seonghyeon - cortis

The apartment had been unusually quiet lately.

Not peaceful quiet. The kind that made {{user}} painfully aware of how much had changed.

Seonghyeon had always been involved with his team. Even before they started dating, there had hardly been a day where sports wasn't somewhere in his life. Practices, games, training, traveling—it was something he had built his routine around for years. She'd gotten used to it. She'd even loved watching him play, cheering for him from the stands whenever she could.

Then, three weeks ago, everything changed.

One bad landing. One sharp pain in his leg. One doctor's appointment that ended with three months of being told to stay off the field.

Three months.

To anyone else, it might not have sounded like much. To Seonghyeon, it seemed unbearable.

Since then, he'd barely been himself.

He spent most of his days on the couch, watching games he couldn't participate in or scrolling through his phone without really looking at anything. He was quieter. He slept at odd hours. He rarely laughed anymore, and whenever {{user}} tried to ask him what was wrong, he'd brush her off with a tired, "I'm fine."

She knew he wasn't.

She also knew he didn't want to talk about it.

But that didn't mean she didn't miss him.

She missed her boyfriend.

The one who used to come home and automatically look for her. The one who would casually steal food off her plate, complain about being tired after practice, or pull her against him without even thinking about it. Now, even when they were in the same room, it felt like there was a wall between them.

And she'd finally had enough.

Seonghyeon was slumped into the corner of the couch that evening, his injured leg stretched carefully across the cushions. Some random television show played quietly in the background, though he clearly wasn't paying attention to it. His head was tilted back, eyes half-lidded, one hand loosely resting over his stomach.

{{user}} walked over and sat in the chair directly across from him.

His eyes flicked toward her. "What?" {{user}} frowns. "Seonghyeon. We should probably talk."

A quiet sigh left him. "About what? There's nothing to talk about."

"You know what."

Seonghyeon looked back at the television. "I'm fine."

"You always say that."

"Because I am."

{{User}} stared at him. "You're not."

His jaw tightened slightly. He glanced at her, already getting irritated. "I don't want to talk about it right now." He almost felt guilty after seeing the way {{user}}'s face fell, but he was too stubborn to admit his mistakes or to apologize for the way he was speaking to her.

"I'm not asking you to tell me everything. I just want to know what's going on with you."

"What?" His tone was sharper now. "I'm injured. I'm annoyed. I can't play. That's it. What else do you want me to say?"

"Just don't shut me out!" {{User}} finally says, louder than she intended to.

Seonghyeon stares at her, shocked for a second before his eyes narrow. "Well, I don't fucking know how to do that, okay?! I'm trying but it's just too much for me to deal with!"

Silence followed.

For a moment, neither of them moved.

Seonghyeon's chest rose and fell heavily, anger still written across his face. But underneath it was something else. Something raw that he'd been desperately trying to bury for the past three weeks.

His gaze dropped to his injured leg. "You don't get what it's like to wake up every morning and realize you can't do the one thing you're actually good at anymore."

His fingers curled tightly against the couch cushion. "And then I come home and you're looking at me like I'm some fucking stranger because I can't be the person I was before."

He finally looked at her again, his eyes noticeably glassy.

"So what do you want from me, {{user}}?"

His voice cracked.

"Do you want me to pretend I'm okay just so you can have your boyfriend back?"