The rain had started around 3 a.m. Not the loud, dramatic kind that pounds against windows like something out of a noir film, but the quiet drizzle that feels almost shy, as if the sky's sadness wasn't something it wanted anyone to notice. Ji-hoon sat by the open window of his apartment, listening. It was his way of seeing. The drip against the metal fire escape. The echo of rubber tires on wet pavement. The rush of water through street drains. Each sound painted a picture in his mind clearer than any photograph.
And then there was the raincoat.
It didn't arrive with thunder, didn't knock on the door like some ghost from the past. It just… appeared. Hanging on the coat rack by the front door. Not his. Not Joon-won's. He walked toward it slowly, fingertips tracing the damp fabric. It was soft, familiar. The kind of raincoat someone wore not because it was fashionable but because it had weathered years with them. A companion. A shield.
"Hye-jin," he breathed.
Joon-won must've brought it. Left it there without saying a word. But even if he hadn't, Ji-hoon would've known who it belonged to.
Hye-jin. The girl with the smallest violin he had ever heard, who once laughed in the middle of a solo during a recital because a string broke and slapped her cheek. She'd just kept playing, laughing through the pain, like it didn't hurt. Like it never did. That's who she was: all bright notes and hidden bruises.
He hadn't spoken to her since the conservatory shut down the performance wing after his mother's death. Everyone had scattered like dropped sheet music. But Hye-jin had always stayed in the background of his memory—never fading, just waiting to be remembered properly.
He grabbed the raincoat and pressed it to his chest.
And then he left.
The rain didn't stop as he walked, and he didn't care. He wore the coat, not to keep dry, but to feel like he had some piece of her wrapped around him. When he arrived at the small community hall where he'd heard she was teaching children now—violin, piano, flute—he stood outside for a long time before knocking.
The door opened before he could even raise a fist.
"Ji-hoon?"
Her voice hadn't changed. It still had that curious rise at the end, like she was always halfway to a melody.
He didn't answer right away. Just stood there, rain dripping off his hair, his face calm but hollow. He couldn't see her expression, but he imagined her wide brown eyes, the way they used to crease when she smiled.
"Come in," she said, stepping aside.
The room smelled like wet wood and rosin. He followed her in, each step sinking deeper into a world he'd thought he'd left behind.
"I didn't know if you'd find it," she said. "The coat."
"You left it on purpose."
"I did."
"Why?"
"Because I thought you needed to remember something soft. Something that didn't hurt."
There was silence then. Heavy, stretched silence.
"You taught here?" he asked eventually.
"I still do."
"To kids?"
She laughed softly. "To anyone who'll listen."
"And do they?"
She walked closer. He could hear her footsteps, the way her breathing changed as she neared. "They do. Sometimes. But they don't play like you."
Ji-hoon's jaw tensed. "I don't play anymore."
"Yes, you do. You just don't let anyone hear it."
He turned toward her voice, and for the first time in years, he felt the sting of something close to tears.
"She died, Hye-jin."
"I know."
"She died because of me."
"I know, Ji-hoon."
He sat down in one of the child-sized chairs. It creaked under his weight, but he didn't care.
"She gave everything," he said. "Even her life. And I didn't see it. I couldn't see it. I was blind before I lost my sight. You understand?"
Hye-jin crouched beside him.
"She never blamed you."
"That doesn't matter. I do."
"Then forgive yourself."
"How?"
"Play."
That word hit him like a chord struck too hard. Play. As if music could undo murder. As if vibrating strings could silence screams.
He turned his face away, but she caught his chin gently and turned it back.
"She believed in you, Ji-hoon. She believed in your hands. Your ears. Your soul. She died knowing that something she loved would live."
His breath shook. "And Si-wan?"
Hye-jin went quiet.
"He played with us. He practiced beside her. He touched the same keys she did. And then he took her away."
"She made him feel powerless," Hye-jin said carefully. "And that terrified him. Powerless men do the most damage."
Ji-hoon rose, pacing now.
"He wasn't powerless," he snapped. "He had everything—fame, talent, charm. But she had heart. That's what he couldn't take. That's what he killed."
Hye-jin stayed on the floor, watching him.
"You ever wish you could break your own ears?" Ji-hoon asked. "So you wouldn't have to hear the past clawing at your mind?"
"No," she said gently. "Because that's where the truth lives. And if you lose it… you lose her too."
He turned toward her, and for a long time, there was nothing but the sound of rain hitting the windows.
"Will you play with me?" she asked.
"What?"
"Just once."
"Hye-jin…"
"Please. Let her hear you again."
He didn't know what moved him. Maybe it was the rain. Maybe it was the coat. Maybe it was the part of him that had been silent too long. But he followed her into the next room—a small space with a single upright piano and a violin resting on a wooden chair.
He sat.
She tuned quickly, efficiently, as if afraid the moment might run away from them.
Then they began.
The first note was hesitant. His fingers trembled. But she joined in, soft and steady, and it was like a hand reaching across a chasm. He found the chords. Found the heartbeat. And suddenly, he was crying while playing, tears tracing silent paths down his face. Not sobs. Not gasps. Just a steady, unstoppable stream.
He didn't need to see her to know Hye-jin was crying too.
They played until the rain slowed.
Until the ghosts quieted.
Until the raincoat, now hanging by the door once more, dried completely—and yet still carried the weight of something sacred.
Something remembered.
Something that didn't hurt anymore.
The music stopped, but the silence wasn't empty. It breathed. It pulsed. It held the space like a prayer left unfinished.
Ji-hoon sat still on the bench, fingers hovering above the keys as if reluctant to leave them. His body trembled—not from cold, but from something that couldn't be seen, only felt. A silence that wasn't absence, but presence. His mother was in that room. Not as a ghost, not in a fantastical sense, but in the way memory burns into every movement, every note, every shared breath between two people who had loved her.
Hye-jin didn't speak. She just set the violin down and sat across from him on the carpeted floor, legs folded like a child waiting for a story. Ji-hoon still hadn't moved, as if leaving the piano would mean losing her again. His mother. The melody. The memory of everything he'd buried just to survive.
He finally exhaled and broke the spell. "Do you remember the yellow umbrella?" he asked, voice barely above a whisper.
Hye-jin blinked. "The one she always carried even when it wasn't raining?"
"Yes."
He laughed softly. "She said the sun gave her migraines. But she also said she liked how the world looked softer through yellow."
"I remember."
"I used to think she carried it for fashion," he continued, head tilted slightly back as if listening to the memory. "But she was always protecting something. Even from the sun. From things you wouldn't think could harm you."
"Like she protected you."
He flinched, like the words had teeth.
"I wasn't worth protecting," he murmured.
"Stop it," Hye-jin said, sharp now. "Don't say that. Not again."
"She died because of me."
"She chose to die for you."
"And that's supposed to make it better?"
"No. It's supposed to make it true."
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands laced together like a man praying but not expecting to be heard.
"You know what hurts the most?" he said, voice rough. "It's not the guilt. It's that I never got to say goodbye. I never saw her face when she made that choice. I just... imagine it."
"She wouldn't have let you see," Hye-jin said quietly. "She wouldn't have let you feel it. That's who she was."
"She gave Si-wan so much," Ji-hoon said suddenly. "Time. Music. Trust. And he—he twisted it. Used it to break her. Why?"
Hye-jin's jaw tightened. She stood and walked over to the piano, tracing the edge with her fingertips.
"He hated her brilliance," she said finally. "It made him feel small. Your mother didn't even try to outshine him. She just was. Effortlessly. And when someone like Si-wan feels eclipsed, they don't step into the shadow. They burn the sun."
Ji-hoon felt those words settle into the hollow of his chest like cold ash.
"He made her choose," he said, piecing together the memory like fragments of broken glass. "Between me and him."
"Yes," Hye-jin said. "And she chose you."
"And he killed her for it."
Silence again.
He stood. "I want to see the place."
Hye-jin looked confused. "What place?"
"The room. Where she died."
"Ji-hoon—"
"I have to."
"Why?"
"Because I've imagined it every day for years. And I need to replace that imagined horror with the truth. Even if it's worse."
Her voice cracked. "You really want that kind of pain?"
"No," he said, voice low. "But I already live with it. I just want to understand it."
She nodded reluctantly.
"It's still locked off," she said. "But… I know someone who has the keys."
He reached out his hand, not needing to ask her to guide him. She took it without hesitation, threading her fingers through his like they had when they were kids trying to cross busy intersections.
They left the little music hall behind, the raincoat still by the door.
Outside, the rain had become a fine mist. The kind that didn't soak, but kissed the skin with cold reminders that the world was still moving. Ji-hoon walked beside her, blind but sure-footed. He didn't need eyes to know where he was going now. Grief was a compass more reliable than sight.
The conservatory looked smaller than he remembered. Hye-jin's footsteps slowed as they neared the old performance wing. "They never reopened it," she said quietly. "Too much scandal. Too much memory."
"Too much blood," Ji-hoon added.
She didn't respond.
Inside, the smell hit him first. Not rot, not decay—just disuse. Dust and time. Forgotten applause. Forgotten screams.
They stopped outside a door at the end of a corridor that still echoed faintly when you stepped too hard. Room 3C.
"This is it," she whispered.
Ji-hoon reached out, hand trembling. The wood was smooth, polished once, though the handle had dulled. Hye-jin produced a key and slipped it into the lock.
It clicked.
The door creaked open.
The air inside was heavier, colder.
Ji-hoon took a step in. Then another.
"She fell here," he said suddenly, pointing without seeing. "Near the back, by the piano."
"Yes."
"She played something, didn't she?"
"She did. Just a few notes. I think it was meant for you."
He walked to the piano and sat.
His fingers hovered over the keys.
He didn't press down.
He just remembered.
"She used to hum while practicing," he said. "Not the melody, though. The harmony. Like she wanted to be the part no one noticed."
Hye-jin stayed in the doorway, silent.
"I'll never be her," Ji-hoon said. "I can't be that soft. That brave."
"You already are."
"She forgave him, didn't she?"
"I think so."
"I can't."
"Then don't. Forgiveness isn't a requirement. Living is."
He bowed his head, tears dripping onto the keys.
"I miss her," he whispered.
"I do too."
And together, without another word, they sat in the room where a heart stopped beating—but where another had started to learn how to carry the weight of its echo.