[Shin Hae-won — Unknown Place, Unknown Time]
The first thing she felt was warmth.
Not emotional. Literal.
Sunlight spilled over her face. A soft breeze kissed her cheek. Birds chirped nearby.
Then—grass.
She was lying on grass. Damp. Real.
She gasped and sat up, heart pounding in her ears.
Where the hell am I?
Last thing she remembered—white light, panic, Do-yoon fading, Min-jae pulling her, and her fingers grasping both of theirs like lifelines.
But now…
She looked around. A park. Familiar yet foreign.
Old Seoul Tower loomed in the distance—but its design looked wrong. Almost outdated.
She pulled her phone from her pocket. No signal. The date read:
June 7, 2015.
"What—"
"Good," a voice said behind her. "You're awake."
She turned fast.
And there he was.
Do-yoon. In the flesh. Not flickering, not glitching. Fully solid, fully real.
Her heart flipped so hard it hurt.
"Do-yoon?" she whispered.
He smiled, tired but soft. "Yeah."
She launched into his arms. "You're alive. You're whole."
He chuckled into her hair. "Yeah. I think so."
"But how?"
"I don't know. I woke up ten minutes ago over there—" he pointed to a nearby hill, "—and found the date on a newspaper."
She pulled away, brows furrowed. "2015? Why here?"
He looked just as confused. "It's the year I was about to propose to you."
Her breath caught.
That year—those memories—had been erased. They were part of what was sacrificed.
"But what does this mean?" she asked. "Have we gone back? Is this a replay?"
"Not just a replay," a third voice said coldly.
Both turned sharply.
Seo Min-jae.
He stood a few feet away, dressed in black, his expression unreadable. A tiny cut bled at his temple, and his eyes were sharp, guarded.
"You dragged us both back here," he said. "And something is wrong."
---
[Seo Min-jae – Internal Log | Year Unknown]
Min-jae knew immediately something had broken.
Not just time.
Fate.
He hadn't intended to dive in that deep, hadn't expected the system to tether all three of them and send them backward through a corrupted time thread.
But now here they were.
In a version of Seoul that shouldn't exist.
A place where past timelines were bleeding into one another.
He checked his watch. It wasn't ticking. The digital display simply read: ???
He looked at Hae-won again.
She looked stunned, confused… and glowing in that morning light.
But what stabbed at him was the way she'd run into Do-yoon's arms before even realizing he was there too.
You knew she loved him, he told himself.
But love wasn't static. Time changed everything.
And so would he.
---
[Shin Hae-won — 2015 Seoul, or Some Version of It]
"We need to figure out if this is real," Hae-won said, pacing near the lake while the two men followed her with growing tension.
"Real enough," Do-yoon muttered. "We're breathing."
"That doesn't mean this is our reality," Min-jae said. "It could be a memory layer, a collapsed loop, or worse—"
"A test," Hae-won whispered, stopping.
They both looked at her.
She turned slowly. "What if this is Gwan-woo's doing? One last trap. See what we'd choose if given another chance."
Min-jae stepped forward. "Then don't fall for it."
Do-yoon scoffed. "You think I brought her here on purpose?"
"You said yourself you'd vanish to save her," Min-jae said. "Now she's stuck between two men because neither of you can let go."
Hae-won spun. "Enough!"
Both men stopped.
She rubbed her forehead. "I need a moment. Alone."
Do-yoon opened his mouth, then closed it.
Min-jae's jaw tightened, but he nodded. "We'll be nearby."
She watched them walk opposite directions—two halves of her heart splitting across a park stuck in a time that didn't belong.
---
[Later – Hae-won's POV]
She sat by the lake's edge, watching ducks float as the sky turned a golden orange. The silence gave her space to feel everything:
The kiss in the Core.
Do-yoon's whispered promise.
Min-jae's desperate voice calling her back.
The pull of two futures… and the fracture of her own.
"Why now?" she whispered to the sky.
A rustling behind her made her turn.
It was Min-jae. Quiet. Hands in his pockets.
He didn't sit, just stood beside her.
She looked up. "You okay?"
"No." His voice was softer than she expected. "But I will be."
He stared out over the water.
"You really tried to save both of us," he said.
She nodded slowly. "I couldn't let either of you go."
"I didn't expect you to choose me," he murmured. "But I hoped."
She reached out and gently touched his hand. "You were the one who helped me remember him. That matters."
"But does it change how you feel?" he asked, eyes finally meeting hers.
Her answer was silence.
And that silence was enough to ache.
He nodded slowly and sat beside her, their shoulders brushing.
"Whatever this place is," he said, "we're not alone. And we need to stick together until we understand what's going on."
She smiled faintly. "Agreed."
"Also," he added with a sigh, "we should check the university."
She blinked. "Why?"
"Because if this is 2015, that means Professor Gwan-woo hasn't been promoted yet."
Her eyes widened.
"You think we can stop him before all this begins?"
He smirked. "Time's not a straight line. Maybe we can… rewrite it."
---
[Do-yoon — Across the Park]
He watched them from afar.
Their closeness. The way she leaned slightly into Min-jae as they spoke.
His gut twisted.
But he couldn't blame her. This version of her had known him for mere hours again.
Min-jae had been there—had risked everything to pull her back.
Still… he wasn't ready to give up.
Time had stolen her once.
He wasn't going to let it happen again.
---
[Later That Night — Hae-won's Apartment (From the Past)]
Miraculously, her key still worked.
The apartment was untouched. Like a museum piece preserved in amber.
She stood in the doorway, breathing in the scent of old books, faint coffee stains, and forgotten dreams.
The boys stayed in the hallway while she stepped inside.
A letter sat on the kitchen counter.
It hadn't been there before.
She picked it up.
Her name was written on the front in handwriting she didn't recognize.
Inside:
> You're not supposed to be here.
But you always were the anomaly.
Find the mirror before midnight. Or this second chance disappears.
– G.
Her hand shook as she looked at the clock.
11:21 PM.