It was almost midnight when Haru found himself back in the practice room.
The door clicked shut behind him, sealing off the rest of the world. The air was heavy, still clinging to the remnants of the day. Dim overhead lights flickered faintly, casting long shadows across the mirrors that lined the walls. The floor beneath his feet was tacky with dried sweat—proof of hours poured into routines, mistakes, and repetition. Above him, Minju hovered in slow, drifting loops, her expression more subdued than usual.
He hadn't told the others where he was going. He hadn't needed to. Something had pulled him back here, the same silent pull that had brought him before. It wasn't curiosity anymore. It was instinct. Memory. A call he couldn't ignore.
"I don't like this feeling," Minju whispered, her voice fragile, as if speaking louder might awaken something.
"What feeling?" Haru asked without turning.
She floated lower, her gaze fixed uneasily on the mirrors. "Like something's… close," she murmured. "Watching."
He stepped forward, slowly approaching the mirror. His reflection appeared as expected—tired eyes, sweat-darkened shirt, tousled hair. But something about it felt wrong. Off. He narrowed his eyes.
Then—flicker.
It was quick, almost like a blink in the glass. But it was there.
The boy.
Clearer than before. This time, not a shadow or a trick of the light. He stood just behind Haru's shoulder in the mirror's surface, his outline sharp and unmistakable. Hair long enough to fall over one eye. A faded trainee uniform. Eyes filled with quiet sorrow. Mouth parted, as if he were about to speak.
Minju gasped, her form snapping to attention.
"That's him," she said breathlessly.
She drifted closer to the mirror, trembling now, her entire presence tinged with something between recognition and fear. The silence hung thick between them.
"I remember his name," she whispered.
Haru's breath caught in his throat. He didn't move. Couldn't.
"Hyunwoo," she said at last, her voice a hush. "His name was Hyunwoo."
They raced back to Haru's dorm, feet pounding down the silent hallway. The air felt colder now, tighter, like the building itself knew what had stirred. Minju floated beside him in quick, jerky motions, her translucent form flickering with unease. She didn't speak at first—just hovered, lips parted, expression stormy with confusion.
"Why now?" she finally muttered, voice cracking mid-air. "Why did it all come back just then?"
Haru glanced at her, breathless but focused. "I think… the closer we get to what's unfinished," he said, pushing open the dorm door, "the more you remember."
Inside, everything was exactly as he'd left it. The dim lamp glowed from the desk corner. Bunk beds loomed in quiet stillness. No sounds from the hall, no voices nearby. Just them.
Climbing into his bunk, Haru reached under the mattress and pulled out the worn Star Rain notebook. The edges were curled, pages softened from age and use. He flipped through it slowly, searching for something familiar—something that matched the strange pull in his chest.
Then he stopped.
"Minju."
Her voice came from near his shoulder. "What?"
He turned the page again, heart skipping.
There it was.
A new entry.
The ink looked fresher than the others—darker, un-smudged. Someone had written here recently. But Haru hadn't. And neither had Minju.
His eyes scanned the page.
Minju,I waited. You didn't come back. I wrote it anyway. For both of us.If you ever find this — sing it. Let the world hear us.
— Hyunwoo
Minju floated back, covering her mouth with trembling hands.
"I didn't… I didn't know he left that," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "I left him behind."
Haru looked up at her gently, the ache in his chest growing deeper with every breath. "No," he said softly. "Something happened."
She stared at him, eyes wide with something deeper than sadness—something ancient and broken.
"I think he died with me," she said.
And for a long moment, neither of them moved.
Later that night, they sat together on the dorm rooftop, the world below cloaked in stillness. The city stretched out in soft lights and long shadows, distant sirens barely audible beneath the hush of midnight. Between them sat the Star Rain notebook, its cover worn, corners curling upward in the cool breeze.
Minju hovered close beside him, her glow gentler than usual, but there was something different now—something heavier. She looked more solid, more present, like the memories were anchoring her.
"I remember the fight," she said suddenly, her voice quiet but steady.
Haru turned to her, startled. "What fight?"
She didn't answer at first, just stared out over the railing, eyes dim with recollection.
"Hyunwoo wanted to quit," she said finally. "He said the company didn't see us. That they didn't care, no matter how hard we worked. He was so sure it was all pointless. And I… I told him he was wrong. That we had to push through. I told him he was being selfish. Delusional."
Her voice cracked, trembling at the edge of the memory.
"I stormed out. I was so angry. I didn't even listen to him. Just ran. Across the street." She paused. "I wasn't looking."
Haru felt his chest tighten. The breeze suddenly felt colder.
"A car—" she started, but the words stuck in her throat.
She didn't need to finish.
Haru's breath caught, a sharp intake of air that didn't quite make it to his lungs.
"Both of you?" he asked softly.
Minju nodded, her light flickering.
"I think… I died instantly," she said. "But he didn't. He ran after me. I remember turning for just a second, seeing him behind me. He tried to save me."
For a moment, silence settled between them. A silence filled with everything unsaid, everything too heavy to speak.
Haru looked up at the stars, their quiet glow like pinpricks in the vast dark sky.
"Then he never crossed over either," he said.
Minju didn't answer right away. She looked at him, eyes wide with sorrow.
"No," she whispered. "He stayed. Just like me. Trapped."
In the days that followed, Haru began to rehearse the newest song from the notebook. He didn't tell anyone else about it. Not yet. This one felt different—like it didn't belong to the present. Like it was stitched from someone else's heartbeat.
The song didn't have a title. Just a first line, written in Hyunwoo's looping, careful handwriting. A quiet sentence that carried more weight than entire verses sometimes did:
I sang to the stars but only silence answered.
It was enough. Haru sat alone in the practice room the first time he sang it aloud, the melody forming gently, reverently, like dust lifted from forgotten pages. The chords came slowly, but the words… the words felt as though they had always lived in him, waiting to be called back into the air.
Minju listened in silence the whole time, floating near the wall, arms wrapped tightly around herself. And when he finished, she cried.
Not just misty-eyed. Not her usual dramatic, exaggerated sobs meant to lighten the mood.
These were real.
Raw.
Tears slipped down Minju's cheeks — quiet, unhurried, as if they'd been waiting a long time to fall.
She didn't bother hiding them.
"You sound like him," she said softly. "Not just in voice. In the way you listen. In the way you try."
Haru said nothing for a moment. His hands rested still on the keyboard, gaze steady on her.
"You cared about him a lot," he said.
Minju gave a small nod. "I think I did. Maybe more than I realized."
There was no judgment in Haru's expression. Just a soft exhale and the kind of silence that feels like support.
"That's okay," he said simply.
Minju looked at him through damp lashes. "You're not weirded out?"
He shook his head. "No. You're allowed to miss people. Even if they're gone. Even if they never really got to know you back."
She let out a shaky breath that turned into a laugh. "Ghosts are messy."
Haru smiled faintly. "So are people."
That night, long after the dorm had gone quiet and even the city lights seemed to dim, Haru sat at his desk with the notebook open in front of him. The pages rustled gently in the breeze slipping through the cracked window. Most of them were already filled—lyrics, scraps of melodies, memories inked in handwriting that wasn't his. But there was still space left at the very back.
He picked up his pen.
For a moment, he didn't move. Just sat there, breathing slow, letting the weight of everything settle.
Then, carefully, he wrote:
"I'll carry your story to the stage, Hyunwoo. I won't let it be forgotten."— Haru
The words sat quietly on the page, but they felt loud somehow. Final, but not an ending.
He closed the notebook gently, pressing his palm against the cover for a moment like a silent promise.
Across the room, the mirror reflected him in soft shadows.
But it no longer scared him.
Not the flickers, not the glimpses, not the presence behind the glass.
Because now he understood—what he was seeing wasn't a ghost, or some curse meant to cling and chill.
It was a memory.
A story.
A song, waiting to be heard.
And he would be the one to sing it.