Chapter 5

The man abruptly ended the phone call and walked toward me. Startled, I instinctively stepped back until my back hit the wall. Before I knew it, he was standing right in front of me, speaking.

“Baek Eun-Seong.”

“I told you, it’s Dong-Yoon…”

“Who am I? Tell me what you know.”

I didn’t know anything. If I had to guess…

“…Senior?”

“What kind of senior?”

“You know, from the same school…”

“And how old are you now?”

“Twenty.”

“What school and major?”

“Daehan University, Fine Arts… isn’t it?”

“What is this nonsense now?”

The more I spoke, the more his expression hardened until he finally pressed his hand against his forehead. He looked troubled, and I couldn’t help but feel self-conscious.

Suddenly, he grabbed my wrist roughly.

“Ow! That hurts…!”

Before I could finish saying it, he interrupted me.

“I won’t repeat myself, so listen carefully. Baek Eun-Seong, you are twenty-six years old, a graduate of Bristol University with a major in Business Administration, and the only legitimate heir of the Baekseung Group. However, you had your inheritance rights stripped from you and lived a miserable, wasteful life as a loser.”

That did sound like Baek Eun-Seong’s backstory…

“I haven’t really been keeping up with the drama…”

I wasn’t particularly striking to look at, so it must have been hard for him to stay immersed in this. Feeling oddly sorry for him, I fell silent. That’s when he held out his phone to me.

Specifically, the screen in camera mode.

There, reflected in the mirror through the screen, was the ghost I’d seen before, staring back at me.

“Gah!”

Startled, I raised my hands to cover my eyes, but as if he expected that, he grabbed my arm and pulled it down forcefully.

“Look. Open your eyes and look.”

“It’s… it’s a ghost! A ghost!”

“It’s not a ghost, Baek Eun-Seong. That’s your face.”

“What are you talking about! Baek Eun-Seong is Moon Hyun-Jun!”

“Look properly.”

“It’s scary! I’m scared!”

“Open your eyes.”

He grabbed the back of my neck, holding my head in place so I couldn’t turn away. Dizzy from the motion, I had no choice but to open my eyes. Once again, I met the gaze of the ghost in the mirror. I felt like I was going to suffocate, but he didn’t let go.

I could feel cold sweat trickling down my back as I trembled in fear. Then, in a calm voice, he said:

“Blink slowly, one eye at a time.”

As if hypnotized, I followed his instructions. The ghost in the reflection did the same, blinking one eye at a time.

It was true.

As he said, the ghost in the screen was me.

***

“Can you tell me about your most recent memory before coming here?”

A person in a white coat asked me. He was clearly a doctor—likely the psychiatrist the man had mentioned. I glanced at the man sitting beside me. He was silently watching me, his gaze urging me to answer.

“I was heading home after finishing my part-time job…”

“What kind of part-time job?”

“In the morning, I worked on a mural project. In the afternoon, I worked at a café.”

“Did you go straight home after work?”

“I was on my way, but… when I came to my senses, I was in an alley near some commercial buildings.”

“Was it a street you were familiar with?”

“No, it was a completely unfamiliar place.”

“Can you describe how you felt at that moment?”

“It felt strange. I couldn’t understand why I was there.”

“Was that feeling closer to confusion or a sense of alienation?”

“Closer to alienation.”

“I see.”

The doctor nodded as he jotted something down in his notebook.

“You found yourself in an unfamiliar place with a changed appearance. Do you think the alienation you felt came from sensing another personality within you?”

Another personality?

Seeing my confusion, the doctor clarified.

“Like feeling that Baek Eun-Seong exists within Kim Do-Yoon.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Have you considered that the reason you know about Baek Eun-Seong, even while appearing in an entirely unfamiliar place and in someone else’s body, is that you might actually be him, Kim Do-Yoon?”

Before I could respond with words, I shook my head firmly.

“That’s impossible.”

“Could you explain why?”

“Because Baek Eun-Seong is dead.”

“……”

The doctor remained silent, as if encouraging me to elaborate.

“And Baek Eun-Seong is Moon Hyun-Jun.”

“Who is Moon Hyun-Jun?”

He’s a fairly well-known actor… Maybe the doctor watches even less television than I do.

“He’s the actor who played Baek Eun-Seong.”

The doctor listened and then showed me a photograph. It was the person I thought was the ghost in the mirror—the transformed version of myself.

I was startled by the sudden appearance of the photo, but the doctor was so calm that it wasn’t as scary as before.

“This is a picture of Baek Eun-Seong. Does he resemble the actor Moon Hyun-Jun you mentioned?”

“No, they’re different.”

“In what way do they look different?”

“Well… everything, really.”

For one, Moon Hyun-Jun is tall, has black hair, and a slightly rough, gangster-like vibe. In contrast, the man in the photo had blonde hair, a cold impression, and a lean physique. More importantly, Moon Hyun-Jun’s sharp features were strikingly distinct, whereas the man in the photo had a soft, almost androgynous beauty.

If there’s any resemblance, it’s just that they’re both men.

“Thank you for sharing. Could you describe what kind of person Baek Eun-Seong, as played by Moon Hyun-Jun, was?”

“He was a villain and an extra. He died in episode three…”

“Do you remember how he died?”

“The protagonist killed him.”

“Do you recall the protagonist’s name?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Would you share it?”

“Cha Gil-Do.”

At the mention of that name, the doctor stopped writing for a moment. I wondered if I’d said something wrong, but the doctor smiled and replied,

“Thank you for sharing. That will conclude our session today. You’ve done well.”

“Alright… Thank you.”

After the session ended, the doctor stepped outside. The man who had been standing nearby looked at me with an unreadable expression. Feeling a strange sense of injustice, I blurted out what I couldn’t say in front of the doctor.

“I’m… not crazy.”

“I never said you were.”

The man denied it, but I was certain he thought I was some lunatic who saw ghosts. Sometimes, you don’t need words to know what someone thinks. Even someone as oblivious as me could sense it—it was obvious in the way he insisted on therapy for me.

Here I was, in an unfamiliar place, inhabiting the face of someone I’d never met before. Yet they called me by the name of a minor villain from a drama, even though I looked nothing like the actor who played him.

“This isn’t a dream…”

My whole body ached—there was no way this was a dream.

I still had my memories, but I was in someone else’s body. All the work I’d done, the security deposit I needed to collect before moving out of my tiny rented room… None of it mattered anymore.

“I’ve got nothing left…”

The only small consolation was that I had no one looking for me and that I was just starting a new chapter in life. Though I regretted the projects I’d worked so hard on and the unclaimed deposit, they weren’t reason enough to fight to go back.

The scholarship was already gone, and I was likely facing eviction—maybe I’d have ended up taking a break from school anyway.

Oddly, thinking this way seemed to calm my troubled heart a little.

The man stared at me intently, opening and closing his mouth several times as if he had something to say. Then, without a word, he left the room. He looked like he had a lot on his mind.

As I stared at the door he’d left through, my eyes fell on a book on the shelf. Something clicked.

“Huh?”

A realization hit me.

The drama Please Obsess Over Me was based on a novel. That would explain why they were calling me Baek Eun-Seong—someone who looked nothing like Moon Hyun-Jun—because I wasn’t the drama version of Baek Eun-Seong. I was the novel version.

If that’s true, then the man who called himself Cha Gil-Do must really be the novel’s male lead?

For the first time, everything started making sense.

Chills ran down my spine.

They say cockroaches can boost their IQ to 340 when they’re in danger!

The problem was, I’d never read the original novel of Please Obsess Over Me. I’d only heard rumors about the drama.

A minor villain who does all sorts of terrible things, stalks the female lead, and gets killed by Cha Gil-Do in episode three. If this isn’t a dream, then I’m now that villain.

‘So… the woman who slapped me in the alley must’ve been the female lead, Kang Ji-Ah.’

Cha Gil-Do must have shown up to stop the extra villain from harming the female lead.

Now that I’d figured this out, I oddly felt relieved.

‘Did Cha Gil-Do bring me here to kill me as Baek Eun-Seong?’

If so, I think I know how to get back. Once my role as the minor villain is no longer needed, I’ll naturally return to my original place.

‘If Cha Gil-Do kills Baek Eun-Seong, I’ll return to where I came from.’

I didn’t particularly want to go back, but I didn’t have a reason to stay here either. The lack of realism made it hard to take the idea of “death” seriously, even though it was the condition for returning.

Frankly, seeing my ghost-like reflection in the mirror earlier had been far scarier.

Just thinking about it still gave me the creeps.

Fortunately, Baek Eun-Seong had already committed numerous crimes and been captured by Cha Gil-Do. If I’d been thrown into the story earlier, I wouldn’t have even thought about going back. I simply lack the energy and cunning to live like Baek Eun-Seong.

But still… Baek Eun-Seong needs to die.

I looked at the IV drip attached to my arm. Doesn’t this mean I’ll live longer? In this state, I couldn’t even guess when the villain’s exit would happen.

“Doesn’t look like I’ll die today…”

“Don’t even dream about that.”

I jumped in surprise at the familiar voice of a man.

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