When Gin Chan opened his eyes again, the world was dim and sterile. The sound of beeping machines hummed around him in rhythmic pulses. He wasn't in pain, but something felt wrong—off, silent, too still. He couldn't move. Not yet.
He blinked slowly, registering the overhead fluorescent light and the pale green curtain separating his bed from the rest of the ward. The air was thick with the scent of antiseptic. Machines clicked and whirred beside him. Something in his chest ached—not physical, but deeper.
This life… he thought, as the memories flooded in like a tide.
Han Seojin.
A man in his late twenties. A patient who hadn't spoken in over a year. A man who had once been a renowned pianist in Seoul—until the night he lost his voice, not to illness, but to grief.
His parents had died in a car crash on the way to one of his concerts. That night, Seojin's hands trembled during his performance. Afterward, he collapsed. Doctors said he was healthy. No physical trauma, no neurological damage. But Seojin had shut the world out.
No music. No speech. No smile.
He was trapped in a hospital room, unable—or unwilling—to break the silence.
Gin Chan sat up slowly, Seojin's memories unraveling like film. The weight of silence pressed down on him like chains. He touched his throat. It didn't hurt. He could speak. But Seojin hadn't. Not even once.
He slipped out of the bed, his legs weak, arms thin. He shuffled toward the window and looked out. A soft snow was falling over the city. Grey skies. Cold streets. Distant honks. It was winter again.
A nurse came in. Her expression changed when she saw him standing.
"Seojin?" she said, cautiously.
Gin turned to her, hesitating. His lips parted.
Nothing came out.
No, he thought. This isn't just physical. He locked himself in.
---
Over the next few days, Gin watched. He absorbed everything—how Seojin never acknowledged anyone, how the hospital staff grew used to his stillness. They gave up on speaking to him. Just brought his food, adjusted his IVs, and left.
But Gin wasn't Seojin. He began to change things.
He walked around the room. He stared at the piano key-shaped cracks on the wall's paint. He listened to the sound of distant piano music drifting from a therapy room downstairs.
One day, he followed the sound.
Inside the therapy room, a teenage girl was playing a hesitant version of Chopin's Nocturne. Her fingers trembled, unsure. An elderly man in a wheelchair watched from the corner.
Gin stood in the doorway until she noticed.
"Do you play?" she asked, softly.
He didn't answer.
"Are you one of the mute patients?" she asked, curious, not mocking.
He nodded once.
She smiled. "It's okay. You don't have to talk. Music is its own voice."
She moved aside on the bench and gestured for him to sit.
He did.
His hands hovered over the keys.
His fingers moved.
He played a single note.
Then another.
Then a melody. Simple. Gentle. It was Seojin's favorite piece as a child—Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata.
The girl gasped.
Even the man in the wheelchair leaned forward.
Gin played, his fingers clumsy at first, then more fluid. The sound filled the room like sunlight breaking through a fog.
When he stopped, the girl whispered, "That was beautiful."
Gin smiled.
---
It became a ritual. Every afternoon, Gin returned to the piano room. He never spoke, but he played. The music began to stir something inside the hospital—nurses lingered near the doors, patients wheeled in closer. Seojin's silence had once been a shadow. Now, he was a quiet beacon.
But even as Gin began to stir change, the real test hadn't come yet.
One morning, a woman visited.
She stood at the door to his hospital room, a coat draped over her arm. Her face was pale. Her eyes brimmed with something close to fear.
"Seojin…" she whispered.
Gin stared.
Yoon Seo.
Not the same Yoon Seo he remembered—not Gin Chan's girlfriend—but the parallel version in this life. Seojin's first love. The one he had pushed away after the accident.
"You're awake," she said, her voice breaking. "They told me you played again. I had to come."
Gin didn't respond.
She stepped closer. "I know I don't belong here. After you stopped talking, I didn't know what to do. I tried to write you. Call you. But you shut everyone out."
She pulled out a folded paper from her coat. "I kept this for a year. Your last handwritten letter to me."
Gin took it with trembling hands. He unfolded it slowly. The handwriting was beautiful. But what struck him was the final line:
If I never speak again, know that it's not because I forgot you. It's because I remember.
Yoon Seo's hands shook. "Please. Say something."
Gin stared at her. His lips trembled.
He couldn't say what Seojin would. But he could say what he felt.
"I missed you," he whispered.
Her eyes widened. Tears spilled.
"You spoke," she cried, pressing her hands to her mouth. "You spoke."
Gin nodded slowly. "And I remember everything."
---
From that day, Gin—through Seojin—began to live again. He talked in short bursts. He played longer. He allowed Yoon Seo to sit beside him while he practiced. They walked the hospital garden together.
Even the staff were shocked.
"The mute pianist spoke?" they asked.
"He's smiling now."
"He's healing."
But Gin knew what was coming.
It was in the way the machines beeped slower one night.
It was in the ache in his chest that wasn't emotional.
Seojin's body had been breaking down. A latent heart condition undiagnosed.
It came swiftly.
One night, he collapsed in the piano room.
Yoon Seo screamed for help. Nurses ran in. But Gin felt his limbs grow cold.
No… not yet…
He reached for her hand.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "For the silence."
She gripped him. "No, no, no—don't go. You came back. You can't go again."
But the black was coming.
And then…
Silence.
---
He awoke on the black stone platform again.
Death stood nearby, arms folded.
"That was… a quiet one," she said.
Gin sat up slowly. "He just wanted peace."
"You gave it to him."
He looked down. "That girl… Yoon Seo. It's strange. Even though she's not my Yoon Seo, I felt the same grief in her eyes."
"She was real," Death said. "Her pain, her love—it was real. As real as your memories."
Gin stood up. "Every time I come back here, I lose a piece of myself. But I also gain something. I feel it."
Death nodded.
"That's the point."
Gin took a deep breath. "How many more do I get?"
Death's eyes softened. "Fewer than you had. More than you think."
He looked out at the void.
"Then send me again."
"Are you ready?"
"No," he said. "But I'm willing."
Death raised her hand. The familiar silver glow sparked.
"Then go—and carry the music with you."
Bang.
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