A Secret Only I Was Meant to Know

‘Someday, when you come to understand beauty….’

“…?”

Just a few steps in, a strange voice brushed against my ears.

It was a distant sound that seemed to resonate from inside my head.

I paused briefly, then resumed walking.

‘You’ll come to believe that it’s worth devoting everything for it.’

This was probably my mother’s voice.

She gently stroked my hair, tenderly smoothing my exposed forehead.

I blinked, listening to her voice without any emotion, like a doll.

As I listened, the child I once was thought.

‘Then why am I locked in a room like this?’

I found it strange that I was trapped in a pure white room where no beauty could be found, unable to do anything at all.

‘You were born solely for that moment.’

[Sub Scenario ‘@2. Go Doya – A Certain Beauty’]

[Sub scenario progress has been updated.]

Along with the system message, I sucked in a huge breath, like someone resurfacing from deep water.

Short, ragged breaths followed one after another.

[You have acquired ‘An Old Fragment of Memory.’ Understanding of ‘Go Doya’ has slightly increased.]

Before I knew it, I was standing right in front of the bed.

Letting out shallow breaths, I collapsed onto it.

The woman’s voice was burned into my mind and wouldn’t fade.

What was it.

What did it mean.

Her gestures had clearly been gentle, yet there was no warmth in them.

What Hyeon Jaeyul had once said came back to me.

‘Doya, you hated calling them that.’

He had referred to my parents simply as ‘guardians.’

Because I disliked calling them my parents.

I could vaguely understand why.

My mother had treated me like a finely crafted doll.

As if she were inputting an objective I was meant to carry out.

She wasn’t speaking to ‘me,’ but speaking in a way meant to engrave something deep into my consciousness.

I hadn’t expected any pleasant memories, but this was worse than expected.

It seemed the child I was had received no affection whatsoever from those ‘guardians.’

“……”

I hadn’t expected anything anyway, but….

I still felt a little depressed.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, I tapped the floor lightly with my foot.

Then—thunk—a hollow sound echoed, as if the floor were empty beneath.

I sprang up, dropped to my knees, and knocked on the floor with my fist.

“Here?”

Finding a slightly loosened seam, I pried the floor open in one go.

When I saw what was hidden inside the empty space, I lost all words.

It must have been something I’d hidden as a child.

Something I’d concealed from my guardians’ eyes.

It was a shard of mirror.

A sharp piece of broken mirror.

I stared quietly at my own eyes reflected in it, then wrapped the larger shard in the pillowcase from the bed.

It was too big to fit into a suit jacket pocket, and I hesitated for a moment.

After making sure the sharp edges were fully covered, I roughly tucked it into my waistband and hid it under my clothes.

For some reason, it felt like something that needed to stay hidden.

Footsteps started approaching from outside, and I hurriedly restored the opened floor to its original state.

“I told you to wait.”

It hadn’t even been that long since the footsteps began, yet Hyeon Jaeyul was already staring at me with a sharp gaze.

It was that same gloomy look from before.

Eyes that felt like a snake coiling tightly around my body.

How he knew I was on the second floor, I had no idea, but the eyes that had found me in an instant burned darkly.

[You have encountered target ‘Hyeon Jaeyul.’ Switching to main scenario.]

[Target’s ‘Anxiety’ value is at maximum.]

[If this value persists for more than 7 days, all main scenario progression will be halted.]

[If the main scenario is halted mid-progress, this will lead to a ‘Bad Ending’ in the romance simulation.]

[After collecting the Bad Ending, all simulations will terminate.]

‘Huh?’

I checked the messages appearing one after another.

Reading them, I became certain that I was still inside the ‘8th Apocalypse Simulation.’

The final condition for ending the apocalypse simulation wasn’t ‘memory,’ but something else.

And in cases like this, since the system was following the standard progression of a ‘romance simulation,’ there was a penalty where everything could derail midway.

So, the two most important things I needed to do right now were these.

First, to prevent the romance simulation from heading toward a Bad Ending by completing the main scenario.

Second, to figure out the condition required to end the apocalypse simulation.

While I was lost in thought after reading the messages, Hyeon Jaeyul had already closed the distance between us.

“Doya.”

He called my name in a low voice, then roughly grabbed my chin.

My head was forced upward by his hand.

Standing as if to cage me in his arms, Hyeon Jaeyul locked eyes with me.

The black eyes I’d once thought dull were now sunk deep, exposing dark emotions.

I hadn’t imagined that gaze back then.

Ju Noeul’s displeased expression when Hyeon Jaeyul had come up flashed through my mind.

“There’s something I’m curious about.”

As he bent his large frame toward me, Hyeon Jaeyul looked like a massive snake.

The warm, teddy-bear-like impression he usually gave changed in an instant.

The hand that had lifted my chin moved slowly, brushing my cheek and ear, then gently swept beneath my eye with his thumb.

His rough, calloused hand moved as if touching a fragile piece of craftsmanship.

As he rubbed just under my eye, he spoke.

“What exactly is it that you’re seeing?”

I’d noticed him occasionally watching the direction of my gaze, but I hadn’t expected him to ask so directly.

To me, Hyeon Jaeyul had always been that kind of presence….

Now he was staring at me with eyes steeped in anger and jealousy.

“Whatever you’re seeing, I was fine with it as long as only you could see it….

But why is Ju Noeul seeing the same thing as you?”

The voice spilling from his lips felt unfamiliar.

He was pouring out jealousy he couldn’t rein in.

Hyeon Jaeyul had always been calm, always moved the way I asked.

Because of that, I had no idea when he’d started harboring feelings like this.

“You can’t share that with Ju Noeul, Doya.”

Since when had Hyeon Jaeyul been looking at me like this…?

There was something wrong with his eyes.

This was the first time I’d ever seen madness in someone’s gaze from this close.

Jealousy alone was bad enough, but I could hardly follow his emotions at all.

‘Well, of course I can’t. I don’t have my memories!’

I understood that he was my childhood friend.

But I didn’t know what had happened between us over all those years, or when exactly he’d started liking me.

So this situation was nothing but bewildering.

According to the system, I needed to lower his ‘Anxiety’ value, but I had no idea what I should say to calm him down.

In front of Hyeon Jaeyul, who kept stroking my face in silence as if waiting for an answer, I thought hard.

‘When did he even realize Ju Noeul and I see the same thing?’

The system window was displaying more information at the edge of my vision, but if I looked away now, it would be over.

Straight to a Bad Ending.

So I decided to start with a question.

“When did you realize?”

“Always. I knew you were seeing something even before you woke up.”

I’d been caught from the very beginning.

With an expression that looked utterly oblivious, Hyeon Jaeyul was seeing straight through me.

The fact that I’d been especially careless around him probably didn’t help.

“What happened after you woke up?

How is it that only Ju Noeul can see the same thing as you?”

He spoke with a deep frown.

“Why him?

Why Ju Noeul, and not me?”

What bothered Hyeon Jaeyul wasn’t that I was seeing something.

It was the fact that there was something shared only between Ju Noeul and me.

Something he couldn’t stand.

If I explained the reason, it was actually trivial.

It happened simply because Ju Noeul interfered with my ability.

There was nothing between me and Ju Noeul.

If anything, the people I’d had any romantic involvement with were Jeong Iheon or Won-gyeong.

“It’s because Ju Noeul’s ability interfered with mine.

You know I’m not even that close with him.”

When I spoke casually, Hyeon Jaeyul’s eyes softened a little.

Just a little.

Releasing the tension in his brow, he finally took his hand off my face and pulled me into his arms.

“…You should tell me your secrets first.”

He murmured in a voice softer than a heartbeat.

I awkwardly lifted my hand and lightly patted his broad back.

I had no idea what kind of relationship this was supposed to be.

I’d thought he was just taking care of me like a younger sister.

So it was desire.

Unlike Jeong Iheon, who would casually touch the nape of my neck while tying my hair, Hyeon Jaeyul had never made it obvious.

That was why I’d never once suspected his feelings.

Even what we’d done before I woke up, he’d seemed to treat lightly.

“You were probably the first to notice.

Ju Noeul only realized after I woke up.”

Still in his arms, I spoke.

There was a strange sense of stability in the way we fit together, as if it had always been natural.

Feeling both a faint anxiety and a subtle irritation about a past I couldn’t remember, I poked his waist with my finger.

‘You can let go now.’

He took a deep breath, then loosened the arms that had been holding me with a sigh.

“What’s this?”

“Ah.”

That wasn’t the only reason he let go.

Feeling the presence of what I’d hidden against my body, he pulled aside my collar and swiftly took the mirror from my waist.

Seeing the cloth-wrapped object, he frowned faintly.

“Why are you carrying something like this?”

I smiled awkwardly.

Even if he asked, I couldn’t really explain it.

‘Because I don’t know either!’

I’d seen something strange, entered what was probably the room I used to live in, and just… picked up a broken mirror I felt like I’d hidden before.

It wasn’t a conscious decision.

With an awkward smile, I replied.

“There’s no particular reason.”

“If you really want to keep it, it’s dangerous. I’ll hold onto it.”

“No. I’ll keep it.”

I hurriedly shook my head and held my hand out.