The ad said “cheap rooftop room. Quiet. Mangwon.”

It didn’t say “leaks when it rains.”

Minho found it on a Thursday. He had two suitcases, one backpack full of cables and audio interfaces, and exactly 3,200,000 won left in his account. Seoul was supposed to be a reset.

His mom was in Busan now, with his dad’s new wife. They sent “good luck” texts every Sunday. Hongik had accepted his transfer to sound design two weeks ago. New city. New major. New Minho, maybe. The old one had spent too many nights in a hospital waiting room learning how to be quiet.

The building was old brick with a faded sign: _Vinyl & Co._ The store was closed. Dust on the windows, records still in the display like no one had the heart to take them down. A bell above the door didn’t ring because the door was locked.

“Third floor,” a voice called from inside.

Minho climbed. The stairwell smelled like wet concrete and cigarettes.

Jihoon was sitting on the landing, knees up, smoking with the window open even though it was December. 24, maybe. Film major hoodie, dark circles under his eyes, sharp jaw. He looked like someone who hadn’t slept properly since last year. A chipped mug sat next to him with cold coffee in it.

“You Minho?”

Minho nodded, shifting his backpack.

Jihoon stood and unlocked the rooftop door. “Sublet. Until June. 400 a month. Don’t touch the equipment downstairs. Don’t bring people over. Don’t ask about the piano.”

Minho blinked. “...Okay.”

“And the roof leaks when it rains.” Jihoon said it like an afterthought, pushing the door open.

The room was small. One bed, one desk, one hot plate, one chair that wobbled. A slanted ceiling with a water stain in the corner shaped vaguely like Korea. A single window looked out over Mangwon’s neon signs and the Han River in the distance. It smelled like old wood and instant coffee and something faintly like vinyl.

“Why’s it so cheap?” Minho asked, setting his suitcase down carefully.

Jihoon shrugged, leaning against the doorframe. “Because of the leak.”

Right on cue, the first drop of rain hit the window. Then another.

That night it poured.

Minho lay awake listening to it drum on the roof. At 2am, drip... drip... drip started in the corner. He moved his bed. The drip followed him. He tried earplugs. Didn’t work. He ended up sitting at the desk, headphones on, recording the sound of rain hitting metal and glass. Layered together, it was kind of beautiful. He named the file _rain_01.wav_ and saved it.

A knock at 3am. Soft, but firm.

Jihoon stood in the doorway in grey sweatpants and a wet white t-shirt, holding a yellow bucket and a towel over his shoulder. His hair was damp and stuck to his forehead.

“You’re awake,” Jihoon said. It wasn’t a question.

“The leak,” Minho said, dumbly, gesturing at the bucket.

“Yeah.” Jihoon set the bucket down under the drip and looked at Minho’s desk. The recorder. The headphones. The mess of cables. “You do sound stuff?”

“Sound design. Hongik. First semester.”

Jihoon nodded once. “Don’t electrocute yourself.”

He turned to go, then paused with his hand on the door. “There’s ramyeon downstairs if you’re hungry. Don’t burn the place down. And uh... welcome.”

After he left, Minho noticed something on the desk. A new umbrella. Black, still in plastic. With a small note tucked under the handle in messy handwriting.

_For the leak. -J_

It wasn’t raining inside anymore.

Outside, Seoul was neon and wet and loud in a way Busan never was. Inside, Minho listened to the rain on the roof and thought: maybe this place wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe quiet didn’t have to be lonely

The leak stopped on Friday.

Seoul got 3 days of sun, and Minho almost believed the room was normal.

He spent those days unpacking. Cables into drawers. Headphones on hooks. A small plant on the windowsill that would probably die. He went to Hongik, sat in the back of sound design class, and didn’t talk to anyone.

He came home to silence. No drip. No Jihoon.

Jihoon was barely around. Minho heard him sometimes downstairs, moving boxes in the closed record store. Heard the faint sound of a film playing at 2am through the floorboards. But they didn’t run into each other. Not until Sunday night, when it started raining again.

It wasn’t a storm. Just steady rain. The kind that makes the city sound softer.

Drip.

Right back in the corner.

Minho put the yellow bucket out. Then he noticed it.

Under the desk, pushed against the wall, was an old cassette recorder. Silver, scratched. The kind people used in the early 2000s. Next to it, a shoebox.

Inside the shoebox: 12 tapes. No labels except dates written in black marker.

_03.14_

_05.02_

_07.22_

_11.01_

All the way to _12.30_.

He shouldn’t have listened. The note Jihoon didn’t leave but clearly meant was _don’t touch_.

But the rain was loud, and the room was quiet, and curiosity was a bad habit Minho never broke.

He plugged in headphones. Pressed play on _03.14_.

Static. Then a younger Jihoon’s voice. Softer. Less tired.

“Hyung, if you’re listening to this, I’m sorry I yelled. Come home. The store is dead without you. I made ramyeon. It tastes bad.”

A pause. “...I miss you.”

Minho stopped the tape. His chest felt weird.

He tried _07.22_.

No talking. Just piano. Three minutes. Slow, a little uneven, like someone was learning. Then a sigh, and the click of stop.

_Tape 11.01_:

“I don’t know how to run a store alone. The rent went up. Hyung, please. Even just call.”

Silence. Then: “Never mind.”

Minho put the tape back in the box exactly how he found it. His hands felt guilty.

At 1am, he heard footsteps on the stairs. Jihoon, coming in from somewhere, shaking off an umbrella.

Minho didn’t say anything about the tapes. Instead, he went downstairs.

Jihoon was in the back of the store, sitting on the floor surrounded by records. A single lamp on. He looked up when Minho appeared.

“You’re up late.”

“The bucket was full,” Minho lied.

Jihoon nodded. He looked exhausted. “Thanks.”

Minho set something on the table next to him. A new black umbrella, still in plastic. With a note tucked under the handle.

_For the leak. -M_

Jihoon stared at it for a second. “You didn’t have to.”

“It was in the way,” Minho said. “Of the floor.”

He went back upstairs before Jihoon could answer.

The next morning, the umbrella was gone from the table. In its place was a cup of instant coffee, and a pack of choco pie. No note.

Over the next week, small things started happening.

Jihoon started coming home before midnight.

There was always hot water in the kettle.

One night Minho found a blanket folded over the chair, because the room got cold.

Minho never mentioned the tapes again.

But he started leaving the recorder on his desk. Not playing it. Just... there.

On Thursday, Jihoon knocked. 11pm.

He was holding a box of old cables. “Found these downstairs. Thought you could use them.”

Minho took them. “Thanks.”

Awkward pause. Rain started outside.

Jihoon glanced at the ceiling, at the water stain. “It’s gonna drip again.”

“Yeah,” Minho said.

Jihoon didn’t leave right away. He stood there, looking at the recorder on the desk. Then at Minho.

“You... hear anything weird up here?”

Minho’s heart jumped. “Like what?”

“Nothing,” Jihoon said quickly. “Forget it.”

He left.

That night, Minho didn’t sleep. He sat at his desk and listened to the rain.

Drip.

Drip.

And somewhere downstairs, very faint, he thought he heard piano.

Three notes. Then silence.

He didn’t write it down. But he remembered it.

The assignment was posted on a Monday.

“Final Project: Create audio for a 5-minute short film. Pairs. Due in 6 weeks.”

Minho stared at the list. His name. Next to it: _Jihoon K._

He didn’t know there were other Jihoons in Hongik’s film department.

After class, Jihoon was waiting by the elevator. Hoodie up, coffee in hand, looking like he’d been up all night editing.

“Didn’t know you were in this class,” Jihoon said.

Minho shrugged. “Elective.”

Jihoon nodded. “My film is about a night worker. Guy who works at a convenience store and forgets how to sleep. No dialogue. Just sound and shots of Seoul at 2am.”

“Sounds... quiet,” Minho said.

“Yeah,” Jihoon said. Almost like a smile. “You good with that?”

They agreed to meet at the store. After hours.

The first work session was awkward. Jihoon cleared space in the back of _Vinyl & Co._ Pushed records aside. Set up a camera, a laptop, a small speaker.

Minho brought his recorder, headphones, and a hard drive.

For an hour they didn’t talk. Jihoon played rough footage: empty streets, flickering signs, the Han River at night. Minho listened with his eyes closed, fingers tapping on the desk.

“You hear it?” Minho finally said.

“What?”

“The hum. From the streetlights. And the bus brakes. And... that.” He pointed at a clip of rain on a convenience store awning. “That’s the whole scene.”

Jihoon looked at him. “Show me.”

So Minho did. He layered rain, distant traffic, the soft buzz of a fridge. He added footsteps. Slow. Tired.

When he played it back, Jihoon didn’t say anything for a long time.

“Again,” Jihoon said. “But slower.”

They worked like that for weeks.

Minho would come home from class and go straight downstairs. Jihoon would already be there, camera on a tripod, filming B-roll of Mangwon at night.

Sometimes they ordered ramyeon. Sometimes they didn’t eat.

Minho learned Jihoon drank coffee black and hated it when people talked during takes.

Jihoon learned Minho talked to his equipment. “Come on, pick it up,” he’d mutter at a mic.

One night at 2am, Minho fell asleep on the couch.

He woke up with a blanket over him and Jihoon at the mixing desk, headphones on. The room smelled like instant coffee and rain.

“You didn’t have to stay,” Minho mumbled, sitting up.

“I know,” Jihoon said, without looking up. “I want to.”

He rewound a clip. “Listen. The crosswalk sound here. It’s too sharp.”

Minho leaned over. Their shoulders brushed. “Soften it. Add reverb. Like it’s far away.”

“Yeah,” Jihoon said. He did it. “Better.”

They submitted the film a week early.

Title: _2AM_.

It was 5 minutes of a man walking through Seoul. No words. Just sound. Rain. Buses. A vending machine. A piano in the distance, muffled.

Two weeks later, the professor announced the results.

“Best in department: _2AM_ by Jihoon K. and Minho L.”

People clapped. Minho clapped too, staring at his shoes.

After class, Jihoon nudged him. “We won.”

“Yeah,” Minho said.

Jihoon looked... lighter. Like he hadn’t in a while. “Come on. I owe you dinner.”

They went to a 24-hour kimbap place. Sat in a corner booth.

Jihoon picked at his food. “You made it sound like home.”

Minho blinked. “What?”

“The film. It sounded like... like someone was waiting for you to come back.”

Minho didn’t know what to say to that. So he just drank his water.

On the walk home, it started drizzling.

Jihoon pulled out the black umbrella Minho had left him. Held it over both of them.

They didn’t talk.

Back at the store, Jihoon unlocked the door and paused.

“The piano,” he said suddenly.

Minho waited.

“I haven’t played in a year,” Jihoon said. “Since my hyung left.”

Minho nodded.

Jihoon looked at him. “You can come listen. If you want. I’m... rusty.”

He went downstairs before Minho could answer.

Ten minutes later, Minho heard it.

Faint. From the back room.

Three notes. The same three from that night in Chapter 2.

Then a fourth. Hesitant.

Then silence.

Minho didn’t go down. Not that night.

But he left his door open. Just in case.