Joon Ha's POV
They said time heals, but no one warned me that love remembers.
No one told me that even silence can sound like her voice.
Every morning now begins the same.
A cup of coffee left on her doorstep, the one from her favorite café, the one she used to drink with too much sugar because she liked how "imperfection tastes honest."
I don't know if she still drinks it.
Maybe she pours it away. Maybe she knows it's from me.
But it's there, every morning, warm before sunrise, gone before I return.
It's the only conversation we have left.
The city doesn't forgive secrets.
My name trends every day now, Kang Joon-ha, the heir who lied.
They say I betrayed my fans, that my love story was scripted, that I'm my father's shadow wearing another man's face.
They're not wrong.
But they're not right either.
Sometimes I scroll through the comments just to see if anyone still believes in the version of me I tried to become, the kpop artist who loved, not the son who inherited.
And then I stop, because the more I read, the smaller I feel.
The world doesn't realize that their curiosity is a kind of violence too.
When the weather forecast says rain, I drive quietly to her neighborhood.
I never knock. I never speak.
I just place an umbrella in front of her door, a simple black one, the kind that won't stand out in the crowd.
Because if she uses it, I'll know she forgave me for a moment, even if she doesn't mean to.
And if she doesn't, I'll still know she's dry when she walks home.
I've become good at loving her quietly.
The kind of love that doesn't ask for attention, only distance.
There's a word I learned once, han (한) sorrow without end, a grief that becomes part of your soul.
That's what she became to me.
Not a wound. A pulse.
When the streetlight outside her apartment broke, I sent an electrician anonymously.
They said it was for "district maintenance."
But I knew better.
I used to stand under that light when she was late coming home from work, pretending to check my phone, just so she'd feel safe.
Now I can't be there.
Now all I can do is make sure that light never dies again.
Love changes shape when you can't be near it.
It turns into protection, then regret, then silence.
And sometimes, when I look at her building from a distance, I whisper,
"You don't have to forgive me. Just live."
Music is the only language I have left.
Every song I've written lately carries her shadow, the way she laughed into her hand, the way her eyes softened when she listened instead of spoke.
I don't use her name, but if she ever listens, she'll know.
Because in the bridge of every melody, I leave a note only she'd understand, a memory disguised as rhythm.
My producer asked once,
"Who is this song about?"
I smiled. "Someone who taught me what silence sounds like."
And when I play it back in the studio, late at night, headphones on, city asleep,
I can almost hear her say,
"That's too sad for a love song."
To which I'd reply,
"Then maybe it isn't a love song. Maybe it's a goodbye."
But the world doesn't pause for heartbreak.
Father's meetings with investors have tripled.
Our publicist calls daily with statements to approve.
Every message begins the same: Damage control. Image repair. Responsibility.
He called me into his office last night, the same office where I first told him I wanted to sing instead of join the company.
He stood by the window, holding a glass of whiskey that caught the light like blood in crystal.
"You've humiliated this family," he said calmly. "You should have told me before you chased after that girl."
"She's not—"
"She's everything they'll use against you," he interrupted. "Against us."
I wanted to tell him that she was the only thing that ever made me human.
But I've learned that words mean nothing to a man who measures love in losses.
He turned to me, his voice low.
"You will marry Ara. You will fix this."
I laughed, the kind of laugh that comes from disbelief, not humor.
"You're asking me to marry for control."
"I'm asking you to survive," he said. "You're too much like your mother. Always feeling before thinking. That's why she broke."
His words cut deeper than he intended.
Because he was right.
And because I didn't want to be right beside him.
When I left his office, I didn't drive home.
I parked near the Han River and sat for hours, watching reflections tremble in the water.
The city looked different upside down, softer, lonelier.
And I thought, maybe that's what I've become too, a reflection of everything I used to be.
I thought of Areum again.
Of how she'd look at me and somehow see more than the mask I built.
How her presence made even silence feel full.
How I still instinctively reached for my phone whenever something beautiful happened, just to tell her.
But I can't anymore.
Because now, everything I touch turns to rumor.
There's a scene in one of my old MV where my character says,
"You can't unlove someone. You just learn to love them differently."
I didn't understand it when I said it.
Now I do.
Every day, I love her by not calling.
By letting her hate me.
By existing quietly at the edge of her world so she can move freely in it.
Love isn't always staying.
Sometimes it's stepping aside without a sound.
_______________
Tonight, the pressure finally broke.
The calls, the headlines, the obligations, they all collided in one unbearable silence.
I sat in my penthouse, piano untouched, phone flashing endlessly.
Then, without meaning to, I started to play.
A melody that felt like bleeding.
A confession no one would hear.
My voice cracked halfway through the chorus.
And I realized, I wasn't singing anymore. I was pleading.
To her.
To myself.
To a version of us that only existed in the moments before everything fell apart.
When the last note faded, I laughed through the tears.
Because all of it, the fame, the façade, the family, none of it had weight compared to the sound of her name in my throat.
I slid to the floor, back against the piano, breath shaking.
"If love is a war, then I surrender," I whispered.
"But if love is a choice, I'd still choose you."
And for the first time since the scandal, I allowed myself to cry, not like an artist, not like a son, but like a man who finally realized he couldn't fix what the world broke.
Outside, the rain began again, steady, unending, almost merciful.
Somewhere across the city, maybe she heard it too.
Maybe she reached for the umbrella I left.
Maybe she didn't.
Either way, it didn't matter.
Because love, like rain, doesn't need to be seen to be felt.
And as the thunder rolled softly in the distance, I whispered the words I'd never dare send:
"Even if you never come back, thank you for teaching me that everything beautiful hurts."