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IN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS, Naeun will watch as her best friend exchanges vows with his fiancee and seals it all up with a kiss.
She will be standing by the side with tears streaming down her face—tears of happiness and regret.
At the wedding reception, she will approach her best friend with a smile and congratulate the newlyweds, wishing them happiness and prosperity as they venture out into their new life as a married couple.
After dinner, she will start reciting her well-thought-out speech, only to choke up when she gets to the part about their friendship.
"We've only known each other for eight years, but it feels like you've been with me, by my side, my entire life. And to see you grow from a mischievous and bratty teenager to finding someone who loves you just as much as you love her back makes me feel like the most accomplished and happiest friend ever. Looking back—Sorry, I'm getting a bit emotional here, haha..."
And he will come up by her side to hug her, hand caressing her hair as she cries into his shoulder.
During his speech, she will be the first person he talks about.
"And to Naeun, the greatest friend I could ever ask for, you're really one-of-a-kind. Thank you for absolutely everything. For all the nights when you would comfort me on the sofa when I didn't know how to navigate my relationship. For all the time we've spent together and the memories that we've made. I really don't know who I'd be without your presence gracing my life."
When the day is over and everyone has bid each other goodbye, she will return to her apartment and sigh as the door shuts softly. She will feel tears springing back to her eyes and fall to the ground, shaking as she sobs quietly into the empty silence of the night. A night that she should have enjoyed. A night that should have been happy.
But Naeun won't be happy. She will wish that things could have been different, that she wasn't so paranoid and selfless, that she wouldn't have let the man she loved go so easily.
She will wish that he loved her back, and maybe that could have been her sitting beside him at the head table, hand in hand, laughing joyously. It could have been them dancing to an overplayed love song with the lights dimmed low and everyone's eyes on them as they lose themselves completely in each other.
(He will whisper, "Not to be that cheesy groom, but you really do look beautiful as ever tonight," and she will gently slap his shoulder before leaning their foreheads in.)
She will wish that she didn't chicken out that day when things were going perfectly enough for the right opportunity to fall right into her palms. When they were both single and just two lovesick idiots, oblivious to each other's feelings that they oh-so-desperately tried to suppress in their hearts.
In twenty-four hours, Hanbin will find out that his wife doesn't love him.
He will have his heart broken and rush out of the apartment before she can justify anything to him.
But how could you justify an affair?
The traffic will be busier than usual, and cars will speed and accelerate dangerously in the city. Drunkards will get their hands on car keys and join the road. People out of their minds will find their way to a vehicle.
Hanbin will drive amongst the blurred lights that blind him enough to make a wrong turn and lead to a fatal collision.
Nobody knows where he was driving to that day.
When Naeun finds out, she cries and cries and cries, until she can't breathe and everything else in the world suddenly fades to black as she weeps herself to sleep, her head pounding so viciously as she prays that everything is just a lie and things will be okay when she wakes back up. Hell, maybe she wishes she didn't wake up at all.
But Naeun does wake up the next morning in a cold sweat. Her headache is gone and she can't feel the swell of her eyes or dry tear tracks on her face. The bright noon rays seep into the dullness of her apartment through the crevices of the living room blinds.
Naeun rummages around the sofa for her phone, but when she finds it, there's a yellow sticky note on the screen.
On the note, it says:
You have twenty-four hours.
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