The Mirror

While walking to the rear entrance of the SM building, Sumin felt like, with each step, she was shedding what was left of herself and becoming Taeyeon—not just wearing her face but truly becoming her. But it was more than a metamorphosis, more than a birth even; it felt, to her, almost otherworldly, as if their very souls were being exchanged.

But this feeling of transcendence was replaced with immediate paranoia the moment she was let into the brightly lit back lobby with the harsh fluorescent lighting illuminating every inch of her face. At that moment, she felt like what she really was: an imposter.

She froze only two steps into that lobby, paralyzed by that paranoia. No longer confident in the scheme, she quickly pulled her hood on, letting it hang over her brow to shadow her face. Though having her face partially hidden made her less anxious, she hated the fact that she couldn’t be fully out there in the light. It seemed that darkness had attached itself to her, unwilling to let go.

At that moment, Sunny and Tiffany came around the bend of a nearby hallway, their conversation immediately ceasing when they saw Sumin standing in that lobby. Sumin was sure that both girls would see through the illusion and would call for help. She was so certain of this, in fact, that she shifted her stance, her one leg slipping back a bit in case she needed to suddenly take off running. But almost at once, both Sunny and Tiffany called out to her and came rushing over, apparently fooled by the face.

“Where were you?” Sunny asked, grabbing Sumin’s hand.

“We looked everywhere,” Tiffany said. “It’s late. You ready to go home?”

Sumin quickly glanced between them and then looked down, not confident enough to make eye contact, and certainly not confident enough to speak. But also making her timid at that moment was the shear absurdity of the situation she was in. It felt surreal to be in the lobby of the building that she had stalked for years, and to be there as Taeyeon, to literally be standing in her shoes… it was all too much.

“Yah, you okay?” Sunny asked, as she reached toward Sumin’s face, lifting her chin.

Sumin slightly recoiled from the touch, mustered a weak nod, and then lowered her face again, her stare focused on the floor.

Sunny tilted her head down, trying to meet Sumin’s gaze. “Are you sure you’re okay? You don’t look good.”

Tiffany now also leaned in to get a closer look. “Yeah, your face looks sort of puffy. And your eyes, I don’t know… are you sick or something?”

Sumin felt a sudden panic arise within her. The scrutiny was unbearable. She just wanted to flee.

“You don’t always have to keep everything bottled inside, you know,” Sunny said. “If something’s wrong, you can tell us. It’s not a burden.”

“Maybe you just need to rest,” Tiffany said.

Sumin didn’t know what it was like to have people be concerned for her wellbeing. It was so foreign to her that she didn’t even recognize that what Sunny and Tiffany were exhibiting was, in fact, concern. Instead, she saw this as an interrogation, an attack, or at the very least an unwelcome prying into her personal space. Had she been confident in her impersonation of Taeyeon’s voice, she would’ve spoken up at that moment to tell them to go away and leave her alone. But then it occurred to her that she would have to get used to this sort of attention if she was going to live Taeyeon’s life, and that, really, this was just a tiny taste of what that attention felt like.

“Come on, short stuff,” Sunny said, smiling as she threw her arm around Sumin’s waist and turned her back toward the door. “Let’s get you home.”

Sumin shot a quick glance at Sunny, curious as to why she was calling her short when clearly, Sunny was just as short as she. It didn’t register with her that this was meant as playful, and that this sort of teasing was common amongst close friends. Instead, Sumin saw this as a direct insult, and just like that, what was just an innocuous nickname was turned into a reason for Sumin to hate Sunny. All she could think about in that moment was how Sunny, so bright and cheerful, was supposedly the SNSD member that everyone loved, and how much she hated her for that very reason—because she was bright and cheerful, because she was loved.

There was only so much hatred she could hold in her heart, however, and so she tried to swallow down her anger as she and the two girls made their way to the exit. Once she stepped back out into the night, the darkness immediately put her at ease and she regained some of the confidence she had lost while inside. She still didn’t have the confidence to speak yet, but she was able to lift her face without fear, to see the world at eye-level.

Sunny and Tiffany dispersed once outside, each heading to their cars. Sumin saw this and began walking to the Porsche, but she soon realized that, when she had changed into Taeyeon’s clothes before, she hadn’t thought to check for personal items such as keys and the like. She frantically searched her pockets now, finding only Taeyeon’s wallet, phone, a tube of lipstick, and what looked like some sort of handwritten note. She shoved all of this back into her pockets, thinking that she’d find time later to sort through these items. In the meantime, she continued walking to the Porsche, hoping that the keys would still be in the ignition.

Fortunately for her, when she walked around to the driver’s side of the Porsche, she felt something crunch beneath her shoe and looked down to the see the car keys on the pavement, realizing that Taeyeon must’ve dropped them in the struggle with Seunghyun. She smiled then, her anger redirected back at its true source as she imagined Taeyeon’s half- body being dragged by Seunghyun into his secret room, wherein Taeyeon would spend the rest of her days suffering. It took all of Sumin’s strength to stop herself from driving there now to witness this suffering. There would be time for that later, she thought. For now, she had a life to live.

Because Sumin didn’t know where Taeyeon lived, she made sure to drive behind Sunny and Tiffany, trailing them closely down the city streets until they reached the apartment building. Once there, she followed the girls through the lobby to the elevator, lagging behind them the whole time and never once saying anything. Even if she had been confident enough to speak, she wouldn’t have known what to say because Sunny and Tiffany were referring to things that Sumin knew nothing about, like the group’s recent performance at KCON in Los Angeles and how Sooyoung couldn’t be there because she was preparing for her upcoming drama.

When they reached the apartment, Tiffany leaned against the wall beside the door to text someone while Sunny started entering the passcode. Sumin, meanwhile, peered over Sunny’s shoulder, trying to see the passcode so that she would be able to get in again later.

“Aish,” Sunny said, suddenly looking back at Sumin. “What’s the last number of the passcode? I always forget…” Her voice trailed off as she turned back to the door, trying alternate codes.

Sumin cleared . She had no idea what the last number was, of course. “Erm…” Her impersonation of Taeyeon’s voice came out quietly, like a soft whisper. “Two?”

Sunny suddenly looked back at Sumin again. “Did you lose your voice?” she asked.

Tiffany then looked up from her phone, eyeing Sumin curiously. “Is it two? I thought it was six?”

Sumin glanced between them, feeling that same panic that she had felt earlier in the SM lobby. She didn’t know whether it was her answer or her voice that had drawn suspicion, but either way, she was sure that she was caught.

Sunny stared at Sumin a moment and then turned back to the door. “Well, let’s try two,” she said. As soon as she pressed the number, a green light suddenly blinked on the key pad, followed by the click of the door unlocking. “Ah!” Sunny exclaimed, as she opened the door. “Looks like you were wrong, Fanny!”

Sunny held the door open for the girls and Sumin walked in without hesitation. The fact that she had gotten that last number correct was a sign, she thought, that the world wanted her here in Taeyeon’s place, maybe in an attempt to right all the wrongs it had done to her. She breathed in deeply and smiled as she continued walking inside the apartment, looking around at what was rightfully hers. She could hear Sunny back at the door telling Tiffany to stop texting Nichkhyun and to get inside, but she didn’t care about them anymore. All she cared about now was finding Taeyeon’s room, or rather her room, which, as it turned out, didn’t take long at all because all the bedroom doors had the girls’ names on them.

Sumin was somewhat surprised by the sight of Taeyeon’s room. She knew that unlike some of the other SNSD girls, Taeyeon hadn’t purchased posh real estate elsewhere, but she thought that even though Taeyeon had chosen to stay in this apartment, she would’ve at least splurged on lavish furnishings. Instead, the room was rather modest with just a single bed, a dresser, and a small desk on which sat Taeyeon’s laptop. Although Sumin was disappointed in the room, she smiled at the sight of the laptop, excited to uncover whatever secrets Taeyeon had stored there. She was reminded then of the note she had found earlier, and she quickly emptied her pockets now in search of it, setting aside the wallet, phone, and lipstick, and finally pulling out the note, the trace of handwriting showing through the fold.

I thought it would be easier to write because when I’m with you, I get shy and can’t open up to you. But I need you to know I can’t stop thinking about you. You’re always on my mind. Always. I’m sorry I don’t show it well. I just wish we had private lives so we wouldn’t have to worry about any of this. Then we could be free to be together without worrying about what people think. Maybe one day…

Sumin smiled as she read the note. Being Taeyeon meant having Baekhyun, and having Baekhyun meant that she would receive love notes like this, and perhaps flowers too, and all the other things she had never before experienced. Until now, Seunghyun was the only man who had shown interest in her, but theirs was hardly a normal relationship, having begun on a promise of and manipulation. It was tainted. Maybe there could’ve been something between them had she not had the surgery, back when she, too, was tainted, but now she was on a different level than he was, in a different social stratosphere.

Sumin placed the note on the bed, intending to reread it later, and then walked to the dresser and pulled open the top drawer, which was full of Taeyeon’s underwear mixed in with some pajamas. Sumin sighed as she sorted through the plain cotton and flannel, wondering why Taeyeon was so boring, but then she found, buried beneath all of it and sort of crumpled in the corner, a black lace bra and set. “Sneaky ,” Sumin muttered, as she pulled the set out.

She quickly took off her clothes and, after putting on the bra and underwear, walked to the full-length mirror that hung on the back of the door and stared at her reflection, taking in the whole of the sight. Earlier, in Seunghyun’s van, she had seen Taeyeon wearing only her undergarments and had noticed then how narrow her body was. Sumin’s body, contrarily, was more curved. She and Taeyeon were the same weight—Sumin had made sure of that—but the shape was indeed different. She wondered if people would notice. But then she remembered what Seunghyun had once said to her, when she had begun to doubt their plan. He had said that people are more willing to believe a big lie than a small one. The Nazis had proved this, he said. They spread a lie so colossal that no one could believe it wasn’t the truth. He told Sumin to remind herself of this whenever she felt paranoid. “No one will think you’re not Taeyeon,” he had said. “They might think something’s off, but who in their right mind would think that you’re not really her? This isn’t a horror movie. This is real life. What we’ve done wouldn’t even register as a possibility to them.” She thought about this now, smiling, and feeling somewhat superior to and smarter than everyone else because she was getting away with something that no one else could even imagine, something that their small minds couldn’t even conceive of.