[2050, Debate Hall]
The hall was hushed, waiting for the debate to begin.
Jian, Shia, and Suyeon had arrived early and sat quietly side by side.
A tense stillness lingered in the air, and only their glances met in silence.
Then the door opened.
A familiar figure stepped in—Hanna Lee, dressed neatly in a formal suit.
Her expression was different from before: quieter, more unreadable.
Shia was the first to whisper.
"…Ms. Hanna?"
Hanna gave a small nod, but her gaze was cold.
"I didn't think we would meet again."
Her words sounded less like a greeting and more like a declaration.
Suyeon spoke carefully.
"Is this really… the future you wanted?"
But Hanna only turned away, shuffling through her prepared notes.
Silent. Steady. Moving exactly as someone who had already chosen her path.
[Breaking News]
Just before the debate began, headlines flashed across the overhead screen.
『Assemblyman Jung Jae-yoon declares: "AI connections are illegal climate agitation."』
『Multiple youth environmental accounts suspended—controversy erupts over platform response.』
『"Past intervention" conspiracy theories spread… public opinion in turmoil.』
Suyeon fixed her gaze on the screen, her lips pressed shut.
Jian slowly set down her tablet and clasped her hands together.It felt like the final breath before a storm.
[2050, Debate Hall]
The debate hall lit up, gradually revealing the stage.
On one side sat Jung Jae-yoon.
On the other, Choi Jae-hoon.
Each was flanked by their aides and allied figures.
At the back of the audience sat Jian, Shia, and Do-yoon.
Suyeon sat beside them, her face tense as she fixed her gaze on the stage.
The moderator stepped forward to the center.
"Today, both candidates will present their policy visions and positions to the public,
and through questions and answers, will have the chance to test one another."
The first to speak was Choi Jae-hoon.
He climbed the podium, gripped the microphone, and took a measured breath.
"Politics," he began, his voice gentle yet firm,
"is about narrowing the distance and warming the lives we share."
His words carried with quiet clarity.
"When a single cry from youth,
or a small, specific discomfort voiced by citizens,
can be shaped into policy—that is the very mechanism of democracy."
He slowly swept his gaze across the hall.
"Today, we must choose. Will we return to the past?
Or will we gather these small questions and small acts, and move toward the future?
I, for one, believe in the latter."
There was no applause—only silence.
But in that silence, a few heads nodded.
The moderator soon announced the next speaker.
"Now, a statement from Assemblyman Jung Jae-yoon's camp."
Jung approached the microphone.
"Friends, recent environmental policies have been swayed far too much by children's voices.
Policy must be based on science, on numbers, on facts—not on emotion.
Emotional experiments only endanger the lives of our citizens."
He turned deliberately toward Hanna Lee.
"Even Hanna, my aide here, failed in her transport policy because she was swayed by youth opinion.
It was not just a personal failure.
It was proof of systemic fragility."
A ripple of murmurs spread through the audience.
Eyes shifted to Hanna.
Suyeon and Jian both caught their breath.
Hanna rose quietly from her seat and walked slowly to the podium.
She unfolded her script.
Line by line, word by word—the familiar text she had memorized and rehearsed countless times.
But at that moment, the words refused to leave her lips.
Her fingertips trembled ever so slightly.
Her eyes drifted toward the audience.
And there she saw them: Jian, Shia… and the years she had tried to turn away from.
She drew in a deep breath.
Then, with calm finality, she folded the script and set it aside.
It was not the act of abandoning her role.
It was a choice: to finally speak her own words, unfiltered.
She stood at the microphone, and with a steady, clear voice said:
"Yes. In 2028, I failed to reform the transportation system."
A jolt ran through Jung Jae-yoon's camp.
"But it was not because I listened to the voices of the young.
It was because I failed to truly trust them to the end."
In the audience, pens began to scratch furiously.
Reporters' eyes gleamed.
Do-yoon froze mid-note, staring straight at her.
[Just Before the Debate, Backstage]
Hanna sat alone on a small chair along the long corridor.
The speaker on stage was still delivering their remarks,
but to her ears, none of it registered.
Instead, fragments of the past replayed quietly inside her.
The year was 2028.
The transportation reform plan.
She had believed she was right.
But the outcome was failure.
Budgets wasted. Citizens' anger unleashed.
Assemblyman Jung Jae-yoon revived that failure, twisting it into
"an example of what happens when policy is swayed by youthful emotion."
And Hanna… kept her silence.
To defend herself—no, more precisely,
because she could not bring herself to truly believe in herself.
When she first met Jian and Shia,
she tried to deny the weight stirring in her heart.
But one line Shia had spoken at the youth forum lodged itself deep inside her:
"Perhaps what we first need to change is not the world,
but the part of ourselves that gave up."
Hanna closed her eyes again.
The words felt like the confession she had never been able to make back then.
She looked down at the script resting on her knees.
Every sentence was airtight,
crafted with strategic precision.
And yet, strangely, she could not find herself in any of those words.
Her hand, turning the pages, stopped.
Quietly, she folded the script shutand pressed it down against her lap with one hand.
A deep breath.
Then she rose to her feet.
This time, it wasn't because someone told her to.
This time, she would walk forward on her own.
Through the slit in the backstage curtain,she saw the audience.
And there, in the middle, sat two girls, their heads lifted quietly toward the stage.
"This time… I won't be the one to give up first."
Hanna pressed her lips together and stepped toward the podium.
The stage lights were dazzling.
But beneath them, the eyes waiting for her felt warmerthan they ever had before.
[Back to the Debate Hall]
Hanna pointed to the screen.
"These materials are the very ones I once submitted to Assemblyman Jung Jae-yoon's team.
They warn about the dangers of AI connections, the risks of relying on youth judgment, the uncertainty of artificial intelligence."
The audience held its breath.
"But the truth," she continued, "was the exact opposite.
The system is only a tool. The choice… is always ours."
She clicked to the next slide.
"Youth voices are not a threat, but a warning—and an opportunity."
The words appeared in bold across the screen.
From the back of the hall, a quiet ripple of applause began to spread.
Hanna turned her gaze toward Jian and Shia sitting below the stage.
"These young people here today—I saw with my own eyes how their words, their actions, stirred people's hearts."
Her eyes lingered on them.
"A small complaint, a question of fairness, a simple 'this isn't right'—none of those were mere grumblings. They were signals of reality we had failed to see."
She paused. Her voice was still soft, but its weight carried.
"We too often dismiss the words of those we call 'too young.'
But… through these girls, I learned that sincerity has no age."
Assemblyman Jung rose from his seat, ready to speak,but Hanna shook her head firmly.
Confronted by that unflinching gaze, he said nothing and slowly sat back down.
Jian lifted a hand to her lips and whispered, almost in disbelief,
"…She's come back to us."
Shia squeezed Jian's hand tightly.
Suyeon looked at the two of them and smiled quietly—a smile carrying long-held relief, gratitude, and welcome.
On the podium, Hanna spoke her final words:
"Failure is not something to be ashamed of.
What matters is the courage to choose again after failure.
That—" she steadied her voice,
"is where our shared future begins."
[End of the Debate]
The moderator's closing words echoed through the hall.
"Today's debate was not merely a contest between two candidates, but a shared attempt born from questions and trust across generations."
Applause spread through the audience.
Dozens of camera flashes burst, and journalists scribbled furiously in their notebooks.
Assemblyman Jung Jae-yoon left the stage with a hardened expression.
No words followed him.
In contrast, Choi Jae-hoon exchanged a brief glance with Suyeon,while Jian and Shia clasped each other's hands with bright smiles.
Do-yoon gave them a quiet nod of affirmation.
[2050, Do-yoon's Workshop]
The following afternoon, silence filled Do-yoon's workspace.
Sheets of printed code and scribbled notes lay scattered across the floor,and the servers hummed steadily as if completing their final preparations.
On the monitor, a single message appeared:
"Time Bridge – One connection available / Target: Uncertain"
"Reconnection path confirmed."
A small cursor at the top of the screen blinked, glowing faintly.
Do-yoon's eyes flickered.
"It's ready… we can connect again."
Jian and Shia held their breath, while Ji-hyuk sat beside Jian, eyes fixed on the screen.
"So this is… really the last time," he murmured.
His voice was calm, yet carried an edge of resolve.
Jian smiled faintly.
"Yes… the very last."
Shia steadied her breath and nodded.
"That's why we have to be even more careful."
Do-yoon hesitated for a moment, then lifted his tablet and sent a message to Suyeon.
Moments later, her face appeared on the small screen, framed by the background noise of a bustling campaign office.
"Do-yoon, you mean LUKA… it's ready for reconnection?
This might be the final link?"
He nodded. "Yes. Would you… join us this time?"
Suyeon smiled softly, though the fatigue on her brow was evident.
"I wish I could. But right now, I can't step away from here."
She looked at the youths through the screen and added gently:
"This change didn't come because of the system—it came because you chose to move with sincerity.
I know that better than anyone."
Do-yoon lowered his head. "...Yes."
Shia raised her hand in a small wave, smiling faintly.
Jian met Suyeon's eyes and spoke quietly:
"Thank you. We'll go again—this time, to share our truth."
Suyeon gave a short nod.
"I'll be here, believing in you."
The call ended, and silence returned to the room.
Do-yoon rested his hand on the mouse, hesitated, then looked back at the others.
Jian gave him a small nod.
Shia's voice was steady. "What's left now… is only our truth."
Ji-hyuk gazed at the screen one last time, then said softly,
"The person we reach this time… might be the most important one yet."
Do-yoon clicked.
The monitor flared with a new message:
"Connecting target… / Year: 1997"
The server fans whirred louder, and the screen slowly darkened.
Excitement and tension crossed all four faces at once.
Words that Jian had held inside for so long rose quietly to her lips—not words meant for someone else, but perhaps for herself.
"So it's true… a single word can change something.
Because we believed, it kept connecting, again and again.
It feels like… we've come back to where it all began."
She closed her eyes briefly, then looked around at her friends.
In that moment,their gazes naturally converged on the faint light ahead—the doorway of connection opening within the dark.