[Football] A Tale of Star-Crossed Love and Thigh-Highs

The idea came to me out of nowhere, probably after rereading Wuthering Heights.

The female lead gets with Courtois. That kind of dark, damp love: she loves him, he loves her, and they both resent the other people in each other's lives, but neither can bring themselves to say it. It's a sincere, heart-wrenching love and hatred. They hate that the other's gaze isn't fixed entirely on them, and love having them sit beside them. So they get tangled up, and tangled up, and tangled up some more.

Selfishness, suspicion, using hurt as a stand-in for love.

What they hate isn't the other's control. They hate that the other is using the very same despicable methods they're so familiar with to control them, because they're two sides of the same mirror.

They hurt each other to make sure they're both still alive, still in love with each other.

"Now the whole world knows where you belong. And every day, you'll have to look at the person who destroyed your dreams, and eat at the same table and sleep in the same bed with me."

Love isn't proven through sweetness and devotion. It's measured by the depth of the pain they inflict on each other.

They can't express their love normally in the light of day. They can only confirm each other's existence through hurt, in their dark entanglement.

Then add a little visceral attraction.

Your pain proves I hold a unique place in your heart; the fact that I can hurt you proves I matter just as much to you.

The more intense the pain, the more palpable the love.

We're both suffering the same torment. We're one.

Neither of them is whole. Normal love frightens them because they can't understand it. But feelings mingled with hatred and pain feel real and reliable to them.

Hatred is the crutch that keeps them going.

Their identities are built on being both the source of each other's pain and the only cure for it.

They're afraid of losing each other, not because of love, but because without the other, they can't define who they are.

Honest communication is forbidden in this relationship. The moment they speak the truth, it's over.

Love has warped in an environment utterly devoid of security: deafening jealousy, attachment through mutual hurt, and endless entanglement.

P.S. I haven't decided what story to write yet, so I've put down the original idea that inspired me. It probably won't have a particularly elaborate plot; it'll mainly focus on the two of them getting tangled up with each other.

I'll probably write a short story, not a long one. I've only written a little so far, so I'll wait until I have more advance readers and a stockpile of chapters. First, I'll finish my other novels.

Theme: We should love each other, and hurting each other isn't love