Minjae didn't sleep.
Not because he couldn't—but because he was terrified of what he'd see when his eyes closed.
The woman from the mirror wasn't a dream.
The room still reeked of wax and regret. His shirt still smelled faintly of dust from Room 504, and a single crack now stretched across the mirror in his own room—even though he hadn't touched it.
It was real.
And worse—it had always been.
⸻
By morning, he dragged himself to campus, numb and sleep-deprived. But the world outside had changed again.
People spoke normally. Laughed. Took calls. Rushed to class.
But something was off.
A woman walked past him, smiled.
He blinked.
And for just one second—her eyes turned silver.
Not contacts.
The same silver as the woman in the mirror.
He stopped in his tracks, turning, but she had already blended into the crowd.
⸻
Later that afternoon, Minjae found himself sitting alone beneath the cherry blossom tree near the west wing courtyard.
It was quiet.
Until—
A rustle inside his bag.
He looked down.
His bag, zipped shut before, was now open.
Inside, nestled between his textbooks and notebooks—
A folded note.
He hadn't seen it before.
He hadn't touched his bag since Room 504.
⸻
He unfolded it slowly.
At the top, handwritten in golden ink:
"Love that does not consume you is not love at all."
Below that, a faint inscription in red:
To find the mirror's true name, look beneath the seal you broke twice.
When glass weeps red and speaks your name, it is no longer glass.
It is memory. It is blood. It is her.
Minjae stared at the note for minutes.
💭 "A mirror's true name…?" 💭
What did it mean?
What seal?
⸻
He turned the note over.
The back was blank.
Except for a final line at the bottom:
And when the day comes that she wears your name… don't look away.
⸻
📲💬
From Unknown
Did you find my letter, moonlight?
Don't worry. Only you can read it.
💬
His hands shook as he typed a reply.
📲💬
What do you want from me?
Who are you really?
💬
No response.
⸻
That evening, he skipped dinner and sat at his desk, staring at the note again.
Then, he pulled out the mirror—the same one with the red writing from before.
He turned it slowly under the light.
And that's when he saw it.
A faint inscription on the back.
Too faded to read normally.
He tilted it toward the lamp's glow.
The writing shimmered—
And rearranged.
Like ink moving on its own.
"Veritas Dae—Name Her, or She Will Name You."
⸻
💭 "Name her…?" 💭
Was that what this was about?
Had he made some sort of pact with this woman by naming her?
Or had she named him… and stolen his?
The thought sent ice through his spine.
⸻
📲💬
From Unknown
You never named me properly. But I still wore your name.
Because you didn't remember how much I bled for it.
💬
⸻
He stared at the phone for a long time.
There was something terrifyingly intimate about her words.
It wasn't just obsession.
It wasn't even love.
It was like their fates had once been braided, then violently unraveled—and now she was trying to weave them back together again.
With or without his permission.
⸻
That night, in his sleep, he dreamed of the mirror.
But this time, it wasn't in Room 504.
It was in his childhood home.
In the hallway, next to the piano.
He was younger—ten, maybe eleven.
And a girl stood behind him in the reflection.
Smiling.
He turned.
No one was there.
But the mirror still held her image.
And then she spoke.
"Even then, you saw me. You just never knew you were looking."
⸻
He woke with a jolt.
Sweat clung to his skin. The room was cold again.
He looked at the mirror across the room.
A crack had appeared.
Not new—but not old either.
Like it had just surfaced.
And beneath the crack—
A faint silver fingerprint.
⸻
The next morning, Minjae barely made it to his lecture. Half his notes were unreadable, his hands shaking as he tried to focus.
The professor's voice faded into background noise.
That's when Seo Yura approached.
She dropped into the seat beside him with a small smile.
"You look like you saw a ghost," she whispered.
He blinked. "I… yeah. Something like that."
She studied him for a moment.
Then leaned closer.
"Minjae…"
He turned.
Yura's eyes were soft—normal.
But the way she said his name—
It didn't sound like her.
It sounded like her.
The woman from the mirror.
His stomach turned.
He leaned back slightly, instinctively.
But Yura didn't seem to notice.
She opened her notebook casually and slid something across to him.
Another note.
Not folded.
Just written on the page:
"You see reflections. But never the original."
What if she was never in the mirror?
*What if she was in you?
⸻
A/N:
Chapter 16 dives deeper into the psychological and supernatural layers of the pact between Minjae and the woman from the mirror. Cryptic clues have begun to surface—not just through her messages, but even from his own surroundings. Is she manipulating reality? Or has reality always included her, just beneath the surface of memory?
Seo Yura's interaction may or may not be innocent—what Minjae experiences around her raises new doubts.