The End of a Villain

The end of a villain is rarely a good one. When the protagonist wins, the villain loses; when the protagonist finds happiness, the villain is made to suffer. My role would end no differently. I'm the villain, after all.

"Cut! Okay. Getting ready for the next scene."

The director's voice rolled across the set, calm and unhurried. Mid-take, Jung Ga-yoon painted a smile back onto her face and, where no one could see, let out a faint sigh.

"Thank you for your hard work."

"Ah, right—Ga-yoon. You're on standby for now, yeah? Nice work in there!"

The assistant director gave her shoulder a couple of friendly pats and moved on. Role after role, she'd been handed supporting parts with barely any screen time; this time, at last, she'd landed a villain with real weight to her. She'd snatched the part up gladly—only to discover that the female lead standing opposite her, the actress who bore her very same name, was Baek Ga-yoon.

"Next shoot is Actress Baek's product-placement cut, so get everything ready!" The assistant director darted around barking orders, and Ga-yoon quietly took up a spot where she'd stay out of the crew's way.

Baek Ga-yoon would be up for her scene soon.

Baek Ga-yoon was a veteran top star who had debuted at the age of five and kept a steady stream of work coming for twenty-two years straight.

Her popularity was top-tier. Her résumé, top-tier. Her character was top-tier too—the trouble was that off camera, that "top" ran closer to buzzsaw.

"Hey, lighting over here! Get another reflector on!"

Even with a personality like garbage, she reigned over this industry without rival. And she had backing, too: she belonged to High-Top Entertainment, an agency second to none in Korea, and its CEO, Geum Sa-ra, was Baek Ga-yoon's own mother.

How do I know all this so well? Ga-yoon was no fan of Baek Ga-yoon's. Far from it—if anything, bad blood was the one thing she had in plenty.

The bustling set was being arranged for Baek Ga-yoon alone, calibrated to her every need. And then—

"Excuse me—where's the director?"

Baek Ga-yoon's manager had come rushing in, harried and out of breath, and asked her.

"He's doing an audio check."

The director was standing comparatively close by, but the man seemed too rattled for anything to register.

"Ah—Director. Whew." The manager gulped, rubbed his sweating palms down his trousers, sidled up to the director, and leaned in to whisper. It wasn't much of a distance—though not close enough for the words to carry.

"What?! You're telling me this now?!"

Every head on set snapped toward the shout. Kim Min-ji, Ga-yoon's manager, who had been talking with another staffer across the floor, hurried over and planted herself at her side.

"What is it? What's going on?"

No explanation was needed. The reason came pouring straight out of the director's furious mouth.

"The actress vanished in the middle of a shoot?! Then go find Baek Ga-yoon right this instant—what are you all standing around for?!"

In truth, this was not the first or even the second time.

"Here we go again." Min-ji clicked her tongue. The crew members who'd been setting up for Baek Ga-yoon's scene halted mid-motion, heaving irritated sighs.

The assistant director and the production director bolted out to search for her, while the director rounded on Baek Ga-yoon's manager, shouting himself hoarse.

"You! Every single time it's the same song and dance—are you hiding Actress Baek on purpose?!"

"Oh, come on, Director! Absolutely not!"

"As if! You mean to tell me a manager doesn't know where his own actress went? Even right now—shouldn't finding her come first, hmm?!"

"Aigoo, Director. Why on earth wouldn't I have looked? Ugh, I'm the one who takes the beating every single time."

As the manager groveled, the director clawed at his own hair; the manager promised to keep searching and scurried off the set in a panic.

"What a mess. What a mess."

"When is this blasted shoot ever going to end?"

The shoot was suspended. Deflated, the crew grumbled on.

Ga-yoon exchanged an awkward glance with Min-ji, then got moving. It was best to clear out for a while, before sparks from someone else's fire landed on her.

"How long do you figure this'll set us back?"

Min-ji murmured it as they made for the waiting room. Thirty minutes, give or take. And—

"If it looks like a long delay, won't they move up some of the other scenes first?"

"Ha. Right. Probably will."

That was how the other supporting actors' scenes kept getting bumped forward.

"Honestly, I don't get how someone with her reputation plays hooky like this. Ugh. Anyway—no telling when they'll call you, so get some rest, Ga-yoon."

Min-ji sighed and urged her to rest, but Ga-yoon shook her head, smiling.

"I'm all right. I'm going to go take the stairs."

"Again?"

"I need the exercise."

Shooting had piled up lately and her workouts had gone by the wayside; the weight kept creeping back on. And eating less only went so far.

Ga-yoon stepped into the stairwell and started climbing at an easy pace. Her studio sat on the eighth floor, and the rooftop waited on the twelfth—a comfortable four-floor stretch, just right for taking it slow.

Clunk—

From above came a clatter, and staff voices came tumbling down the stairwell with it.

"Not on the rooftop! Try somewhere else!"

"God, where the hell did she even go?!"

Venting their full share of irritation, the staff pushed out onto another floor.

Trudge. Trudge.

Ga-yoon climbed on in silence. The dim landings lit themselves one by one along her path, as though the stairwell were brightening the road ahead of her.

If only my own road lit up this readily. Baek Ga-yoon—who shares my name—lives exactly as she pleases and still walks a golden highway, while I have to thrash and claw just to scrape out a name as an actress.

A sigh slipped out. At last she reached the top, and the stale air seemed suddenly suffocating—Ga-yoon shoved the rooftop door open.

Screech—

Cool wind swept in with the wide blue sky, and she filled her lungs with it—

"What's this? Fake Ga-yoon?"

An unexpected blade of a voice bored into her ear. Baek Ga-yoon? She had distinctly heard the staff saying the rooftop was empty as they hurried back down.

"Sunbae-nim."

"Yeah, Fake Ga-yoon. Come here."

Baek Ga-yoon, leaning against the rooftop railing with a cigarette burning between her fingers, beckoned with a lazy crook of one finger.

Fake Ga-yoon.

A vicious nickname, pinned on her under the accusation that Jung Ga-yoon was copying Baek Ga-yoon—the name used for her by Baek Ga-yoon's fans, who doubled as Jung Ga-yoon's haters. She simply hadn't expected to hear it from Baek Ga-yoon's own mouth.

Ga-yoon closed the distance step by step, and Baek Ga-yoon exhaled a long plume of smoke as her eyes raked over her.

"You know what? I really hate you."

Ever since Ga-yoon had been cast in this drama, The Terms of Inheritance, Baek Ga-yoon had watched her with exactly that look of displeasure. It stung, but she could half understand it. From the vantage point of an established star, it might well gall to watch a woman wear your face—and, on top of that, what looked like your name.

Hadn't I even considered changing my stage name because of it, once?

Baek Ga-yoon gazed steadily at her as she drew near. She glared in silence for a long moment, then ground the cigarette out under her heel—and clamped a hand around Ga-yoon's throat. Shock and disgust flooded through her.

"Why are you doing this?"

No. Even if she hates me, this is going too far.

The instant she tried to ease backward, Baek Ga-yoon's grip snapped down hard.

"Hah...!"

Air cut off in an instant; she shoved at the hand around her throat, but it wouldn't give.

What—how is she this strong? It was too sudden, too incomprehensible. Why was she doing this? What had she done? Was there any reason to go this far?

Baek Ga-yoon's nails dug into the back of her neck.

"Hk—!"

Watching her writhe in pain, Baek Ga-yoon's face was terrifyingly blank.

She had known the woman wasn't a good person. But this kind of person?

Both hands closed around the wrist and pulled, yet the hand wouldn't come free. The strength was beyond belief. And then—

"Ah... hahaha!"

Baek Ga-yoon burst out laughing without warning. With her hand still crushing her throat.

"Khh! Why...?"

Choking, she couldn't get the words out. She staggered, and the moment she lifted a leg to kick, Baek Ga-yoon's other hand clamped onto her throat as well, her full weight came bearing in, and she shoved her down.

Whump. Crash!

Baek Ga-yoon straddled her where she lay, laughing like something unhinged, and poured out her words in a venomous rush.

"Yes—this is what I should've done ages ago. Ages! Do you have any idea how much you've been eating away at me? You? It's because of you?"

I've been unsettling her? Why? None of it made sense. What was she, exactly? Why on earth would she be the unsettling one?

As though her grudge ran deep, Baek Ga-yoon bore down harder on her throat. Like she truly meant to kill her.

"Wh-why would you...?"

She asked even as she fought for air. At least let her know the reason. Why do you hate me this much? What did I ever do to you?

Her breath ran short, and her vision blurred at the edges. She did not want to die like this.

If anyone here had a grudge coming, it was me. At nineteen, Ga-yoon had passed an audition and won a role in The Doll, a film by the master director Jang Mun-seok—the lead role, no less. But High-Top Entertainment's money had entered the picture, and the casting was overturned. The lead had gone to Baek Ga-yoon instead.

So why are you doing this to me? You already have everything. What did I do to deserve this? Was it because they called me the second coming of Baek Ga-yoon?

She reached up and seized Baek Ga-yoon's face. With every last ounce of strength she had.

Deep nail marks gouged the skin beneath Baek Ga-yoon's eyes and scored down her cheeks.

"Aaagh! No!"

Even mid-scream, Baek Ga-yoon did not loosen her grip. Her eyes glistened, swallowed whole by madness, as she wrung out still more strength.

"Just a little more. A little, more...!"

Bit by bit, the strength drained from the hand clawing at Baek Ga-yoon's face, opening wounds again and again.

Whoosh—

Through her dimming sight, for a single instant, she saw something else.

"HAHAHAHAHA!"

Something pitch-black was writhing just past Baek Ga-yoon's shoulder—several of them, a cluster of unreal black shadows clinging together.

I don't want to die like this.

And, absurdly, even now she caught herself worrying about the shoot still left to do. The thought nearly made her laugh.

Flailing with hands gone weak, she seized hold of part of the black shadow. She didn't know what it was, but somehow she knew: that thing could save her.

Save me.

But her breath soon broke off, and the hand that had been slicing through the air dropped dead against the ground.

…

In the same instant, Baek Ga-yoon's shrieking laughter stopped short.

"Huh...?"

As though waking from a trance, she took a moment to grasp what she had done—

"Ah... Aaagh!"

She scrambled off Jung Ga-yoon's body in raw terror, plopped down gracelessly, and began backing away—

"AAAAGH!"

—and fled down the stairs.

Whooooo—

A chill wind coiled around the rooftop, and the clear sky had clouded over before she knew it.

Fsss—

From the cooling tips of Jung Ga-yoon's fingers, the black shadow rippled—and then it settled over her body like the faintest of veils.