Twelve Hours to Live

"Hah, haaah—!"

Baek Ga-yoon fled the rooftop, half out of her mind, and stumbled back into the studio.

"Uh— Actress Baek……."

One of the staffers who had been scouring every corner of the building for her staggered back, stunned by an appearance that defied all imagination.

Her hair hung in wild disarray, and the cuts around her eyes and cheek had smeared her face with blood.

And to top it off, her eyes blazed with a ferocious, chilling light.

"Eek! Ga-yoon!"

Baek Ga-yoon's manager, Lee Jeong-han, jolted out of his skin and hurried toward her—but she swept right past him and disappeared into her dressing room.

"N-no way……."

Lee Jeong-han, pacing helplessly between the staff and the dressing room door with no idea what to do, finally forced an awkward smile that said he would go assess the situation, and followed her inside.

Watching the dressing room door shut, one of the staffers who'd been running around after Baek Ga-yoon spat out a remark.

"Ah, damn it. We're screwed."

With her face torn up like that, today's shoot was cancelled, no question about it.

Letting out a heavy breath, he headed for the set to break the news to the director.

On the chaotic set, the director was skimming through the script with his assistant director. If Baek Ga-yoon couldn't be found, he would be picking out which scenes to shoot next.

"Director. We found Actress Baek."

"What? You found her?!"

The director brightened and snapped the script shut. Except—

"Yes, sir. But she can't shoot."

At those words, the director's face instantly crumpled.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

The staffer gave him the gist of it—that Baek Ga-yoon had come back with her face absolutely covered in deep gashes.

"Aw, damn it. Are you kidding me……."

The director and the assistant director alike couldn't hold back their cursing at the sheer absurdity of it. The actress they were supposed to film had shown up with her face wrecked. What on earth had she been doing out there?

"Haah……. When did they say Ahn Ji-ho would get here?"

The director checked the schedule of the actor playing the male lead. It was, in fact, just about time for him to join them after wrapping his other shoot.

Scratching his forehead, the director made his decision.

"Jung Ga-yoon's on set, isn't she? Let's get the villain's monologue scene done first, and once Ahn Ji-ho arrives, we'll start with his scenes with Jung Ga-yoon. As for the PPL……. ah, screw it. We'll deal with that later."

"Yes, understood."

The director and the assistant director set off to reset the set for the villain's monologue, while the staffer headed for Jung Ga-yoon's dressing room to let her know the shooting schedule had changed.

Meanwhile, in Baek Ga-yoon's dressing room, Lee Jeong-han kept opening and closing his mouth, carefully watching her mood.

"Ga-yoon. What on earth happened to you?"

"……."

She didn't answer. Only her personal stylists bustled about her, wiping the blood from her face and patching her up.

"Ga-yoon."

Just as Lee Jeong-han called to her again, pressing for a response—

Baek Ga-yoon shot to her feet and lunged for the dressing room door. She seemed half out of her mind.

"Mom. I have to go to Mom."

Mom will fix everything. Her murmured voice was shaking uncontrollably.

"What about the shoot……!"

Lee Jeong-han dragged a hand down his face in frustration. Baek Ga-yoon whipped around and shrieked:

"Do I look like I can shoot anything right now!?"

With her face scratched and swollen like that, how was she supposed to be on camera?

"I— I know that, but……. Argh!"

Lee Jeong-han raked his hands back through his hair as though clawing at his scalp.

The shoot was a problem, and the PPL shots were a problem. Everything was tangled up in one big mess—so where on earth had she gone to pick another fight and make it this impossible to clean up?

"Fine. Let's go see the CEO first."

They tidied the dressing room and slipped out of the studio fast.

Staff members had seen Baek Ga-yoon's ruined face, so the excuse that they were heading to the hospital first would hold water. Not that it solved this desperate situation in any way.

Lee Jeong-han could choke on his frustration all he liked. The moment she was in the car, Baek Ga-yoon began tearing at her fingernails.

I killed someone.

An unknowable chill had her whole body shuddering, and yet a strange rapture was rising inside her. An involuntary laugh spilled out.

"Heh, heheheh."

Tap. Tap-. Tap.

Even with blood welling on the nails she had gnawed raw, she couldn't feel a thing.

I killed Jung Ga-yoon.

I killed that girl who'd been a thorn in my eye my entire life.

The real Baek Ga-yoon.

Geum Sa-ra's daughter, Baek Ga-yoon—I killed her.

She shook, and shook, and shook.

Grrrr—. Behind her, black shadows rippled and surged, closing over her as if to devour her whole.

Geum Sa-ra didn't know. She had no idea the real Baek Ga-yoon existed—and she could never be allowed to find out. And yet Jung Ga-yoon kept pushing her way to the front of this industry, again and again.

As if she were the real Baek Ga-yoon.

With the one talent she herself did not have, that girl kept shoving her face into the spotlight. It terrified her. It felt as though the truth could burst out at any second—that she was the fake. Geum Sa-ra would throw her away, and the entire nation would turn its back on her.

Was she really going to go down in history as the greatest liar who ever lived? But I never wanted this either! Why should I be the one trembling in fear like this?!

The shadows whispered.

Yes. If Jung Ga-yoon simply vanished from the entertainment world, the problem would solve itself.

She had egged Geum Sa-ra on into snatching the parts Jung Ga-yoon had won. She had blocked her rise by every means she could think of.

Jung Ga-yoon had so much in common with her. The same age, the same birthday, the same height and weight—and faces that looked alike, too. So she'd painted her as an imitator. The second Baek Ga-yoon? What a joke—wasn't that a title made to be torn apart?

She'd been certain that with her castings stolen and her name chewed up by gossip, Jung Ga-yoon would gradually fade out of the industry. Instead, that girl kept wriggling into role after role and clawing her way up.

So damn infuriating.

From extra to supporting role, and now—cast as the villain opposite her, no less—she had climbed all the way up to a position where she could reach for the lead. And the acting skills she herself had fought tooth and nail to build, Jung Ga-yoon kept proving with effortless, natural talent.

The shadows kept whispering.

But—

It's over now.

Baek Ga-yoon stared down at her own two hands. Pale, slender hands trembling violently. It was these hands that had cut off that girl's breath.

As for the cleanup—Mom would take care of it. Just like she always had. Just as she had buried every tantrum, every incident, every scandal until now, today's business, too, would become something that never happened.

Around Baek Ga-yoon—drained white and shivering—the black shadows wavered like leaping flames. As if they might swallow her whole at any moment.

She had, without question, blacked out.

Jung Ga-yoon slowly opened her eyes and pushed herself up to sit. Unlike the warmth still lingering in her body, the rooftop floor was ice-cold.

"I'm……. not dead?"

She groped at her throbbing neck. Baek Ga-yoon was nowhere to be seen; she seemed to be entirely alone. She couldn't tell what had happened, but slowly, she began piecing the situation together.

"How much time has passed?"

Ridiculous as it was, the shoot was her first worry.

Get downstairs first.

Ga-yoon scrambled to her feet and hurried toward the studio.

The moment she stepped into the eighth-floor corridor where the set was, she ran straight into Minji, her manager, who had been on her way to find her.

"Ga-yoon!"

Pulling her along urgently, Minji headed straight for the dressing room as she spoke. "They're resetting the set right now, and they're shooting your monologue scene first."

"Oh— really?"

For a split second she wondered whether Baek Ga-yoon's shoot had already ended by now—then the face she'd clawed to pieces surfaced in her memory, and she winced. So the schedule had been changed.

"And, hey—"

The second they entered the dressing room, Minji drew away from the door and lowered her voice. "Heaven knows what she was up to out there, but Baek Ga-yoon—get this—came back with her whole face scratched up, blew off the shoot, and left just like that."

"Oh, is… is that so……?"

Um, that face was my handiwork. She couldn't quite bring herself to say it, and managed only an awkward reply—while the stylist, who had everything set out in front of the mirror, tapped the chair with her fingers. "We still have to shoot, so let's fix your makeup first."

"Right, right. Let's do that."

Pull yourself together, she told herself, as Minji hurried her into the chair before the mirror. The stylist set to work dabbing down the swelling at once.

"Anyway. So they're shooting your monologue first, and once Ji-ho arrives……."

Listening to Minji recite the rest of the day's schedule, Ga-yoon checked the back of her neck in the mirror. She knew she ought to tell someone what had just happened—only the prospect left her utterly at a loss.

Baek Ga-yoon's nails had bitten into her skin. Yet now there wasn't so much as a nail mark, let alone any trace of her throat having been squeezed. What on earth was going on?

The pain was this vivid, and yet—

She had just slowly lifted a hand to smooth it over her neck when—

Fwoosh—!

Black smoke bloomed like fire and swirled around her neck—and then, together with a sinister blackened handprint, the marks where the nails had dug in began to surface in sharp relief.

"……!"

Alarmed, Ga-yoon searched the mirror for the stylist's and Minji's reactions.

"U-um, Unnie?"

As though time itself had stopped, Minji hung frozen mid-sentence and the stylist mid-dab, neither of them moving so much as a muscle.

Tick… tock… Then, click. Even the hands of the clock stopped. It felt as if the very air had frozen over.

With a soft hiss, the black smoke circling her neck died away—and numbers engraved themselves into her skin.

What in the world is that supposed to mean?

Just as her brows drew together, a black shadow the size of a fist flared into being right before her eyes—

Khee-hee-hee— cackling mischievously, the black shadow spun round and round in place, then opened its mouth again.