Roses and Thorns
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- Parts 11
Marriage is a beautiful thing, but when it comes to the rigourous activity of searching and finding, one would realise there is more to it that meets the eye.
Nnanyelugo sat dazed in the armchair in her mother's room as she had just referred to the girl he wanted to marry as an osu- outcaste.
"Such practices don't exist anymore, Mother", he blasted helplessly at his mother.
"Onye si? Who told you?", his mother queried. " Jee juo ese". Go and ask questions she answered defiantly.
The osu caste system is an ancient practice in Igbo land that discourages social interaction and marriage with a group of persons called osu which means outcaste. Osus are dedicated to Alusi-deities of Igboland and they are usually considered as inferior beings and separated from the Nwadiala or Amadi which are known as real born.
The ferocity of his mother's voice scared me him witless.The thought brought a painful grimace to his face. His father was his lost hope. There was no way he was going to regard another human being as inferior. A human activist like his father, Eze Festus will not condone such evil.
He felt his father's obi become rather stuffy as his speech took the very direction that had him cringing in fear. His throat suddenly became dry and he was hyperventilating. His voice rugged and gagged.
"Where is she from?", Eze Festus asked, peering at his son w ith the daggers.
It was difficult for Nnanyelugo to speak audibly.
"Ihe-mbosi ", Mmiliaku answered almost immediately. Tapping her feet on the well tiled obi.
"You cannot marry her", Eze Festus said with a note of finality.
Hiss pupils dilated in fear. He cast pleading glance at his parents.There ought to be a hope somewhebre. It ought to be a nightmare but it wasn't.
He pleaded. He felt the tear escape his eyes. He had cried but they had remained as obstinate as ever. That was a part of his parents that were all to novel to him. The pain in his heart numbed him. There and then, a part of him died.
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Before you go
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Jisoo had always believed in love-the kind that made your heart race, the kind that made the world feel lighter when you were with someone. She never imagined that love could be ripped from her hands so abruptly, leaving only emptiness in its place. Suho, the man she thought she would spend her life with, had become a chapter that ended too soon, and yet, life had a crueler twist in store. Across the city, Taehyung was fuming behind the polished doors of his family estate. A man of discipline, control, and icy perfection, he had never tolerated unpredictability-least of all heartbreak. But when the woman he had planned to marry left him at the very last moment, his life, which had always been neatly ordered, fell into chaos. And now, by the insistence of his parents, he was to marry... a stranger. Their worlds collided in a contract neither wanted. Jisoo, heartbroken and betrayed by circumstance, faced the unimaginable: leaving the only love she had ever known, stepping into the arms of a man who made no effort to hide his disdain. Taehyung, stern, serious, and unyielding, saw only annoyance in her presence-a living reminder of a life he hadn't chosen. Forced together by duty, surrounded by expectations, and burdened with resentment, they entered a marriage built on obligation, not affection. Yet, fate has a way of twisting the simplest truths. In stolen glances, accidental touches, and moments of vulnerability, the icy walls around Taehyung's heart would begin to crack-and Jisoo, the girl he claimed to despise, would be the one to see the man behind the cold mask. This was a story of hate that simmered too close to love, of a bond forged in resentment that would test every limit of the heart, and of two people who had no choice but to discover that sometimes, love comes when you least expect it... and often, in the most unwilling hearts.
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