The piano room was warmer than usual that day. Not because of the weather — it was raining outside, a steady drizzle tapping against the windowpanes — but because of the way music lingered in the air like steam off a teacup. Ji-hoon, younger and not yet completely lost to grief, sat on the bench beside his mother, fingers trembling slightly above the keys. He couldn't see the way she smiled at him — he never had — but he could hear it in her voice, that soft upward lilt that made him believe everything was going to be okay.
"You're getting better at recognizing the transition between G and D," she whispered. "Your hands know before your ears do now."
"I still hesitate," Ji-hoon muttered, shame prickling his chest. "My left hand's late. Every time."
She chuckled — not a laugh, but a patient sound, warm and filled with quiet joy. "Then let your hesitation be part of the song. Even silence has a place in music."
He turned his face slightly toward her, the corners of his mouth curving into something faint and brief — a shadow of a smile. "Is that why I mess up? Because I'm supposed to?"
"No," she said, and her fingers tapped lightly on the top of his hand. "You mess up because you're still learning. But even your mistakes belong to you. So don't be afraid of them."
It was then that the door creaked open behind them. Ji-hoon flinched instinctively at the sudden noise, but his mother placed a hand on his back, grounding him. He turned his head slightly, ears straining. He didn't recognize the footsteps, but they weren't heavy. Measured, careful, but not hesitant. Not someone trying to sneak. Just someone polite.
"Am I interrupting?" a voice asked — male, smooth, older than Ji-hoon, but still young enough that it lacked authority.
Ji-hoon's mother turned. "No. We're just practicing. Come in, Si-wan."
Si-wan. That name hadn't yet been painted in blood. It was just a name then, clean and quiet, belonging to a boy with smooth hands and a soft voice who played the violin like it was something sacred. Ji-hoon had heard about him — the Conservatory whispered his name like it meant something heavy. Gifted. Driven. Respected.
But that day, Si-wan was just a teenager standing in the doorway, holding a violin case against his side and bowing slightly, his bangs dripping with leftover rain. "I was told you were rehearsing here. I wanted to ask… if I could listen. Only for a while."
His mother's answer was immediate and kind. "Of course. We'd be honored."
Si-wan stepped inside, the sound of his shoes soft against the wood. Ji-hoon could feel his presence like a shift in the air, like another note added to the harmony. Something about him was calm. Not in the still water kind of way, but in the way a snow-covered road is quiet before the engine starts — like he was waiting to move.
"Do you want to sit?" his mother offered.
Si-wan shook his head, then paused, realizing Ji-hoon couldn't see the gesture. "I'm fine standing," he said. "I just wanted to hear the piece you're working on."
Ji-hoon stiffened. He wasn't used to strangers hearing him play, let alone someone like him. But his mother nudged his elbow, wordless and gentle, and after a breath, Ji-hoon raised his hands to the keys again.
They began the piece again. A slow, aching ballad that rose and dipped like a lullaby half-remembered in a dream. His mother's hand brushed his occasionally, correcting, guiding, reminding him when he was rushing or hesitating. Ji-hoon played as best as he could, but he felt every flaw magnified under Si-wan's quiet attention.
When they finished, the room held onto the silence like it didn't want to let go. Rain still ticked softly against the window, but inside, everything was still.
"That was…" Si-wan exhaled slowly, like he'd been holding his breath. "Beautiful. Especially the way the lower notes slowed just before the high ones came in. That hesitation felt… intentional."
Ji-hoon looked down, startled. "You noticed that?"
Si-wan stepped forward slowly. "Yes. Most players try to fix that kind of thing. But it made it more emotional. More honest."
Ji-hoon didn't know what to say. Compliments usually felt heavy or false, but there was something unforced about Si-wan's tone — like he wasn't trying to be kind, just truthful.
"Thanks," Ji-hoon muttered, brushing his fingers along the wood of the keys.
Si-wan hesitated for a moment, then added, "You remind me of someone I used to know. A kid who didn't believe in his own talent until everyone else did."
"Did he get better?" Ji-hoon asked.
"He did," Si-wan said quietly. "Because someone believed in him long before he believed in himself."
There was a pause, and then Si-wan did something unexpected. He stepped closer, placing his violin case gently on the table beside them. Then, with a quiet rustle, he pulled out the instrument, tuned it quickly, and held the bow with the kind of grace that came only from obsession.
"Would it be alright if I joined you?" he asked.
His mother smiled. Ji-hoon could hear it. "We'd love that."
And so they played — the three of them, one on keys, one on strings, and one guiding the rhythm with quiet suggestions and whispered instructions. Ji-hoon could barely keep up, his hands slipping once, then twice, but each time Si-wan adjusted his tempo without complaint, as though waiting for Ji-hoon to catch his breath was simply part of the music.
That was Si-wan, once. Not a villain. Not a manipulator. Just a boy with a violin, offering kindness like it was second nature. A boy who slowed down for someone still learning how to breathe through music. A boy who had no idea how many ghosts would eventually follow the echoes of that day.
The afternoon stretched on like the final note of a song that refused to fade. Time didn't tick — it hummed. And in that warm piano room where memory and melody held hands, Ji-hoon experienced something that, later, would feel impossible: peace.
He hadn't yet associated Si-wan's voice with blood. He hadn't seen the twisted headlines or smelled the same cologne that haunted him. Si-wan, to him, was just a kind voice in a quiet storm. A part of a memory not yet ruined. A kindness untainted.
After they played, silence returned. But it wasn't uncomfortable. Ji-hoon sat, sweat cooling on his back, heart slowing to something steady. His fingers still tingled from the keys.
Si-wan placed his violin back in its case carefully, like a fragile heart being tucked away. Ji-hoon could hear the tiny metallic clink of the bow being secured, the whisper of the velvet interior. Every sound so ordinary. Every action so precise.
Then Si-wan spoke. "You have something rare, Ji-hoon."
The boy turned his head. "What?"
"Instinct," Si-wan said. "Not just talent. That can be taught. But instinct — the kind that makes your hand hesitate because your heart is trying to speak first — that's rare."
Ji-hoon didn't know what to say. He swallowed and focused on the bench beneath him. "I don't know if I believe that."
"That's fine," Si-wan replied. "You don't have to. Not yet. But one day, you'll understand what I mean."
Ji-hoon shifted slightly, voice quieter now. "I can't even see the keys."
"That doesn't matter." Si-wan walked closer, and the boy felt the floorboards creak under his weight. "You don't have to see the music to make people feel it. You are the music."
That line — Ji-hoon would remember it years later, in the back of a van, on a stage gone silent, in the middle of a scream no one else could hear. He would remember the exact way Si-wan said it, with no malice, no manipulation. Just soft certainty.
"You are the music."
It had sounded like a blessing.
His mother placed her hand on Ji-hoon's shoulder. "That's what I've always told him," she said softly. "But it helps to hear it from someone else sometimes."
Ji-hoon's hands gripped the edges of the bench. The room felt safe. Held. And in that moment, something fragile and beautiful grew between them — not quite friendship, not yet trust, but the early notes of it. An understanding.
Then, a strange thing happened.
Si-wan hesitated. Just briefly. And when he spoke again, his voice was quieter. "My little sister used to play piano."
Ji-hoon turned his face toward him, listening.
"She was younger than you," Si-wan said, fingers brushing the top of the closed violin case. "She couldn't read sheet music. She played by ear. But she had that same thing — the hesitation that meant something. The breath between the notes. She used to make up stories for the songs she played, like the melody was a secret she was telling the keys."
"What happened to her?" Ji-hoon asked.
Silence.
Then a quiet breath.
"She stopped playing," Si-wan said. "She said the world didn't feel safe enough for music anymore."
Ji-hoon didn't ask more. He just sat with the weight of those words.
His mother's voice broke the stillness, gentle but pointed. "Sometimes, the world takes things away before we understand them. But that's why we keep playing. Even when it hurts."
Si-wan didn't reply, but Ji-hoon could hear him nod. There was a sadness to him now, tucked beneath the polished exterior. And Ji-hoon, though young and blind, could feel it like a shift in temperature. Like winter had briefly crept into the room.
"Do you still play with her?" Ji-hoon asked quietly.
Si-wan's voice came back smaller. "No. She won't even listen anymore."
The silence that followed wasn't hollow. It was thick. Heavy with things not said.
Ji-hoon didn't know why, but his chest ached. For Si-wan. For the sister he'd never met. For the music that might've died in someone else's heart. He wanted to say something comforting, but all he managed was, "Maybe one day."
Si-wan let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh, but it caught halfway through. "Maybe."
A knock echoed on the door — quick and soft. A reminder that the real world still existed beyond these four walls.
Ji-hoon's mother stood. "That'll be our time," she said. "Ji-hoon, we should pack up."
Ji-hoon nodded, reluctantly pulling his hands away from the piano. The warmth of the keys still clung to his fingertips. He heard his mother step around, gathering her folder of sheet music, humming quietly.
Si-wan, still standing near the table, cleared his throat. "Thank you… both of you. For letting me sit in."
His mother's voice was warm. "Come back any time."
Ji-hoon paused as he reached for his cane. "Will you really come back?"
There was a pause — slight but significant.
Then: "Yes. I will."
Ji-hoon nodded slowly. "I want to hear you play more next time."
And Si-wan's reply was soft. "I'd like that."
He left with quiet steps, the door clicking gently behind him. The rain had stopped.
Ji-hoon didn't know it then, but that day would be the last time he'd feel something like safety near Si-wan. That flashback would become a knife he turned over in his heart over and over again. Not because Si-wan had lied, but because he hadn't. Because he had meant every kind word — and yet somehow, it hadn't saved either of them from what came next.
It was easier to hate a monster. Harder to hate someone who once offered you kindness.
Later, when Ji-hoon had blood on his hands and silence where music used to be, he would remember that moment. Si-wan's voice. The way he'd paused. The violin's soft whisper as it was put away.
A kindness that echoed long after it was gone.
Later that same evening, Ji-hoon found himself lying on the living room floor, a blanket curled around his shoulders, the air still carrying the faint trace of violin rosin and lemon tea. His mother had left the window cracked open. The city outside buzzed faintly, distant enough to feel like a dream, close enough to remind him the world was still moving. He clutched a small cassette player to his chest — the one his mother recorded all his practices on. He rewound it, his fingers brushing the buttons like they were braille, pressing gently. The tape clicked, then began to spin.
Si-wan's voice filled the room, caught in the background of their last session. The tail end of a compliment. A chuckle. The low hum of strings being tuned. Ji-hoon's heart ached. It wasn't nostalgia. Not yet. It was something else. Like longing had touched the edges of the moment even as it happened.
He didn't understand the layers of it then, but some part of him — buried deep — already knew that memory had started to ferment into something more dangerous. The warmth from earlier now felt fragile. Too fragile. As if any sudden movement could shatter it.
His mother entered the room with quiet steps, a mug in hand. "You're still up?"
He nodded, even though he knew she couldn't see it. "I'm listening."
"To what?"
He held up the cassette player.
She smiled, and he could hear it in her voice. "You love your recordings, don't you?"
"I want to remember it forever," he whispered.
His mother sat down beside him, brushing his hair back. "You will. Not because of the tape. But because of how you felt."
"How did I feel?"
She paused. Then: "Like you were seen."
Ji-hoon's throat tightened. His mother always knew exactly what he couldn't say.
"And Si-wan?" he asked quietly. "Do you think he meant it? Everything he said?"
"I think people are complicated," she answered gently. "Sometimes kindness comes from pain. Sometimes people try to give the thing they're missing most."
Ji-hoon clutched the recorder closer. "I don't want it to go away."
"Then don't let it."
But it would go away.
That warmth. That understanding. That soft music that once filled the practice room like a prayer. It would all be replaced with suspicion, anger, and a war he hadn't asked for. One day, he'd sit across from Si-wan not as a friend, but as a ghost — both of them mourning versions of themselves they never got to be.
But for now, in this fleeting slice of before, Ji-hoon curled closer to his mother and let the music play. Let the sound of a violin he'd never hear again fade gently into the background. Let the kindness stay a little longer — just until morning.