system: Us

Kim never expected his marriage to be anything more than a contract.

Arranged unions were simple in theory-duty, distance, polite coexistence. Especially when your husband was Latte, an Enigma who treated emotions like variables to be observed rather than felt.

For two months, that's exactly how it was.

Cold routines. Short conversations. Separate worlds sharing the same roof.

Until small things began to change.

A hand that stayed a second longer. A glance that returned more often than necessary. A presence that no longer disappeared at random.

Kim told himself it meant nothing.

But Latte started showing up anyway.

At sick nights when silence felt too heavy. At meals that turned into shared conversations. At moments that slowly blurred the line between "required" and "chosen."

Then came jealousy he couldn't explain. Friends who noticed too much. A closeness neither of them admitted to building.

And somewhere between logic and instinct, between efficiency and emotion, their "temporary marriage" began to feel dangerously real.

Because Latte doesn't love like most people do.

He observes.

He adapts.

And once something becomes important to him... he stays.

Now Kim has to face the one truth he never prepared for:

What if the man who once called love "inefficient"... is the one who never left at all?