CHAPTER 10:THE MIRROR WOKE FIRST
PART 1: THE GIRL IN THE GLASS
The beeping came first.
Steady. Shallow. Rhythmic. Like a war drum softened into a metronome.
Seo Ha-yeon opened her eyes.
White ceiling.
White sheets.
Sterile light filtered through blinds cut too sharply.
She turned her head—and wires tugged at her wrist.
A hospital.
Modern. Too clean. Too loud beneath the quiet.
But her body remembered something older.
Stone floors. Gold walls. Cold mirrors.
The crown.
The mirror.
The fire.
She sat up too fast.
The monitor beside her let out a high, disapproving tone.
Her skin was clammy.
Her heartbeat raced.
A nurse entered the room, startled. "Miss Seo! You're awake—please, slow down—"
Ha-yeon stared at her.
Stared through her.
Because the last thing she remembered wasn't her name.
It was a different name.
Seorin.
And it still echoed like royalty in her chest.
---
The doctor said she'd been found unconscious near an abandoned shrine outside Gyeonggi Province—barefoot, clothes soaked, palms torn from trying to claw her way out of the earth.
There'd been no ID.
But when she woke, she gave a name.
Seo Ha-yeon.
Age: 24.
A graduate student in Korean historical studies.
Perfectly rational.
Except she kept asking for a mirror.
---
When they finally gave her one—small, square, in a hand-held frame—
She didn't recognize what she saw.
It was her face.
Her age.
Her body.
But she was dressed in royal robes.
White silk. Crimson trim. Gold thread shaped like twin phoenixes curling at the chest.
And her eyes…
Her eyes weren't blinking.
She reached for the glass.
The image did not move.
Just stared.
Until, slowly, it lifted its hand.
A second too late.
Like it had been waiting for her to arrive first.
---
PART 2: THE SCHOLAR WHO LIED
He arrived just after noon.
White shirt. Quiet shoes. Glasses thick at the rim. The kind of man who wore reverence like perfume and blinked slowly when someone asked the wrong question.
"Seo Ha-yeon?" he asked, smiling like he already knew the answer.
She nodded.
His smile held.
"I'm Professor Kim In-seok. Your advisor from the university. I'm told you... may not remember much?"
Ha-yeon studied him carefully.
She remembered him.
But differently.
In flashes.
Once, in a dream—or something like it—he had worn ceremonial robes. Not a professor, but a court chronicler. His eyes had been sharper then.
She motioned to the chair. "I remember."
He paused. Sat.
Asked soft questions.
"Do you recall your studies?"
"Yes."
"Do you know what day it is?"
"Year of the Water Rabbit. Autumn moon waning."
He stilled.
"…You've been reading too many palace scripts."
She tilted her head.
Then reached for the notepad beside the bed.
She drew the symbol before she could stop herself.
A broken circle.
A flame at the center.
Burned into her fingers.
She pushed the paper toward him.
He stared.
Did not speak.
His smile cracked at the edges.
Finally, quietly: "Where did you see this?"
"I don't see it."
"I dream it."
Professor Kim didn't answer.
He reached for the drawing.
His hand trembled.
Then he folded the paper once. Twice. Tucked it into his jacket.
"You shouldn't draw that again."
"Why?"
"Because there are things older than memory that prefer to stay buried."
He stood.
Bowed—too quickly.
And left.
But not before she saw the shape on his wrist.
A faded scar.
Round.
Like something had once burned him clean through.
---
PART 3: RED HAIRPIN, GRAY RIBBON
The apartment smelled like green tea and wet laundry when Yeonhwa walked in.
She dropped her bag, kicked off her sneakers, and reached for the mail.
It had been three days since Ha-yeon had come home.
Three days since she'd gone to that damn shrine "just to sketch the arches" and ended up unconscious with dirt under her nails and a name in her mouth that didn't belong to anyone alive.
She moved into Ha-yeon's room slowly.
Stopped.
The bed was neatly made.
Unusual.
On the desk: a stack of sketchbooks. One open.
A single drawing on the page.
Yeonhwa leaned in.
A hairpin.
Delicate. Curved like flame. A red enamel phoenix cradled in a bed of coiled gold threads, with a pale gem the size of a raindrop near the hilt.
She recognized it instantly.
She had seen it before.
In a glass case at the National Museum.
Labeled: Royal Ornament, Unknown Origin. Presumed lost in fire.
The display had no photo.
No replica.
Only a shadow box and an artist's rendering from 200 years ago.
And yet—
The drawing in front of her was exact.
Down to the missing thread at the leftmost coil.
Yeonhwa's breath caught.
She flipped the next page.
More drawings.
A comb.
A ceremonial ring.
A gray ribbon—frayed at the edge.
Each one real.
Each one lost.
---
That night, Ha-yeon came home.
Quiet.
Eyes a little too wide.
Yeonhwa didn't ask anything.
Just handed her the sketchbook.
"You don't remember drawing these?"
Ha-yeon looked.
Touched the ribbon sketch.
Then opened the top drawer of her desk.
Inside:
The actual ribbon.
Frayed.
Sea-gray.
Warm.
---
PART 4: JAE-HWAN REMEMBERS FIRST
The knock came just after midnight.
Not soft.
Measured.
Three times.
Yeonhwa was asleep in the next room, headphones on. The only light in the apartment came from the desk lamp, still flickering over Ha-yeon's open sketchbook.
She answered the door barefoot.
The man on the other side was tall, tired, and rain-damp.
His coat was too thin for the cold. His hair was mussed. A folded notepad poked from his breast pocket.
And his face—
She knew it.
Not from this life.
But from one that still smelled of soot and regret.
He stared at her like he'd seen a ghost.
Like he was one.
Then:
"You're not supposed to be here."
Ha-yeon said nothing.
He stepped back once, as if dizzy.
"I tried to forget," he whispered. "I burned the letters. The ring. I went to the temple. I even wrote it all down in third person just to make it feel like fiction."
Still, she didn't speak.
He looked up—eyes sharper now.
"You don't remember me, do you?"
Her voice was quiet.
"I remember your death."
He froze.
Then laughed.
Once.
Dry.
Pained.
"I always knew it was you."
She stepped aside.
He entered.
Dropped his bag. Didn't ask for tea.
Sat.
"I'm Kang Jae-hwan," he said. "But I wasn't always."
She sat across from him.
"No. You weren't."
He looked at the mirror hanging above the bookshelf—cheap, store-bought, already cracked at the corner.
He stared at their reflections.
"I dreamed of fire again last week."
She nodded.
"I haven't stopped."
---
PART 5: THE MIRROR WOKE FIRST
The basement of the library smelled of mildew and dust.
Books. Paper. Shelves that creaked under the weight of too many years.
It was a place Ha-yeon hadn't expected to end up in, but the rumors had caught her attention. A storage unit in the deepest wing, catalogued for demolition.
A mirror.
It was labeled.
**"DISPOSE OF: DO NOT OPEN. Unstable."
"Unknown."**
Her fingers grazed the corners of the old wooden frame. The glass was covered in cloth—stiff, woven, dark brown.
She hesitated.
Her thoughts flickered.
Not of the present. Not of the names that she carried now.
But something older. A breathless scream, swallowed by fire. A child calling her name.
Seorin.
The name fell like dust from her mouth. She shook her head.
It didn't matter.
But then—her hand reached for the cloth. Pulled it back.
And she saw it.
Her reflection.
Not her.
It was her.
But not.
The woman in the mirror wore her face. Her body. Her clothes. Her hair—dark, uncut, glossy. Her eyes… unnaturally calm.
A smile—thin, tight, knowing—curled on her lips.
And then—
Her reflection moved.
It smiled at her.
A fraction of a second too late.
A moment where her body stayed frozen, while the glass showed a slight bow of the head, the shift of the lips.
A mirror that was not her own.
But knew her.
It recognized her. Knew her name.
And the woman in the reflection waited.
"Why…?" Ha-yeon whispered. "Why are you here?"
The woman in the glass did not speak.
But her eyes—her eyes held too much.
Too much to be forgotten.
Too much to be alive.
Then it smiled again.
And Ha-yeon understood.
---