Chapter 31( Epilogue ) : Her Song, My War

The alley hasn’t changed.

Same cracked bricks. Same graffiti bleeding down the walls like broken dreams. Same rusted fire escape climbing toward a sky that feels farther away now than it ever did.

The only thing missing… is her.

I stand there in the cold, rain dripping off the edges of the rooftops. The city hums in the distance, alive and loud, but this alley is quiet. Too quiet. The tin cup she used to keep by her piano stand is gone. The stool where she sat—long since claimed by rot and shadows.

But if I close my eyes, I can still see her.

Fingers dancing across chipped keys, coaxing music out of an instrument that had no right sounding so beautiful. Blind eyes turned toward the sound as if she could see every note blooming in the air. That small smile curving her lips when she teased me for being awkward.

God, I’d give everything to hear that laugh again.

Maybe I already have.

---

I reach into my jacket and pull out my phone. The screen lights my face, casting pale reflections in the puddles by my feet. Her name glows at the top of the playlist: Yume.mp3.

My thumb hovers over it for a second—just a second—before I press play.

And there it is.

The first note unfurls like dawn spilling across a black horizon. Soft, tender, and impossibly alive. Her music. Her heartbeat captured in sound.

The world fades. The rain. The cold. The weight of blood on my hands. None of it matters.

It’s just her.

For three minutes and forty-seven seconds, she’s here again. Filling the alley. Filling me.

By the time the last chord fades into silence, my throat feels like it’s been carved hollow. I slip the phone back into my pocket, fingers brushing against the scarf tucked inside. Her scarf. Worn thin from being held too tight, too often.

I pull it out and wrap it once around my hand, a ritual now. A tether to a ghost.

Then I turn and start walking.

Because the night’s not done with me yet.

---

The underground isn’t far. It never is if you know where to look. Neon signs point one way for the fools who want clean fights and ticketed seats. But real blood runs deeper, in basements and forgotten warehouses where names don’t matter and rules don’t exist.

The place reeks of sweat and cheap liquor, the kind of stench that clings to your lungs even when you leave. The crowd is a living organism—snarling, pulsing, hungry for violence. They part when they see me coming, their jeers dying in their throats, replaced by something colder.

Fear.

I hear the whispers ripple like static.

“That’s him.”

“Hayama.”

“The guy who doesn’t fall.”

They’re wrong, though. I fell the night she did. Everything since has just been the aftershock.

Jin spots me near the entrance. He looks older, wearier, like every scar on my face carved one into him, too.

“You sure about this?” he asks. His voice is tight, like a wire stretched to breaking.

I don’t answer. Just meet his gaze, and whatever he sees there makes his shoulders sag.

“Thought so.”

He presses something into my palm—mouthguard, tape—and mutters, “Go make them afraid.”

I don’t tell him they should already be.

---

The locker room is a tomb. Four walls, peeling paint, and a bench that feels colder than death. I sit and start wrapping my hands, slow and deliberate. The scarf is the first layer, hidden beneath the tape—a secret only I’ll carry into that ring.

Every pull of the tape tightens the knot in my chest. Every turn is a drumbeat marching me closer to the edge.

When I’m done, I stare at my reflection in the cracked mirror.

I don’t see a fighter. I don’t even see a man.

I see a grave with fists.

And tonight, I’m digging it myself.

---

The roar hits first when I step out—the kind of sound that rattles bone, thick with bloodlust and money. The ring sits in the center of a pit, lights glaring down like judgment.

My opponent’s already there. Big. Mean. Tattooed arms veined like tree roots. He grins when he sees me—wide, feral—like I’m just another piece of meat thrown to the wolves.

Let him grin.

The bell hasn’t rung yet.

I climb through the ropes, every movement deliberate. My ribs ache, my shoulder throbs, but pain stopped mattering the day I lost her. This body’s just a weapon now. A blade already breaking.

The ref mumbles rules nobody listens to. The crowd surges, chanting for blood. My opponent pounds his chest like a war drum, shouting something about ending me quick.

Good.

Let him try.

The bell rings.

And the war begins.

---

He charges like a bull, all muscle and arrogance, his first swing a hammer aimed to take my head off. I slip under it, feel the wind kiss my ear, and bury my fist in his ribs. Bone cracks under knuckles, but he doesn’t drop.

Not yet.

He comes again, faster this time. Hooks, jabs, knees—a storm of violence meant to crush. I absorb some. Dodge others. My body’s a riot of pain, but my mind is somewhere else.

Back in that alley.

Back on that rooftop.

Back to the sound of a piano bleeding into the night.

Every punch I throw carries that sound. Every strike is her melody turned to steel.

Blood blooms on his lip. His grin dies. Good.

Round after round, the ring becomes a graveyard. His, mine—doesn’t matter. I’m not here to win. I’m here to burn.

By the fourth round, he’s staggering. By the fifth, he’s praying.

And me?

I’m smiling for the first time in months.

Because I can almost hear her laugh under the roar of the crowd.

---

When it ends, it ends in silence.

He’s on the canvas, a ruin of blood and breath, and I’m standing over him, chest heaving, fists dripping red. The ref grabs my arm, shouting something about victory, but I don’t hear it.

I’m already gone.

Because winning was never the point.

The point was this—the quiet after chaos. The moment where the world narrows to nothing but the sound in my head.

Her song.

Always her song.

---

I walk out before they can shove cameras in my face, before the gamblers can shove bills into Jin’s hands. He calls after me, voice sharp with something between anger and fear, but I keep moving.

Out of the pit.

Out of the smoke.

Into the night.

The rain hasn’t stopped. It slicks the streets, washes the blood from my skin, but nothing can wash her from me. Not now. Not ever.

I stop under a streetlight, pull out my phone, and hit play one last time.

The notes spill out, soft and slow, threading through the rain like silver threads. My heartbeat syncs to it—steady, fading, almost peaceful.

I close my eyes, tilt my head back, and let it drown me.

Because this is all I have left.

Her music.

Her ghost.

And the war that won’t end until I do.

---

I take a deep breath, taste iron and rain, and start walking toward the next fight.

Toward the next war.

Because as long as her song plays, I’ll keep moving.

Until I can’t anymore.

---

The world took her eyes. Then it took her life. But it never took her music.

That’s the sound I’ll die chasing.