Great Face, Everything Else Hopeless

2:17 a.m.

I rested my thumb over the card payment screen and spent thirty seconds deliberating.

Deliberating, technically. Pretending to deliberate, more accurately. The decision to hit the button had been made ages ago — what I was doing now ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was basically a funeral service for the last shred of my conscience as a human being.

"Forty-two minutes. Plenty."

Twenty-three pulls left on my pity counter. Even at three thousand won a pop, the math came together fast. And the fact that the math came together fast didn't mean I had no reason to stop — it meant I understood the reasons to stop far too well.

A credit card notification hung at the top of my phone.

And below it, one from my banking app.

I swiped both notifications away with my finger. Out of sight, out of existence. For at least three seconds or so.

"I pull this one, then I quit."

Saying it out loud made it sound more believable. I was pretty sure I'd read somewhere that "just this once" is the single most common thing people say on their way to ruin, but that was other people's problem. No — this time I meant it. Probably.

I hit the payment button.

A moment later, a flashy animation burst across the screen. Rainbow light. Gold. A character silhouette.

I sat up ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in bed. "There it is."

The silhouette fully revealed itself. It was not the pickup character. It was the third dupe of some permanent-pool filler I'd seen twice already.

"…Son of a bitch."

I hurled the phone onto the bed. The mattress sank deep, then bounced the device right back toward me. I stared at the ceiling instead. Three glue stains from glow-in-the-dark stars I'd stuck up last year and let fall. Next to them, the shadow of my laundry rack slanted across the plaster.

The studio apartment was quiet. The only sound was my laptop's fan whirring on the desk, disproportionately loud in the stillness.

Oh. The assignment.

Back in reality, I turned my head. Photoshop was open on the laptop screen. The file was named Midterm_REAL_final_reallyfinal.psd. The canvas was white.

Class at 9 a.m. tomorrow. No — to be precise, class at 9 a.m. today. Submission deadline, 8:50. Current time, 2:49. A little over six hours left.

Smoke two cigarettes, shower, run to the convenience store, lie down for about an hour, snap out of it — that left roughly four hours. Plenty. A college student spending four whole hours on an assignment? That's artisan-level dedication.

I picked the phone back up. Twenty-two pulls left.

"…Well, I'm already this far."

One more pull. Miss. Another. Miss. Again. Miss.

Somewhere around the twelfth, the card company threw up a payment declined notice.

My finger stopped. The room went quiet for a moment. I read the screen twice.

"…What?"

Credit limit exceeded. I opened the card app. Available balance: zero. Cash advance: basically scraped bottom too. I thought about shifting to the overdraft account, opened the banking app, saw the number sitting there, and closed it. Back to the card app. Back to the bank app. The numbers didn't change just because I ping-ponged between apps.

"No wait, my modeling pay comes in this month."

Muttering to myself, I opened ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the calendar. The shoot was next week. The deposit, the week after. The card payment date, five days away.

I stared down at the phone in silence. Five days. Enough time for a person to be thoroughly ruined. Also, conversely, enough time for a miracle. The weekend horse racing tickets flickered briefly through my head. I had one horse picked out from last time. If the odds hit right—

"Ah."

A laugh escaped me before I could stop it. "Am I actually an idiot."

If anyone else had said that, we'd have fought. Coming from me, there was no rebuttal available.

I hunted for a cigarette. A half-crushed pack lay on the floor beside the bed. One left. I clamped it between my lips and opened the window. Cold air poured in.

Sixth floor of a run-down, eleven-story officetel. Through the window I could see the convenience store sign. Next to it, a red glow — a coin karaoke. Farther off, the bar signs lined up toward the university's main gate. Past 2 a.m. and people were still out there. Laughing, shouting, walking arm in arm, dragging drunk friends home.

I flicked the lighter and took a long first drag. My head cleared a little.

That was exactly when my phone rang. Not the game this time. Not the card company either.

Cigarette still in my mouth, I tapped the notification.

"Yeah, yeah, got it," I muttered at the screen. I did not, in fact, got it. I was learning about the three unsubmitted assignments just now.

The moment I swiped the notification away, a messenger message came in. Kang Taehyun.

I exhaled smoke out the window instead of replying. Was this guy a ghost? How did he know.

The reply was instant.

I photographed the blank white Photoshop canvas and sent it. A few seconds later:

"I'm going to kill him."

I ground the cigarette out in the ashtray. Taehyun called. I didn't pick up. He called again. I hung up again. Before the third call could come, I texted.

I considered blocking him on the spot. Then decided that was too much effort and flipped the phone face-down.

Kang Taehyun. Known him since middle school. We briefly dated once, and now, as long as neither of us brought it up, we were perfectly functional friends. To be precise, it was closer to a relationship where we both insisted we were friends.

He had a rough idea of how much of a mess I was. Rough being the operative, merciful word. If he knew the overdraft balance too, the way he looked at me might actually change.

I sat down in my chair and grabbed the mouse, planting the cursor in the middle of Photoshop's empty white void. Ten minutes passed. Nothing. At the twenty-minute mark I changed the background color, then changed it back to white. At thirty minutes I was hungry. I opened the delivery app, saw the minimum order amount, and closed it.

Convenience store, then. I stood up and cracked my knee on the corner of the desk.

"Ah, shit."

And that was when it happened. A strange window popped up in the bottom-right corner of my laptop.

I figured it was an ad and went looking for the close button. There wasn't one. Below the window sat a single button.

"The hell is this."

I moved the mouse. The moment the cursor hovered over the button, the text changed.

My hand froze. I'd never seen that name before.

"Defeated… what?"

I opened a search bar. Defeated Heroine Gallery. No results. Searched the abbreviation. Nothing. The address bar displayed a string of characters that made no sense whatsoever. The domain was wrong too. I figured it was a phishing site and tried to close the window — no X button. Opening the task manager felt like too much work.

In the end, I clicked Enter.

The screen went black. Then a familiar internet-forum-style board loaded. Titles. Usernames. View counts. Upvotes. On the surface, perfectly ordinary. The problem was that every single post title was out of its mind.

I frowned. "What kind of lunatic gallery is this."

And yet, weirdly, it was readable. Stories about other people's ruined lives have always gone down smoother than drinking snacks. I clicked the first feels post. It was about a guy whose long-time crush married another man — he'd walked to the wedding hall, couldn't bring himself to go in, and ended up drinking soju alone at a gukbap restaurant nearby. The comments were half sympathy, half mockery.

A snort escaped me. "Love the logic here."

I scrolled down and read a few more. People in debt. People dumped. People who failed exams, got laid off, never once dated. Tons of them looked perfectly fine on the outside and then anonymously excavated their own lives at 3 a.m.

It was strangely comforting. At least here, there were more ruined people than me.

Or so I thought. Right up until a new menu started glowing at the top of the board.

"They rank everything here, huh."

I clicked. Starting from 10th place, faces and brief profiles appeared. Hong Jisu, 30. Cha Eunbi, 22. Kwon Jaeho, 23.

I scrolled up a little. At 7th place, my finger stopped.

The photo was familiar. Too familiar. The one I'd taken in front of the bathroom mirror after last month's fitting-model shoot. Black tank top. Long dark brown hair. One corner of my mouth tilted up in a smirk.

It was my photo.

"…Huh?"

I spun the mouse wheel up, then back down. The photo stayed. And there was a name.

My hand groped across the desk for a cigarette I wasn't even holding. Nothing there. I'd smoked the last one earlier.

I read further down the screen.

"Hold on." I leaned toward the screen. "Why is my chest on here?"

I read it again from the top. Beauty, S. Fair enough, I'll take it. Life skills, D. Annoying, but rebuttal pending. Finances, F. Who the hell looked at my bank account? Dating experience, F.

"That's because I choose not to, by the way."

I offered the excuse to no one. Self-destruction, S. Now the evaluator was just being rude. And chest, A.

Without thinking, I looked down at my chest through the thin t-shirt. It wasn't like there was nothing there. I wear a bra, for the record. Why that needed to be evaluated on an internet ranking, I had no idea.

The last two lines were even more absurd.

Pregnancy possibility: 0%. Will for self-rescue: 0%.

"You absolute lunatics."

At the bottom of the page there was a section titled "Primary Defeat Factors."

And then the overall verdict.

I read it quietly. Once. Twice. By the third time my lips had parted on their own.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"Fuck."

The comment count was climbing in real time.

My fingers settled onto the keyboard. I hadn't even registered an account, but the comment box was already active. The username was pre-filled.

"…Is this a joke?"

I hit the change-username button.

"Says who?" Settings. Profile. Account. I dug through everything; the change menu was locked everywhere. The comments kept rolling in. In the end, I tapped the input box.

Enter. The comment posted. The board froze for three seconds.

Then it exploded.

Every comment I posted, the view count jumped by dozens. "You absolute bastards."

I looked for a delete-account button. None. Report. None. Customer service. None. Contact the administrator — that one existed. I clicked it. A small window popped up.

I pressed 4.

I hammered the keyboard.

Send. The reply came instantly.

Five seconds.

"…Reviewed what, exactly?"

Additional information appeared.

"A hundred?"

Apparently my life had hit a perfect score without my knowledge. In the worst possible sense. Detailed stats unfolded at the bottom of the screen.

I scoffed at the last line. "Who says I can't recover?"

That was when one more notification slid in.

My hand stopped. Graduation. I thought it was a university thing. It wasn't.

"Penalties?"

The moment I asked, as if it had been waiting, a new window opened.

"Reward? What reward now?"

A chill ran down my spine. I pushed back from the chair and jabbed Cancel with the mouse.

I pressed it again.

"Hey." A third time. A fourth.

The screen dimmed for a moment. The laptop fan cut out with a click. The room's ceiling light flickered once. Even my phone screen lit up simultaneously — displaying the exact same sentence as the laptop.

And then, starting from the crown of my head, an unnervingly cold sensation swept down through my hair, gliding over my scalp —