The theater smelled of dust and forgotten voices. Not the rich scent of velvet and wood polish from years ago, but something older. Stale. Hollow. Ji-hoon walked slowly with his cane tapping along the grain of the wooden floor, the echo bouncing back at him like ghosts of every note that had ever been played here. He remembered the stage not from sight, but by the way it breathed. It was alive once. Now, it felt like it had learned how to mourn.
The curtains hadn't moved since the last time they fell. No technician pulled them open. No light hit them from above. They stood like silent mourners, clothed in heavy black, drooping like the shoulders of someone who knew too much and could say nothing.
He stood centerstage. The soles of his shoes knew the spot, the slightly warped board beneath where his bench used to sit. But there was no bench now. Just emptiness. Ji-hoon didn't need it. He sat down cross-legged, like a boy returning to the room where everything had gone wrong. And in a way, that's exactly what this was.
Every note he'd ever played here bled through the walls now. Every thunderous ovation. Every gasp from the audience. Every mistake. Every pause. Every scream. They were carved into the walls like fingerprints he could no longer trace. But he heard them. God, he heard them.
He opened the small music box he brought with him—her music box. The one from his mother's old apartment, the one he thought he'd thrown away, only to find it wrapped in the torn scarf he couldn't bring himself to touch. It still played. The melody was faint, but it played. A few notes sharp now. One broken. But it was still her lullaby.
He held it like a child holds something precious and dying. Gently. Reverently. And when it began to spin, when the cracked ballerina in the center twirled slowly like it was too tired to remember how to dance, Ji-hoon bowed his head.
It wasn't just grief anymore. It was everything after it. The numbness. The years of pretending he didn't miss her. The anger. The helplessness. The guilt. He'd thought killing Si-wan would be the end of it. That revenge would clean out the hollow inside him. But it hadn't. Si-wan was gone, the truth was out, and yet Ji-hoon still felt like a child standing at a piano bench, waiting for a mother who wouldn't come back from the kitchen.
He pressed his fingers against the floor and whispered something he hadn't said in years: "I'm sorry."
The words vanished into the dark like breath in winter.
Then, footsteps. Not imagined this time.
Joon-won.
He didn't speak right away. Just sat next to him, quietly, like the only thing worse than saying the wrong thing would be breaking the moment.
"She would've been proud of you," he said eventually.
"She would've been broken," Ji-hoon replied. "Seeing what I became."
Joon-won didn't argue. Maybe because he didn't disagree. Maybe because he knew Ji-hoon didn't want comfort—just honesty.
"You didn't become this. You survived it," he said. "There's a difference."
Ji-hoon didn't respond. The music box kept turning, its winding gears soft but persistent. The lullaby faltered halfway through, repeated a bar, then tried again. Just like life. Just like him.
"You remember the first recital?" Joon-won asked. "You didn't play. Just sat there."
Ji-hoon gave a faint nod. "I was too scared."
"No. You were listening. To everyone. To the audience, to the piano. You weren't scared. You were studying it."
Ji-hoon allowed himself the smallest smile. "Still didn't play."
"But you came back the next day."
"I always came back," Ji-hoon murmured. "Even after…"
His voice caught. The curtains in front of him moved slightly—draft, or maybe something else. He didn't care. The stage was still breathing, even if the audience was long gone.
"Will you play again?" Joon-won asked.
Ji-hoon was silent for a long time.
"Maybe. But not for applause. Not for stages."
"Then for who?"
"For her. For me. For no one. I don't know."
Joon-won rested his hand on Ji-hoon's shoulder. "That's enough."
The music box stopped. The ballerina, mid-twirl, leaned slightly like she was bowing. Ji-hoon reached down and closed the lid. The final note lingered a bit longer than expected.
They didn't speak again for a while. The silence wasn't uncomfortable. It was deserved.
Finally, Ji-hoon rose. His knees cracked, his back protested. But he stood tall.
He didn't need the piano to find his way out anymore. He didn't need the lights or the crowd. This was no longer his stage. It had served its time. It had held every secret, every scream, every song. And now, it would rest.
He left the music box at the center of the stage.
He didn't look back.
As the theater doors closed behind him, the curtains stirred once more. Then stilled.
The soft hiss of the city's evening winds curled through the cracks in the old building, where once there had been life, music, laughter. Now, only memories remained. Ji-hoon's footsteps echoed through the empty hallways, each step slow and deliberate, as though he were walking through a dream or some place he no longer recognized.
His mind was a whirlwind of fragmented thoughts—his mother's smile, the cold grip of revenge, the sharp echo of Si-wan's voice in his ear, all swirling together like smoke. He tried to focus on the present, tried to block out the intrusive whispers of his past, but it was impossible. Each step he took led him further into a maze of regret, anger, and loss.
The building had once been the pride of the city—this grand theater, where the world had applauded his talent, his gift. But now, it was nothing but a hollow shell, its grandeur stripped away by time and neglect. The stage, once a place of triumph, was now only a memory of the battles fought and lost. His fingers still tingled at the thought of the keys, the sound of music rising from the piano as if it had a life of its own. But the sound was gone now, swallowed by the silence that had replaced everything.
The air felt different here. Heavy. Thick with dust and the weight of what had been. The familiar scent of varnish and wood, once comforting, now made his chest tighten. The theater that had once been his refuge, where music had healed him, had now become a place of mourning. It felt like a tomb, and he was its only living occupant.
As Ji-hoon moved deeper into the building, his fingers brushed against the old walls, the rough texture grounding him to the present, even as his mind wandered. He passed the dressing rooms, the long-forgotten costumes hanging like ghosts in the shadows. The mirrors, cracked and stained, reflected only his own hollow eyes, staring back at him in quiet accusation.
He made his way to the backstage area, where the remnants of old props and lighting equipment lay discarded in the corner, a testament to the many performances that had taken place here. It was here, backstage, where everything had fallen apart. Where the truth had been uncovered, and the weight of betrayal had crushed him under its suffocating pressure.
But it was also here that Ji-hoon had found something—something that had kept him going all these years. He had learned that music, though it had once been his escape, could also be his weapon. It was the one thing he had left. The one thing that could still ignite the fire in his chest.
He paused in front of the old piano that had once belonged to his mother. The keys, though covered in dust, still held the faintest trace of the music that had once filled this space. He reached out, his fingers trembling slightly as they hovered over the worn ivory. For a moment, he simply stood there, breathing in the air around him, letting the silence wash over him.
Then, without thinking, his fingers pressed down on the keys.
The sound was weak at first, faint, but it was enough to stir something inside him. The notes rang out, broken and uneven, but they were there. Music, like a forgotten friend, returning from the depths of his soul. He played slowly, his hands moving instinctively, his mind drawn into the melody as if it were pulling him into a trance. He didn't care if the sound was perfect or clean. He didn't care if it was a performance or just a moment for himself. All that mattered was the music.
The melody grew, the notes spilling from him like water flowing from a broken dam, rushing and chaotic, but full of life. His hands moved faster, the rhythm building with every passing second, as if the music was a lifeline he had grasped desperately. He could feel the old pain surge through him with each note—memories of his mother, of Si-wan, of the years he had spent chasing something that could never be his. But there was a strange release in it too, like the music was cleansing him, pulling out the darkness and leaving only the raw, exposed truth.
The piano continued to hum under his hands, the vibrations filling the air with a sound he had not heard in years. For a moment, everything faded—the pain, the memories, the ghosts that haunted him—and all that was left was the music. He could feel it in his chest, vibrating in his very bones. It was as if the piano itself was speaking to him, telling him that he had finally come home. Not to the theater, not to the applause, but to something deeper, something that transcended the stage.
And then, just as quickly as it had started, the music stopped.
Ji-hoon's hands fell away from the keys, his breath heavy, his chest heaving with the force of what he had just played. He looked down at the piano, the silence settling over him like a thick fog. It felt like an end, and yet it also felt like a beginning.
He closed his eyes for a moment, his heart still racing, the echoes of the music lingering in his mind. When he opened them again, he found himself alone in the room. The theater, the city beyond it, the entire world—all of it felt far away now. All that was left was the space between him and the music. And for the first time in years, Ji-hoon allowed himself to feel the weight of that silence.
His fingers were raw from playing, but they didn't ache as much as they used to. There was no pain in the way they moved now, no fear of what would come next. It was as if the music had released him from the chains he had carried for so long. It was as if the past, the mistakes, and the bloodshed, had been forgiven. Not by others, but by himself.
He stood up, his legs stiff from sitting for so long, and walked to the center of the stage. He turned slowly, taking in the empty seats, the rows upon rows of nothing. The audience was gone. There was no applause. No curtain call. Just the silence that had taken its place.
But that was okay. He didn't need them anymore.
He had music.
And with it, he was free.
The last thing Ji-hoon did before he left was to run his hand over the piano one last time, letting his fingers rest on the keys for a brief moment. He closed his eyes again, breathing in the air of the theater, and then, with one final glance at the stage, he walked away. The sound of his footsteps, the last sound that would ever fill the theater, echoed in the hollow space.
The door to the theater clicked shut behind him.
The silence that followed Ji-hoon's departure seemed to linger in the building, heavy and unyielding. The grand theater, once alive with the sounds of music and the bustling of performers and audience members, was now a monument to the past. It no longer held the vibrancy it once had. It was just a shell, empty and abandoned.
Ji-hoon's heart beat steadily in his chest as he walked away from it all. The familiar streets outside the theater felt strangely alien now. Everything had changed. The world had moved on while he had remained trapped in a web of memories and regrets, chasing the ghosts of his past. But now, as the cool night air washed over him, there was a sense of liberation. He had played his final performance, and in doing so, he had freed himself from the chains that had bound him for so long.
His steps were lighter than they had been in years. The weight on his shoulders, the constant ache of unfinished business, was gone. It wasn't a victory, not in the conventional sense. There was no grand applause, no closure. But for Ji-hoon, it was enough. He had found peace in the music, and that was all he needed.