Chapter 3
Once you realize you're invisible in your own home, everything starts to echo differently.
The footsteps. The ticking clock. The sound of plates hitting the sink.
Even the hum of the washing machine felt louder than the conversations I was having these days.
After that night, I didn’t expect Jungkook to change overnight. I didn’t want grand gestures. Just... recognition. A flicker in his eyes that told me he saw me.... really saw me.
But the next morning, he left for work like always. Kissing my cheek absentmindedly, saying:
Jeon Jungkook
Don’t forget to pick up Seon’s project supplies.
Jeon Jungkook
He has that science thing.
No, good morning. No, are you okay?
It was like the conversation we had didn’t exist. Like my quiet confession had dissolved into the laundry pile I was folding at the time.
So I went about my day like I always did. Cleaned. Called the school. Paid a bill online — took me fifteen minutes longer because the site was different now. Everything changed in fifteen years. Interfaces. Passwords. Processes.
Hana came home from school with a drawing. Me, her, and Seon in the kitchen. He’d drawn Jungkook too — far off in the corner, holding a phone.
Jeon Seon
He’s always working.
He said when I asked why.
Mrs. Jeon (Jk's Mom)
You know, when my husband was alive, he never had to lift a finger.
Mrs. Jeon (Jk's Mom)
I did everything. That’s what a wife does.
I wasn’t angry that they called me that. I wasn’t even offended. It was the idea behind it. That I was supposed to be silent, grateful, always available. A soft shadow in the background.
They never saw me as someone who had a degree. A dream. I was once a top student. I had ideas. I had offers. Until I became theirs.
Until I let myself disappear.
At night, Jungkook lay beside me on the bed, watching videos on his phone. He laughed once. Didn’t show me what he was laughing at.
He didn’t ask how my day was. He didn’t ask why I was curled up facing the other side of the bed.
He just assumed it would fix itself.
Like love was a machine you could leave running and expect it to stay oiled forever.
I thought it was just a phase.
People have phases. Taehyung was going through something, sure. He was quiet, but not angry. Not yelling. Not storming out.
So I told myself we were fine.
That night, I came home late. The office had run over, and I stopped to pick up a cake Seon wanted for his school party.
When I entered, the house was dim. My mother was in the living room, watching TV, muttering about the news. Hana was asleep on the couch — Taehyung had probably told her a bedtime story there.
He wasn’t in the kitchen. Or the bedroom.
He was sitting on the balcony alone, wrapped in a blanket.
I stood there for a moment. Watching him.
He used to be so vibrant. So full of thoughts he couldn't wait to share. Now he looked like someone who had run out of words.
When I walked over and sat beside him, he didn’t move.
He looked at me. And smiled.
A small, polite smile. The kind you give strangers who hold the door for you.
That hurt more than I could admit.
I didn’t know how we got here. And I didn’t know how to bring us back.
But the distance between us was growing. Quietly. Bit by bit. And I was too slow to keep up.
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sim
update more author ❤️
2025-07-31
1