Archive of Our Own

“Chief, are you sure that no one else is available for this assignment?” Baek Saheon could already feel his head start to hurt, biting the inside of his cheek as he waited for his superior’s response.

“It’s a D-Class darkness. Your other team members have already been assigned to another one, the same goes for that D-Squad rookie.” God, Baek Saheon really thinks he could cry out of frustration right now.

His team leader continues speaking, “Besides, you’re roommates with that monster rookie, so you two should already have an amicable relationship. You’ll do fine. Now stop questioning and get ready.”

Baek Saheon internally swears at the F-Squad team leader and accepts his fate, letting out a ‘Yes Sir’ before he goes to sit back at his desk and read the manual of the darkness he’s meant to enter later today.

His day just couldn’t get any worse. Out of everyone in the company, he just had to be paired with that maniac. 

It’s astounding how wrong his team leader could be, ‘amicable relationship’ his ass! Whatever Baek Saheon and Kim Soleum had was anything but friendship, as if he could ever be on friendly terms with such a psycho. 

It’s too bad that Baek Saheon seems to be the only one to realise just how crazy that bastard really is, or maybe it’s just because he seems to take joy in tormenting Baek Saheon in particular. Either way, it’s an established fact that his roommate is a psychopath who finds entertainment in others’ suffering.

And now, Baek Saheon has to work together with said roommate once more, only this time there’s no one else for Kim Soleum to direct his attention to. Meaning, Baek Saheon will most likely be held at the whims of his crazy roommate.

Trying to distract himself from the oncoming disaster in the form of one Kim Soleum that he’s surely going to face, Baek Saheon decides to read the manual in hopes of trying to find a way to clear their assigned Darkness as quick as possible so he doesn’t have to see that asshole’s face for the rest of the day. And if he’s lucky today in the Darkness, the rest of his life.

The Darkness they’ll be entering today is [Fear-Mongerer Qterw-4987]. It makes all who enter live through and experience the worst fears of one randomly selected participant. In order to clear it, you must survive for as short as an hour to as long as 24 hours living through one’s nightmare. 

It’s classified as D-Class because depending on the person who is selected, the experience that they might be forced to go through could range from something harmless like an irrational fear of spiders, or experiencing cosmic horror. But in Daydream, having fear of anything except the Grim Reaper itself is practically a death sentence. Even then, some people would laugh and spit in its face. So it’s unlikely that the Darkness will show something truly life-threatening.

In Baek Saheon and Kim Soleum’s case, this darkness will be an easy clear. Kim Soleum is a psycho who finds life-threatening situations thrilling, and Baek Saheon’s fears are less to do with actual beings and more with the idea of his life ending too early.

The only bad thing is spending more than an hour in close proximity with Kim Soleum. 

Well, there goes Baek Saheon’s plans of trying to clear it quickly and avoid seeing Kim Soleum for the rest of the day.

Baek Saheon nearly tears up just at the thought of it, the very idea of spending a whole day with that bastard is enough to make him want to wring his team leader’s neck for putting them together. And just the unlikely notion of experiencing something Kim Soleum, resident lunatic, finds terrifying being something Baek Saheon would have trouble even thinking of gets him to pull his hair out of frustration.

God, this is going to be a long day.

Baek Saheon reaches the appointed place to enter the Darkness, and lets out a string of curses in his mind when he sees that Kim Soleum is already there, waiting because of course he is.

Unfortunately for him, Kim Soleum notices Baek Saheon walking towards the room where the item needed to enter the Darkness is contained and purposefully positions himself in such a way that Baek Saheon can’t quickly grab the doorknob to enter quickly in order to try to lessen the amount of time he has to spend with his asshole of a roommate.

“Baek Saheon.” Kim Soleum gives him a quick once-over, "You're late.” 

“…” Just one hit. One hit is all I need to feel satisfied for the rest of my life. “The meeting time was ten thirty. It’s only one minute past. Surely that doesn’t amount to anything?”

Kim Soleum just stares at him with a dead look. Baek Saheon feels a slight chill climbing up his back and tries to break eye contact, “A-Are we going to go in or not?”

Baek Saheon turns towards the door and goes to twist the knob, until he feels a gaze boring into the back of his head. Baek Saheon glances behind to see Kim Soleum standing there with his arms crossed. Baek Saheon bites his tongue in frustration and steps back, gesturing towards the door handle. “You can go first, sir.”

Kim Soleum strides forwards and briefly pauses, hand on the knob and just staring at it, before opening the door and heading inside. It was unnoticeable when looked at from an outsider’s perspective, but certainly unusual for someone like Kim Soleum. Strange. Baek Saheon just deigns to ignore it, it's probably nothing, everything that maniac does is strange after all.

As soon as Baek Saheon walks in, he’s greeted by an old, black rotary phone ringing uncontrollably. Upon quick inspection, the area surrounding the phone is bare and barren, the walls faintly stained with dried blood from previous victims, driven crazy by fear, that just wouldn’t wash out. How stupid they were to be a part of Daydream Inc. if they had fears that were so terrifying.

But before Baek Saheon can internally look down upon previous employees and their stupidity, a deafening noise originating from the rotary phone pierces their ears, clearly becoming impatient with how much time they’re spending not picking up the line. With every ring, the machine vibrates more aggressively than the last, begging for someone to answer it. 

Kim Soleum looks towards him as if he’s telling Baek Saheon to answer it himself. As always, his expression gives nothing away. A single blink, slow and deliberate, before he turns slightly to observe the ringing phone again.

The sound reverberates in the small room—shrill, mechanical, demanding.
It feels wrong, like the ringing itself is alive. What is Baek Saheon even thinking, of course it’s alive, these goddamn darknesses and their stupi-

Another ring interrupts his thoughts, this time with a jump of the machine, nearly off the table it's resting on, and the cord starts to maneuver itself in a way that is just pleading for one of them to pick up the phone. 

Baek Saheon hesitates. He’s done dozens of Darkness clearances before, but this one already feels different, perhaps because it's his first one alone with Kim Soleum, yet even if that were the case, the terrible feeling that pools in Baek Saheon’s stomach is not something from his roommate's presence alone. The silence of the room presses against his skin, the faint stench of metal and old mold curling in his lungs.

“Well? Pick it up.” Kim Soleum’s voice cuts through the noise, clear and commanding. Baek Saheon quickly turns to look at him, it’s always him that Kim Soleum seems to have no care for, always wanting to put his roommate in imminent danger more than anyone else.

“...You’re closer,” Baek Saheon mutters, half to himself.

“You’re louder.”

Baek Saheon shoots his psycho companion’s back a glare before stepping forward and in front of him, muttering something under his breath that even he can’t fully hear nor register under the cold gaze of Kim Soleum. He picks up the receiver, trying to convince himself that it’s just another mission. Another day in this goddamn job.

The line clicks.

Static hisses softly at first, then slowly morphs into the faint sound of breathing.
Baek Saheon freezes.

A whisper follows, faint and warped, like someone is speaking from the bottom of a lake.

“...Would you like to know?”

Baek Saheon feels his pulse spike. “What?”

The whisper laughs, wet and fragmented. “It’s him. The one beside you. You’ll see.”

As always, this Darkness is cryptic and confusing right off the bat, not unlike any others they’ve encountered previously. Before Baek Saheon can question the being on the other end of the line, laughter erupts once more. The laughter, which had only one voice in the beginning, erupted into a cacophony of sound, multiple voices overlapping each other. Young, old, man, woman. It makes Baek Saheon’s ear ring in pain, but no matter how much he wills himself to put the receiver down, there’s an unknown force refusing to let him.

The phone on the other end clicks again, then silence.

When Baek Saheon turns, Kim Soleum is already watching him.

No, staring at him.

Kim Soleum’s expression is unreadable, but something in his gaze is sharper than usual. There’s a flicker of something almost… defensive. Maybe even fear.

No, that can’t be right. Kim Soleum doesn’t fear anything. That’s what everyone says—that’s what Baek Saheon knows, Kim Soleum’s behaviour in previous Darknesses can’t be attributed to anything but pure maniacal will, something that is definitely not driven from fear.

“We’ve entered the Darkness.” Kim Soleum murmurs.

And just like that, the walls pulse once—faintly, as if the entire building exhaled. The lights dim, humming low. The air around them begins to feel heavier.

At first, nothing happened.

Then the hallway started to appear.

It stretched from the far wall where there was once nothing—an impossible corridor of gray concrete and flickering bulbs that seem to vanish the moment you look away.

Baek Saheon turns to speak, but Kim Soleum is already walking ahead.

“Wait—”

The sound of footsteps echoes, doubling unnaturally—one set belonging to Kim Soleum, the other just a half-beat behind. Baek Saheon follows, unwilling to be left alone in the silence.

They move deeper. The air gets colder. Frigid and untrusting. There’s a faint smell now, antiseptic and rust. The kind found in old hospitals, or rooms meant to be forgotten.

“Do you feel that?” Baek Saheon says under his breath, half-expecting an answer but knowing that it's more unlikely than Kim Soleum being afraid of him.

Kim Soleum doesn’t answer. He just keeps walking, the muscles in his shoulders taut, the rhythm of his steps slightly off-beat. Not hesitation, something more akin to restraint.

They reach a door at the end of the corridor. Unlike the rest of the concrete, this one looks…new. Polished handle, faint reflection, the kind of modernity that doesn’t belong in this place. A plate lies on the upper region of it, supposedly indicating who it belongs to or perhaps a room number, but the symbols are too garbled and half scratched off to make anything out from it.

Kim Soleum stops in front of it. His hand hovers near the knob.

Baek Saheon watches him, and for the first time since he’s known Kim Soleum, he sees the man, for more than a whole second,  pause. A subtle tremor runs through his fingers before they steady again. It seems that Kim Soleum’s peculiar conduct from earlier wasn’t just a one-off thing. 

“…Sir?”

The man doesn’t answer. His voice, when it comes, is quieter than usual. Shakier than usual. “Don’t open it.”

Baek Saheon frowns, confused. “What—”

“Do not. Baek Saheon, if you open this door I’ll—”

Kim Soleum turns to him then, finally meeting his eyes and cutting himself off. There’s something raw in that  expression of his, one that is usually so calm and collected has been stripped bare, reduced into one that fears whatever lies behind the door. It makes Baek Saheon gulp, his throat dry from the exact opposite of eagerness to see what it is that has made Kim Soleum into… this.

And then the door opens on its own.

It creaks open, slow and agonising, as if taunting them. It finally opens wide enough for Baek Saheon to peer inside and see that what is revealed is an ordinary room. A room that Baek Saheon knows too well. 

It’s their apartment.

The one they share in Daydream’s assigned housing. The dull gray wallpaper, the faintly flickering ceiling light, the slight chill from the window Kim Soleum insists on keeping open for god knows why, the smell of cheap coffee that Soleum always brews at ungodly hours.

Except—it’s wrong.

The light here feels heavier, thicker and Baek Saheon suddenly finds it hard to breathe properly. The corners are swallowed in darkness. And on the far wall, there’s something written in what looks like charcoal, jagged and improper, almost unintelligible.

“DON’T LET HIM SEE WHAT YOU TRULY ARE.”

Baek Saheon feels something twist in his gut.

Kim Soleum steps past him, slowly, eyes scanning the room like he’s looking for something he already knows is there. His expression is still. Too still.

“You’ve been here before,” Baek Saheon says, his voice coming out quieter than he intended.

Kim Soleum doesn’t answer. Baek Saheon waits a second, this bastard loves to take dramatic pauses at the most important of times. 

“Of course I have. Surely you can recognise this place as well.” It’s certainly meant to be demeaning towards Baek Saheon’s statement, but the way it comes out of Kim Soleum’s mouth makes it give up all the intended feelings, instead coming out as a whisper full of reluctance.

“You’ve seen this Darkness before, haven’t you?”

Silence. Then, softly, “No.”

The lie is so smooth it’s almost convincing.

Baek Saheon exhales sharply and runs a hand through his hair, scoffing out of disbelief. “Fantastic. So this is your fear? A perfectly normal apartment with shitty lighting?”

He tries to make Kim Soleum say something of value, anything, but his voice wavers in the act. The tension that hangs heavy in the air makes every sound feel too loud.

Then the lights flicker again.

Kim Soleum’s shadow doesn’t move.

Baek Saheon blinks once, twice, but it’s true. Kim Soleum’s shadow remains fixed, unmoving, even as the man takes another slow step further into the room resembling their shared space.

“Kim Soleum,” he says, his throat dry and his voice coarse, “your shadow—”

“I know.”

Kim Soleum’s voice is tight. His Adam's apple bobs up and down as his eyes squeeze tightly together for a brief moment before forcing them open once more. He doesn’t look back. Only down. “Don’t mention it.”

It’s quiet for a long moment. Too quiet.

Baek Saheon can hear his own breathing, shallow and uneven. He doesn’t notice that Kim Soleum has moved closer until the man’s sleeve brushes his arm, fists tightly clenched. The contact between them is brief, but it makes Baek Saheon’s pulse stutter all the same. 

Baek Saheon looks at him. In the dimness, Kim Soleum’s features blur, sharp lines softened by shadow, eyes catching the faintest reflection of light. There’s a strange stillness in him, like he’s waiting for something he can’t stop.

Baek Saheon opens his mouth to break the unbearable silence between them, wanting answers to what this could possibly be, but then something knocks from the inside of the wall.

Once. Twice. Then again.

Baek Saheon takes a step back instinctively, heart hammering. It’s something far from unusual, the supernatural isn’t something Baek Saheon is scared of— it’s the fact that Kim Soleum’s breath has hitched and his eyes have widened that makes Baek Saheon nervous to face whatever hell his deranged coworker has conjured for the two of them. “What the hell was that?”

Soleum’s gaze shifts to the source of the sound, his expression hardening.

“The Darkness,” he says. “It’s starting to show us what it wants.”

Another knock. Louder this time.

The wall begins to bulge inward — like something beneath the surface is pushing, pressing to get out.

And through it, faintly, Baek Saheon hears his own voice whisper.

“Let me in.”

He turns sharply to Soleum.

The man’s face is pale, he looks like he’s about to throw up any second and Baek Saheon doesn’t know why it took him this long to realise.

Soleum’s fear isn’t monsters. It isn’t death.

It’s him.

The wall stops moving.

The air settles into that brittle quiet that makes even breathing sound intrusive.

KimSoleum stands motionless beside him. The usual, lazy half-smile he directs in Baek Saheon’s direction in every mission is gone; in its place is a vacancy so fragile that he almost mistakes it for composure. Almost.

He knows Kim Soleum too well.

“Guess it’s over,” Baek Saheon murmurs.

No reply. Just the faint clench of Kim Soleum’s jaw.

Baek Saheon watches the line of his throat move as he swallows. The gesture is too human, too careful for the man who once laughed whilst swinging an axe down at him, relishing in the frightened look on his face. Something is off—so off that Baek Saheon finds himself leaning closer, not out of concern, but curiosity.

“You heard that voice,” he says. “It was me. Why would a Darkness meant to feed off of the fear of others imitate my voice?”

Kim Soleum avoids eye contact, twisting his head away in an almost mechanical manner. “Darknesses are meant to play with minds. They can lie.”

“They do,” Baek Saheon agrees, “but they never invent.”

For a heartbeat, the silence thickens. Baek Saheon almost enjoys it—the way tension hums between them like a live wire. Then the corridor bends, reshaping itself. A door forms where the cracked wall used to be, paint fresh, handle shining.

Their apartment again.

Kim Soleum moves first this time, pushing the door open with too much force, as though trying to prove something, trying to get as far away from Baek Saheon as possible. Inside waits the same space they know: the worn couch, the half-open window, the faint scent of old coffee. Only now, the air feels denser, as if the room remembers more than they do.

Baek Saheon steps in after him. The floorboards complain softly beneath his boots.

On the far wall, their shared mirror hangs slightly crooked. Its surface ripples once, then steadies. Two reflections stare back—but not quite. Kim Soleum’s reflection lags half a second behind. When Bael Saheon tilts his head, the mirrored Kim Soleum flinches, tiny and involuntary.

Baek Saheon notices.

He says nothing. Only a tight-lipped smile escapes him.

Instead, he lets his gaze drift over the image, studying the way Kim Soleum’s shoulders tighten each time their reflections overlap. It’s fascinating, the fragility hiding inside the man who’s made a career out of appearing fearless.

“Strange,” Baek Saheon murmurs. “Your mirror image looks quite nervous.”

Kim Soleum’s voice comes sharp, too fast. “You’re imagining things.”

“Maybe.” He steps closer to the glass, pressing a hand against his own reflection whose eyes gleam with mirth. “Or maybe it’s showing the truth.”

The reflection wavers again—Kim Soleum’s eyes darting, a hand half-raised as though to shield himself. The real Kim Soleum stands rigid, forcing stillness over the tremor threatening his hands. Baek Saheon catches it anyway.

The Darkness hums, almost pleased with their silence.

They search the apartment in measured steps. Each room is an echo: their kitchen, their hallway, their tiny shared study. Every version feels emptier, thinner. Yet, behind every door, Baek Saheon senses something small and panicked breathing just out of sight.

It doesn’t feel like the Darkness stalking them.

It feels like Kim Soleum.

At last, they circle back to the mirror. Kim Soleum avoids it this time, positioning himself so that only Baek Saheon’s reflection fills the frame.

Baek Saheon tests the quiet. “You know what fear of yours the Darkness is showing.”

Kim Soleum shakes his head. “No.”

“You hesitated before opening the first door.”

“I always hesitate around stupidity.”

It’s a good lie, but his tone betrays him. Baek Saheon hears the strain beneath the sarcasm and smiles faintly, a subtle curl of amusement he doesn’t bother hiding.

“I think it’s familiar because it’s yours,” he says softly.

Kim Soleum’s reply is almost a whisper. “Then it’s poorly designed.”

“Or too accurate.”

The words hang between them. Somewhere deep in the walls, metal groans; dust shivers from the ceiling. The mirror fogs, veiling their reflections in gray. Through it, shapes form—two outlines, one edging closer to the other. The glass distorts, but the emotion inside it is clear: fear.

When the fog clears, Kim Soleum looks pale. He doesn’t meet Baek Saheon’s eyes.

He steps closer, voice lowering to something almost kind.
“You don’t have to pretend here, Soleum. The Darkness already knows. I already know.”

Kim Soleum’s breath catches, too audible in the silence.

Baek Saheon studies the reaction, the way the other man’s composure frays at the edges, and something in him unwinds. The fear he’s carried—the unease, the months of walking on eggshells around the supposed psychopath—it all evaporates into nothing.

Now, it’s Baek Saheon’s turn to act upon his companion’s terror.

He turns his body fully towards Kim Soleum, who stands tall with fake confidence, perhaps in a final act to try and convince Baek Saheon that whatever he’s thinking, is wrong. But Baek Saheon knows better.

He starts to walk towards Kim Soleum, steps slow and full of intention, finding joy in the way that with every step taken towards the man in front of him, Kim Soleum takes one back. Baek Saheon picks up the pace, guiding Kim Soleum into the coffee table, making his legs buckle and fall on top of it in a sit with a clatter.

”You’re scared.”

Kim Soleum stayed silent, refusing to make eye contact with the man currently towering over him.

”You’re scared of me.”

Baek Saheon looked at the man cowering beneath him in such a pathetic manner and felt the corners of his lips twitch, urging him to smile in twisted glee at the unsaid confirmation. Even with an almost unreadable face, the tremble in his roommate’s fingers was unmistakable.

The mirror hums with Baek Saheon’s statement. When he looks behind, he sees the reflection in the mirror ripple, the room breathing in tandem with Kim Soleum’s own rushed breaths. The air tastes metallic, electric. For the first time since they entered the Darkness, Baek Saheon feels entirely steady.

And Kim Soleum, for the first time, looks human.

The hum of the mirror never stops.
It’s not loud, only persistent—a thin vibration threading through the floorboards and up the walls, like the house itself is holding its breath.

Kim Soleum stands up from his position on the coffee table and folds his arms tight across his chest. He’s trying for stillness again, but the stillness trembles. Every few seconds his eyes drift, unbidden, toward Baek Saheon’s reflection in the glass. When he catches himself, he looks away too quickly, as if the sight might burn him.

Baek Saheon pretends not to notice. He moves through the room instead, fingers brushing the edge of the couch, the desk, the faint marks of their shared living carved into this imitation of home. Everything is too exact. Even the chipped mug Kim Soleum always insists on using waits on the counter, rim cracked the same way.

“Do you hear it?” Baek Saheon asks quietly.

Kim Soleum doesn’t answer at first. Then, flatly, “It’s feedback. From the mirror.”

Baek Saheon tilts his head. “You think it’s that simple?”

He steps toward the glass. His reflection meets him evenly, calm. Behind it, Kim Soleum’s image flickers—one heartbeat late, one shade paler. When Baek Saheon moves closer still, the reflected Soleum retreats. It’s instinctive, like a bird startled mid-flight.

Something in Baek Saheon tightens. Not anger. Just the feeling of pure, unbridled satisfaction courses through him.

He turns his head slightly in faux innocence, “You keep moving away from me.”

“That’s because you keep moving closer,” Kim Soleum replies, but his voice slips on the last word.

Baek Saheon looks at him through the mirror and chuckles. “If you wanted distance, you’d step back.”

Kim Soleum’s throat works once. “Stop testing it.”

“I’m not testing the mirror,” Baek Saheon says. “I’m testing you.”

A tremor ripples through the room. The overhead bulb flares and dims, casting them both in fractured light. The mirror responds to every word, every heartbeat, every invisible current passing between them. When Baek Saheon speaks again, his voice sounds steadier than he feels.

“When I first met you,” he says, “I thought you enjoyed frightening people. That you liked being the one in control. That, along with near-death situations, it gave you a thrill.” Baek Saheon scoffs at the memory of Kim Soleum taunting him with the eye through the train window, who would’ve thought that someone so intimidating had been fooling evryone with a false facade this whole time?

Kim Soleum says nothing.

“But now,” Baek Saheon continues, “I think you were just trying to make sure no one ever found out you could be frightened.”

The mirror darkens at the edges. Their reflections swim in the shadows.

“That’s why you tried to take control of me all the time,” Baek Saheon murmurs. “Why you called me fragile, impulsive, predictable. You wanted me looking at someone whom you’ve fabricated, not at you.”

Kim Soleum’s hand tightens around the doorframe. The faintest sound—his breath catching—breaks the rhythm of the mirror’s hum.

Baek Saheon moves another step closer, enough that his reflection overlaps Kim Soleum’s. “It must have been exhausting, keeping that mask on.”

Kim Soleum’s composure finally breaks. “You think you’ve figured it out?” he says, voice low, ragged at the edges. “That you’ve finally understood me? That this place makes you clever? ”

“No,” Baek Saheon says softly. “Just honest.”

The word lands in the air like a shard of glass, sharp enough to cut through the hum of the mirror. For a moment, neither of them moves. The only sound is the faint static that crawls across the glass surface, the sound of something listening.

Kim Soleum’s shoulders rise and fall slowly. Controlled. Calculated. But Baek Saheon can see the tightness in the line of his neck, the minute tremor when he exhales.

“Honesty,” Kim Soleum repeats, voice low, almost disbelieving. “You think this place rewards honesty? You think it forgives it?”

Baek Saheon shrugs, stepping closer. “Maybe it doesn’t forgive it. But it recognizes it.”

“And you?” Kim Soleum’s eyes flick up to meet his. The pupils are too dark, too wide, swallowing the gray of his irises. “Do you?”

Baek Saheon doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to. Kim Soleum already knows.

The mirror flickers again—this time the reflection doesn’t match them. The room behind their mirrored selves is… wrong. There are marks on the walls, deep gouges that pulse faintly like open wounds. On the floor of the reflection, a shape is kneeling.

It’s Baek Saheon. But his head is tilted back, eyes blank and mouth open in a silent scream.

Kim Soleum moves first. “Don’t look at it,” he says sharply.

But Baek Saheon looks anyway.

The reflection moves out of sync now, limbs twitching, mouth still open in that soundless cry. Then it lifts its head, eyes rolling until they meet Kim Soleum’s reflection—and the mirror cracks down the middle.

The sound echoes through the apartment like a gunshot.

Baek Saheon stumbles back. Kim Soleum doesn’t flinch, but his breath is shallow, quick. He’s looking at the mirror not like it’s a supernatural threat—but like it’s a memory.

“What did you see?” Baek Saheon questions, voice mocking. They both know what Kim Soleum saw.

The person in question doesn’t reply. His expression is blank, but the knuckles of his right hand are white where he grips the edge of the table.

“Kim Soleum—”

“Don’t say my name.” The tone is quiet but cutting. Not rage. Fear disguised as command.

Baek Saheon tilts his head, smiling faintly. “Why? The Darkness knows it. I know it. What’s the point in hiding?”

Kim Soleum’s jaw locks, words gritting out through clenched teeth. “Because the more you say it, the more it wants to answer.”

Before Saheon can respond, the mirror hum deepens. The crack down its center begins to bleed, not with blood, but with something black and viscous, dripping slowly and deliberately down the glass. It splashes onto the carpet in thick drops that vanish before they hit the ground.

Then, a voice—distorted, layered, unplaceable—seeps from the glass in a whisper.

“Would you like to see how he sees the world around him? How he sees you?”

Baek Saheon’s mouth goes dry.

Kim Soleum says nothing, but his entire body stills. Every instinct in Baek Saheon tells him to step back, but curiosity is stronger. He watches as the mirror clears, as new reflections bloom like rot beneath the surface.

It’s a room again—their room—but smaller. Claustrophobic. The walls seem to breathe. There’s a version of Baek Saheon sitting at the table, expression soft, tired, the way he looks after a long mission. Then another figure enters: Kim Soleum.

Except this version doesn’t look like a man accustomed to violence or control. He looks like someone afraid to touch the world around him. He approaches the seated Baek Saheon slowly, careful, reverent almost—and when he reaches out, his hand stops just short of Baek Saheon’s face, quivering in midair.

The image freezes there.

Baek Saheon’s heart pounds. Kim Soleum’s head is turned away, but the tension in his shoulders is unbearable.

“Kim Soleum,” Saheon says, voice quieter than he intends. “Is this what you see when you look at me?”

A muscle in Kim Soleum’s cheek twitches. “It’s not real.”

“But it’s your fear, isn’t it?” Baek Saheon presses. “That I’ll see you like this. That I’ll see that you want.”

Something breaks in Kim Soleum’s composure. He turns suddenly, closing the distance between them in a single stride. His hand catches Baek Saheon’s wrist with enough force to make the bone ache.

“Stop.” The word is raw, stripped of control. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Baek Saheon meets his gaze, unflinching. He leans in closer, grinning at the sight of Kim Soleum’s irises darting up and away, trying to look anywhere but at Baek Saheon “Then tell me.”

They stand like that—too close, the mirror humming behind them, their shadows tangled on the floor. Kim Soleum’s grip loosens slightly, but he doesn’t let go. The faint tremor in his fingers betrays him.

“Tell me what it is you’re afraid of,” Baek Saheon says. “Because it’s not death. It’s not the Darkness. It’s—”

The mirror interrupts him. A high, metallic ringing that splits the air. The image within shifts again.

Now the mirrored Baek Saheon rises from his chair. He turns toward the mirrored version of Kim Soleum—expression gone cold, unreadable. Then, without hesitation, he wraps his hands around Kim Soleum’s throat.

The real Kim Soleum inhales sharply. It’s not the vision that scares him. It’s the recognition.

Because he’s seen this before.

The mirrored scene plays out like a memory. The reflection of Baek Saheon’s hands tightens. The reflection of Kim Soleum struggles, mouth open in soundless pain. Then the reflection of Baek Saheon leans in close, whispers something that the real Baek Saheon can’t hear, and the mirror shatters again—this time for good.

When the shards hit the floor, they don’t fall—they scatter, hover, tremble suspended in the air like fragments of breath.

And in every piece, a different reflection of them flickers. Dozens of versions. Dozens of moments. Baek Saheon laughing. Kim Soleum silently letting tears fall, isolated. Baek Saheon dying. Kim Soleum standing over him with an unfeeling expression, not letting his face betray his emotions.

Kim Soleum takes a step back, face drained of color. “It’s feeding,” he says quietly. “On what it finds between us.”

“Between us?” Baek Saheon echoes. “You mean this?” He gestures at the empty space between them “Your fear. My curiosity.”

Kim Soleum’s eyes flash up, anger sparking now that the mirror is gone. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

Baek Saheon’s smile deepens, crueler than before. “I don’t have to. The Darkness already did.”

He takes a slow step forward, just enough for their breath to mingle in the dim light. The air between them feels alive—wired with something both suffocating and intimate.

“Why me?” Baek Saheon whispers. “Why am I the one the Darkness used? Out of all the people that you could fear.”

Kim Soleum’s voice comes back like a blade. “Because you don’t stop.”

Baek Saheon blinks. “What?”

“You keep looking.” Kim Soleum’s words shake. “At everything. At everyone. Like you’re dissecting them. You don’t stop until there’s nothing left to see. You want to find my weaknesses, to see me crumble into nothing like I never existed at all.”

There’s something almost pleading in his tone, something that cuts deeper than the words themselves. Baek Saheon doesn’t answer right away. He’s too busy studying the man in front of him—the cracks in the facade, the way fear and fascination twist together behind Kim Soleum’s eyes.

He takes another step forward, and Kim Soleum doesn’t move this time. The light from the broken mirror flickers against his skin, casting silver along the edge of his jaw.

“Maybe,” Baek Saheon says softly, “that’s why you’re afraid of me. Because I’ll see what’s left when the mask is finally gone.”

Kim Soleum exhales slowly, but his eyes never leave Baek Saheon’s. “You’re wrong.”

“Then show me.”

For a long moment, there’s nothing. Just the sound of the mirror shards vibrating softly in the air.

Then, the Darkness breathes.

Every light in the room goes out at once.

Pitch black.

In the dark, Baek Saheon hears it—the faintest sound. Not movement. Not breathing. Whispering. His own name, repeated softly over and over again, in a voice that sounds like Kim Soleum’s but not quite.

When the lights flicker back on, the room is empty.

Kim Soleum is gone.

The only thing left is the smell of coffee—and a single line written across the wall in that same black substance as before:

“Don’t let him find what he’s looking for.”

Baek Saheon stares at the message for a long time, the hum of the mirror finally fading into silence. Then he smiles softly, darkly.

“Oh, Kim Soleum,” he murmurs, running a hand through his hair. “You make it too easy.”

The words hung in the air, but the silence that followed wasn’t empty. It was listening.

The apartment around him didn’t feel like it was deserted, only waiting. The lights flickered, revealing faint shapes that shifted just beyond sight, doorframes that breathed, shadows that bent in the wrong direction.

Baek Saheon exhaled slowly. He knew the Darkness well enough to understand what came next. It would peel back layers—not of the world, but of the people inside it. If this was still Kim Soleum’s fear, then what lay ahead was something the man had imagined before, something he had constructed in the privacy of his own mind.

He took a step forward. The air rippled, the room bending. When he blinked, the apartment was gone.

He stood in a corridor again, though this one was not made of gray concrete. It was identical to the company’s hallways, bright, sterile, washed in the soft blue of emergency lights. Doors lined both sides. Some stood ajar. Behind each one, faint sounds leaked through—voices, footsteps, the hum of electricity.

Baek Saheon’s pulse quickened, not out of fear but curiosity.

He approached the first door. The nameplate glimmered faintly:

KIM SOLEUM

The door creaked open before he touched it.

Inside, the scene was disturbingly ordinary—a small office, metal desk, two chairs. Kim Soleum sat on one side, a faint smile frozen on his face. He looked younger here, cleaner, unscarred by experience, the air of a recruit trying to be perfect. Across from him sat another figure—Baek Saheon.

But this Baek Saheon wasn’t real. This is clearly from before Kim Soleum’s days at Daydream, before he joined this hell of a company. The Darkness had shaped him from Kim Soleum’s fear, and in that imitation, he saw something startling: the copy smiled with softness, almost warmth. The kind of smile Kim Soleum had never received from him in real life.

The Kim Soleum in the scene spoke first. “You shouldn’t trust me.”

The false Baek Saheon leaned forward. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t trust myself.”

Baek Saheon’s breath hitched despite himself. It wasn’t the confession that rattled him, it was the honesty in Kim Soleum’s voice. There was no arrogance, no venom, no sign of Kim Soleum’s mental state being that of an asylum patient. Only quiet resignation.

The illusion continued. The false Baek Saheon smiled—patient, kind. “Then I’ll trust you for both of us.”

The lights flickered. The air turned colder. And suddenly, Kim Soleum’s face twisted in panic, as though realizing something terrible. His hands fervently gripped the desk, nails digging into the grains of the wood. “Stop. Don’t say that. You’re not real.”

The illusion froze mid-motion, the world around it cracking like ice under strain. The voice that spoke next wasn’t the fake Baek Saheon’s — it was the Darkness, echoing through the walls:

“He’s afraid you’ll mean it.”

Baek Saheon stood motionless. His throat felt dry, his pulse uneven. He didn’t know whether to laugh or frown.

“This is what you think of me, Kim Soleum?” he whispered to the empty air. “That I’d pity you?”

The office melted away.

Now he stood in another place, the outside conservatory at dusk. The world looked painted in the thin red of sunset, but everything was wrong. There was no sound except for the faint hum of the lights.

In the center of the grounds stood Kim Soleum again. He was alone, facing something that wasn’t there. When Baek Saheon stepped closer, he realized Kim Soleum was talking—not to him, but to a version of him the Darkness had conjured.

This version of Baek Saheon was angry, hypocritical. His voice carried sharp edges.

“You think I don’t see through you?” the illusion spat full of vitriole. “You manipulate people—me—for your own self-gain, all so you can be the one to survive in the end. You hurt because it makes you feel alive.”

Kim Soleum’s jaw clenched. He said nothing, only stared at the ground like a scolded child.

Baek Saheon watched, tension crawling up his spine. He’d spoken harshly to his colleague out of frustration before, but never like this. Kim Soleum would always shut him up with a glare with what he now knows was feigned confidence and madness.

The false Baek Saheon stepped closer, grabbing the lapels of the man’s suit. “Say something. Deny it.”

Kim Soleum finally looked up. There was no anger, only exhaustion. “If that’s what you see when you look at me, then I suppose that’s what I am.”

The illusion vanished. Baek Saheon closed his eyes. His heart ached in a strange, unpleasant way. It wasn’t pity—more like recognition.

“Goddamn it, Kim Soleum…” He muttered, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “You’re even more pathetic than I thought.”

But his voice lacked conviction.

He moved forward, deeper into the corridor. The next door appeared on its own, pale light spilling from underneath it.

He hesitated before entering this one, a small hesitation that he’d never admit to if asked, and then pushed it open.

The room inside was dim, lit only by the flicker of a single overhead bulb. It was the apartment again.

Only this time, Baek Saheon wasn’t sure if the Darkness had created another false scene or if it had brought him back into the original illusion.

Kim Soleum stood by the window, back turned. The atmosphere felt heavy, saturated with something unspoken.

“Kim Soleum,” Baek Saheon said quietly.

The man didn’t turn. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“You disappeared,” Baek Saheon said. “I found you.”

Kim Soleum laughed softly. The sound was brittle. “No. You found what you think I am.”

Baek Saheon frowned. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

Kim Soleum turned then — and Saheon froze.

The man’s face was the exact same, but the eyes were wrong. They shimmered faintly, like reflections on rippled water. “You think this is real?” Kim Soleum asked. “You think I’m real right now?”

Before Baek Saheon could answer, the walls began to move, expanding, stretching, turning transparent. The entire apartment became glass. Behind each wall, dozens of versions of himself stared back—distorted, overlapping, smiling, scowling, seething with anger.

Every version of him was doing something different: laughing at or with Kim Soleum, shouting at him, turning away, touching his shoulder, or leaving entirely.

Kim Soleum’s reflection looked at all of them at once. His voice trembled. “This is what I see when I close my eyes. Every version of you that never existed. Every word I’m afraid you’ll say. Every look I’m afraid you’ll give me.”

The Darkness seemed to pulse with the rhythm of his words.

Baek Saheon stood still, eyes flicking between the countless mirrors. He could almost feel the fear vibrating through them—not fear of him as a person, but of what he represented.

“Is this what you’re running from?” he said softly. “Possibility?”

Kim Soleum’s lips parted. “You shouldn’t be seeing this.”

“Then stop showing me.”

“I can’t.”

The word cracked something in the air. All the mirrored Baek Saheons turned toward them at once. The sound of their movements was deafening, like a thousand heartbeats pounding inside glass.

Then, one by one, the illusions shattered, raining fragments of false light that melted, this time hitting the ground with a shrill noise instead of staying suspended in the air. The room went dark.

When the light returned, the apartment was empty again.

Baek Saheon stood alone, breathing hard.

It took him a long moment to realize what he was feeling. Not victory. Not relief.
Understanding.

He’d thought he wanted to see Kim Soleum afraid so he could finally stop fearing him. But now, standing in the aftermath of Kim Soleum’s imagined horrors, he realized that what he’d seen wasn’t fear of him—it was fear for him.

And that realisation unsettled him far more.

The walls shifted again, drawing him toward a final door at the far end of the hall. Unlike the others, this one was carved with words, barely legible through the dark:

“What he fears most.”

Baek Saheon hesitated. His heartbeat thudded in his ears. For the first time, he wondered if the Darkness had started to blur which of them it was feeding on.

He reached for the handle.

The metal burned cold against his sweaty palm, and the door opened without sound.

Darkness poured out like water, swallowing the corridor, swallowing him.

And somewhere in that blackness, Kim Soleum’s voice whispered:

“Don’t let me wake up here.”

Darkness hums like a breath against his ear.

Kim Soleum stands in it, heartbeat loud enough to feel through his clenched teeth. He tells himself that this is not real, that he has been here before, that the thing he sees is only what the Darkness wants him to see in order to break him more than it already has. Yet each time he opens his eyes, the shape of the world shifts slightly closer to what he fears.

Light seeps in by degrees.

An office corridor, the company’s experimental wing, stretches in front of him, polished floors reflecting the pale glow of the ceiling lamps. Everything is too bright, as though the walls themselves are trying to erase him.

He walks, because stillness feels like confession.

Behind the first door, he hears voices. He shouldn’t open it, but curiosity feels like gravity here; he cannot resist the pull of what lies behind.

Inside sits a version of himself, narrow-shouldered, hands folded neatly on the table, and across from him, the familiar silhouette of Baek Saheon. Of course. The Darkness remembers every detail.

The copy of Baek Saheon smiles, not the sharp smile of reprimand but something almost kind. 

Kim Soleum’s breath catches. He has never seen that expression directed at him, not like this, not with the weight of attention that promises understanding. It’s an obvious reminder that whatever is being shown to him cannot possibly be real.

He watches the scene unfold like a play written by someone who knows exactly where to wound him.

The duplicate of him says quietly, You shouldn’t trust me.

The duplicate Saheon replies, Then I’ll trust you for both of us.

It is a simple line, but it lands like a blade between his ribs.

Kim Soleum presses gently a hand to the glass separating him from the scene, his reflection looking back at him as if mocking him. Kim Soleum thinks, if Baek Saheon saw this, he would laugh. He would tilt his head in that clinical way, eyes glinting, and ask, Is this what you want from me?

The very thought burns.

The illusion wavers. He steps back before it collapses entirely. The door swings shut without sound.

He keeps walking.

Each door he passes whispers. His name, fragments of voices that could belong to anyone or no one. Sometimes he thinks he hears Baek Saheon’s among them—sharp, commanding, stripped of the small mercies that make it human.

The next door opens before he reaches for it, knowing what he came here for. 

The conservatory again, washed in the thin red of sunset. He knows this memory. Or rather, the possibility of it—the argument that never happened but that he has replayed too many times in silence.

Across the field stands Baek Saheon’s shadow, tall and certain. The voice that leaves its mouth is harsher than reality would allow.

“You think I don’t see through you? You manipulate people—me—for your own self-gain, all so you can be the one to survive in the end. You hurt because it makes you feel alive.”

Kim Soleum feels the words engrave themselves into him, as though they’re being written into him. He has imagined Baek Saheon saying things like this, not because they’re true, but because some part of him wants them to be—wants punishment to be proof that he matters enough in this erratic world to be judged.

He wants to shout back, You’re right, but the illusion has no room for interruption.

When the copy of himself finally answers, the voice is small. “If that’s what you see when you look at me, then I suppose that’s what I am.”

The scene dissolves.

He stands in its ashes, thinking: If the real Baek Saheon saw this, he would hate me. He would say I was weak for even imagining it. He would smile that tight smile and remind me that fear is only useful when it belongs to someone else.

The corridor stretches ahead endlessly. He walks. And walks and walks again until he reaches it.

Another door. He knows before it opens what waits on the other side.

The apartment, their shared space, neutral ground turned into a silent battlefield of small, nervous glances and pregnant silences. Everything is still: the curtain’s edge, the half-lit window, the echo of an argument that would never become reality.

He stands near the doorway, afraid to step inside.

A familiar shape moves by the window—himself again, or maybe not. He cannot tell anymore. The duplicate turns, eyes pale and liquid, and whispers, “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I know,” Kim Soleum answers automatically, though no one is supposed to hear him.

The false version continues, voice trembling, “You think this is real? You think he is real?”

Kim Soleum looks around. Every reflective surface has begun to fill with images, all with Baek Saheon’s face multiplied a hundred times, each version frozen mid-expression. One smiles, another scowls, one looks at him with something almost gentle. The cacophony of possibilities drowns thought.

He stares at them until his chest tightens. If Baek Saheon could see this, he thinks, he would be disgusted. He would see how much space he takes up in my head and laugh and call it obsession. He would tell me to control myself, to bury it out of sight only to take advantage of it when it benefits him most.

He laughs under his breath, soft, bitter. “You’d be right. It’s not real and it never will be,” he tells the mirrored faces. “But no matter what is taken as fact, it will never stop this.”

Each reflection tilts its head in perfect unison, uncanny and disconcerting, and for a moment he feels as though they understand. Then the mirrors fracture, and the apartment dissolves into dust.

The Darkness pulls tighter around him, humming like a living thing. It wants him to keep walking.

He obeys.

The corridor narrows, the air thickening. His thoughts echo too loudly inside his skull. He remembers Baek Saheon’s real voice, the cadence of control in it, the precision when he’s not cowering in front of someone he deems more dangerous than safe. He imagines what that voice would sound like here, maybe soft, almost curious.

So this is what frightens you, Baek Saheon would say. All of this—me, yourself, the space between.

Kim Soleum almost answers aloud.

The next door bears no name. Only scratches where a plaque should have been. He reaches for the handle. The metal is ice-cold, and when it turns, the world folds inward.

Inside, there is no room. Only a vast, black mirror stretching in every direction. When he steps forward, it ripples under his feet like water.

His reflection rises to meet him, expression blank. Behind that reflection, a thousand versions of Baek Saheon flicker into being—some turned away, some watching him, some whispering words he cannot hear.

He thinks, if he were really here, he’d watch the way I flinch and memorize it. He’d file it away like data: what I fear, what I desire, what I’ll do to hide each and every one.

The thought should disgust him. Instead, it calms him. There is safety in being predictable to someone he knows like the back of his hand.

The mirror trembles. The reflections begin to blur together until they form one indistinct figure, Baek Saheon’s outline without a face.

Kim Soleum steps closer. The surface quivers like breath.

He whispers, “What do you see when you look at me?”

No answer. Only the faint pulse of light where the figure’s eyes should be.

He imagines Baek Saheon answering the way he always does, measured and merciless:

I see what you want me to see.

But then another thought slips through—one he never allows himself to finish: What if he sees more? What if he already knows this place, knows me, better than I do?

The reflection leans forward as if listening. For a heartbeat, he almost believes it will speak.

Instead, the Darkness itself whispers back, in Baek Saheon’s cadence but not his lilting voice:

“He already does.”

The sound crawls down his spine. He closes his eyes, refusing the image, refusing meaning.

When he opens them again, the mirror is gone. He stands once more in the empty corridor. The lights above him flicker, then dim until only a single bulb burns at the far end. Beneath it, a door waits—larger than the others, carved with faint, shifting letters. He can’t read them.

He walks toward it slowly. Each step feels like wading through the water of a swamp waiting for the right moment to engulf him and never reveal his body to the light again.

His thoughts fold inward: If he could see me now… would he understand? Or would he turn away? Would he think this is the punishment I deserve?

His lips carve themselves into something reminiscent of a smile devoid of any happiness. “Probably,” he murmurs.

The bulb above the door flickers out. For an instant, everything vanishes—light, floor, walls. Only that quiet hum remains.

And in the dark, he hears a voice that sounds like his own, or perhaps Baek Saheon’s echoing through him:

“This is what you fear most—not that he’ll see you, but that he won’t look away.”

The thought roots itself so deeply that he cannot tell if it’s revelation or curse.

He reaches for the unseen door, knowing there will be nothing behind it except another layer of himself.

The Darkness yields.

And before it swallows him whole, he wonders—not for the first time, not for the last, what Baek Saheon would think if he ever saw the truth: that Kim Soleum’s greatest terror is not losing himself, but being understood.

The darkness still hummed, low and persistent, vibrating through the floorboards and crawling along the walls like a living pulse. Kim Soleum’s reflection had dissolved, leaving him alone in the corridor again, but the air retained the echo of countless possibilities, each one whispering in his ears. Somewhere deep in the silence, he imagined the sound of Baek Saheon moving, a measured footfall, sharp and precise, just beyond perception.

He told himself it was imagination. That was the lie he clung to. Still, his thoughts drifted to the question that had haunted him ever since the illusions began: What would he think if he saw this?

He walked, hands loose at his sides, careful not to brush the edges of the walls as they shimmered faintly, threatening to warp under unseen weight.

If he saw me now… would he recognize fear in me? Would he understand what I am or dismiss it?

The corridor bent ahead, forming a doorway where none had existed before. Behind it, light flickered—unsteady, hesitant. Kim Soleum approached, sensing the cold hum of the Darkness thickening, pressing in with quiet intent.

The door opened, revealing a room identical to their shared apartment, yet subtly wrong. Shadows pooled in corners where none should have been, stretching and recoiling at angles that felt almost deliberate.

Kim Soleum stepped inside. He couldn’t stop his eyes from scanning every surface, every reflection, every impossible line of sight. And then, as if conjured by thought alone, a figure appeared at the far end of the room: Baek Saheon. Or at least, the Baek Saheon the Darkness had built from his mind. Solid, real-feeling, unblinking.

Kim Soleum’s stomach twisted. He hadn’t expected this. He hadn’t wanted it, but the figure was there, and it seemed to occupy the space with certainty.

What would he think, Kim Soleum whispered internally, if he knew I’d built this just to see him? To see what I fear he would see in me?

The constructed Baek Saheon tilted his head, expression measured. “You’re tense,” he said softly. “Do you know why?”

Kim Soleum’s throat tightened. “I’m not tense.”

A faint, knowing smirk lifted the corner of Baek Saheon’s mouth. “Yes, you are. You always are. You measure every step, every word, as if one slip might undo everything you’ve constructed.”

Kim Soleum stepped closer, compelled despite himself. “And what would you do if I slip?”

“You mean when.” A mocking laugh fills the space between them. “Depends,” the voice said, calm, deliberate. “Would I step back? Or would I push harder?”

The air in the room contracted. Shadows deepened. The walls themselves seemed to lean inward, impatient. Kim Soleum’s pulse raced; for a moment he almost lost his footing. And then, instinctively, he hardened his voice.

“You’re not real,” he said.

The figure of Saheon didn’t flinch. “Does believing that make you feel safer?”

Kim Soleum turned, pacing. His hands curled into fists, only to relax again. “No. Because if it isn’t real, then none of this is controllable. Not even my own thoughts are mine anymore.”

Baek Saheon’s reflection stepped closer, eyes bright, precise. “That’s the point. You fear what you cannot control, yet you always try to. Even with me.”

Kim Soleum’s chest constricted. He wanted to deny it, to pull the words back before they left his mouth. But the Darkness, patient, seemed to lean in with him. “I don’t try with you,” he said, voice tight. “I react. I survive. That’s all.”

“Is it?” Baek Saheon’s tone was soft, deceptively light, cutting like a scalpel pressed too hard against his skin. “Or do you react because you’re terrified of what I might see? Of what you already know about yourself and hope I don’t notice?”

Kim Soleum froze. Heat rose to his face. He wanted to step back, wanted to distance himself from the accusation. Instead, he felt drawn in, compelled to confront it. “And if I am? If I am afraid? What then?”

“Then I’d ask why,” Baek Saheon replied. “Why do you let it grow. Why do you let it shape you in silence? Why you think fear is yours alone to bear.”

The room’s light flickered. The mirror on the wall rippled faintly, catching every nuance of his posture, every hesitation. Kim Soleum felt exposed, not physically, but at the very core.

“And what if I hate you for saying it?” he snapped, the first real edge in his voice. “What if I hate you because you force me to see myself through your eyes?”

Baek Saheon tilted his head, expression unchanging. “Then you’d be honest. Finally.”

That hit a nerve. Kim Soleum’s hands curled into tight fists at his sides, jaw locking. “I’m not honest! I can’t afford to be! Not with you. Not with anyone here!”

The room seemed to pulse, responding to the heat of his words. Light flickered violently. Umbras coalesced into forms that echoed his tension, dark shapes twisting, stretching. The Darkness was awake, aware, as if it waited to see the outcome of their argument.

Baek Saheon’s reflection stepped forward, closer than it should have been, voice quiet but relentless: “You think you’re protecting yourself. You think I’ll judge you, reject you—but maybe it isn’t that simple. Maybe you’re afraid of what happens if I don’t.”

Kim Soleum’s breath hitched. His throat was dry. “Don’t say that,” he ground out, voice shaking. “Don’t pretend you know anything about me!”

“I know enough,” Baek Saheon said evenly. “Enough to see the cracks you hide behind sarcasm, behind control. Enough to see how much you fear letting someone in, even for a moment.”

Kim Soleum’s vision blurred. He wanted to laugh bitterly, or cry, or scream, but the Darkness seemed to tighten around him, pressing with its silent weight. He wanted Baek Saheon gone, yet couldn’t bring himself to command it.

“You think you understand me,” he hissed, stepping closer, “but you don’t. You think you can name my fears like you’re reading a manual!”

Baek Saheon didn’t step back. He stood there unwavering, letting Kim Soleum try to take control of the situation, yet they both knew who had the reins. “I don’t need to. You’ve made them clear. Every day. Every action. Every glance you’ve refused to give, every word you’ve withheld. You’ve mapped yourself for me, whether you wanted to or not.”

Kim Soleum’s chest heaved. The shadows along the walls shimmered violently. Light bent, flickered, and pulsed in tandem with his heartbeat. He wanted to deny it all, to scream it down, but the words choked him. Instead, he shouted:

“I won’t be known! Not like this! Not by you!”

The moment hung, tense and brittle. And then the room reacted.

The walls buckled, folding inward like paper. Mirrors fractured across the room’s surfaces. Light tore into splinters that danced along the floor. The Darkness, as if it had been waiting for a spark, amplified the tension, turning their argument into something physical within the space without touching them.

Baek Saheon’s reflection, calm, precise, leaned forward once more. “And yet here you are. Facing it. Facing me. Facing yourself.”

Kim Soleum’s voice broke, raw and unrestrained: “I hate you for knowing me!”

The room trembled. Shadows collided with themselves. Reflections shimmered with faces that were theirs and not theirs, each echoing the argument, each a fragment of possibility.

Silence fell, not as relief but as pressure, dense, aware, as if the Darkness itself were holding its breath.

Kim Soleum stood in the center, shaking. He realized, with a pang of an emotion that he refused to name, that no matter how hard he tried, he could not escape the gaze of someone who might understand him better than he understood himself.

The reflection of Baek Saheon remained. Calm. Certain.

And in that certainty, Soleum understood one irrevocable truth: the Darkness would not break them. It would not destroy them. It would only show what they already carried inside, and force it into the light.

For now, it waited.

And both of them, though unseen to one another, stood within its grasp, staring at their own truths reflected in the other’s eyes, the argument unresolved but echoing through the corridors of shadow and memory.

The corrider felt tighter now, more oppressive, as if the Darkness itself had pressed closer, eager to witness what was coming. Kim Soleum walked slowly, each step measured against the pulse in his chest, trying to ground himself in some notion of control. The room behind him, the apartment with its impossible mirrors and shifting walls, had not dissolved entirely; it lingered, faint and breathless, like a memory not yet released. The reflection follows him, unwavering in his motivations. 

The argument hangs over them like smoke, the voices, the way Baek Saheon’s reflection had leaned forward, calm, precise, unmoving. The memory made his chest tighten again. He tells himself he is alone, that the figure behind him is nothing more than a construct, the Darkness manipulating him, showing him what it wanted. Yet some fragment of thought, unbidden and stubborn, whispered otherwise.

Kim Soleum paused, staring at a cracked windowpane where light from an unknown source fractured across the floor. Something doesn’t fit.

He remembered the small details, the impossibilities he had ignored in the heat of the confrontation: the way Baek Saheon’s tone had shifted ever so slightly, not like the mirrored voice of a reflection but like him—precise, reactive, intentional. The faint inflection in a question, the way a pause fell in exact rhythm with the short disagreements they had shared in the real world. He had brushed it off then. Now it incessantly gnawed at him.

He turned toward the center of the room, imagining that figure there, waiting. And for the first time, he noticed: the shadows it cast were different. They didn’t mirror the room perfectly; they lingered in ways reflections shouldn’t, stretching and bending toward him as if alive, tethered to an entity that was more than mere glass.

Kim Soleum’s pulse quickened. If it were just a reflection… why would it do that?

He closed his eyes briefly and let his mind trace the argument again. Every line, every jab, every accusation. And then, a thought that he could not suppress: Did he know?

The idea was absurd. He had been certain. Certain that the Darkness had constructed Baek Saheon from pieces out of the depths of his own mind, twisting him into something manageable, something he could confront without consequence. Yet now, the weight of possibility pressed in. What if he isn’t a construct?

Kim Soleum opened his eyes. The room had changed subtly in the moment he looked away. A door had shifted a few degrees, the light from the window slightly brighter, as if the space itself were adjusting to the truth. He stepped forward, cautious, watching the subtle movements around him, cataloging them.

His reflection in a nearby mirror rippled faintly. He caught it out of the corner of his eye: a pause too long, a blink too deliberate. And in that pause, he realized he had never truly seen the figure blink in the same way.

Not a reflection.

The words made no sound, yet they landed in him like a hammer. He turned fully, scanning the room, heart hammering. The figure was there, across from him, hands relaxed at its sides, watching. Calm. Intact. Observant.

“You… you’re real,” he whispered. The words trembled despite himself.

The figure didn’t respond immediately. Just watched. Kim Soleum’s mind raced, trying to reconcile this impossibility with everything he thought he knew. He had been arguing with a reflection, trading accusations, barbs, and truths as if they were safe. But now… nothing was safe.

Baek Saheon’s voice finally came, soft but carrying the weight of certainty. “I’ve been here the whole time.”

Kim Soleum’s chest tightened. “You… what? But… the mirrors, the light—everything—”

“It was never a mirror,” Baek Saheon interrupted, calm, steady. “You thought it was. You assumed it because it made sense. Because you’ve spent your life preparing for illusions. For control. For me to be a construct of your fear. But I’m not.”

The realization hit in stages. First, disbelief, sharp as frost. Then confusion, dizzying and slow. Then… something colder: the awareness that every word he had said, every accusation, every challenge, had landed not on an abstraction but on the real person.

“You heard everything I said,” Kim Soleum’s voice cracked, low, dangerous, though not in sound. “Every… every thought. I thought it was just a projection.”

“Yes.” Baek Saheon’s reply was quiet, but direct. “I heard everything. And I’ve seen everything you’ve tried to hide from me.”

Kim Soleum’s eyes narrowed. He tried to summon the familiar shield of sarcasm, the habitual mask he wore for missions, for coworkers, for anyone outside of himself. “And you… what, you weren’t… affected?”

Baek Saheon’s gaze met his, unwavering. “I was. But I also understood why. I’ve known seen enough to know what fear looks like when it’s buried in people.”

Kim Soleum swallowed, unsteady. The Darkness around them hummed in response, subtle, as if anticipating the next words.

“I… I was careful,” Kim Soleum admitted, voice low, almost a whisper. “I argued with you like you were nothing. Like you were a reflection. But it wasn’t safe to admit it. Not really. Not to anyone.”

Baek Saheon took a slow step forward, the floorboards creaking softly under his boots. “And yet here you are. Facing me. And facing yourself.”

The words struck harder than Kim Soleum expected. His chest tightened, and the subtle tremor in his hands betrayed him. The Darkness pressed closer, the air growing heavier with the pulse of their mutual awareness. Shadows swirled along the edges of the room, responding to the intensity of their exchange, bending toward them as if hungry for revelation.

“You think you understand me,” Kim Soleum said, attempting control, voice steadier than he felt. “But all you’ve seen… it’s just what you allowed me to show.”

Baek Saheon shook his head slightly. “No. Not allowed. You cannot hide from me. Not here. Not when the Darkness strips everything down. Not when I am… present.”

Kim Soleum’s lips parted. He wanted to argue, to assert dominance, to reclaim some fraction of control, but the words lodged in his throat. The weight of being seen, truly seen, by someone who couldn’t pose an immediate danger to him was both suffocating and exhilarating all at once.

Mirrors along the walls refracted light into impossible angles, reflecting not just them, but fragments of their shared history: moments of tension, moments of quiet observation, moments neither could claim but both remembered. Kim Soleum’s stomach twisted at the realization: he had been pretending. He had been pretending that he wasn’t afraid of being known, that he could control the truth of himself.

“Do you hate me?” he asked, voice barely above a whisper, almost to himself.

Baek Saheon’s gaze didn’t waver. “I don’t know if it’s hate. I know you’re terrified. That you fear what I see. That you fear what you’ve made me see. And that terrifies you more than anything else.”

The room shuddered as if the Darkness had recognized the truth. Kim Soleum’s knees went weak, though he didn’t allow himself to collapse. He couldn’t. Not yet.

“You…” he breathed, voice tight, “you’ve been here. You’ve been… watching me. And I… I thought I was alone.”

“Yes,” Baek Saheon said softly. “And now you know the truth. Not a reflection. Not a construct. Me. Real. Whole. Present.”

Kim Soleum turned away, heart hammering. He wanted to retreat, to reclaim distance, to return to the safety of assumption. But he couldn’t. Something in him refused.

“And… what now?” he asked, still tense, still raw.

Baek Saheon stepped closer, calm, deliberate, but careful. “Now… you stop pretending. Not just to me, but to yourself. You stop arguing with shadows and start facing what’s real. With me.”

The Darkness pulsed around them in agreement, or perhaps in warning. It felt alive, responding to the truth now between them.

Kim Soleum’s chest heaved. His mind raced with every argument, every accusation, every fear that had been laid bare across the mirrored spaces of the Darkness. And for the first time, he felt… exposed, vulnerable, and unafraid.

He realized, slowly, almost painfully, that the one thing the Darkness could not take from him was this: the presence of Baek Saheon. Real. Here. And facing him, fully aware of everything, yet choosing to remain.

The hum of the room softened, not gone, but steady, like a heartbeat in rhythm with theirs. Soleum met Saheon’s gaze again, seeing for the first time not a reflection, not a construct, but the man himself. And the weight of everything—fear, tension, longing, understanding—coalesced into something raw and undeniable.

Kim Soleum swallowed, voice low, finally without defense: “So… it was you. All along.”

“Yes,” Baek Saheon said, voice steady. “All along. And even now, it is still.”

The room, the Darkness, the shadows, and the fractured light held its breath. And for the first time, Kim Soleum did too, letting the reality of Baek Saheon’s presence settle around him, unbroken and absolute.

The revelation lingered like smoke in the air. Kim Soleum remained where he had stopped, chest heaving, mind racing in ways he hadn’t allowed in months. He had been arguing with what he thought was the reflection Baek Saheon, yes, but that reflection had been real, present in the room with him, hearing him, understanding him—entirely aware.

The Darkness pulsed around them, subtle but insistent, walls bending at impossible angles, light fracturing faintly along the floor. Shadows shifted in tandem with their movements, as if the space itself were attentive to the precarious balance between truth and illusion.

Kim Soleum took a hesitant step toward Baek Saheon, each motion deliberate, measured. He wanted to retreat, to build a barrier around himself, but the pull of the truth—of Baek Saheon standing before him—was too strong. He could feel it pressing against the carefully constructed walls he kept around his mind.

“You’ve been here,” Soleum said, voice low, rough at the edges. “Watching me… listening. All this time.”

Baek Saheon’s expression remained calm, the faintest crease at the corner of his mouth betraying neither judgment nor mockery. “Yes,” he said quietly. “Watching. Listening. And… waiting. Waiting for you to stop hiding, even if only for a moment.”

Kim Soleum’s eyes narrowed. “You… you knew what I was going to say. Every argument, every accusation. You knew it would hurt—didn’t you?”

“I anticipated it,” Baek Saheon admitted, “but not because I wanted to hurt you. Because I wanted to see the truth beneath it.”

Kim Soleum’s hands clenched at his sides. The room’s air grew heavier, thicker, as if the Darkness itself responded to the intensity of their exchange. Shadows along the walls pulsed faintly, echoing the rhythm of Soleum’s rapid heartbeat. “The truth?” he asked, bitter. “You make it sound like some… beautiful thing. You act like knowing me this way matters.”

“It does matter,” Baek Saheon said, stepping closer, careful but deliberate. “Because it’s all that’s left when the masks fall. You’ve spent so long hiding behind them—sarcasm, control, indifference—but the masks only work when no one truly watches.”

Kim Soleum swallowed, his throat dry. He wanted to step back, to retreat into the familiarity of distance, but the pull of Baek Saheon’s presence held him there. He couldn’t deny it. “And if I told you to leave? If I said you don’t get to see me this way?”

Baek Saheon’s gaze didn’t waver. “Then I would wait. And I would continue to watch. Because you cannot hide from yourself. Not here. Not when the Darkness has brought us together like this.”

Kim Soleum’s jaw tightened. “And you… you’re not afraid?”

Baek Saheon tilted his head slightly, studying him. “Afraid? Of what?”

“Of me,” Kim Soleum hissed, voice sharp. “Of the person I pretend to be. The person I let slip out in moments like these. Aren’t you… terrified that I’ll show you something you can’t handle?”

Baek Saheon’s eyes softened, faintly, but the calm precision in his voice remained. “No. I can handle it. I’ve been living alongside it all this time, even when you didn’t want me to notice. You think your fear is mine to bear, but it isn’t. I only want you to confront it, with me here.”

Kim Soleum’s stomach twisted. His mind raced, shifting through all the arguments he had rehearsed in private. He had imagined countless scenarios in the Darkness, hypothetical confrontations, moments where Baek Saheon would be angered, moments where he would be elated, taking advantage of the very fibre of his being not meant to be shown to anyone—but none had prepared him for this. None had prepared him for Baek Saheon standing there, calm, patient, fully present.

“You make it sound… easy,” he said, voice low. “Like I can just admit everything and—”

“No,” Baek Saheon interrupted, shaking his head slightly. “Nothing about this is easy. You know that. You’ve spent years preparing yourself for control, for distance, for calculated interactions. None of that works here. The Darkness strips it all away. And I’m not the one stripping it all away. You are.”

Kim Soleum’s breath caught in his throat. The room seemed to pulse in sync with him, shadows bending at impossible angles, light fracturing across the floor in ribbons. The walls themselves seemed to lean closer, listening. He wanted to speak, to argue, to push back, but the words lodged in his throat.

“You’ve always pretended you didn’t need anyone,” Baek Saheon said quietly, “even when it was obvious. Even when you were terrified and didn’t know how to show it. You’ve built walls so high, you thought no one could ever see over them. But here, in this place… in this space… I see it. And I see you.”

Kim Soleum’s chest tightened. He shook his head, attempting to dismiss the intensity of the moment. “You… you shouldn’t be able to see me like this. It’s not fair. You’re… you’re standing there, calm, observing me while I… I can’t even—”

“You can,” Baek Saheon said firmly. “You just need to stop pretending that you can’t. You’ve been arguing with me, challenging me, pushing me, all while thinking I was some reflection, some construct. But it wasn’t. It was me, the real me, and you… you’ve been facing yourself all along through me.”

Kim Soleum’s pulse quickened. The weight of that statement pressed down on him, raw and unrelenting. He had imagined arguments with Baek Saheon, hypothetical exchanges where he could control the outcome, where he could maintain the distance he relied on so heavily throughout his life in this world. And now… all of that was gone.

“You’re saying I have no control,” he said, voice tight, almost a growl. “That everything I imagined… everything I prepared… it doesn’t matter.”

“It matters,” Baek Saheon replied softly. “Because you prepared. Because you thought ahead. But it can’t shield you from reality. It can’t shield you from yourself. And I’m here. I’m real. I’m not a reflection. I’m not the Darkness. It’s just me.”

The room shifted subtly. The Darkness pulsed, aware, alive, watching as Kim Soleum struggled to reconcile everything he had believed with the undeniable truth in front of him.

Kim Soleum’s lips parted, then closed again. He wanted to argue, to deflect, to hide behind sarcasm, but he couldn’t. The realization had stripped him bare, leaving only the raw weight of being fully seen.

“And… what now?” he asked, voice low, trembling slightly. “Now that I know… that it was you this whole time?”

Saheon stepped closer, careful, deliberate. “Now… you stop hiding. Stop arguing with shadows. Stop pretending that you can maintain control through fear. You face this. You face yourself. With me.”

Soleum’s chest heaved. The Darkness around them thrummed, responding to the raw intensity between them. Light fractured, shadows collided, the walls bending subtly as if the room itself were acknowledging the shift.

He wanted to retreat, to reclaim some fragment of distance, but he couldn’t. Something deep inside him—unfamiliar and startling—urged him to stay. To engage. To confront.

“Together?” he asked finally, voice barely audible, almost a question to himself.

“Yes,” Saheon said softly, steady, unwavering. “Together. No masks. No reflections. Just us. Facing it. All of it. Here. Now.”

The Darkness seemed to exhale, the air relaxing slightly, though it remained thick and heavy, ever-present, a constant reminder of the world around them. The shadows along the walls shifted once more, this time receding slightly, granting space for the truth between them to settle, if only a little.

Kim Soleum’s gaze met Baek Saheon’s, unflinching for the first time in months. The weight of all the time spent on unspoken thoughts, of careful control, pressed into that single moment. And though the tension remained, unbroken, he felt a spark of something unnameable flicker inside him: recognition. Connection. A shared understanding that had been forged in argument, revealed in truth, and now stood undeniable in the presence of the real Baek Saheon.

And in the center of that Darkness, between fractured light and shifting shadows, both of them stood—fully aware, fully seen, and irrevocably tethered to each other. Whether they liked it or not. 

Kim Soleum stood rigid, chest tight, aware of Baek Saheon’s presence, yet unwilling to acknowledge how much the proximity unnerved him. The room around them seemed impossibly still, every creak of the floorboards and hum of the lights magnified, as though the world had shrunk to only the space between them.

Baek Saheon didn’t move immediately. He watched Kim Soleum, taking in the subtle tremor in his jaw, the way his shoulders stiffened despite his attempts to appear composed. The irritation that had always bubbled beneath his surface toward this man now mingled with something sharper, more satisfying. A plan formed in the cold clarity of his mind.

“You look ridiculous when you pretend you’re not terrified,” Baek Saheon said finally, voice calm, almost too calm. His eyes lingered on Kim Soleum’s face, forcing him to meet the observation.

Kim Soleum froze, nostrils flaring slightly. “I’m not—”

“You are,” Saheon interrupted, stepping closer, careful not to give away the measure of his intent. “Every twitch, every hesitation, every little flinch—you’re terrified. And you hate that I can see it.”

Kim Soleum’s jaw tightened. He opened his mouth, but the words caught in his throat. Baek Saheon had seen too much, Kim Soleum has said too much, too clearly, and there was no plausible way to hide. Not now.

“You think you’re clever,” Baek Saheon continued, leaning just enough that the space between them shrank. “You’ve spent years building walls, hiding behind sarcasm and control, but none of that works here. None of it.”

“I…” Kim Soleum stammered, his composure slipping despite himself. “I don’t…”

Baek Saheon’s smile was slight, dangerous, knowing. “You don’t what? Don’t know how to act? Don’t know how to respond? Don’t know how to hide from me?”

Kim Soleum’s hands twitched at his sides. His mind raced. Every scenario he had prepared for this Darkness, every hypothetical confrontation, crumbled now under the weight of Baek Saheon’s scrutiny. He wanted to pull back, to regain some semblance of control, but Baek Saheon’s deliberate closeness made it impossible.

“You think I care about being fair?” Baek Saheon asked softly, voice almost intimate. “I don’t. I don’t care about being gentle, or patient, or understanding. You’ve spent so long playing at dominance, Kim Soleum, and it’s exhausting to watch.”

Kim Soleum flinched at the words. “You—what are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about how you hide behind your masks,” Baek Saheon said, taking another step closer. “How you manipulate situations, control the narrative, scare people into looking away. You do it with me, too, every time you think I don’t notice. But I do. And now…” He paused, letting the tension stretch unbearably. “…now, I can make you drop the act.”

Kim Soleum’s stomach twisted. His mind screamed at him to push Baek Saheon back, to reclaim distance, but every fibre of his being told him that would only make him vulnerable in ways he wasn’t ready for. His eyes flicked away, caught in the invisible trap Baek Saheon had laid: the calm, deliberate presence that was impossible to ignore.

“You think you can break me?” Kim Soleum finally asked, voice low, defensive. “Think you can see everything and I’ll just—what? Succumb to your desires?”

Baek Saheon’s gaze sharpened. “Not succumb. Just… acknowledge. Let me in. For once, let me see the part of you you keep so carefully hidden. And the truth is, Kim Soleum…I want you to squirm under it. I want to see what you’re capable of when you’re stripped of pretense. It’s not cruelty. It’s…observation.”

Kim Soleum’s pulse spiked. “You hate me,” he said finally, words almost catching. “You hate me. That’s all this is. You hate me.”

Baek Saheon’s lips curved faintly. “Was it not obvious before? Yes, I hate you. I hate the false arrogance, the control, the way you pretend nothing can touch you. But…” His voice dropped, lower, almost a whisper. “That’s why I stay. That’s why I’m here. Because even under all that, you’re…interesting. Fragile. Terrifying. And yet…I’m the one can make you show it.”

Kim Soleum’s throat tightened. The words weren’t comforting. They weren’t protective. They were a blade, honed and deliberate, and Baek Saheon wielded it expertly. Every syllable was a challenge, an intrusion into the carefully constructed world Kim Soleum had always maintained.

“You think I’ll just… let you?” Kim Soleum demanded, stepping back slightly, though not fully. The space between them was charged, taut with the unspoken struggle of power.

Baek Saheon’s eyes gleamed. “You don’t get to ‘let’ me, Kim Soleum. You don’t get to control it. You’re already letting me. Every glance, every hesitation, every tight jaw, every flicker of your eyes—it’s all permission. And you don’t even realize it.”

Kim Soleum’s pulse raced. He wanted to argue, to fight, to reclaim the dominance he clung to like armor. But the realization ate him from the inside: he couldn’t. Not here. Not now. The Darkness demanded honesty, and Baek Saheon was exploiting it, manipulating him under the guise of confrontation.

“You’ve spent so long trying to be untouchable,” Baek Saheon said softly, stepping closer again, deliberate, controlled. “And I’ve waited. Waited for the cracks. Waited for the moment you’d slip. And now… now I can see them. I can see you. Really see you.”

Kim Soleum’s fists flexed. His mind spun with half-formed arguments, rehearsed comebacks, threats, everything he had relied on to maintain distance. None of it landed. Saheon anticipated it all, cutting him down not with violence but with words, with proximity, with the precise pressure of presence.

“You’re not sane,” Kim Soleum said finally, voice low, almost a warning. “You think this… this teasing, this pressing… it’s harmless?”

Baek Saheon’s faint smile twisted into something sharper, darker. “Neither are you. And that’s the point. I don’t need to be safe. I don’t want to be safe. I want this. I want you, in all your careful defiance, your pretensions, your fear. I want to see you unravel, Kim Soleum. And you… you won’t get away from it, because you can’t.”

Kim Soleum’s chest heaved. He wanted to recoil, to push Baek Saheon out of his space, to regain the control he had always relied on. But each step Baek Saheon took kept him tethered, exposed, raw. Every word was a probe, every glance a test. And the man before him, calm, controlled, relentless—was a predator, and Soleum was caught in the snare.

“You like watching me struggle,” Kim Soleum muttered, the words almost choking him.

“I do,” Baek Saheon admitted, although it was something they both knew deep down, stepping close enough that Kim Soleum could feel the heat from his body, could hear the quiet inhale of breath. “I do. But it’s not because I’m cruel. It’s because it’s necessary. You’ve built walls so high, Kim Soleum, that no one can see you. No one can touch you. And now… I can. I can see you. And you’ll let me, whether you like it or not.”

Kim Soleum’s pulse thundered in his ears. The room seemed impossibly still, almost suffocating, every second stretched, every word magnified. He wanted to argue, to fight, to reclaim the space, but he couldn’t. Not with Saheon there, relentless, manipulative, unyielding.

“You…” Kim Soleum said finally, voice trembling, a mix of anger and something he couldn’t name. “You’re impossible. And I hate you for it.”

Baek Saheon’s faint smile deepened, almost predatory. “Good. That’s the point. Hate me, fear me, struggle against me… but don’t hide from me. Not now. Not ever again.”

Kim Soleum’s jaw tightened, chest heaving. The words struck deeper than any physical blow could. He hated that they were true. He hated that he couldn’t resist the truth Baek Saheon forced from him. And yet… some part of him, buried deep, simmered with an unfamiliar acknowledgment; that the man before him, cruel and calculating though he was, was the only one who could push him this far, the only one capable of unraveling him in ways he didn’t dare let anyone else.

And as the room seemed to hold its breath, Baek Saheon stepped just slightly closer, tilting his head, eyes glinting with an intensity that made Kim Soleum’s throat dry. “Now tell me, Soleum-ah. How long can you keep pretending you’re untouchable?”

Kim Soleum swallowed hard, unable to look away. For the first time, he didn’t want to.

The room was silent, the lights humming faintly, amplifying every shift of air, every shallow breath. Kim Soleum’s chest tightened with a sensation he despised—unease. He kept his gaze fixed on Baek Saheon, waiting for the usual smugness, the mockery, the control. But Baek Saheon didn’t move immediately. He simply watched.

“You’re quiet,” Baek Saheon said, voice low and deliberate. “Not used to being in the wrong?”

Kim Soleum’s jaw flexed. “I’m not—”

“You are,” Saheon interrupted. “Every pause, every twitch, every second you hesitate—you’re wrong. And you know it.”

Kim Soleum’s fist clenched, nails digging into his palm. “You think you’re clever.”

“I think that I see clearly,” Baek Saheon replied, stepping closer, just enough to shrink the space between them without giving an inch of vulnerability. “And seeing clearly means knowing what scares you. Seeing what you pretend doesn’t exist.”

Kim Soleum’s pulse quickened. The words weren’t a threat, they were a judgment, precise and surgical. He wanted to strike, to shove Baek Saheon away, but the air seemed thicker, heavier. Every instinct screamed that moving would only expose him more, that Baek Saheon’s observation was a weapon sharper than anything physical.

“You enjoy this,” Kim Soleum said finally, voice low, harsh, trembling slightly. “You like standing there, watching me unravel under… whatever this is. Admit it.”

Baek Saheon’s expression remained unreadable, calm, almost casual. “I’m not enjoying anything. I’m just aware.”

Kim Soleum’s teeth ground together. “Aware. Right. That’s what you call it. You’re just aware. Convenient.”

“You think I need to enjoy it?” Baek Saheon’s invasive gaze sharpened. “I don’t. I only need to know. Every time you hesitate, every time you glance away, every twitch you try to hide—I see it. That’s all I need.”

Kim Soleum’s throat tightened. “You see too much.”

“Or not enough,” Baek Saheon said quietly, stepping slightly closer. “I only see what you let me see. Don’t pretend you’re untouchable. You’re always just on the edge of… losing control. And that’s what makes this so interesting.”

Kim Soleum’s pulse hammered. His instincts screamed that the Darkness was feeding on every fragment of tension, that every word Baek Saheon spoke amplified it. He wanted to throw the first blow, to regain dominance, but every step he took only made the distance feel smaller, tighter, suffocating.

“You’re insufferable,” Kim Soleum muttered, voice tight. “And don’t think I don’t know that you’re enjoying this. Or maybe not enjoying—whatever it is you think this is.”

Baek Saheon didn’t respond immediately. Instead, he studied Kim Soleum as if measuring, weighing. “I’m not enjoying it,” he said finally, calm, deliberate. “I’m enduring it. And you—” His eyes narrowed slightly, precise, cold. “You’re doing the same. That’s why we’re both still standing.”

Kim Soleum’s chest heaved. The room felt impossibly small, every sound amplified. He wanted to break, to yell, to throw something, but the presence of Baek Saheon, unyielding, immovable, made him hesitate. Not from fear of harm, but from the knowledge that the other man was now always one step ahead. Always seeing. Always waiting.

This was what he wanted to avoid, why he pretended for so long in front of Baek Saheon. Now the safety that Kim Soleum had built for himself had all come crumbling down, and all he could do was watch. Endure.

“You like pretending,” Kim Soleum said finally, voice cutting, brittle. “Pretending you’re untouchable. Pretending nothing scares you. Pretending you don’t hate me as much as I hate you. Just as I have in your presence.”

Baek Saheon’s expression didn’t change. “I don’t pretend anything. I hate you as much as you hate me. That much is true. But you—” His gaze sharpened. “You hide it. You try to control everything, to keep everything at arm’s length, to make it seem like you’re untouchable. And here, in this place, it doesn’t work. You’re vulnerable. Admit it.”

Kim Soleum’s bit the inside of his cheek. He wanted to strike, to try and assert control over Baek Saheon once again, but the words burrowed under his skin. Not because they were clever, but because they were true. Every instinct, every careful mask he had built, was vulnerable here. And Baek Saheon didn’t need to manipulate—it was all already exposed.

“You think you’re untouchable,” Baek Saheon continued, stepping closer again, not giving space, not allowing escape. “But the truth is, you never were. And you’re angry that someone sees it. That someone knows. That someone else can stand here, breathing, and know more about you than you do yourself.”

Kim Soleum’s breath hitched. Baek Saheon was wrong, he was wrong. “I—”

“Don’t speak,” Baek Saheon said, voice low, almost a warning. “You don’t get to argue. Not here. Not now. Not while the Darkness is watching. Everything you do, every hesitation, every twitch, every look—it matters. And it’s all visible to me.”

Kim Soleum’s throat tightened. The world seemed to tilt slightly, though nothing had moved. The room felt like it had shrunk around him. Baek Saheon’s presence was oppressive, deliberate, and entirely unmoving in its precision.

“You think you can intimidate me,” Kim Soleum said finally, voice sharp, accusing. “You think standing there, saying all of this, will make me stop trying to resist under the pressure you’re exerting on me right now?”

Baek Saheon tilted his head slightly, eyes cold. “I don’t think. I know. And I don’t want you to crumble. I want you to realize you can’t control everything. That not everything can be ignored, dismissed, or fought off. That even you—” He paused, eyes narrowing. “Even you can’t dominate this place or me. And that’s enough for me.”

Kim Soleum’s chest heaved. He hated the admission that he was aware of it, the tension, the trap, the inescapable pressure. He hated that Baek Saheon could just stand there, unmoved, and force him to confront it. And yet, some part of him knew it was true. Every flinch, every skipped heartbeat, every shallow breath—it was already visible.

“You’re impossible,” Kim Soleum muttered finally, voice rough, almost a whisper. “And I hate you for it. Hate that you can do this. Hate that you stand there… unshaken. Hate that I can’t…”

“Can’t what?” Baek Saheon asked, quiet, almost as if he truly cared.

“Can’t turn away,” Kim Soleum admitted, words bitter, involuntary. “Can’t escape this. Can’t… stop feeling—” He cut himself off, jaw tightening, face hardening. He’s already revealed too much to the unrelenting force that is Baek Saheon.

Baek Saheon’s eyes glinted, though his expression remained unreadable. “Good. That’s the point. You don’t get to turn away. Not here. Not now. Not while the Darkness is active. And you’ll find, Kim Soleum, that the more you resist, the more it pushes. The more you try to control, the more it tests. The more you hate, the clearer it becomes what’s unavoidable.”

Kim Soleum’s pulse thudded, every nerve screaming. He wanted to lash out, to assert dominance, to reclaim even a fraction of control. But Saheon’s presence, calm and unyielding, made it impossible. The Darkness was patient, but BaekSaheon…Baek Saheon was obstinate. And that combination made him feel exposed in ways he couldn’t resist.

“You’re insufferable,” Kim Soleum muttered, voice low, chest tight. “And don’t think I’ll forget this. That I won’t—”

“You won’t,” Baek Saheon said, cutting him off with a glance. “You won’t forget. Neither will I. And I don’t need you to. I only need you to survive, to stand, to realize that not everything bends to your control. That even you are fallible to the circumstances around you.”

Kim Soleum’s breath caught. He wanted to argue, to fight, to reclaim the space, but the words struck harder than any physical blow. The weight of them pressed against his chest, igniting the panic, the fear, the undeniable truth he had spent years denying.

And in that silence, the Darkness waited. Watching. Feeding. But it didn’t act. Because it had nothing it could create that hadn’t already been revealed by the tension between them, by the quiet, relentless stare of Baek Saheon.

Kim Soleum’s pulse hammered. He hated the fact that he couldn’t look away. He hated the truth. He hated that he couldn’t reclaim control. And yet… some part of him, buried and unwilling to speak, couldn’t deny that he was entirely aware of what Baek Saheon had done. Not manipulation, not teasing—but exposure.

And that was worse.

The air no longer hummed; it vibrated. Not loudly—more like a pulse, slow and persistent, as if the room itself had learned to breathe. Kim Soleum felt it in his ribs. Each beat matched the pace of his thoughts: uneven, strained, refusing rhythm.

Baek Saheon stood a few paces away, arms loosely crossed, expression unreadable. For the first time since this had begun, his stillness looked less like control and more like fatigue—though Kim Soleum couldn’t tell whether it was real or another layer of calculation.

“You’re shaking,” Baek Saheon said at last, voice flat.

Kim Soleum’s answer came through his teeth. “Because you won’t stop staring.”

“That’s not why,” Baek Saheon replied.

Silence filled the gap. The pulse of the room quickened.

Kim Soleum exhaled through his nose, forcing his hands still. “You think you understand me.”

“I don’t need to,” Baek Saheon said. “You keep telling me everything without words.”

Kim Soleum’s laugh came out wrong—too sharp, almost a crack. “That’s rich. You think silence means confession?”

“I think silence is what you use when you’ve run out of lies.”

The words landed with surgical precision. Kim Soleum looked away, but the walls offered no distraction; they seemed to breathe with him, in and out, reminding him that nowhere in this place belonged to him.

“You like hearing yourself talk,” he muttered.

Baek Saheon tilted his head, just slightly. “And you like pretending it doesn’t matter.”

That was how it always went: statement, deflection, another statement that sank deeper. But tonight—if time still existed here—the rhythm was different. The air between them had weight. Hatred required distance; they were far too close for it now.

Kim Soleum said, quieter, “You hate me.”

“Yes.”

The simplicity of it startled him. No elaboration. No flourish. Just truth, unornamented.

“And yet you stay.”

Baek Saheon’s gaze didn’t waver. “So do you.”

Kim Soleum almost smiled. “Maybe I’m waiting for you to break.”

“Then you’ll be disappointed.”

“You always say that.”

“And you always hope I’m lying.”

The pulse in the room stuttered. A small tremor rippled through the air, barely visible, yet both of them felt it. The Darkness wasn’t attacking; it was listening.

Kim Soleum swallowed hard. “You hear that?”

Baek Saheon nodded once. “It reacts to us.”

“Then stop provoking it.”

“I’m not provoking it,” Baek Saheon said. “I’m provoking you.”

The honesty of it made Kim Soleum’s stomach twist. He opened his mouth to retort, but the words tangled. Something fragile trembled beneath his anger, something he hadn’t wanted Baek Saheon—or anyone—to see.

“Why?” he asked finally. “Why keep pushing? You already know I hate you. You already have what you want.”

Baek Saheon’s eyes were dark, steady. “No, I don’t.”

“Then what is it?” Kim Soleum demanded, voice getting lourder, angrier than he’s shown before. Baek Saheon has already seen the depths of what defines him. What’s the point in hiding any more? “What more could you possibly want from me?”

“To know if the way you hate me,” Baek Saheon said slowly, “is the same way I hate you.”

Kim Soleum froze.

For a heartbeat, the world held its breath.

It wasn’t confession, it was dissection. Baek Saheon hadn’t softened; he was still taking him apart, piece by piece. But there was something underneath, faint and human, that slipped through the cracks of his precision.

Kim Soleum forced a scoff. “You’re insane.”

“Probably.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one you’ll get.”

Kim Soleum turned away, pacing. The floor vibrated faintly with every step.
“You think this is some game. That the more you talk, the more you’ll get out of me. But I’m not your experiment.”

“Of course you are,” Baek Saheon said quietly. “And I’m yours.”

The words stopped him mid-stride.

He turned. “Don’t—”

“You’re studying me the same way,” Baek Saheon continued, tone calm, almost gentle. “Waiting for proof that I’m worse than you. That I’ll slip first. That my hatred is heavier, my anger more justified. You need that to stay intact.”

Kim Soleum wanted to argue, but the sound caught in his throat. Because it was true, and because admitting it would mean accepting how much of himself he’d already given to this—attention, thought, breath.

He looked at Baek Saheon then, really looked, and for the first time saw the exhaustion under the composure. It wasn’t mercy. It was recognition.

“I hate that you might be right,” Kim Soleum muttered.

“I know.”

“You sound almost proud.”

“I’m not,” Baek Saheon said. “I’m tired.”

The words hit harder than any accusation. Tired. Not triumphant, not cruel—just weary. As if the act of hating, of maintaining this endless, razor-sharp distance, cost something neither could replace.

Kim Soleum’s voice softened despite himself. “Then stop this.”

“I can’t,” Baek Saheon said. “Neither can you.”

The pulse of the room deepened. The Darkness seemed to lean closer, hungry for the tension between them.

Kim Soleum took one step forward. “If you can’t stop, then what’s left?”

Baek Saheon’s expression flickered—something almost like sadness passing too quickly to name. “Endurance.”

“And when that runs out?”

“Then one of us disappears.”

The calm in his tone terrified Kim Soleum more than any threat. He realized then that Baek Saheon meant it. That for him, destruction wasn’t tragedy, no, it was conclusion.

Kim Soleum felt a tremor rise in his chest. “Is that what you want?”

Baek Saheon didn’t answer. His eyes were unreadable now, reflections of something Soleum couldn’t grasp. But the silence was answer enough.

“You really do hate me,” Kim Soleum whispered.

“Yes,” Saheon said again, softer this time, almost a confession. “And I wish I didn’t.”

The room went still.

For a moment, the pulse stopped entirely.
The air became weightless, the silence unbearable.

Kim Soleum’s throat tightened. “Don’t—”

Baek Saheon’s voice cut through the quiet. “You asked for honesty.”

Kim Soleum’s heart hammered. “Not that.”

“Then don’t ask questions you don’t want answered.”

He should have shouted. Should have turned the moment into another argument, another defense. But something in him broke instead. The fury drained too quickly, leaving behind only the sound of his own breathing, uneven and raw.

“I don’t know what to do with that,” he said.

“You don’t have to,” Baek Saheon replied. “You just have to hear it.”

The pulse returned—slow, deep, almost gentle now. The Darkness was quiet, as if even it couldn’t intrude on this fragile truce.

Kim Soleum stared at him, searching for mockery, for the blade hidden in the words. There was none. Only exhaustion, and something that looked dangerously like truth.

“I hate you,” Kim Soleum said again, quieter, almost pleading, as if saying it could rebuild the wall. “I still hate you.”

Baek Saheon nodded. “Good. Keep hating me. It’s the only honest thing you have left.”

“And you?” Kim Soleum asked.

Baek Saheon hesitated, just long enough to matter. “I don’t know what I feel anymore.”

The admission fractured something invisible between them. For an instant, neither could look away. There was no triumph, no surrender—just two people stripped to the core of what they refused to name.

The Darkness stirred faintly, disappointed. It had expected collapse or confession. Instead, it found something quieter: resignation.

Kim Soleum finally looked down, voice low. “You said one of us disappears.”

Baek Saheon’s answer came like a whisper. “Maybe it’s not meant to be either of us.”

The lights flickered. The walls exhaled. The pulse began to slow, no longer hostile—just fading.

Kim Soleum felt the weight lift, not completely, but enough to breathe again. He met Baek Saheon’s eyes once more and found them unreadable, yet undeniably human.

“Tomorrow,” Kim Soleum said, as if the word still meant something, “this place will change again.”

“Will we?”

Kim Soleum’s mouth curved, not a smile, but close enough to hurt. “We already have.”

The hum of the room quieted to a whisper. For the first time, neither spoke.

The silence wasn’t peace, but it wasn’t war either. It was the moment between a wound and its scar—the space where pain begins to remember itself.

Kim Soleum closed his eyes, not in surrender, but in recognition. Hatred had been the only language they shared; now it sounded almost like longing.

And that, he realized, was the cruelest part of all.

When it ended, there was no sign it had. No blinding light, no sound of walls crumbling or illusions breaking. Just a breath—the faint, almost imperceptible shift of air when something decides it’s finished with you.

Baek Saheon felt it first. The hum that had been coursing through the floorboards, through the mirror, through his chest, simply went quiet.
He looked at Kim Soleum. The man hadn’t moved.

Kim Soleum’s eyes were fixed on the space where the mirror had been. There was only an empty wall now, faintly dusted, no trace of glass or reflection. For a moment, he looked almost lost, as though the absence itself disoriented him more than any presence had.

Kim Soleum finally spoke, his voice low. “It’s over.” He didn’t continue his train of thought right away. “It doesn’t feel like it.”

“Because it’s not supposed to.”

That earned Baek Saheon a look, not sharp, not cold, just… searching. “You sound like you knew this would happen.”

“I didn’t,” Baek Saheon said. “I just knew something had to.”

They stood in that quiet that wasn’t peace, only the echo of noise that had been too loud for too long. Everything around them was still. The apartment, if it could be called that, looked almost normal again, the gray wallpaper, the dull light, the half-open window. But the normalcy felt wrong, stretched thin over something hollow.

Kim Soleum finally moved, stepping toward the window. His reflection didn’t follow. There wasn’t one anymore.

“Did you see it too?” he asked, without turning.

Baek Saheon’s answer came slow. “Enough.”

“Then you know.”

“I don’t think I do.”

Kim Soleum turned, leaning back against the frame. There was color in his face again, though it didn’t make him look alive. “You said you hated me.”

“I did.”

“And you meant it.”

“Yes.”

The certainty in his voice should have hurt. It didn’t. It only landed softly, like a bruise pressed after it’s already faded. Kim Soleum’s mouth curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Then why do you look at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you don’t want to.”

Baek Saheon hesitated. Not denial, not affirmation. Just stillness.

“You’re imagining things,” he said finally.

Kim Soleum’s laugh was quiet, breathless. “You used to say that about me.”

Baek Saheon crossed his arms. “Maybe we’re both right.”

They stared at each other for a long time. There was no more hostility in it, only recognition, raw and unwanted. It wasn’t forgiveness. It wasn’t even acceptance. It was just the simple, terrible fact that they understood each other now.

Baek Saheon broke the silence. “What did you think I’d do? After seeing all that?”

Kim Soleum blinked. “Hate me more.”

“That’s what you want to happen.”

“It’s safer,” Kim Soleum said. “If you hate me, I don’t have to wonder what else you feel. Neither of us can properly become attached.”

The honesty in his voice surprised them both. Baek Saheon’s expression flickered — the faintest movement, gone before it could become anything.

He said, “You don’t make things easy.”

“You don’t like easy.”

“Doesn’t mean that I like this.”

A brief, bitter smile passed between them, like smoke. It wasn’t affection. But it wasn’t anger either. It was something far worse, the ghost of what could have been if either of them were capable of softness, of vulnerability.

Kim Soleum looked down at his hands, flexed his fingers once. “You said one of us disappears.”

“I did.”

“And neither of us did.”

Baek Saheon’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You sound disappointed.”

“Maybe I am.” Kim Soleum looked up again, meeting his gaze. “Maybe it’s easier to end something than to live knowing it’s changed.”

Baek Saheon’s jaw tensed. “It didn’t change.”

“Didn’t it?” Kim Soleum stepped closer. “The hate that you feel for me is different now.”

There was no accusation in it, only quiet truth.

Baek Saheon didn’t deny it. He couldn’t.

“Do you?” he asked, barely audible. “Hate me differently.”

Kim Soleum’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t know what to call it.”

That was all it took for the air between them to tighten again. The silence wasn’t cold anymore , it burned, humming with everything unsaid. Baek Saheon could almost hear the pulse again, deep in the walls, like the Darkness was still there, listening, waiting.

“Then don’t name it,” he said finally. “It doesn’t need one.”

Kim Soleum studied him for a long moment. “That’s cruel.”

“It’s honest.”

He expected an argument, another sharp line of defense, but Kim Soleum just nodded. The smallest movement. Acceptance, or surrender, he couldn’t tell.

When he spoke again, his voice had changed. “What happens when we leave?”

Kim Soleum looked at the door, now solid, unmarked. “We pretend this didn’t happen.”

“And you think that’ll work?”

“No,” Kim Soleum said. “But we’ll do it anyway.”

Baek Saheon’s lips parted — maybe to laugh, maybe to curse him again — but no sound came. He just looked at him, a kind of quiet disbelief in his eyes that had nothing to do with fear or resignation.

“You really mean that.”

“I always do.”

That earned him another silence, heavier than before.
And then, slowly, Kim Soleum nodded again. “Then let’s go.”

He turned first, hand on the doorknob. For a second, Baek Saheon thought he saw hesitation, that same pause he’d caught before, at the beginning. But this time, when Kim Soleum pushed the door open, it didn’t creak. It swung easily, leading into light that wasn’t blinding, only indifferent.

Kim Soleum stepped through.

Baek Saheon followed.

The hallway beyond was empty. Clean. The kind of sterile brightness that Daydream Inc. called normal.

They didn’t speak as they walked. The silence wasn’t hostile anymore, it was just full, like air that had been compressed too long and couldn’t expand again. Every step echoed faintly. The hum of the facility machines, the soft hiss of ventilation—the ordinary sounds of work.
It should have been comforting. It wasn’t.

At the elevator, Baek Saheon stopped. “We’ll have to file the report.”

“Later,” Kim Soleum said.

“Together?”

Kim Soleum’s lips twitched — not a smile. “You still think I’d trust you to write mine?”

Baek Saheon gave a small, humorless laugh. “You’re right. I’d make you sound human.”

The elevator arrived with a soft chime. They stepped in side by side. The metal doors closed, sealing them in.

For a long while, there was nothing.
Then Kim Soleum spoke again, too quietly for anyone but the man beside him to hear.

“I don’t want to dream tonight.”

Baek Saheon didn’t look at him. “Then don’t.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“It never is.”

The elevator hummed down. A mechanical heartbeat. Somewhere between floors, the lights flickered once, a faint echo of the Darkness, a reminder that even if it was gone, it hadn’t really left them.

When they reached the lobby, they stepped out. The world felt sharp around the edges, too bright, too real. Kim Soleum started toward the exit without waiting. Baek Saheon followed, his footsteps a half-beat behind—just as they had been at the beginning.

Outside, the air was cold. It hit their faces like truth.

They didn’t speak again. They didn’t need to.

They both knew that whatever the Darkness had shown them, it hadn’t stayed behind.

It had followed them, quiet, invisible, lingering like breath on glass. Like a bruise you forget to stop touching.

When Baek Saheon reached the edge of the street, he looked back once. Kim Soleum was still standing where the light ended, watching him with that same unreadable calm.

For the first time, Baek Saheon didn’t look away.

Their eyes met across the distance, two reflections, no mirror. The same exhaustion, the same understanding, the same unhealed thing.

Then Baek Saheon turned, and the night closed between them.

It didn’t end with forgiveness. It ended with silence. And in the silence, something unspoken took root , not exactly love, not exactly hate, something heavier that would never quite leave them.

The Darkness had cleared.

But the silence left between the two of them never did.