow only to be seen once in a decade, she knew she could not afford to miss, to spending every minute of every day wishing she could have more, perhaps just a little more of everything-that they could somehow be more of what they were.

And like a flower that must grow through dirt, soon enough, silently admiring him from a distance became a double-edged sword. Staying in the shadows made her heart bloom, yet at the same time, bruised. It was a period of having no way out of it, but to embrace her full share of chaos, despair, and misery in hopes of blossoming into something more beautiful with time.

As if all the mayhem was not enough, a handful more of adversities came crashing in without any measly warnings that almost swept them off their feet. It was wave after wave, and pain after pain, as the world just seemed to crucify them for every breath they took. But with all the things that the world had thrown at them, nothing could still seemingly break what they had, until a marriage proposition wreaked havoc in their lives and turned their worlds upside down.

The twists and turns of how her world turned inside out left her in deep shambles and desperately grasping on the very thin thread of life. The fairy tale life she had always dreamt of living just seemingly turned into the most horrifying nightmare she was never prepared to escape from. And the same person, whom she had always thought would save her unexpectedly became the lone monster she never knew she had to battle.

Suddenly, Eunae was left to choose between to love or to be loved.