> "Maybe I was written wrong. But now… I'm the one holding the pen."
I stopped measuring time by calendars.
I measured it in pages filled, lyrics written, breaths that didn't crack halfway through.
It was day nine of not performing.
Day nine of not being told how to smile.
Day nine of creating for no one but him—and me.
---
I sat in the studio every day.
No producer.
No lights.
No rules.
Just notebooks scattered like bruised flowers across the floor.
Audio clips playing fragments of songs never released.
A screen displaying a timeline I no longer trusted.
I began mapping my life like a crime scene.
String connecting newspaper clippings, dates, erased headlines.
My childhood debut wasn't at eight.
There were recordings from before that—
but they were scrubbed.
Sanitized.
Someone had deleted me to make space for a version of me they could sell.
---
I found a file labeled: "MODEL—Prototype Script_v.0.9"
I opened it.
It wasn't a song.
It was… a timeline.
> JANUARY
"Introduce vulnerability."
"Photograph crying backstage."
"Release rumor of childhood illness for sympathy bump."
MARCH
"Rewrite early vocal strain narrative to imply struggle."
"Erase Joon from all metadata."
> MAY
"Introduce 'mirror identity' as fictional motif for promotional depth."
I couldn't breathe.
My entire pain had been converted into marketing beats.
Even my hallucinations were a genre they'd planned for.
---
I turned off the monitor.
But the silence felt dishonest now.
So I spoke into the recorder:
> "You didn't just write my songs."
"You wrote my suffering.
Then made me perform it."
> "I am not your version."
---
I played back the song I recorded for Joon.
And with each verse, more came back:
The boy humming lullabies in hospital rooms.
The way we shared imaginary names to feel outside their system.
The first time I said I wanted to sing, not because I could—
but because silence had stopped working.
---
I opened a blank page in my journal.
Title: "What They Couldn't Erase"
I began writing truths. Not as lyrics.
Not as performance.
But as raw timelines.
---
> 1996: Born. Not in Seoul. Not in a press-friendly hospital. A facility with numbers, not names.
1997: Met Joon. Both tagged. Both treated. Both quiet.
2001: First memory of singing—wasn't mine. I mimicked a voice from the next bed. It was his.
2003: We were separated. I was told he died.
2004–2010: I "debuted."
---
I stopped calling it trauma.
I started calling it rewritten history.
And I would rewrite it again.
This time… honestly.
---
The label reached out on day twelve.
> "Your fans are worried."
> "You've gone silent."
> "We have a new track for you to rehearse."
I replied:
> "I'm not your singer anymore."
No answer.
---
On day fourteen, my social media accounts were locked.
Official pages now called me "inactive talent."
But I had never felt more active.
---
Joon's name became my hymn.
I whispered it every time I felt the lie close in.
And slowly, I remembered things I wasn't supposed to:
A photo I'd drawn as a child—me and him, hand-in-hand, in a world made of piano keys and wind.
A journal entry from age seven: "They say dreams are dangerous. But he's not a dream. He's a promise."
The sound of him crying in the night when they told him he'd never leave. The way I sang to shut their voices out.
---
I turned those memories into music.
Not melodies.
Soundscapes.
One was just heartbeats and Joon's name whispered over static.
Another used recordings of old arguments between me and the label, slowed to the point of distortion, layered under soft lullabies.
It wasn't music for charts.
It was testimony.
---
By day eighteen, I'd finished the first album I'd ever made without compromise.
Title: More Than Free.
Tracklist:
1. "The Version Without Me"
2. "Survival Is Not Consent"
3. "Joon (First Draft)"
4. "They Called It Branding"
5. "Every Note They Made Me Swallow"
6. "Love, But Real"
7. "Rehearsal for a Goodbye I Never Gave"
8. "Say His Name Like a Spell"
9. "The Rewrite"
10. "I Remember You Even If No One Else Does"
---
The moment I uploaded it to the independent archive—
my studio lights flickered.
Then turned off.
All screens went black.
---
Then, a soft light from the monitor.
One sentence appeared:
> "He's listening."
---
That night, I dreamed of the ocean.
Joon stood at the shoreline.
Wearing the coat.
Hands in pockets.
Eyes full of something older than forgiveness.
He didn't speak.
He just opened his arms.
And I ran.
---
When I woke, the window was open.
A white feather on my pillow.
And a note pinned to my door.
> "Not all truths are loved."
"But the ones you choose to sing—those become real."
---
I didn't cry.
I stood.
And for the first time in my life—
I danced.
Without choreography.
Without music.
Just the rhythm of being a girl who said his name—
and didn't vanish