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Han Yoojin looked in the mirror and saw himself. What else would be there? That was how a mirror worked; it showed a reflection of what stood in front of it, and right now that was Han Yoojin.
He pulled on his jacket and tried not to think of how empty the space next to him felt as he prepared for another day.
Han Yoojin looked in the mirror and saw himself, worse for wear. His face bruised and mottled, remnants of the abuse those other hunters inflicted.
It hurt, but pain was nothing he was not used to by now. It was simply another facet of life now, something he had to endure to keep going. Like a bill for rent, all he could do was take it in stride.
Han Yoojin looked in the mirror and wondered why, despite all the differences each day brought, they all felt the same as the last. He noted each new injury on himself that he could find; maybe that would help.
He stayed home that day. It was not as though he needed that much money anymore, anyways. It was just him.
Han Yoojin looked at the ground below him, blood pooling around him as the other hunters only jeered at him, and thought that it should hurt more. It did not. It was probably a good thing, too. Getting used to pain would help him get through the days easier.
Han Yoojin looked in the mirror and redid the gauze on his face. He did not look at his eyes. They were the same shade as someone else's, and that someone else hated even looking at him these days.
He went to bed and wondered what his life had become. What would he describe it as?
He did not like the answer, and so he stopped thinking about it.
Han Yoojin looked into the mirror, but only for a moment. He had to turn his head away, the image of someone so bruised and injured in so many ways startling him.
Was that really what others saw?
Han Yoojin did not look in the mirror. What was the point? Regardless of what he did, everyone would be able to tell that he was in a terrible, terrible place. So why even try to fix up that image?
He redressed his wounds as much as he could be bothered to and started the day anew.
Han Yoojin laid in bed and wondered what he was doing. It was not the first time he did nothing but think, wondering what it was that he had messed up.
There were too many possible answers to that question. Was it all of them? None of them? Just a few? There was not a way that he could know. It was not like he could just ask, not anymore.
Han Yoojin wondered if he was still a person. A person had a personality, a life, and it seemed more and more that he had neither. He was surviving, dragging his feet through the days, but he did not feel much like he was living. He did not know how to describe himself much, either.
Who was he? He did not know, and he found that he did not care much either.
When was the last time that he had something he wanted?
It was when his dongsaeng had left. He wanted to chase after him, but he was unable to. How long ago was that?
Nothing had changed since then. Not his desire to go after him, and not his inability to do so.
He looked in the mirror again. His eyes were tired, so tired. Cold and blank and devoid. The image shown was almost foreign to him, but a mirror did not lie. That was, undoubtedly, who he was.
He turned away.
He did not leave the house.
He looked in the mirror. Someone looked back at him, someone that resembled him. Was that really him? He did not remember looking like that.
The image of someone so hopeless should have scared him. Instead, he felt nothing at all.
He looked in the mirror. The mirror looked back.
"Yoohyun, Yoohyun-ah, please, please just look at me, Yoohyun-"
Yoohyun left the hospital room. He did not look him even once in the eyes.
He went home, and when he looked in the mirror, he saw nothing. Nothing was left, nothing important enough to notice.
He looks in the mirror, his mind undone, left falling apart for far too long now.
He asks himself, Who am I?
He is Han Yoojin. Who is Han Yoojin?
Han Yoojin is Han Yoohyun's hyung, he thinks, and then he stops. No, not anymore. Han Yoohyun no longer wanted Han Yoojin to be his hyung, and so Han Yoojin is no longer Han Yoohyun's hyung.
He tries again. Asks who Han Yoojin is. He has answered this question before, he knows he has. It was at school, on a piece of paper where every student was asked that question.
He remembers now; the teacher had laughed gently at his answer, because Han Yoojin had said that he was Han Yoohyun's older brother, and then he had started writing about his Yoohyun-ie instead, and he had not answered the question at all.
He does not know who he is. He has not known for a long, long time. An eternity has passed since Han Yoohyun left, and he does not know who he is without Han Yoohyun.
He looks at himself in the mirror. He does not know who looks back, because whoever in the mirror is him but he does not know who he is.
He was a ghost, a husk, an incomplete existence trailing hopelessly after those lost parts of himself, but not a human. Never a human.
The image that stares back at him is unrecognizable to him. A snapshot of who he used to be, stitched together with what he is now, and he does not know either of them.
Come back, he asks. He wants to know his name again, wants to know who he is. At the very least, who he was. Come back, he begs, but he pleads to someone who does not want to listen, who left and took who he was away.
He looks in the mirror. He does not know what it is he sees.