Chapter 133: Mirror

TL: Aniea

“The visitation time is a total of 30 minutes. To prevent any unforeseen incidents, all conversations inside the visitation room will be recorded in their entirety, and a guard will be stationed outside the door at all times.”

“I understand.”

The guard, holding the door at the entrance of the visitation room, informed me of various precautions.

In his eyes, I could glimpse a sense of doubt, as if asking, ‘Why is he doing this?’ However, perhaps due to instructions from higher up, he didn’t bother to question it further.

“If you wish to speak, press this button here. Then your voice will be transmitted to the speaker on the other side through the installed microphone.”

“Does this provide soundproofing?”

Knock knock-

Suddenly curious, I tapped the semi-transparent glass in front of me and asked.

In response, the guard nodded lightly, saying it was a frequently asked question.

“It’s not perfect, but it’s probably far better than you might think. Unless you’re outright yelling, it’s hard to hear from the other side.”

“That’s impressive.”

“...However, one thing to keep in mind is that there is a delay of about two to three seconds when your voice is transmitted through the microphone.”

“That’s rather unexpected. Is it because of the recording?”

“I’m not sure of the exact reason myself....”

The guard shook his head with an awkward expression. It probably wasn’t a technical issue, but rather something that needed processing during the recording.

Though a bit inconvenient, it wouldn’t cause significant problems in communication, so I decided to accept it as it was.

“Then I’ll bring in the inmate. Please have a seat and wait here for a moment.”

“Thank you.”

As I sat quietly and waited, a middle-aged man in a prison uniform entered the opposite side of the visitation room with the guard shortly after.

I immediately stood up and made eye contact with him, and he did not look away.

Smile-

The middle-aged man even showed a relaxed smile and bowed his head politely.

“......!”

Mouth moving silently-

Judging by the shape of his mouth, he seemed to be saying something to me, but perhaps because the button hadn’t been pressed, I couldn’t hear his voice.

The guard glanced at me briefly, then seated the inmate and quietly exited the visitation room.

-Ah, can you hear me?

Almost as soon as the guard left, the middle-aged man in the prison uniform turned on the microphone and greeted me.

His face was beaming with a cheerful expression, and likewise, his voice was unbelievably bright.

‘...That man is the psychopath who brutally murdered eight people?’

Kim Hee-jae.

The man now sitting in front of me was one of the worst criminals, incarcerated for over two years on charges of robbery, kidnapping, confinement, sexual assault, and murder.

Before coming here, I had looked up several articles related to him, and of course, I had also found photos and videos from the time of his arrest.

‘He looks nothing like what I imagined.’

Honestly, if I came across him on the street without knowing anything, I’d probably pass by without a second thought, he had such an ordinary appearance.

Far from the menacing image typically associated with crazed psychopathic serial killers, I found myself swallowing my breath in silence.

-What, can’t you hear me?

“I can hear you well.”

Before he appeared, I had expected a one-sided interrogation of a sullen criminal.

But faced with a situation completely different from what I imagined, I quietly hid my bewilderment and greeted him with a deliberately calm expression.

“Are you Kim Hee-jae ssi?”

-Didn’t you come here knowing that?

“You look very different from what I expected.”

-I don’t photograph well. Though, even accounting for that, the newspapers really made me look awful. I told them so many times to take it again.

Kim Hee-jae shook his head playfully. Looking at him, I felt a strange sense of déjà vu.

From his tone, gestures, and expressions, he seemed almost completely normal. And yet, it felt as though something essential to being human was entirely missing.

“Do you feel no guilt about what you’ve done?”

-What, are you a victim’s family member?

“No, I’m not.”

-Then why such a boring question? It’s been so long since I’ve had a conversation with someone, and I was actually in a good mood for once.

Thud-!

Kim Hee-jae leaned his body fully against the chair as if something didn’t sit right with him. It was a gesture that gave off the impression he couldn’t be bothered to talk.

I noticed it was a lie. Just acting to take control of the conversation.

An ordinary person might be completely fooled by it, but someone like me who lives off acting couldn’t be deceived so easily.

‘He’s the one at a disadvantage here.’

Of course, I was the one who requested the visitation, but that didn’t mean I was desperate enough to cling to him.

I wasn’t a detective who needed to extract a confession from him, nor a bereaved family member hoping for even a false apology.

‘It’s not like he’s the only option either.’

Ironically enough, Kim Hee-jae wasn’t the only psychopathic serial killer currently imprisoned.

In other words, if he didn’t want to talk to me, I could leave the visitation room at any moment without any issue.

Unlike a criminal bastard locked in solitary confinement with no one to talk to, I had plenty of choices. I kept reminding myself of that fact in my head.

-Lucky bastard.

When I kept staring at him silently, Kim Hee-jae, unable to stand the boredom, raised the white flag first.

He must’ve realized I wasn’t someone who could be manipulated through a half-hearted power struggle. After all, he didn’t know when he might get another opportunity like this.

-How about this? Let’s each take turns asking what we’re curious about. What’s it called again? Ah, truth game! Let’s play the truth game.

“Is that really necessary?”

-Didn’t you come here because you were curious about something?

“Not really.”

-.......

Kim Hee-jae stared at me as if trying to judge whether I was telling the truth, then let out a hollow laugh, as if realizing I was.

-Huh. Then why the hell did you come all the way here? Is this some trendy hobby of a rich guy from a chaebol family? Planning to post it online or something?

“I don’t have such disgusting tastes. Actually, before coming here, I did prepare a list of questions, wondering what I should say....”

-And?

“I realized they were all meaningless. Conversations are meant to be had with people. Not animals.”

-.......

Kim Hee-jae’s expression turned cold. More precisely, it became expressionless. It was exactly the face I had imagined before coming here.

Eyes hollow, as if the soul had drained out. As I watched him, I slowly rose from my seat.

-Sit down.

Kim Hee-jae’s voice, sunken low, came through the speaker, but I didn’t even pretend to hear and turned my back to him.

Bang-!!

Then, from behind, the glass shook violently, and I sensed someone screaming in rage.

Even so, I didn’t hesitate and kept walking, when the speaker crackled and his voice burst through again.

-You asked if I felt any guilt!?

Only then did I turn my head.

And there he was, clearly delighted even as he struggled with a guard who had run inside at some point.

-Stay still!

-I said I’m not done talking!

Additional guards were quickly dispatched and grabbed both of Kim Hee-jae’s shoulders. They began to forcefully subdue and drag him out.

The microphone had been turned off, so it was hard to hear clearly, but Kim Hee-jae was desperately turning his head toward me, shouting something.

“Wait a moment.”

I turned on the microphone and stopped the guards. They were sweating and openly frowned at me, but I couldn’t back down now.

Bowing my head in apology, I asked once again for their understanding.

“I’m sorry, but would it be alright to speak with Kim Hee-jae a little longer?”

Since Kim Hee-jae had tactfully stopped struggling, the atmosphere became a bit awkward to forcibly drag him out.

The guards glanced at each other briefly, then sat Kim Hee-jae back down in the chair.

-No extension allowed.

“Thank you.”

As I bowed once again, the guards turned away, visibly holding back their displeasure.

On the way out of the visitation room, I didn’t forget to issue a warning to Kim Hee-jae, but his gaze remained fixed on me the entire time.

-Where did we leave off?

“You were asked if you felt guilty toward the victims.”

-Right, that one. Hmm...

Kim Hee-jae closed his eyes and appeared to be thinking seriously, as if genuinely pondering the question. After a moment, he opened his eyes and spoke again.

-Well, I guess if I think about it, I might feel sorry?

His voice was endlessly calm. There didn’t seem to be any intent to provoke me. Kim Hee-jae genuinely thought that way.

He was born without the basic human capacity for empathy, his emotions dull and lacking depth.

To him, feelings like guilt or remorse were merely something “learned” through exposure.

“Do you have any regrets?”

-Of course I regret it.

Even to this follow-up question, Kim Hee-jae answered without hesitation. For a brief moment, I thought even someone like him might feel remorse.

-I had planned to hit at least ten. It’s such a shame I didn’t reach double digits. Fuck. If only I hadn’t slipped up back then.

“.......”

His voice, his gestures, his tone, all conveyed sincerity. In that moment, I resented the fact that I was so good at reading people's expressions.

I wanted to bolt out of the room and dry heave right then and there. But I couldn’t give up the hard-won upper hand.

‘...They were all incredible.’

Thinking of the prosecutors and police officers who must have heard far more detail than this during his arrest and investigation, I felt a deep respect.

At the same time, I found myself better understanding the mindset of “Prosecutor Kang Ba-ram”, the role I played in the movie <Crows>.

Losing his parents to a psychopathic serial killer and blindly hunting down criminals, his feelings made more sense now.

-The ninth one. That damn bitch bit my hand. Tsk. If I hadn’t buried her alive in a rage, I would’ve definitely hit ten.

“...Buried alive?”

-Yeah. It was kind of a sight, watching her squirm every time dirt fell on her head. But digging a hole and burying someone is too much work. I don’t want to do that again. As you can see, the cleanup wasn’t exactly neat either.

Clink, clink-

Kim Hee-jae shook the handcuffs around his wrists and lamented his own situation.

Apparently starved for human interaction, he rattled off the details of his crimes like he was bragging. But my attention was focused on something else.

‘...Wasn’t the high school girl who was buried alive the eighth victim?’

To extract as much information as possible in a short time, I had conducted thorough preliminary research.

At this point, I could recite Kim Hee-jae’s unique methods and sequence of murders by heart, even with my eyes closed.

According to my memory, the victim who was buried alive was definitely the eighth. It had caused confusion due to being completely different from his usual method.

But they had identified the killer using DNA from her teeth, and that’s how the string of murders had supposedly come to an end.

‘No way....’

Could there be another victim the world doesn’t know about? The thought suddenly crossed my mind.

An indescribable surge of emotion boiled up within me, but in contrast, my rationality turned ice cold.

If that were true-

What was the immediate action I needed to take?

‘Telling the police right now would be meaningless.’

There was no doubt Kim Hee-jae would simply brush it off, saying he got confused or something.

The police hadn’t realized a victim existed because they had no evidence pointing to it.

‘...I need to dig deeper myself.’

I didn’t even know what exactly was making me so furious. Was it because I had been immersed in [Kang Ba-ram] for a while? Or perhaps it was just shallow righteousness. But still-

For the families out there, still hoping against hope that their loved one might return alive, I couldn’t just let it slide like I didn’t know.

‘To get Kim Hee-jae to open up....’

I searched through the masks sleeping inside me, one by one. Unfortunately, Kang Ba-ram wasn’t the right fit for this situation. I couldn’t force that bastard to talk.

What I needed now was none other than “empathy”. I had to sincerely understand and accept the monster that no one else could.

‘Not even Kang Joo-heon.’

He was certainly a psychopath-type character too, but he was completely different in nature from that bastard.

If Kang Joo-heon were in my place right now, he would probably look at Kim Hee-jae with utter contempt, like he was staring at an insect.

That won’t work either.

That’s not going to do it.

What already exists isn’t enough.

-Hey, are you even listening to me?

Suddenly, his voice snapped me out of my thoughts. And the moment I locked eyes with the monster beyond the glass, I finally found the answer.

-Hey, I’m talking to you....

“Boring.”

-What?

I cut away all unnecessary emotion.

Relaxed my body and leaned back in the chair.

The old chair creaked, as if echoing my state of mind.

“I had a sliver of hope, but of course. It’s the same old story. You’re no different from the rest of those morons. That’s why you got caught by the cops and now you’re jerking off in prison. Fucking idiot.”

-.......

I locked eyes with him as he was momentarily speechless. Although I had no way to directly confirm what he was feeling, it almost felt like I could read his mind.

Confusion, anger, unease.

And curiosity.

Maybe right now, he felt like he was staring into a mirror. The thought made me laugh without realizing it.

*****

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