The office was quieter than usual.
Most of the lights on Luma Group's floor had gone dark, leaving only a few halos of white over scattered desks. The storm of whispers, rumors, sabotage, and small victories from the past days had finally drained into a soft, tired silence.
Yoon Ha-rin saved her file one last time and rubbed her eyes.
It had been a long day.
A good day.
A day where she hadn't broken, even when someone tried to bend her.
She slid her laptop shut and stood, intending to go home, when a familiar voice came from behind the glass.
"Miss Yoon," Kang Jae-hyun called, "two minutes."
She turned.
His office door was open, the city lights stretching behind him like a backdrop someone had painted just for him. He was loosening his tie, the top button undone, no audience left to impress.
"Director," she said, stepping in, "if this is about the report, I already—"
"It's not about the report," he said.
Her heart did a very inconvenient thing.
"Oh," she managed.
He studied her for a second, then let a small smile slip through. "You were incredible today."
A breath she didn't know she was holding finally left her. "I didn't cry in the bathroom. I consider that a win."
He huffed a quiet laugh. "That wasn't defense. That was domination."
"Big word for a man who almost smiled in public," she teased.
"Dangerously close," he admitted.
For a few moments, neither moved. The office hummed around them, the windows reflecting the two of them in the same space, at last on the same side.
Then Ha-rin's eyes fell to something on his desk.
An old pocket watch, silver, worn around the edges, lying atop a stack of files like it had fallen out of time and landed in the middle of their workday.
She pointed. "I've never seen you wear that."
He glanced down. "It's broken. I keep forgetting to throw it out."
"Throw it—" She frowned. "It looks… important."
"It was my grandfather's," he said. "He said it's been in the family longer than anyone remembers. Never worked properly. Just… sentimental metal."
She didn't know why, but she reached for it.
The moment her fingers touched the cool surface, something clicked.
A sound too small for the room, too sharp for her not to hear.
Tick.
She froze. "Did you hear that?"
Jae-hyun straightened. "Hear what?"
She held the watch up between them.
It ticked.
Once. Twice. Steady. Real.
Her pulse matched it.
"I thought you said it was broken," she whispered.
"It is," he said slowly. "It… hasn't ticked since I was a kid."
The sound filled the quiet between them like a third heartbeat.
For no good reason at all, Ha-rin felt a shiver race down her spine.
"Maybe it likes me," she said lightly, trying to ignore the way the air suddenly felt too aware.
He watched her, something unreadable in his gaze. "Then take it. Consider it a bonus."
She blinked. "I can't take your family heirloom as a performance incentive."
"Then take it as an excuse," he said. "Bring it back when it's fixed."
There was an odd weight to those words. As if he'd said: come back to me, again and again.
She slipped the watch gently into her bag.
It was still ticking.
And for the first time that day, she didn't have something clever to say.
"Goodnight, Director," she murmured.
"Goodnight, Ha-rin," he replied.
Their eyes held for one heartbeat longer than necessary.
Then she left.
Her apartment felt smaller than usual.
Ha-rin dropped her bag on the chair, poured herself water, and sat on the edge of her bed, still half-wired from adrenaline, half-soft from his words.
"You were incredible today."
She replayed it once.
Twice.
Too many times.
She reached into her bag for her planner, but her fingers brushed the pocket watch instead.
It was warm.
She flipped it open carefully.
No time showed on the face.
Just blank glass, faint scratches, and the soft, steady ticking that should not have existed.
"I'm too tired for haunted jewelry," she muttered.
To distract herself, she grabbed her sketchbook.
It was supposed to be for doodles. Random lines. Stress relief.
Her pencil touched the page.
She didn't think.
Lines came on their own.
A curve of wooden railing.
A river.
A small stone bridge.
Two tiny silhouettes standing side by side in clothes that didn't belong to this century.
She paused.
Her chest tightened.
She hadn't meant to draw this. She'd meant to draw nothing. Or maybe coffee.
But when she blinked, the scene on paper was painfully clear, eerily familiar, yet… older. Like a memory she'd inherited, not lived.
She whispered to herself, "Where did you come from?"
On her nightstand, the pocket watch ticked.
The sound tugged at something deep in her ribs. Not fear.
Recognition.
She turned the watch over in her fingers, and for a fleeting second, she imagined she saw an engraving she hadn't noticed at the office: Two tiny initials. H & J.
She blinked.
They were gone.
Just scratches again.
"Okay, brain," she said softly. "You've reached drama overload."
Still, she placed the watch beside the sketchbook.
Tick.
Tick.
The sound wrapped around her like a thread.
Outside, the city glowed.
Inside, a girl who'd spent years fighting predictable problems suddenly felt the shape of something impossible just beyond her understanding.
She lay down, the sketchbook still open beside her.
Sleep took longer than usual.
When it finally came, it came hard.
With it came a dream.
A field.
Not Aureum-ri as she knew it.
An older world. Lanterns. Hanbok. Stars pressed closer to the earth.
The same bridge from her sketch.
A boy with Jae-hyun's eyes.
A girl with her smile.
A silver watch in his hand.
Jasmine on the wind.
"If we break our promise," the girl whispered in that dream, "may time send us back until we get it right."
The watch in his palm ticked backwards.
The dream snapped.
Ha-rin jerked awake.
The room was dark.
Her heart was racing.
On her nightstand, the pocket watch had stopped ticking.
Only one thing had changed.
The clock on her wall showed 12:12.
Her phone notification log showed a new mail from work received at 12:24.
And yet the mail was already there.
Twelve minutes early.
She stared at the time.
Then at the watch.
Then at the sketch of the bridge.
A laugh escaped her, thin and disbelieving. "No. Absolutely not. That's… no."
But her skin wouldn't stop prickling.
Her chest wouldn't stop tightening in that strange, familiar way.
Something had moved.
Not just inside her.
Around her.
And for the first time in a very long time, Ha-rin wasn't sure if tomorrow would follow the rules.
She turned off the light.
The darkness did not feel empty.
It felt like something waiting.
Watching.
Counting down.