When the Sky Forgets Your Name | 석하렌 | RIIZE Eunseok

Chapter 1: The Chime in the Wind

There were three things Sowon never let go of: her black sketchbook, her secondhand tape recorder, and the old stories that no one else remembered.

The sketchbook was filled with faces she'd never met — mostly that one silver-eyed boy whose features always blurred when she tried to draw him clearly. The recorder held the last few bedtime stories her grandfather had told her before his voice grew too thin. And the stories... they clung to her like shadow.

It was early autumn when the sky began to change. Not the color — no, it still wore its usual soft blue and gray. But something in the way the wind moved through the trees felt different. Like it was looking for something. Or someone.

She first noticed it walking home from school, alone, as usual. Her friends had on the bus, eager to get home to their phones and warm rice cakes. Sowon preferred to walk. The old path behind the school took her along the edge of a withered forest — the kind left untouched because no one had a reason to go in anymore.

The leaves whispered as she passed, rustling like voices half-heard. Her hand brushed the bark of a crooked tree, and her fingers lingered on a thin piece of string tied around a low branch — faded red, fraying, and forgotten.

It reminded her of the stories.

"They used to tie prayers to trees," she whispered aloud, her voice barely louder than the wind. "For the god of the sky."

She closed her eyes, letting the breeze press against her face. It smelled of moss and iron — old air. Air that hadn't been touched in years.

Then, the chime rang.

It was soft, but distinct. A single, high, trembling note, like glass brushing silver. Sowon froze.

No one hung windchimes out here. No one even came here.

She turned.

Nothing but trees.

The sound came again, this time drifting from deeper inside the forest.

She should've gone home. It was late, and the sky had begun to blush gold.

But her feet moved forward, slow and quiet. Step by step, she followed the chime.

Her shoes crunched over dead leaves. Branches tangled in her hair. The sound led her past gnarled roots and crooked stones until the trees opened suddenly into a small clearing — and then, silence.

There was no chime. No breeze. Not even birdsong.

But she wasn't alone.

A boy stood at the center of the clearing, facing away from her. He wore white — simple, loose, like cloth made from mist. His hair was the color of dusk. He didn't move, didn't speak.

Something in her chest stuttered.

She knew that shape.

She had drawn him, over and over, for years. Dreamed of him. Tried to remember the way he smiled.

She stepped forward.

A branch snapped underfoot.

The boy turned.

He was beautiful. Not in the way people were, but in the way forgotten songs were — something that made your bones ache. His eyes were silver, like rain catching light. His gaze landed on her with the kind of stillness that made the world feel quiet.

"You found it," he said, voice soft as the chime.

Sowon's breath caught. "Found what?"

"The place where I wait."