The reception venue began filling with wedding guests at ten in the morning.
Soft accompaniment drifted from one corner of the room, mingling with the scent of lilies and white roses that adorned nearly every part of the venue.
Nara stood in the bridal waiting room, wearing the dress she had dreamed of since she was a teenager. She gazed at her own reflection in the full-length mirror one last time before the doors opened.
Her father had passed away five years ago, so her uncle, her mother's older brother, would walk her to the altar.
The middle-aged man stood beside her now in a neat black suit, gently patting Nara on the shoulder.
“Are you ready, sweetheart?”
Nara nodded, though deep in her heart, another question continued to circle endlessly.
Last night's messages.
The photograph of a strange woman whose face was identical to her own. The sentence about someone who would die because of the decision she made today.
She let out a breath, trying to banish those thoughts.
Sena was right. This was nothing more than an outrageous prank by someone irresponsible.
There was no point in letting something like that ruin the day she had waited years for.
The double doors at the far end of the room slowly opened.
The music shifted into a grand wedding melody, and all the wedding guests rose in unison, turning toward the entrance.
Nara took a deep breath, held on to her uncle's arm, and stepped forward.
At the end of the aisle, Raka was already waiting for her in an ivory-white suit that matched her dress.
His face radiated genuine happiness, and his eyes glistened as he watched Nara approach.
Every step Nara took seemed to unfold in slow motion—the smiling faces of the guests, camera flashes from every direction, and the sounds of several relatives in the front row weeping with emotion.
Yet amid it all, Nara caught sight of something strange.
In the very back row, far from the main crowd of guests, a man stood alone.
He wasn't wearing formal clothes like the other guests, only a long, dark jacket that looked out of place among the neat suits and elegant dresses surrounding him.
The man stared at Nara with an expression that was difficult to explain, as though he were witnessing something that should never have happened.
Nara recognized that face.
It was exactly the same face as the man in last night's photograph.
Her heart began pounding.
She turned toward the back row once more, but the figure had disappeared, as though he had never been there at all.
Nara blinked, trying to convince herself that it had only been a shadow, the product of a mind exhausted and overwhelmed by pressure since the night before.
She continued toward the altar, though her hand trembled slightly when she finally took Raka's hand.
“Are you okay?” Raka whispered, quietly enough for only Nara to hear.
Nara nodded, forcing a smile. “I'm okay.”
The wedding ceremony proceeded solemnly.
The minister led the sacred vows in a calm, authoritative voice, while Nara tried to focus all her attention on Raka's face before her—the face she had known and loved for seven years, the face that had always made her feel safe whenever the world seemed full of uncertainty.
Yet the image of the man in the dark jacket kept appearing at the edge of her thoughts, like a shadow that refused to leave no matter how many times she tried to drive it away.
When it was time to recite their vows, Nara's voice caught for a moment.
She looked deeply into Raka's eyes, searching for certainty there, searching for a reason to believe that this was the right decision.
And all she found was sincerity—the same eyes he had had two years ago when Raka proposed, eyes that had never once given her a reason to be suspicious.
“I do,” Nara said at last, her voice steadier than she had expected.
A roar of applause filled the room when Raka said the same. The two of them were now officially husband and wife, witnessed by everyone they loved.
Yet amid the happiness overflowing around her, Nara couldn't completely shake the discomfort settling at the bottom of her heart—the feeling that the figure in the back row had not merely been a figment of her exhausted mind.
She had really seen that man.
And somehow, he seemed to know her.
The reception continued until late afternoon.
Nara smiled as she accepted hundreds of congratulations, posed for photographs with dozens of guests, and savored every moment that was supposed to be one of the happiest days of her life.
Yet throughout the event, her eyes occasionally swept across the room, searching for the man in the dark jacket who had disappeared as quickly as he had appeared.
She never found him again.
When night fell and the last guest had gone home, Nara sat alone for a moment in the dressing room, taking off the shoes that had pressed against her feet all day.
She reached for her phone, which she had temporarily switched off that morning, and turned it back on.
One new message came in, sent several hours earlier.
Nara opened it, her hand suddenly turning cold.
“You just made the biggest mistake of your life.”