Wind hit her face first.
Sharp.Cold.Wet.
Rain.
Ha-rin gasped as her feet hit solid ground—not a floor, but something rough and slightly slippery beneath her shoes.
Concrete.
When her vision cleared—
She froze.
They were standing on a rooftop.
But not any rooftop she remembered.
The city below them was blurred, like someone painted the skyline with streaked watercolors.Lights flickered incoherently.Buildings stretched too tall in some angles, too short in others.
Like a memory half-built.
Ha-rin's heart pounded.
"Jae-hyun… do you know this place?"
There was no answer.
She looked beside her—
—and her breath caught.
He wasn't standing.
He was on his knees.
Eyes wide.Face pale.Chest rising and falling in shallow bursts of shock.
"Jae-hyun?"
Her stomach twisted with fear as she knelt beside him.
"Jae? Hey—look at me."
He didn't blink.
Didn't breathe properly.
He whispered something she could barely hear.
"Not… again."
Her pulse spiked.She gripped his face gently, forcing him to look at her.
"Jae-hyun—you need to tell me what this rooftop is."
His eyes finally focused on her—but they weren't full of fear.
They were full of pain.
"You don't remember," he said, voice cracking.
Ha-rin shook her head.
"I don't."
He swallowed hard—like each word was heavy.
"This is the rooftop where I died."
Her entire body went cold.
"What…?"
"That's why you didn't recognize it," he murmured."You weren't here."
Lightning split the sky above them—but the thunder arrived too early, too loud, too wrong, like the memory itself couldn't sync properly.
Ha-rin grabbed his hands.
"Jae-hyun—explain. Please."
He exhaled shakily.
"In the first timeline… the original one… you and I weren't speaking anymore."
Her breath hitched.
"Why?"
"Because you said you didn't want to see me."
Ha-rin's heartbeat faltered.
"That doesn't sound like me—"
"No," he said."It wasn't you. Not really. It was everything breaking around us. The world, the company, the loop symptoms we didn't understand. We were… falling apart."
Ha-rin's chest ached.
He continued:
"And then… someone sent me a message."
Her breath trembled.
"What message?"
"That you asked to see me one last time."A hollow laugh escaped him."So I came here. To this rooftop."
Ha-rin's chest tightened painfully.
"But I never sent that message."
He looked at her—eyes filled with something like helpless tragedy.
"No. You didn't."
A new voice echoed across the rooftop:
"I did."
Ha-rin spun around.
A figure stood on the far side of the rooftop.
Not Broken Ha-rin.
Not her.
Not Jae-hyun.
A man.Tall.Dark hair dripping with rain.Expression unreadable.
His outline glitched—just a little.
Ha-rin's breath caught.
"Who—?"
Before she could finish—
Jae-hyun stepped in front of her instinctively.
"Stay behind me."
The glitching man smiled faintly.
"Still protecting her. Even now."
Jae-hyun's voice was ice.
"You."
Ha-rin blinked.
"You know him?"
The man tilted his head.
"Not personally. But he knows of me."
Jae-hyun's jaw clenched.
"You're the anomaly in the loop logs."His voice trembled with barely controlled fury."The one Mira couldn't identify."
The man nodded politely.
"I left my signature there. I was hoping someone smart would find it."
Ha-rin stepped cautiously beside Jae-hyun, though he held her wrist tightly, not letting her stray far.
"Who are you?" she whispered.
The man looked at her.
Like he already knew her.Like he had seen her a thousand times.
"You can call me… The Architect."
Ha-rin swallowed.
"What did you architect?"
He smiled.
"Everything."
Jae-hyun's body tensed.
"Everything… as in the loops?"
"Not the loops," The Architect corrected gently."Time."
Ha-rin's breath faltered.
"What?"
The Architect waved a hand around them.
"This rooftop doesn't exist in the present. Or the past. It's a collapsed timeline. One you lived. One she"—he nodded at her—"forgot. One he"—he glanced at Jae-hyun—"never escaped."
Jae-hyun's fists curled.
"You killed me."
The Architect raised an eyebrow.
"I didn't."
Jae-hyun's voice sharpened.
"Someone pushed me off this rooftop."
Ha-rin felt her blood run cold.
"You fell?" she whispered, horrified. "You… fell from here?"
Jae-hyun nodded—barely.
"I hit the barrier three floors down. I died before they could find me."
Ha-rin's knees buckled.
He caught her, pulling her against his side.
The Architect watched them calmly.
"You remember the fall," he said to Jae-hyun."But she doesn't. Because she wasn't here."
Ha-rin looked up at him desperately.
"Then where was I?"
The Architect turned his head toward the far edge of the rooftop—where the rain was heavierand the shadows darker.
"You arrived eight minutes later," he said."And you screamed his name until your voice broke."
Ha-rin's chest caved inward.
"I—I did?"
"You tried to climb down," he said softly."You begged him to wake up. You held his hand until the police arrived. You kept whispering, 'Please don't leave me.'"
Tears streamed down Ha-rin's face.
She hadn't even realized she was crying.
Jae-hyun touched her cheek gently.
"Ha-rin… don't cry."
"How can I not?" she whispered."You died. In front of me. And I forgot."
He wiped her tears with shaking fingers.
"You didn't forget," The Architect corrected."I made you forget."
Both of them turned sharply.
"WHY?" Ha-rin cried."Why erase that pain? Why erase the truth?"
The Architect's expression softened.
"Because pain creates loops. And the first thing I needed was for time to move again."
Ha-rin's throat tightened.
"So you erased my memories?"
"Not erased," he corrected."Fragmented. Buried. Locked away until you became strong enough to handle them."
Jae-hyun stepped forward, fury burning in his eyes.
"You let her suffer because of your experiments."
The Architect didn't flinch.
"And you let her suffer because you loved her."
Jae-hyun froze.
Ha-rin stiffened.
The Architect folded his hands behind his back.
"Your love is the loop's constant.Its fuel.Its destruction.Its salvation."
Ha-rin whispered:
"Then why show us this now?"
The rooftop trembled.
The clouds above darkened unnaturally.
The Architect's form flickered.
"Because the truth is incomplete," he said."You saw his fall.But you haven't seen your own."
Ha-rin froze.
"My… my own?"
Jae-hyun grabbed her hand.Hard.
"No," he whispered fiercely."She doesn't need to see that."
But Ha-rin lifted her chin.
"I do."
Jae-hyun looked like she had stabbed him.
The Architect nodded approvingly.
"Courage," he said."A rare trait. Especially in loop-bound hearts."
He stepped back as the rain thickened.
"Find what happened after his fall," he said quietly."And you will unlock the heart of the loops."
Ha-rin's pulse thudded painfully.
"What did I do?" she whispered.
The Architect smiled sadly.
"You did the one thing time cannot tolerate."
Lightning flashed.
The rooftop split open beneath their feet.
"You jumped."
Ha-rin's breath died in her throat.
The world shattered—
And she fell.
Straight into the memory of her own death.