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“Help—! Is there anyone who can help me?! I just came out of my cocoon, and now I’m stuck! This web is sticky! Damn it, it’s freezing out here—someone help!”
A faint, desperate cry echoed through the forest veiled in frost.
Dawn had barely brushed the horizon, and the trees still wore their thin mantles of snow. Amid the hush of slumbering branches, a fragile shape trembled—a small butterfly, newly born, entangled within threads of silver dew.
Its wings shimmered faintly, caught between sky blue and pale gold. Like sunlight trapped in ice.
“...What’s this?” murmured a voice nearby. “Oh—poor thing.”
The man who spoke bore a scar across the bridge of his nose, a quiet mark of past battles. His breath hung in the cold air as he crouched down, gloved fingers brushing away the threads with deliberate care. The forest seemed to hold its breath, as though reluctant to disturb his gentleness.
“You came out at the wrong time, little one,” he said softly. “It’s winter. You should’ve waited for spring.”
Indeed, it was the tail end of winter, when life itself hesitated between sleep and awakening. No butterfly should have survived such cold.
Yet this one —alive, trembling, foolishly radiant— defied the season’s decree.
After a moment of struggle, the fragile creature freed itself, its wings trembling like the first notes of a forgotten song.
The man smiled faintly.
“Try not to get caught again, little Nabi.”
“Thank you, kind human!”
The butterfly’s wings glimmered as it fluttered upward, leaving a faint trail of light in its wake.
The man—Lee Hyunsung—watched it vanish into the mist before resuming his path toward the city road. He was a carrier by trade, moving goods from town to town, a humble man burdened with quiet worries.
But that morning, instead of the clang of work, he was greeted by the sharp voice of his employer.
“You’re late again, you fool!” barked Gong Pildu, a man who measured time as if it were gold dust slipping through his fingers. “Every second you waste is money lost! You’re fired!”
Hyunsung froze. The words struck him like a blade dulled by repetition.
He wished to explain about his father figure who had taken ill, and dawn had been spent tending to him.
But words seemed useless before a man who only heard the sound of coins.
So he merely bowed and walked away.
From above, the butterfly—Kim Dokja—watched it all. A strange ache bloomed within his tiny chest, a feeling without name.
“Hey… I’m sorry. You helped me, and now you’re the one suffering for it. I don’t understand what that man said, but your face looked… painful.”
Hyunsung sat beneath a rosebush at the edge of the frozen road, the thorns dull under frost. The butterfly followed him, perching nearby as the man sighed.
“Nabi, you followed me?” Hyunsung murmured with a weary chuckle. “Don’t worry. I’ve been late too many times. It was bound to happen.”
He laughed again, though the sound held more resignation than mirth “Talking to a butterfly now… I must be pathetic.”
“No, you’re not pathetic,” Dokja whispered. “You’re kind. That’s rare in this world.”
But of course, Hyunsung couldn’t hear him.
“If only I could repay your kindness somehow…”
The butterfly stayed until Hyunsung rose and left, then took off once more—its wings glinting like dying embers—across the frozen river toward a quiet cottage by the woods.
Inside a small hut, a frail woman lay upon her bed, wrapped in layers of old quilts. Yoo Sangah, once a scholar whose voice was sought in every royal court, now lived in silence with her loyal pet dog, Sooyoung.
“Oh? A butterfly?” she murmured, her eyes soft with surprise as the creature drifted through the open window. “What a brave little thing you are… coming out in winter.”
Sooyoung barked, short legs thumping as she trotted closer, curious eyes gleaming.
“What’s that, little boar? You want to race me?” Dokja teased, fluttering circles above her nose. “Sorry, I have wings. You don’t stand a chance!”
With an offended grunt, Sooyoung lunged.
Panic ensued.
The butterfly darted between shelves and curtains, pursued by the determined dog. Pots crashed, books fell, and the air filled with Yoo Sangah’s gasping laughter—half fear, half disbelief.
“Sooyoung! Stop—oh heavens, stop!”
She reached to open the window, and at once the butterfly escaped into the sunlight.
A gust of wind followed—cold, sharp—and Yoo Sangah staggered, her strength spent. She collapsed upon the floorboards, breath shallow.
Outside, Dokja hovered anxiously near the window.
“Ah… why do kind people always fall?” he murmured. “If only I could help…”
But his wings could carry no more than a wish.
So he flew on, deeper into the forest—the one men called The Forest of Death.
The trees there grew unnaturally still, their branches whispering of lost time. The air itself felt heavy, as though drenched in sorrow. Then—softly—Dokja heard the sound of someone wailing.
“Father… Mother… please come back… Mia-ya...”
He followed the sound and found an old mirror half-buried within the roots of a gnarled tree. Its surface shimmered faintly, though no reflection met his eyes.
“Why… is a mirror crying?”
He drew closer, his reflection bending strangely, until another face appeared upon the glass.
A young man with dark hair and a countenance both beautiful and broken. His eyes were as dark as the last night of summer.
“You… can see me?” the man asked.
“Ah! You’re human! But… you’re inside the mirror?” Dokja fluttered closer. “How?”
“You shouldn’t be here. This forest devours all who enter.”
“I guess I’m lucky, then. I’ve been flying all morning.” Dokja tilted his head. “Who are you?”
“Yoo Joonghyuk,” the man replied, his voice as low as the sound of rust on iron. “Once… a prince.”
“A prince inside a mirror? Sounds like a bad fairy tale.”
For the first time in a century, Joonghyuk smiled, a faint curve of his lips. “You could say that.”
The butterfly rested upon the glass. Its wings and Joonghyuk’s reflection shimmered together, ike two worlds meeting at a fragile seam.
“I’m Kim Dokja,” it said. “A butterfly who doesn’t know much about the world.”
“You’re the first living thing to speak to me in a hundred years,” Joonghyuk whispered. “Most who see me run. The rest… never return.”
“Then it’s good I can fly fast,” Dokja said lightly, though his tone wavered. “But… I think I understand. Being alone for that long must be… unbearable.”
“You understand loneliness?”
“Maybe. I was born alone. And soon… I’ll die alone.”
“Die?”
“A butterfly’s life is short. I want to spend mine… doing something that matters.”
Joonghyuk’s eyes softened—an ancient sorrow flickering into warmth.
“Then perhaps I can help you.”
“Help me?”
“I can grant you a human form, so you may walk this world before your wings fade.”
“You can do that?”
“At sunrise,” Joonghyuk said. “When light touches the mirror, I can shape its reflection into life. But I can only give a miracle once to someone else—not to me..”
Dokja trembled, wings beating with hesitation and wonder.
“Then… do it,” he whispered. “I want to become human.”
Joonghyuk’s lips curved again, faintly.
For a moment, the air felt like something ancient awakening.
The night faded with a sigh.
A faint silver haze clung to the branches as the forest held its breath, waiting. The trees stood tall, solemn witnesses to a ritual that had not taken place for centuries.
Upon the roots of an ancient oak, before a mirror darkened by age, a butterfly hovered—its wings trembling as if it sensed the weight of destiny pressing against the air.
The man within the mirror—Yoo Joonghyuk—watched silently. His reflection did not ripple like ordinary glass; it shimmered with depth, as though beneath it stretched an entire world of quiet storms. His gaze was sharp yet unreadable, carrying the fatigue of endless winters.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
The butterfly hesitated, wings folding for a heartbeat.
“I’m… afraid,” came the tiny voice, almost lost in the cold dawn. “If I become human… will I still remember how to fly?”
Joonghyuk’s eyes softened, though his tone remained calm.
“Perhaps not. But you will learn how to fall, and how to rise again. That, too, is a kind of flight.”
Dokja hovered closer, uncertain. The mirror’s surface gleamed faintly under the approaching light, and for a fleeting moment, his reflection appeared beside Joonghyuk’s—small, fragile, golden-blue wings fluttering in defiance of the season.
“Close your eyes,” Joonghyuk said.
The butterfly obeyed.
The first ray of sunlight pierced the horizon, striking the mirror like a blade of molten gold.
The world around them rippled. Light scattered through the trees, bending reality itself. The wind howled low, as if mourning, while the ground trembled with an ancient memory.
For a brief moment, the forest seemed to remember spring.
The air grew warm. Snow melted upon branches, dripping like tears. The butterfly’s body began to glow, its form dissolving into streams of pale light. Tiny fragments of color—blue, gold, white—spiraled together, drawn toward the mirror’s center.
Joonghyuk raised one hand, pressing his palm to the glass. His voice, calm yet filled with a strange ache, murmured words older than the forest itself.
“By reflection and resemblance… let life be mirrored into life.”
A sound like breaking crystal filled the air.
The butterfly’s light collided with the mirror. For an instant, both the insect and the reflection within were consumed by radiance. Then—
Silence.
Only the faint rustle of leaves remained.
When the light dimmed, a figure lay upon the roots of the oak.
A boy—barely grown, his form curled like something newly born. His hair was dark with a faint sheen of dark blue, as if kissed by the color of his former wings. His skin was pale, luminous even beneath the shadow of dawn, and his breath came shallow, uncertain.
The mirror’s surface stilled. Joonghyuk’s reflection lingered faintly, as though watching from another world.
He studied the boy—this strange creature who had once been a butterfly.
The boy stirred. His lashes fluttered open, revealing eyes that shimmered with the faintest trace of gold beneath black. He blinked, dazed, gazing at his own hands as though he’d never seen such things before.
“…I have fingers,” he murmured. His voice was hoarse, unsteady. “And skin… I can feel.”
He touched his chest, where his heart beat fast and wild, like wings trapped in a cage.
Joonghyuk’s reflection rippled faintly. “So now you can live as a human.”
Dokja looked up toward the mirror, recognition dawning slowly. “Joonghyuk…? You’re still inside.”
“I am bound to the mirror,” Joonghyuk said quietly. “Your transformation borrowed my strength, but I cannot leave.”
The boy struggled to his feet, unsteady. The world was overwhelming. Every sound too loud, every breath too sharp. The scent of damp earth filled his lungs; the weight of the cold pressed against his skin. He shivered, hugging himself.
“So this… is being human,” he whispered. “It hurts.”
A small smile ghosted across Joonghyuk’s face. “It always does.”
Dokja turned toward his reflection, hesitant. “Why help me? You said this forest devours everything. Why risk your power for me?”
Joonghyuk’s gaze drifted downward, unreadable.
“Perhaps I wanted to remember what mercy feels like. Besides, I can't use this power for myself.”
His voice was soft, but the words carried centuries of fatigue.
Dokja didn’t know how to reply. The silence between them stretched.
He reached out, touching the mirror’s surface. It was cold, yet alive with faint energy. “I can feel you,” he murmured. “It’s like touching water that remembers warmth.”
Joonghyuk almost laughed—almost. “Strange creature. You speak as if your heart is older than your wings.”
“Maybe it is.” Dokja smiled faintly. “Maybe I was meant to meet you.”
The reflection’s eyes flickered, something ancient and tender stirring behind them. But he looked away before it could take shape.
As the day grew brighter, Dokja explored his new form. The forest seemed both vast and terrifying. Every sound unfamiliar, every movement foreign. His bare feet stumbled over roots and stones, his breath coming out in clouds. He’d never known hunger before, nor the biting sting of cold.
Joonghyuk watched quietly, sometimes speaking, sometimes simply listening to the boy’s muttering.
“Why are my legs so weak?”
“Humans walk with such small balance… this is exhausting.”
“And what is this rumbling in my stomach—oh, I think I’m dying!”
To this, Joonghyuk finally replied, voice tinged with dry amusement, “You’re hungry. Humans require sustenance to survive.”
“Sustenance,” Dokja repeated thoughtfully. “That sounds inconvenient.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
“I doubt it.”
And yet, despite his complaints, there was wonder in his every motion. How his fingers traced bark, how he marveled at the warmth of sunlight upon his skin. Once, he knelt to watch a trail of ants and whispered, “So that’s what it feels like to belong to the ground.”
Joonghyuk listened, silent.
Perhaps, somewhere within that silence, he remembered what it was like to be human. .
By noon, Dokja had grown restless. He gathered fallen branches, not quite knowing why, then decided to build something resembling a shelter beside the mirror. It was uneven and crooked, but he seemed proud of it.
He found some cloth to cover his body from the cold wind.
Joonghyuk observed quietly. “You’re making a mess.”
“It’s a home,” Dokja replied. “You live trapped behind glass—I’ll stay nearby. Someone should keep you company.”
Joonghyuk blinked, startled by the casual warmth in the boy’s tone. “You owe me nothing.”
“I owe you my life,” Dokja said, smiling. “Besides, you seem lonely.”
The reflection’s expression faltered.
No one had said those words to him in a hundred years.
That night, a quiet wind swept through the forest. The stars above gleamed faintly, reflected in the mirror like scattered memories. Dokja sat before it, a small fire crackling beside him. He had managed to catch a rabbit—though he refused to eat it, murmuring an apology before letting it go.
“You’re strange,” Joonghyuk remarked.
“So I’ve been told,” Dokja said, leaning back against a tree trunk. “But… maybe being strange means I’m not entirely human yet.”
Joonghyuk’s reflection seemed thoughtful. “Would you rather return to what you were?”
Dokja looked at his hands again. They trembled faintly in the firelight. “No. Even if this hurts… I want to understand it. The world, people, kindness. Everything I couldn’t feel before.”
He paused, gaze softening. “And maybe… understand you, too.”
Joonghyuk didn’t answer. The fire crackled between them, the light casting moving shadows across the mirror’s surface.
After a long while, he said quietly, “Be careful what you seek to understand, Kim Dokja. Some truths are prisons, just like mine.”
“Then I’ll break them,” Dokja said simply. “That’s what humans do, right? They keep trying, even when it hurts.”
Joonghyuk almost smiled again. “You speak as though you’ve done this before.”
“Maybe I have,” Dokja murmured, staring into the flames. “Maybe I’m just remembering.”
The reflection flickered, as though reacting to something invisible. An echo of a forgotten past. For a brief second, Joonghyuk thought he saw another version of the boy—older, wearier, eyes filled with the same stubborn light.
And then it was gone.
The following days blurred into a quiet rhythm. Dokja learned to speak with birds (though they mostly ignored him), to fish (badly), and to read Joonghyuk’s moods by the faint tremors in the mirror’s light. In return, Joonghyuk told him stories. About some old legends of kingdoms swallowed by time, of gods who had forgotten their own names, of a prince cursed to watch the world decay from behind a veil of glass.
“Was that prince you?” Dokja asked once.
Joonghyuk didn’t answer. But the silence said enough.
One morning, Dokja found a feather—black as midnight—and brought it to the mirror. “Look what I found! It fell near the river.”
Joonghyuk’s gaze sharpened. “That’s not from any bird in this forest.”
“Then… what is it?”
The reflection darkened faintly. “A sign. The forest’s hunger is waking again.”
Before Dokja could ask, a low rumble echoed through the trees. The air grew heavy, filled with the scent of iron and decay. The mirror flickered, its surface rippling like disturbed water.
“Go,” Joonghyuk commanded suddenly. “Leave this place.”
Dokja frowned. “Why? What’s happening?”
“The curse that binds me is stirring. It feeds on the living. You’ll die if you stay.”
Dokja shook his head. “Then you’ll die alone again. I won’t let that happen.”
“Fool,” Joonghyuk hissed, voice cracking for the first time. “You don’t understand—”
“I don’t need to,” Dokja said, stepping closer, his reflection trembling beside Joonghyuk’s. “You gave me life. I won’t abandon you.”
The mirror flared with light, its edges splitting like cracks in ice. Shadows spilled from within—dark, amorphous shapes whispering in a thousand broken tongues. Dokja felt cold sear through him, yet he stood firm, pressing both palms to the mirror’s surface.
“Then let it take me too,” he whispered. “If this world devours the living, maybe I’ll teach it what it means to love them instead.”
The reflection trembled. Joonghyuk’s eyes wide with something unreadable.
The light around them bent, consuming the forest’s darkness. For a heartbeat, everything went silent.
And when the silence broke, the mirror’s cracks sealed themselves, leaving only their reflections—side by side—bathed in the faint light of dawn.
When Dokja awoke, the world was quiet again. The forest seemed calmer, though the air held a lingering tension—like the pause between heartbeats.
Joonghyuk’s reflection looked weary but alive.
“You… survived,” Dokja said weakly.
Joonghyuk’s voice was faint, almost incredulous. “You stabilized the curse. How…?”
Dokja smiled tiredly. “Maybe mirrors aren’t meant to be broken. Maybe they just need someone to look at them kindly.”
For a long time, Joonghyuk said nothing. Then, quietly, almost reverently, he whispered,
“You’re a strange creature, Kim Dokja.”
“I know,” Dokja replied. “But… I think you like that.”
Joonghyuk’s reflection rippled, the faintest echo of a laugh in his voice. “Perhaps I do.”
Outside, the forest began to thaw again. The sun rose higher, melting the last traces of winter frost.
And somewhere within that golden light, a butterfly’s shadow danced faintly upon the mirror’s glass—a memory of wings that would never fade.
The days that followed were quiet—eerily so, as if the forest itself were holding its breath. The trees no longer whispered, the river no longer hummed its song. Even the birds, those careless witnesses to the strange companionship between man and mirror, had fallen silent.
Kim Dokja sat by the pond where the mirror was half-buried, tracing the ripples with a stick. His reflection wavered beside Joonghyuk’s—a ghostly echo of two beings who should never have shared the same plane.
“You’ve been staring at me for hours,” Joonghyuk said at last, his voice soft but edged, like a blade dulled from too much use.
“I’m making sure you’re still here,” Dokja replied. “You disappeared last night for a while.”
“That was not disappearance. The curse ebbs and flows. It withdraws when the forest sleeps.”
“Then it dreams?”
Joonghyuk’s reflection tilted his head, considering the question. “Perhaps. Or perhaps it remembers. Every curse is built from memory, after all. The pain of what once was.”
Dokja glanced down at the mirror’s surface. His fingers brushed against it—cool, yet pulsing faintly beneath his touch. “And what do you remember?”
For a moment, Joonghyuk didn’t answer. The light around his reflection flickered, the image blurring at the edges.
“I remember the first song,” he said finally. “The one that called the world awake. I sang it once, before the gods took my voice.”
Dokja blinked. “You… sang?”
Joonghyuk almost smiled. “You don’t believe me.”
“I believe everything that shouldn’t be possible,” Dokja said, voice gentle. “After all, I’m talking to a mirror.”
The faintest ripple passed over Joonghyuk’s expression—something close to fondness, or perhaps pity.
That night, Dokja dreamt.
He saw a vast cathedral drowned in moonlight. At its center stood a man—Joonghyuk, but not as he appeared in the mirror. This Joonghyuk was radiant, cloaked in silver, his hands outstretched toward a host of shimmering glass fragments suspended in the air. They spun like stars, each holding a reflection of the world—cities, oceans, skies, and faces.
And then, one by one, the reflections shattered.
Dokja woke with a start, sweat slick on his neck. The forest was quiet, but the air felt heavy, trembling, as though the earth itself had seen his dream.
“Joonghyuk,” he whispered. “I saw something.”
The reflection stirred, eyes already knowing. “You saw my beginning.”
“Was it real?”
A pause.
“Real enough to be remembered.”
Dokja frowned. “You said the curse feeds on life. But it also remembers it. Doesn’t that mean it’s alive too?”
Joonghyuk looked at him sharply. “Don’t romanticize it. This thing is no more alive than a wound that refuses to heal.”
“Still,” Dokja murmured, leaning closer, “even wounds can scar over. Maybe you just need to let it close. Let it heal.”
The mirror quivered, its surface dimming as though drawing breath. “And what do you know of healing, little creature?”
Dokja’s smile was sad. “Only that it hurts.”
The wind stirred then. Gentle at first, then stronger. The trees bowed low, their branches trembling. The reflection wavered, and for a moment Dokja saw two Joonghyuks—the calm, glass-bound prince, and another figure behind him, darker, almost monstrous. Eyes like fractured obsidian.
“Step back,” Joonghyuk said sharply.
But Dokja didn’t. “It’s happening again, isn’t it?”
“The forest stirs. The hunger returns. I told you—it feeds on the living.”
“Then let it feed on me,” Dokja said quietly. “If it keeps you here.”
Joonghyuk’s expression cracked—not the calm detachment of a cursed being, but raw disbelief. “Why?”
“Because you’re the only one who talks to me,” Dokja said, smiling faintly. “And because I think… I think I was born for this.”
The wind howled. The mirror’s surface flared with pale light, spilling shadows that curled like smoke. The forest darkened as though night had fallen within seconds.
“Dokja!”
“I’m fine,” he shouted back. “Just tell me what to do!”
Joonghyuk’s reflection flickered violently. “You can’t fight it—you are the sacrifice. You were never meant to exist here!”
But Dokja was already pressing his palms to the glass again, the cold biting deep into his skin. “Then let me rewrite the story!”
For a heartbeat, the world stilled. The shadows recoiled, the light inverted, and suddenly... Dokja wasn’t looking into the mirror anymore. He was inside it.
The air felt weightless, heavy all at once. The ground beneath his feet shimmered like liquid crystal. Around him stretched a vast emptiness filled with reflections—thousands, millions, each showing fragments of lives unlived: a child’s laughter, a kingdom burning, a sky splitting open.
And at the center of it all stood Joonghyuk.
Not the reflection, not the echo. The real one. His eyes were ancient, his form luminous and cracked like stained glass held together by will alone.
“So you came,” Joonghyuk said softly.
Dokja took a hesitant step forward. “You knew I would.”
“I hoped you wouldn’t.”
Joonghyuk’s hand lifted, brushing air that wasn’t air, light that wasn’t light.
“This place is not meant for mortals. You’ll fade if you stay.”
“Then I’ll fade beside you.”
A long silence followed. Then, quietly, Joonghyuk asked, “Do you even know who I was?”
“You were someone who sang the world awake,” Dokja said. “And someone who watched it fall asleep again.”
Joonghyuk’s laugh was hollow, echoing through the glasslands. “Then you understand my curse. I was the one who bound the first mirror—to preserve what the gods sought to destroy. And in doing so, I became its prisoner.”
Dokja reached out, their fingers almost touching through the shimmer of reflected light.
“Then maybe it’s time someone broke the mirror for you.”
“Break it,” Joonghyuk repeated. “And doom everything it holds?”
Dokja smiled—something fragile and divine.. “Maybe freedom is worth a little ruin.”
The air trembled. The glass beneath their feet cracked like thunder.
Joonghyuk’s eyes widened. “You—what are you—”
But Dokja was already moving, pressing his palm against the surface of the central mirror—the one reflecting all others. The cracks spread like veins of fire, light searing through the mirrored world.
“Stop!” Joonghyuk’s voice broke, almost desperate. “You’ll destroy yourself!”
“Then remember me kindly,” Dokja whispered.
And then the mirror shattered.
Light exploded outward, devouring shadow, curse, and memory alike. Dokja felt himself unravel—his body a thousand fragments scattering across time and reflection. Through the fading brightness, he saw Joonghyuk's face for the last time—filled with horror and fear.
When the light faded, the forest was quiet again.
The mirror lay still, cracked into thousands of shards. Its surface no longer shimmered with a cursed light—only the faint reflection of trees swaying above.
When the dawn came, it came softly. No thunder of awakening, no divine song to herald rebirth. Only the quiet breath of wind through the leaves, and the muted sigh of a forest learning to live again.
For a long time, Joonghyuk lay still among the ruins of what once was the mirror. The earth beneath him was damp, breathing faintly as though it too remembered pain. Shards of glass surrounded him. Some clear as spring water, others shimmering faintly with traces of light.
He touched one, and the surface pulsed under his fingertips.
Inside, he saw a flicker: a reflection of a boy smiling, half in jest, half in wonder.
“Maybe mirrors aren’t meant to be broken,” the boy had said once.
Joonghyuk closed his eyes. The words felt like sunlight in a place that had forgotten warmth.
For the first time in a hundred years, he felt the beat of his own heart. Not the steady rhythm of cursed stillness, but the uneven, fragile pulse of a man. The glass no longer held him. The reflection no longer dictated his form.
He was free.
But freedom tasted of ash.
He stood, slowly, his body trembling with the unfamiliar weight of mortality. His hands were real now—warm, scarred, faintly shaking. When he breathed, the air filled his lungs with the scent of pine and soil. The forest no longer echoed his curse.
Yet something was missing.
He looked down at the shards scattered around him. Some were as small as raindrops; others were large enough to show fleeting fragments of faces, laughter, wings. Each one shimmered with a memory—one that did not belong entirely to him.
Dokja.
The name rose unbidden, carried on the trembling edge of his thoughts.
Kim Dokja, the strange creature who had defied the curse. The one who smiled even when the world cracked beneath him. The one who said love as though it were an answer.
Joonghyuk gathered the shards carefully, his fingers bleeding where the edges cut him. Each drop of blood that fell upon the glass shimmered faintly, as if the fragments themselves remembered the warmth they had once held.
He placed one against his chest. It pulsed softly, like a heartbeat answering his own.
“Are you still there?” he murmured.
The shard flickered.
And something inside him stirred.
He walked.
Through forests still heavy with dew. Across rivers that reflected skies he had never seen. Over plains where flowers grew in the shapes of stars.
Each place held a fragment of him—and of Dokja.
Sometimes, in the quiet between dusk and dawn, he thought he could hear a whisper. A laugh echoing across the wind. A reflection caught on the surface of still water.
“Are you following me?” Joonghyuk would ask softly.
And somewhere, the air would shimmer—just enough for him to believe that yes, perhaps Dokja still lingered.
At night, when he rested by the fire, he took out the shards one by one. Each revealed something different.
In one, Dokja’s hand reaching toward him through the mirror.
In another, his eyes filled with stubborn light.
In another still, only the faint shadow of a butterfly’s wing.
He began to understand that Dokja had not died. Not truly.
He had become the world itself. Scattered across reflection, woven into the quiet corners of creation.
And so, Joonghyuk searched with the patient certainty of one who knew that meaning was not found but remembered.
Sometimes he spoke to the wind: “You said you wanted to teach the world what it means to love the living. Are you watching now, Dokja?”
The forest answered in rustles. The river murmured. The fire sighed.
And though none of them spoke his name, Joonghyuk felt him there—everywhere.
Years passed—or perhaps only days. Time moved differently now, soft as a dream.
One evening, while wandering through a field of broken statues, Joonghyuk came upon a lake so still it seemed carved from silver. He knelt beside it and gazed into the reflection.
But above the surface of the water that ripples calmly, he did not see himself.
He saw a boy walking through sunlight, a faint smile on his face, a butterfly perched on his shoulder.
“Dokja,” Joonghyuk whispered.
The reflection turned its head. Their eyes met across the veil of light and water.
“You found me,” said the boy’s voice, soft and amused, echoing through the rippling air.
“Not yet,” Joonghyuk said. “Only a part of you.”
“That’s all I ever was,” the voice replied. “A part. A thought reflected.”
Joonghyuk’s throat tightened. “Then let me make you whole again.”
The reflection smiled sadly. “And what will you give in return?”
“Everything.”
For a moment, the lake was silent. Then the reflection reached out—its hand brushing the surface. The water trembled.
“Then remember me,” Dokja said. “As I was. Not as you wanted me to be.”
He whispered, “You told me to remember you as you were.”
His reflection looked back at him, steady and calm. No longer a stranger, but no longer the same man either.
“What were you, Dokja?” he murmured. “A dream? A miracle? A reflection of what I couldn’t be?”
The water rippled, and for an instant, he saw two reflections instead of one.
One smiling.
One weeping.
Joonghyuk reached forward, his hand touching the reflection. The water rippled outward, warm against his skin. When he looked again, the reflections was gone, leaving only the reflection of a man staring back—a man who had once been cursed, now bound by memory alone.
He sat there long after the sun sank below the horizon. The night settled around him, gentle and infinite.
The stars above shimmered faintly, like shards of glass scattered across the heavens.
Joonghyuk smiled quietly, without sorrow. He took out the remaining shards and set them upon the water. One by one, they floated away, each catching the starlight until the whole lake glowed softly, like a mirror dreaming of wings.
“Rest well,” he murmured. “I’ll find you in every reflection.”
The wind stirred. Somewhere, far beyond the mortal world, something laughed. A sound like the flutter of distant wings.
And as the first light of dawn touched the horizon, Joonghyuk rose.
He no longer walked as a cursed prince, nor as a broken reflection. He walked as a man—mortal, flawed, and search for his soulmate who was broken into a thousand pieces scattered all over the world.
Each step he took rippled through the world like the echo of a name once whispered in love.
And though the forest, the rivers, and the sky would never say it aloud, they all carried the same quiet truth—Kim Dokja still lived.
Not in the mirrors. Not in the fragments.
But in every soul that dared to look at the broken and see beauty instead.
(The End)