Chapter Text
Chapter 1
Kang Pi-O felt like he had reached his limit.
He let out a deep breath, the condensation of his sigh disappearing into the cold air. For a moment, he wished he could disappear just as easily.
He stared at the river beyond the barrier, his mind drifting far away from the place where he was standing.
It was a memory from nine years ago.
His hands rested on the piano keys, relaxed and unrestrained—not composed and controlled by his mother, but accompanied by Jeong-Yo, who was laughing beside him, his own hand resting on the opposite side of the keys.
They were laughing.
He missed it.
He missed it so, so much.
It felt as though his heart contracted at the mere thought of those moments. Over the years, he had spent so much time thinking about Jeong-Yo that he felt as though his heart had come to recognize him as the only person in the world who mattered to him the one who could control the rhythm of his breathing without even trying.
So when that evil smirk appeared on Jeong-Yo’s face as he spoke to him about remembering everything after nine years, and about that brief moment when Pi-O had pretended not to remember him, something inside him gave way.
Jeong-Yo really wanted his revenge.
And Pi-O decided that perhaps he deserved it. It wasn’t as though none of it was his fault.
It was more like he felt that his own jealousy had grown larger than his talent.
As Jeong-Yo had said, all Pi-O had done was steal someone else’s opportunity because he was jealous. That first place back when the competition happened probably hadn’t even been his to begin with.
Pi-O took one last breath of fresh air before heading home, already imagining his mother talking about how they should come up with a plan to deal with his former best friend, while his grandfather seemed to have only one person on his mind: Jeong-Yo.
Pi-O was jealous.
For a moment, he wished he could be loved as spontaneously as Jeong-Yo was.
Back at home, he could feel the tension in the air. He ignored his mother calling after him and shut himself inside the piano room.
He leaned against the door and slowly slid down until he was sitting on the floor, his hands resting on his knees.
He was alone in the quiet room.
The only sound was the music his grandfather was listening to.
He buried his head in his knees.
Tears fell from his eyes.
It was a guilt he could no longer bear.
It was his fault that Jeong-Yo couldn’t do the only thing he had ever loved.
⸻
The next day, Pi-O waited for Jeong-Yo’s arrival.
He wanted to prove himself one last time.
He stood in front of his apartment, clutching the bag hanging from his shoulder.
The day before, so many things had happened. He had cried so hard that even his grandfather, for the first time, had stopped to look at him.
He had even forgotten that he had broken up with Jaein.
Then he heard footsteps approaching.
Pi-O raised his head. His hand moved anxiously over the strap of the bag on his shoulder.
“Jeong-Yo…”
His voice came out as barely a whisper.
He saw his face.
Jeong-Yo looked more serious now. More vengeful.
His hair was straight and perfectly down, nothing like before, when he used to have those soft brown curls.
“Why are you here, Pi-Ossi?”
His voice already sounded annoyed.
“I—I want to prove myself. One more time. So-o please. Let me do it.”
Pi-O was ready this time.
Ready to face those music sheets.
Jeong-Yo laughed him off with an arrogant sigh.
“You really are just an egoist, aren’t you?”
He stepped closer to Pi-O’s face.
Pi-O froze for a moment, suddenly aware of how close he was.
“N-no, it’s not like that. That composition… I want to interpret it. You chose me first because you had a plan. So let me try one last time before…”
He looked into Jeong-Yo’s eyes, but the eye contact didn’t last long. Near the end of his sentence, he looked down, his voice dropping back into a whisper.
“Okay.”
Jeong-Yo paused.
“One last time.”