Seems I Was Wrong (4)
Jin Ju-yeong's misunderstanding was never resolved.
Lee Do-jin, who had wondered whether Jin Gyeo-wool might be suffering from amnesia, never bothered to mention anything of the sort to Ju-yeong. If she truly had amnesia, it would make no sense for her own family not to know — and even if she did, it wouldn't hurt Do-jin either way.
From the start, Lee Do-jin had never intended to accept Gyeo-wool's feelings. If they could simply go back to being nothing more than friends…
No need to tell him and risk bringing her old memories back.
He was fine with becoming the villain.
"She didn't even look mad."
"She wasn't angry?"
"Yeah. She was just grinding ranked games."
"…Really?"
Still, a clue had been left behind — one that might eventually unravel the family's misconceptions about Gyeo-wool.
"I think she's really made up her mind this time. So don't be so scared — just talk to her properly. I'd keep looking after her myself if I could, but you know how it is. Team practice keeps me busy. I can't come by that often."
Thanks to the breadcrumb Lee Do-jin was leaving behind, the misunderstanding would clear up soon enough.
Ju-yeong would have to suffer a while longer, though…
"I'm heading out. How long are you going to keep cowering in front of your little sister? If you're the older brother, act like one."
"What?! You think I want to be like this?!"
Well — a man's hair was a precious thing. But Ju-yeong's terror of Gyeo-wool had long since crossed the line into excess.
"She seems like she genuinely wants to go pro. If that's the case, shouldn't you at least make sure she doesn't cause any more incidents from now on?"
"…"
Ju-yeong had no real rebuttal. He simply stood there, staring blankly at Lee Do-jin's back as he walked toward the front door.
The door clicked shut. Alone, Ju-yeong spat his frustration at the empty space where Do-jin had been.
"Fuck… If that girl hadn't been so obsessively fixated on my hair, I wouldn't be this terrified…"
That fixation on hair. That was what had turned Jin Gyeo-wool into the monster every man in the household feared.
But Lee Do-jin was right. If Ju-yeong kept surrendering to her forever, nothing would ever change.
Even if it cost him a few clumps of hair, he had to find his courage. If he didn't stage his revolution now, he was the one who would end up getting eaten alive.
And so, twenty minutes after the dilemma first took root, the older brother bravely left his room.
Lee Do-jin was gone, but Gyeo-wool hadn't bothered closing her door. The one who'd shut it earlier had been Ju-yeong himself, after getting the text that Do-jin was coming over.
Through the open doorway, Ju-yeong assessed his sister's condition, then slipped quietly into her room.
"Hey. What are you doing?"
He opened with a short greeting, going for the initiative.
"Running ranked."
An answer of equal brevity came back, and he flinched — but he couldn't stop here. Ju-yeong took another step forward and asked again.
"How high's your tier?"
An even shorter reply.
"D3."
Apparently the last game had bumped her up a whole division.
A kid who'd been stuck in Platinum rocketing all the way to Diamond was already shocking enough — but the fact that she was climbing as a top laner, not a mid laner, made it even more so.
Then again, there was a reasonable explanation. Plenty of people who'd hit a wall as mid laners switched to top and watched their ranks climb. Physical-focused players like Gyeo-wool especially. Mid demanded map awareness as much as mechanics.
If she absorbed Bom's style and switched to top, the rank climb makes perfect sense.
Top laners were getting more attention these days anyway. Not a bad position for building a following.
Ju-yeong took a deep breath and made a request of his little sister, still locked into her game.
"When that one's done, can you come to my room for a bit? Just for a second?"
Please don't glare at me with those axe-blade eyes. That was what he was thinking, but—
"Sure."
An even shorter answer came back. And the thing he'd been dreading never happened.
"Huh?"
Ju-yeong was the baffled one. Gyeo-wool was the one who looked puzzled by his confusion.
"What?"
Afraid her mood might flip at any second, Ju-yeong fled as he spoke.
"N-nothing! Take your time finishing up! No rush!"
Back in his room, he flopped straight onto the bed and muttered to himself.
"Has she… actually changed? Is that even possible?"
But if everything he'd been sensing was a misunderstanding — if this was amnesia, or some kind of mental break from severe trauma — that would be a different story entirely.
People didn't just flip a switch and become someone else overnight. There was a reason folks treated sudden personality changes as a death omen.
Everything had a cause.
For Ju-yeong, though, this was good news.
If his sister really had amnesia — if she'd forgotten every violent thing she'd ever done — then not only could he change the atmosphere of this fear-soaked household, he could do so much more with her.
Cam streams he'd never dared attempt for fear of school-violence scandals. Vlog content that could accelerate the YouTube channel's growth.
If we just dive in headfirst, it won't blow up later… The biggest victim from back then is on our side now, after all.
If Gyeo-wool could still snap into that madness at any moment, that was a problem. But if the madness was gone for good? Fine. The mere absence of that looming crisis was enough to free Ju-yeong's expansion plans from any real burden.
"Perfect. Flawless plan. Heh heh heh… If I show her this kind of strategic thinking, she won't be able to look down on me anymore. Maybe I can even go independent like th—"
"I'm here."
"Gah—!"
Already? Ju-yeong shot upright like a coiled spring snapping free.
"You scared me. What's this about?"
The fact that she'd even honored the request to come to his room was remarkable enough — but even standing here in his doorway, there wasn't a trace of irritation on her face.
Without Lee Do-jin, he would have kept mistaking this for the calm before another psychotic episode. Silently thanking the friend who'd come by today, Ju-yeong explained why he'd called her over.
"So… how about trying some live streams? Just uploading VODs alone isn't pulling in enough new subs."
"Live streams?"
"Yeah. You want to go pro, right? Then people need to know your name first."
Unlike most male players, Gyeo-wool needed a concrete, exceptional reason for a team to sign her. Without one, most orgs would cite housing and teammate issues and turn her down flat.
So Ju-yeong had chosen streaming as the key to that narrow door. It was already a red ocean, sure — but Gyeo-wool had the power to carve a blue ocean right through the middle of it. Namely: her looks, and her controversy.
"We're going to do noise marketing."
Chasing hype sometimes meant getting eaten by the hype itself — but Ju-yeong had a solid ally who could shut down the old attitude scandals for good.
Take the school incident where she'd ripped out a classmate's hair. Gyeo-wool's response had been excessive, sure, but the whole thing started because that classmate had stolen her homework.
The incident where she'd cursed out a teacher, too — in a way, Lee Bom's death had been the real catalyst. Classmates later testified that the teacher, who eventually left the profession, had needlessly provoked Gyeo-wool with words that never should have been said.
You don't look at a grieving girl who just lost her friend and ask, Was she your parent? Your sibling?
Those two incidents alone had made her infamous. Strip them away, and there was no real reason anyone should have called her a psycho.
Beyond that, Gyeo-wool's school life had been a long stretch of quiet monotony.
"Since those incidents had reasons behind them, I figured we'd start with an apology video right out of the gate."
"Ah… huh? Me? Why?"
Unfortunately, Gyeo-wool had no idea what wrongs she was supposed to have committed. Hon Gyeo-wool had never told her — and lately, she hadn't shown up at all.
And those few words out of Gyeo-wool's mouth happened to trigger Ju-yeong's PTSD.
"What did I do wrong? Why do I have to apologize?! HE's the one who messed up. HE started it!!!"
"Be quiet!!"
The scariest little sister in the world going toe-to-toe with the second-scariest person — their mother. The heavens had shaken. Mountains had trembled.
That must have been the day she came home after being forced to apologize at school for Thanos-snapping a classmate's hairline.
Don't tell me… she just doesn't want to remember that…
If Ju-yeong was right, forcing an apology for the sake of a cam stream would be pure torment for her. She had no reason to accept it in the first place.
Is she rejecting my proposal in a roundabout way?!
There was no other explanation.
"Did I… do something wrong?"
Gyeo-wool's brow was deeply furrowed as she said it.
"Whoa. No. You didn't do anything wrong. Let's just talk about this later!"
Ju-yeong hustled her out of the room in a fluster. The door shut with a solid thunk. Gyeo-wool stood frozen in front of it and let out a short sigh.
"What's his problem? I was genuinely asking because I didn't know."
The reason for the scowl had been nothing dramatic. Right before becoming Gyeo-wool — in the final moments of Bae Do-hyun's life — he'd thoroughly beaten Jang Jae-hong's face in. That memory had just surfaced.
No matter how much the guy had provoked him, it was still something you weren't supposed to do. The guilt had put a crease in Do-hyun's brow.
He had no idea Ju-yeong would take one look at that face and jump to the worst conclusion.
"…Anyway. So I did something wrong, huh."
Gyeo-wool hurried back to her room, shut the door, and stood in front of the mirror.
It was time to call Hon Gyeo-wool again.
"Wool-ah. Wool-ah!!"
Come out already. I've got a lot of questions.
But no matter how many times he called, Hon Gyeo-wool didn't appear. It almost felt like something was actively preventing her from showing up.
Is something wrong? Or was there some other condition for us to talk besides just this mirror?
Bae Do-hyun's reasonably sharp mind kicked into high gear, hunting for whatever other requirement might exist for him and Hon Gyeo-wool to meet.
About ten minutes of deep thought later, he finally pinpointed what was different between now and the first time they'd spoken.
"Right. This incense candle…"
The candle with the strange runes covering its round surface — already melted down by about a third.
The first time I arrived in this body, Wool-i lit the candle herself and fell asleep, and her soul slipped out. And when I lit it again that same night and woke up, she was visible in the mirror.
He hadn't lit it once since that day.
Gyeo-wool lit the candle with conviction, then immediately tried to sleep. Four in the afternoon wasn't exactly prime nap time, but if you forced your eyes shut long enough, sleep would come eventually.
Young body. Always sleep-deprived.
Roughly three hours later, at seven in the evening, Gyeo-wool woke to the housekeeper's voice calling her for dinner.
He snuffed out the candle at once and ran to the mirror.
A welcome face was waiting, peeking out from behind his own reflection.
"Wool-ah!!"
The look on his face said he'd been dying to see her. Hon Gyeo-wool startled at the sight of him and cried out.
"What? You can see me again? Really?"
"I can see you! God, I thought I'd never see you again…"
Gyeo-wool let out a long breath of pure relief.
"I couldn't talk to you this whole time. I've just been stuck here worrying by myself."
"You were trapped in the mirror?"
"More precisely… I was trapped in my room inside the mirror."
Hon Gyeo-wool had been sealed alone in the spiritual space within the glass. For days she'd stared at the mirror, waiting for Bae Do-hyun to return — but no matter how long she waited, he never appeared on the other side.
"I figured out why. It's because of that incense candle."
"The candle? That weird one with the strange writing that I bought…?"
"Yeah."
Gyeo-wool laid out the whole explanation.
It was still a hypothesis, but it seemed they could see each other for as long as the candle had been burning while he slept. Some kind of medium connecting the spirit world to the material one.
So if they wanted to keep talking, they needed more of that candle. Tell him where she bought it.
But Hon Gyeo-wool couldn't answer right away.
"That candle… honestly, I don't really remember either."
"What?"
"Because Bom and I bought it together overseas, on a school trip…"
Overseas? A shadow crossed Gyeo-wool's face.
"If it's Bom… she probably kept it without using it. But I don't know if her parents would have left something like that among her belongings."
"…That's a problem."
If he was going to keep living as Jin Gyeo-wool, the incense candle was essential. There was no telling when or where he'd suddenly need Hon Gyeo-wool's memories.
"Anyway — I've got some questions. Urgent ones."
Hon Gyeo-wool seemed to already sense what was coming. She hadn't been able to talk to him, but she'd been faintly aware of everything unfolding on the other side.
"……You're talking about the stuff I did at school, right?"
"Yeah. Bingo. That."
Hon Gyeo-wool hesitated for a long time — but she knew she couldn't just skip past it.
She still didn't believe she'd been in the wrong. Even so, he needed to hear the full story.
And so, for a full hour, Jin Gyeo-wool listened to Hon Gyeo-wool recount the past year — a history that was anything but pleasant.