Time didn't flow.
It hung, thin and brittle as glass.
Do-hyun remained frozen mid-lunge, suspended in a timestopped frame.J-0 flickered like a corrupted hologram, half-glitching out of existence.And I—
I stood between two impossible buttons.
[REJECT][ACCEPT]
My consciousness shuddered like something was tearing threads from the inside.
J-0's voice—weak, fading, almost human—echoed behind my eyelids.
"Prototype… please. We were designed to be one. Without merging, neither of us can stabilize."
Designed to be one.
A repair function.Not a replacement.
A merge-point.
I swallowed hard.The white static in my vision thickened.
"Why didn't the system tell me that?" I whispered.
J-0's form glitched violently. "Because… you were never supposed to know. Awareness… changes the function. Makes it dangerous. Makes it unstable."
"But if I say yes," I said, voice cracking, "you disappear."
"So will you," J-0 said softly. "But the Administrator won't."
The Administrator.
The real me.
Or the version I was supposed to be.
I looked at Do-hyun.
Frozen like a statue.Eyes locked on me.The moment before he threw himself between me and danger—again.
He didn't even know what I was.
But he was still choosing me.
Not the system.
Not the stability.
Me.
My chest tightened painfully.
If I accepted—What would he be left with?A stranger?A perfected Administrator wearing my face?
One that wasn't me?
No.
No, that wasn't an option.
The system's voice boomed:
[ADMINISTRATOR-PROTOTYPE J-0 — CRITICAL INSTABILITY AT 82%.][MERGE REQUIRED FOR SURVIVAL OF ENTITY.]
J-0 reached toward me again—its hand trembling now, not with malice but exhaustion.
"Please," it whispered, a faint glitch in its voice. "I don't want to die."
My breath caught.
Because despite everything…Despite it being a system-made construct…
There was fear in its voice.
Real fear.
"Jiho," it said, voice barely audible, "I'm you."
My fingers hovered over ACCEPT.
And then—
I stepped back.
"No."
The system froze.
J-0's form stilled.
I raised my hand—not to merge.Not to accept.But to choose something the system didn't plan for.
"I reject."
My finger hit REJECT.
The universe cracked.
J-0 screamed—not in sound but in fracturing code, breaking apart like glass shattering in reverse.
"NO—! PROTOTYPE—DON'T—!"
Light exploded outward.
[MERGE SEQUENCE — CANCELLED.][UNAUTHORIZED REJECTION DETECTED.][ERROR: PATH NOT FOUND.][ERROR: ADMINISTRATOR DESIGNATION LOST.][ERROR— ERROR— ERR—]
The system's voice distorted, spiraling into meaningless static.
Then—
Everything slammed to black.
Silent.
Empty.
Not a void.
A deletion.
I stood alone in a hollow space where even thoughts felt muffled.
"Jiho."
The voice wasn't J-0's.
It wasn't the system's.
It wasn't an Administrator interface.
It was—
"Jiho."
Do-hyun.
I spun around.
He stood behind me—no timestop, no glitching, no delay—just Do-hyun, breathing hard like he'd just broken through a wall.
"How—?" I whispered.
He walked toward me, steps steady in the nothingness.
"You think I'm going to let some broken simulation freeze me?" he said, voice low.
"But time was—"
"I don't care what time was."
He stopped inches from me.
His eyes, normally cold and unreadable, burned.
"What did you do?"
My throat tightened."I… rejected the merge."
He looked at me for a long, long moment.
Then—
Do-hyun exhaled, shaky and disbelieving.
"Good."
I blinked. "What?"
He stepped closer.
"Good," he repeated, voice low. "Because if you had merged with that thing… I wouldn't have recognized you."
Something cracked in my chest.
Not from power this time.
From relief.
Do-hyun continued, voice soft but firm:
"You're Jiho. Not a system. Not a code. Not a fragment. You. And I'm not letting anything—machine or not—take that away."
Before I could answer—
The void rumbled.
White lines began carving themselves through the darkness like cracks in a shell.
J-0's voice echoed faintly from the fading static:
"Prototype… the system will collapse… because you chose yourself…"
Do-hyun grabbed my wrist.
"Then we outrun the collapse."
I stared at him.
"But where do we run?"
He tightened his grip.
"To wherever you go."
The void split open beneath us—
And the world pulled us in.