When I woke again, the world felt softer—like someone had turned the saturation down just enough to make everything gentle. The harsh fluorescent lights had been dimmed to a pale morning gray. My throat didn't hurt as much, and I realized the hum of the machines had become part of the silence, a constant low sound that no longer startled me.
The sheets were warm. The air smelled faintly of jasmine—perhaps mom had decided to try a new blend of tea, I had thought. My body still ached, but the pain no longer clawed at me. It just sat there quietly, like an old pet that had stopped growling.
And then I heard it—gentle, low, like a song I'd known forever.
"Aureal?"
The voice wrapped around my name like light, tender and patient. I smiled sleepily, still halfway between dreaming and awake. It was too beautiful to be real. Too much like him.
Still, I opened my eyes.
He stood there in the low morning light, still and unreal, like he'd been painted into the room. He wasn't dressed in anything dramatic—just a pale sweater and jeans, a sharp contrast to the sterile white around us—but somehow, he looked untouched by everything human. As if the air bent differently around him.
He looked exactly the same as he had in the veil — same gentle eyes, same faint, sad smile — only now there was color in his cheeks, warmth in his skin. The hospital light softened the planes of his face until he looked half-ethereal again, like something that could vanish if I so much as blinked.
For a long, trembling moment, I couldn't bring myself to speak. I was afraid that sound — any sound — might make him vanish, like smoke disturbed by wind.
"Haneul?" I whispered, testing the word like it might disintegrate on my tongue.
And then I saw his eyes.
Not the soft brown I remembered from years ago, but a deep, impossible crimson — the same shade I had seen in the veil, when the world had dissolved into light and ash. The sight of it hit me like déjà vu and fever all at once.
He looked up, and that small, easy smile appeared—the kind that used to get him out of trouble with teachers and make people forgive him for everything. "Hey."
That was it. Just hey. No dramatic "Are you okay?!" or "Oh my god, you survived!" Just a calm, completely underwhelming "hey."
I stared at him, unsure whether to laugh or cry. Typical. The world could end, and Haneul would still talk like we'd just bumped into each other at a 7-Eleven.
"You're awake," he said softly. "I wasn't sure if…" He trailed off, shaking his head. "You really scared everyone."
I blinked, certain it was the hospital lighting, a trick of fatigue, something rational. But when I looked again, the color was still there — alive, glinting faintly like an ember refusing to die out.
"Everyone?" My throat was raw, the word scraping its way out.
My stomach twisted. Maybe my brain's just… broken. Maybe the accident had scrambled something — swapped colors, rewired the world. Maybe brown looked red now. Maybe everything did.
He pulled the chair closer and sat, his hands clasped loosely in front of him. For a long moment, he didn't speak. Just looked at me. His gaze was gentler than I remembered—patient, but carrying some deep, quiet ache I couldn't name.
He reached out, brushing the back of my hand with his fingertips before hesitating, as if waiting for permission. The touch was feather-light, and my skin prickled with the warmth of it.
"How—how are you here?" I asked, trying to find steadiness in my voice. "You and I haven't… we haven't talked in years."
He looked down at our hands, thumb brushing the edge of the hospital blanket. "Your stepmom called me."
That didn't make sense. Mom knew who my friends were from before, but Haneul and I hadn't spoken since graduation, not since that last strange summer where everything had started to fall apart and distance became easier than explaining things we didn't understand. We hadn't spoken in years, not since we'd graduated. No texts, no calls, no random run-ins. He'd been the kind of person you don't accidentally bump into again. And yet, here he was, sitting beside my hospital bed like no time had passed.
I glanced at his eyes again, half-expecting the color to have blundered back into something ordinary just to prove me right. They didn't change. The crimson sat there, patient and inexplicable. I tried to find proof of my supposed colorblindness elsewhere—my eyes skittered to his hair. Brown. The same brown I had always known. No fever-dream scholarship could make my scalp register one color and my iris another. I felt a tiny, ridiculous panic bubble up—was I the only one seeing this? Was I the only one who'd been somewhere strange?
I must have been staring too long, because his gaze softened, and he tilted his head a little. "You're trying to make sense of it, aren't you?"
My lips parted, but I didn't—couldn't— answer.
He exhaled slowly, and for the first time, I saw a flicker of uncertainty in his expression. "You still remember the veil, don't you?"
The words hit like a pin dropped in still water — small, but the ripples spread fast.
My pulse jumped. "The what?" I said too quickly, too defensively.
He didn't look surprised. "You don't have to pretend," he said quietly. "I know it sounds impossible, but after… after what happened with you — the light, the whole sky cracking like glass — we all found ourselves back here. The others too. Woke up just like that, in the living world again."
I stared at him, every word pressing into the air between us like something fragile and dangerous.
"I tried to find you after," he continued, his voice quieter now. "It took time to make sense of everything, but I reached out to Lim Harin once I was sure we were really alive again."
I couldn't breathe for a second. His words felt both too strange and too familiar, like puzzle pieces that shouldn't fit but somehow did.
"You look tired," I said at last, feigning lightness. Anything to keep the room from tipping into the strange space where questions multiplied.
He laughed softly, and it was a sound that steadied me. "Been a little restless," he admitted. "But I'm here now." He dipped his head, so close that I could see the tiny bright flecks at the corner of his lashes where light caught them. "How are you feeling, really?"
There was truth in that question, not the kind doctors threw around, but the kind people ask when they are trying to measure someone's interior weather. My answer bumbled around my mouth—tired, sore, a little terrified—but mostly it landed on something honest and small: "Lucky, I think. Confused."
He chuckled under his breath, that low, short sound that used to send the younger me into small, internal crises. Apparently, it still did. Fantastic. My heart had zero growth in the emotional maturity department.
He noticed me staring. "What?"
"Nothing." I coughed, pretending to focus on my blanket. "Just… thinking you look good for someone who's supposedly been through interdimensional travel."
"Thanks?" He blinked, amused. "You, on the other hand, look like you fought a truck and lost."
"I did fight a truck and lose."
That was the infuriating part about him. Haneul never changed. His calm wasn't rehearsed—it was part of him. Even now, with all the weirdness threading through the air, he just sat there, peeling an orange like we were still high schoolers killing time during lunch. He pushed one slice toward me.
"Hospital food sucks," he said simply. "Eat something real."
I stared at the orange, then at him. He hadn't even asked if I wanted it—just quietly assumed, like he'd done a thousand times before. Like when I used to forget my lunch, and somehow he'd always have "extra."
I took it, more out of habit than anything. "You're still doing that thing."
"What thing?"
"The feeding-people-unasked thing."
He shrugged, faintly smiling. "Old habits die hard."
He huffed out a soft laugh, then gestured for me to eat. I bit into the orange, and the burst of citrus felt like waking up all over again—sharp, bright, grounding. He didn't talk much after that, but he didn't need to. Haneul's silence was never empty. It was the kind that filled the room with warmth instead of awkwardness, like a steady pulse of familiarity.
Mom had other stuff to tend to, so Haneul took over as bedside guardian every few days. Whenever he wasn't directly needed, Haneul would be sitting by the window again. His sketchbook was balanced on his knee, his hand moving with that same absentminded grace I remembered—precise, fluid, too calm for his own good.
He hadn't changed much. That same quiet gravity clung to him, like the world had always moved a little slower around him just to keep up.
Meanwhile, I was laying there with hospital hair and an IV in my arm, looking like something the cat dragged in from the rain.
I watched him for a while, pretending to be half-asleep. There was a serenity to him that made time stretch. The same calmness he used to have back in school when everyone else was flailing about exams and deadlines—he'd be sitting under a tree somewhere, pencil between his fingers, a bottle of banana milk at his side. That same stillness now pressed against the sterile buzz of the hospital, softening it.
It was infuriatingly comforting.
"What are you even drawing?" I craned my neck, wincing when a jolt of pain shot through my shoulder. He noticed immediately and stilled, waiting for me to settle. It was a small thing, but it said everything about him. He didn't rush, didn't talk over moments. He waited.
When he put his pencil down to sharpen it, I noticed the little things again—how the veins of his hands stood out faintly, how precise his movements were. Every little action looked composed, almost deliberate. Like he existed in half-speed, like the world was never in enough of a hurry to touch him.
He asked, suddenly, "How's your pain?"
"Manageable," I said. "Unless you count emotional pain from being ignored while you draw walls."
He exhaled through his nose, the ghost of a laugh. "You always talk too much when you're bored."
"And you always listen too much when you're pretending not to care."
That made him glance up. For a second, I saw a flicker of amusement—tiny, but there. Then it was gone again, like a pebble sinking beneath a calm lake.
"I care," he said after a beat. "That's why I'm here."
That silenced me far quicker than I expected. My heart hiccupped; my brain, too proud to admit it, decided to focus on the ridiculous instead. "You're saying that just to get away with making me your art subject."
"Maybe," he said, which somehow sounded both sincere and teasing.
The quiet that followed wasn't awkward. It was filled with the scratch of pencil against paper and the soft rhythm of my breathing. Every now and then, he'd look up—not long enough to meet my gaze, just enough to trace the curve of a shoulder or the fall of light.
After a while, I said, half to myself, "You really haven't changed, have you?"
He paused mid-sketch, then tilted his head. "Was I supposed to?"
He looked too composed to be real. Sitting there, dressed in an ordinary black shirt that somehow made him look like he'd been pulled out of a painting, legs crossed casually under the windowsill light. There was something unfair about how effortlessly he carried beauty—like the universe had put extra thought into how his collarbone met sunlight.
It was ridiculous how someone so still could make my heart do sprints.
"Do you ever… get tired of being this calm?" I asked suddenly.
He finally looked up. Those eyes again—deep, quiet, a little too knowing. "Not really."
I frowned. "You're lying. You have to get bored of it sometimes. The silence. The… monk act."
One eyebrow lifted, the faintest sign of amusement. "You think I'm a monk?"
"Well, you look like one who's been assigned to babysit a gremlin," I said.
His pencil stopped moving. He blinked slowly. "You're the gremlin?"
There it was again—the smallest tug of a smile, so faint I could've imagined it.
I squinted at him. "Do you ever… emote? Like, show actual human feelings continuously without your quota?"
He raised an eyebrow, finally, but only slightly. "I'm feeling relieved that you're alive. Does that count?"
"You don't look relieved."
"Would you prefer I cried?"
I opened my mouth, then closed it, because I honestly didn't know. The image of Haneul crying was so foreign I couldn't even picture it. He'd always been like this—composed, unshakably calm, the same quiet boy who used to fix my broken shoelace without saying a word, then go right back to reading under the same tree.
I used to think that serenity was attractive. Now, it was mildly infuriating.
I slumped back against the pillows, rolling my eyes at the ceiling. "You know, I imagined this reunion going differently. I wake up from a coma, you rush in, I cry, you cry—maybe a little montage moment—"
"I don't cry," he said simply.
"Of course not," I sighed. "Heaven forbid Haneul the Emotionally Stoic feels things."
He glanced up at me again, and this time, there was the smallest hint of mischief—barely there, but enough to trip my heartbeat. "I'm feeling things right now," he said evenly.
"Like what, boredom?"
He returned to his sketch. "Mild amusement."
I groaned. "You're impossible."
He chuckled under his breath—a sound so soft I almost missed it. "You've said that before."
"Yeah, and it's still true."
The silence that followed wasn't awkward; it was almost domestic. Like old times, back when we used to share after-school snacks and he'd quietly draw in the corner while I filled the air with too many words. It felt unfair, how easily he could just be. Meanwhile, I couldn't stop my brain from cartwheeling between wanting to shake him and wanting to stare at him until I memorized the exact shape of his lashes.
He reached over to the bedside table without looking up and adjusted the straw in my water cup. Just a small motion, unthinking, automatic. The kind of gesture that made me both melt and want to throw something.
"Thanks," I mumbled.
He nodded. "Drink slowly."
See? Infuriating and kind, both at once.
I watched him for a long while. The line of his nose. The subtle crease between his brows when he concentrated. His calm was the kind that made noise seem disrespectful. Like if I spoke too loudly, I might scare him—or whatever quiet magic hung around him—away.
The thing about Haneul was that he wasn't easy to ruffle. He was like a lake on a windless morning—flat, still, serene. You could throw a rock in and still wonder if it even made a splash. And yet, that stillness had always tugged at me, quietly, insistently.
I tilted my head, studying him. "Are you always this calm, or did you level up all these years?"
He shrugged, eyes still down. "You talk enough for both of us."
I rolled my eyes. "You're supposed to say you missed me."
He didn't even glance up this time. "Would it make a difference if I did?"
That earned him a glare that he didn't even bother to acknowledge. His pencil resumed its steady scratching, the sound filling the silence like soft rain.
I tried to crane my neck to see what he was drawing, but the angle wasn't on my side. "Is it a person? A flower? Some pretentious abstract thing that's supposed to represent the human condition?"
He hesitated, and for a second, I thought he might actually answer. Instead, he said, "Rest your neck before you strain it again."
He went back to sketching, and I couldn't tell if I'd won that round or not. Probably not. I rarely did with him. But somehow, just watching him there—the faint curve of his shoulders, the soft scratch of pencil against paper, the sunlight catching in his hair—made the hospital room feel less sterile, less unreal. Every so often, he'd reach out to adjust the blanket, or refill my water without a word, or gently take the cup from my trembling hand before I spilled it. He didn't say much, but every quiet gesture made something in my chest flutter uncomfortably.
Haneul had always been like that—never loud, never obvious, just… steady. The kind of person who didn't need to announce care; he just did things. The kind that made you fall for him slowly, helplessly, until you realized you were already too far gone.
So I did what I always did: tried to make him ripple. "You know, most people would at least bring flowers," I said, eyes narrowing. "You brought… pencils."
He didn't even look up. "Flowers wilt."
"So do people," I pointed out.
He glanced at me then, and his expression softened in that infuriating, quiet way that made my heart skip.
I watched him for a long moment after that, the hospital fading away into something small and unimportant. It was stupid how easily he could still my thoughts just by existing nearby. He was too calm, too quiet, too him. And yet, as the pencil moved and the sunlight warmed the room, I couldn't help thinking—Maybe still waters weren't meant to be rippled. Maybe they were meant to be stared into until you saw your reflection looking back, a little clearer than before.
The day I got cleared for discharge, the air felt different—brighter, lighter, like someone had finally opened a window after weeks of rain. The nurse had just handed me a neatly folded stack of papers and a list of "do nots," all of which I was probably going to ignore in the next forty-eight hours, but for now, I smiled and nodded like a model patient.
My stepmom, Harin, was practically glowing as she folded my clothes into a neat stack on the bed beside me. She had that sharp kind of efficiency only she could pull off—her hair tied back, sleeves rolled up, not a single motion wasted. "I can't believe this day finally came," she said, smoothing out a wrinkle in my jacket for the third time. "Two weeks ago, you couldn't even lift your arm, and now look at you."
"Barely lifting my bag still counts, right mom?" I said, forcing a grin as I leaned against the bed rail.
"It counts if you're not grimacing," she replied, then paused, scanning me like she might catch me lying about my pain tolerance.
Before I could respond, Haneul appeared in the doorway with my discharge papers in hand and an expression that could have belonged to any nurse or assistant—but no, he was just him. Calm, unhurried, perfectly at ease even in a crowd. He moved like he had all the time in the world.
"Here," he said, handing me the clipboard. "They just need your signature."
"Thanks," I muttered, trying not to notice how his voice had that same steady lilt I'd grown too fond of.
Harin's eyes flicked between us, a sharp glint of amusement settling behind her polite smile. "You've been such a big help, Haneul. We really can't thank you enough for taking care of Aureal when we couldn't be here."
"It wasn't a problem," he said simply, shaking his head. "I was nearby."
Nearby, my foot. He'd practically been here almost every day since the second week—bringing sketchbooks, tea, and an unreasonable amount of quiet company.
That earned him one of her impressed nods — the kind reserved for people who met her high, invisible standard of "husband material." "You're very responsible," she said. "Your parents must be proud. I always said Aureal needed someone like you around."
"Mom," I hissed under my breath, half-burying my face in the stack of forms.
She feigned innocence. "What? I'm just saying he's a nice boy."
Dad cleared his throat in that subtle, I'm trying to understand what's going on but don't want to interfere way. "You're the Haneul she used to talk about, right? From high school?"
"Yeah."
There was a short pause. My dad nodded once, approvingly, as if he'd just solved a lifelong mystery. "Ah. You turned out well."
"Dad, please don't sound like you're appraising cattle," I said, mortified.
Mom was having none of my protests. She was in full matchmaking mode, her eyes twinkling like she'd been waiting years for this moment. "You know, Aureal doesn't really let people take care of her. You must be special."
"Mom!" I hissed. My entire body was still recovering, but embarrassment worked faster than any painkiller.
Haneul, of course, didn't react. He simply adjusted the strap of my bag, his movements steady and precise. "She's stubborn," he said mildly. "Someone has to remind her not to trip over her own wires."
"Excuse me?" I blinked.
He inclined his head, that subtle, composed gesture that made him look more like he was in a K-drama than a hospital room. "And really—it was nothing. Aureal's always been…" His eyes flickered toward me. "Independent."
"Independent, sure," Doseok muttered under his breath, still scrolling. "She couldn't even open a juice box yesterday."
I threw a tissue at him. It missed by about two feet. "You try opening one with stitches, Einstein."
Dad coughed to hide a laugh, but Harin, of course, ignored us and kept her focus on Haneul. "Still, it's so wonderful seeing you two together again," she said, her tone light and casual in that I'm-just-saying-this-but-also-I'm-planting-a-seed kind of way. "You've grown up so well, Haneul. Both of you have."
Harin waved a hand like that was obvious. "You were inseparable when you were younger! Always off drawing, playing, causing trouble—"
"I was studying," I interjected.
"And Haneul was keeping you from falling off trees," she said without missing a beat. "Ah, he's such a quiet boy. Gentle. I've always liked him."
Haneul didn't say anything, which was worse than if he had. He just zipped my bag, lifted it off the counter with one hand, and straightened up like nothing in the world could fluster him. His calm was borderline inhuman.
Harin, naturally, noticed. "Look at that," she said, beaming. "So dependable. You know, Aureal, a man like that—"
"Mom, no."
"—who helps, doesn't complain, knows when to be quiet—"
"Mom, please."
"—and happens to be rather handsome, don't you think, dear?"
Dad chuckled. "She's not wrong."
I buried my face in my hands. "Can I just go back into a coma?"
Haneul, of course, didn't even flinch. He adjusted the strap of the bag over his shoulder and looked entirely unaffected. "Ready to go?" he asked, as if my family wasn't collectively auditioning him for the role of "future son-in-law" in real time.
Haneul, of course, looked completely unfazed. He closed my bag, adjusted the strap over his shoulder, and asked in that quiet, perfectly steady tone, "Do you want to walk, or should I wheel you down?"
"I'm walking," I said firmly.
"You'll walk for ten steps and pretend you're fine, then your knees will give out and you'll fall into a potted plant."
"That happened once."
"Twice," he corrected calmly, then extended his hand. "Come on."
I took it, mostly because I didn't trust my balance yet—not because his hand was warm and steady or because the sight of his fingers curling around mine made something embarrassingly fluttery happen in my chest. Definitely not that.
The nurse came in to review my papers, giving a quick rundown of follow-up visits and medication schedules. Dad handled most of it, Harin fussed over my bag, and Doseok took over the discharge counter duty. Through all of it, Haneul stayed close but not overbearing—carrying what needed carrying, holding what needed holding, moving with that unassuming grace that had always been his default setting.
The glass doors of the hospital slid open with a muted hiss, and for the first time in weeks, the world outside didn't feel like something that existed without me. The sun was warm, filtered through a late morning haze, and the air smelled faintly of city dust and new leaves. I squinted against the brightness, the light stinging my eyes after so many days of sterile ceilings and fluorescent lamps.
The courtyard ahead was busy enough for the moment, but my attention snagged on a figure near the curb, framed by the sunlight in a way that made him seem almost like he had stepped out of a daydream. A young man—maybe my age, maybe a little younger, with that effortless, casual energy that made people notice him without realizing it—was standing there, waiting. His smile was wide, radiant, and far too genuine for someone who was supposedly a stranger.
He looked like someone who should belong to the sun.
When his eyes met mine, something in them flickered—a dark, glinting red beneath the brown, gone in a blink but unmistakable. My heart skipped.
No. It couldn't be.
But then he spoke, his voice smooth and deep, carrying that easy rhythm that had once filled the veil like laughter in a storm. The bass-like smoothness of his voice hit me before his words did, and the pieces clicked into place like a puzzle falling into order.
"Aureal!"
My breath caught.
"Sejun?" I breathed, almost not believing it.
His grin widened, teeth flashing in the sunlight. "I was wondering if you'd recognize me like this." His voice dropped a little, lower, more familiar now—the same warm timbre I remembered, deep and teasing, like laughter wrapped in velvet.
It was impossible to mistake.
"I—" My words tangled. "You're—"
"Unbelievably handsome?" he supplied with a small smirk, then immediately softened again. "Sorry. Couldn't resist."
Haneul was silent beside me, but I felt his hand adjust its hold on my arm, subtle but protective. Sejun, undeterred, stepped closer and reached for my other hand—the one Haneul wasn't holding.
"Easy there," he said, his touch gentle but steady as he positioned himself on my other side. "We don't want your first steps of freedom ending in a dramatic fall. I mean, I get it—you like being memorable, but let's take it slow."
Before I could fumble for something to say, movement at the bottom of the steps drew my gaze. Daeho appeared like an answer to thunder—tall, broad-shouldered, modern clothes that fit like they were tailored to his body. Gone were the swordsman robes of the veil; modern fabric draped him better than I'd imagined possible. His shirt sleeves hugged strong forearms; the jacket hinted at an immense chest. He moved with the kind of easy power that made space feel smaller and the world behind him safer. If Sejun was the white cat, Daeho was a loyal husky—obviously capable of unsettling force, and yet, when he smiled, he gave off warm, golden loyalty.
My first, stupid, self-conscious reaction was nearly not recognizing him. The Joseon-era silhouette I'd trapped in memory couldn't have prepared me for the sheer… rightness of modern clothes on a body built like his. Daeho's grin split his face when he saw me properly, all open warmth. "Aureal." His voice should have been rougher to match his look, but it was the kind you want pinned to you on a bad day—sunshine in syllables.
"Look at you," Daeho grinned. He tilted his head, evaluating me with that ex-military precision that had used to make my stomach drop and my pulse run. "Back on two legs. Good. You had us all panicking."
Before I could say anything else, he stepped closer, his expression softening into something achingly genuine. "I'm so glad to see you up and walking," he said, and it wasn't the kind of line people said just to be polite. His eyes—still brown now, though I could swear they shimmered red at the edges—held something raw, something real. "You have no idea how worried we were."
I blinked rapidly, trying to reconcile the man in front of me—the one who looked so alive—with the memory of him in that place that wasn't quite the living world. "You—how—"
But he was already laughing lightly, shaking his head like he could sense the questions forming and wanted to save me from tripping over them. "You look good. Better than good, actually. Guess hospitals really suit you, huh?"
I gawked at him. "That's… that's a terrible thing to say."
"Is it?" he teased, stepping closer again. "Then let me rephrase—I missed having you around. Everything got dull without your face in the mix."
I tried not to flush. I failed miserably.
Leaving the hospital was supposed to be emotional. Poignant. Maybe even cinematic.
"Call us the moment you feel anything weird," my mom insisted, smoothing a wrinkle in my coat that didn't exist.
"We mean it, Daphne." Dad added, arms crossed, eyes scanning the guys behind me like they were either security threats or very polite cult members.
"I will," I said, giving them both my best 'please trust me' smile. "I promise."
Sejun coughed behind me. "We'll keep an eye on her, sir."
They said their final goodbyes, my mom hugging me tight and whispering that she was just glad I was okay. My dad did that awkward shoulder-pat thing and gave each of the guys a suspicious look before walking away with her.
Daeho, meanwhile, had finished taking the bags with gentle efficiency, then came to stand at the foot of the steps like a sentry who'd upgraded to full-time guardian when narrative required. He looked at me with that warm grin again, the one that belongs in a romcom beat where the world softens and you feel like you might float. "Hey," he said simply. "You okay?"
"Yeah," I lied in the most truthful way possible—still fragile, but yes, okay. "Thanks."
Seungyong was in the driver's seat, lounging like someone who considered car seats a throne. He had the black-cat-boy vibe nailed—flippant, prickly, his expression a permanent half-commentary. He gave a short, sharp whistle when he saw me and tipped the corner of his mouth up in what was probably meant to be a grin. "Look who's not a vegetable anymore," he called, voice dry. He folded his arms across his chest like he didn't care and yet his eyes tracked every small movement I made. When I thought no one was watching, he leaned forward just enough to check that the seatbelt was aligned, fingers brushing my shoulder in a motion he acted like was accidental. I caught the brief, soft worry in his gaze and my chest warmed.
The staircase between us and the car felt like the threshold of every romantic cliché I'd ever read—only this time the clichés had more swords-and-spice seasoning. Haneul guided me down one step at a time, patient as a shore. Sejun matched his pace on the other side; his presence was taut, like a whisper of silk against my thoughts. Daeho moved with the easy confidence of someone who knows the best route to split the world in half for you—he carried my small overnight bag and something of Haneul's without asking. Seungyong slid out of the driver's seat to open the back door for us with a theatrically uninterested flourish, then stuck his hands in his pockets and acted like the arrangement was beneath him, like an heir to apathy.
He glanced up, saw me, and made a sound that was part grin, part grunt. "About time," he said, like he had expected me to defy death just for dramatic effect. He leaned forward, eyes softer for a second. When he thought I wasn't looking, he flicked his glance toward me again—checking—and then pretended to look at his phone. The prickly facade never quite hid the fact that something about the world had shifted.
The car door closed behind me with a soft thud, and I sank into the seat, exhaling as though the weight of hospital halls and IV lines had finally lifted off my chest. I glanced up, expecting Seungyong to slide into the driver's seat, but before he could move, Daeho was suddenly there, planted like a mountain at the open door.
His broad frame seemed to expand, shoulder-width threatening, and he crossed his arms with a frown that radiated disapproval. "No," he said flatly, and the single word carried the weight of iron and patience.
Seungyong blinked at him, mock-offended. "Excuse me? What are you talking about?"
"You're not driving," Daeho repeated, tone calm but nonnegotiable. "Patient on board. You don't drive with a patient on board."
"Patient? She's perfectly fine," Seungyong said, waving one hand dismissively. "I've got eyes, I've got skills—"
"—and a terrible sense of direction, reckless acceleration, and no sense of braking," Daeho cut in. "Step aside."
Seungyong's mouth twitched, the corner curling in that slightly smug, irritated way that could be interpreted as teasing or provocation. "You're overreacting," he said.
"I am not overreacting," Daeho countered. He stepped forward with the calm menace of someone who knew exactly what he was capable of. "You're a danger to pedestrians, cyclists, and every other vehicle on the road. That car isn't leaving with you behind the wheel."
Seungyong waved a hand dismissively, smirk flickering at the corner of his mouth. "Oh, come on, Daeho. I'm perfectly capable. It's not like she's fragile or anything."
"No. Not with her in the car. You drive like the world is your personal racetrack."
Daeho simply sighed, the kind of exasperated sigh that said he had already accounted for every argument in Seungyong's arsenal. Before Seungyong could retort, Daeho's hands shot out and, with a combination of precision and muscle, he scooped Seungyong up in a swift, almost casual motion.
"Sit," Daeho commanded, setting him firmly into the passenger seat with a gentle-but-firm shove. Seungyong's hands fluttered uselessly against the dashboard, then he muttered something under his breath, still fuming.
Daeho stepped into the driver's seat himself, one leg swinging over smoothly as though this was the most natural thing in the world. "I drive," he stated, clipping the seatbelt with an almost theatrical click.
I peeked out from the backseat, eyebrows raised. "Did I just… watch a grown man get carried like a backpack?"
Sejun's smirk deepened. "Yep. And the best part? He's complaining."
I blinked, a hand still pressed over my mouth to stifle laughter. "What… what just happened?" I asked Haneul, who was still quietly standing beside me.
He shrugged, as calm as the moonlit lake. "I think it's a territorial disagreement."
Sejun leaned over from my other side, the faint curve of a grin at the corners of his lips. His fingers still held mine, warm and confident. "Territorial?" I pressed.
Sejun, leaning casually against the roof while keeping an eye on me, let out a low chuckle that was all dark amusement. "Honestly," he said, voice smooth and cutting, "Seungyong's driving should be listed as a hate crime—against pedestrians, cyclists, other vehicles, and possibly common sense."
"Speaking of crimes," Seungyong smirked, already deciding to be a prick the moment the car started. "How come you never told us your real name was Daphne? It's so cute!"
Daeho raised an eyebrow. "Daphne?"
Here it comes.
"That's my name, yes."
"I just–" he gestured vaguely. "You don't seem like a Daphne."
"Is that a compliment, or are you about to call me a flower?"
Haneul tilted his head. "It's Greek. Means 'laurel tree.'"
Seungyong exhaled like he'd been holding his breath the whole time. "I hate hospitals," he muttered.
"Did you even have hospitals during your time?"
"Ooh, burn." Daeho smirked.
"So, like," I interrupted, trying to quell the raging storm of curiosity that had been tugging at me for weeks. "What the actual hell is going on? I mean, we were in the veil, weren't we? Dead?"
Haneul shrugged from beside me, as if the answer was common sense. "You brought us back."
Daeho gave a glance from the rearview mirror, a light smile accompanying it. "Not just back. You rewrote the world. You gave us papers. Lives. Jobs."
"You manifested a rent-splitting domestic arrangement," Sejun said with a straight face. "With ID cards. Social security numbers. Degrees," he added, holding up a lanyard. "And jobs, apparently."
"You gave us lives." Seungyong said. "You didn't bring us back into the world. You rewrote it."
I stared at them. "I was dead," I mumbled. "Wasn't I? Weren't we?"
Seungyong, leaning against the window, then finally looked me in the eye. "And now you're not. But you're not quite alive either."
A beat of silence.
"Cool," I muttered. "I gaslighted myself out of the afterlife."
"Girlboss behavior." Daeho grinned. "Did I use that right?"
Oh, this was going to be interesting.