The rain started suddenly that night, pounding against the dormitory windows like a heartbeat with nowhere to go. Haru sat cross-legged on the wooden floor, the Star Rain notebook cradled in his lap. He wasn't reading it. Just holding it. Like it might slip away if he let go.
Minju drifted above, arms hugging her translucent frame. Her glow, faint and uneven, cast trembling shadows along the ceiling.
"I've been thinking," she said quietly. "Maybe… I'm not supposed to move on yet."
Haru looked at her, his expression unreadable.
She drifted closer, voice soft and fragile. "It's not this place that holds me. It's everything I didn't finish. The songs I never shared. The words I never said. The dream I chased until it broke me."
Her glow dimmed.
"I think… I stayed because some part of me believed I still had something to fix. That if I just stayed long enough, kept helping, maybe it would undo the failure somehow."
She paused, as if unsure whether to say the next part.
"You think staying behind is some kind of punishment?" he asked.
Her expression wavered. "Isn't it?"
He didn't speak right away. He set the notebook aside and got to his feet, walking toward the window. Rain snaked down the glass in long, distorted trails.
"I used to think pain had to mean something," he said quietly. "That if something hurt enough, it had to count for more."
He turned to face her.
"But maybe it just… hurts. And maybe moving forward doesn't erase what happened. Maybe it just means you're ready to stop living in that one memory."
Minju didn't answer, but her light dimmed. Guilt still clung to her — not just from the accident, but from years of being stuck inside it.
"I miss his voice," she said after a while. "Not the way he sang. Just… the way he talked. The way he made stupid jokes when I was spiraling. I forget the sound more each day."
Haru reached down and gently opened the notebook. The pages fluttered slightly from the breeze, then settled on a newer entry — the one with Hyunwoo's message.
"You haven't lost it," he said. "It's still here. In the melody. In the lyrics you helped him write."
He sat back down beside her. "So let's finish it. Together."
Minju blinked. "Even if it doesn't matter to anyone else?"
"It matters to us," Haru said.
That was enough.
They worked through the night, the rain outside like background static. Haru played through the chorus over and over, tweaking chord progressions and matching them to the lyrics Hyunwoo had left behind. Minju floated nearby, whispering harmonies under her breath. Her voice was soft, unsteady—but it held.
When they reached a section she couldn't get through, she paused, tears in her eyes.
Haru simply waited.
And then — together — they rewrote it. Not to erase the past, but to make room for something gentler. Something true.
The final chord lingered in the room long after they stopped playing.
Minju's glow steadied.
"I don't feel lighter," she admitted. "Not really. But I feel… seen."
"That's a start," Haru said, smiling faintly.
She nodded. "It is."
The next morning, when the sun finally rose and the rest of the trainees began to stir, Haru uploaded the track to the internal system. He didn't attach his name. No credits, no explanation. Just the file.
He submitted it to the monthly showcase list.
He wasn't doing it to debut.
Not anymore.
It was about honoring a promise. About finishing something beautiful.
Together.