Their confusion rang loud and clear.
In the mirror, the bloodied side revealed Kil standing beside an equally shaken Sof. Same face. Same frame. Same trembling hands hovering where neither of them knew what to do.
A bruise bloomed along the jaw they shared, cheeks stinging sharply. It was the first time either of them had ever truly seen the other. Not through dreams. Not through stolen habits. Not through gaps in memory. This was real.
Sof knew who Kil was.
The memories lined up too cleanly to deny now. The dimly lit room humming with electronics. Fingers flying over buttons he had never learned to use. The bitter burn of alcohol on a tongue that should have hated it. The ease with which violence came. The way fear never did.
Those weren't his.
They never had been.
Kil felt it at the same time.
The florist's hands. Soil under fingernails. The patience required to wait for petals to open. The warmth of smiling at strangers without calculation. The quiet joy of watching a blue butterfly tear itself free from a cocoon and take flight.
That gentleness disgusted him.
And yet, it wasn't foreign.
Because it wasn't his.
It had been Sof's.
The understanding settled between them like a third presence, heavy and unwelcome. Not relief. Not peace. Just truth, raw and unfiltered.
"Who are you?" Kil asked, eyes narrowing at the mirror. The stranger staring back wore his face wrong, like a costume pulled too tight.
"I'm Sof…" Sof answered, the realization fully forming only after the words left his mouth. "You must be Kil."
The names slid into place with a sickening ease.
It explained everything. Why they answered to each other's names without realizing. Why strangers greeted them with familiarity they didn't remember earning. Why they were always being mistaken for someone else.
They spoke then. Not loudly. Not kindly. Short exchanges, sharp pauses. Confusion thinned, replaced by something worse.
Resentment.
Each saw the other as an intrusion. A theft. As if their existence had been split down the middle without consent. As if the other had no right to be there at all.
Hatred bloomed naturally.
Tiny hands appeared at the edge of the mirror.
Both of them flinched.
"The kid," they said in unison, the sound wrong in their ears, echoing as though two mouths had spoken when only one existed.
The faceless child peeked out again.
This time, there were two.
One was small, pale, familiar in a way that made their stomachs twist.
The other stood taller behind him, brown hair falling into eyes that did not blink.
"Hahahaha," the smaller one laughed, voice light and delighted. "Wohyoon is confused!"
Though faceless, details began to bleed into existence. A small red mouth stretched wide. Pale skin. Blue eyes too bright to be kind. Black hair, wavy but not quite curled. A face assembling itself not in glass, but directly inside their minds.
Both Sof and Kil thought the same name at the same time.
Wohyoon.
The real Wohyoon.
Instinct screamed.
They ran.
Not from danger, but from recognition. From the suffocating certainty that if they stayed still, the smaller child would swallow them whole and there would be nothing left to divide.
Behind them, the taller child only repeated the name.
"Wohyoon. Wohyoon. Wohyoon."
The laughter never stopped.
It chimed softly, almost sweet, yet wrong. Too tight. Too endless. As if the sound itself was choking on joy.
Sof and Kil felt it together. Their chests constricted. Breaths came shallow. The walls seemed to lean inward. Sanity frayed, threads snapping one by one.
They were trapped.
To the left, Sof's stairs.
To the right, Kil's basement.
Neither could step into the other's space. Neither belonged there.
The laughter pressed closer, vibrating through bone and thought alike.
Something snapped.
Their hands shot forward and wrapped around Wohyoon's fragile neck.
The laughter only grew louder.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA."
Tears streamed down his face. His body trembled, breath failing, yet the sound never broke. It poured out of him endlessly, delighted and cruel.
Only then did Sof and Kil look up.
They were staring into the mirror.
Their hands were around their own throat.
Fingers digging into familiar skin. Nails breaking flesh. Blood warm and real beneath their grip.
And the laughter.
It wasn't coming from Wohyoon.
It was coming from them.
Their mouths were stretched wide, eyes wet with tears, faces contorted in the same hysterical joy they had tried to silence. Their own laughter echoed in the room, too loud, too alive, drowning out thought.
No.
Wohyoon had never been the one laughing at them.
Wohyoon had been them from the very beginning.