That night, the world decided to fall silent all at once.
It surrendered the stage to the roar of the wind as it lashed at the branches like a merciless punishment. Nothing remained but the sound of rain—violent, rhythmic blows striking the slick, muddy ground—and the musty scent rising from the soaked earth.
Amid that void, a faint glimmer pierced the darkness.
The trembling flashlight of a phone, clutched in an unseen hand.
Its beam revealed a pair of Nike sneakers stained with droplets of black mud. The figure wearing them was little more than a shadow moving forward with suicidal determination. With every step, the sound of falling rain merged with the frantic pounding of a racing heart—a heartbeat loud enough to tear through the forest's stillness.
His feet slipped.
He fell.
Black mud smeared across his dark clothes.
Yet he rose again.
It was no ordinary act of standing. It was the recovery of a soul unwilling to surrender before reaching the edge of the abyss.
At last, he stopped before a pile of old lumber.
The logs had been stacked with unsettling precision, rising to nearly half his height. He stood there for several minutes, white breaths escaping into the frigid air as he watched the silence itself.
Then, with trembling hands, he began removing the wood.
One piece after another.
The creak of the dry timber sounded like muffled cries for help.
And when the final plank was lifted, everything collapsed.
Slowly, he directed the phone's light into the opening.
The blood froze in his veins.
There, at the heart of the darkness, lay more than secrets.
It was a cosmic scream given form—a mutilated human corpse arranged with meticulous precision, as though it were a carefully crafted work of art.
The phone slipped from his grasp.
Yet its beam remained fixed upon the truth that should have stayed buried forever.
Present Day
The lights of Lee Woo-jin Entertainment Studio were bright enough to blind.
Yet they could do nothing to warm the chill that had settled over the room.
The host stood before the cameras, wearing a broad smile. But anxiety flickered in his eyes—an anxiety that could only be explained by the crushing weight of the guest waiting backstage.
"Years of complete silence. No interviews. No explanations. Only a voice that slips through music and shatters hearts."
Woo-jin paused and wiped away a rebellious bead of sweat from his forehead.
The audience was packed with fans buzzing with excitement, yet the cameras moved with the solemnity of a funeral procession.
"It is my great honor to announce his rare appearance. The star who made millions cry without uttering a single word beyond his music."
He gestured toward the stage.
"Please welcome... Park Min-su."
Min-su entered.
There was no dramatic music.
Only the measured sound of his shoes striking the cold marble floor.
Tok.
Tok.
Tok.
Each footstep sounded like a nail being driven into the coffin of the artificial calm the studio had tried so desperately to create.
He wore black so deep it seemed to absorb the light around him.
His face was pale, like a piece of marble carved in a forgotten cellar.
His dark hair fell against his neck like a veil of perpetual mourning.
Slowly, he took his seat.
His eyes did not turn toward the host.
Instead, they pierced straight through the camera lens, as though he were staring directly at every viewer beyond the screen.
"Why now?" the host asked, his voice rough and strained.
One second passed.
Then four.
Then ten.
Min-su's silence carried physical weight.
Everyone felt their breathing tighten before he finally spoke, his voice calm as the whisper of wind before a storm.
"Because silence... has begun to speak louder than I do."
"Your songs are filled with pain," the host said, struggling to regain his composure. "Where does it all come from?"
Min-su lowered his gaze to his hands.
They trembled faintly, as though trying to shake off traces of mud that only he could see.
"From something..."
A brief pause.
"Or perhaps from someone."
When the host asked about his childhood memories, everything changed.
Min-su's pupils contracted.
In an instant, the noise of the studio vanished.
Inside his mind, there were no fans.
Only the muffled scream of a child.
And a sharp metallic scent—
the smell of warm blood running down the blade of a knife.
He returned to reality wearing a smile that was both gentle and tragic.
The smile of a defeated warrior.
"I remember Seo-hyeon and Hye-mi. We were each other's roots in a swamp that showed us no mercy."
He spoke of the orphanage.
Of the "unknown mold" into which he had been forced, condemned to live without a name, without an identity.
And as he spoke, the atmosphere inside the studio began to change.
A familiar scent drifted through the air.
Suddenly, Min-su's fingers tightened around the armrest.
A glowing blue feather landed upon the host's shoulder.
It drifted downward with surreal slowness, dancing among the dust particles.
The host didn't notice it.
Neither did the cameras.
But Min-su saw it.
His eyes widened in mute horror.
The hallucination had returned.
The dreadful blue jay—the harbinger that unearthed buried truths—had come back once more.