The doctor did not look at them...
"I'm sorry," he said quietly, eyes fixed on the chart in his hands. "The illness was discovered far too late. At this stage, treatment will only slow the progression. We estimate… weeks. Perhaps a few months at most."
The room went silent.
Kim Harin felt the words reach her ears but not her mind. They hovered in the air, refusing to settle.
Weeks. Months.
That was all they were given.
Her fingers tightened around Park Sun Woo's hand before she realised she was gripping too hard. He did not pull away, but squeezed back, as if he were the one comforting her.
"There must be something," she said, her voice sounding distant even to herself. "Another hospital. Another country. Clinical trials. Anything."
The doctor finally looked up. His expression was apologetic.
"We will support you however we can," he sighed. "But I recommend preparing yourselves."
Preparing.
The word felt cruel.
Machines hummed softly, oblivious to the fact that her world had just been torn apart.
The doctor stood up and left, kindly, giving them a little space.
Sun Woo turned to her with a gentle smile, the same one he always used when she was on the verge of falling apart.
"Hey," he said softly. "Don't look like that. I'm still here."
Her vision blurred.
"You can't say that," she whispered. "Don't say it like it's nothing."
"I'll be okay," he replied, voice trying to remain calm, but inside, he sure wasn't. "We'll be okay."
She shook her head violently. "No. No, we won't. You don't understand."
But he did understand. That was the problem.
He lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. "Harin. Look at me."
She looked.
His eyes were still warm. Still kind. Still filled with her.
"You survived everything," he said. "You survived your family. You survived all those years alone. You survived because you're strong."
"I survived because of you," she said, the words breaking out of her before she could stop them.
Her chest tightened. Her breathing grew shallow.
She remembered being a child, flinching at raised voices, learning early how to disappear. An abusive father. A home that never felt safe. A life where love was conditional and easily taken away.
Sun Woo had been the first person who never hurt her.
He taught her how to believe that love could be gentle.
He was the reason she reconciled with her family. The reason she believed in a future. The reason she dared to be happy.
He had proposed only a month ago.
She was supposed to spend her life with him.
"This is too cruel," she whispered. "You can't just leave. I can't do this without you."
He pulled her into his arms. She cried against his chest, clutching his shirt as if holding tighter might change fate itself.
"We'll find a cure," she said desperately. "I don't care how much it costs. I don't care where we have to go."
And she meant it.
They tried everything.
Hospitals. Specialists. Alternative treatments. Experimental drugs. Prayers whispered into empty rooms.
Hope rose and shattered again and again.
Until one day, there was nothing left to try.
Sun Woo passed away quietly.
She held his hand until it grew cold, her mind refusing to accept the stillness of his body. The world did not stop. The sun still rose. People still walked past the hospital as if nothing had happened.
That was the cruelest part.
Life continued but of course Harin did not.
Days blurred into each other. She woke up. She ate. That was all.
She found herself talking to empty rooms, replying to voices that were no longer there. She laughed at jokes no one told. She cooked dinner for two, set the table, then collapsed to the floor when she realised what she had done.
Sometimes she caught herself smiling, thinking she heard his footsteps.
Sometimes she cried until she could not breathe.
Living became unbearable.
Then one day, the road was wet. Her thoughts were elsewhere. Her grip on the steering wheel was loose, and so she did not see the truck in time.
The impact came without sound.
For a moment, everything was weightless. Then pain tore through her body before dissolving into nothing at all.
Darkness followed, then strangely, warmth.
A strange, enclosing warmth, like being held by something soft and endless. There was no pain anymore. No grief, nor thoughts. It felt as if she were floating in deep water.
Time lost its meaning.
.
.
Pressure all of a sudden.
A squeezing force wrapped around her, pushing and urging her forward. Panic rose instinctively. She tried to breathe and failed.
Her chest burned.
Her mouth opened, and sound tore out of her.
A cry.
Light burst into her closed eyes. Cold air touched her skin. Hands lifted her, wrapped her, moved her.
Voices surrounded her.
They were loud, emotional, overlapping.
And completely incomprehensible.
She cried again, her tiny lungs aching. The sound shocked her. It did not sound like her. It was higher, weaker.
Her body felt wrong.
Too small. Too light.
Her arms moved on their own, short and clumsy. Her fingers curled without her permission. Her vision was blurred, colours bleeding into one another.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
She could not speak. Could not think properly. Thoughts slipped away the moment she tried to hold onto them.
But one thing remained.
Awareness.
As days passed, fragments returned.
Harin began to recognise patterns. The same faces. The same voices. The same gentle hands that held her.
None of the words made sense. This was not Korean.
She watched from behind unfocused eyes as people smiled at her with overwhelming affection.
They called her a name she didn't recognise. Estelle Elascia, more so, 'Estie', the short nickname.
Her "parents" call her that, looking at her as if she were precious beyond measure.
The maids, though, refer to her as "my lady".
Somewhere between sleep and waking, memory slowly settled into her mind.
Park Sun Woo's smile. His warmth. His last breath.
The grief returned all at once.
And with it, the horrifying realisation.
She had not survived the accident.
She had died.
And somehow, impossibly, she had been born again.
Into a world with a different language.