The twin suns hung low over the valley — one gold, one pale silver — neither moving, both casting long, wrong shadows.The air shimmered like heat haze though the ground was cold.Each breath Ha-rin took fogged the light instead of the air, turning the world slightly translucent.
She walked slowly through the fields beyond Aureum-ri, boots sinking into wet grass that glowed faintly underfoot.Somewhere ahead, beneath the silence of the frozen sky, came a sound —Tick. Tick. Tick.Not from a clock, but from the world itself, like the soil had learned rhythm.
Behind her, Seo-jin and the boy followed at a distance.He had refused to let her go alone, arguing all the way until she gave up.
"You're not exactly stealthy," she had said.
"I'm not exactly leaving you to face temporal nonsense unsupervised," he'd replied, panting as they climbed the slope.
Now he trudged through the glowing grass, muttering, "The things I do for historical accuracy…"
The boy, still quiet, glanced at Ha-rin's hand. "Mom, it's glowing again."
She looked down. The red thread around her wrist had begun to shimmer, brightening with each step."It's leading us," she said softly.
Seo-jin frowned. "Toward what?"
She didn't answer. She already knew.
At the crest of the hill, the world opened.Below them stretched a wide field of mirrors — not glass, but thin pools of water reflecting the twin suns.In each reflection, the suns were reversed: gold above, silver below, like time's two faces staring at each other.
Ha-rin felt her pulse quicken. "This is where he is."
Seo-jin squinted at the endless shimmer. "If by 'he,' you mean a metaphor for insanity, yes, probably."
She ignored him, walking down toward the first pool.The boy followed, his reflection flickering with each step — sometimes older, sometimes younger, sometimes missing entirely.
When Ha-rin knelt at the water's edge, the ticking grew louder.And then, faintly, she saw him.
Jae-hyun, half-transparent, standing in the mirrored reflection but not on the grass.He looked older — lines of light running beneath his skin, eyes silver and sad.His voice came through the rippling surface like an echo underwater.
"Ha-rin."
Her throat closed. "You're alive."
"In here," he said. "Echo kept me in its core. But it's changing me."
Seo-jin crouched beside her, squinting. "He's phasing with the temporal layer. If Echo's rebuilding him…"
"…it's using his memories as code," Ha-rin finished.
The boy stepped closer, whispering, "Dad?"
Jae-hyun smiled faintly, looking down at him through the reflection. "You've grown. Or maybe I've faded."
Ha-rin pressed her palm to the water, desperate to reach him. "We'll bring you out."
He shook his head slowly. "If you pull me too early, the loops start again. I have to stabilize."
Her tears fell into the water, rippling his image. "Then tell me what to do."
"Find the anchor," he said. "It's buried beneath the Field of Suns — the first clock we ever broke."
Ha-rin blinked. "The one from our childhood?"
He nodded. "It started here, before the lab, before the experiments. Our parents built the first prototype in this field."
Seo-jin's eyes widened. "That's why the suns don't move — it's the echo of that moment repeating forever."
Jae-hyun smiled faintly. "Exactly. Stop the repetition, and you'll stop Echo. Then I can come home."
Ha-rin reached forward, trembling. "Promise?"
He looked at her — that look that always felt like a vow even when he said nothing."I'll always find you," he said softly. "Even if I have to rebuild time again."
The image flickered once, twice, and vanished.
The silence that followed hurt.Ha-rin wiped her eyes quickly, standing before she could break. "We dig."
Seo-jin blinked. "Here? You want to dig up the past literally?"
"Yes," she said simply. "Before it digs up us."
The boy knelt first, small hands pushing through the glowing soil.Ha-rin joined him, fingers cold and wet, heart hammering with every handful.Beneath the dirt, something hard met her touch — smooth, circular, metallic.
Together they uncovered a clock — small, ornate, half-rusted but still pulsing with faint light.The hands pointed to 12:12.
Seo-jin leaned over, whispering, "If I've learned anything, it's that twelve is never good news."
Ha-rin took a deep breath. "It's never the end, either."
She turned the clock over — on the back, engraved words barely visible under grime:
For the children who will teach time to feel.
Her throat tightened. "Our parents."
The boy's small hand slipped into hers. "What now?"
Ha-rin looked at the clock — the glow matching her pulse, Jae-hyun's heartbeat still echoing faintly through it."We finish what they started."
The ground beneath them trembled.The twin suns flickered, shifting positions — for the first time, moving.Light poured from the cracks in the earth, weaving upward in spirals like threads of molten gold.
Seo-jin stumbled back. "What did you—oh no, you turned it on, didn't you?"
The boy whispered, eyes wide, "No. She woke it up."
Ha-rin held the clock close to her chest, its warmth spreading through her skin like a second heartbeat.The red thread around her wrist glowed brighter, connecting to the clock's center.
The ticking quickened.
And in the shimmer of the field, faint silhouettes began to appear — her parents, Jae-hyun's, others unknown — ghostly figures watching silently, their mouths moving without sound.
Ha-rin's vision blurred. "They're here."
Seo-jin took a step back, whispering, "No, not here. They're being replayed."
The boy tugged her sleeve, trembling. "Mom… the suns are falling."
She looked up — both suns descending toward the horizon, the light twisting, burning, beautiful and terrifying.
Ha-rin took one last look at the clock, clutching it tightly."If the first broken clock began the loop," she whispered, "then maybe breaking it again ends everything."
Seo-jin shouted, "Wait, you don't know what—"
But she had already thrown it into the heart of the glowing field.
The impact was silent.Then, the world exhaled.
The suns froze mid-fall, the mirrors cracked, and a shockwave of light rushed outward.For one perfect moment, everything stopped — no sound, no time, no grief.Only the faint echo of his voice:
I told you. I'll always find you.
When the light faded, Ha-rin opened her eyes.The field was gone.The sky had only one sun.And in the distance, near the edge of the forest, stood a figure — wet hair, torn shirt, heartbeat strong.
"Jae-hyun?" she whispered.
He looked up, smiling faintly, that same impossible warmth breaking through all the ruins of the world."Sorry," he said, voice cracking. "Took the long way back."