The next morning arrived with no warmth. The gray light filtered in past the curtain edges like cold fingers, and the quiet in Ji-hoon's apartment felt heavier than usual. The music box still sat on the table, its lid shut but not latched, like an unspoken promise. Hye-jin had fallen asleep in the living room chair, her knees drawn up to her chest and her coat still on. He could hear her breathing softly.
Ji-hoon lay on the couch, fully awake.
He hadn't slept. He couldn't.
His ribs ached every time he shifted, and the ringing in his ear from the blow hadn't faded. But worse than the pain was the weight of that voice still echoing in his skull.
"You didn't die tonight. But someone else might."
He thought of the performance coming up. The whispers he'd overheard from staff. The way Si-wan had leaned too close during the last rehearsal, the way people avoided meeting Ji-hoon's face even though he couldn't see theirs.
There were shadows moving inside the Conservatory, and he was sure of it now.
And somewhere inside those shadows, someone was playing a song in a key only he could hear.
He sat up slowly, listening to the soft sounds around the room. The city outside hadn't quite woken up yet — traffic was still thin, rain tapped gently against the window glass like a second hand ticking time forward.
Hye-jin stirred.
"Ji-hoon?"
"I didn't sleep," he said, voice quiet.
She yawned, rubbing her eyes. "Neither did I. Not really."
They both sat there for a while, the space between them filled with all the things they couldn't say out loud. Eventually, Hye-jin stood and crossed to the kitchen, pouring water and putting on tea. The ordinary movements brought some kind of peace, but not much.
"I was thinking," Ji-hoon began, as she set the mugs down on the table. "Do you remember the recital we did last year? The one with the piece in C minor?"
"You mean the charity concert for the alumni board?"
He nodded.
"That arrangement… something about it's been on my mind." He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small recorder, one he always carried. "There was a mistake in the second movement. A wrong note. Barely noticeable. But it wasn't mine."
Hye-jin frowned. "Are you sure?"
"I know how I played it. I felt it. And I've listened to the recording a hundred times since. Someone changed the sheet music. But only for me."
"That doesn't make sense—"
"Yes, it does," he interrupted gently. "It was a test. Someone wanted to see if I would notice. If I would follow. If I could be led."
She stared at him for a long moment.
"Shadows in C minor," she said softly, the realization blooming. "Someone's been composing right under your nose."
"Not composing," he corrected. "Manipulating."
She looked pale now. "You think it's Si-wan?"
"I don't know yet. But that recital... that was the first time I started getting fan letters that weren't really from fans. The kind written in perfect calligraphy, but never signed. The kind that ask questions no one should know the answers to."
Hye-jin's face twisted with dread. "What did they ask?"
He hesitated.
"'Do you remember the smell of blood?'"
She stared.
"I thought it was a sick joke," he said. "Now I think it was him. The man from the lobby."
Ji-hoon stood slowly, testing the weight on his side. Still sore, but manageable. "I need to go back to the Conservatory."
Hye-jin's voice rose, panicked. "Are you serious? After what happened last night?"
"Especially because of what happened last night." His tone didn't waver. "He's pushing me. For a reason. I need to know why."
She looked like she wanted to argue, but she didn't. Instead, she nodded once. "Then I'm going with you."
The Conservatory loomed colder than usual, even though it was morning. The front lobby had been cleaned — too well. The stain from where Ji-hoon bled was gone, replaced by a faint lemon-scented polish. The desk woman offered a stiff hello as they entered, but said nothing else.
They walked in silence, Ji-hoon's cane tapping lightly in front of him as they passed the rehearsal rooms, each one echoing faintly with scales and nervous students. But there was tension in the air, like the hallways themselves knew something had changed.
He stopped near the door of Room 317 — an old practice chamber with warped wood floors and a grand piano that hadn't been tuned in months. He used to practice there often.
"What are we looking for?" Hye-jin whispered.
"Proof," he said.
He pushed open the door.
The air inside smelled faintly of mildew and old strings. He stepped inside and made his way to the piano, running his fingers across the keys until he found middle C. His hands knew the geography of this place better than his feet ever could.
Then he reached down and pressed the damper pedal — and winced.
A sharp click.
He bent lower.
"What is it?" she asked.
"There's something under the pedal board."
With careful hands, he reached down and slid his fingers along the inside edge. His nail caught on something — paper. Folded tightly, wedged between wood.
He pulled it free.
It was a torn piece of staff paper, the kind used to write music by hand.
He unfolded it slowly.
"I can't read it," he said. "What's on it?"
Hye-jin took it from him, and he could hear the way her breath caught.
"It's… a variation of the piece you played at the recital. The C minor one. But the signature…" She trailed off.
"What?"
"It's your mother's."
Ji-hoon froze.
"That's not possible."
"She dated her notations in the bottom right corner, right? This one says: 'Yoo Ara, 2006.'"
"That's the year she died."
They both stood still. The piano seemed to groan slightly in the silence, like it, too, held breath.
"But there's more," Hye-jin whispered.
She turned the sheet over.
There was a smear of faded ink. Four words, hurriedly scribbled in what looked like the same hand.
"He hears everything you play."
Ji-hoon's throat dried.
"That handwriting—are you sure it's hers?"
Hye-jin swallowed. "I've seen her journals. I'm sure."
They stared at the page as though it might vanish.
Ji-hoon sat down slowly at the piano bench, laying his fingers lightly on the keys. "If this is real… she knew something. And she left this for me."
"But why now?" Hye-jin's voice shook. "Why would someone hide it under a pedal all these years and pull it out now?"
"Because they wanted me to find it. Not before. Not after. Now."
And then, quietly, he began to play.
Just the opening bars.
C minor — slow, deliberate, trembling slightly under his fingers.
The air seemed to bend with the sound. Each note echoed against the warped wood and came back to him cracked, like a voice through an old phone line.
And in those fractured notes, Ji-hoon felt it again.
That shadow. That presence.
Like something watching from inside the melody itself.
Ji-hoon's fingers hesitated on the final note.
He didn't know why he stopped, only that something made him. A sudden shift in the air, maybe. A breeze that didn't belong. The kind of stillness that didn't feel natural.
Hye-jin's whisper was barely audible. "Do you feel that?"
He nodded slowly. "Someone's here."
He heard it then — not footsteps, but the low creak of a floorboard just outside the room. Slow. Deliberate. A pause, then another creak. Ji-hoon's posture tensed. He knew the building's sounds by heart — which ones were friendly and which weren't. This wasn't the sound of a passing student or a janitor. This was someone standing still. Listening.
He stood slowly from the piano bench.
Hye-jin moved toward the door, silently, her breath tight in her throat. She opened it fast — but the hallway was empty.
Empty, but not quiet.
Faintly, very faintly, a note hummed through the corridor.
F sharp. Then silence.
Hye-jin looked at Ji-hoon in alarm. "Did you hear that?"
He nodded. "It wasn't from the practice rooms."
"It came from the east hall," she said.
Ji-hoon's jaw clenched. "That hallway's under renovation."
"Exactly."
They moved carefully, following the faint musical trail that felt more like a memory than a sound. The farther they went, the colder the air became, until Hye-jin stopped and zipped her jacket up tighter. The corridor lights flickered — a symptom of the rewiring, or something else, they couldn't say.
Room 322.
The door was cracked open, just barely.
Ji-hoon reached out, his fingers brushing the edge of the wooden frame.
The scent hit him first.
Not the dry rot or dust he'd expected — but something sharper. Something almost metallic.
Cologne.
Not sweet. Not floral. But expensive, musky, and hauntingly familiar.
His stomach turned.
It was him. The same cologne he'd smelled that night in the rain. The one from the lobby. The man who had spoken like he already knew Ji-hoon's nightmares.
Ji-hoon stepped inside.
It was dark, save for the dusty light spilling through the high window. A piano stood in the center of the room — black, older, with scuffed legs and ivory chipped on three of the keys.
The sheet music stand was up.
And on it, rested a single piece of handwritten score.
Ji-hoon reached out, his fingers trembling slightly as he touched the edge of the page.
"What is it?" Hye-jin asked softly.
He didn't answer. Not yet.
He ran his fingertips across the surface, tracing the ink. He recognized the layout, the rhythm of notation — it was a piece written for him.
The title, scrawled across the top, sent a chill crawling down his spine.
"Requiem for a Blind Son."
His breath hitched.
And beneath that, in the corner — another signature.
Yoo Ara.
No. It didn't make sense. His mother had never written anything by that title. Never shared a composition like that with anyone. But he would know her hand anywhere. The way her F's curved. The slight tilt of her slurs. She always drew a small upward arrow above the last crescendo — a silent mark only she used.
"I don't understand…" Ji-hoon whispered.
Hye-jin took the page from him gently and held it up to the light. "It's real. It's her ink, her paper, the same aged yellow tint."
"But why would she write this?" Ji-hoon asked. "And how did it get here? Why now?"
Before she could answer, the lights above them buzzed and flared. For one split second, Ji-hoon could feel the entire room press inward, like it had inhaled deeply and held its breath.
And then came the voice.
Not from behind. Not in front. Just there — in the middle of the silence.
"You finally heard it."
Ji-hoon turned toward it, slowly, instinctively.
"You've been running from it for years, Ji-hoon. But the notes always catch up."
"Where are you?" Ji-hoon said steadily.
A pause.
"Everywhere you listen."
The lights snapped off entirely. Darkness swallowed the room.
Hye-jin gasped. "Ji-hoon—"
"I'm okay," he whispered, his hands stretching slightly in front of him. "I've lived in the dark my whole life. He hasn't."
He waited.
The scent of cologne grew stronger.
Footsteps. Four, maybe five. Close.
Ji-hoon's pulse thudded in his throat.
"You want answers?" the voice said, lower now, almost affectionate. "Start by asking yourself why your mother never played her final piece."
Ji-hoon's voice broke. "She was murdered."
Another pause.
"No. She was silenced."
Silence returned, heavier than before. And when Ji-hoon finally took a step forward, cane tapping, he found nothing. The scent was fading. The presence — gone.
Only the piano remained, and the music.
He dropped onto the bench, breathing hard.
"Ji-hoon," Hye-jin said, her voice shaking. "We need to call someone. The police. Someone."
He shook his head.
"No one will believe a blind pianist followed a ghost into a condemned hallway and found a piece written by his dead mother. They'll think we forged it. Or worse, that I'm losing it."
"Then what do we do?"
Ji-hoon laid his fingers on the keys.
"We play," he whispered.
She stared.
"If someone wants to lead me through this piece like a trap, then I'll walk straight into it."
He closed his eyes — not that it made a difference — and played the first chord of Requiem for a Blind Son.
It was dissonant. Sharp. Not like her other pieces. But it was hers.
And as he played, something began to surface in his memory — something he'd buried long ago.
Not a sound.
A scream.
A scream, cut off mid-breath.
And the faint smell of cologne… burning. Mixed with blood.
His hand slipped off the final key.
He sat there, breathing hard, chest rising and falling.
Hye-jin placed a hand on his shoulder. "What was that?"
"A memory," he whispered. "But not one I've ever played before."
She sat beside him, silent.
For the first time in years, Ji-hoon realized the music wasn't just following him — it was guiding him.
Through grief.
Through fear.
Through the shadows in C minor.
And whoever was on the other side?
They were waiting.