The throbbing in his temples was the only thing keeping Woo Jin grounded in reality. It pulsed in heavy, jarring beats, as if pounding against his skull. He tried to breathe, but his lungs filled with stale air. It smelled of sour wine, old dust, and something rotting.
Muffled voices drifted from behind the door.
"He's locked himself in again. Did you hear him screaming yesterday?"
"He finally drank himself into a stupor. The hallway's been stinking up since this morning—it makes your eyes water. He's a corpse that's still breathing."
"Quiet! He might hear us."
"Who cares? He'll forget his own name by dinnertime anyway."
Woo Jin forced himself to open his eyes.
The first thing he realized was that this wasn't his home.
In his apartment, where every book was arranged strictly in alphabetical order and the air smelled of expensive air conditioning, it could never have stunk this bad. It felt as if he'd woken up in the middle of a pile of manure.
"Get up, you bastard. Breakfast is ready," a voice called from above.
This time it sounded harsher, tinged with barely concealed disgust. Finally, struggling to clear the fog in his head, Woo Jin looked up. A tall young man towered over him. Black hair, dark blue eyes, and neat clothes.
Woo Jin blinked.
"The last thing I remember is auditioning for a role."
He looked up, expecting to see the director, but found only the ceiling. The intricate ornamentation seemed alive in the dim light. The curves of the patterns intertwined in a wild dance of tiny demons. Then, glancing around, he saw a neat but dirty room.
Empty bottles were scattered everywhere. Trash lay strewn near the armchair. Sticky wine stains were visible on the table, and a thick layer of dust covered the carpet. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling, and an unpleasant smell hung in the air.
"Can you hear me?"
The young man frowned.
"Evelina is already waiting downstairs. Or are you planning to rot here until evening?"
Woo Jin sat up, fighting the heaviness in his arms and legs. His whole body ached with a dull pain. Summoning all his willpower, he turned to look at the bed. It was huge, but now it resembled a pile of dirty rags. Then his gaze fell on his hands. His palms were unusually wide, and dirt caked beneath his fingernails.
He winced. The OCD he'd kept under control for years flared up with such ferocious force that it instantly pushed the nausea aside.
"What… is your name?" Woo Jin rasped, not recognizing his own voice.
The young man standing before him froze. Something between pity and deep revulsion flashed in his eyes.
"It's a miracle you even remember you have children," he spat. "I'm Kyle, 'Father.' Your eldest son. The very one you promised yesterday to disinherit. Do you remember?"
"Kyle?"
Woo Jin froze. Everything around him felt foreign. This young man, who had introduced himself as his son, was a stranger to him.
The names Kyle and Evelina flashed through his mind. For a moment, he thought he'd remembered something, but the feeling vanished just as quickly. His throat was so parched it hurt to breathe. He longed for even a drop of something cold.
"Water."
Kyle silently eyed his father with a look of contempt, grabbed the heavy pitcher, and poured water into the cup. He held it out as if he were giving alms to a street beggar. Woo Jin drank greedily. The icy water burned his throat, but for a moment it cleared his foggy mind.
Looking at his pathetic father, Kyle recalled the previous night and clicked his tongue in irritation.
"Go downstairs if you can still walk," he snapped, then spun around abruptly and slammed the door shut.
Left in the oppressive silence, Woo Jin forced himself to stand, fighting off nausea and dizziness. The floor felt different beneath his bare feet. In the corner, behind a large wardrobe, a mirror was hidden. He approached it, barely breathing, afraid of scaring away what little sanity he had left.
A stranger stared back at him from the reflection.
A man in his thirties, whose aristocratic features even his unkempt stubble couldn't hide. Tangled hair the color of the night sky. Despite his pitiful appearance, the bags under his eyes, and the smell of alcohol on his breath, the man was frighteningly handsome.
Woo Jin raised his hand and touched his cheek. The reflection obediently mimicked the gesture
"It's not makeup."
He recalled his screen tests.
The studio, the spotlights, and the director's quiet request: "Show me the terrifying grace of someone who is already dead inside. No emotion, just emptiness."
Woo Jin had simply frozen in front of the camera then, not moving a single muscle, and the entire film crew, holding their breath, had watched this perfection.
As he recalled, fragments of memory came flooding back to him.
Victor von Hellsworth, Earl of Elizium, owned a vast estate in the north.
"Victor…"
But as soon as he uttered that name to himself, a sharp pain pierced his head. Fragments of last night flashed before his eyes. He saw a stack of scribbled pages and the golden letters on the script's cover. The title etched itself into his memory: "The Final Curtain."
It was a novella that was now being adapted into the most ambitious film project of the decade. Woo Jin, who had lived in seclusion for the past few years, had agreed to step out of the shadows solely for the sake of this role.
The role of Victor von Hellsworth.
Just yesterday, he had marveled at the complexity of this character, his aristocratic bearing, and his depravity.
Wu Jin recalled the character description from the first chapter:
"A man whose beauty was a curse, and whose heart was a scorched desert. Victor, who had ruined his wife and turned his children's lives into a living hell, was doomed to fall at their hands, so that the world might drown in blood."
The plot of The Final Curtain was a classic tragedy disguised as dark fantasy. The entire first volume chronicled the fall of the Hellsworth family.
"Have I really moved into the body of a corpse?"
Woo Jin smiled bitterly at his reflection.
Of course, he had read web novels, wasting his time on useless trash. But now what had happened to him seemed like someone's cruel joke.
The novel's author had written Victor as a completely one-dimensional villain whose sole function was to die gloriously in the first chapter and thereby set the wheels of war in motion.
This man had no allies, no secret justifications, and no tragic past that could excuse him. Only four children who woke up every morning with the same clear thought: "When is he finally going to die?"
Just yesterday he had been standing on stage, auditioning, and today—ironically—he had become the very "villain's father" he was supposed to play.
As he thought about this, Woo Jin unintentionally closed his eyes. A throbbing pain still pulsed in his head, and a chill ran down his spine as he realized the situation he had gotten himself into. He had no desire whatsoever to be a villain. Facing the troubles ahead, he felt like a walking corpse.
"So now I'm… Victor?"
His thoughts about the plot were suddenly interrupted by a sharp cramp in his stomach. His gaze fell on a stain on his shirt. He didn't know if it was dried food or wine, but the realization that it was touching his skin sent a wave of panic through him.
His OCD—obsessive-compulsive disorder—had flared up. It wasn't just a matter of being squeamish; it was a mental illness in which the brain fixates on anxiety and won't settle down until everything is in perfect order.
For Woo Jin, the sight of dirt meant an immediate panic attack and physical nausea that could not be ignored by sheer willpower.
Unable to withstand the attack, he doubled over. He threw up right on the carpet. The stain seemed to him like a living creature that was spreading out, taking over the room.
"Damn it…"
Woo Jin frowned.
The sight made him feel even worse. His stomach clenched in a spasm again. Now he fully realized what a pitiful state he was in.