Chapter Text
Jeong-Yo stood in front of the room, which looked more like a run-down storage space than the shop it used to be. He took a deep breath, trying to control his emotions. More than a decade had passed, and his memories were still all over the place, but being reminded of his mom could still break his heart into pieces.
Before he could reach for the key, a voice stopped him.
“Bi-o! Is that you?”
Jeong-Yo turned around and came face to face with an old man carrying a sandwich in one hand and a bottle of water in another. Judging by his uniform, he was the security guard who had been missing from his booth when Jeong-Yo arrived.
The guard took another step toward him. From that distance, Jeong-Yo could read the name on his badge. Gi Taek.
“You are not Bi-o,” Gi Taek said, his tone immediately turning suspicious.
Jeong-Yo slipped on his interview smile. He was good at this, putting people at ease, giving them exactly enough charm to lower their guard. “I’m a friend of Kang Bi-o, sir.”
He hoped using Bi-o’s full name would make the explanation sound more convincing. Still, one thing bothered him. Why had the man expected to find Bi-o here at all? This place belonged to Jeong-Yo.
Or had Bi-o somehow taken this from him too?
The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth, but now wasn’t the time to dwell on it.
“He asked me to come here and do him a favor,” Jeong-Yo continued.
Gi Taek said nothing. He only stared at him with narrowed eyes. Jeong-Yo held his smile and reached up for the key above the door, moving as if he had every right to be there.
Apparently, that was enough.
Some of the suspicion left Gi Taek’s face. He no longer looked at Jeong-Yo as though he were about to call the police. Instead, his gaze dropped to Jeong-Yo’s
hands. “Bi-o didn’t tell you to bring me coffee?”
The question caught Jeong-Yo so completely off guard that he nearly dropped the key. “Your coffee?”
Gi Taek smiled, and without the suspicion on his face, he suddenly looked much kinder. “I call it coffee because I’m too lazy to learn the name. It’s some fancy stuff Bi-o buys me every time he comes by.”
“That’s nice,” Jeong-Yo mumbled under his breath. He wasn’t particularly interested in hearing about Bi-o, the noble deliverer of fancy coffee.
“I’ve gotten used to it,” Gi Taek said as he turned away, apparently ready to head back to his booth. “I mean, you get used to anything when it happens every week for six years.”
Jeong-Yo froze.
It took him a few seconds to fully register what he had just heard. “What do you mean, six years?”
And every week?!
Gi Taek stopped and glanced back at him. “Yeah. He started coming here during my first month on the job. He’s a generous boy.” A small smile returned to his face. “Even if he does act all grumpy and distant.”
Jeong-Yo stepped toward him, impatience getting the better of him. “He’s been coming here every week for six years?” He could hardly believe the words coming out of his own mouth. “To do what?”
Gi Taek’s eyes narrowed again. “You said you were his friend.”
This time, there was no accusation in his voice. Somehow, that was worse. He wasn’t questioning whether Jeong-Yo was telling the truth. He was questioning how someone who called himself Bi-o’s friend could know so little about him.
Jeong-Yo’s mind raced for an answer. At the same time, an irrational need clawed at him, demanding that he find out what Bi-o had been doing here all these years. “I’m his childhood friend.” The words left a bitter taste in Jeong-Yo’s mouth, the way they always did when he said something he wasn’t entirely sure was true. “I was studying abroad, and I only came back recently." He took a deep breath and continued "To check on Bi-o, among other things.”
At least that part held some truth.
Gi Taek studied him for a long moment. He was clearly not an easy man to fool. At the same time, there was something in his expression that made Jeong-Yo think he had been waiting a long time for someone to share this with.
Finally, the old man sighed. “I don’t know exactly what he does in there, but mostly, he plays the piano.”
Now it was Jeong-Yo’s turn to look suspicious. From the gravity on Gi Taek’s face, anyone would have thought he was about to reveal that Bi-o had been running a meth lab there.
Then Gi Taek continued, and suddenly that expression made a little more sense. “For hours. Sometimes the whole night.”
His face grew somber. “Non-stop"
Jeong-Yo wasn’t sure what to say. Was he supposed to act concerned? Or tell the security guard that musicians sometimes did things like that?
Except even he knew this wasn’t normal.
Gi Taek’s next words stopped every thought in its tracks. “Sometimes he cries.”
A sharp pain went through Jeong-Yo’s chest, sudden enough to steal his breath for a moment. He hadn’t expected those words to affect him so deeply, but the image of Bi-o sitting here alone, crying over the piano, lodged itself painfully in his mind.
“Cries?” His voice came out barely above a whisper. “Why?”
“I don’t know.” Gi Taek shrugged. “He never talks about it, but I think he lost someone.”
Jeong-Yo drew in a sharp breath.
No. That wasn’t possible.
The man didn’t even know for sure. He was guessing. And even if he was right, Bi-o could have been grieving anyone. Jeong-Yo clung to that thought for a moment, because the alternative was harder to face.
But it didn’t make sense. Why would Bi-o come here, of all places? Why return again and again, week after week, for six years?
Deep down, Jeong-Yo already knew the answer. If this had been about anyone else, Bi-o wouldn’t have chosen this place.
“That’s not all,” Gi Taek said, cutting through his thoughts once again. “He forgets to eat or even drink!” Gi Taek added, his frustration suddenly showing. “And I don’t think he sleeps much either.”
He lifted the sandwich and bottle of water in his hands. “I started bringing extra food whenever I think he might come by.”
Something about the gesture pulled at a memory.
A large, unfamiliar kitchen. Jeong-Yo trying to ask for food in broken English. A dark room. Someone lying on a bed.
The images came in fragments, blurry and disconnected, yet the sadness they carried was immediate.
For a moment, Jeong-Yo lost his composure. He didn’t even fully understand why it hurt so much.
For what felt like the thousandth time in the past five years, he wished he had never gotten his memories back. Remembering everything would have been a blessing. Remembering nothing would have been bearable.
But having only broken pieces of the past was torture.
It was like trying to read a book with half its pages torn out.
“What am I supposed to do?” Jeong-Yo asked. There was no sarcasm in his voice. He genuinely didn’t know.
He had come back to this country for a reason, and it had nothing to do with what this old man was telling him. No matter how much every word seemed to hurt.
Gi Taek didn’t seem discouraged by the question. If anything, his expression grew more serious. “One time, I found him passed out in here. I had to call an ambulance.” He sighed. “I wanted to call someone for him, but he told me he’d lost his only family years ago.”
Jeong-Yo’s eyes widened.
That made no sense.
Bi-o hadn’t lost anyone. He still had his mother, his grandparents, his friends. He wasn’t alone. So what was Gi Taek talking about?
Then the answer came to him, quiet and unwelcome.
You.
Jeong-Yo’s breath caught.
He lost you.
Before Jeong-Yo could fully process the thought, Gi Taek pushed the sandwich and bottle of water into his hands.
“Take care of him,” the old man said. “He’s a good boy.”
And with that, he walked away, leaving Jeong-Yo standing there with the food in his hands and far more questions than he’d had before.
Even in the most forgiving version of events he could imagine, Bi-o had stood by, watched him get hurt, and then denied him. Since returning, Jeong-Yo had dismissed every kindness Bi-o showed him as guilt.
Guilt had been an easy explanation. A convenient one. But could guilt really explain all of this?
Coming back to a place that belonged to Jeong-Yo, week after week, for years. Sitting at the piano for hours. Crying when he thought no one was watching.
Could guilt make someone do that for six years?
Jeong-Yo didn’t know anymore.
And that uncertainty unsettled him more than he wanted to admit.
He looked around the room, mostly because he didn’t know what else to do with himself.
It was clean. Cared for. Someone had clearly made an effort to keep it that way.
The realization made something twist inside him. Bi-o hadn’t simply come here. He had looked after the place.
Then something on the far wall caught his eye. A board covered with a piece of cloth.
What struck him first was the cloth itself. It was far too good for a place like this—thick, clean, carefully draped over whatever lay beneath it.
Jeong-Yo stared at it for a moment.
Curiosity finally won. He got up and walked toward it. Jeong-Yo pulled the cloth away in one quick motion and stared at the board beneath it.
Even though everything had been arranged neatly, it still took him a few minutes to understand what he was looking at.
A map of Europe covered in pins and notes. Names. Phone numbers. Contact information for private investigators.
And, to Jeong-Yo’s horror, gangs.
His eyes moved slowly across the board, stopping on one note after another. "The Korean pianist in Berlin may know something.", "Make sure to take cash to the police station." "Send Jeong-Yo’s picture to the embassy in Rome"
There were dates beside some of the notes. Names crossed out. Places marked and connected. Pieces of information that clearly hadn’t led anywhere, followed by another lead, and then another.
Jeong-Yo’s stomach tightened.
How long had Bi-o been doing this?
He already knew the answer.
Years. He had been doing it for FUCKING YEARS
The longer he looked, the harder it became to breathe.
This wasn’t the guilt of someone who already knew what had happened and was trying to make himself feel better.
This was something else entirely.
Desperation.
The kind that came from not knowing. From searching again and again, following every possibility no matter how unlikely, because giving up meant accepting that there might never be an answer.
Jeong-Yo stared at the map.
For years, he had believed Bi-o knew. Maybe not everything, but enough.
But the board in front of him told a different story.
Before he could follow that thought any further, the door opened behind him.
A gasp, followed by a voice. “What are you doing here?”
Jeong-Yo went still.
He didn’t need to turn around.
He knew exactly who that voice belonged to.