[Six Months Later]
[Shanghai, China]
Half a year had passed since that day.
Half a year since Haru's sixth birthday.
Since the accident that should never have happened.
Yet even after six long months, the consequences of that day continued destroying lives.
Not a single person involved had truly escaped it.
But Haru never woke up.
She remained asleep inside a hospital room.
Motionless and silent.
Her small body continued breathing.
Her heart continued beating faithfully.
But her eyes never opened.
Six months had passed.
The little girl who once filled every corner of the house with her soft smile now lay quietly beneath white blankets.
Like a fairy who had lost her way home.
Or perhaps a child who had been taken somewhere she never wanted to go.
Doctors called it a coma.
But to Taekyun, it felt like something far crueler.
Because every day he watched her.
Every day he waited and hoped.
And every day she remained silent.
And then there was Haneul.
Alive, yet not truly living.
The difference between him and Haru was simple.
Haru slept peacefully.
Haneul didn't.
He had not been the same since the accident.
Something inside him had broken that day.
Completely.
His body remained here.
His soul didn't seem to.
Most days he simply sat wherever someone placed him.
Near the window.
Near Haru.
Inside the garden.
Inside the living room.
It didn't matter.
He would sit there for hours.
Silent,still.
Like a person afraid to move.
The bright emotions that once appeared so naturally on his face had disappeared completely.
Leaving behind only fear and endless guilt.
The days following the accident had been even worse.
Because tragedy hadn't ended with Haru's coma.
It had only begun.
When Mrs. Kim arrived at the hospital alongside Mr. Kim and the rest of the family, everything exploded.
The Kim family learned about Haru's condition.
They learned about the pregnancy.
And they learned things Taekyun had hidden for years.
At that point, Taekyun himself was already breaking apart.
Haru was fighting for her life.
Haneul had collapsed.
The baby was at risk.
And he no longer had the strength left to fight everyone.
For the first time, he stopped standing between Mrs. Kim and Haneul.
He let her see him.
He let her ask whatever she wanted.
He let her confront him.
No one knew what happened inside that hospital room.
Only two people knew.
Mrs. Kim and Haneul.
The meeting lasted less than thirty minutes.
Then Mrs. Kim walked out of the room.
And collapsed.
Right in front of everyone.
The doctors rushed immediately.
Emergency treatment began.
But it was already too late.
Mrs. Kim died that day.
Leaving the Kim's stunned.
The horror wasn't visible from the outside.
There were no major injuries.
No signs of violence.
Nothing that could explain what happened.
Yet internally....
Her body had suffered catastrophic failure.
Organ after organ had stopped functioning.
As if something had destroyed her from within.
Doctors couldn't explain it.
Specialists couldn't explain it.
No report provided answers.
Questions that remained unanswered even six months later.
And from that moment onward
The Kim family needed someone to blame.
They chose Haneul.
Mr. Kim ordered investigations.
They performed tests.
Background searches.
Everything.
And eventually the truth surfaced.
The truth about Eunoia.
The truth Taekyun had protected for months.
The truth Haneul himself wished had never been discovered.
Haneul was not from their world.
Once the information reached the Kim families, everything became worse.
Because fear was stronger than reason.
And fear spread quickly.
They stopped calling Mrs kim death a coincidence.
Soon people started connecting everything.
Haru's accident.
Mrs. Kim's death.
The strange circumstances surrounding Haneul.
His origins, pheromones and Eunoia
Rumors exploded.
Then those rumors reached Neopharm.
After that, they reached the media.
And they reached the nation.
Old fears returned.
Stories people had buried years ago resurfaced once again.
The public reacted with panic.
Questions appeared everywhere.
Everyone wanted answers.
Everyone wanted someone to blame.
And once again.
That blame fell on Haneul.
Taekyun understood what would happen if he stayed.
He understood exactly what kind of world was waiting for Haneul.
A world that would tear him apart.
A world that would never stop hunting him.
So he made a decision.
He handed over everything.
The company, authority and responsibilities.
All of it.
To Nayeon and Jina.
Then he left.
Without looking back.
Leaving Korea behind.
Leaving the Kim family behind.
Leaving his old life behind.
And taking only two people with him.
Haru and Haneul.
(Six months later)
They were now living in Shanghai.
Far away from Seoul.
Far away from the media, from everyone.
Yet peace never arrived.
Because some nightmares followed people wherever they went.
The hardest part for Taekyun wasn't Haru's silence.
It wasn't the public hatred.
It wasn't even losing everything he had built.
It was Haneul.
No matter how many times Taekyun asked.
No matter how many times he begged.
No matter how many times he lost patience.
He never got an answer.
"What happened that day?"
The question remained unanswered for six months.
Sometimes Taekyun shouted.
Sometimes he became frustrated,he grabbed Haneul's shoulders desperately.
Demanding answers, anything.
But Haneul never spoke.
Never defended himself and never explained.
He would simply sit there.
Motionless.
Like a broken puppet.
And tears would quietly fall from his eyes.
One after another.
Without end.
His pregnancy had now reached the final stage of the eighth month.
Yet instead of becoming healthier, he was falling apart.
Rapidly.
Every doctor who examined him became concerned.
Because Haneul was losing too much weight.
His wrists had become frighteningly thin.
His face had lost its color.
His body looked weaker every week.
Yet strangely
The baby remained perfectly healthy.
Strong and stable.
Growing exactly as expected.
Even the doctors couldn't understand it.
The weaker Haneul became.
The stronger the child seemed.
As though the baby was taking every remaining piece of strength Haneul still possessed.
The nights were the worst.
They always were.
Almost every night, Taekyun woke to the same sound.
A scream.
Then another.
Then desperate crying.
He would immediately rush toward Haneul.
Finding him trembling violently beneath the blankets.
Sweat soaking his clothes.
Tears streaming endlessly.
His entire body shaking in terror.
And every single time
The words remained the same.
"My umma..."
"My mom will kill me...."
Sometimes Haneul would wake up clutching his stomach.
Sometimes he would cry so hard he couldn't breathe.
Sometimes he would beg for forgiveness from someone who wasn't there.
And every time....
Taekyun would pull him close.
Release calming pheromones.
Hold him until sunrise if necessary.
Stay beside him until the shaking stopped.
Until he stop crying and fell asleep again
One month ago, after countless recommendations from specialists, Taekyun finally agreed to something he had avoided for a long time.
Therapy.
That was how Lisa entered their lives.
A therapist unlike anyone before.
Patient,gentle and careful.
And somehow,
She succeeded where everyone else had failed.
Including Taekyun.
Because Haneul spoke to her.
Not immediately.
But little by little.
The things he never shared with Taekyun.
The fears, nightmares, voices, guilt,memories and pain.
He told Lisa everything.
For hours sometimes.
Speaking more to her in a single afternoon than he had spoken to anyone else in six months.
Everything.
Except one thing.
The one secret he protected more desperately than anything else.
The truth about what happened inside that hospital room.
The day Mrs. Kim met him.
The day she died.
And the day Haneul himself seemed to break beyond repair.
Six months had passed.
Yet whatever happened inside that room
Still refused to let any of them go.