Vrooooom―!
Suddenly, a loud noise was heard.
There was no time to assess the situation. Niel quickly reached out to grab Ga-eul’s body.
But the motorcycle that charged without warning covered her faster.
“…!”
“…!”
Ga-eul’s hand, which had been reaching toward his, moved away again without even brushing his.
Her slender body, which had momentarily soared into the air, soon descended.
Just like when he first met her here, when he caught her under the fluttering cherry blossom trees.
But unlike then, Niel couldn’t catch her this time.
In a strangely surreal moment, the cluster of purple and pink flowers that had been in her arms until just moments ago scattered down softly.
“Ga-eul…!”
The sounds of people screaming, urgently making calls, and gathering with murmurs all mixed together in a buzz. It seemed like loud sirens were wailing from far away.
Amidst it all, Ga-eul painfully turned her head to meet Niel’s gaze, then closed her eyes.
Plop, plop, plop.
Cold snowflakes were falling on Ga-eul’s body, which was spreading with red.
His heart sank as the afterimage of her that he had once found on a snow-covered terrace overlapped with this scene.
“No. Ga-eul, Ga-eul…”
Thud.
Niel collapsed to the ground and crawled to her on his knees, hastily embracing her body.
To prevent those cold, merciless snowflakes from covering her body again. To prevent them from extinguishing her remaining warmth.
He could feel her body slowly cooling in his arms.
“No. Not yet, not yet. It’s not time yet.”
Niel was spending his fifth time here, and during the previous four times, her life had always ended exactly after 24 years, 2 months, and 17 days.
There were still 2 years and 6 months left. So it wasn’t yet time for her to die…
“…!”
Flinch.
Niel, who was holding her and denying her death, discovered that the golden thread of light wrapped around his wrist was fading.
There was only one meaning to this.
‘Why.’
Ga-eul’s death came much earlier than the time Niel knew.
And Niel knew the reason.
‘Because of me.’
It was none other than Niel himself who had asked to meet her here today.
Her fate had twisted because of his intervention.
‘I hastened your death.’
His complacent belief that it wasn’t yet time for the end had caused all this.
If it hadn’t been for him, she could have enjoyed all the remaining life she had enjoyed during her previous four lives.
That thought tormented Niel even more.
[I don’t know what the price for breaking the taboo will be. But you will certainly pay it. That’s the law of the universe.]
He remembered the advice Helasio had given when he was leaving his world.
Suddenly he thought.
Perhaps the result of his arrogance, acting as if he were a god, breaking taboos, traversing time and space, and believing he had mastered all things, was the “price” he had paid.
“I’m sorry.”
Niel held her cooling body and muttered continuously.
“I’m sorry, Ga-eul.”
People grabbed him and said something.
“I’m sorry.”
But Niel couldn’t hear their voices.
“Just wait, just wait a little, Ga-eul.”
Endlessly caressing Ga-eul’s face, he whispered in a sorrowful voice.
“…I’ll soon bring you back to life.”
Niel took out the remaining god’s core from his possession. The red jewel had worn down to the size of a fingernail.
Now he had only one chance left.
His heart wavered for a moment before his last chance to cross time and space.
If he went to the time of her birth, perhaps this time he could share a complete life with Ga-eul.
But that couldn’t be.
Because her pale soul that had escaped would soon cross to another dimension to prepare for a new birth.
To her, who would face a lonely battle for twenty years in that new life before meeting a noble death, he had to deliver this physical body.
“Jella…”
Niel carefully took out her name, which he had preciously kept like a jewel for a long time, and called it.
As if responding to that call, the golden thread wrapped around his left wrist emitted its remaining fading light.
“I’m coming back to you.”
Bright light began to frost around Niel, who was embracing Ga-eul’s body.
Soon, with a flashing light, the bodies of the two people disappeared.
***
Niel returned with Ga-eul’s physical body.
Unlike the countless times he had spent in Ga-eul’s dimension, time had flowed very slowly in his original dimension.
According to Yupheon and Cail, who had been protecting Jella’s soul, it was just the blink of an eye.
Niel, who returned with a pained expression, silently handed over Ga-eul’s body to them.
His mission was completed by bringing back her physical body. The rest was up to them.
Niel, who had noticeably become less talkative, had a face as if he was bearing all the world’s suffering alone.
Yuphe and Cail felt puzzled by Niel’s appearance, but their immediate concern was reviving Jella.
There were several twists and turns, but Jella was able to be safely resurrected. All that remained was for her soul to open her eyes in the new body.
After intense discussion, the three men decided to protect her in the Great Temple.
Niel, busy with imperial palace matters, occasionally visited the Great Temple to see her lying asleep like the dead on the bed.
“Ga-eul.”
Rustle. Black hair flowed through his fingers.
“I will return everything to you.”
By now, she would have been born into a new body, enduring twenty years of lonely and intense time alone, and reaching a brief respite.
“I will place this peaceful world, which you tried to save with your life, right back into your arms.”
Sometimes he wondered if disturbing the natural order and awakening her from her rest was truly the right path for her.
But Niel, whenever he thought of her who had volunteered her own death to save a world that hated her, felt such heartache.
“It’s okay if you don’t remember me. It’s okay if you don’t love me. Just be healthy…”
It was okay if she didn’t remember him. It was okay if she didn’t love him.
Just with the hope that she could live once receiving only love from everyone… with the desire to give her such a life, he waited for her to open her eyes.
“I will lay the whole world at your feet, so just wake up healthy.”
Shortly after, news came that she had awakened in the Great Temple.
Despite having wished so much for her resurrection, Niel couldn’t visit her immediately.
It was because he didn’t have the confidence to face Jella looking at him with Ga-eul’s face.
How much of their time together would she remember? How far would she remember?
Sometimes he wished she would remember everything, and other times he wished she wouldn’t remember a single moment. He suffered, unable to find direction amidst these contradictory emotions.
Occasionally, the time spent with Ga-eul felt like a single night’s dream.
But the cold ring box, revealing its presence heavily, continuously reminded him that those times were not dreams but definite reality.
Niel looked at the pair of rings engraved with her name and his, and organized his thoughts.
It was more rational to think that she wouldn’t remember her meeting with him when she was Kim Ga-eul. After all, the young empress had always been cold to him.
But if her soul remembered him again in the distortion of time and space, then…
‘First, let’s meet her. Meet her and…’
After days of contemplation, Niel finally seemed to have made up his mind and got up to meet her. However…
“Who are you?”
Under the tree with abundantly blooming flowers. Looking at her tilting her head with an unfamiliar expression, Niel sighed briefly.
She had lost her memories.
Both the memories of Kim Ga-eul, who loved him, and the memories of Jella, who disliked him. All of them.
Niel laughed emptily and put down the ring box he had been fiddling with in his pocket. Then he elegantly extended his hand toward her.
“Hello, Miss Jella.”
He greeted her in a gentle and courteous voice, just as when he first met her.
“Do you know me?”
She looked at him with a hint of wariness in her eyes and reached out her hand.
Niel blankly stared at those white fingertips extending toward him.
Her hand, with the warmth of the living, finally touched his hand.
Swallowing the sudden surge of emotion that came from remembering Ga-eul’s hand, which had ultimately not touched his and moved away, he smiled gently.
“I’ve been waiting for you. Very, very much.”
Swoosh―
A thin wind blew, shaking the flower branches. Colorful petals fluttered gently above their heads.
The time with her that had been cut off began to flow again.
T/n: Wow, the author clearly thought that Niel hadn’t suffered enough yet. Having her die right before his eyes is simply cruel. But what I find even worse is his immediate thought process afterward, blaming himself for everything. And now that we know the entire story, it hurts even more that he wasn’t endgame as well. Aww, he kept the rings and used them again. Everything in his life has always revolved around Ga-eul/Jella.
It’s heartbreaking to see how much Niel sacrificed across multiple timelines just to give her a chance at happiness. The parallel between the first meeting with Ga-eul under the cherry blossoms and this final scene under blooming flowers creates such a beautiful yet painful symmetry to their relationship. Despite everything, his devotion never wavered – even when she couldn’t remember him. (˃̣̣̥⌓˂̣̣̥ )
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Mahwiii
now im really hating that it have a endgame ml instead of an open ending much more than i did before
this is so… his time has already ended and it cant come back again at all
i kinda hope jella remember him in a fleeting moment but then again its too late for that now as well
i just cant stop crying now
he couldnt even be her fiance in the other world too