Chapter Text
The body is discovered before sunrise.
The old music building sits at the northern edge of campus, pushed right against the boundary where the university grounds end and the off-campus student apartments begin. Half-forgotten and never used. But a report about flickering lights on the room has been submitted the night before.
With a ring of keys jingling at his side, the janitor reaches for the handle, expecting to find the side entrance secured for the night. To his surprise, the heavy door gives way instantly with a soft click. It is already unlocked.
Frowning, he pushes it open and steps inside.
At first, he thinks someone has fallen asleep. The room is dim except for the pale blue light leaking through the tall windows. Then his eyes adjust. A young man lies motionless beside the piano bench, his limbs locked in an unnatural, rigid freeze. A small, empty can lies on its side just inches from his limp fingers. There is a terrible stillness to him, and a faint trace of dried fluid stains the corner of his lips. The janitor freezes. The mop slips from his hand and clatters loudly against the ground.
Within the hour, police vehicles line the road outside the music building. Yellow tape blocks every entrance. Officers move in and out carrying equipment while forensic photographers document the scene. The victim’s face remains hidden beneath a white sheet as he is wheeled past flashing lights, protected from curious eyes and camera phones.
Unfortunately, curiosity spreads faster than facts.
Students arriving for early classes stop the moment they see the crowd. Conversations erupt across campus. Some swear it is a murder. Others insist it is a suicide. Nobody knows anything for certain, but certainty has never been necessary for rumors to thrive.
By noon, the story has already fractured into a dozen different versions. Each retelling grows darker than the last. Yet inside the abandoned music room, where the silent piano stands over the empty space where a life just ended, the unanswered question remains the same:
Who is that, and what has really happened before sunrise?
***
The killer is still watching.
From the rooftop of the tall student apartment complex looming right over the campus border, a lone figure stands perfectly still, looking straight down into the gravel courtyard of the old music building below. Red and blue lights flash against the windows, staining the gray morning with color. Officers move behind yellow tape. Students gather in clusters at a distance.
The figure watches all of it without expression, and then a familiar voice suddenly drifts into his ear.
“Some people deserve consequences. This death is long overdue.”
The figure’s shoulders stiffen. He turns immediately, expecting to find someone standing behind him.
But there is nobody there. Only an empty rooftop. A rusted railing. The distant hum of sirens below.
Then laughter echoes softly beside him. From behind. From ahead. Left and right. Everywhere at once.
He frowns and scans the rooftop again, but the sound fades as quickly as it appears.
By the time a security guard emerges from the stairwell to investigate the nearby buildings, the figure is already gone.
***
Three months earlier, Lee Jihoon wants to die.
Standing on the rooftop of his apartment building, he stares over the edge. Eight stories down, the campus is alive with moving crowds. Directly across the narrow road sits the roof of the old music building. Students rush to afternoon lectures, laughing in clusters, totally oblivious to him. Their lives are just starting to piece together, while his has completely fallen apart.
The voices refuse to stop.
“Nobody loves you anymore.”
His fingers tighten around the rusted safety railing.
“Seungcheol already replaced you.”
That one hurts most.
Even after everything that had happened, even after weeks of telling himself he hated Choi Seungcheol, the wound still bleeds whenever his mind drifts back to him. The late-night phone calls. The promises. The way Seungcheol had looked at him like he was the only person in the world.
All of it had meant nothing.
“Everyone chose him over you.”
Jihoon swallows hard.
The rumors had spread so quickly that he still can't understand how it happened. One week he had been half of the campus's golden couple. The next, people stopped sitting beside him in lectures. Conversations died when he entered a room. Friends he had known for years suddenly found reasons not to answer his messages.
“Even Soonyoung.”
That betrayal somehow hurts more than the others.
“You have nothing left.”
The voice sounds almost gentle.
“Jump.”
Jihoon steps closer to the edge.
“Jump.”
The wind presses against his face.
“Ju—”
Someone interrupts his death.
“Planning to fly?”
The voice appears so suddenly that Jihoon gasps, nearly losing his balance on the ledge. He spin around, his heart hammering against his ribs.
A stranger stand near the rooftop access door, carrying a white convenience-store bag in one hand and a can of cheap coffee in the other. He looks completely unconcerned by the fact that he just interrupted a visible suicide attempt. Tilting his head, the stranger remarks, “Because if that's your plan, I should probably tell you humans aren't very good at it.”
Jihoon just stared at him.
An awkward silence stretched between them until the stranger nodded to himself. “Okay. Bad opening line.”
“Who are you?”
“Wen Junhui,” he said, stepping forward. “But everybody here calls me Moon Junhui. Apparently, it sounds more Korean.”
The name sounds vaguely familiar. Jihoon thinks he might have seen it somewhere on a class roster before. But Jihoon stays silent anyway.
“So.” Junhui points toward the rooftop edge. “Were you actually going to do it?”
“That's none of your business.”
“Probably.” Junhui nods as if he agrees. “Anyway, I'm staying here.”
Jihoon frowns. “Why?”
Junhui sits on the floor and opens his coffee. “Because if I leave and you jump, I'll feel guilty.”
“You don't know me.”
“Yeah.” Junhui takes a sip. “But I'd still feel guilty.”
The simple honesty catches Jihoon off guard. Nobody has spoken to him like that in a while. Even if it is from an inconvenient stranger refusing to leave. Jihoon takes one step closer to Junhui, away from the edge. The voices scream in protest. But Jihoon puts his hands over his ears and ignores them anyway.
Junhui pretends not to notice. And he refuses to leave.
He doesn't move when Jihoon expects him to. He doesn't stand, doesn't check his phone, doesn't glance toward the rooftop edge the way most people would. He simply stays where he is, sitting cross-legged on the cold concrete as if he belongs there more than Jihoon does.
Jihoon finally breaks the silence. “You're not going to leave?”
Junhui takes a slow sip of his coffee. “I said I wouldn't.”
“That's not normal.”
“Neither is standing on rooftops talking to strangers at this hour.” Junhui tilts his head slightly. “So I guess we're both doing poorly in the normal department.”
Jihoon should be annoyed. In theory, he is. But the irritation never fully forms. Something keeps interrupting it. Confusion, maybe, or the strange feeling of being looked at like he is still a person instead of a problem.
Junhui pats the ground beside him, casual. “Sit. You're making me nervous standing there like that.”
Jihoon hesitates for a while, then sits down carefully, leaving a deliberate gap between them. For a while, neither of them speaks. Until Junhui breaks the silence again.
“So,” he says, tapping his coffee can lightly against his knee. “Music major?”
Jihoon glances at him. “How did you know that?”
“You were coming out of the practice building yesterday. You had sheet music stuck to your bag.” Junhui shrugs. “Also, you look like someone who hasn't slept properly in weeks.”
Jihoon looks away. “That doesn't narrow it down.”
“I'm a Chemistry major,” Junhui says instead, ignoring Jihoon. “Anyway, yYou didn't answer my question earlier.”
“What question?”
“Were you going to jump?”
“No,” Jihoon says too quickly. “Not your business.”
Junhui doesn't push. He just nods once, accepting the answer without demanding more from it. “Okay,” he says simply.
That should end it. But it doesn't. Instead, Junhui asks, “Do you always come up here when your thoughts get loud?”
Jihoon freezes. Because he hasn't told him about that. About the voices.
“I don't know what you're talking about,” Jihoon says flatly.
Junhui hums. “Right. My mistake.” But his eyes say something else, like he is reading a page Jihoon hasn't realized is open.
The wind shifts, colder now. Time passes in uneven pieces after that. Junhui talks about nothing important, bad cafeteria coffee, confusing professors, a building he has gotten lost in three times already. Jihoon responds less than he should, more than he wants to. And still, Junhui doesn't leave.
At some point, Junhui asks, “What about you? What do you do when you're not... here?”
Jihoon almost says nothing. But that would be a lie. “Practice,” he says instead.
Junhui nods like it makes perfect sense. “Piano?”
“Yeah. And composition.”
A pause.
“Play something for me sometime,” Junhui says casually.
Jihoon lets out a short laugh, sharp and humorless. “No.”
“Worth a try,” Junhui replies.
When the sun finally begins to sink lower, staining the horizon with muted orange, Junhui stands first. “I should go before security actually starts doing their job,” he says. “I'm pretty sure we're not allowed here.”
Jihoon doesn't move. Junhui glances at him. “You'll be here tomorrow?”
Jihoon hesitates. He doesn't want to say yes. He doesn't want to say no either. “...Maybe,” he says at last.
“Okay, then I'll come back.” Junhui pauses, pulling his phone from his pocket and holding it out. “Give me your number. Just in case you change your mind about the whole flying thing.”
Jihoon stares at the screen. His mind tells him to refuse, to keep the walls up, but his fingers move on their own. He takes the phone, types in the digits quickly, and hands it back without a word.
Junhui slips the phone away with a small nod. “See you, Jihoon.”
He walks toward the rooftop door.
Jihoon stays seated long after the footsteps fade.
***
The voices hate Junhui.
That night, they return worse. They don't whisper anymore. They accuse.
“He isn't real. You made him. You were alone. You always were.”
Jihoon lies in bed staring at the ceiling, trying to anchor himself to something physical. The blanket. The mattress. The weight of his own hand against his chest. But the rooftop keeps replaying behind his eyes. Junhui sitting too comfortably. Junhui talking like he already knows him. Junhui not afraid.
The voices press harder.
“You needed him to be real so you wouldn't jump.”
Jihoon sits up abruptly, breathing unevenly. “Shut up,” he says into the empty room.
Jihoon gets out of bed and checks his phone. No messages. No unknown calls. Nothing.
He opens his bag. Sheet music. A pen. A crumpled receipt. No proof. His fingers hesitate over his jacket sleeve. Did Junhui touch him? He remembers something. Faint pressure on his shoulder when Junhui stood up. Or maybe it had been the wind. He closes his eyes tightly. When he opens them again, nothing has changed.
He doesn't sleep that night.
The next morning, minutes before his first class, a message arrives. Unknown number.
Jihoon doesn't recall giving out his number yesterday. Or maybe he did. He can't really trust his own memory these days. He opens the text.
Oh right, him.
Moon Junhui : Still alive?
Attached is a photo. Junhui, sitting somewhere off-campus, holding a coffee cup up. The same expression as before. Like yesterday had been nothing more than a normal conversation between two people who just happened to meet on a rooftop.
Jihoon stares at it for a long time. Then, without really meaning to, he smiles.