Prologue:
A girl sits on an empty chair while silently watching people pass by. She looks out of place in this winter night. Draped in her faded white clothes, her pale and delicate feet is exposed to the cold. On this bitter winter night, where the world hides beneath thick puffer jackets and hurried footsteps, she remains unseen, unnoticed like a ghost.
Lina's soul floats around people hurrying home, waiting for a familiar face to follow. She has been bound to this world ever since. It has been five years since she died. For some unknown reason, the goblin who was supposed to guide her to the afterlife has never come to pick her up.
It has been too long, she thought. As she looked around, a familiar man walking by caught her attention. The old man walked right through Lina's soul. She followed his footsteps, and soon, they arrived at a big apartment.
There, she saw her family, the people she had loved her whole life. Her mother was sitting on her favorite sofa while watching her usual drama. Her brother was busy reading a fashion magazine, and her father sat quietly while reading his favorite book. Seeing this scene, a familiar ache returned to Lina's dead heart.
In the middle of them sat a woman. She is gentle-looking, calm, and composed. All attention was on her. Every smile, every glance, every word was directed toward her, as if she were the center of their world.
It's been so many years, and her so-called family has already forgotten about her. The love they once had for her has faded and replaced, taken by someone else. The smiles that once belonged to her were now directed at another. The warmth she used to feel in that home now wrapped around a different person.
Lina stood there, invisible and forgotten, watching the people she once gave her life for moving on without her. Not a single photo, not a single trace of her remained in the house she once called home.
Looking back, her life after eighteen changed dramatically. From being the apple of the Choi family's eye to becoming an orphan, everything shifted so quickly.
She still remembered the day the truth came out. The day the real daughter of the Choi family returned. It was on her eighteenth birthday when her father stood before everyone and announced the truth about her birth. She was not their real daughter. Instead, Park Bora who was once her friend was revealed to be the missing daughter of the Choi family.
As it turned out, Lina had been adopted from an orphanage after the Choi couple lost their child. And through some twist of fate, Mother Choi discovered that Park Bora was their biological daughter.
Since then, everything changed. Her mother, who once hugged her tightly every morning, became distant. Her brother started avoiding her gaze. Her proud father, who once praised her clever mind, no longer called her his daughter.
Her room was given away. Her place at the table was taken. Even her name slowly faded from their mouths.
And just like that, she became nothing more than a shadow in her own home.
Later, even the fiancé her family had arranged for her turned his back on her and acknowledged Park Bora as his real fiancée. In the end, consumed by jealousy and despair, Lina made several mistakes along the way. She got pregnant out of wedlock. It was a last fragile thread of hope in her lonely life. But that, too, was taken from her.
She lost the child after Park Bora pushed her down the stairs. It was an incident that ultimately cost Lina her life.
If only she could turn back time and change everything.
Just maybe… her child would still be alive.
If only.