Morning sunlight spilled across Luma Group's wide glass windows as if it had no idea what the night before had done to two people.
For the rest of the office, it was just another Tuesday.For Yoon Ha-rin and Kang Jae-hyun, it was the day after the world had slipped sideways.
They sat across from each other in his office, the sketchbook between them.Neither had spoken for ten minutes.
Finally, Ha-rin whispered, "You saw it too. The bridge. The storm. The… ending."
Jae-hyun nodded slowly. "I felt the rain on my skin."He tried to laugh, but it came out shaky. "Maybe the HR department will add 'shared hallucination' to our teamwork report."
She glared at him, lips twitching. "You joke because you're scared."
He looked at her. "And you draw because you're braver than I am."
To make sense of what they'd seen, they called the heritage contact from Aureum-ri—Professor Baek, the historian from the restoration project.An hour later, they were in a quiet café near the old district, the professor's silver-rimmed glasses glinting in the dim light.
"Interesting," Baek murmured after studying the sketch. "This is the bridge before the flood of 1892. Only one other image like this exists—in an unsigned painting."
He pulled out his tablet and swiped until a sepia portrait appeared.
Ha-rin gasped.The woman in the painting looked exactly like her.
Even the tilt of the head.Even the eyes that looked ready to speak.
Jae-hyun's throat tightened. "And the man beside her?"
"Unknown," said Baek. "Legend says they were lovers separated by class. She was a painter's daughter; he, a noble's son. When a storm came, she crossed the bridge to save him. Both vanished."
The professor hesitated. "Odd thing—no one remembers painting this. It's as if it… appeared in the archives one night."
When they stepped back into the street, the wind smelled faintly of rain.
Ha-rin stopped walking. "A painter's daughter."
Jae-hyun turned. "What?"
"She drew. I draw." She tapped her sketchbook. "What if these aren't memories from nowhere? What if they're hers—mine—ours—from then?"
He reached for her hand before realizing what he was doing. "Then maybe this is our second chance to give them the ending they never got."
She looked down at their joined hands, and despite everything—the dizziness, the fear—she smiled.A small, trembly, human smile.
"Guess I'll have to paint us a happier ending," she whispered.
"Do it," he said. "I'll make sure the bridge doesn't collapse this time."
The next few days blurred.
Between meetings and deadlines, they stole minutes together to compare sketches and flashes of memory: a blue ribbon, a brass bell, a candle-lit room.Na-eun, of course, noticed first.
"Why do you two look like you're living in a secret novel?" she demanded.
Ha-rin laughed too quickly. "We're just… studying history."
"Right," Na-eun said. "And I'm the CEO of Netflix."
Her teasing was light, but when Jae-hyun walked by and didn't look at Ha-rin—because the entire department was watching—Na-eun leaned in and whispered, "That man is trying way too hard not to love you out loud."
Ha-rin's cheeks burned. "Stop."
"Never," Na-eun said, grinning.
For the first time since the watch began to tick, Ha-rin laughed like the world was still safe.
That night, she and Jae-hyun met again in his office.He'd closed the blinds; the only light came from the desk lamp.
He opened the drawer and pulled out the pocket watch."Listen," he said.
The second hand ticked forward.
Her heart leapt. "It's fixed?"
He shook his head. "It's different. I wound it backward by accident, and now it's… correcting itself."
He looked at her. "Maybe so are we."
She smiled faintly. "Maybe time's forgiving us."
He reached across the desk and took her hand."Ha-rin," he said quietly, "if we really are repeating our story… then I don't want this version to end in tragedy."
"Then let's make it end in laughter," she said.
"Promise?"
"Promise."
The air shifted.A flicker of light crossed the room like a reflection—but there was no mirror.
Ha-rin blinked and saw it: faint, translucent, a portrait of two figures standing side by side behind Jae-hyun.
The painter's daughter. The noble's son.Both smiling.
And as quickly as it appeared, it dissolved into silver dust.
The watch ticked once more and fell silent.
Jae-hyun looked at her, startled. "You saw it?"
"Yes," she whispered, eyes glistening. "I think they're finally watching us finish what they started."
She left the building later with tears she couldn't name.The kind that don't come from sadness or joy—just the overwhelming sense that you're alive inside something larger than logic.
At the crosswalk, she turned her face to the wind.The city smelled faintly of jasmine again.
Somewhere behind her, the pocket watch in Jae-hyun's office ticked once—soft, steady, forward.
And for the first time in two lives, time was on their side.