The knock on Ji-hoon's door came just before midnight.
Three sharp raps—urgent, almost angry—cracked through the apartment's silence. He froze where he sat at the piano, the unfinished melody trembling beneath his fingers. For a moment, he didn't move. The world had taught him not to trust late-night visitors. Not anymore.
Another knock, louder this time.
"Ji-hoon. It's me."
Ji-eun's voice, strained. Almost breaking.
He pushed back the bench and crossed the room in two strides, heart hammering against his ribs. When he unlocked the door, Ji-eun didn't wait for an invitation. She shoved it open and slipped inside like a shadow chased by something darker.
Her hair was wind-tossed, jacket half-zipped, eyes wild. She looked over her shoulder before slamming the door shut behind her.
"You can't trust anyone anymore," she hissed, locking the bolt herself.
Ji-hoon took a step back, unsettled by the terror she wore like a second skin. "What happened?"
She turned to him then, and in the dim light of the apartment, he could see it—something had shattered inside her. Her hands were shaking so badly she had to ball them into fists just to stop it. Her breathing was ragged, as if she'd been running.
"I don't have much time," Ji-eun said, voice low but fierce. "They're watching me. Probably watching you too."
He opened his mouth to demand answers, but Ji-eun shook her head violently.
"Listen." She grabbed his arm, nails digging into his sleeve. "You're closer to the truth than you realize. That's why they're getting desperate. That's why Si-wan's pushing harder."
Ji-hoon's blood ran cold. "What truth?"
"The truth about your mother. About the Conservatory. About—" She broke off, glancing wildly toward the window as if expecting shadows to peel themselves off the walls. "Everything."
The old anger surged up in Ji-hoon's chest. He'd spent years trapped in the dark, questioning everything, begging for someone—anyone—to tell him the truth. And now, with it dangling so close, Ji-eun looked ready to tear it away from him again.
"You owe me more than riddles," he said, voice low and dangerous. "Tell me."
Ji-eun's hands trembled again. She backed away, running a hand through her hair. For a second, she looked like she might break down right there on his living room floor. But she didn't. She straightened, jaw tightening, and spoke the words like a confession.
"Si-wan's family… They weren't just donors. They owned part of the Conservatory. They pulled strings no one else could. When your mother started asking questions about the funding, the favoritism—when she started getting close to secrets she wasn't supposed to find—" Ji-eun swallowed hard. "They silenced her."
The room spun slightly around Ji-hoon. His hands fisted at his sides.
"She was murdered," he said, tasting the bitterness of it. "You're telling me Si-wan's family had her killed."
Ji-eun squeezed her eyes shut, nodding. "It wasn't supposed to happen like that. She was supposed to be threatened, scared into quitting, into silence. But she didn't back down. And then… it got out of hand."
The piano behind him loomed like a grave marker in the dim apartment. The lullabies, the echoes of the life he had before—it all felt like it had been built on a lie. And Si-wan… the man who had pretended to be a friend, an ally… he had known.
Ji-hoon's throat felt raw. "Why are you telling me this now?"
Ji-eun opened her eyes and looked at him, and for the first time, he saw real fear there. Not the usual caution. Not the political games. Fear that lived deep in her bones.
"Because I'm next," she said hoarsely. "I know too much. I wasn't supposed to tell you. If they find out—"
"They'll silence you too," Ji-hoon finished, the taste of bile rising in his throat.
Ji-eun nodded, her lips trembling.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The silence wrapped around them like a noose.
Finally, Ji-eun took a step closer, lowering her voice to a desperate whisper.
"They're not just trying to scare you anymore, Ji-hoon. They want you broken. Discredited. They want the world to think you're crazy. That you're unstable. That nothing you say can be trusted."
He thought of the way reporters had swarmed him after the recital. The stories planted in the media—about his outbursts, his paranoia. He thought of the strange accidents lately, the way he was always a few steps away from disaster without even realizing it.
It wasn't coincidence.
It was a campaign.
"They're setting you up," Ji-eun said, tightening her grip on his arm. "They're building a case, little by little. So that when you finally figure everything out—when you stand up to tell the world what they did—no one will believe you."
The room felt like it was shrinking around him, the walls pushing closer, suffocating.
Ji-hoon forced himself to speak past the panic rising in his chest. "How do I stop them?"
Ji-eun's face twisted in pain. "You can't. Not completely. They're too powerful."
Her words felt like a death sentence.
"But—" she added quickly, desperately, "you can survive it. You can fight smart. You have to gather your own evidence. You have to protect the people you trust. And when you strike… you have to make it a blow they can't recover from."
Ji-hoon let the weight of that sink into him. His entire life—every performance, every memory—had been leading to this battle. And it was no longer about proving anything to the world. It was about survival. About justice. About taking back what they had stolen from him.
"What about you?" he asked quietly. "What will you do?"
Ji-eun smiled then—a bitter, broken thing.
"I'll buy you time," she said simply. "I'll keep them looking at me long enough for you to move."
He felt a flash of something sharp and painful in his chest. "They'll destroy you."
She shrugged. "Maybe. But it'll be worth it."
Ji-hoon didn't know what to say to that. There weren't words big enough to thank someone for burning themselves alive to light your way.
Instead, he reached out and grabbed her hand—the one that still trembled—and squeezed it once, fiercely.
"Be careful," he said, voice rough.
She nodded, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. "You too, Ji-hoon."
Then she was gone—out the door and swallowed by the night—leaving behind nothing but her warning and the sinking certainty that the war had truly begun.
Ji-hoon stood there alone for a long time, the weight of everything crashing down on him.
He wasn't just fighting for the truth anymore.
He was fighting to survive it.
The apartment felt too large after Ji-eun left.
Ji-hoon stood frozen, her last words rattling around in his mind like coins in a hollow box: You can't trust anyone. Protect the ones you love. Strike once—and make it fatal.
He ran a hand through his hair, feeling the sweat slick his scalp. His skin itched with a terrible awareness now. Every shadow looked suspect. Every sound from the hallway was an intruder's footstep. The walls of his own home pressed in, suffocating.
He had survived so much already. The loneliness. The blindness. The betrayal. But this—this was different. This was knowing that every step he took now was on a battlefield, and he was already in someone's crosshairs.
His hands trembled slightly as he moved across the apartment, checking the locks again, pulling the curtains closed tighter. He sat back down at the piano, but the keys felt foreign under his fingers, like they belonged to another life, another person who hadn't yet realized the world wanted him erased.
The notes that came out were jagged, ugly.
He slammed the cover down over the keys and pressed his fists to his forehead, trying to steady his breathing.
Think.
He needed a plan.
Ji-eun was right—evidence was the only weapon left. The truth wouldn't matter if no one believed him. He needed proof that couldn't be manipulated or erased. Something bigger than accusations. Something real.
But where would he even start?
Si-wan's mask had been perfect for years. Untouchable, charming, admired. To the public, he was a prodigy, a philanthropist, a symbol of everything good the Conservatory produced. No one wanted to believe the villain wore a crown.
And yet... cracks had started to show. Ji-hoon had seen it in the way Si-wan tightened his jaw when challenged, in the way his performances lately carried a desperate, almost frantic energy. Si-wan was afraid. Not of Ji-hoon personally, but of what he represented: the end of a long-cultivated lie.
And fear made people sloppy.
A knock startled Ji-hoon again, but this time it was different—softer, tentative. He rose carefully, heart thudding painfully in his chest, and moved to the door without making a sound.
"Ji-hoon?" A familiar voice—Joon-won's—muffled through the door. "It's just me."
Ji-hoon unlocked it but kept the chain on, opening it a few inches.
Joon-won's face appeared, pale and worried. His hoodie was soaked from the misty night air.
"I saw Ji-eun leaving your building. She looked... bad," Joon-won said. "What's going on?"
Ji-hoon hesitated for a moment. Trust had become currency too precious to spend lightly. But if there was anyone left he could bet his life on, it was Joon-won.
He unhooked the chain and let him in.
"Lock it behind you," Ji-hoon muttered.
Joon-won obeyed, eyes darting nervously around the apartment. "You're scaring me, man."
Ji-hoon didn't waste time. He explained everything—Ji-eun's warning, Si-wan's manipulation, the campaign to ruin him. Every ugly piece he knew.
By the time he finished, Joon-won's face was drained of color. He sank onto the couch, running both hands through his hair.
"They're trying to destroy you before you can destroy them," he whispered.
Ji-hoon nodded grimly. "And anyone who helps me."
Joon-won swallowed hard, the weight of the situation settling visibly on his shoulders. But when he looked up again, there was a stubborn fire in his eyes.
"Then we won't let them."
Ji-hoon's chest tightened painfully. We.
Not you. We.
It had been so long since anyone had stood beside him without needing something in return.
"You'll be a target too," Ji-hoon said quietly. "You already are, probably."
Joon-won cracked a humorless smile. "What's new? I've been your manager for years. Half the industry already hates me."
It was a small thing. A joke, almost. But it was enough to break the tension between them, just a little. Enough to remind Ji-hoon that he wasn't alone. Not entirely.
"We need proof," Ji-hoon said. "Something they can't bury."
Joon-won nodded. "I have some contacts. Journalists who aren't bought. Private investigators."
Ji-hoon hesitated. "If they trace you back to me—"
"They won't," Joon-won interrupted firmly. "Let me worry about that."
The weight shifted slightly off Ji-hoon's chest. Not gone—but lighter. Manageable.
For now.
"We need to be smart about this," Joon-won said, pacing. "If we move too fast, they'll see us coming. If we move too slow, they'll have time to tighten the noose."
Ji-hoon thought of Ji-eun, walking alone into the darkness, painting a target on her back for him.
There was no time left for fear.
"We start tonight," Ji-hoon said.
Joon-won nodded once. "Alright. I'll make some calls."
As Joon-won disappeared into the bedroom to make calls on a burner phone, Ji-hoon returned to the piano.
He lifted the cover slowly, reverently, as if lifting the lid of a casket.
His fingers hovered above the keys.
He didn't know how this war would end. He didn't know if he'd live to see it end at all. But he knew one thing with bone-deep certainty:
They would not break him.
They could smear his name. They could steal his future. They could even kill him.
But they would never erase the truth he carried.
They would never silence the music inside him.
And as he pressed down on the keys, a slow, mournful melody bloomed in the darkness, full of rage and grief and hope so fragile it ached.
A requiem.
A warning.
A beginning.