Time froze for Kim.
Not out of fear.
Nor shock.
But...
Wonder.
Under the shadow of the tree...
The figure who stepped out of the darkness was perched on one of the branches.
Smiling.
A mad, twisted smile.
His crimson eyes brimmed with mockery.
And he said:
"What's with that face?"
"Don't tell me you've forgotten me."
As for Kim...
He closed his book quietly.
Then asked:
"How did you get out?"
The double smiled.
And said:
"Is that the first thing you say to me after all this time?"
"That is deeply hurtful."
Then, he leapt down from the tree.
And walked right beside Kim.
And the strangest thing...
Was that no one else could see him.
Students walked right past them.
Iris waved to Kim from a distance.
But she did not look at the double, not even for a fleeting second.
Kim narrowed his eyes.
And said:
"So... I am the only one who can see you."
The double laughed.
And said:
"Of course."
"I am no ghost."
"Nor a spirit."
Then he leaned in, whispering into Kim's ear:
"I am... you."
Silence fell.
Yet, Kim's expression did not change.
For he had known this.
Since a long, long time ago.
This face.
This voice.
They had always accompanied him.
In his darkest moments.
And in his deepest solitude.
Kim breathed in slowly, but the air felt like needles piercing his chest. Taking a step back, he turned to look at the double, who stood there with identical features, his crimson eyes gleaming with a painfully familiar malice.
"You... you are not here," Kim whispered, his voice trembling for the first time in years. "I locked you away. In the deepest, darkest corner of my chest. In that pitch-black room where light never visits... How did you return?"
The double's grin widened. He took a few careless strides, hands tucked casually into his pockets, and spoke in a tone dripping with mock tenderness and irony:
"Can a man ever truly run from his own shadow, Kim? I was there with you every single night you wept in the dark, clutching your head. I was there when you screamed with all your might and no one heard you. I am no intruder... I am the truth you refuse to face."
Two female students passed right between them, their laughter ringing out. One of them nearly brushed against the double's shoulder, but her body passed right through him, as if he were nothing but a mirage or a draft of cold air.
A sudden chill swept through Kim's limbs. His flashlight slipped from his hand, clattering to the ground, as tears welled in his eyes. He looked around with a childlike terror he had never once shown before. He looked at Iris, who was still waving with a warm smile from afar; he looked at the students; then he looked down at his own hands... they were shaking uncontrollably.
"Have I... Have I truly gone mad?"
Kim asked himself. It was not a question meant for the double, but a silent scream of agony from a collapsing mind.
A hot tear spilled down his cheek, followed by another. He felt utterly shattered. All the resilience he had built over the years, all the hollow strength he used to face the world, crumbled in a single second under the crushing weight of this waking hallucination.
Kim fell to his knees on the green grass, burying his face in his hands, sobbing uncontrollably. His gasps were muffled, his chest heaving with a pain that clawed at his very soul. Was everything he had survived—the torment, the loneliness, the endless inner battles—nothing but an illusion? Was he sick? Was this figure standing before him the physical manifestation of his own internal ruin?
The double knelt beside him, placing a hand—whose unnatural, piercing coldness Kim could actually feel seeping through his shoulder—and spoke in a quiet, almost soothing murmur:
"Don't cry, Kim... None of them understand you like I do. Let them think you are calm, and let us share this madness together."
In that devastating moment, amidst his tears, Kim realized the true horror: he no longer knew where his own identity ended... and where his double's began.
The crying stopped, but the horror remained.
Kim stood in the middle of the courtyard, wiping away the remnants of his tears, holding his book with a trembling hand. He looked around; the world was moving on as usual. Iris was laughing, students were chattering, and the sun was setting with absolute indifference... as if an earthquake had not just shattered the world inside his mind. He turned to his side, but the double was gone. He had vanished, yet his voice lingered, echoing through the corridors of Kim's soul like an eternal whisper.
And here... let me ask you, dear reader, you who have walked alongside me and turned the pages of Kim's story up to this very moment:
Did you honestly believe that pain simply vanishes just because we ignore it?
And did you think Kim was strong enough to survive all alone?
I am sorry to leave you here, at this dark precipice. I am sorry to show you the breaking of a hero you once thought invincible. But I wanted to show you that the deepest pain does not lie in the battles we fight against enemies outside; it lies in that silent war waged within our own minds, where we can no longer tell who is the "victim" and who is the "monster."
Kim did not survive... he has begun to surrender to his shadow.
And now, the light fades on this chapter of his life. I leave you with Kim's suspended tears, and with his question that will echo in the darkness of your chest until we meet again:
"If he is me... then who is the one crying right now?"
Brace yourself... for in Part II, we will not merely search for the truth; we will drown together in the depths of this madness.
- End of Part I -
The Season 2 Premiere: September 1, 2026