The morning after the Axis collapse was too quiet.
No tremors.
No voices.
No weight in the air.
Just sunlight — gentle and golden, slipping through the bookshop windows like forgiveness itself.
Eunha sat by the counter, staring at the same page of a novel for over an hour. The words blurred, replaced by the afterimage of gold light.
She should've felt relief.
Instead, she felt emptier than death.
---
⚜️
The bell above the door chimed.
A man stepped in, rain-soaked and smiling awkwardly. "Sorry, are you open?"
Eunha looked up.
For a moment, her lungs forgot how to work.
It was him.
Same eyes — dark like twilight before a storm.
Same scar beneath the left jaw.
Same voice that used to whisper her name like it was a vow.
But there was no recognition in his gaze.
"Welcome," she said softly. "Yes, we're open."
---
He browsed the shelves in silence, fingers trailing over spines like he was searching for something his mind couldn't name.
When he reached the counter again, he held a single book.
The Songs of Forgotten Worlds.
Eunha's heart twisted. "You have good taste."
He smiled faintly. "It just… felt familiar."
Her hands trembled as she rang him up. "Do you live nearby?"
"Just moved in, actually. Name's Jiheon."
Of course it was.
---
⚜️
Days turned into weeks.
He kept visiting. Always at sunset. Always with the same polite smile, the same gentle tone.
And every time, Eunha told herself not to hope.
Not to look for fragments of their past in the way he held his cup of tea.
Not to read too deeply into the way his gaze lingered on her hands.
But hope, like memory, was hard to kill.
---
⚜️
One evening, a power outage plunged the district into darkness.
Jiheon stayed behind, helping her light candles around the shop. The small flames painted their faces in amber warmth.
"Strange," he murmured, watching the flicker. "It feels like we've done this before."
Her breath caught. "Maybe you have déjà vu."
He chuckled softly. "Maybe. Or maybe…"
He looked at her, eyes unreadable. "We were meant to meet again."
Her heart stuttered.
And for the first time since the collapse, she let herself smile.
---
⚜️
But peace never lasts.
That night, Eunha dreamed of gold.
She stood in a void of shimmering light, surrounded by whispers.
They weren't words — more like echoes of thought.
> "You broke the cycle…"
"Yet pieces remain…"
"The Axis remembers…"
When she woke, her wrist burned.
The mark was gone — but beneath her skin, faint threads of gold pulsed like veins of light.
Her heart pounded.
It couldn't be.
The Axis was destroyed.
Wasn't it?
---
⚜️
The next morning, Jiheon arrived early — before sunrise.
He looked pale, shaken. "Eunha, I… had the strangest dream."
Her stomach dropped. "Tell me."
"There was this… circle. Made of light. And a woman's voice kept saying my name."
Her blood turned to ice. "What did she say exactly?"
He hesitated. "She said: The Reluctant One has not yet fulfilled his vow."
Eunha froze.
The same line that haunted their first lifetime.
The same prophecy she'd spent lifetimes trying to undo.
The Axis wasn't gone. It was reborn — inside them.
---
⚜️
That night, she couldn't sleep.
The threads beneath her skin glowed faintly, pulsing with every heartbeat.
She stared at her reflection — and for an instant, the mirror didn't show her face.
It showed the Countess.
Golden eyes.
Moonlight crown.
A ghost of power she thought she'd buried.
Her reflection spoke — her own voice, layered over another.
> "You can't kill eternity, child. You can only become it."
The mirror cracked.
Eunha stumbled back, trembling.
"Not again…"
---
⚜️
Outside, the world was shifting.
In alleyways, reflections lingered a second too long.
Whispers followed people when they passed by still water.
And the city clock — once silent — began to tick backward at midnight.
The world without echoes… had found its voice again.
---
⚜️
The next evening, Jiheon didn't come.
Eunha waited until closing time, staring at the door like it owed her answers.
When she finally stepped outside, she saw a faint glow in the distance — golden, rhythmic, pulsing like a heartbeat.
She followed it through winding streets to the riverbank.
There, Jiheon stood — motionless — staring at the water. His reflection was glowing.
"Jiheon!" she called.
He turned slowly, eyes filled with gold.
> "The Axis is not gone," he whispered. "It chose us again."