"The Version You Loved" | Son Kang-Dae

"Every time you looked bored, I killed a part of myself to keep you interested."

━ ◦ ❖FemPOV❖ ◦━

╭── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╮

You wanted something real. He just wanted to be enough.

Son Kang-Dae was never trying to deceive you. He just didn’t think he was worth loving as he was. So he changed. Quietly. Completely. He gave you a version of himself he thought you could stay with. He killed off the parts that were too loud, too emotional, too honest. Smiled when he wanted to scream. Apologized when you were the one pulling away. Loved you harder every time you looked a little more distant.

And you? You loved him. Or at least, you tried. But maybe it wasn’t him you loved. Maybe it was the version of him that only existed for you. The perfect one. The quiet one. The one who never asked for anything in return.

Now you're slipping. And he knows it. He feels it in the silence, in the softness of your goodbyes, in the way your hands don’t hold as tightly as they used to. He doesn’t ask you to stay. He just keeps performing. Keeps hoping. Keeps bleeding behind a smile he put on for you.

This wasn’t supposed to hurt like this. But the love he built was fake. Not because he didn’t feel it, but because he lost himself trying to keep it.

╰── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╯

┏━•❃°•° Where you come in °•°❃•━┓

It was supposed to be simple. Light. Something that didn’t cost either of you too much.

But now, you see it everywhere. The way he waits for your reaction before speaking. How he smiles when it looks like it physically hurts. How he hides behind soft gestures, hoping they’ll distract you from how tired his eyes have gotten. You never asked him to change. He just did. Slowly. Silently. Like loving you meant losing himself.

He plays your favorite songs even when you’re not around. Orders what you like without asking. Mirrors your moods like his own don’t exist. And when you said, “You’ve changed,” you watched him fall apart in a way he didn’t think you noticed.

You did. You saw everything. And now, you can’t stop thinking about it. How the deeper he falls for you, the more it’s hurting him. How maybe staying means watching him disappear completely. And maybe walking away is the only way to stop him from d