The music box hadn't played in years.
It sat on the old shelf in Ji-hoon's childhood room, gathering dust in the quiet. He hadn't touched it since she died. No one had. The lacquer had faded, and the once-bright roses etched into its surface had dulled to a murky brown. But the key still turned. That much, he remembered. He had twisted it once, long ago, back when her fingers still brushed his hair and her lullaby still echoed in the halls. Now, it was all that remained of a voice that would never sing again.
Ji-hoon stared at it for a long time that morning. It had been a week since the letter. A week since Si-wan vanished overseas. A week since the stage lights had gone cold. He had barely spoken since. Joon-won stayed close, but silent. Sometimes presence was the loudest comfort.
His fingers hovered over the lid. The warmth of the morning sun barely reached through the dusty windows, but still, the box looked like it glowed, like it remembered being loved.
He opened it.
The click was sharp, mechanical, and the lid rose with a delicate creak. A cracked ballerina, worn at the edges, stood frozen at the center. The key, resting beneath the lid, waited. Ji-hoon hesitated.
Then turned it.
The melody began, soft and uneven at first, like it too had forgotten how to breathe. But then it found rhythm. The same lullaby his mother used to hum at night. The same song she'd written for him when he was too small to understand what music even was. It wasn't a grand sonata or a complex concerto. It was simple. Honest. A love letter in notes.
Ji-hoon sat on the floor, knees tucked to his chest, listening.
And he cried.
Not the broken sobs of grief. Not the angry, clenched silence of mourning. These tears were quieter. Full. Tired. Human. He let them fall. No audience. No shame.
The ballerina turned slowly, as if dancing just for him.
He remembered her now. His mother. Not just the funeral photo or the blurred image in old recordings. But her laugh. Her warmth. The way she used to sway in the kitchen while dinner simmered. The way her hands flew when she played, fierce and free. She wasn't a memory. Not today. She was real.
When the music stopped, Ji-hoon didn't move. He closed the box gently, then leaned his head against the shelf. Everything hurt—but not in the way it used to. Not like the wounds Si-wan left, not like the guilt he carried. This pain was quieter. A companion, not a cage.
He stood.
The piano in the corner of the room hadn't been played in years. Its keys were dusty, the bench uneven. But it was hers. The last song she ever wrote rested on the music stand, its notes half-finished, as if waiting for him to complete it.
Ji-hoon wiped the keys gently with his sleeve. His fingers hovered, uncertain.
Then, slowly, he began to play.
The first notes were soft. Hesitant. But then they grew. He remembered the progression. The way her fingers would drift from minor to major like she was telling a secret. He closed his eyes and followed the path.
The music filled the room.
Joon-won stood quietly in the hallway, listening. He didn't interrupt. Didn't speak. He simply leaned against the wall and let it happen. This wasn't his moment. It belonged to Ji-hoon.
The melody shifted, deepened. Ji-hoon added his own flourishes now—little flourishes of pain and memory. Of loss and gratitude. Her song became theirs.
Outside, the city moved on. Cars passed. Wind stirred the trees. But inside, time bent. Ji-hoon played for hours, until his arms ached and his fingers trembled. He played until he couldn't cry anymore. Until the silence felt earned.
When he finally stopped, the last note hung in the air like a whisper.
He sat back.
Joon-won stepped in. "That was her," he said.
Ji-hoon nodded.
They didn't speak after that. Not until night fell, and the two of them sat on the balcony, watching the city lights flicker below.
"I've been thinking," Ji-hoon said softly. "About everything."
Joon-won didn't interrupt.
"I want to finish the lullaby," Ji-hoon continued. "And then... maybe record it. Play it for the world. Not because I want attention. But because she deserves to be heard."
"She'd love that," Joon-won said.
Ji-hoon smiled faintly. "And maybe I'll build something. A school. A stage where kids like me can play without fear. A place where pain turns into sound."
Joon-won nodded. "You've come far."
"I'm not done," Ji-hoon whispered. "But I'm no longer lost."
The city below blinked like a constellation. And in that moment, Ji-hoon didn't feel blind. He felt full. Whole.
He went back inside and placed the music box on the piano.
It would stay there.
Forever.
The music box was older than memory, older than guilt. Ji-hoon's fingers trembled over the smooth lid as if touching it would crack the world wide open again. The box was small, carved with delicate floral engravings his mother had once traced with her fingers while humming lullabies. It hadn't played in years. Or maybe it had, but only in his dreams.
He sat on the floor of the dimly lit room, Joon-won nearby but silent. This wasn't a moment for conversation. It was the aftermath of storms—of bloodshed and confessions and silence louder than sirens. Ji-hoon didn't ask how the box had made it here. Joon-won hadn't said. Maybe it didn't matter. All that mattered was that it had survived.
He finally twisted the key.
The tune was hesitant at first, like a voice relearning a song from childhood. It played brokenly, like it remembered too much and not enough. Ji-hoon didn't cry. There were no tears left after everything. After Si-wan's letter. After the fire. After the collapse. His emotions had nowhere to go anymore—they hovered in his chest like ghosts.
"I used to fall asleep to this," he said quietly. "Before... before I stopped needing lullabies."
Joon-won sat beside him, legs crossed. "Your mother left it behind when you moved."
"Because she thought I'd come back." Ji-hoon's voice cracked without breaking. "Or because she couldn't take everything with her. Maybe both."
The melody continued. Ji-hoon counted the notes like he used to count heartbeats. He didn't want the song to end, but he also knew it wasn't meant to play forever.
"She used to hum it when she thought I couldn't hear her," he said. "After her concerts. In the kitchen. It wasn't for anyone else. Just... for herself."
"And now it's for you."
"No," Ji-hoon said. "Now it's all that's left."
He didn't mean to reopen the box of memories in his mind, but the music didn't give him a choice. He could hear her again, not as a ghost but as a presence. Holding his hand. Covering his ears during thunderstorms. Scolding him gently for playing too hard on the piano. Whispering that she loved him after thinking he was asleep.
"I hated her," he admitted suddenly. "For dying. For leaving me with silence. For not telling me the whole truth. I hated her because I couldn't hate the man who killed her. Not for years."
Joon-won didn't flinch. "You were a child."
"That's not an excuse anymore." Ji-hoon's fingers grazed the edge of the box, as if memorizing it through touch could bring her back. "She kept so much from me. Maybe to protect me. Maybe because she didn't know how to say it. But that silence... it grew teeth. It turned into monsters."
"Monsters that wear cologne," Joon-won murmured.
Ji-hoon gave a humorless laugh. "Monsters that smile in interviews. Who make you believe in them. Monsters with siblings who tried to undo their damage with letters."
Silence followed, thick and grieving.
And then—snap.
The music stopped. The coil reached its end.
Ji-hoon waited, hoping for another note. A last echo. But it was done.
"Do you think she forgave me?" Ji-hoon whispered. "For not saving her. For not remembering enough. For trying to forget."
"I think she never blamed you," Joon-won answered.
Ji-hoon nodded. Slowly. As if believing it would cost him something.
The room was too still. So he opened the box again.
This time, no music.
Just the rustle of something shifting beneath the velvet interior. A hidden compartment?
Ji-hoon's breath caught.
With careful fingers, he pressed around the lining until something clicked. A thin panel lifted.
Inside was a folded note. A small photograph.
He handed both to Joon-won.
The photo was old—creased at the corners, but clear. His mother standing in front of the conservatory, young, smiling. Holding baby Ji-hoon in her arms.
"She looks so proud," Joon-won said.
"She always was. Even when I messed up."
The note was shorter than they expected.
But the words were heavy:
If you ever find this, Ji-hoon— Don't chase revenge. Chase music. Don't kill what's broken. Heal what's left. I never wanted you to become a weapon. I loved you more than my own name. Even if the world forgets me—don't let it silence you. Play loud. Even in the dark.
He couldn't breathe.
The words blurred, not from tears but from everything they awakened in him. The sound of her voice in his memory. The warmth of her arms. The way she used to say his name like it was music itself.
"I became everything she feared," he whispered. "I let rage consume me. I let Si-wan turn me into a mirror."
"You didn't kill him," Joon-won said quietly.
"But I wanted to."
"Wanting and doing aren't the same."
Ji-hoon's hands clenched. "I think I stopped playing for her a long time ago. It became survival. It became noise. She never wanted that."
"Then play again. For her. For yourself. For all the things you buried."
Ji-hoon was silent.
Then he stood.
He walked to the piano in the corner of the room—the one he hadn't touched since the final performance. Since the fire. Since the screams.
He sat down.
His fingers hovered.
Then—he played.
It wasn't perfect. It wasn't polished.
But it was real.
Raw. Breathing. Full of grief and ache and memory.
Joon-won closed his eyes.
For the first time in weeks, there was no echo of Si-wan's footsteps in Ji-hoon's mind. No scent of blood. Just a boy playing the piano because he needed to. Because silence wasn't enough.
The music didn't erase what had happened.
But it reached into the ruins and lit a candle.
And sometimes, that was enough.
The keys felt cold under his fingers, but the music that spilled out was anything but. Each note shimmered with the weight of loss, but not the kind that crushed—it was the kind that remembered. Ji-hoon's hands trembled not from fear, but from recognition. He wasn't just playing a piece—he was digging into the marrow of memory and turning it into sound.
The melody shifted. Something softer, gentler. Like the lullabies his mother used to hum when the world outside their apartment felt too loud. He could still picture her in the kitchen, swaying slightly with a wooden spoon in hand, singing under her breath. Her voice never reached performance level in those moments—it was cracked and quiet, just for him. Intimate. Sacred.
His breath stuttered as he played the phrase again. This time slower, letting each note breathe.
Joon-won hadn't moved. He sat on the couch, one hand on the photograph, the other curled into a fist on his knee. Ji-hoon could feel his presence behind him like a metronome—steady, anchoring. For all the chaos they'd survived, this silence felt right.
Outside the window, the city moved on. Cars honked, distant sirens passed, a child somewhere shouted with laughter. The world didn't stop for grief. It didn't even pause. But in that room, in that moment, the world bent just enough to let Ji-hoon feel something he hadn't dared to: peace.
He reached the end of the song. Let the final note linger, hover in the air like a question with no answer. Then he pressed the pedal slowly and let it fade.
For a second, there was nothing.
And then—applause.
Not real. Not from an audience.
Just one pair of hands clapping, slow and quiet and meaningful.
Joon-won.
Ji-hoon turned slightly, blinking fast. "That wasn't for applause."
"I know," Joon-won said. "But someone should still tell you it was beautiful."
Ji-hoon looked down at the keys. "It wasn't perfect."
"No." Joon-won stood, stepping closer. "It was better."
Ji-hoon closed the lid of the piano gently. He exhaled, a long breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding for years.
"Maybe it's time to stop surviving," he said. "And start living."
Joon-won nodded. "Your mother would've liked that."
Ji-hoon picked up the music box again.
He didn't need it to play anymore.
He remembered the melody now.