There are nights that feel alive. Nights that lean close and whisper things a person wishes they could forget. Nights that remember everything someone wants to bury. Ha Jun has always feared those nights the most.
Tonight is one of them.
Classes ended hours ago, but he still sits in the nearly empty practice room with the piano in front of him. The air is thick and quiet. The windows are dark mirrors. The world outside has folded into stillness.
His fingers hover above the keys but do not touch them. He feels drained, emptied in a way that frightens him. As if something slipped out of him sometime during the day and left only a shell trying to remember how to breathe.
For the first time in years, the smile he relies on refuses to form.
The silence presses against him like a pair of hands. His chest rises and falls in slow uneven breaths. He leans forward and rests his forehead against the cool surface of the piano.
He closes his eyes.
The darkness inside his mind opens again.
He hears the soft echo of his younger sister's voice. The one he lost. The one who never grew old enough to understand the world.
He hears the sound of his parents crying on his sixteenth birthday.
The sound that sent him into a treatment center for eight long months.
The sound he never forgot.
The memories swirl, forming shadows he knows too well.
He whispers her name into the empty room. The name he never says out loud anymore.
It lingers in the air like a fragile truth that still hurts to touch.
A soft knock interrupts the silence.
Ha Jun does not move at first. He thinks he imagined it. But then the door opens just a little, and a familiar voice spills into the dim room.
"Ha Jun… are you here?"
Ji Hye.
Her voice does something to his chest. It does not heal, but it softens the sharpness of his thoughts.
He does not answer.
She steps inside anyway.
When she sees him sitting at the piano with his head bowed, her breath catches. She walks toward him slowly, as though any sudden movement might tip him over the edge.
"Are you alright?" she asks gently.
He lifts his head but does not look at her. His eyes are red, not from tears but from exhaustion so deep it looks like grief.
"I am fine," he murmurs, but the sentence breaks halfway through.
Ji Hye takes a seat beside him without asking.
"You do not have to pretend with me," she says. Her tone carries no pressure, only truth.
Ha Jun swallows. He stares at the blank sheet of music in front of him. A page with no notes. A page waiting for someone to write something honest.
He speaks before he can stop himself.
"I used to play for her," he whispers. "My sister. The one who passed."
Ji Hye turns slowly toward him. She waits. She does not interrupt. She lets him lead.
"She liked the sound," he continues. "She said it made her feel like everything would be alright. Even on days when she felt sick. Even when she was scared. She would listen, and she would smile."
His voice shakes like something fragile that has lived inside a box for too long.
"I told her I would never stop playing for her."
He pauses.
A long breath.
A trembling exhale.
"But after she died, I could not touch the piano for months. Every time I tried, it felt like I was breaking a promise. And every time I did not, it felt like I was breaking another one."
Ji Hye's eyes soften. She places her hand gently on the piano bench beside his, close enough to offer comfort but not close enough to overwhelm him.
"You were young," she says. "You should not blame yourself for surviving something you had no control over."
He lets out a soft laugh, but there is no joy in it. "I survived. She did not. What kind of exchange is that?"
"A cruel one," Ji Hye answers. "But not your fault. Never your fault."
Ha Jun closes his eyes again. He feels the weight of her words, but the guilt inside him is rooted deeper than comfort can reach.
"I keep hearing her voice," he admits. "Especially at night. She calls my name. Sometimes it sounds like she is laughing. Other times it sounds like she is crying. And I cannot tell which one hurts more."
Ji Hye's heart aches. She has seen him tired. She has seen him quiet. But this version of him, this stripped and trembling truth, feels sacred in its vulnerability.
She reaches out slowly and rests her hand on his. Her touch is warm. Steady. Real.
"You do not need to hold this alone," she whispers. "You have carried it for so long. Let someone share it with you."
His hand tightens around hers before he even knows he is doing it.
"I do not know how," he whispers.
"You can start by breathing," she says. "Just breathe with me."
He tries.
His inhale is shaky.
His exhale uneven.
But he tries.
Ji Hye matches her breathing to his. Slow and patient.
The room remains quiet, but the silence changes. It warms. It softens. It holds both of them gently.
After a long moment, Ha Jun lifts the cover of the piano keys. The soft sound of the wood moving startles both of them.
Ji Hye watches him carefully.
He places his fingers on the keys. They tremble. He hesitates.
Ji Hye whispers, "Play only if you want to. Not for me. Not for her. For yourself."
He closes his eyes.
His fingers press down.
The first notes are soft and unsteady, but they form something real. Something raw. Something that feels like a confession without words.
Ji Hye listens with her hand still in his.
He plays a melody that belonged to his childhood. A melody he had buried with his sister. A melody that rises slowly, shyly, as if unsure it is allowed to exist.
Halfway through, his voice breaks.
"I miss her," he whispers. "I miss her so much."
Ji Hye tightens her hold.
"I know."
He keeps playing until the tremor in his fingers steadies. Until his breathing evens out. Until the room feels less like a cage and more like a place where healing might someday live.
When he finishes, he does not smile. He simply sits there, chest rising and falling with quiet intensity.
Ji Hye rests her head lightly against his shoulder.
They stay like that for a long time.
And for the first night in years, the darkness inside Ha Jun does not feel like a storm waiting to swallow him.
It feels like a space where he is finally seen.