Theater: NovelMaster | Language: English
Synopsis
I used to follow a low-profile, cozy couple's account online.
It documented all the little moments between the guy and his girlfriend.
They would bicker over sharing a single bowl of takeout noodles, only to laugh and call each other overgrown toddlers.
They would hold each other tight under a starry sky on a mountaintop, wishing time would freeze right there.
Even though the creator never showed his face, I found myself genuinely moved by his captions.
Until the day before my wedding, when the account posted an update.
[Ten years of loving each other ends today.]
[From now on, she’s his wife, and I’m just his best friend.]
[This account won't be updating anymore. Wishing my best friend and the woman he loves a lifetime of happiness.]
Attached was a photo showing the backs of my fiancé and me.
That picture was taken last week at the bridal boutique.
Ethan was adjusting my tuxedo collar, rambling on and on with a smile on his face.
In the mirror, he looked even happier than I did, as if he were the one walking down the aisle.
"Liam, man, you clean up so nice. That's my boy."
His voice cracked slightly. "Chloe is one lucky girl."
Chloe was sitting a few feet away, adjusting her veil.
Hearing her name, she looked up and offered a soft, gentle smile.
Yet, for some reason, that smile felt strained.
"You're being dramatic," I said, swatting his hand away playfully.
"If you hadn't dragged me here, I probably would’ve just rented whatever off the rack."
"No way!" Ethan's eyes went wide.
"This is my best friend's once-in-a-lifetime wedding! You can't just settle!"
He turned to Chloe. "Right?"
Chloe set down her veil, walked over, and naturally slipped her hand into mine.
"Of course he can't. My Liam looks amazing in everything."
"Though this one really does suit you perfectly."
She looked me up and down, her voice sweet and shy, her eyes glowing with admiration.
Before we headed out for the venue photoshoot, Ethan suddenly snapped a photo of us.
The shutter sound echoed in the room. I turned to look at him, but he just laughed and said he wanted a candid memory.
The night before the wedding, at my bachelor party, I got completely wasted. Ethan immediately stepped in to take care of me.
When Chloe arrived to pick me up, he was gently dabbing my forehead with a cold, damp towel.
"Leave Liam to me," he told Chloe. "Tonight's his bachelor party. The bride-to-be shouldn't be crashing this."
Chloe stood by the doorway, not taking another step inside.
Her gaze rested on Ethan, heavy and unreadable.
I leaned back on the couch, watching them through a drunken blur.
"Chloe..." I mumbled her name.
Only then did she look at me, walking over to wrap her arms around me. "Why did you drink so much?"
Ethan grinned. "Because he's getting married! He's happy!"
"Back in college, Liam always swore that whenever he got married, he'd get completely trashed at his bachelor party. Tonight, he finally made it happen."
I had indeed said that, while watching a romantic movie with Ethan years ago.
Back then, we promised we’d be each other's best man.
When I started dating, that promise never changed.
Chloe gently helped me up and looked at Ethan. "Thanks for taking care of him."
"Always," Ethan's voice dropped, barely audible. "After all... this is the last time."
I was so drunk that I didn't catch the hidden weight in his words.
It wasn't until the next morning, waking up with a splitting headache in the hotel, that my phone buzzed with an Instagram notification from that couple's account.
I groggily tapped on the post.
In that exact second, my hangover vanished into ice-cold shock.Finding that account had been pure chance.
One afternoon while scrolling on my phone, the algorithm recommended nearby accounts, and one profile picture featured an anime character I really liked.
Curiosity got the better of me, so I tapped in.
The account only had around three thousand followers. The latest post was from three days prior.
It was a photo of a late-night office desk with the caption:
[Working past midnight. She said she’d starve with me in solidarity, but ended up ordering two pizzas anyway. What an idiot.]
I instinctively scrolled down.
[She said I've been eating too little lately, so she kept pushing all the steak slices from her plate onto mine. When I told her I wasn't that hungry, she teased me for being a picky baby.]
[Watching the stars on the mountaintop. She whispered she wished time could stop right here. Truth is, so did I.]
[Came down with a fever. She skipped work just to look after me. She can't even cook, but she insisted on making pasta. It was completely burnt, but it tasted amazing.]
...
Post after post, my heart ached with how sweet it was.
Those mundane, tender routines were exactly what I had always imagined true love to look like.
I wanted to leave a comment wishing them well, but comments were disabled, so I just quietly hit follow.
How was I supposed to know that in every single memory of their happiness, I was merely the oblivious third wheel?
He claimed they had been in love for ten years.
Yet Chloe and I had only been together for ten years as well.
I had known Ethan for twenty years.
When I was ten, his family moved in next door.
The first time we met, he had a sharp buzz cut and offered me a cherry lollipop.
"I'm Ethan. We're gonna be best friends!"
From grade school all the way through college, we were inseparable.
He knew all my secrets and stood beside me through every milestone of my life.
Sophomore year of college, I met Chloe.
She was the campus sweetheart, the girl every guy in the humanities department was crushing on.
I was just an average architecture major, quiet and unremarkable. I never dreamed she would ever look my way.
"What are you scared of? You're our department's rising star," Ethan had cheered me on. "Want me to go grab her Snap for you?"
Later, Chloe and I started dating.
Ethan was the first person I told. He picked me up and spun me around, practically bouncing off the walls.
"Hell yeah! Our boy Liam finally bagged the prettiest girl on campus!"
I was certain that in that moment, he was truly happy for me.
People online always joked that a girl's best friend is like a second mother-in-law to the boyfriend.
While a guy's best bro is basically an annoying, adopted child to the girlfriend.
Ethan didn't fit that mold at first.
Even though he acted thrilled when I told him I was in a relationship, the moment he actually met Chloe, he found fault with everything she did.
On our first double-date-turned-lunch at the dining hall, I had dressed up nicely to eat with Chloe.
Ethan, having pulled an all-nighter for a massive group project, showed up with dark bags under his eyes, greasy unwashed hair, sweatpants, and flip-flops. He shoved past Chloe and flopped right down next to me.
Chloe paused, startled, and had to walk around to sit across from us.
Ethan looked her up and down with blatant disdain.
"This is her? Bro, honestly, I think I cheered too soon. You sure you don't wanna reconsider?"
He didn't hold back at all, and Chloe's face went completely pale.
Later, when I asked Chloe what she thought of my best friend, she rolled her eyes. "He's fine, I guess."
I laughed, kissed her cheek, and said, "He's my best friend, and you're the love of my life. You two have to get along."
After college, Chloe and I rented a small apartment together.
Ethan would drop by all the time for dinner, and when it got too late, he’d just crash on our couch.
"Honestly, the way you two treat me, I feel like your adopted teenage son," he once joked.
Chloe would play along, putting on a stern motherly expression. "Then get off your lazy butt, son, and go wash the dishes instead of freeloading."
Our apartment was always filled with the three of us laughing.
I never, in my wildest nightmares, imagined that this cozy life was just a mirage built on dirty lies.I stumbled into the bathroom, splashing ice-cold water onto my face over and over, but my racing pulse refused to settle.
Tomorrow was my wedding.
The invitations were sent, the venue was booked, my tuxedo was hanging in the closet—everything was ready.
My hands shook violently as I dialed Chloe's number.
Once, twice, three times...
No answer.
I stared blankly into the mirror for a long time. Then, driven by an eerie instinct, I dialed Ethan's number.
The exact same busy tone.
My stomach plunged into an abyss.
I couldn't wrap my head around it. When they were sneaking around behind my back, did they ever feel an ounce of guilt?
Or did they just thrive on the cheap thrill of an illicit affair?
I knew Ethan was a travel vlogger. He had a habit of taking photos everywhere he went, leaving footprints all over social media.
I also knew people in media always kept burner accounts.
I searched the hotel's location tag on Instagram and sorted through nearby posts.
Finally, on a private account titled "The One Who Isn't Loved Is The Intruder," I found a photo.
In the picture, a woman's slender hand was popping open a bottle of champagne. On her wrist was a delicate bracelet—the exact one I had gifted Chloe for her birthday last year.
It was Chloe.
The caption was just one chilling line:
[Stolen time. Every second is a countdown.]
Below the post, dozens of comments praised their "undying true love," while a few questioned whether they were cheating.
Trembling, I opened the profile. This account was the polar opposite of the wholesome couple's feed I had followed.
This one had over a hundred thousand followers and had been created years ago.
On this account, he had documented the twisted dynamic between the three of us from the very beginning.
The very first post was full of passive-aggressive bitterness toward me:
[If I knew the campus sweetheart was that easy to get, I would've made a move myself. Can't believe my friend actually bagged her.]
[And he didn't even give me a heads-up about their lunch date. Did he really need me to show up in messy sweatpants just to make himself look good? What a joke.]
In the comments, people laughed about "fake bromance," and he replied with a smirking emoji.
Later, when I caught a bad flu and Chloe came over to care for me, he wrote:
[Some people have all the luck. Needs a full-time nurse just for a stupid fever.]
[Blessing in disguise, though. Ended up alone in the living room with her. Guess he's good for setting us up after all~]
Behind my back, in the corners I couldn't see, they had long crossed every line.
Ethan wrote: [We both secretly added each other on our burner accounts at the exact same time. Is this telepathy or what?]
Accompanying that post were countless screenshots of redacted text messages.
They talked about music, dreams, and art—everything Chloe claimed I was too practical to understand.
Ethan always stroked her ego, and Chloe constantly told him how effortless it was to talk to him.
One Valentine's Day, Ethan handmade chocolates and mailed them to her office, yet refused to accept any expensive gifts from Chloe, claiming he didn't want her spending her money on him.
Chloe melted, telling him he was the most special guy she’d ever met.
They played this delicate game of flirtation, but after every single update, Ethan made sure to claim that "my bro inspired this."
Buying him gifts was justified as "thanking him for taking care of Liam." Taking him out to eat was excused as "taste-testing restaurants for Liam."
In Ethan's twisted narratives, I was painted as hot-tempered, clueless, and emotionally distant.
Under the cover of self-righteous deceit, they indulged shamelessly in their forbidden betrayal.On Ethan's birthday, I bought him the limited-edition watch he had drooled over for months.
The very next day, he wore it to an "accidental" run-in with Chloe, deliberately letting her slip into the corner of his selfie at a coffee shop.
When the three of us went to the movies, he snapped a photo under the armrest: his fingers tightly intertwined with Chloe's.
The night Chloe said yes to my proposal, Ethan posted a long, agonizing letter pouring out his heartbreak and resentment.
[Tonight, I need an answer,] he wrote. [If she loves me too, we shouldn't let each other slip away.]
And he got what he wanted.
That night, when he kissed her, Chloe didn't pull away.
They agreed to take one last wild vacation together before the wedding. That was why Chloe told me she had a week-long business trip.
Nausea surged up my throat.
What late-night overtime? What corporate conferences? It was all just cover for their romantic getaway.
Over those seven days, Ethan posted dozens of short reels.
He claimed he wanted to rewrite every memory Chloe and I ever had, flooding her future with his presence.
Like a masochist, I scrolled through every single post. From restaurants to luxury suites, from scenic ferries to hiking trails—the scenery was everything Chloe and I had planned, but the man beside her wasn't me.
As I watched, the suffocating agony slowly turned numb, until finally, it felt absurd.
When your heart truly dies, even hatred feels like a waste of energy.
As the first light of dawn broke through the window, my mind cleared.
The wedding had to be canceled.
I opened my laptop and began drafting an email to our guests.
With every key I pressed, a dull ache radiated through my chest.
Ten years of romance, twenty years of brotherhood, erased in a single morning.
Before I could hit send, my phone rang. It was Ethan.
"Liam? Why are you calling this early?" His voice sounded bright, effortless. "You're gonna be the most handsome groom today, man. You can't be pulling all-nighters."
I parted my lips, but no sound came out.
Noticing my silence, his tone turned gentle and concerned. "Liam? You okay? Are you just nervous before the big day?"
"Where's Chloe? Why isn't she keeping you company? Is she buried in work again and ignoring your calls?"
"Seriously, I swear that girl has her priorities backward. If you guys weren't getting married in a few hours, I’d call her right now and chew her out for you!"
What a sick joke.
Only hours ago, he had posted that melodramatic farewell on Instagram, yet here he was, comforting me like nothing had happened.
"N-No, I'm fine," I finally forced out. "Just... nervous. I suddenly wanted to hear your voice."
"...You idiot," he chuckled softly. "Don't worry. Today is going to be perfect, I promise."
"Right now, all you need to do is get some sleep. I've got everything else covered."
Suddenly, a muffled gasp came from his end of the line. It was Chloe's voice.
Swallowing the burning lump in my throat, I asked, "Ethan, is there anything you're keeping from me?"
The line went dead silent for a beat before he laughed nervously. "What are you talking about, Liam? What's gotten into you?"
"Put me on speaker," I said.
Ethan hesitated, but I heard the click of the speakerphone.
"Ethan. Chloe."
My voice was calm, steady, and clear. "I'm calling off the wedding."
"I hope you two are very happy together."
Chapters (4)
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Watch & Promotions
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