The Broken Mirror
“Why did this suddenly break?”
“Yeah, it’s really weird.”
The floor was filled with broken glass shards. The production crew and cast were bustling around the broken mirror, inspecting it.
In the midst of the panic, I was doing my best to stay calm.
“Hey, are you okay? If it had been a little later, your handsome face might have been ruined!”
That was what the PD said as he rushed over.
I forced a smile, but...
‘It was close.’
It had been touch and go.
If I had used the ability just a little later, glass shards would be embedded in my face right now.
‘Anyway, it seems like he wanted to put a scratch on my face no matter what...’
I couldn’t understand why he was so obsessed with appearances, but other than that, it was fortunate I didn’t get hurt.
But if I had been injured...
‘I would have felt sorry for Won-woo.’
Even in the original novel, Do Won-woo was obsessed with his looks more than anything else, so his other stats were terrible, but his appearance was overwhelming.
‘If there had been a big scar on my face, the next comeback might have been difficult...’
The strangely handsome face reflected in the broken mirror shards.
Hael had said that if you were born with such a face, what kind of feeling would it be?
But whether Do Won-woo’s life was smooth or not, I don’t know.
Compared to the reality where you can live easily with just a handsome face, in the novel world, you had to suffer through forced misfortune because of the novel.
‘If Hael had read that novel, he wouldn’t have known that fact.’
I thought he had made a lot of effort to change that villain’s damn fate...
But in his eyes, I was just a privileged person who lived easily because of my face.
But thinking about it, that guy wouldn’t have cared about such things. Even if he knew, he probably firmly believed his own life was more pitiful.
‘No matter what, trying to turn someone’s face into a mirror... that’s too much.’
As I muttered this to myself,
“Did it surprise you? A lot?”
At the sudden voice, I turned around and saw Kwon Hak-jin looking at me with worried eyes.
“Yeah, I was surprised, but...”
Since there would be more surprises ahead, I decided to accept it calmly.
“I thought I should react appropriately...”
“......?”
Before my life turned into a horror or mystery genre, I decided to compromise appropriately.
‘If I had to classify my life’s genre, I wanted to live a life like a normal daily life.’
I wonder how I ended up in such a situation.
Every time I walked, the sound of broken glass shards cracking and breaking echoed.
I ignored the sound and continued walking.
“We finally escaped!”
And the cast’s cheers rang out.
With the sound of the door opening, light entered the dark space.
When I came outside, the cold night air brushed against my face.
“Hah...”
After escaping, I finally let out a sigh of relief.
Anyway, I had successfully escaped the huge trap Hael had set.
“Thank you for your hard work!”
As we greeted each other, I saw Kang In-hyeok walking towards us wearing a zombie costume from afar.
“Thanks for your hard work too, hyung.”
“Um... yeah.”
“By the way, did you check your face?”
Saying that, Kang In-hyeok showed me a mirror so I could see my own face.
“Ah, you startled me!”
Once the effect wore off, Kang In-hyeok looked surprised at his reflection in the mirror.
“Is this what I look like?”
“Okay, let’s go wipe off the makeup.”
“I feel like I’ve become the strongest zombie in the universe.”
What kind of conversation is this.
After experiencing a dangerous situation, I found myself laughing for no reason.
***
As soon as we returned to the dorm, the incident from the filming location was reported.
This special was a zombie special, Kang In-hyeok had worn a zombie costume, and the mirror had broken.
“The mirror suddenly broke?”
Lee Hae-won, who heard the story, had an expression of disbelief.
It was understandable, because it’s not common for a normal mirror to suddenly break in reality.
“It must have been surprising. Did you get hurt?”
I nodded.
It seems like I’ve only heard the words “Did you get hurt today?”
“As you can see, I’m fine.”
I said it as if nothing happened, but it was only because I used my ability to block it.
Even now, thinking about it, it’s thrilling.
“Why did the mirror break? Did you see Won-woo’s handsome face and get surprised, so it broke?”
“Ah, what?”
“It’s true. You’re handsome.”
For some reason, no matter what happened, it always ended up concluding that I was handsome.
At first it was unfamiliar, but now I’ve accepted it as inevitable.
“Or, maybe a ghost was involved.”
At that moment, Na Jae-hyun threw in a comment.
“Ah, what are you saying?”
“Ghosts are ghosts.”
“If there were no ghosts to do, they’d be sitting there breaking mirrors.”
When Na Jae-hyun said something that made the atmosphere creepy at midnight for no reason, a wave of laughter immediately came from the surroundings.
“Yeah. There are no ghosts.”
The member with the most fear, Kang In-hyeok, was the first to deny the existence of ghosts.
Among them, only Na Jae-hyun continued to assert the ghost theory with a serious expression.
“Ghosts like dark and humid places, it could be a ghost’s doing. And there’s a saying that ghosts are easy to stick to mirrors.”
“Ah, don’t say that!”
“That’s why the story that elevators with mirrors all around are the ghosts’ favorite... “
Leaving behind the members shouting and Na Jae-hyun strongly asserting the ghost theory, I went into the room.
If there was the strongest evil spirit attached to me right now, it would be Hael.
‘He said to watch what he would do next, and this was it.’
***
When I entered the room, I opened my phone.
I checked that Hael’s profile picture had been updated to a new profile picture.
“Oh, this kind of photo.”
As expected. As if proving what he did, the profile picture was set to a photo of the broken mirror.
“Is this a provocation?”
It was too childish to provoke with just a profile picture.
If it was a middle schooler, it could be excused, but doing such a thing at an age when he was about to become an adult was funny.
‘He was so excited to show off that this mirror terror show was his own work.’
But anyway.
It didn’t go as intended, and ultimately it was a waste of effort.
It seemed he hadn’t thought I had an item that could stop time.
‘I’m curious what kind of feeling he’s in right now.’
I decided to send a message to Hael on purpose to see his reaction.
After finishing the conversation, I quietly leaned back against the chair.
I felt that although he was acting relaxed, Hael’s mental state was also shaken. The hardest thing to see was acting as if nothing had hit him.
‘Today was really a shitty day...’
But one thing was clear: there was income.
You can't have me.
What does this mean.
The sentence I found during today’s filming. I thought there might be some meaning.
If it was a plan by Hael, he wouldn’t have written it without reason.
‘No, because he’s so crazy, he might have just written it for no reason.’
As I was thinking that, suddenly the sound of knocking on the door came.
Even though I only heard the knock, I immediately knew who it was.
“Come in.”
Soon, Won Ji-an opened the door and entered. The person who knew that the broken mirror incident was not a simple accident but deliberately done was Won Ji-an.
“This is it?”
Won Ji-an picked up the notebook on the desk and started flipping through it arbitrarily.
Soon, after seeing the sentence written in the notebook, he quietly shifted his gaze to me.
“This is what that guy said to you?”
When I nodded, Won Ji-an frowned and closed the notebook.
“Do you get what it means?”
Won Ji-an closed his eyes and shook his head.
“You can’t have it, right...”
He opened the notebook again and stared at the page where he had written about Hael for a long time.
His obsession with appearance was enormous, and recently he had tried to ruin my face, and his ambition for success was at a level close to madness.
And for success, he didn’t hesitate to use any dirty means and methods.
‘You can’t have it, you can’t have it... why did he say that.’
As I repeated Hael’s message to me over and over in my mind while lost in thought,
‘Wait a second.’
At that moment, the scattered clues came together and something clicked in my head.
Only then did I realize what I had been missing.
“...I think I know.”
Won Ji-an looked at me with surprised eyes.
“What? You think you know who Hael is?”
I nodded.
It wasn’t definite yet, but...
“If my thoughts are correct, it explains why he’s been doing such actions until now.”