Chapter 48: When Joon-won Found Out
Joon-won had always seen Ji-hoon as a fortress: quiet, composed, and stoic beyond his years. He was the blind pianist who conquered grand stages, who played as if each note was drawn from somewhere deeper than the heart. But there was something else about him, something Joon-won had never quite dared to touch, like a part of Ji-hoon's soul was cordoned off behind soundproof glass. He never pressed, never asked. Until now.
It began with a drawer. The wrong drawer.
Joon-won had gone to Ji-hoon's apartment with the intention of dropping off groceries, just like he had done dozens of times before. He entered quietly, not wanting to disturb Ji-hoon, who he assumed would be resting after a long morning rehearsal. But when he stepped inside, the apartment was silent, unusually so. No piano humming in the background. No metronome ticking. Just silence, heavy and full.
He made his way to the kitchen, placing the bag down with a sigh. Ji-hoon had forgotten to lock his drawer again—the one he always said was off-limits. Joon-won had respected that boundary, but today, something pulled him toward it. A kind of magnetic curiosity he didn't understand. Maybe it was the silence. Maybe it was the dark air hanging in the room.
He opened it.
Inside were photographs. Not ordinary ones. They were printed on thick paper, some folded at the edges, all of them monochrome, sharp with emotion. Ji-hoon with his mother. Ji-hoon standing beside an older man with his hand on Ji-hoon's shoulder. But the man's face had been scratched out violently.
A thin stack of letters lay beneath them. The first one was addressed to "Ara."
Joon-won unfolded it. His heart began to race.
"You think your son will ever know the price you paid for his life? That everything you gave up, every lie you told, will one day mean nothing when he finds out the truth? You hid him from me, and I will never forgive that. Never."
The handwriting was erratic, angry. But it was signed: Si-wan.
Joon-won's breath caught in his throat.
He knew Si-wan was Ji-hoon's enemy. He knew Ji-hoon hated him with a silence so deafening it could crush cities. But this—this was something else. This was a history soaked in betrayal, blood, and secrets no child should ever have to inherit.
As he read through the other letters, the truth unfolded like a dark symphony. Ji-hoon's mother had once been entangled with Si-wan—romantically, it seemed—but their relationship had fractured when Ji-hoon was born. The letters hinted at jealousy, rage, and threats. Si-wan had been obsessed. And Ji-hoon, the boy who had grown up blind and unaware, had been the center of it all.
Joon-won's hands trembled. He sat back, unable to process it.
He remembered all those nights Ji-hoon had played with something like grief clinging to his fingertips. All the moments he'd stood in front of crowds but seemed far, far away. Joon-won had attributed it to the weight of being blind in a competitive world. But it was more than that. Ji-hoon had been performing while bleeding inside.
Suddenly, a floorboard creaked behind him.
"You opened it."
Joon-won turned, guilt washing over him like ice water. Ji-hoon stood there, cane in one hand, expression unreadable. But his voice carried an edge—a sharp, fragile thing.
"I didn't mean to. I—"
"You read them?"
"Yes."
A long silence passed between them.
"I should've told you," Ji-hoon finally said, moving to sit down across from him. "But I didn't want you to look at me differently."
"I don't. I just…" Joon-won paused. "I didn't know you were carrying all of this."
Ji-hoon's voice was steady. "It's not something you carry. It becomes you. You live with it until it's the only thing you understand."
Joon-won wanted to reach out, to touch his friend's hand, to say something that would fix it. But what could possibly mend years of betrayal, of loss, of blindness both literal and emotional?
"I loved my mother more than anyone," Ji-hoon said. "And she loved me more than anything. That's why she kept everything from me. She thought if I didn't know, I could just… be. But that silence, it followed me. It became part of my music. Every time I play, I wonder if she hears it. If she forgives me for not knowing sooner."
Joon-won felt a lump in his throat.
"You were a child. You couldn't have known."
"But I do now." Ji-hoon's voice broke slightly. "And the more I remember, the more I understand how much she gave up. How much Si-wan took. He didn't just kill her. He tried to erase her. And now he's trying to do the same to me."
"You're not alone," Joon-won said quietly. "Not anymore."
For the first time in weeks, Ji-hoon's hands stopped trembling.
In that dim apartment, surrounded by the ghosts of the past, the silence between them wasn't cold. It was warm, heavy with trust.
"I'll help you," Joon-won said, finally. "Whatever it takes. We find him. We end this. For her."
Ji-hoon nodded. "For her."
Got it. I won't use any special format. Here's 1000 more words—new, intense, and raw continuation of Chapter 48:
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Joon-won stood still at the doorway, eyes fixed on Ji-hoon, who sat on the floor with his back against the wall, his cane resting beside him like a tired soldier. The pianist's head was tilted down, his expression unreadable. For a moment, neither of them said anything. Silence wrapped around them like a noose.
Ji-hoon spoke first, his voice like a cracked note. "You shouldn't have followed me."
Joon-won stepped in, closing the door behind him. "I didn't follow you. I found out. There's a difference."
Ji-hoon gave a hollow chuckle. "Does it matter?"
"It does," Joon-won replied, his tone heavier than usual. "Because now I can't unsee what I saw."
Ji-hoon's fists clenched over his knees. "Then pretend you didn't. That's what I do. Every damn day."
Joon-won paced slowly, staring at the piano in the center of the room. Its keys were bloodless white, its silence damning. He turned to Ji-hoon. "The man you burned alive… he was one of the names, wasn't he?"
Ji-hoon nodded. "He gave the order."
"You almost died, Ji-hoon."
"I didn't."
"You came back reeking of smoke, with burns on your hands. And you still played. What the hell are you trying to prove?"
Ji-hoon lifted his head. "That I can still fight. Even blind. Even like this. That she didn't die for nothing."
"You're not fighting," Joon-won snapped. "You're bleeding."
That silence again. Ji-hoon looked like he wanted to say something, but the words tangled in his throat.
Joon-won sat down across from him, his voice softer now. "I saw the file. The recordings. I know about the others. I know about what Si-wan did. I know about the list."
Ji-hoon turned his head slightly. "Did you also see the day she died? The part where I was practicing upstairs while she begged for her life?"
Joon-won winced. "You didn't know—"
"But I should've." Ji-hoon's voice cracked. "I should've heard something. I should've… stopped playing. I should've sensed it. Anything."
"There's no way you could've known."
"I was playing a piece she wrote for me," he whispered. "While they killed her."
Joon-won's breath caught in his chest. "Ji-hoon…"
"She gave me the piano before she died. Told me it would keep me safe." He smiled bitterly. "Turns out, she meant it literally. I was safe because I didn't know. Because I was blind. And when I found her, she was cold. But the piano was warm. It survived."
"And you've been punishing yourself since."
"I've been remembering. Over and over. Because forgetting would be worse."
Joon-won leaned forward. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because you wouldn't have understood back then. You still don't."
"Try me."
Ji-hoon paused. Then said, "I used to think justice was about evidence, courtrooms, truth. Now I know it's about flame. It's about pain. Real justice doesn't speak softly. It screams. It burns."
"You're not a killer, Ji-hoon."
"I wasn't." His voice was dry. "But I became one the day I found the glove. The day I knew who she protected."
Joon-won was quiet for a long time, then whispered, "She knew who it was all along?"
"She knew. She covered for him. To protect me. He would've killed me too, if she didn't… distract him." His voice trembled. "She made him angry enough to forget I existed."
"What did you do with the glove?"
"I kept it. Because he'll come looking for it."
Joon-won stared at him, a thousand unsaid things behind his eyes. "And when he does?"
"I'll be ready."
"That's what scares me."
Ji-hoon tilted his head. "Are you scared for me? Or of me?"
"I don't know anymore," Joon-won admitted. "You're not the boy I met at the conservatory."
"No. That boy died when his mother did."
Ji-hoon stood slowly, fingers brushing against the wall until they reached the edge of the piano. He sat on the bench, hands hovering above the keys.
"I play now," he said quietly, "not for beauty. Not even for her. I play to hear myself survive."
Joon-won didn't interrupt. The first note fell like a single tear. Then another. Then the music began—sharp, staccato bursts of fury between waves of sorrow.
The melody had no structure, no peace. It was chaos dressed as sound. A portrait of grief too jagged to be painted. Ji-hoon's hands moved with violence, like he was dragging the notes out of the keys. And yet, somehow, it was still music. A scream turned symphony.
Joon-won listened, and for the first time, he didn't hear a prodigy. He heard a son who had lost everything. A blind boy carving through the darkness, note by note, just to feel human again.
When Ji-hoon stopped, the room felt scorched.
"You're going to destroy yourself," Joon-won said.
"Then I'll go down playing."
"Or you could let me help."
Ji-hoon turned toward him. "Help how?"
"I don't know yet. But maybe… you don't have to do this alone."
Ji-hoon's lips parted like he wanted to believe that. Wanted it so badly it hurt.
And for the first time in a long time, he didn't say no.
Ji-hoon leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, hands still trembling from the fury he'd poured into the piano. "What would you even do, Joon-won? This isn't something you fix with a conversation or a plan. There's blood. There's history. There's a weight to all of this."
Joon-won didn't flinch. "Then let me carry some of it."
Ji-hoon's jaw clenched. "You're not the one who can't sleep without remembering how she looked on the floor. You're not the one who remembers a scent instead of a face. You're not the one who hears her voice in every silence."
"No, I'm not," Joon-won said, stepping closer. "But I am the one who stood beside you when you couldn't see the audience and told you it was full. I'm the one who caught you when you collapsed after your first solo recital. I'm the one who watched you tear yourself apart quietly for years. You think I didn't notice?"
Ji-hoon didn't respond. His throat tightened around words he didn't want to say. Not because he didn't trust Joon-won—but because he did.
"Let me in," Joon-won said, kneeling beside him. "Not just to the stage version of you. Not the perfect, blind pianist. Let me into the part that screams when no one listens. Let me into this."
Ji-hoon tilted his face up slightly. His eyes, blind as they were, glistened faintly under the light. "What if you hate who you find?"
Joon-won smiled faintly, but it was pained. "I already found him. I'm still here."
That cracked something. Ji-hoon didn't cry—he never did. But his shoulders sagged like the breath in his chest had finally given out. He rested his forehead in his palm, covering his eyes out of habit. "I set fire to a building, Joon-won."
"I know."
"I might do it again."
"I'll stop you if I have to."
That pulled a dry laugh from Ji-hoon, the ghost of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "You'll fail."
"Probably. But I'll still try."
Silence filled the room again, but it wasn't suffocating anymore. It was a strange kind of peace—the kind born after a storm when everything is still broken, but you realize you're not alone in the wreckage.
Ji-hoon turned his head, listening to the faint creak of the apartment settling, to Joon-won's breath, to the world outside where people didn't know a boy just admitted to murder in a room with a piano as his only witness.
"Okay," Ji-hoon whispered. "You're in."
Joon-won sat back, letting the moment settle. "So… who's next on the list?"
Ji-hoon's smile vanished. He reached under the piano bench and pulled out a folder. Inside were documents—grainy photos, timelines, news clippings, and a map with pins.
He handed it to Joon-won without hesitation.
"This one," Ji-hoon said quietly. "Room 507 was only the beginning."