INVSD 01

Chapter 1

The end of a villain is usually not a happy one.

When the protagonist wins, the villain loses. When the protagonist finds happiness, the villain becomes miserable.

That would be the end of my role, too.

Because I was the villain.

“Cut! Okay. Get ready for the next scene.”

The director’s calm voice rang across the set.

Jung Ga-yoon immediately put on a smile, but quietly let out a small sigh.

“Good work.”

“Yeah, good work, Ga-yoon. You’re on standby for now, right? Good job!”

The assistant director patted Ga-yoon on the shoulder as he passed by.

She had always been given minor roles with barely any screen time, but this time, she had landed a fairly important villain role.

She had eagerly taken it because she was happy to finally get a decent part.

Unfortunately, the female lead she would be going up against was Baek Ga-yoon, whose name was exactly the same as hers.

“The next shoot is Baek Ga-yoon’s PPL scene, so make sure everything is ready!”

The assistant director hurried around the set, giving orders.

Ga-yoon quietly stood somewhere out of the staff’s way.

Baek Ga-yoon would be coming to shoot soon.

Baek Ga-yoon was a veteran top actress who had debuted at the age of five and had worked steadily for twenty-two years.

Top in popularity. Top in experience.

Even her personality was top-notch.

Unfortunately, it was only top-notch in the worst possible way.

“Hey! The lighting over here! Add another reflector!”

No matter how awful her personality was, popularity was everything in this industry.

And Baek Ga-yoon had powerful backing, too.

She belonged to High-Top Entertainment, one of the most powerful agencies in the country, and its CEO, Geum Sa-ra, was Baek Ga-yoon’s mother.

How did Ga-yoon know all that?

She certainly wasn’t a fan of Baek Ga-yoon.

If anything, she had plenty of reasons to dislike her.

The busy set was being prepared entirely for Baek Ga-yoon, with everything arranged according to her needs.

That was when—

“Excuse me, where’s the director?”

Baek Ga-yoon’s manager came rushing in and asked Ga-yoon.

“He’s checking the audio.”

The director was relatively close by, yet the manager seemed so frantic that he couldn’t even spot him.

“Oh, the director. Good grief.”

Baek Ga-yoon’s manager swallowed hard, wiped his sweaty palms against his pants, then approached the director and whispered something to him.

They weren’t far apart, but it was too quiet for Ga-yoon to hear what was being said.

“What?! And you’re telling me that now?!”

The loud shout immediately drew everyone’s attention.

Kim Min-ji, Ga-yoon’s manager, who had been talking to another staff member in the distance, quickly came over and asked,

“What’s going on?”

There was no need to explain.

The furious director immediately shouted out the reason.

“You’re telling me the actress disappeared in the middle of filming?! You should be out there finding Baek Ga-yoon right now! What are you standing around for?!”

This wasn’t exactly the first time something like this had happened.

“Here we go again.”

Min-ji clicked her tongue.

The staff, who had been preparing everything for Baek Ga-yoon, stopped what they were doing with irritated sighs.

The assistant director and production PD rushed out to look for Baek Ga-yoon, while the director continued yelling at her manager.

“You! Don’t tell me you’re hiding Baek Ga-yoon again like you always do?!”

“Oh, Director! Absolutely not!”

“Don’t give me that! How does a manager not know where his own actress is? Even now, shouldn’t you be out there finding her first?!”

“My goodness, Director. Why would I not look for her? I swear, I’m always the one who gets chewed out over this.”

As Baek Ga-yoon’s manager desperately apologized, the director grabbed his hair in frustration.

The manager hurriedly left the set, saying he would look for her again.

“What a mess.”

“When is this damn shoot ever going to end?”

Filming was temporarily suspended.

The exhausted staff grumbled among themselves.

“……”

Ga-yoon awkwardly exchanged glances with Min-ji before moving away.

It was better to stay out of the way for now before she got caught up in someone else’s mess.

“How long do you think we’ll be delayed?”

Min-ji muttered as they headed toward the waiting room.

“Probably about thirty minutes. And…”

“If it’s going to take a while, shouldn’t we shoot another scene first?”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

That was usually how the other supporting actors ended up having their scenes moved forward.

“I don’t understand why someone who’s been in this industry for so long keeps slacking off like this. Good grief. We don’t know when filming will start again, so go get some rest, Ga-yoon.”

Min-ji sighed as she encouraged Ga-yoon to take a break.

But Ga-yoon smiled and shook her head.

“No, I’m going to walk the stairs for a bit.”

“Again?”

“I need the exercise.”

She had been gaining weight lately because she’d been so busy with filming that she hadn’t had time to exercise.

There was only so much she could cut back on her food, after all.

Ga-yoon entered the stairwell and slowly began climbing.

The studio she was working in was on the eighth floor, while the rooftop was on the twelfth.

Four floors wasn’t too bad for taking a leisurely walk.

Clatter—

Noisy sounds came from above, followed by the voices of staff echoing down the stairwell.

“She’s not on the rooftop. Check somewhere else!”

“Where the hell did she disappear to?”

The irritated staff members grumbled as they headed down to another floor.

Step. Step.

Ga-yoon continued climbing in silence.

The dark stairwell lit up one section at a time as she made her way upward.

I wish the path ahead of me could always be this well lit.

Baek Ga-yoon, who shared her name, could live however she wanted and still walk down a smooth, effortless road.

So why did Ga-yoon have to struggle just to make a name for herself as an actress?

She sighed.

Eventually, she reached the rooftop.

Feeling suddenly suffocated, Ga-yoon pushed open the rooftop door.

Creeeak—

A clear breeze swept in beneath the blue sky.

She took a deep breath—

“What the hell, Fake Ga-yoon?”

An unexpectedly sharp voice pierced her ears.

Baek Ga-yoon?

She could have sworn she’d heard the staff saying that she wasn’t on the rooftop before they went downstairs.

“Senior.”

“Yeah, Fake Ga-yoon. Come here.”

Baek Ga-yoon was leaning against the rooftop railing, smoking a cigarette.

She crooked a finger, beckoning Ga-yoon over.

Fake Ga-yoon.

It was a nasty nickname given to Jung Ga-yoon because people claimed she was copying Baek Ga-yoon.

Baek Ga-yoon’s fans and Jung Ga-yoon’s antis also used it to refer to her.

Ga-yoon hadn’t expected to hear it directly from Baek Ga-yoon herself.

She slowly approached.

Baek Ga-yoon exhaled deeply and looked her up and down.

“I really hate you.”

Ever since Ga-yoon had been cast in The Conditions of Inheritance, Baek Ga-yoon had looked at her with that same disapproving expression.

It was unfair, but Ga-yoon could understand it to some extent.

From Baek Ga-yoon’s perspective, seeing someone who looked similar to her and even seemed to have copied her name could understandably be irritating.

Ga-yoon had even considered changing her stage name because of it.

“……”

Baek Ga-yoon stared at her silently as she came closer.

After glaring at her for a long while, she crushed out her cigarette beneath her foot.

Then she suddenly grabbed Ga-yoon by the neck.

It was shocking and deeply unpleasant.

“What are you doing?”

Even if Baek Ga-yoon hated her this much, this was crossing the line.

Ga-yoon was just about to take a small step backward when—

Grip!

Baek Ga-yoon tightened her hand around her neck.

“Gasp……!”

Her airway was suddenly blocked.

Ga-yoon tried to knock Baek Ga-yoon’s hand away, but it was no use.

What the hell?

Where did she get this much strength?

It had happened so suddenly that Ga-yoon couldn’t understand it.

Why was she doing this?

What had Ga-yoon ever done to her?

Was there really a reason to go this far?

Baek Ga-yoon’s fingernails dug into the back of her neck.

“Ghk!”

Baek Ga-yoon’s expression remained frighteningly blank as she watched Ga-yoon struggle in pain.

Ga-yoon had known she wasn’t a good person.

But was she really this kind of person?

Ga-yoon grabbed Baek Ga-yoon’s wrist with both hands and tried to pull it away, but she couldn’t budge it.

It was an absurd amount of strength.

And then—

“Ah…… Haha!”

Baek Ga-yoon suddenly burst out laughing.

While she was strangling Ga-yoon.

“Ghk! Why……?”

Ga-yoon couldn’t speak properly because she couldn’t breathe.

She stumbled backward, preparing to kick Baek Ga-yoon away, but Baek Ga-yoon grabbed her neck with her other hand as well.

Then, putting all her weight behind it, she shoved Ga-yoon to the ground.

Thud! Bang!

Baek Ga-yoon climbed on top of the fallen Ga-yoon.

Laughing like a madwoman, she spat out her words in a furious, rapid-fire stream.

“Yeah. I should’ve done this a long time ago. A long time ago! Do you have any idea how anxious you made me? Because of you!”

Anxious?

Because of her?

Why?

Ga-yoon couldn’t understand it at all.

What was she to Baek Ga-yoon?

Why had she made her anxious?

Baek Ga-yoon seemed to have a deep grudge against her.

She tightened her grip around Ga-yoon’s neck as if she truly intended to kill her.

“Why… why the hell……?”

Even as she wheezed for breath, Ga-yoon forced the question out.

At least let her know the reason.

Why did Baek Ga-yoon hold such a deep grudge against her?

What had she ever done?

As the air ran out, her vision began to blur.

She didn’t want to die like this.

If anyone had the right to hold a grudge, it should have been her.

When she was nineteen, she had passed an audition and been cast in master director Jang Moon-seok’s film Doll.

As the lead actress, no less.

But then High-Top Entertainment’s financial power had been brought into play, and the casting was reversed.

Baek Ga-yoon had taken the lead role instead.

So why are you doing this to me?

You have everything.

What did I ever do to you?

Was it because people called me the second Baek Ga-yoon?

Ga-yoon reached out and grabbed Baek Ga-yoon’s face.

With all the strength she had left.

Her fingernails dug deep into Baek Ga-yoon’s cheeks and around her eyes, leaving scratches.

“Ahh! Stop!”

Even as Baek Ga-yoon screamed, she didn’t loosen her grip.

Her eyes gleamed with madness as she squeezed harder.

“Just a little more. Just a little…… more……!”

Ga-yoon kept clawing at Baek Ga-yoon’s face, but the strength gradually drained from her hands.

Whoosh—

Through her darkening vision, she suddenly saw something else.

“Hahahahaha!”

Behind Baek Ga-yoon’s shoulder, something pitch-black was writhing.

Several unreal black shadows clung to her.

I don’t want to die like this.

Even at that moment, it was almost absurd that she was worried about the filming she still had left.

With what little strength remained in her hands, Ga-yoon flailed helplessly before grabbing a piece of one of the black shadows.

She didn’t know what it was, but somehow, she felt that it might be able to save her.

Save me.

But soon, her breath stopped.

The hand that had been reaching helplessly through the air dropped limply to the ground.

“……”

At the same time, Baek Ga-yoon’s crazed laughter abruptly stopped.

“Huh……”

As though she had finally snapped out of some kind of trance and realized what she had done, Baek Ga-yoon froze for a moment.

Then—

“Ah…… Aah!”

She screamed in horror and scrambled off Jung Ga-yoon’s body.

Baek Ga-yoon fell back awkwardly, stumbling backward on the ground.

“AAAAH!”

Then she ran away.

Whoooosh—

A cold wind swept across the rooftop.

The clear sky had become cloudy before anyone knew it.

Fwoosh—

At the fingertips of the dying Jung Ga-yoon, a black shadow flickered.

Then, slowly, it spread over her body, faintly covering her entire form.