𝐈'𝐦 𝐚𝐧 𝐄𝐱𝐭𝐫𝐚 𝐢𝐧 𝐚 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐝𝐲 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥 (𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐃)

Epilogue 2: The Girl Who Died Twice

The first thing she noticed when she opened her eyes was a stark, sterile white ceiling.

Calypso—or rather, Park Hanbyeol—had fully expected to wake up in the plush, familiar bed of the empress's palace.

She distinctly remembered the heavy lethargy in her bones, the weight of her head resting against Arsen's chest, and the agonizing finality of her last breath as she died in his embrace.

So when she found herself conscious once more, a wave of cold, sharp terror seized her chest. Her mind immediately panicked, assuming that time had rewound yet again, forcing her back into the loop of a past she thought she had finally left behind.

But as the blurry glaze over her vision slowly began to subside, the panic morphed into profound confusion.

The ceiling was entirely unfamiliar. The room was illuminated by harsh, artificial lighting, and the steady, rhythmic beep-beep of an electronic monitor echoed in the background. It was too modern, too cold.

A sharp, audible gasp shattered the quiet of the room. Before she could even turn her head, a wildly familiar face burst into her field of vision. Black eyes, wide with absolute disbelief, stared down at her, framed by messy hair.

"Taeyang..." She managed to whisper.

Her voice was incredibly hoarse and raspy, the syllables scraping against her throat as if she hadn't used her vocal cords in a lifetime.

Kim Taeyang stood completely frozen, in a state of sheer, paralyzing shock. For a long, breathless moment, he looked as if he couldn't believe what was happening, terrified that she was nothing more than a cruel hallucination.

He slammed his finger onto the emergency call button by the bedside, then scrambled to his feet and rushed out into the corridor, frantically shouting for the medical staff.

Within seconds, the room was a blur of motion. A team of doctors and nurses flooded the space, gently pushing a frantic Taeyang to the side.

Hanbyeol lay still as they shone a small light into her eyes, checked her vital signs, and ran a series of rapid neurological assessments.

She watched them with a quiet, observant calm, her mind still sorting through the massive gap between her past life and her current reality.

After a thorough and rigorous checkup, the head physician finally stepped back, looking at his clipboard and then at Hanbyeol with an expression of sheer awe. He turned to Taeyang, a wide, disbelieving smile breaking across his face.

"It's incredible," the doctor announced, shaking his head. "She is completely responsive, her vitals are entirely stable, and miraculously, there are absolutely no neurological or physical complications. Her brain activity is perfectly normal."

As the medical team began charting the data, whispers broke out among the nurses. Word traveled fast through the ward, and before long, everyone in the hospital was talking about the patient in room 402.

To wake up after so long without a single trace of brain damage or muscle atrophy was practically unheard of. They kept repeating the same word over and over: it was a miracle.

Finally, after ensuring she was comfortable and adjusting her IV fluids, the flock of amazed doctors and nurses filed out of the room, quietly closing the door behind them to grant the pair some privacy.

Once the room fell silent again, Taeyang completely unraveled. He lunged forward, throwing his arms around her fragile frame and burying his face into her shoulder. He sobbed uncontrollably, his broad shoulders heaving as a torrent of tears soaked into her hospital gown.

Hanbyeol gently patted his back, waiting patiently until his frantic weeping slowly calmed into a quiet tremor.

Taeyang pulled back just enough to look at her, his hands tightly gripping hers as if she might vanish if he let go.

He wiped his face with the back of his hand, his voice thick with emotion as he finally told her everything that had happened.

"You fell into the lake two years ago," he whispered, his grip tightening. "You've been in a deep, unresponsive coma this entire time. And because you don't have any family left, there was no one to take legal responsibility for you. Most people... most people from school and your co-worker just assumed you were as good as dead. They told me to pull the plug after the first few months."

He let out a shaky, ragged breath, his red eyes locking onto hers with an intense, unyielding devotion.

"But I couldn't do that. I volunteered to take full responsibility for you. Money isn't an issue for me either. You know that my family has more than enough money, so I handled all the hospital bills, and I told the doctors I didn't care if you never woke up—I was going to stay by your side and take care of you until the very end."

Listening to his confession, she felt a profound warmth bloom in her chest.

In that exact breath, the modern hospital room seemed to blur at the edges, and the image of Kim Taeyang completely, beautifully overlapped with the ghost of Emperor Arsenio Arcturus.

It was a dizzying sensation, like two separate transparencies being perfectly aligned against a bright light.

The way Taeyang clung to her waist, the unshielded devotion radiating from his eyes, and the desperate, raw vulnerability of his tears—it was an exact mirror of the man who had knelt on the cold floor of her imperial bedroom, weeping on her lap and begging for a chance to make things right.

The modern man and the fantasy world emperor were entirely one and the same.

It became undeniably clear to her then that the concept of a soulmate wasn't just a fairy tale or a comforting myth. It was a cosmic truth.

A true soulmate wasn't just someone you loved; they were an unyielding anchor across the fabric of time. Their souls were bound by an invisible, unbreakable thread that neither a tragic public execution, a peaceful death in a palace balcony, nor a two-year coma could ever sever.

Even when the universe stripped away their titles, their memories, and the very world they knew, his spirit had instinctively recognized hers.

He was the one who had promised to find her in any lifetime, and true to his word, he had stood guard over her empty shell, waiting for her return.

He had kept his word.

She tightened her arms around his neck, tears pricking her own eyes as she sank into the familiar safety of his embrace.

"Thank you," she whispered softly into his shoulder, acknowledging both the man in front of her and the emperor in her memories. "Thank you for keeping your promise."

Taeyang pulled back slightly, a look of mild confusion crossing his tear-stained face as if he didn't know what promise she was talking about.

But as he looked into her brilliant black eyes, he didn't seem to care—as if the only thing that mattered in the universe was that she was finally here, breathing and alive, right in front of him.

***

Author's Note:
We finally get to see Hanbyeol and Taeyang here. This chapter proves that they truly are soulmates whose connection crosses beyond the limits of space and time.

Ah, those soulmate lyrics from the bonus chapter truly hit home. Especially this part: Feels like we've lived a hundred lives before. Together and then decided on one more. For what it's worth, I'd die with you again—a hundred more times multiplied by ten. I hope I'll always have you in my mind so that I know to find you every time. Maybe there's no brightness in this dark. Other than what is burning in this heart. But if we fight to keep this thing alive. Pretty sure there's no end to us in sight. I'll follow you into whatever is next. Or you can follow me, whatever's best.

But anyway, what do you guys think?