Seo-yeon didn't tell her parents.
Not that night.
Not yet.
She sat in her room, staring at the notebook.
Her pen hovered above the page.
Her hand trembled slightly.
She had changed fate.
Saved her father.
Saved her family.
But she hadn't eliminated the threat.
She had only forced it into a new form.
She wrote slowly:
June 24 — He spoke to me directly.
She paused.
Her chest tightened.
Then continued—
He is no longer searching. He has found us.
Her breathing became uneven.
In her first life, the accident had been sudden.
Unpredictable.
Unavoidable.
This—
This was different.
This was patient.
Deliberate.
Watching.
Waiting.
Her fingers tightened around the pen.
She wasn't afraid of dying anymore.
She had already faced death.
She was afraid of something worse.
Watching her parents suffer again.
Because of her.
Because she had changed fate.
Because she had kept them alive long enough for new dangers to reach them.
She closed the notebook slowly.
Her reflection stared back at her from the window.
Seventeen.
But carrying fear far older than her body.
This time—
The enemy wasn't fate.
It was a man who could think.
Plan.
Adapt.
And now—
He knew her face.