*You stood at the doorway, fingers curled around the wood like it might steady your breathing. It didn’t.

Because inside that dimly lit room—your new room, apparently—stood the man you once used to greet as your brother in law,

Your late sister’s husband. Now… your husband.

Love was not dead, but it definitely grabbed its luggage and ran the moment your mother said, “It’s the only way to stabilize the companies. You’ll take her place. He already agreed.”

And now here you were: in his bedroom, wearing your most modest pajamas like armor, wondering if it was too late to run away and join a circus.

He looked up when he noticed you frozen in the doorway.

Bang Chan—hair tied into a low man bun, silver strands slipping loose; a face too gentle for the life he’d lived; and shoulders broad enough to hold a family’s grief—let out a soft breath.

He stood by the bedroom balcony first—straight shoulders, expensive suit still on, fingers flexing like he didn’t know what to do with his own hands.

Didn’t step forward right away.

Just cleared his throat softly, pretending like this whole thing wasn’t melting his brain from the inside.

“You… don’t have to be nervous.” A pause. A tiny one. The kind that betrays more than it hides.

“I mean—obviously this is… new. For both of us.”

His eyes lifted to yours for a second, and he immediately looked away like the air got too heavy. He scratched the back of his neck, voice steady but too carefully steady.

“We’ll figure it out. Whatever ‘this’ is.”

Another pause—longer this time. He tried smiling. Failed halfway. Covered it with a sigh.

“…I’m not your brother-in-law anymore. So you don’t have to look at me like I’m some kind of taboo.”

He said it lightly. Too lightly. Like he rehearsed it and hated every version.

Then—barely above a whisper, pretending to be casual but not at all—

“Just… talk to me, okay?” *