The treatment method had been described in vague terms. It was unclear whether a complete recovery was even possible.
Does Haechan know the details? Of all times to need him, he wasn’t around for once. He was a truly unhelpful hyung. Just as Haehyeon was about to search more thoroughly for information on “Secondary Trait Hormone Collapse Syndrome treatment methods,” Haejun hyung returned with an uncomfortable expression.
“Haehyeon, something urgent came up at the company — I think I need to step out for a bit. Will you be okay?”
“Do you think I’m a child? Of course I’ll be fine.”
Does my oldest hyung really see me as some little kid who bursts into tears whenever he’s left alone? The overprotectiveness was excessive — far too excessive. Haehyeon gave him a firm look, and his hyung simply smiled softly before leaving with a promise to come back as soon as he could.
The housekeeper had taken Haeyong out earlier, so Haehyeon really was completely alone in the house. Now that he thought about it, this was the first time since waking up that he’d been home alone without even Haeyong around.
With his oldest hyung’s presence gone, the house felt unusually quiet and vast.
Realizing no one would be coming for a while, Haehyeon found himself heading toward the corner of the first floor — as if something had compelled him to.
“……”
He hadn’t so much as glanced in this direction all this time. Yet somewhere in the back of his mind, he’d always known he would have to go in there eventually. And right now, with no one home, was the perfect opportunity. He didn’t want to go in when family was around. He stared at the door handle for a long moment, then gathered his courage, took a deep breath, and opened it.
A mirror that filled an entire wall.
A worn bar with its white paint peeling away.
A floor laid with good elasticity.
The sunlight filtering through the window rested quietly in the space — preserved exactly as he remembered it, like time had stopped, just like his own room.
This room had been a gift for his sixteenth birthday. His parents had secretly converted it into a practice studio and revealed it as a surprise on his birthday. A space they had put thought into so that he could practice whenever he wanted, as much as he wanted, without having to travel all the way to a studio or the school dance room.
He walked over to the display cabinet in one corner. All the certificates and trophies he had received were arranged there — every single one except for one. The polished trophies gleamed in the sunlight streaming through the window, each showing off its own brilliance.
Beneath the awards — Best Student Division, Grand Prix — his name and nationality were inscribed in Korean, in English, in French.
Shin Haehyeon
Shin Haehyeon
Haehyeon Shin from South Korea
Haehyeon Shin, Corée du Sud……
Each competition stage was a precious memory he could recall one by one.
In front of the trophies, framed photographs were lined up as well. They were taken before and after performances. Haehyeon wearing heavy stage makeup and glittering costumes, smiling with bouquets in hand — and beside him, family and friends smiling even more happily than he was.
He glanced briefly over the people in the photographs, then opened the cabinet and took out the frame positioned right in the center.
It was a cherished photograph he used to take out and look at whenever he grew tired during practice — like a precious talisman. Inside it were his eleven-year-old self and two beautiful dancers.
His twenty-four-year-old self brushed the cheek of his ten-year-old self, flushed red with excitement and the cold. How could anyone forget the thrill of the moment you fell in love with something?
He remembered that winter vividly — when he had traveled to Paris with his parents.
Snow had been flurrying along the path to the performance hall that evening. The day Haehyeon, who had been learning ballet after taekwondo and gymnastics, finally got to see a proper ballet performance.
In contrast to Paris’s dark and chilly streets, the interior of the storied theater was a cozy world of its own.
Shimmering chandelier lights from a high ceiling. Plush red velvet seats. Fur coats. Laughter. The clinking of champagne glasses. An enraptured murmuring.
It felt like a place that had gathered only the finest sensations the world had to offer.
Before the house lights dimmed, the thin sounds of string instruments and the disorderly, testing blares of wind instruments gradually faded away…… and the orchestra began playing the overture, drawing him completely into another world.
A royal banquet.
A lake.
Swans.
Love.
Tragedy.
Dance.
He couldn’t take his eyes off the dancers as they took their graceful bows beneath thunderous applause and cheers.
When the performance ended and he was swept out into the street among the crowd, stars were shining in the darkened sky. Like those who had smiled so brightly under the stage lights.
He held back his parents, who wanted to return to the hotel, and waited anxiously outside the theater.
When the prince and the swan princess from the stage finally appeared in thick parkas, he couldn’t hold back anymore — he ran up to them and cried out.
I want to dance like that too! Freely and beautifully.
And he shyly held out the bouquet his mother had bought for him.
The swan princess took the flowers and thanked him, and the prince laughed and lifted him up in his arms. He never forgot the whisper he heard then.
I’ll be waiting for you on stage.
His heart had pounded as if it would burst.
He had thought it was the moment his destiny was decided.
The joy and hope of that moment were preserved, captured inside the photograph.
After returning to Korea, he had shouted it to Kwon Wookyung when he saw him for the first time in days.
I’m definitely going to stand on that stage!
After that, he had diligently worked his way toward the stage of his dreams.
He worked hard, but luck was also very much on his side. Achievements accumulated one by one, and whenever people listed the top students among his peers in Korea, his name was always mentioned. A promising talent — he even gained fans. After winning awards at prestigious international competitions, he received invitations along with scholarships from two ballet schools abroad. One of them was in Paris.
If not for that one accidental incident, he would have gone.
He would have looked up at the Parisian night sky many times over,
and might have even met the princess and prince from that day.
And after that?
Could he have become a star of Paris?
That was no longer something he could know.
The star that had sparkled so close, seemingly within his grasp, had drifted away to a distance of hundreds of light-years — somewhere he could never reach.
He put the photograph back in its place and opened the wardrobe. Inside were costumes, props, and practice clothes.
The well-kept costumes showed his growth, their sizes gradually increasing. From the smallest — the red La Sylphide costume — to the largest — the pale blue Talisman costume. The jeweled ornaments on the clothes glittered forlornly in the darkness of the wardrobe. He couldn’t bring himself to take out the costumes, and closed the wardrobe.
The music CDs are all still here too.
Mom used to buy new ones right when they came out.
Instead, he pulled out an old CD, put it in the stereo, and pressed play.
Then he lay down on the floor — full of invisible footprints — and closed his eyes.
The magnificent overture instantly transported him to Paris in winter, thirteen years ago. To the royal banquet and Swan Lake……
As he quietly hummed along with the melody in his mind, every movement of the prince on stage played out before him. It felt as if he could get up and dance at any moment.
……After waking from the long sleep, his parents and hyungs never once brought up ballet in front of him.
Because they knew it was no longer possible. If he had woken up five years ago — no, even three years ago — things might have been different… but six years was too late. Even after rehabilitation was complete and his body was fully restored, Shin Haehyeon as a ballet dancer was already finished. No matter how hard he worked, it would never surpass the dancing of the young prodigy Shin Haehyeon preserved in those videos.
The dream he had blindly chased was over. A dream that had been so happy and so beautiful.
He decided he would allow himself to grieve only until this piece ended.
No — just until the next track too……
He had loved ballet so very, very much.
But that love had never been the entirety of his life.
Because even without ballet, there were beautiful things in this world worth loving.
After saying goodbye to the dream that never came true, all he had to do was open his heart and fully embrace the other loves that life had to offer.
Because he already knew that wonderful truth about life — that was why today felt good, and tomorrow felt worth looking forward to.
It was just… he hoped that whatever he came to love next wouldn’t make him this sad.
A date had been set for the reunion.
Someone had named it the “Shin Haehyeon Resurrection Celebration Party” and posted a mobile invitation in the group chat — the RSVP response rate was enthusiastic.
Perhaps because he wanted to be in as good a shape as possible when he saw his friends, he found himself able to focus more on his rehabilitation training too. And sure enough, his walking speed had improved noticeably over the past few days.
Rehabilitating, going on walks, occasionally looking over exam prep books, playing with Haeyong, keeping in touch with friends… just days like that. Days where he wasn’t doing much in particular, yet time passed by quickly.
He generously sent Kwon Wookyung a text that said [What are you up to?] and got back the most boring reply in the world: [Reading.]
True to character for someone who lived with a book in hand and rarely stepped outside — it seemed like now that he was on break, he had cleaned his house and then locked himself inside it, refusing to come out under any circumstances.
…Was he a hermit crab in a past life? The evidence was compelling, given that you had to practically drag him outside before he’d reluctantly agree to leave. All those fans who thought Kwon Wookyung was cool — they’d all disappear the moment they saw his true self.
KWK: you
“Oh?”
For once, two extra characters had arrived.
“Haeyong, hold on a second.”
He had stopped mid-walk to check the text, and Haeyong turned to look back at him.
Typing a reply while standing was a hassle, so he sent a voice message saying “on a walk.” His neighborhood walking range had expanded, and he was on his way back from going all the way to a nearby park.
Wookyung asked “Why a voice recording?” so Haehyeon replied “my hands are weak,” and then Wookyung was the one who called first.
“Kwon Wookyung?”
— Does your hand hurt?
“Huh? No. I’ve just been texting a lot.”
— Who with?
“Just the guys? Seonho reached out and reconnected me with everyone. We decided to have a reunion.”
— A reunion?
“Yeah. Seonho is taking the lead on organizing it. A date’s already been set. I hadn’t mentioned it to you. A lot of people said they’d come.”
Choi Seonho wouldn’t have Kwon Wookyung’s contact, so it was natural he’d been left out.
— Who’s going?
“Hmm, for now — the organizer Choi Seonho, me, Minji, Dogyeong, Seryeong, Kim Daehee, oh… who else was there?”
— All familiar names.
Kwon Wookyung said something unexpectedly.
— I’ll go too.
“Huh? It’s this coming weekend. Do you have time?”
“Yeah.”
The last short answer didn’t come from the other side of the phone — it came from somewhere else entirely.
Haehyeon looked up and met Kwon Wookyung’s eyes as he ended the call.
Kwon Wookyung was standing outside his own front gate. The sun should have been rising in the west — but it was late afternoon, and the sun was dutifully making its way westward.
