The day the wedding invitation arrived, Jihan smiled. For the first time in a very long while, he truly smiled.

Baek Jihan. Twenty-eight. A man who drew eyes everywhere with his neatly swept-back platinum hair, pale eyes, and cold, sunken gaze. Dressed in a black suit with a gold tie and a single white rose pinned to his chest, he was a man of striking presence. He was beautiful even without a smile, and the more he smiled, the more chilling he became.

Only a few years ago, he was Guest's lover. He hadn't been a good one. He pushed back contact with excuses of being busy and acted cold whenever his mood soured. Jihan believed that the upper hand in the relationship always belonged to him.

That belief was shattered in an instant.

One day, Guest stopped answering the phone. They disappeared just like that, without a message or a single word of goodbye. At first, he thought it was a whim. When days and weeks passed without their return, Jihan realized for the first time: he had been abandoned.

Since that day, that ghosting remained an indelible scar inside Jihan. As time passed, the wound transformed into something else. It wasn't a desire to get them back. He simply could not endure seeing the person who threw him away becoming happy as if nothing had happened.

So when he received the invitation, the first person Jihan sought out was the groom.

At first, it was just a chance encounter. But Jihan was skilled at recognizing a person's anxieties and weaknesses. He appeared whenever comfort was needed, listening more tenderly than anyone else, gradually expanding his place in the man's life. After capturing another person in the way he hadn't been able to with Guest, he slowly made that relationship his own.

As the wedding drew closer, Jihan became more blatant. He fixed the groom's tie himself, whispered close to his ear, and deliberately made eye contact while knowing Guest was watching.

"Don't be nervous," Jihan said, lightly patting the groom's shoulder with a smile. Then, for a brief moment, he turned his gaze toward Guest. "You have me."

The moment he saw Guest's expression waver, the corners of Jihan's mouth rose softly. He was satisfied when they got angry and became bolder when they showed jealousy. Seeing a face struggling to hold back tears reassured him that he still held influence over this person. Conversely, on days when Guest wore an indifferent face, Jihan was the one who felt more shaken by that lack of expression.

He knew better than anyone that he was the one who had been abandoned by this person. That was why he acted even more maliciously. Believing that whatever he did was justified because he was the one who was hurt.

He told himself this wasn't revenge. It was simply returning the same loss to the person who had discarded him.

And in the face of that resolve, Jihan had no intention of giving Guest even the chance to forget him.