Nine years.
That is the biggest blank space in Four Hands.
Choi Jeong-yo disappeared as a teenage pianist after being kidnapped, shot, and falling into a river.
The investigation went nowhere.
Eventually, even people in the music world began to assume that he was dead.
Then he suddenly returned.
But not as the Choi Jeong-yo everyone remembered.
He came back as Luca Dominico.
Not a pianist.
A conductor.
And after Episode 7, I think the most interesting question is no longer whether Jeong-yo survived.
We know he did.
The real question is:
What happened during those nine years that transformed Choi Jeong-yo into Luca Dominico?
The Last Time We Saw the Old Jeong-yo
Before his disappearance, Jeong-yo’s future seemed obvious.
He was a pianist.
More importantly, piano was not simply his profession.
It was the language through which he understood himself.
Then everything changed.
Before the final round of an international competition, Jeong-yo was kidnapped. He fought to escape, but was shot and fell into a river.
After that, he vanished.
For everyone who knew him, that was essentially the death of Choi Jeong-yo.
Episode 7 reveals something more tragic.
Even though Jeong-yo survived, one part of the old Jeong-yo really did die that day.
The pianist.
Why Did Jeong-yo Stop Playing Piano?
This is one mystery Episode 7 has already begun to answer.
Jeong-yo did not simply decide that conducting was more interesting.
The gunshot changed his body.
His injury left him unable to play piano the way he once could.
That distinction matters.
Jeong-yo didn’t freely walk away from the piano.
The possibility of becoming the pianist he had dreamed of becoming was taken away from him.
And that completely changes how I see Luca Dominico.
At first, becoming a conductor could look like a career change.
I don’t think it is.
It looks more like Jeong-yo finding another way to remain inside music after losing the way he originally expected to live through it.
Why Conducting?
Think about what a conductor does.
A pianist creates music directly through his fingers.
A conductor doesn’t need to produce every note with his own hands.
Instead, he shapes the entire performance.
Strings.
Woodwinds.
Brass.
Percussion.
Tempo.
Dynamics.
Emotion.
Dozens of musicians become the conductor’s instrument.
For someone whose fingers can no longer do what they once could, conducting offers something extraordinary.
Jeong-yo may have lost control of the piano, but he did not lose his musical mind.
Perhaps that is why the transformation feels so appropriate.
He couldn’t return to the instrument he loved.
So he expanded the instrument.
Instead of controlling 88 keys, he learned to control an orchestra.
But Becoming a Conductor Doesn’t Explain Nine Years
And this is where the mystery becomes much bigger.
Jeong-yo didn’t disappear for a few months.
He was gone for nine years.
When he finally resurfaced, he wasn’t an unknown student trying conducting for the first time.
He appeared at an international conducting competition under the name Luca Dominico—and won.
That requires an enormous missing story.
Someone had to save him.
Someone had to treat his injuries.
Someone had to help him live after losing the piano.
And somewhere along the way, Jeong-yo had to study conducting seriously enough to become an internationally competitive conductor.
So who helped him?
That may be one of Episode 8’s most important questions.
The Monastery Could Be the Missing Bridge
One clue points toward the place that helped Jeong-yo after his disappearance.
If the monastery becomes central to Episode 8, I don’t think its importance will be limited to explaining how Jeong-yo physically survived.
The bigger question is:
How did that place help create Luca Dominico?
Perhaps someone there recognized Jeong-yo’s musical ability.
Perhaps someone introduced him to conducting.
Perhaps he received financial or educational help.
Or perhaps another person—someone we have not properly met yet—became his musical mentor.
At the moment, those possibilities remain theories.
But Jeong-yo’s transformation could not have happened in isolation.
There must be a bridge between the injured teenage pianist who disappeared and the conductor who returned nine years later.
Why the Name “Luca Dominico”?
Then there is the name itself.
Why didn’t he simply become Conductor Choi Jeong-yo?
Why Luca Dominico?
Before Episode 7 aired, even tvN’s own preview highlighted both mysteries: why Jeong-yo abandoned the path of a pianist and why he appeared under an unfamiliar name.
Episode 7 makes that second question even more interesting because Jeong-yo clearly wants control over how the world sees his past.
During his interview, he refuses to let questions about the old pianist dominate the conversation and says he doesn’t want his music damaged by his past.
That makes “Luca Dominico” feel like more than a stage name.
It may be a wall.
On one side is Choi Jeong-yo:
the pianist,
the kidnapped teenager,
Bi-o’s friend,
the victim.
On the other side is Luca Dominico:
the adult,
the conductor,
the competition winner,
the man who controls what other people are allowed to know about him.
Maybe Luca was the identity Jeong-yo needed in order to build a life that wasn’t defined by what happened to him.
But Jeong-yo Has Not Really Erased His Past
This is where Episode 7 gives us its biggest contradiction.
Jeong-yo tells the world he lost his memory.
He tells Bi-o he doesn’t know him.
But the episode reveals that this isn’t true.
Jeong-yo remembers.
The supposed amnesia is part of the identity he is presenting to the world. Recent Episode 7 coverage confirms that he deliberately deceives Bi-o about having forgotten him.
And that changes everything.
If Jeong-yo truly wanted to erase Choi Jeong-yo forever, he could have stayed away.
Instead, he came back to Korea.
Back to the people connected to his old life.
Back to Bi-o.
That means Luca Dominico isn’t simply running away from Choi Jeong-yo.
He has brought Luca Dominico back to confront Choi Jeong-yo’s unfinished story.
Why Come Back Now?
This may be the more important question.
Jeong-yo had nine years to return.
Why now?
And why return so publicly?
He didn’t quietly contact Bi-o.
He didn’t secretly investigate his kidnapping.
He returned by winning a major conducting competition.
Everyone had to see him.
Everyone had to learn the name Luca Dominico.
That doesn’t feel accidental.
There are several possibilities.
He may want to discover who was behind his kidnapping.
He may want revenge.
He may want to reclaim the musical life that was stolen from him in a different form.
Or his return may be connected to Bi-o himself.
Episode 7 doesn’t give us enough evidence yet to choose between those explanations.
But one thing is clear:
Jeong-yo’s return is not passive.
He is making choices.
And Bi-o Is Now Investigating the Same Nine Years
Meanwhile, Bi-o is moving in the opposite direction.
Jeong-yo is returning from the missing nine years.
Bi-o is digging backward into them.
The investigation into Jeong-yo’s disappearance produced little at the time, which is one reason the music world eventually presumed him dead.
Now Bi-o wants answers.
That means the story is creating two paths toward the same mystery.
Jeong-yo knows what happened after he survived.
Bi-o is trying to discover what happened before Jeong-yo disappeared.
Eventually those two stories should collide.
And when they do, we may finally understand not only who kidnapped Jeong-yo, but who helped him become Luca Dominico.
I Don’t Think Luca Dominico Is a Disguise
My first reaction was to think of Luca Dominico as Jeong-yo’s mask.
Now I’m not sure that’s quite right.
A mask is something fake.
But Luca’s musical achievement is real.
The years of training must have been real.
His ability to conduct is real.
And the life he built during those nine years is real.
So perhaps Luca Dominico isn’t a fake identity.
Perhaps he is the person Jeong-yo became because Choi Jeong-yo could no longer live the life he had planned.
That’s much more interesting.
Jeong-yo didn’t simply survive.
He rebuilt himself.
Episode 8 Could Finally Fill in the Blank
Episode 7 answered one enormous question:
Is Jeong-yo alive?
Yes.
It answered another:
Does he really not remember Bi-o?
No. He remembers him.
But that leaves the most fascinating blank untouched.
What happened between the boy who fell into the river and the man who picked up the conductor’s baton?
Nine years are missing.
Somewhere inside those nine years are likely the answers to how he survived, who helped him, why he chose conducting, why he became Luca Dominico, and why he waited so long to return.
And perhaps the most important question of all:
Did Jeong-yo spend those nine years trying to escape his past—or preparing to return to it?
After Episode 7, I suspect the answer may be both.
Jeong-yo’s transformation into Luca Dominico raises an even deeper question about his past. Could the mystery surrounding his biological father change how we understand his relationship with the other characters? Explore the theory about Jeong-yo’s real father and hidden family history.