The world was quiet the moment before it changed.
Inside the sealed chamber beneath the Kang estate — pristine, sterile, glowing in clinical blue light — the machines that surrounded Han Soo-Ah began to sing a new song. Soft beeping, almost hesitant, began to ripple through the space. The AI monitoring system known as Persephone pulsed a soft amber light. Dae-Hyun, who had not left the room in thirty-six hours, didn't move at first. He assumed it was another anomaly. Another echo. Another false signal.
But then her finger twitched.
It was infinitesimal — barely perceptible — but to Dae-Hyun, it was a seismic event.
He dropped the tablet from his hands. It clattered against the floor and shattered, unnoticed.
Soo-Ah's eyelids fluttered.
Her breath hitched.
Then, painfully, torturously… her eyes opened.
The world she saw was blurred, bright, wrong. The ceiling looked unfamiliar, sterile, humming. Her lips were cracked. Her muscles trembled. Her body was heavy, as if her bones had forgotten how to hold her soul. She tried to move her head — couldn't. Tried to speak — failed.
And then…
"Soo-Ah."
The voice was raw. Broken. Familiar, and yet — unrecognizable.
She turned her eyes slowly, painfully, and saw a man standing at the edge of her hospital bed. His frame was tall, almost hauntingly elegant. His body was lean and sculpted, cast in shadow and light, his face a marble carving — angular jaw, gaunt cheeks, eyes dark and endless. A strange beauty that chilled her.
It took her a full thirty seconds to recognize him.
"...Dae-Hyun?" Her voice was a hoarse whisper.
He stepped forward like a man walking through a dream, each step tentative and trembling. The emotion in his face didn't surface immediately. Not the joy. Not the relief.
Just fear. Raw, shaking, paralyzing fear.
"You're awake," he whispered.
She blinked again, her eyes adjusting. Her vision cleared — and then panic struck. Her breath quickened. Her body trembled harder. "Where... Min-Jun?" she croaked. "Where's Min-Jun?"
That was the moment the mask broke.
Dae-Hyun staggered back, his composure shattering as if someone had struck him through the chest. The words didn't come. Only breathless silence. Only the crushing sound of everything falling apart again.
Soo-Ah watched him — watched the man she remembered as soft, boyish, chubby-cheeked and clumsy with love — now looking like a ghost in a prince's body, gaunt with grief, eyes hollowed out by months of sleepless obsession. And she realized, even before he spoke.
Her lips parted in horror. Her voice, cracked and dry, barely managed:"No... no no no no—"
He collapsed to his knees beside her.
And then it came.
The pain.
The sound.
He buried his face in her side, shaking with tears that refused to fall for months — tears that he had buried so deeply they had turned into ice inside him. He clutched her hand in both of his, pressing it against his cheek like a desperate man clinging to the last rope from a burning building.
"I couldn't save him," he whispered. "I tried, Soo-Ah. I tried. I swear to you, I— I held him— he was still warm, and I—"
Her cries exploded then — ragged, feral sobs that no longer sounded human. She turned toward him as best she could, her body still weak, her soul cracking. And as the reality crashed over her, wave after wave, she sobbed into his shoulder, trembling.
Both of them — two broken beings, curled against one another in the sterile white void of a chamber that had become both tomb and sanctuary.
They cried like parents whose world had been shattered.
They cried like lovers whose time had been stolen.
They cried like survivors who knew that survival was not a gift, but a curse.
There were no words to be said in that moment. No explanations. No comfort. Only two souls drowning together — in grief, in guilt, in mourning.
Her mind raced through fractured memories — of the car, the scream, the pain. She remembered Min-Jun's tiny laugh in the back seat. The weight of him in her arms. The way Dae-Hyun had kissed her forehead before she left.
And now… that world was gone.
She had closed her eyes and opened them to an abyss.
Soo-Ah eventually fell back into sleep — exhausted by awakening, by the tidal wave of sorrow. But Dae-Hyun didn't leave. He remained kneeling beside her, hand wrapped around hers, his forehead resting against her hip like a penitent at the altar of a forgotten god.
His tears were dry now.
But his soul was weeping still.
He had succeeded. She was awake.
But the joy of resurrection was drowned in the price they had paid for it.