Thanks a bunch to my new subscribers: Daragon4ever_0616, Skydragon21, Isdragon and astrode! I hope you guys enjoy Bastard in the Mirror until the very end!

____

Little Seunghyun left me soon after with his number scribbled on a small piece of paper in my palm. It was almost one o’ clock in the morning and the student had AP tests on the weekends. What a change…his face was familiar but his attitude was not. It was nowhere near Seungri’s; speaking of the devil his accusation was starting to prick my interest. If he didn’t kill his double then why was he in jail? Did he dare to even fake the accident?! I had to find out what was happening. Ji transported me to Bottoms Up where I changed into a pair of sweats I bought the other day before we stomped to the prison house. “It-it doesn’t make any ing sense! Why in Hell would Seungri make up a crime just to get placed at the top of the frigging building?!” I shouted.

“Ya, we don’t know if what he did was false yet. For all we know you could’ve just seen someone who had a similar image to both of them!” Ji countered. He has a point; I’ve been starting to see that I don’t know a whole lot on this subject of alternate universes or doppelgangers. I threw open the right door and we both headed for Taeyang’s desk. I was ready to tell them both all about how Taeyang’s double, Youngbae, was dating Chaerin since I hadn’t divulged to Ji either. The golden-eyed police officer looked anything but glad to see me but it was hard to say; he glanced up then glanced back down. His eyes seemed duller, possibly because of the late hours he lost his energy than in the day. I wondered how long he worked for a brief moment. I couldn’t hold it in, there were too many mysteries and the information I contained didn’t help with any of them.

“Taeyang! Youngbae’s dating Chaerin!” I blurted out and both Ji and Taeyang shot a look at me.

“What?” Ji asked in this exaggerated confused voice, Taeyang furrowed his eyebrows.

“Oh man, dammit we really are different,” Taeyang kicked his foot on the floor and placed his hands on his hips. Immediately he knew what his double’s name was, did they all know? “That’s not right,” he shook his head in disappointment of his other half. Ji shivered, repulsed by the very thought of his girlfriend’s clone dating Youngbae.

“Just had to get it out there,” I mumbled.

“We’ll talk about that later, Taeyang. We have to go see Seungri,” Ji rushed back to the previous topic, the image of Taeyang and Chae going out also crept into my mind. It wasn’t a good image. The officer pulled out his gun and we took to the stairs as if it was a routine move now. “What is it? First Dara now Panda?” 

“There’s something weird about his murder case, Jiyong found his double,” Taeyang stopped abruptly in the middle of the steps where moans of sleeping inmates echoed.

“You found Seunghyun?” I nodded. “Yeah, I guess we should talk to him then…” the three of us proceeded up the stairs. On the top floor I saw the other prisoner with silver and black hair who was now , I pointed at him.

“What’s his name? I found his Seunghyun,” Ji glanced inside at my remark.

“That’s TOP, all of his robberies in all these different places stacked up to come up here,” he explained and we turned to the other girl who was rubbing her eyes out. “Hey E-Minji.”

“Hey Ji, Jiyong,” I waved slightly at her. At first I wondered how she knew my name but I remembered we were talking quite a while here the other day; I’m sure my name was mentioned sometime.

“Ya! Ri wake up!” Taeyang knocked on the metal bars which caused Seungri to groan and rub his eyes.

“What’s the big idea? I already have the bags no need to deprive me of anymore sleep,” the young man complained as he sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

“Yeah? Well what’s the big idea about lying to us and you didn’t kill your double?” Taeyang grumbled and Seungri looked up. His mouth was half open and his eyes seemed to frown which made his icy eyes seem even more mysterious.

“How do you know?” he asked with a hoarse voice and then his eyes found mine. His emotions shifted from nervousness to irritation as he stood up and pressed his hands against the bars. “Alright, you met him. The little college douchebag, so smart, so good to everyone around him, he pisses me off with a single thought,” Seungri grumbled, he spat out each word with venom lacing his syllables. The look in his eyes would make you think he actually murdered him. How can you hate someone that much? Let alone hate someone who’s basically you!

“So why lie? What kind of person lies about killing someone?” Ji asked him and Seungri sighed.

“What?” T.O.P stood against his bars, eager to get into the conversation. “Seunghyun’s still alive?”

“Ne, and so is yours,” I told him and he raised his eyebrows. “He’s a bartender.”

“Enough! Seungri explain yourself! You set yourself up for fraud!” Taeyang thundered but flinched when there came noises from behind the metal door. Dara pressed her face against her small window, big enough for only one face. She said nothing, like the other inmates, she just wanted to hear. I tried not to look at her but it was difficult, she scared me.

“I met Seunghyun, if it wasn’t obvious before. I told him that I was in a gang; I told him what I did. He said I belonged here,” Seungri’s voice came out strained and fighting back anger so he shook his cell bars. “Because I committed so many crimes he said they should just leave me in here to rot and to die. At first I was furious, and then I realized how right he was and it angered me more. Might as well stay up here even if I didn’t kill him but I came back here and imagined that I did because his death would mean worlds to me, but even I don’t have the guts to kill people alone,” the shuddering prisoner looked at Dara. He straightened his hunched back and tightened his jaw. If looks could kill then Dara would be on the floor. The whole building felt silent, the aura tightened my chest. The madwoman retreated deeper into her cell so I couldn’t see her anymore. A weight lifted off my stomach.

“You felt guilty?” I heard E-Minji scoff and Seungri smirked. Suddenly I felt this sort of relationship between the two, a mocking kind of relationship.

“Believe it or not, I’m up here and Seunghyun is still alive right?” he shrugged and sat down on a bed. “So, am I done for? Leave me up here or let me out?” why do I feel like he wants to stay in here for some other reason? And why do I feel like it’s E-Minji? I kept my mouth shut.

“We’ll leave you here, if you’ve committed as many crimes as I can count then it’s appropriate,” Taeyang sighed and stood up. “Everyone go to sleep, including you Dara,” he growled and led Ji and I down the steps; I could still hear them arguing.

Taeyang wasn’t on his break yet so Ji and I took seats by his desk as he worked away on his monitor. The room was bustling with all kinds of male and female police officers who were going out patrolling or just working nonstop. Their police system seems to be topnotch! “So, Youngbae is dating Chaerin?” Ji rubbed his face when he said the words; Taeyang grimaced. I exhaled before speaking.

“Ne, he doesn’t have blonde highlights and I think they’ve been dating for a while,” I noted. “It doesn’t make any sense, you’re saying Chaerin is the one for me but even she’s in a different relationship!”

“Hey, we never said things would be easy,” Taeyang said and I rolled my eyes. “We just said that Dara’s not gonna be the one.”

“You guys are just saying bull,” I grumbled and was a bit surprised to hear Ji laugh beside me. The is wrong with him?

“Things are just destiny Jiyong, you can’t change it. Come on, you have to believe in fate!” I shook my head and he slapped his forehead. I guess I always thought people made their own minds up, everything is our fault or because of us. “Okay, think of it this way. We all end up dying somehow right? Well if we all died too fast there wouldn’t be any life to live, so fate decides who lives the long lives and the short ones. We don’t control anything, no matter what anyone says. We’re just players in God’s little game; hate Chaerin all you want because in the end you’ll love her like she’s the world. What I’m saying is pretty much to hate the players all you want, just don’t hate the game.”