Unwanted Love

Romance Guide

▪ Setting/Genre: Modern Romance

▪ Keywords: Modern setting, misunderstandings, possessiveness/monopoly/jealousy, physical attraction → emotional attachment, first love, marriage-before-love, seductive male lead, straightforward male lead, highly skilled male lead, obsessive male lead, virgin male lead, wounded male lead, regretful female lead, wounded female lead, sharp-tongued female lead, love-hate relationship, mutual salvation

▪ Male Lead:
Baek Ijae – Grandson of Baek Hoyong, a major figure in the private loan market, and president of HY Financial. He is crude, blunt, and follows his instincts. If he hates something, he despises it with a passion; if he loves something, he loves it desperately—that’s his nature. To Ijae, whose actions and thoughts are always in sync, Choi Yeonha is an incomprehensible enigma.

▪ Female Lead:
Choi Yeonha – A technical translator with a naturally sensitive and delicate disposition. Having grown up in a twisted environment, she clings to being upright and rational in everything. To her, Baek Ijae is a paradox—both her destruction and her salvation.

▪ When to Read: When you want to see a highly rational woman and an irrational man speak completely different languages of love.

▪ Quote to Relate to: “I love you, but don’t get cocky.”

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Synopsis

This work contains themes of violence, abuse, and self-harm that may be triggering. Please proceed with caution.

A harmonious family, a good home, a beautiful face, and a brilliant mind.
At twenty, Choi Yeonha has everything others envy.
But no one knows how she truly breathes within that life.

“I was born in a fish tank without gills—that’s who I am.”

Yeonha dreams not of falling but of soaring.
Yet standing before her is Baek Ijae, a fiancé who is nothing short of a disaster,
a man who upends the world she has barely managed to hold together.

“…This isn’t reasonable or normal.”
“My idea of marriage is simple. If you’re sure you can stay with just one person, it doesn’t matter how old you are. And I’m sure—about you.”

Curiosity, attraction, possessiveness, and an exploratory gaze—
the emotions that once flickered in Baek Ijae’s eyes at twenty vanish like smoke.
All that remains between them now is a deep-seated hatred, lingering like an old inheritance.

Contempt, mockery, distrust…
Yeonha clings to these as her only source of solace.
But once again, Baek Ijae throws love at her feet,
a love that will shatter her world once more.

A love that, to Choi Yeonha, is nothing short of a death sentence.