> "The truth isn't a scream. It's a whisper you finally stop rewriting."
The letter didn't have an envelope.
It was folded in thirds, like something passed in secret between school desks.
I opened it again, this time slower, afraid that even paper could change if I blinked too long.
And there it was—his name.
Written in shaky, hopeful handwriting.
Joon.
No embellishments.
No surname.
Just a truth I hadn't dared pronounce.
Joon.
It felt like glass between my teeth.
---
I said it aloud.
Quietly.
The air changed.
Not dramatically.
Not magically.
Just… honestly.
Like the room had been waiting to exhale.
---
The station locker light flickered.
And in the silence that followed, a new memory emerged.
Not like a dream.
But like a note once muted returning to its melody.
---
> FLASH.
A sterile room.
My hand, tiny and trembling, gripped in his.
We're both in hospital gowns.
The air is full of plastic and fluorescent ghosts.
He looks over.
> "I'll remember for you," he says.
I nod.
Then cry.
He wipes the tears before they fall.
> "They'll try to make you sing alone.
But I'll hum underneath.
Just listen."
---
Back in the station, I collapsed to my knees.
Not out of grief.
Out of gravity.
The kind that comes from remembering something that held your soul together when the world didn't.
---
Later, I sat in my apartment.
The lights off.
One candle lit.
A ritual for a boy the world said I invented.
---
I opened a new notebook.
First page.
Blank.
And began to write:
---
> "His name is Joon."
> "He was there before the cameras.
Before the song deals.
Before they renamed me."
> "He knew me when I still hated mirrors.
When I still thought crying made me real."
> "They took him out of every story.
Every photo.
Every file."
> "But not this one."
---
I pressed the pen harder.
As if truth required force.
> "He isn't my past.
He's the part of me that survived the edits."
> "He hummed my heartbeat back into rhythm when I forgot I had one."
> "They can keep the spotlight."
> "I choose the boy who remembered my silence."
---
I turned the page.
Wrote a title:
"The Rewrite That Doesn't Lie."
---
I started the song at midnight.
The first note came like breath after drowning.
It wasn't for fans.
Not for charts.
Not even for closure.
It was for me.
And for Joon.
If he was still somewhere—
I wanted him to hear me choosing him.
Not remembering him.
Choosing.
---
The lyrics flowed:
> You weren't a dream, you were the silence I named.
They wrote over you with lights I never liked.
I kissed strangers that didn't hum like you did.
But your song… it stayed under my skin.
Unproduced. Untouched. Real.
Say his name like rain on locked doors.
Say his name like a verse they tried to erase.
Say it once. Say it twice.
Let the world hear what they feared I'd remember.
Joon.
That was always the chorus.
---
I didn't sleep.
I kept writing.
Not a song.
A score.
A map of everything they took.
Every erased headline.
Every blank page.
Every whispered goodbye I never got to give.
---
The next day, I walked into the studio.
They greeted me with fake smiles and tight schedules.
But I placed the notebook on the producer's desk.
> "I'm not recording what you sent."
> "Excuse me?"
> "I'm recording what I remember."
---
I stood in the booth.
Put on the headphones.
And before the music started, I whispered:
> "This is for Joon."
---
First take.
No harmonies.
No autotune.
Just voice and ache and reclaiming.
And when it ended, I didn't wait for approval.
I walked out.
---
That night, my mirror didn't echo me.
It didn't need to.
I saw myself for the first time.
Not because I remembered who I was.
But because I remembered who they made me forget.
---
I whispered his name again before bed.
Not like a confession.
Like a prayer.
---
The next morning, I found a note on the pillow.
"He heard you."
No signature.
But the paper smelled faintly like the coat from the café.
---
And somewhere, inside the deepest part of me—
where songs are born and silence still breathes—
I felt it.
A hum.
Soft.
Consistent.
Like someone was humming along.
Just underneath the melody.