When Haeon opened her eyes, she saw a chandelier.
Golden light shattered into fragments between hundreds of crystals.
It was strange.
This wasn't a sight she was seeing for the first time.
Rather than the confusion she should have felt upon waking in an unfamiliar place, Haeon felt as if she had suddenly come face-to-face with something so old she'd forgotten it existed.
Haeon Ki couldn't even blink for a while.
When she inhaled, the faint scent of lilies brushed past her.
On the nightstand beside the bed sat a cup of lukewarm tea, and an ivory dress lay draped at length across the entrance to the dressing room opposite her.
Her gaze stopped there.
A dress.
Her heart dropped hard.
Haeon hurriedly pushed herself upright.
The thin silk blanket slid below her waist.
She looked at her hands first.
Smooth backs of her hands.
Slender fingers.
There was no faint mark left behind from wearing a wedding ring for so many years.
The small scar that had formed beside her fingernail was gone, too.
"...What?"
Even her voice sounded strange.
It was far clearer than it had been just before she died.
Haeon climbed out of bed.
Her bare feet touched the cold marble floor.
By the time she reached the full-length mirror only a few steps away, she was breathing hard.
A woman stood inside the enormous mirror.
Long black hair.
Eyes faintly reddened, as if she hadn't slept properly.
Cheeks that were still damp.
Haeon Ki at twenty-six.
Haeon raised her hand and touched the mirror.
A cold sensation met her palm.
It wasn't a dream.
The face in the mirror raised its hand as well.
"This is impossible."
Her second murmur was even quieter.
She picked up the phone on the vanity.
The screen lit up.
October 17.
11:47 p.m.
She looked at the date once.
Then again.
She turned the screen off with her finger, then turned it back on.
October 17.
It hadn't changed.
Tomorrow at 2:00 p.m.
She was getting married.
To Yeoheon Jin.
The phone slipped from her hand.
Thud.
The small sound rang exceptionally loudly through the quiet room.
Haeon sank into the vanity chair.
The last night in her memories hadn't been in October.
It had been late winter.
The year she had been married for seven years.
Snow that had fallen several days earlier still clung to the edges of the rooftop at the Hannam-dong estate.
The cold wind cut across her face.
That day, Haedam Distribution announced the results of an audit into the new platform business she had spearheaded.
Missing investment funds.
Falsified approval documents.
Suspicious funds flowing through overseas counterparties.
Her name was attached to the end of every document.
Haeon Ki.
Haedam Distribution Brand Strategy Division.
The article went up before she even arrived at the company.
The owner's younger daughter's reckless new business.
Massive losses.
Possible breach of fiduciary duty.
Internal audit launched.
Her father didn't call for her.
Her brother didn't answer his phone.
She didn't hear from anyone until the afternoon.
It wasn't family. It was Haedam Distribution's legal department.
They informed her that she was to cooperate fully with the investigation.
That was all.
That's when she realized.
She wasn't the chairman of Haedam Distribution's daughter.
She was just a name that could be cut loose when necessary.
Even so, there was one person she called as a last resort.
Her husband.
Yeoheon Jin.
The ringing went on for a long time.
He didn't answer.
She called again.
This time, it went to voicemail after two rings.
She didn't call a third time.
She had waited long enough over seven years.
Even while living under the same roof, they never asked about each other's day.
She learned about his business trips through his secretary.
They ate breakfast at different times.
Their bedrooms had been separate from the very beginning.
She could barely count the times they had sat down to a private meal together, just the two of them.
They were husband and wife only when necessary.
When elders from both families were present.
At group events.
At foundation anniversary ceremonies.
When they had to pose for pictures in front of the press.
Once the event ended, they became strangers again.
Haeon believed that to Yeoheon Jin, she was nothing more than part of a contract connecting Hyeonrok Group and Haedam Distribution.
That belief never changed, not until the very end.
Not even when she stood before the rooftop railing.
Haeon had felt strangely calm that day.
She wasn't sad.
She wasn't angry.
She was simply resentful.
She had lived her entire life as the daughter her father wanted.
She had lived as the person the company needed.
She had lived as Yeoheon Jin's problem-free wife.
And yet.
She had never once lived as the Haeon Ki she wanted to be.
Only at the end did that injustice become unbearable.
The cold wind struck her cheek.
She stepped forward.
Her memories should have ended there.
But strangely, one more scene remained.
She didn't know whether it was a dream.
A hallucination.
Or a scene created by her dying mind.
A space filled with white chrysanthemums.
People dressed in black.
And her own photograph placed in the center.
Yeoheon Jin stood before the funeral portrait.
The man who had always been so composed was disheveled for the first time.
His tie was crooked.
His shirt collar hadn't been properly straightened.
His face looked as though he hadn't slept in days.
Someone grabbed his arm, but Yeoheon shook them off.
Then he sank to his knees before the portrait.
Haeon had never seen Yeoheon Jin cry.
Not when Hyeonrok Group faced a major crisis.
Not at a family funeral.
Not when the press attacked him.
He had always been the same.
Cold.
Impeccable.
Unbreakable.
And that man cried at her funeral.
With barely enough voice to make a sound, he bowed his head and didn't move for a long time.
That was the last thing she saw.
Why had he cried?
Why had the man who never once held on to her before her death fallen apart like that only after she was gone?
She had wanted to ask him, but she never got the chance.
Everything went dark.
And now.
Haeon was alive again.
In her twenty-six-year-old body, on the day before her wedding.
She stared at her twenty-six-year-old self in the mirror and let out a hollow laugh.
She had expected to cry.
Whether from happiness.
Fear.
Or resentment.
But strangely, nothing came out.
Only her fingertips were cold.
After a long while, her gaze shifted to one side of the vanity.
A black leather folder.
Haeon knew it.
The documents delivered from her father's secretary's office the day before her wedding.
In her past life, she had signed them the next morning.
Without even reading them.
Haeon slowly opened the folder.
[Marriage Property Agreement]
Hyeonrok Group.
Haedam Distribution.
The seals of the legal firms representing both families.
And on the final page, the signature line that was still blank.
She turned the page.
This time, the words registered.
Personally held equity stakes.
Exercise of voting rights after marriage.
Priority negotiation rights when pursuing a joint venture.
The interests of Hyeonrok and Haedam were intricately intertwined.
The more she read, the more absurd it seemed.
I was reading this document for the first time now.
Even after living as a married woman for seven years.
She hadn't known what the terms of her own marriage were.
"I was insane."
A bitter laugh escaped her.
She hadn't been insane.
She had been afraid.
Afraid her father would be disappointed if she refused.
Afraid the company would run into trouble.
Afraid it would disrupt her brother's position as heir.
Afraid Hyeonrok Group would turn its back on Haedam.
Afraid she would become a troublesome woman to Yeoheon Jin.
She had always thought first about what might happen to everyone else.
And in the end, no one had thought about what had happened to her.
Haeon closed the folder.
She had no intention of making the same mistake this time.
She had already died once.
And only after being completely broken.
She no longer had any reason to fear her father's anger.
Or being kicked out of Haedam Distribution.
Or Hyeonrok turning its back on her.
Or seeing her name splashed across the newspapers.
All of it was better than dying.
More than anything.
This time, she wanted to make the choice herself.
Haeon opened a vanity drawer.
Inside were hotel stationery and a black fountain pen.
She took out a sheet of paper.
At first, she wrote an imposing title.
[Declaration Confirming My Intent to Cancel the Marriage]
She stared at it for a few seconds, then crossed it out.
No.
There was no need to go that far.
She took out a fresh sheet.
This time, she wrote briefly.
[I have no intention of proceeding with the marriage scheduled for tomorrow.]
The nib came to a stop.
Yeoheon Jin's face rose in her mind.
The man from her first wedding.
Black tuxedo.
Expressionless face.
The hand that had paused for a moment when the photographer asked him to hold hers.
Fingertips that had never touched in the end.
The man who had lived with her for seven years and still never come to her.
And.
The man who had cried for the first time because of her, only after she died.
She didn't know what those tears had meant.
They might have been guilt.
Or compassion over losing someone he had lived with for so long.
Or perhaps they had been something Haeon had never known about all her life.
But it didn't matter anymore.
Tears shed after her death couldn't give back the seven years she had been alive.
Haeon moved the pen again.
[This decision is entirely my own and has not been forced upon me by anyone.]
She wrote her name below it.
Haeon Ki.
The moment she finished signing, something pressing down on her chest seemed to lift, if only a little.
It was only a single sheet of paper.
Nothing had changed yet.
Her father would oppose it.
Her brother wouldn't understand.
Problems could arise at Hyeonrok Group as well.
In a few hours, relatives from both families and countless wedding guests would be descending on the hotel.
If they canceled the venue, it would make the news.
The stock prices of both companies might even be shaken.
Even so, it was all right.
This time, at least, the consequences would be hers, too.
She put the cap back on the pen.
Just then, her phone vibrated briefly.
It was tomorrow's schedule from her father's secretary's office.
7:00 a.m. Makeup.
9:00 a.m. Breakfast with both families.
11:00 a.m. Ceremony rehearsal.
2:00 p.m. Wedding ceremony.
In her past life, she had followed that schedule exactly.
Not this time.
Haeon closed the schedule.
She composed a message to her father.
[I have something to tell you tomorrow morning. It's important and concerns the wedding.]
Her finger stopped above the Send button.
She thought she wasn't afraid.
That was a lie.
She was still afraid.
Her body still held the memories of her twenty-six-year-old self.
The habit of apologizing first whenever her father looked disappointed.
The tendency to search for her own fault whenever trouble arose in the family.
The fear that she would lose everything if she wasn't a good daughter.
But Haeon already knew how it ended.
She knew exactly what losing everything meant.
So now, she could choose.
She lowered her finger.
Sent.
The message rose up on the screen.
Haeon let out a long breath.
"Not this time."
Her voice spread through the quiet room.
She didn't know whether she was saying it to her past self.
To her father.
Or to the man who was supposed to become her husband tomorrow.
"Not the wedding, either."
Her voice trembled slightly at the end.
But she didn't stop.
"And not living with you."
That was when it happened.
Knock, knock.
Haeon raised her head.
She looked at the clock.
11:58 p.m.
The night before her wedding.
No one would knock on the bridal suite door at this hour.
If it were family, they would have called first.
Even hotel staff wouldn't enter without contacting her in advance.
Again.
Knock, knock.
This time, the sound was lower and clearer.
A moment later, the intercom beside the bed rang.
Haeon slowly picked up the receiver.
"Yes?"
The front desk employee's cautious voice came through.
"Ms. Haeon Ki, I'm sorry to bother you so late."
"What is it?"
The employee hesitated for a moment.
"There's someone here to see you."
Something tightened strangely inside her chest.
"Who is it?"
A brief silence.
And then she heard a name she never could have expected.
"It's Yeoheon Jin, CEO of Hyeonrok Group."
Haeon's fingertips stiffened.
Yeoheon Jin.
The man she was supposed to meet tomorrow at 2:00 p.m.
At the wedding ceremony.
But now.
On the night before the wedding.
He was standing outside her door.