A long time ago, I read a short story collection, and I think one of them was titled "The Shock of Love." The protagonist starts visiting an acquaintance's house. I don't remember all the details clearly, but the protagonist is a university student, and the acquaintance is a university professor. It seems the protagonist started going there to help organize documents or something similar. Living in that house are the married couple, their daughter, and a housekeeper. The daughter is of age and not unattractive, but she doesn't dress neatly, and the hired housekeeper treats her harshly, even making her do the housekeeper's own chores. However, even when the parents witness this, they don't scold the housekeeper and just accept it as if it's completely normal. The parents also don't seem to cherish their daughter, treating her coldly. The acquaintance makes the protagonist promise one thing: He is strictly told never to get involved with the daughter—no greetings, not even speaking to her. When he asks why, he is simply told that if he wants to work at this house, he must follow this rule without exception. Though not entirely convinced, the protagonist agrees to obey. As he keeps visiting for a while, he witnesses numerous scenes where the parents and the housekeeper indeed neglect the daughter rather than cherish her. Eventually, feeling genuinely sorry for her, the protagonist breaks the promise one day and speaks to her. (I don't remember well, but I think it was just something like a greeting.)
A few days later, the professor tells the protagonist not to come to the house anymore. By then, the protagonist has grown to care for the daughter, who always acted so resiliently despite being treated so coldly. He begs them: "You guys are way too cold to her. If you're only going to treat her like a nuisance, please let me marry her. I can make her much happier than she is here, so please." Hearing this plea, the couple suddenly breaks down in tears and tells him the truth. The daughter has a congenital illness. If anyone is kind to her, her emotions surge and trigger a seizure, which can lead to death. When she was little, even just holding her in their arms would cause a seizure and bring her to the brink of death, so they were never able to hold or soothe their crying daughter. They couldn't nurse her when she was sick, nor could they speak gentle words to her. Their only option—and the only way to protect her—was to hurl cold words at her and treat her as if she were a nuisance, and they had kept this up all along. As for the housekeeper, she had initially felt pity for the daughter upon seeing the parents' attitude and tried to be kind, but that caused the daughter to have seizures. Therefore, they deliberately avoided hiring a kind housekeeper, choosing instead a lazy and unreliable one.
The couple tells the protagonist: "If you truly love her and want to marry her, then please, never be kind to her. If she is shown kindness, our child will die. If you can accept that, please take her as your wife." And so, the protagonist marries the daughter. Even at the wedding, the protagonist says things to the daughter that go completely against his true feelings: "I'm only marrying you because you're a professor's daughter, and I want to get ahead in life. You're just a tool for my success." Later, he learns from the couple that despite this, the daughter was so overjoyed to receive a proposal that she had a seizure that very night. Their married life begins, and even on their wedding night, the protagonist treats her like a prostitute or worse. He consciously forces himself to use harsh words and a cold attitude toward her, but one night, he accidentally mutters "I love you" in his sleep. Hearing that, the daughter has another seizure and nearly dies. The protagonist truly loves her and wishes to cherish her both physically and emotionally, but the more he feels that way, the more he is forced to treat her coldly, otherwise she will die. And so, even today, the protagonist remains on edge, forcing himself to act unkindly toward her.
It's an ending where no one finds happiness, or rather, where they *can't* find happiness. Instead of just leaving an unpleasant aftertaste, it's a story that left me with a deep, hopeless sense of sorrow.
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