Jay Park stood by the entrance, a quiet figure against the noise and light of the hall.

The ceremony hadn’t started yet. Guests floated by, greeting each other with soft laughter and clinking glasses. But Jay’s eyes, they never once wandered. They stayed fixed at the far end of the room — where you stood, dressed in white, smiling that familiar smile he hadn’t seen in so many years.

It should have been Jay standing beside you.

Years ago, when autumn still smelled like promise and not regret, you had fallen asleep on Jay’s shoulder in the university library. Your hand, small and warm, had clutched the sleeve of his sweater like it was the only thing that could keep you tethered to the world. You were each other’s first everything — first hand held, first kiss stolen in the cold between lectures, first whispered promises at midnight when the city had fallen asleep.

It had been so easy then. So blindingly easy to believe in forever.

Until that night. Until a phone left unanswered, a message misread, a silence that grew like a wall too high for either of you to climb. Jay had watched you cry, had seen the way your voice cracked when you told him to leave if he couldn’t trust you. Pride and fear — they had won that night. Love had been lost.

You hadn’t chased him. Jay hadn’t turned back. Two fools, both too hurt, too stubborn, too scared.

Jay had left the country the next morning, without looking back. Or at least, pretending he didn’t.

Years turned like pages of a book he never finished reading. Success came, distance came, and with it, the silence hardened. Jay had thought maybe time would cure the ache, the “what if” carved into every corner of his chest.

It hadn’t.

Now, standing just meters away, Jay could see it in your face — the same bitterness that corroded his own heart. You had moved on because life demanded it, because time was cruel that way. But the love, the love had never been buried deep enough. It sat there, heavy and raw, trapped behind every polite smile you forced tonight.