The rain had stopped, but the city still smelled of thunder, that metallic scent of something unfinished, something waiting to fall.
The studio was dim, lit only by the soft glow of the red recording light blinking in the corner like a heartbeat steady, accusing.
Kang Joon-ha sat before the piano, shoulders hunched, fingers trembling over ivory keys. The silence in the room was thick, almost sacred, like it was holding its breath with him.
He pressed down.
A chord.
Another.
Then nothing.
The melody collapsed halfway through, as if the notes themselves had lost the will to continue. His breathing quickened. The air tightened around him like an invisible fist.
He reached for the bottle on the table, shaking two pills into his palm. Swallowed them dry. The room spun slightly, the edges of the soundproof walls blurring.
In the reflection of the studio glass, he thought he saw her.
Soo-min.
Smiling.
Blood trailing like a ribbon down her wrist.
He blinked hard, but she didn't vanish. Her smile was soft, almost forgiving. Her eyes held something he couldn't name.
He screamed.
The sound cut through the room, jagged, raw.
And just like that, the track stopped recording.
Silence returned, heavier than before.
Across the city, Areum stood before a rusted gate, her notebook clutched tightly in one hand. Rain had smudged the ink of her notes, but the address still bled through the one scrawled in Han Ji-woo's journal.
Her brother's handwriting was always neat, deliberate. But this entry had been rushed, almost frantic
Inside the gate, the building was quiet. A man in his seventies answered the door, his eyes clouded but alert.
"Han Ji-woo?" Areum asked.
The man nodded slowly. "The quiet guy with the sketchbook… always drawing faces he never showed."
Areum's breath caught. "Did he ever mention anyone?"
The man shook his head. "He kept to himself. But he looked like someone carrying too much. You could see it in his eyes."
She followed him down a narrow hallway, the floorboards creaking beneath her steps.
In the corner of the room Ji-woo once rented, dust clung to everything. The air smelled of old paper and forgotten things.
She searched quietly, methodically.
And then, beneath a loose floorboard, she found it.
A torn photograph.
Only half of a face remained. A woman, maybe. The edges were burned slightly, as if someone had tried to erase it.
On the back, faintly etched in pencil, was one word.
"Kang."
Her heart stuttered.
It wasn't enough to solve anything.
But it was enough to stir obsession.
She didn't know it tied back to Joon-ha.
Not yet.
At home, the air was too still.
_______________
Joon-ha moved through rooms that felt like graves. The walls were lined with awards, framed photographs, and echoes of a life that no longer felt like his.
On the piano sat a sealed letter.
Soo-min's final words.
He hadn't opened it.
Couldn't.
He sat beside it, staring at the envelope like it might explode. His fingers hovered above it, then retreated.
From the corner of the room, a whisper.
"Play it again, Joon-ha. You owe me that song."
He turned sharply, but no one was there.
Just the shadow of a memory.
He tried to drown her voice with music. Sat at the piano, pressed the keys.
But the melody wouldn't come.
It was as if his hands had forgotten how to feel.
Instead, he reached for the blade on the desk.
It was small. Sharp. Clean.
He held it loosely, the metal catching the moonlight.
A phone buzzed.
He flinched.
The blade slipped from his hand, clattering to the floor.
He didn't answer the call.
Just sat there, staring at the unopened letter.
____________
Later that night, Joon-ha sat beneath the window, moonlight cutting across his face in fractured lines. The city outside was quiet, blurred into smears of gold and gray.
He held the letter in his hands, trembling.
He didn't open it.
Couldn't.
Outside, a distant piano note played, faint as memory, soft as grief.
Somewhere else, Areum sat at her desk, the torn photograph pressed against her chest. Her eyes were red, but dry. Her fingers traced the burned edges of the image.
She didn't know who the woman was.
Didn't know he was connected to the Kang family.
Didn't know she was the sister of the man she'd begun to trust.
And Joon-ha didn't know she was Han Ji-woo's sister.
Didn't know the woman quietly unraveling the mystery was the sister of the man whose scream haunted his dreams.
They were standing at the edge of the same secret.
And the truth was beginning to stir.
The closer you get to the truth, the more it starts to sound like grief.
the cracks in Joon-ha's psyche widen into something terrifyingly human. His breakdown blurs the line between guilt and madness, while Areum's quiet investigation pulls her deeper into a web she doesn't yet understand. A sealed letter, a torn photograph, and a whisper over the phone, these fragments set the stage for a collision between truth, trauma, and love.
The music falters.
The mystery deepens.
And this story takes its first breath of tragedy.