The studio was quiet—too quiet. The kind of quiet that throbbed in Ji-hoon's ears like a warning he couldn't hear with anything but his body. Dust hung in the air like sleep, and somewhere behind the walls, an old clock ticked on, unaware of what its minutes were counting down to. Ji-hoon sat alone, legs crossed, fingertips on the worn edge of the desk where his mother once placed her sheet music. She never liked digital files. She said ink was heavier. Said you could feel the intention in a handwritten note, the tremble of a quiver that couldn't be backspaced.
His fingers moved across a folder. Thicker than the others. Taped shut twice. Labeled in pen he could not read—but he could smell it. A trace of his mother's perfume still clung to the corner. Faint lavender. Smudged ink. He pressed it to his chest for a second, breathing in the ghost of her, and then opened it.
Joon-won had helped him scan every page into a voice reader. He'd begged Ji-hoon not to dive too deep, not to dig where blood might still be drying. But Ji-hoon couldn't stop. Not when he knew answers lived there. Not when the silence around his mother's death was finally cracking.
The reader clicked on.
"…November 12th, 2006. Yoon Si-wan showed up again today. Late. Eyes swollen. His hands shook during practice. I don't ask anymore. I know what kind of father he has. I know too much."
Ji-hoon's breath caught in his throat.
The voice reader continued, its mechanical inflection slicing through him.
"I want to believe he's better than him. But lately, I don't know. The way he watches Ji-hoon… it's not malicious. It's longing. But there's jealousy, too. A bitterness that curls beneath every compliment. He thinks Ji-hoon gets all of me."
He pressed his fingers to his chest, feeling his heartbeat tremble beneath his shirt.
"He told me once he wanted to be our family. He asked me why I kept Ji-hoon's father a secret. I couldn't answer him. Not because I didn't trust him, but because… part of me did. Once. A long time ago."
Ji-hoon's throat closed up. He remembered the way Si-wan used to hover in the doorway. Always staying behind after practices. Always watching his mother—not with love, not quite—but with a kind of desperate possession.
"I can't let him near Ji-hoon anymore. He's starting to ask questions. About the accident. About the blindness. He thinks it's my fault. He thinks I chose to have a son who couldn't see. That I sacrificed everything just to keep him tethered to me. I can't—I won't let that poison him."
Ji-hoon's jaw locked. His breathing was ragged.
"I know what he's capable of. The other day, he said something I can't unhear: 'If you'd just chosen me, he wouldn't be in the way.'"
The reader paused. Ji-hoon didn't even realize he was trembling until the device in his hand started to shake.
"If anything happens to me, I need him to know—I never regretted choosing him. Not once. He was the only music that ever made sense."
The silence that followed hit like thunder. Ji-hoon couldn't move. Couldn't cry. The tears had already buried themselves too far inside.
Si-wan. That bastard.
The one person Ji-hoon had once trusted. The one who praised his compositions. Who used to adjust his posture with those gentle, exacting fingers. Who once whispered that his mother had a voice like candlelight. All that kindness—it was a cage. A performance. Maybe even a rehearsal for something darker.
Ji-hoon stumbled to his feet. The walls felt like they were closing in. His cane sat beside the door, but he didn't need it. He knew this room. He knew every echo in its floorboards, every soft groan of the furniture. He moved with something primal—raw. He didn't know if he wanted to scream, or just disappear.
He couldn't stop picturing her. On the floor. In that cold room. The detective had told him it was quick. That there hadn't been a struggle. But what did he know? What did anyone know?
Maybe she saw him coming. Maybe she recognized the footsteps. Maybe she smiled, thinking it was a student, a friend, someone kind. Maybe her last expression wasn't fear but confusion.
Ji-hoon slammed his fists into the piano. The keys groaned beneath him. One of them cracked. A string snapped like a gunshot, recoiling through the air.
She had died for him.
That was the truth of it. Not metaphorically. Not poetically. Literally. She had made her choice, and Si-wan had answered it with death.
And Ji-hoon—what had he done? Kept playing concerts. Kept honoring her name with music. But music didn't change what happened. Music didn't bring justice.
He curled over the piano, his forehead pressed to the smooth wood. His breath was coming in shudders now, gasping like he'd been punched in the chest.
She had loved him enough to die.
And he had trusted the man who killed her.
Ji-hoon didn't know how long he sat there. His hands rested limply on the broken keys, the jagged edges biting into his palms, but he didn't move. His mother's voice still echoed in his ears—less the synthetic recitation of the voice reader, more the memory of how she used to speak to him. Calm. Gentle. Always careful with her words, like she was sculpting the air itself. But there had been pain beneath it all, hadn't there? Tremors in her voice that he now recognized as exhaustion. The way her arms lingered too long in a hug, like she didn't want to let go. The way her fingers would touch his cheek and pause, silently mapping the lines of his face as if memorizing him for the last time.
And he hadn't seen any of it. Or maybe… he had. Maybe he just hadn't understood.
He turned his head slowly, blindly, toward the studio ceiling as if it might answer him. "Why didn't you tell me?" he whispered. "Why didn't you let me fight for you?"
The air, as always, said nothing.
He slammed his fist against the wood again, harder this time. The pain was sharp. Real. But not enough. Not even close. His mind was in a spiral now, unspooling at speeds he couldn't control. How many times had he invited Si-wan over after a recital? How many times had he sat beside the man in the audience, feeling a kind of comfort in his presence? He'd trusted him. Believed in him. Even thought of him, once, as someone who maybe—just maybe—understood what it meant to grow up in shadows.
But it had been a lie. A kindness laced with poison. Every compliment, every gentle correction at the piano, every soft-spoken word—that had been theater. A manipulation so perfect it masqueraded as care.
Ji-hoon's stomach churned. His fingers clenched. "You son of a bitch," he breathed. "You murdered her."
But what hit hardest wasn't the betrayal. It was the blindness—not of his eyes, but of his trust. He had been right there. He had lived in the same house. He had memorized the rhythm of his mother's breath in sleep, her cough when she was tired, the way her laughter tilted slightly to the left when she was faking it. But he hadn't known she was dying inside. That her past was catching up to her like a tidal wave. That Si-wan had ever been part of her story, much less her undoing.
He stood suddenly, knocking over the bench. It scraped loudly against the floor. He needed air. He needed to move. He stumbled toward the door, fingers brushing the wall until they found the edge, then the handle, then the cold of the hallway beyond. His cane still leaned against the corner, but he didn't take it. His body remembered the way even if his eyes could not.
He walked, fast and crooked, through the halls of the old building. His shoulder clipped a chair. His hand smacked a frame. He didn't care. He wanted to be bruised. To feel something else—anything but this inferno of guilt and grief rising in his chest.
Outside, the world was too bright. He couldn't see it, but he could feel it: the press of sunlight against his skin, the hum of distant traffic, the chirp of birds who didn't know or care that the world had just ended again.
He leaned against the wall, his breath jagged, a sob caught somewhere between his throat and his ribs. "You gave up everything," he murmured. "And I just… I played piano."
How many times had he performed her compositions without knowing what they really meant? How many pieces were coded with her pain, her warnings, her love? And he had just called them "elegant," "sad," "haunting"—like a fool labeling wounds as brushstrokes.
He felt the rage boil again. "I hated you sometimes," he whispered, and the words tasted like ash. "I blamed you. For hiding things. For never telling me about my father. For making me feel like I wasn't enough when you looked out the window too long."
His voice cracked.
"I didn't know you were protecting me."
His knees buckled. He sank to the pavement, the concrete unforgiving beneath his skin. He buried his face in his hands, shaking. "I'm so sorry," he whispered. "I should have known. I should've asked more. I should've seen it, even if I couldn't see."
For a moment, all he could hear was the wind. Then a memory, faint and distant, crept in uninvited.
It was her voice again—not from a letter or a recording, but from a morning long ago.
"You don't need to see me, Ji-hoon. You already know me. That's better than sight. That's love."
He dug his nails into his palms. He didn't feel like he'd known her. Not really. Not the parts she'd hidden. Not the pain she carried like a second spine. He had let her carry it alone.
And still, she died for him.
That kind of love—he didn't know what to do with it. It felt like a weight he couldn't lift and didn't deserve. But he'd carry it anyway. He had to.
The vibrating buzz in his pocket startled him. A text. Joon-won.
We need to talk. I found something else. About Si-wan. It's worse.
Ji-hoon's fingers trembled over the screen. He called instead.
"Where are you?" he asked, voice hoarse.
"The conservatory. I'm in the basement archives. Ji-hoon… you're not going to believe this."
"Try me."
"There were letters. Not from your mom—to her. From Si-wan. He begged her to run away with him. Said he'd 'get rid of the problem.' He meant you, Ji-hoon. He meant you."
The world tilted. His stomach turned.
"Don't read me more," Ji-hoon said, standing now, swaying on his feet. "I'm coming to you."
And then, softer, lower, his voice nearly breaking— "We're going to finish this. For her."
Ji-hoon didn't wait for a driver. Didn't wait for Joon-won to say more. His feet carried him down the street as if the pavement itself owed him answers. He didn't bother with a cane—his memory of the roads, of the spaces between buildings, the length of crosswalks, was carved into his bones. The world may have been blurred into pitch, but every step thudded with precision, driven by fury and grief layered so tightly it was hard to tell which was which.
Wind cut against his skin, and the city noises pressed in around him—honking, brakes, laughter. All of it felt too normal. Too alive. How could people laugh when his whole world had been hollowed out? When the woman who raised him like a symphony had died in silence, in sacrifice?
He arrived at the conservatory. His hand smacked against the entrance door, pushing hard enough that it banged against the wall inside. He didn't say anything to the woman at the desk. Didn't need to. She recognized the blind boy who had once played Bach like his life depended on it. She said nothing. Maybe she saw the rage in his steps. Maybe she remembered Yoo Ara too.
The stairwell echoed around him as he descended. One hand on the metal railing, the other trailing the cold wall. Basement air always smelled the same—damp, forgotten, like secrets that had fermented in the dark. He found the last step, turned, and paused outside the archives.
"Joon-won," he called.
A shuffle. Papers being moved.
"Ji-hoon?" his friend's voice answered. "Come in. I've got it right here."
He entered, breathing heavily, the scent of old ink and paper thick around him. The hum of fluorescent lights buzzed above.
Joon-won met him halfway, guiding him gently to a chair. "You need to sit," he said. "You're shaking."
"I'm fine." Ji-hoon's jaw tightened. "Tell me."
There was a pause.
"You sure?"
"I need to know what she didn't tell me."
Joon-won exhaled. "The letters I mentioned… they weren't just about running away. Si-wan and your mom—they were together. A long time ago. Before you were born."
Ji-hoon swallowed. His throat burned.
Joon-won continued. "He wanted her to leave the music world with him. Said it was toxic. Said it would 'swallow her.' But she was pregnant—with you. And she chose to stay. She left him."
Ji-hoon felt his fingers curl into fists.
"He never forgave her. The last few letters?" Joon-won's voice lowered. "They were threats. Not obvious. Not loud. But they were there. He started talking about how 'the music will end one way or another,' and that she was making a 'mistake loving something that couldn't love her back.' That… was you, Ji-hoon. That was you."
Ji-hoon stood slowly, the ache of betrayal spreading like fire in his chest. He turned away, breath catching.
"She didn't tell me," he said quietly. "She didn't want me to hate him."
"She didn't want you to carry it."
"She already knew he'd kill her," Ji-hoon whispered, and for a moment, his knees nearly buckled. "She knew. And she let it happen. She chose me over her own life."
Joon-won didn't speak.
"You ever hear someone scream and it's silent?" Ji-hoon asked. "Like, not outside—but inside you? That's what I feel right now. Like everything in me is screaming and there's no sound coming out."
He walked toward the shelf of old music scores, dragging his fingers along the dusty spines, each name a ghost. Then he stopped.
"She used to say vibrato was like a human voice," Ji-hoon said softly. "That it wasn't just a technique. It was emotion. It was the way love wavers. The way truth shakes in the throat before it's spoken."
He turned his head slightly, toward Joon-won.
"She taught me that. And I didn't know the truth she meant wasn't just about music. It was her. It was all this."
Joon-won stepped closer. "You weren't supposed to know, Ji-hoon."
"That's the worst part," Ji-hoon said. "She kept me in light while she stayed in the dark. And now I can't see anything—not her, not him, not even myself."
"But you know the truth now," Joon-won said gently. "And you're not in the dark anymore."
Ji-hoon's shoulders sank.
"No," he said. "Now I am the dark."
And the room went still—only the hum of the lights above dared speak after that.