You're Not Si-yeon
"Oppa… I'm here. Ji-hoo oppa…"
The voice drew steadily closer.
It traveled through the earth, rode the wind, and burrowed deep into his lungs. It was familiar—so familiar he could never forget it, and for that very reason it was painfully, impossibly strange.
Park Ji-hoo clamped both hands over his ears. He bit down on his lip and held his breath. Still the voice slipped through every barrier, whispering its way straight into the soft core of his brain.
The air around him began to change. What had been cold and grimy turned sticky, clinging to his skin; every breath dragged in the stink of blood and mildew. Leaves shivered though no wind stirred. Somewhere a branch cracked, and something seemed to crawl through the undergrowth.
"Ji-hoo oppaa…"
Closer still. It felt as if the words were being murmured right beside his ear.
Ji-hoo spun, scanning the trees with a taut, white face, but nothing showed itself. Only a presence—only breath—only the certainty of something circling him.
He knew what it was.
The Jangsanbeom.
It was revolving around him in slow, silent loops. There were no footsteps. Instead, crushed grass and snapping twigs brushed his hearing at irregular intervals. A wet, sliding sound followed—like flesh being dragged across mud—seeping in from behind him.
When the voice came again—"Oppa…"—it was unmistakably at his left ear. He whipped his head around. Empty air.
Without realizing it, he bit through his lip. Copper flooded his mouth.
Something was laughing. Watching him. Waiting for him to break.
Then a thin stream of wind slid across his back. Cold, yes—but laced with a nauseating breath.
"Huuuh—"
A living exhalation, exact and intimate. Right behind him, the thing was breathing in perfect time with him. So close he could no longer tell which breath was his.
In that shattering tension a dry twig dropped onto his head. Small, brittle—yet proof that the creature had been above him in the branches.
He looked up.
Nothing.
But a second earlier it had been there. He was certain.
Ji-hoo curled in on himself, eyes shut, ears covered, body locked. The tighter he folded, the sharper his senses became. The dirt beneath his feet shifted with a soft hiss, as though something had brushed past his ankles. Not wind. Not an animal. A cold, viscous pressure that seemed to wrap his whole body.
And then the voice returned.
"Oppa… why do you keep hiding? It hurts. I'm hurt so bad…"
He still heard it. Blocking his ears did nothing. It took him only moments to understand: this was not sound traveling through air. It was a cry carved into his heart itself.
Si-yeon.
He had no memory. When, where, what they had been to each other—nothing would come. Yet his chest shuddered. A tremor ran the length of his spine. Cold sweat broke out. His lips trembled.
"Ji-hoo oppa. I'm scared. Oppa, where are you…?"
His breath locked. He forgot he even needed to breathe; every nerve was being devoured by that voice.
No. Don't go out. Don't—
His mind screamed the warning. His body refused to obey. His knees lifted of their own accord; his fingers pushed branches aside.
I have to protect her.
The owner of that voice—Si-yeon. The single thought filled him: he had to protect that child, whoever she was. He did not know why, only that it felt like an old, unbreakable vow. A memory of standing in front of someone, bleeding under every kind of abuse and violence, yet never stepping aside.
Who…
Who was Si-yeon, that her name alone could set his heart ringing like this?
He groped through the dark of his mind, eyes squeezed shut, then open again, over and over. Then, abruptly, the storm of feeling cleared. His vision sharpened. His fingers twitched. When he closed them into a fist, a forgotten sensation woke deep in his palm—hot, painful, heavy.
Right. I…
Something inside his head snapped cleanly. Fragments flooded in: screams, ragged breathing, weeping—and a voice crying his name as if it were the only word left in the world. The pieces locked together and taught him one simple truth.
"Si-yeon. My little sister."
Park Ji-hoo clenched his teeth until they ached. He shoved the brush aside and rose to his full height.
"Stop."
The word was short and low, but absolute. Unshaken will.
"You're not Si-yeon."
Beyond the trees, the soft bubbling of that borrowed voice went silent.
Ji-hoo slowly curled his fingers into a proper fist. Solid. Familiar. He was done running.
Something slid out from between the branches. Pure-white fur. Eyes glowing red. The Jangsanbeom.
It advanced on him with limbs bent at impossible angles, each step cracking like breaking bone. Long, hooked nails scraped bark and left a sickening rasp. As it closed the distance a thick, foul reek hit him—blood, damp earth, sweat, and rotting meat all braided together.
Worst of all was the face. Caught halfway between human and beast, it wore a smile, yet its eyes held nothing. The pupils, half-buried in slack flesh, tracked every breath he took. The mouth was torn ear to ear—far too wide for speech—and packed with needle teeth. Its tongue was a mess of blood; something that looked like a half-chewed finger still clung to the tip.
It smiled with Si-yeon's voice.
"Oppa, you still don't get it? It's me. Si-yeon."
The tone was perfect—warm enough to make him sick.
Instinct screamed at him to back away. He drove strength into his toes instead. The creature took another step. Leaves crushed underfoot; blood welled up around them. Looking down, Ji-hoo saw the ground was already soaked red, littered with unidentifiable shreds of meat.
"Let's go together, oppa. We can be together again…"
His throat closed. The voice was Si-yeon's. The thing was not.
He forced his eyes open and stared straight ahead. The Jangsanbeom was holding out a hand—long, pale fingers ending in nails still crusted with dried blood.
The instant his gaze locked on that red stain, something stabbed deep into a sealed place in his mind. Not forgotten. Hidden.
He clutched at his chest as if he could hold his heart still. Heat exploded inside him; a searing current raced down his spine. Breath caught. Pain twisted his vision. Images flashed like sparks:
—You fucking piece of shit! Go die!
—Older brother or brat, you're both the same useless trash. Get out and earn some money, you little shits!
—You dare talk back to your father? Fine. Today you die.
Violence. Violence. Violence. Violence. Violence.
Little Si-yeon, covered in blood. Himself standing in front of her, swinging his fists. Taking every blow meant for her. A memory painted in blood and curses.
I was weak.
And yet—
I never once ran.
He had stood against his father's mindless rage, blocked it, and kept Si-yeon safe. That was who he was.
Compared to that…
His eyes found the Jangsanbeom again. A nightmare shape, yes—a man-eating monster. But fear had left him. When he remembered the garbage who had called himself father and the bitch who had called herself mother, this thing was nothing.
"Oppa? Oppa? Ji-hoo oppa? Help me… please? Help me. I'm so hungry. Just one arm. Can I eat just one arm…?"
Si-yeon's voice again. The creature smiled with its torn mouth, wearing his sister's face like a cheap mask.
"Huuuh—"
He let the breath out long and slow. The shaking was gone. There was no fear left—not even if this had been the grandfather of all Jangsanbeom. The monster in front of him was only a beast that mimicked people so it could eat them. At its core it was no different from his parents.
So there was nothing to fear.
His heart hammered—not with terror, but with rage.
Park Ji-hoo spoke quietly, almost gently, to the thing.
"You picked the wrong person to imitate."
You should've gone for Yujin instead. That might actually have scared me.
The idle thought flickered as he closed his fist.
"Time to pay for pissing me off."
PAAANG—!
His fist tore through empty air. The Jangsanbeom's mask-like face twisted. Its already-ripped mouth tore wider in a mockery of a scream; red spit sprayed. It staggered back, alternating human sobs and bestial roars.
Park Ji-hoo did not give a single step of ground.
Not every memory had returned, but two facts stood clear: he was not a creature that crumbled under fear, and the thing before him was filth that dared to wear the face of someone he had sworn to protect.
The forest fell silent. After that single punch the Jangsanbeom crouched low and still. Ji-hoo rolled his shoulders, breathing steadily, settling himself. The darkness remained deep—but the boy standing at its center no longer swayed.
The Backrooms.
An urban legend about the space behind reality: endless rooms generated at random, forming an infinite maze. Infinite in the literal sense. Some versions added levels or escape methods, but the basic rule never changed—the Backrooms had no end, and no true exit.
"I wasted a disgusting amount of time in here."
In the first timeline, Yujin had spent a full three months trapped in this place. That was long enough for people who had reached the sixth stratum around the same time as him to climb all the way to the tenth. Stuck alone, he had briefly fallen behind.
"I'm not repeating that waste of time."
Ancient history now. An absurdly vast space, plus the unidentified monsters that prowled it. Not an easy job. Any ordinary player would never have shortened the stay by much.
But—
"I'm different."
Level 31. High for someone just hitting the sixth stratum. Level, however, was not what mattered.
Kiiing— kiiiing—
From far away, a howl he had last heard in a distant past began to rise.
"Entities."
The name given to the monsters that lived in the Backrooms of the sixth stratum. Creatures of strength and grotesquery that ordinary monsters could not touch.
Yujin fed mana into the Solar Blade [D] in his hand and smiled.
"Escaping a maze is simple enough."
At least for someone with power.
"You just smash everything."
The Solar Blade [D] swept through the air.