The letter had waited long enough.
Joon-ha sat alone in his studio, the envelope resting on his lap like a confession he hadn't earned the strength to read. The handwriting was Soo-min's, delicate, slanted, like she'd been afraid of pressing too hard on the world.
'Oppa, read this when you're ready.'
He wasn't ready.
But he opened it anyway.
Inside was a single sheet of paper, folded once. A faint scent of her perfume lingered, like a ghost that hadn't learned how to leave. Nestled between the folds was a necklace, a thin silver chain with a tiny safety pin pendant.
A safety pin.
He remembered the first time she wore one, looped through a thread bracelet, dangling from her wrist like a secret.
When he asked why, she'd smiled faintly.
"It's a promise. That I won't hurt myself. That I'll stay. Even when it's hard."
She'd made him wear one, too, after a night blurred by pain and a morning heavy with shame.
"You don't have to mean it yet," she'd whispered. "Just wear it until you do."
Now, years later, she was asking again.
'Promise me you won't disappear.
Even if it hurts.
Even if you think you deserve to.
Stay.
For Mom.
For me.
For you.'
The paper trembled in his hand.
He didn't cry. Not yet. But the air around him felt too thick to breathe.
The memory came like a bruise, slow, dark, and aching.
He was in the studio again, scrolling through Ji-woo's old archived files.
One folder was mislabeled.
Inside: scanned documents.
A school ID.
A photo.
Areum.
Younger. Laughing. Her arms looped around Ji-woo's waist.
Siblings.
He froze, heartbeat stumbling.
It made sense now, the way she spoke about grief, the way her voice cracked when she said his name. The silence she carried like a scar.
She was Ji-woo's sister.
And she didn't know that he knew.
She didn't know that he'd stood at Ji-woo's grave, whispered apologies into the cold soil… and then fallen in love with the person who had lost him.
That's why he always said it.
"I love you, I'm sorry."
Because love felt like betrayal.
Because every touch felt like theft.
Because every heartbeat was borrowed time.
Across the city, Areum stood outside a shuttered apartment complex, wind clawing through her hair.
She had followed another thread from Ji-woo's journal, a name, a date, a last known address. The man who had witnessed Ji-woo's death.
Apartment 3B.
She knocked. Once. Twice.
No answer.
The landlord, a weary woman with a cigarette tucked behind her ear, leaned against the railing.
"He moved out the day after the police report," she said. "Didn't leave a forwarding address. Said he was going abroad."
"Where to?" Areum asked.
The woman shrugged. "Didn't say. Just disappeared."
Areum stared at the locked door, too clean, too fast.
Someone had made sure the witness vanished.
She jotted the date down, underlined it twice, then walked away.
The city lights flickered against her eyes, determination shadowed by something that looked like fear.
Back in the penthouse, Joon-ha sat on the floor, the letter beside him, the necklace looped around his fingers.
He didn't know what to do with it.
Didn't know how to wear hope again.
He unlocked his phone, thumb hovering over Areum's name.
He wanted to tell her everything, that he knew, that he'd loved her before he knew, and that he still did.
But instead, he typed only:
'Can I see you?'
Her reply came seconds later.
'Always.'
When she arrived, he didn't speak.
He just placed the necklace in her hand.
She looked at it, puzzled.
Then she looked at him, really looked and something in her eyes softened.
"You okay?" she asked.
He nodded, though his chest ached with everything unsaid.
"Just remembering," he whispered.
She didn't press.
She never did.
She simply sat beside him, the necklace gleaming faintly in her palm.
"What does it mean?"
"It means I promised someone I'd stay," he said.
Areum closed her fingers around the pendant.
"Then stay," she said softly. "Even if it's just for now."
That night, they didn't talk much.
They just sat shoulder to shoulder, watching the city breathe through the windows.
He reached for her hand, quiet, careful, trembling.
She didn't pull away.
And for the first time in weeks, he felt it again.
Not happiness.
Not peace.
But something close.
A fragile kind of staying.
The next evening, a knock came at the door.
Detective Choi.
Rain dripped from his coat; his eyes were sharp, unblinking.
Areum wasn't home.
Joon-ha opened the door but said nothing.
For a moment, they only stared at each other, two men carrying ghosts.
Then Choi stepped inside.
No one knows what they said.
No one heard.
"I will make sure, the world knows your true color, Joon-Ha"
But seconds later, Joon-ha hit him, hard.
A single, desperate swing.
Choi only smirked, wiped the blood from his lip, and leaned close.
He whispered something.
Something that hollowed Joon-ha's face in an instant.
Then he turned and left, the echo of his footsteps like thunder down the hall.
Joon-ha stood in the doorway, knuckles split, breath shaking and somewhere between the silence and the city noise, the fragile calm he'd built with Areum shattered like glass.