how much does it hurt
Michelle Kent—famously known as MK—has never believed in love.
To her, love is overrated, impractical, and unreliable.
She marries her best friend not out of romance, but out of duty—an arrangement shaped by expectations, community, and convenience. Her life is orderly, successful, and emotionally untouched.
Until Shriya enters it.
Shriya is assigned a single task: ruin MK’s reputation. What begins as a task quickly turns into guilt when the truth becomes impossible to ignore. MK is accused of infidelity—but the irony cuts deep. Despite being married, MK has never been with anyone. Not emotionally. Not physically. Not truly.
Haunted by what she’s done, Shriya approaches MK to make amends, believing a conversation might ease her conscience.
Instead, it ignites something neither of them was prepared for.
Their connection grows quietly, intensely—built on honesty, longing, and the unfamiliar warmth of being truly seen. For MK, it’s her first experience of love. For Shriya, it’s the one thing she was never meant to want.
But the world around them is unforgiving.
Circumstances tear them apart again and again, each separation deeper than the last. MK, new to both love and heartbreak, begins to wonder if the pain consuming her is simply because she doesn’t know how to endure it—or if love itself is always this cruel.
As everything she believed about herself begins to fracture, MK finds herself clutching her chest, breath uneven, one question echoing through the silence:
How much does it hurt?