POV: Kang Yejun
The interview manager's face said it all before his mouth did.
Yejun watched the recognition happen. The moment the manager googled his name on his computer while Yejun sat across from him. The moment the scandal photos appeared on screen. The moment everything changed.
"I'm sorry," the manager said, not looking sorry at all. "We've decided to go in a different direction."
Different direction. Code for: You're toxic and we don't want the association.
Yejun walked out into the pouring rain without bothering to ask follow-up questions. There's no point. Jihoon's reach is infinite. Every company that might hire him has already been warned. Every door that might open has already been locked from the inside. He's not just unemployed. He's unemployable.
The rain is cold and sharp, cutting through his thin jacket like needles. He forgot his umbrella at the café. He forgot a lot of things. He forgot how to hope. He forgot how to believe that things could get better. He forgot how to be someone worth saving.
The street is empty except for him. That's fine. He prefers it that way. Less chance of being recognized. Less chance of seeing judgment in strangers' eyes. He's getting good at being invisible.
That's when he hears it.
"PAPA!"
The voice is small and desperate and filled with a longing that hits Yejun like a physical blow. He turns toward the sound and freezes.
A child is running toward him through the rain. Maybe five years old, drenched, wearing expensive clothes now soaked and ruined. But it's not the clothes that make Yejun's breath catch. It's the eyes. Silver eyes that catch the streetlight and glow like nothing natural.
The child crashes into his legs with surprising force for something so small. "Papa! I found you! I finally found you! I've been looking everywhere!"
"Kid, I think you have the wrong person," Yejun says, but his voice sounds uncertain even to himself. There's something about this child. Something familiar. Something that makes his chest ache. "Where's your real father?"
"You are my real father!" The child looks up with tears streaming down his silver eyes. "Papa, don't you remember me? It's Haneul! Your Haneul! From the other timeline!"
Yejun crouches down, studying this impossible child. "Haneul, I don't know you. I don't have a child. I'm only twenty-eight years old, and I've never—" He stops. Never had anyone. Never loved anyone enough. Never been given the chance.
"In my timeline, you're my papa and Daddy is... he's..." The child's face crumples. "You and Daddy took care of me. You made me pancakes on Sundays. You read me stories. You loved me so much. Then the accident happened and I was alone and I've been searching and searching and I finally found you!"
The child's grip on Yejun's clothes is desperate, like if he lets go, Yejun will disappear. Like he's real and solid and terrified of losing him again.
Yejun should tell him to let go. Should explain that this is impossible. Should be concerned about his parents and where they are. Instead, he holds the child gently, confused and heartbroken by how much this stranger seems to need him.
"Haneul!" A deep voice cuts through the rain like a blade.
Yejun looks up and the world stops.
The man walking toward them is impossibly tall, moving through the rain with the grace of someone who commands everything he surveys. His hair is silver, gleaming in the streetlight. His eyes are silver too, just like the child's, and when he sees Yejun, those eyes widen with something that looks like recognition.
Like he's been struck by lightning.
"I apologize for my son," the man says, his voice doing dangerous things to Yejun's nervous system. The voice is deep and controlled and sounds like someone used to getting exactly what he wants. "Haneul, we discussed this. We can't just approach people on the street."
"But it's him, Daddy! It's Papa! Look!" The child is pointing at Yejun like he's the answer to every prayer he's ever made.
The man's silver eyes move from his son to Yejun and stay there. The intensity of his gaze is suffocating. He's studying Yejun like he's solving an equation. Like Yejun is a puzzle he's been trying to piece together for years.
"Your name," the man says. It's not a question. It's a command. "Tell me your name."
"Kang Yejun," Yejun says automatically, then immediately regrets it. This stranger—this beautiful, terrifying stranger—shouldn't know his name. Nobody good finds him on the street in the rain.
The man's breath catches audibly. His hand clenches at his side like he's forcing himself not to move. "Yejun," he repeats, and the way he says it sounds like a prayer. "Your eyes. Even in this rain, I can see them. Brown turning gold in the light. Just like—" He stops abruptly, clearly catching himself. "Forgive me. This must be overwhelming. I'm Seo Kaien. This is my son, Haneul."
Seo Kaien.
The name means nothing to Yejun. But the way Kaien is looking at him means everything. There's recognition in those silver eyes. There's longing. There's the look of someone who's been searching in the dark and suddenly found the light.
"How do you know my name?" Yejun asks carefully. "Why is your son calling me Papa?"
Kaien crouches down beside them, and Yejun can smell him—something expensive and dark that smells like power and safety simultaneously. Impossible. Everything about this is impossible.
"This is going to sound insane," Kaien says quietly. "But I need you to listen without interrupting. Haneul came to me six months ago in a way that I still don't fully understand. He claims he's from a parallel dimension. An alternate timeline. He says that in his timeline, you and I are married. That we're his parents. That we love each other."
Yejun should laugh. Should walk away. Should call the police and report this clearly unstable man trying to involve him in some delusion. Instead, his heart is racing so hard he thinks it might explode.
"That's insane," Yejun says. But his voice shakes.
"I know," Kaien agrees. "But Haneul knew things about this universe that he shouldn't know. He described Seoul perfectly. He described me perfectly. And he described you." Kaien's silver eyes search Yejun's face like he's committing every detail to memory. "He said his papa had warm brown eyes that turned gold in sunlight. That his papa had the most beautiful smile. That his papa was gentle and kind and the most loving person in any universe."
Tears are forming in Yejun's eyes without his permission.
"I thought Haneul was having delusions from trauma," Kaien continues. "Until he described you in specific detail. Down to a small scar on your left wrist. Down to the way you tilt your head when you're listening to someone."
Yejun looks at his left wrist. There is a scar there. A small one from when he was eight years old. He's never told anyone about it. It's not visible unless you're looking for it.
"I started researching," Kaien says, and now his voice is rough with emotion. "Quantum mechanics. Dimensional theory. My parents were physicists. They studied the same thing before they died. And the more I studied, the more I realized that what Haneul is saying might not be impossible." He pauses. "Then I started having dreams."
"Dreams?" Yejun whispers.
"About you," Kaien says, and the confession hangs between them like a secret that's been burning to escape. "For three years, I've been having dreams about a man with warm brown eyes. A man I'm in love with. A man I wake up from missing, even though I've never met him. And today, I saw you on the street and I knew." His voice breaks slightly. "I've been looking for you for three years without even knowing your name was Kang Yejun."
The rain continues to fall. Haneul is holding both of them now, his small hands gripping tight. Yejun can't breathe. Can't think. Can't process that this beautiful man has been dreaming about him. That a child from another dimension has crossed space and time to find him. That something in the universe has been pulling him toward this moment his entire life.
"This is impossible," Yejun says, but he doesn't pull away.
"Completely," Kaien agrees. He reaches out, and his hand hovers near Yejun's face like he's asking permission. "But I need you to know something, Kang Yejun. Something that's going to change both of our lives tonight."
"What?" Yejun breathes.
Kaien's silver eyes are intense and certain and filled with something that looks like destiny.
"In my dreams, you love me. In Haneul's timeline, we chose each other. And in this universe, I believe we're meant to find each other too." Kaien's voice is barely a whisper. "I don't know how. I don't know why. But I know it's true because I've been waiting for you my entire life. And now you're here."
He pulls out his phone with shaking hands.
On the screen is a photo.
A photo of Yejun.
A photo that shouldn't exist because it shows him sleeping peacefully in bed next to someone. It shows him happy. It shows him loved. It shows him in a life that doesn't exist in this timeline.
But it's definitely him.
And in the background of the photo, barely visible, is a child with silver eyes, sleeping peacefully between them.
"How is this possible?" Yejun asks, staring at the image of a life he's never lived. A life he's somehow always wanted.
"I don't know," Kaien admits. "But I think the multiverse is trying to tell us something, Yejun. I think somewhere, in another timeline, we already found each other. And I think it's time we did it again."
Haneul squeezes both their hands.
And Yejun feels it.
The moment everything changes.
The moment he stops being the disgraced heir falling apart and becomes something else entirely. Someone's beloved. Someone's reason to keep fighting. Someone's forever, across every timeline.
"Come with me," Kaien says, extending his hand. "Let me show you what I've found. Let me show you the proof. Let me show you that in at least one universe, you're worth everything."
Yejun looks at this stranger who's been dreaming about him. At this child who traveled across dimensions to find him. At this hand being offered like a lifeline to someone drowning.
He takes it.
And the moment their skin touches, electricity sparks between them.
Kaien's eyes widen.
Yejun's breath catches.
And from somewhere beyond the fabric of this reality, Yejun swears he hears applause.
Like the universe itself is celebrating that two souls have finally found each other.
Again.