The rain had begun again — a cold, persistent drizzle that blurred the streetlights into trembling halos. Ji-hoon didn't feel the wetness seeping into his jacket or the chill biting at his skin as he stood there in the near-empty parking lot. His mind was elsewhere, still ringing with Ha-rin's warnings, still clawing at the remnants of a reality that seemed more fragile with every passing hour.
In his hand, he clutched a single brass key. It was small, old, unremarkable — yet it might as well have been a bomb. Ji-eun had pressed it into his palm during their last secret meeting, her hand shaking, her eyes glistening with some unspoken terror.
"The truth is hidden," she'd whispered, voice cracking. "And sometimes... it's better if it stays that way. But you won't stop, will you? You're too much like her."
Ji-hoon hadn't asked who 'her' was. He already knew.
Now he found himself standing before an abandoned car — a battered old Hyundai that had been sitting in the back lot of the conservatory for years. Its paint was faded to a sickly gray, its windows coated with grime. To anyone else, it was junk. Forgotten. A relic of another life.
But Ji-hoon knew better.
He slipped the key into the lock and twisted. It resisted for a moment — like the car itself didn't want to give up its secrets — then clicked open with a hollow, reluctant sound. The door creaked as he pulled it, groaning like some wounded thing. A wave of stale, moldy air hit him, making him gag.
Inside, the car was a graveyard of time: crumpled receipts, cracked leather seats, an old cassette tape half-pulled from the deck. Dust floated in lazy spirals in the beam of his flashlight. Everything looked untouched, abandoned... but not innocent.
The glove box sat on the passenger side, its latch barely hanging on.
Ji-hoon's pulse thudded painfully as he reached across and unlatched it.
It fell open with a heavy snap.
Inside was a small, neatly folded bundle of papers. And something else — something heavier. A recorder. Old. The kind his mother used to carry when she was working through a new composition.
His breath caught in his throat.
Hands trembling, he pulled the contents out and sat back on the curb, the cold soaking into his jeans, the rain plastering his hair to his forehead. He hardly noticed.
First, the papers: yellowed, stained at the edges, some torn.
Ji-hoon unfolded the first sheet and froze.
It was a letter.
"To Whom It May Concern,
If you are reading this, it means I have failed. It means the music won.
Do not trust the Conservatory. Do not trust the competitions. There are rules beneath the rules, and blood beneath the floorboards.
They will tell you it is about excellence.
It is not.
It is about power. It always has been.
And those who win... they pay. In ways they never understand until it's too late.
Find the girl. She has the proof. She is the key. But be careful. They are watching. They always are.
— Yoo Ara"
Ji-hoon's heart stopped.
His mother.
His fingers tightened around the letter, crumpling the paper slightly as emotion surged through him — grief, confusion, a wild desperate hope. She had known. She had known all along, and she had tried to leave a message for him.
He inhaled sharply and turned to the second page — a list of names. Most were crossed out. Some had notes beside them. One name wasn't crossed out: Yoon Si-wan.
Ji-hoon's stomach turned violently. Si-wan's name, bold and untouched. No notes, no comment. Just there. Like a festering wound.
He didn't want to believe it.
But how could he deny it now?
The recorder was next. His fingers hovered over the buttons, hesitating. A deep part of him whispered that maybe he shouldn't press play — that whatever was on that tape would change everything.
But he had come too far.
Ji-hoon pressed play.
For a moment, all he heard was static. Then, faintly, a voice — his mother's voice, worn and desperate.
"They think they've won. They think I'm broken. But I know the truth."
"Si-wan... he's the worst of them. The perfect puppet. The perfect lie. They groomed him for this."
"If you're hearing this, my son... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I tried to protect you. I tried to run. But they're everywhere."
"Never trust the music."
The recording ended abruptly, leaving Ji-hoon sitting in stunned silence, the rain dripping down from the brim of his jacket, soaking the recorder in his hand.
His throat felt raw. His eyes burned.
Every truth he had clung to — that talent and hard work were enough, that music was pure, that Si-wan had simply been a rival, not an enemy — all of it shattered.
His mother had fought to protect him from this darkness. And she had failed.
And now it was his turn to stand against it.
A sharp noise — a scraping sound — broke the moment.
Ji-hoon jerked his head up, pulse hammering. A shadow moved near the far edge of the parking lot — someone watching him.
He stuffed the papers and recorder back into the glove box and slammed it shut, locking it again out of instinct, though it was probably pointless.
The figure stepped closer.
For a breathless second, Ji-hoon thought it was Si-wan himself — that somehow the enemy had arrived already to silence him.
But no — the figure was smaller, hunched. Female.
"Ji-hoon?" a whisper floated toward him, almost lost in the rain.
He recognized that voice.
"Ji-eun?" he called out hoarsely.
She ran toward him, slipping and nearly falling in the wet gravel. When she reached him, she was gasping for breath, her face pale with fear.
"You have to go," she said urgently, grabbing his arm. "They know. They know you have the glove box. You're not safe here. Not anymore."
Ji-hoon stared at her, heart still pounding, the recorder digging painfully into his palm. "How do you know—"
"No time," she hissed. "Come with me. Now."
Another movement at the far end of the lot — more shadows.
More watchers.
Ji-hoon didn't hesitate this time. He stuffed the key into his pocket, clutched the recorder to his chest, and ran with Ji-eun into the dark.
The rain swallowed them, the sound of their footsteps lost in the roar of the storm.
And behind them, the dead notes began to hum again — faint, ominous, inevitable.
They ran until Ji-hoon's lungs burned, until the edge of the world itself seemed to blur into rain and darkness. Only when Ji-eun finally pulled him into an alley — narrow, hidden behind a sagging convenience store — did they stop, both of them gasping for air.
Ji-hoon leaned against the wall, the recorder pressed against his chest like a second heartbeat. The truth was heavier than anything he had ever carried. It filled him, drowned him.
And for the first time in years, something savage stirred inside him — a feeling he could barely recognize.
It wasn't fear.
It wasn't even grief.
It was rage.
Pure. Vicious. Blinding.
Ji-hoon squeezed his eyes shut, trying to breathe, trying to think.
His mother had died because of them. Because of Si-wan.
His life had been built on lies.
Every smile, every compliment, every competition he had been pushed into — it had been a slaughterhouse dressed up as a concert hall.
And Si-wan had been standing on the stage the whole time, smiling.
Something inside Ji-hoon snapped.
He wasn't going to survive this by playing fair.
Not anymore.
He opened his eyes, and Ji-eun saw something shift in him — something colder, sharper. She stepped back instinctively.
"Ji-hoon..." she whispered. "What are you thinking?"
He didn't answer immediately. His hands were steady now — terrifyingly steady.
He was thinking about Si-wan's face. About the way Si-wan's voice could sound so kind, so convincing, even while he twisted the knife deeper.
He was thinking about how predators didn't get to keep breathing once they were caught.
"I'm going to end it," Ji-hoon said finally, his voice low and even.
"I'm going to kill him."
Ji-eun blanched. "You can't. If you do that, they'll destroy you. Worse than death, Ji-hoon. They'll erase you like you never existed."
He gave a thin, humorless smile. "They already tried."
The rain slicked down his face, blurring the tears he wasn't strong enough to wipe away. His heart didn't beat the way it used to. His hands didn't shake like they used to.
Whatever innocence had been left in him — it died with his mother's voice on that recorder.
Ji-eun grabbed his arm. "Listen to me. You can't just walk up to him and—"
"I know," Ji-hoon cut in sharply. "I have to make it look like an accident."
His mind moved fast now, cold and brutal.
Si-wan was careful — always surrounded by others, never alone for too long. Always on guard. But he had one weakness: he believed he was untouchable.
That arrogance could kill him.
"I'll catch him at the afterparty," Ji-hoon said quietly. "After the Final Round. He'll be celebrating. He'll be drunk. Distracted. He won't see me coming."
"Ji-hoon, please," Ji-eun begged, voice breaking. "There has to be another way—"
"There isn't," he said.
"They'll never let me walk away.
They'll never let me live."
He crouched in the shadow of the alley, wiping rain from his forehead, thinking, calculating.
The building had old stairwells. Back entrances. Fire escapes. Places without cameras.
Places where one wrong step could mean a deadly fall.
Si-wan loved to stand at the balcony outside the second-floor lounge — loved to lean over the railing with a drink in hand, playing the casual king of the night. Laughing. Smiling.
It would only take one shove.
One slip.
And it would all be over.
Ji-hoon's stomach churned, but he forced himself to stare down the thought.
There was no going back.
Ji-eun knelt beside him, shivering from the cold, her eyes huge and wet. "If you do this," she whispered, "you'll never be the same."
"I'm already not," he said quietly.
The words felt foreign on his tongue, but they were true.
Ji-hoon didn't recognize the boy who had once believed music could save him.
He didn't recognize the boy who had thought winning competitions would make him whole.
That boy had died a long time ago — maybe the night his mother fell.
Now there was only this:
a broken key.
a crushed voice.
and the silence left behind.
Ji-eun pressed something into his hand — another key. Smaller. Rusted.
"The old maintenance room," she said. "Third floor. It connects to the balcony through a crawl space. No cameras."
Ji-hoon closed his fingers around it. "Why are you helping me?"
She hesitated. Then:
"Because... I saw what they did to my brother."
Her voice cracked at the end, and Ji-hoon finally understood.
Ji-eun hadn't just been scared for him.
She was carrying her own ghosts, too.
Without a word, Ji-hoon tucked the key into his jacket and stood up.
His legs ached. His body was frozen to the bone.
But his mind was clear.
Clearer than it had ever been.
He would finish the Final Round.
He would play his piece — play it better than he ever had before.
And then, while Si-wan basked in the applause, while he laughed and drank and posed for pictures...
Ji-hoon would be waiting.
He didn't know if he would survive afterward.
He didn't care.
The rain was washing the city clean, drop by drop.
Maybe it could wash him clean too.
Or maybe it would drown him.
Either way —
it would end tonight.
Ji-hoon's voice cut through the air, raw and brittle, as if he was speaking through clenched teeth. The words felt like a death sentence — not just for Si-wan, but for himself, for everything he had once believed in. His chest heaved, each breath feeling like an assault on the emptiness that had taken hold of him.
"I don't care about him being your brother." Ji-hoon's voice was cold, flat, as he stared at Ji-eun, the weight of his resolve in his eyes. "He'll die, and I'll be the reason."
Ji-eun recoiled slightly, as if she'd been struck, her eyes wide with shock and a flicker of something else—fear, disbelief. But Ji-hoon didn't feel sorry. He couldn't afford to. Not now. Not when everything had led him to this point.
For so long, he had been nothing but a puppet, his strings pulled by Si-wan and those who followed him. His entire existence had been a series of hollow performances, each one designed to make Si-wan proud, to make him believe he was worthy, even though Ji-hoon knew deep down that it was never enough. His mother's death, the false promises, the manipulated love—it had all been a lie, and it was time for the truth to bleed out in a way that no one could ignore.
"Ji-hoon," Ji-eun's voice was shaky, pleading, but Ji-hoon didn't let her words break through his resolve. He took a step forward, his eyes hard and focused. There was no turning back.
"I don't care what you think about him," Ji-hoon continued, his words almost spitting out. "I don't care about your family or anyone else. This is about me, about my mother, about everything that he took from me." His hands balled into fists, the raw energy in him simmering dangerously. "He destroyed everything. He thought he could just keep pushing me, keep making me part of his twisted game, but he's wrong. I'm done."
Ji-eun stepped closer, but there was a trembling hesitation in her movement. She placed a tentative hand on his arm, her grip tight with fear. "Ji-hoon, please. I understand you're hurt, but this... this won't bring your mother back. It won't make any of it right."
Her words were soft, but they felt distant. Her desperation to save him was clear, but Ji-hoon's mind was already too far gone. The moment Si-wan had walked away from him, the moment he had realized that his mother's death had been no accident, something inside him had broken—and it had never truly healed. Now, in its place was a cold, unrelenting drive.
"I don't want to hear it, Ji-eun," Ji-hoon muttered, voice hoarse. "This isn't about being right. This is about making sure he can never hurt anyone again. This is about ending the game that he started."
Ji-eun's eyes welled with tears, but she didn't let them fall. She shook her head slowly, as if trying to make him see the truth. "You're not a killer, Ji-hoon. You're not like him."
Ji-hoon didn't flinch, didn't even blink. The words didn't reach him. He had already crossed that line in his mind, long before tonight. And with each passing moment, as the adrenaline began to fuel his every step, he could feel the finality of what he was about to do.
"I am exactly like him," Ji-hoon said softly, but with certainty. "And that's why it'll work. He'll never see it coming."
Ji-eun stood still, her heart heavy, her mind racing with the consequences, but she didn't know how to stop him. She didn't know how to make him understand that this path was only going to lead to destruction. For him. For everyone. The line between justice and vengeance had already blurred for Ji-hoon, and there was no reversing it.
Ji-hoon began to turn away, his back stiff with resolve. "I'll do it tonight. The afterparty, like we planned. He won't make it out."
Ji-eun stepped forward, her voice cracking. "Ji-hoon, I can't let you do this. You don't know what it will do to you."
But he didn't stop. His steps were deliberate, his eyes fixed ahead, focused on the endgame that had been set in motion years ago. He couldn't stop now. He had already seen the result in his mind—the fall, the blood, the final silence.
"I'm not the same person you knew anymore, Ji-eun," Ji-hoon said quietly, without turning around. "And neither is he."
The sound of Ji-hoon's footsteps faded into the rain-soaked night, as Ji-eun stood in the alley, her heart breaking in two, knowing that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't save him from the person he was about to become.
---
As Ji-hoon made his way to the venue, his mind raced with the plan. He would get in, slip through the back unnoticed, and make his way to the second-floor balcony, where Si-wan liked to stand with his drink, the world at his feet. He'd be vulnerable there—too relaxed, too confident.
And that was exactly what Ji-hoon needed. The world had underestimated him for so long, and tonight would be the night he showed them all just how much damage he could do.
He wasn't afraid of the consequences. If anything, he welcomed them. He had already made his peace with the idea of never seeing the light of day again. What mattered was that Si-wan would never hurt anyone else again. He would never ruin another life with his charming smile and his silver tongue.
Ji-hoon stopped in front of the venue, the glass doors gleaming under the harsh lights. The faint sound of laughter and clinking glasses drifted from inside. He hesitated for only a second, his fingers curling into fists.
He would do it for his mother.
He would do it for himself.
And for all the others who had been destroyed by Si-wan's cruelty.
With one final breath, Ji-hoon pushed open the door and stepped inside, ready to finish what he had started.