The three-second eyeball duel with the sharply suited stranger across the room successfully threw Mira’s respiratory system into complete dysfunction. Mortified at being caught red-handed presenting a total trainwreck persona to a man blessed with such symmetrical facial geometry, Mira promptly choked on her own spit in the least graceful manner humanly possible.

"Ahem... cough! Cough, cough!" Mira hacked violently, hammering away at her own chest.

In a blind panic, she grabbed the glass of ice-cold mineral water sitting beside her plate and chugged it down in one reckless, un-braked gulp. Unfortunately, because her throat was already bone-dry from stratospheric levels of stress, the water took a wrong turn down her windpipe.

"Hrk! Cough-cough!" Mira choked even harder, sending fresh tears streaming down her face, washing away the remaining foundation on her cheeks and threatening to dissolve her black eyeliner into a bootleg panda-style mask.

Mrs. Darmawan and the elite relatives seated around the VIP table whipped their heads around with a blend of disgust and horror. "Goodness, the girl eats and drinks like she's never encountered clean water in her life. So utterly classless," muttered an aunt adorned in pearl necklaces seated to Mira's left, her tone dripping with disdain.

Mira didn't care anymore about elite commentary. She was too busy gasping for air while black spots danced across her vision.

Suddenly, the silhouette of a man draped in a sharp charcoal-gray suit materialized right beside Mira’s chair. Before Mira could even lift her head, a strong yet gentle hand slid a clean tissue and a glass of warm mineral water—nicked straight off a passing waiter's tray—onto the table.

"Take it easy, miss. The inter-regency fast-drinking mineral water championship doesn't start until next week; you're jumping the gun," noted a baritone voice that was calm, crisp, and laced with distinct amusement.

Mira slowly raised her head. The man who had been watching her from across the room—Aris—now stood right beside her chair, a subtle smile playing across the corners of his neatly shaped lips.

Mira accepted the warm water with trembling fingers, sipping it slowly. Once her coughing subsided and her breathing regulated, she glared at Aris with defensive, wide eyes, forcing a fierce expression to mask a humiliation that had long since breached the stratosphere.

"Ahem! Thanks a lot for the tis-su... I mean, the tissue!" Mira snapped defensively, trying to adjust her concrete Super Saiyan updo, which had drifted dangerously to the right. "And for the record, mister! I wasn't entering a speed-drinking contest; I was just temporarily malfunctioning because my throat suddenly developed an allergy to the toxic, heavy-pollution atmosphere of this VIP table!"

Aris let out a soft chuckle, his laughter sounding remarkably melodic yet deeply irritating to Mira's ears. He pulled out the empty chair right next to Mira—without asking anyone's permission—and sat down casually, resting both arms on the table.

"Oh, so that's what we're calling an allergy nowadays? I honestly thought you were acting out an exorcism scene for a local ghost movie victim drenched in sate sauce back by the pillar," Aris commented effortlessly, his eyes casually darting toward the Borneo-shaped brown stain smeared across the chest of Mira's baby pink dress.

Mira shot him a lethal glare, her face flushing a nuclear shade of crimson that rivaled her clown blush. "Hey, mister! Watch your mouth! You've been staring at me the whole time, haven't you? Talk about having zero life! Don't you have any hobbies other than acting as a front-row spectator to other people's life disasters?"

"It's not that I have zero life," Aris replied smoothly, flashing a bright, clean smile. "To be completely honest, this wedding reception has been boring me half to death. The couple's speech dragged on forever, the music lacks any real punch, and the uncles next to me won't stop talking about real estate prices and palm oil mills. I should be thanking you for the world-class live performance from the moment you marched in right up until that epic dangdut koplo ringtone."

The plump uncle to Mira’s right whipped around, his face dark with outrage. "Hey, young man! Watch your tongue! What right do you have criticizing our conversation?!"

Aris turned his head leisurely toward the plump uncle, arching a single eyebrow with a cool, untouchable charisma. "Pardon me, sir, if the truth hits a bit too close to home. But isn't it true? Frankly, chewing on sate is a lot more productive than listening to real estate bragging—though I suppose some of that peanut sauce accidentally found a second home on my friend's dress here."

The plump uncle huffed indignantly, turning his face away in a huff as he was thoroughly intimidated by Aris's razor-sharp stare.

Mira stared at Aris in absolute shock. She hadn't expected a single sane human being inside this luxury fortress to openly roast the blue-blooded VIP clique without a shred of fear.

"Who... who on earth are you, anyway?" Mira whispered, hovering somewhere between genuine terror and sheer awe. "Aren't you terrified of getting booted out by security or scrubbed permanently from the Darmawan family registry?"

Aris offered a faint, enigmatic smile, locking his gaze straight into Mira's eyes, which were still framed by smudged eyeliner. Before answering, Aris reached into his jacket pocket and slid a sleek, matte-black business card embossed with raised gold lettering gently across the table toward Mira's empty plate.

"Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Aris Pratama," Aris said in a low, grounding voice. "And to answer your question... I'm not part of their inner circle. I'm just an independent legal consultant who happened to get dragged here by a corporate boss from an allied firm."

Mira cast a fleeting glance down at the card. It bore Aris's full name alongside a high-ranking professional title that screamed established stability.

"Oh... a legal consultant," Mira mumbled softly, feeling herself shrink down to the size of a stray shrimp cracker next to this impossibly put-together man. "No wonder your attitude is so irritatingly sharp and all-knowing."

Aris rose slowly from his seat, smoothing down the front of his impeccably tailored charcoal-gray suit. He checked the luxury watch strapped to his wrist, then looked down at Mira one last time with a mysterious smile that did very strange things to the rhythm of her heartbeat.

"It was an absolute pleasure meeting the most unique drama queen I've ever encountered in my entire life, Mira Anastasya," Aris murmured softly right beside Mira's ear before turning on his heel to slip away into the retreating crowd of wedding guests.

Mira sat paralyzed in her expensive chair, watching Aris’s broad shoulders vanish into the throngs of people.

Deep inside her chest—somewhere beneath the lingering trauma of the dangdut ringtone disaster and the unsightly sate stain on her bodice—a strange, fluttering rhythm began to drum quietly against her ribs, echoing far louder than her stomach's earlier tractor engine.