The rain had stopped, but the air still smelled of thunder.
In the cold quiet of night, Kang Joon-ha woke with a violent gasp. His sheets were drenched, his heart pounding as if it had been running for miles. The echo of a scream, young, desperate, male, still clung to the edges of his mind.
"Please… I didn't mean to—"
And then the sound of shattering glass. The fall. The silence that followed.
He pressed his palms over his ears as if that could make it stop. But the voice wouldn't fade.
He stumbled out of bed, his breath shallow, sweat dripping down his temple. His reflection in the mirror looked unfamiliar, haunted, pale, eyes too wide.
It felt too real to be a dream.
But it couldn't be anything else.
Could it?
He splashed cold water on his face, gripping the sink until his knuckles turned white.
"Who was he?" he whispered. "Why does it feel like I know him?"
The clock blinked 3:04 a.m. The same hour Areum once said she stopped sleeping. The same hour her brother had died.
____________
Eight months earlier.
The security cameras at the building captured nothing but shadows. A young man, barely in his thirties, walked through the glass doors, holding a folder close to his chest. His steps were fast, trembling.
Inside the private office, the air was tense.
Han Ji-Woo's voice cracked as he spoke, but his words were firm:
"You think your money hides everything? My sister will know. Your family will know. The world will know."
The man behind the desk didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. His tone was cold, practiced, like someone used to erasing problems, not solving them.
"Be careful what you threaten, son. You're walking into places people don't walk out of."
The man swallowed hard, but his resolve didn't waver.
"You can't silence everyone."
The sound that followed wasn't an answer.
Just the echo of something falling, something final.
___________
Joon-ha sat in his car hours later, hands still trembling around the steering wheel. He couldn't shake the image from his mind: the man's terrified face, the echo of his plea, the fall into nothing.
Every time he blinked, it returned.
Was it guilt? Hallucination? A repressed memory?
Or was it the sickness finally devouring his sanity?
He didn't know anymore.
When he reached the studio, his manager, Min Joon, noticed the paleness beneath the makeup, the unsteady breathing.
"You okay?"
Joon-ha forced a smile. "Just didn't sleep much."
Min Joon frowned. "You should rest before the recording. The new single isn't worth you collapsing again."
He nodded, but his mind was somewhere else, somewhere high above the city, where glass gleamed and bodies fell.
__________
The office smelled faintly of coffee and old paper. A police officer sat across from Joon-ha, expression unreadable.
A single file sat between them.
When the officer opened it, photographs spilled out, two faces, frozen in black and white.
Han Ji-woo. Kang Soo-min.
Areum's brother. His sister.
Both listed under the same word.
Suicide.
The officer's voice was low, almost weary.
"Strange coincidences, don't you think? Two deaths, same age, same connections to your family."
Joon-ha stared at the photos. His pulse thudded in his ears.
"I already told you everything."
"Maybe," the officer murmured, sliding one photo closer. "Or maybe you just told the version you could live with."
A silence stretched, long, suffocating.
The officer leaned closer.
"What's the real truth, Kang Joon-ha? And what was between you and the two of them?"
The question hung like smoke in the room.
Joon-ha's fingers trembled against the table, nails digging into his palms.
He didn't answer.
He couldn't.
________
At the Kang residence, President Kang poured himself a drink, eyes scanning the papers spread across his mahogany desk. The lamplight flickered softly, catching the sharp lines of his face.
In one folder, discreetly marked and locked were files stamped with official seals: investigation reports, death certificates, silenced statements.
He flipped one page, his expression unreadable.
"That's the consequence of being noisy," he said quietly, swirling the glass in his hand.
Outside his study, the world slept in ignorance. Inside, truth lay buried under layers of polished deceit.
____________
He returned home that night feeling like a stranger in his own skin. The city lights outside his window blurred into smears of gold and gray.
He sat on the floor, back against the wall, the photographs replaying in his head.
His sister's laugh. Her fall.
The man's scream. His fall.
And somewhere, Areum's quiet voice, asking questions he wasn't ready to answer.
He pressed his hand against his chest, feeling the ache, the one no medicine could dull anymore.
He whispered to the empty room,
"Did I do it? Or did he?"
The walls didn't answer. Only the sound of his unsteady breathing filled the space.
Meanwhile, across the city, Areum sat at her desk surrounded by old photographs and a stack of her brother's journals.
Her eyes caught something, a torn page tucked between sketches.
A meeting date.
An address.
And one line written in haste:
"He said she didn't fall. She was pushed."
Her fingers froze.
Her brother had met someone before his death.
Someone powerful.
Someone dangerous.
______________
Joon-ha's nightmare returned that night.
Only this time, when the man fell, he saw his own hands pushing him.
He woke with a strangled gasp, falling from bed to floor. His breath came in sharp, ragged bursts.
The world tilted, blurring into static. He reached for his pills, hands shaking too violently to open the bottle.
He pressed his forehead to the cold tile, whispering,
"If I did it, then who am I?"
Outside, thunder rolled again, as if the heavens themselves were echoing the question.
Epilogue
The gallery lights glowed softly over a new exhibition: The Ones We Couldn't Save.
Each photograph was a memory reborn, raw, haunting, and beautiful.
Areum stood quietly before one picture: Joon-ha's old piano, dust settling across the keys.
A letter lay beside it, sealed, never opened.
She whispered, voice trembling but calm,
"The truth always finds its way back, doesn't it?"
A man's shadow reflected faintly in the gallery glass, familiar, fading, uncertain if he was ever real.