SEOKJIN YEAR 22 AUGUST 15:
Seokjin recounts how he first met the girl , one month ago (July 11th) by the railroad tracks after visiting Jungkook at the hospital. As he contemplates how lonely he feels, he sees the girl crossing the tracks towards him. She drops her diary which contained her wish list, and one of the things in it was a clipping of the Smeraldo Flower and a paragraph from The Art Of Loving by Erich Fromm. Seokjin tries to do a lot of things from the book with her for the following month. He also finds the Smeraldo Flower Shop and arranges for their delivery on August 30. Although he knows that he is doing the wrong thing, he is unable to come clean because he is afraid the girl might leave him. He says he wants to make her happy and confess his love for her. He decides to confess on August 30 during the Firework display at the Yangji River because it's her favorite time and her favorite place.
YOONGI YEAR 22 JULY 28:After the mountain, Yoongi had suffered chills for two days continuously, and finally woke up in the afternoon. He goes to the hospital to get an I.V. and then checks Jimin’s message in the group while in the restroom. As he makes his way back along the railroad, he arrives at a bus stop. In the distance, there is an unfinished building , next to which is the music shop that came in his dreams. This time the fire, the piano seems like a distant past. He remembers Hoseok’s words about how the others were hurting too. Hoseok had always pushed him and encouraged him, but this time it felt different. He checked Jimin’s message again , but Hoseok had still not replied. Yoongi feels guilty of letting Hoseok down. Hoseok had always been the one to pull him back when he went too astray but he had never completely looked away. It feels irreversible.
HOSEOK YEAR 22 JULY 16:
Hoseok goes through Jungkook’s sketchbook. It contains scenes of them together in the classroom, the tunnel, and also the night of his accident. He had drawn himself lying on the road, with blood flowing and the moon was high up in the sky. Jungkook comes and asks him if he is okay. Hoseok shares how he had danced with his hurt ankle so now he was in a plaster cast. Hoseok decides to throw a celebration party for Jungkook as he was due to be discharged in a week. He recalls how much fun they had in the party they had thrown after busting Jimin out from the hospital. After poking fun at Hoseok’s health, Jungkook asks him if Seokjin ever talked about that night, or if he mentioned Seokjin seeing him. Hoseok is confused. Jungkook then asks him if he was a good person for sure. Hoseok tells him not to be silly and begins wondering if someone could call him a good kid.
HOSEOK YEAR 22 JULY 7:
Hoseok hurt his ankle the night Jimin and that girl ran into each other while practicing a dance move. He had carried the girl on his back and ran in the rain towards the hospital. While waiting for her in the hospital, he’d dropped her bag by accident and found a plane ticket. The girl had applied for an international dance team and the ticket meant that she had gotten through. The girl called out his name but he went outside on the excuse of buying an umbrella. Jimin had been waiting anxiously in the practice room, Hoseok had assured him the girl was fine but Jimin still seemed dejected. The next morning Hoseok’s ankle had swollen. He’d tripped a little carrying the girl, and then because he had to stand on his feet for his work, and could not afford to miss the dance practice- it became worse and worse.
JUNGKOOK YEAR 22 JUNE 15:Jungkook wakes up from his dream about the night of the accident , drenched in sweat. He decides to go out in the hallway , using crutches. After sitting on a bench outside, he feels better because it is less stuffier than inside, and starts sketching what he saw in the dream. The doctor comes by and praises him for recovering quickly, calling it a miracle. The girl he met yesterday also asked him how he felt to be a part of a miracle. Jungkook tries hard to sketch but his memories are blurred, and he is interrupted by the girl who kept asking him questions. After a while a familiar melody plays, and Jungkook recognizes it as the same one Yoongi used to play in the workroom. He gets up to see who is performing and sees a lighter marked Y.K. hanging on the guitar.
YOONGI YEAR 22 JUNE 15:
Yoongi wakes up from a dream. He had been working on a piano piece for several nights, the result of which was that the melody haunted him in his dream. In his dream he was near his apartment, covered in dense fog, and picked up a piano key.As soon as he did that the scenery changed to a workroom- memories come to him of playing piano with Jungkook, followed by memories of the beach-visit. When he wakes up there is a banging on his door. A girl who has become his music partner frequents his workroom often. She evaluated his work harshly and nagged him to finish it. She even makes him give up smoking. This provoked him, and he began working harder on his music, ignoring calls and messages and staying up all night to compose. When he is done, the girl compliments him but this complement reminds him of Jungkook. The woman reminds him to meet her at the hospital tomorrow for her guitar performance. He gets a call from Jimin. The call reminds him of his dream in which his house caught fire, and a scene from his mother’s unlit room in which she is blaming him. Yoongi rushes to the hospital to see Jungkook , remembering Jimin’s words that Jungkook had almost died. All of this reminds him of his dream, the fire and his mother’s words. He is not sure if his mother said it or someone else did, but the words haunted him to this day, and he begins to wonder if he was to blame for Jungkook’s accident. He wonders if he had ignored him at the music shop that day, would the accident have still happened. As he leaves, he hears the melody of a guitar. The sound of guitar overlaps with sounds of fire, piano and other sounds in Yoongi’s head. He runs away from the hospital to get away from the overwhelming sound.
NAMJOON YEAR 22 JUNE 13:
Namjoon visits Jungkook in the middle of night. They talk and laugh a lot, avoiding matters of consequence such as why the fight broke out that day, or why Namjoon had left the lodge that night without saying anything. On his way back, Seokjin asks him if he is okay because he had not said one word. Namjoon apologizes and makes his way to the fourth container down the railroad. The last time he had been there was before the beach visit , and they had made a campfire then. Since the fight, Namjoon was sure that Taehyung must have dropped by here to seek refuge from his father, but he still avoided coming here. He felt it was emotionally exhausting to be with Taehyung as of now. Namjoon looks around the container that is full of memories with others. He thinks of how he is not okay, how what happened to Jungkook was not okay. He wonders if they had not fought, and had someone stayed with Jungkook that night would Jungkook have been saved. But he had still pretended to be okay and chatted with Jungkook, asking him to recover well. He feels he is still the same, always hesitant in front of making important choices and asking questions.
TAEHYUNG YEAR 22 JUNE 13:Taehyung asks Hoseok about Jungkook’s health. He has just finished his shift at the convenience store, and his face is full of tears. Jungkook assures him on the phone that he is okay, and Taehyung tells him that he is coming to meet him. However, as soon as he reaches Jungkook’s room, he hears the voices of Namjoon and Seokjin. Namjoon seems to be telling Jungkook that he had been living as usual. Taehyung thinks to himself that he had been living as usual too, except now the nightmares of Yoongi dying, Hoseok falling etc have stopped. Ever since that fight on the beach, his nightmares were replaced by a new nightmare- that of Jin crying, blue flower petals lying on the asphalt road tinted with someone’s blood. Taehyung ends up not meeting Jungkook because he was not ready to face Namjoon and Seokjin yet.
HOSEOK YEAR 22 JUNE 13:Hoseok leaves the room, unable to see Jungkook trying to put up a brave front. He recalls how he had been wondering about why Jungkook did not visit Two Star Burger recently, so he had asked his classmates. The classmates had told him that he had gotten into an accident around 20 days ago. Shocked, Hoseok had opened their GC only to find there had been no message since the beach visit. He informed the group that Jungkook had gotten into an accident. Inside the room, Jimin and Jungkook are talking. Jimin tells Jungkook that he has enrolled in a dance crew. Hoseok checks the message he had sent, 4 people had still not read it. Annoyed, Hoseok wonders if they were only fair-weather friends. He recalls how Jungkook had only been in his third year of middle school when they had all gone their separate ways.He had such a forlorn look on his face on the day Hoseok had come to clean up their things from the classroom. Taehyung calls, asking for Jungkook. Hoseok tries to angrily scold him for not reading the message earlier, he hears Taehyung’s voice as if he was holding back tears.
JUNGKOOK YEAR 22 JUNE 13:Jungkook is at the hospital. He tries to open his eyes and sees a very worried Hoseok and Jimin looking at him. They ask him why he had not called them after the accident. Jungkook tries to assure them that he is fine, but he is lying, the crash had been bad enough to kill him. He had not recovered his consciousness for 10 days and had been in a constant pain, full of nightmarish memories. Even when the pain subsided, he kept those flashes. Jungkook tries to smile for his hyungs- his face is twisted and looks like he is crying.
JIMIN YEAR 22 MAY 15:
It has been three days since Hoseok’s discharge. Jimin recalls the day he was discharged, hiding and secretly observing Hoseok leaving through the same emergency exit that Jimin had come to a halt to the other day. He thinks of crossing the limit line he had imposed on himself, but another patient pushes him to the ground as he makes a run for the exit and escapes. At night, Jimin recalls Hoseok urging him to leave the hospital. He had been stuck waiting for the elevator on the second floor while coming back from physical therapy, and chose to go by the stairs. He had felt someone calling him, and turned around and saw Hoseok shouting ‘Mom!’ and losing his balance on the stairs. Jimin rushed forward to help him, and together they made their way upstairs. Hoseok asked him to run away from the hospital and told him that he would be back to take him away. A bit later, Jimin hears the sound of something falling and the wind coming from the windows. The next moment he sees Hoseok who had come to take him away. Before Jimin could say no to his fears, Hoseok holds him by the hand and takes him to the elevator where Namjoon and Seokjin are waiting. They reach the first floor where Hoseok abruptly pushed him into the lounge. Inside the lounge, Taehyung, Namjoon , and Yoongi were waiting . Suddenly a nurse comes to check upon them. Yoongi lies that it was a birthday party and then the others make a rush for the emergency exit. As he runs , Jimin wonders if it would have been better if he had remained inside and been an obedient patient. Someone shouts, ‘Park Jimin, run!’ and Jimin changes into a t-shirt Hoseok had brought for him. He finally makes it to the outside and overwhelmed, feels like crying.
JIMIN YEAR 22 MAY 11:Jimin has been transferred to the surgery ward since two weeks. At first he is surprised by the relative freedom of the surgery ward , but eventually comes to the conclusion that they are the same. The only difference was that he was allowed to roam freely in the hallway. Jimin would often run in the hallway or dance around in the lounge. While running at full speed in the hallway once, Jimin came to a grinding halt right in front of the exit door. He had to take only 5 steps more to completely exit the hospital through the door that was marked ‘off-limits’. No one came running to stop him either, but he couldn’t do it because this part of the hallway was too similar to the stretch of the hallway in the psychiatric ward. Jimin reflects on how he was a model patient in the psychiatric ward. Apart from a few seizures, Jimin rarely caused trouble. He wasn’t always like this though. When he was first admitted at the age of 8, he tried desperately to escape from the door as his Mom left. The nurses sedated him , and his efforts to escape continued for a while and life became a cycle of seizures, injections and injections induced sleep. He reflects back on the day he was brought to the hospital- how he ran in the rain with the backpack on his head and took shelter in the warehouse at the arboretum. The musty smell of the room and the screechy metallic sound haunts him. Jimin felt like his blood had turned to mud -and would often wash himself repeatedly because he felt ‘dirty’. When asked by the doctor, he denied remembering it and continuously lied to the point of becoming a model patient now who never struggled to escape. Occasionally he was sent to schools and he remembers the friends he made 2 years ago, who he had to say goodbye to because of the seizure at the bus stop when he saw the shuttle bus to the arboretum. Two weeks ago he’d gotten into a fight over a boy he calls stupid for trying to escape, and was transferred to a 6 person room. After some days he discovers that Hoseok is in the bed next to him, he gets happy but chooses to avoid him all day to hide his mental illness. While hiding he sees Jungkook and others who had come to visit Hoseok.At night, tired and hungry, he meets Hoseok who offers him bread- and asks him to not worry because he has narcolepsy too and thus not very different from him. Jimin remarks that Hoseok had not changed one bit.
HOSEOK YEAR 22 MAY 10:Hoseok is explaining that his narcolepsy occurs anytime, anywhere. Everytime he blacks out, he has the same dream. In the dream he is 7 and on a bus ride to the amusement park, with his mother. As he is excitedly reading the signs, the scenery shifts and he is now 20, and he feels like his mother is still there by his side. The woman in his dreams is about to turn her head, but Hoseok pleads her not to. The moment she does, there is blinding white light and Hoseok returns to consciousness. He is a hospital room this time. The doctor told him he had a bad concussion and he was transferred to a 6 person room. Hoseok feels tired after regaining consciousness.
I dreamed. In my dream, I was floating in the air above my hospital bed, looking down at a different me lying there. The me in the bed was asleep, the sleeping me's eyelids moved erratically, like I was dreaming, and then without warning my eyes flew open. At that moment, our gazes met. In the next moment, I was lying in bed. I dreamed of the night of the accident the headlights became a moon, then changed into bead-like green and blue lights. When I opened my eves, a different me was floating in the air above. My gaze met with the me in the air. Our two gazes intersected and our consciousnesses reversed. I was the me in the bed and then the me in the air, repeating and repeating. The speed of the intersection and reversal started to quicken. I grew dizzy and nauseated. I awoke with a scream. My sheets were soaked with sweat. My breathing came short and I felt like throwing up. Suddenly, something I had forgotten until then floated up in my mind. Someone's voice. “Living will be more painful than dying. Is that okay?” My mother called the doctor to check my condition. The doctor said that since I was recovering quickly, there was no need to worry. I had bruising and fractures. But almost no bleeding. He told me that I had been very lucky in this accident. I looked at the doctor and asked, 'who was it who hit me? TRANSLATED BY @ORIGAMYFIREFLY. PLEASE DO NOT REPOST.
It was a clear day. The sky was blue and the air was fresh. My mother and father and I left the house in the car. The music in the car was exciting, and I rolled down the back window and stuck my hand out. The yellow gingko leaves were falling like rain. I stretched out my hand to try to catch one, but I didn't even come close “Jimin. You'll get hurt.” My mom said, looking back at me. "What will you do if you get hurt and can't go onstage?" I walked atop the stage. Above me, bright white lights were shining down. The floor shook with the rhythm. I danced among many friends. We all lifted up and all came down together, then moved left and looked at each other. My friends and me alike were all breathless. Even so, we smiled when we saw each other. There was a flood of applause. We went toward the audience and bowed. At a distance I could see my mother and father standing and applauding. They smiled when they saw me. When I opened my eyes, I was looking up at the hospital room ceiling. Tears welled up in my eyes. I knew it was a dream, but I didn't want to wake up. I wanted to stay within that applause, under that rain of gingko lives, but no matter what, the morning always came and the dream always disappeared. TRANSLATED BY @ORIGAMYFIREFLY. PLEASE DO NOT REPOST.
They told me that the scar would last for a while. They said that I would slowly recover with time, but that the scope was limited. I would only improve if I kept receiving treatment. On the third day after my hospitalization, the doctor took off the gauze and revealed the marks left behind by the fire. The flesh of my left arm, so dark the red was almost black. It was my body, but it didn't seem like my body. It was unfamiliar. When I had dropped the lighter. I had been ready for something even more than this, but it felt contradictory, for me to have only a scar like this. "This will hurt a little.” When he started to change the dressing, blood seeped from my wound. The blood soaking the white gauze seemed just like a flame. Like the scarlet flames that day roaring like they meant to swallow me. I tried to hold it back, but the groan escaped. The doctor said that the blood was a good sign. That it was proof of new skin growing underneath the dead skin. Even though it hurt, I couldn't help but laugh. Why are new things only possible after death? What would it have been like if I had died then? Could that have been the only way to start things over anew? I looked down at my arm. Blood oozed through the new gauze. I called that blood stain a fire and the doctor called it regeneration. Whose words were right? TRANSLATED BY @ORIGAMYFIREFLY. PLEASE DO NOT REPOST.
I opened the emergency exit and ran down the stairs. My heart was racing as if it were about to explode. The face that I had glimpsed in the hospital hallway was clearly that of my mother. At the moment I looked back, the elevator doors had opened and people flooded out. I had pushed desperately through the people, and I had seen my mother's form going through the emergency doors. With an anxious heart, I ran down the stairs two at a time. Without rest, I ran down several flights. "Mom!" My mother stopped. I took another step forward. My mother turned around. I went down another flight. My mother's face became visible. It was at that moment. The heel of my foot slipped on the edge of the stair and my center of gravity pitched forward. I closed my eyes tight at the thought that I was about to fall flat on my face. Someone grabbed my arm. Thanks to that, I was narrowly able to regain my balance. When I looked back, Jimin was standing there with a shocked expression. Before I even saying thank you, I turned my head again. There was a woman there. She looked surprised. Next to her was a young boy, staring at me and blinking his big eyes. She wasn't my mother. I stood at the top of the stairs, staring blankly at the woman's face. I didn't remember what I said to escape from that situation. I also didn't ask how Jimin had appeared in that place. My mind was too cluttered to be concerned about the fine details. The woman wasn't my mother. I might have even known that from the start. It had been more than ten years since she had left me alone at the theme park. My mother would be older now, and different than what I remembered. Even if I met her, I wouldn't have recognized her. No, by now I could barely even remember her face. I looked back. Jimin was following me in silence. Back in high school, after we parted ways in the emergency room, Jimin said he had stayed here in the hospital. I thought of the way he looked as if he didn't know what to do when asked if he didn't want to leave. Couldn't it be that Jimin was trapped just like I was, unable to either cling to or break away from the memories that bound us? I took a step toward him. "Jimin-ah. Let's get out of here." TRANSLATED BY @ORIGAMYFIREFLY. PLEASE DO NOT REPOST.
When I opened my eyes, Hoseok hyung was standing there. A familiar ceiling looked down at me within a familiar darkness. Startled, I tried to sit up, but he put a finger to his lips. Everyone was asleep, and my surroundings were quiet. Hyung immediately offered me a t-shirt, then jerked his chin toward the exit of the hospital. "We all came together." He said that Namjoon hyung was standing guard while Yoongi hyung was buying time with the nurses. Jungkook and Taehyung would join us at the elevator shortly. At first I didn't understand what he was saying. Hyung reached out a hand towards me, who was still in a daze. The day I left the hospital. I had dreamed of that day sometimes. I wanted to leave the hospital and meet my friends, to spend time with them laughing and talking the way we used to before. But now I didn't know. Was it a good idea to leave? My parents had hidden me in this place and treated me like someone who didn't exist. People whispered that I had a mental illness. I didn't know if Hoseok hyung thought the same. Maybe he thought that I was strange, that spending time with me was uncomfortable. "Come on. We don't have time." Maybe because of hyung's urging, the sound of the clock's second hand sounded strangely fast. Thump. Thump. The sound of footsteps, like an auditory hallucination, came closer and closer to the hospital room. Hyung and I turned simultaneously to look at the door, then looked at each other. Hyung's hand remained in front of me. TRANSLATED BY @ORIGAMYFIREFLY. PLEASE DO NOT REPOST.
I was unaware of anything other than the sound of music playing in my head. Not how much I had drunk, nor where I was, nor what I had been doing. I didn't know, and it wasn't important. When I went outside, stumbling, it was already night. I swayed as I walked. I bumped into pedestrians, news kiosks, walls. I didn't care. I just wanted to forget everything. Jimin's voice was still ringing in my ears. "Hyung, Jungkook..." My next memory was of running like crazy up the hospital steps. The hospital hall had been strangely long and dark. I passed people wearing hospital gowns. My heart pounded. Everyone's faces were too pale. They had no expressions. They all seemed like dead people. The sound of my breathing was harsh inside my own head. Inside the slightly-opened hospital room door, Jungkook was lying there. I turned my head without realizing it. I couldn't look at him. At that moment I suddenly heard the sound of a piano, of flames, of a building crumbling down. I clutched my head and sank down. “This is your fault. If it wasn't for you...”' It was my mother's voice--no, my voice--no, someone's voice. At those words, I was tormented by countless moments. I wanted to believe it wasn't so. But Jungkook was lying there. Jungkook was lying in the hall full of corpse-like patients passing by. I was utterly unable to go inside. I couldn't check for myself. When I stood, my legs threatened to give out. I left with tears flowing. It was funny. I couldn't even remember the last time I had cried. I went to cross the street, but someone grabbed my arm and I came to a halt. Who was it? No, I didn't care. No matter who it was, it was all the same. Don't come near me. Go away. Just leave me be. I don't want to hurt you either. I don't want to be hurt. So please, don't come any closer. TRANSLATED BY @ORIGAMYFIREFLY. PLEASE DO NOT REPOST.
I stood in the hallway the whole time she was receiving first aid. Even though it was night, the hospital hallway was bustling with people. Moisture dripped from my hair, wet with sweat and rain. I dropped the bag I had taken off of her. A variety of things tumbled out of it. A few coins rolled away, and a ball pen and a towel. In the middle of it all was an airplane e-ticket. I picked it up and scanned it. At that moment, the doctor called me. He said it was a mild concussion and nothing to worry about, and after a moment, she came out as well. "Are you okay?" She said that her head just hurt a little, and she took her bag back from me. Then she spotted the e-ticket peeking out, and looked up at my face. I shifted my bag to my other shoulder and said that we should go, pretending that it was nothing. As we left the hospital, it was raining as hard as ever. We stood side by side outside the door. "Hoseok-ah," she said. It looked like she had something to say. "Wait a second. I'll get an umbrella." I ran off thoughtlessly into the rain. There was a convenience store in the distance. I knew that she had auditioned for an overseas dance team some time ago. The plane ticket meant that she had made it. I didn't want to hear her say it. I didn't have the confidence to congratulate her. TRANSLATED BY @ORIGAMYFIREFLY. PLEASE DO NOT REPOST.
I sneakily broke a flower off the hospital's wreath. I kept laughing and having to bow my head to hide it. The midsummer sunlight was blindingly bright. I knocked on the hospital room door, but there was no reply. I knocked again, then opened it slightly. It was oddly cool inside the room, and no one was there. It was only full of a very quiet darkness. I left the hospital room. I had met her here, when I was bored and stifled and pushing my wheelchair like crazy up and down the hallway. She had appeared so suddenly that I barely had time to stop, and there she stood, a girl with her hair tied up in a ponytail. When I left the hospital I saw a bench. I remembered that we had listened to music together and drawn, sitting there. And over there, on that roof, we had shared strawberry milk. I was still holding the wildflower in my hand, but now there was no one to give it to. TRANSLATED BY @ORIGAMYFIREFLY. PLEASE DO NOT REPOST.
Jimin's mother paced back and forth through the emergency room. After checking that the name on the head of the bed and the IV bottle were properly placed, she brushed a blade of grass from Jimin's shoulder with one finger. I approached hesitantly, feeling that I should tell her why Jimin was in the emergency room, about the seizure at the bus stop. Jimin's mother seemed to discover my presence only then, and she looked at me with a long, evaluative gaze. I didn't know what to do, so I hung back. Jimin's mother said only 'thank you' and then turned back to him. The next time Jimin's mother looked at me, the doctor and nurses had started to move the bed and I moved to follow. Jimin's mother said thank you again and pushed at my shoulder. Rather than pushing, it would be more correct to say that she touched me slightly and then pulled her hand away. But I suddenly felt an invisible line being drawn between Jimin's mother and myself. That line was sure and solid. It was cold and sturdy. It was a line that I could never surmount. I had lived at the orphanage for 10 years. I knew that much with my whole body, my sight, the air. In a moment of bewilderment, I took a step back and then collapsed to the floor. Jimin's mother looked vacantly down at me. She was a small and beautiful person, but her shadow was large and chilly. That shadow fell over me, collapsed on the emergency room floor. When I lifted my head, Jimin's bed had left the emergency room and could no longer be seen. After that day, Jimin didn't come back to school. TRANSLATED BY @ORIGAMYFIREFLY. PLEASE DO NOT REPOST.
I stopped counting a few days after I was hospitalized. Counting is something you do when you want to get out, or you think there's a hope of getting out. The trees and leaves far off outside the window, they still looked like people's clothes so I knew not that much time had passed. At most, slightly more than a month. Maybe because of the medicine, everything was boring and dull. Even so, today was a special day. The kind of day you have to write in a diary, if you keep one. But I don't keep a diary, and I don't want to have any problems if I did write it down. Today, I lied for the first time. I looked into the doctor's eyes and pretended to be gloomy, saying, "I don't remember a thing." TRANSLATED BY @ORIGAMYFIREFLY. PLEASE DO NOT REPOST.
A thin beam of light shone down onto the desk. It was a light that had finally bored its way in through the window where the academy's name was written at the front of the classroom, the teacher was talking into a mic, but it didn't even reach my ears. I was sitting in the farthest row of seats, in the corner, with my head down as I wiggled my fingers as if to try to catch the light that streamed between them. Nothing had been solved just because I'd left the hospital, instead, it felt like I'd taken several steps backward. Even going to classes had been because of my mother's worries about what I would do without a diploma, and her suggestion that I at least go to GED academy. I had no response. Now I had nothing I wanted to do and nothing I could do. I had no desire to go to the academy. Taking up studying again was burdensome, but more than that, I was afraid of being among strangers. What would I do if someone recognized me, what would I say if someone asked why I hadn't graduated high school? I was afraid of remembering the times at school that I had pushed off into a far corner of my memory. TRANSLATED BY @ORIGAMYFIREFLY. PLEASE DO NOT REPOST.
When I looked back, the hospital was really far away. I could no longer see the bench where I had left the wildflowers, nor the window through which I used to watch the river with that kid. Upon reflection, that kid had been a space to breathe in the otherwise stuffy hospital life. As we sat on the hospital bench in the late afternoon and talked about this and that, before we knew it the sun had set. I told [her] about playing in the hideout and going on vacation to the beach, and about walking all the way to the train station. [She] told me about all the corners of the hospital. Which window you could see the river from, about which staircase to take to secretly climb up to the roof. There was nothing [she] didn't know about the hospital. [Her] hospital room was empty. Had she been discharged, or moved to another hospital? I asked the nurses, but none of them could tell me. For some reason, a corner of my heart felt empty. I turned around and kept walking. In the distance I could see the school. It seemed that most of the things I had told [her] about had to do with the hyungs, and almost all the stories I told started with them. To me, who had been totally alone, the hyungs had become my friends, family, and teachers. My story was contained within their stories, and I only existed inside my relationship with them. But at some point, I started to think like this. That there may come a day when they would no longer be at my side. I might go looking only to find them gone, without giving any reason. Or maybe something even more could happen, I didn't know. I thought of that night. When the huge moon rose in the sky, the world turned upside-down, the headlamps I saw from an inverted view, the shape of the car that passed by me and disappeared. The sound of an engine, familiar for some reason. I didn't want to jump to conclusions. But even so, I kept thinking about that moment. TRANSLATED BY @ORIGAMYFIREFLY. PLEASE DO NOT REPOST.
Hoseok hyung's house was in a very high area. A rooftop room of a deadlocked house at the end of a narrow, winding alley, some distance walking from a larger street--that was hyung's house. When I went into the house, which was only one room, hyung bragged that it was the top floor in the whole city, from which could be seen all of the places where we had grown up, laid out under our feet. As hyung said, all sorts of things were visible from his rooftop room. The nearby train station could be seen, and along the train tracks, the containers were also visible. Namjoon hyung was living in one of those. And if I moved my gaze a little more, the school we had all attended came into view. After finding the school, I lifted my head and looked at the other side of the city. At the foot of the mountain, there was a line of large apartment buildings. There was my--no, my parents' house. I had run away from the hospital without a word. My parents would have been contacted. Maybe they were looking for me now. I didn't yet have the confidence to see my parents face to face. I had left the hospital but I couldn't yet go home. That didn't mean I wanted to go back to the hospital. But I had nowhere to go and no money. I had stood hesitantly, and hyung had told me to follow him, then led the way. The place we had arrived was here, hyung's house. I returned my gaze to the apartment buildings. I had to go there eventually. I had to see my parents and tell them I wouldn't go back to the hospital. I took a deep breath. It seemed like that thought alone would cause a seizure. Truthfully, I didn't trust myself to endure any place other than the hospital. I could be rushed to the hospital again. I was so afraid I couldn't stand it. TRANSLATED BY @ORIGAMYFIREFLY. PLEASE DO NOT REPOST.
In the end, I had to go to the Flowering Arboretum. I had to quit telling myself the lie that I didn't remember what had happened there. I had to stop living in hiding in the hospital and stop having seizures. If I wanted to do that, I had to go to that place. With that intent, I went to the bus stop every day, but I couldn't ride the bus to the arboretum. Yoongi hyung came and sat next to me after I'd already let three buses go by. I asked what was up, and hyung said he was bored and had nothing to do. Then he asked why I was sitting here like this. I lowered my head and kicked the dirt with the toes of my shoes. I thought about why I was sitting here like this. It was because I had no courage. I wanted to pretend I was okay now, that I knew a little, that I surpassed it on my own, but in truth I was afraid. I was afraid that I might encounter something, that I might not withstand it, that I might have another seizure. Yoongi hyung looked relaxed. He slumped down like he had not a thing in the world to worry him, and said that the weather was nice, said all kinds of useless things. After I heard that, I realized the weather really was nice. I had been so worried that I didn't bother looking at my surroundings. The sky was so blue. A warm breeze blew on occasion. From far off, the shuttle bus for the arboretum was coming. The bus stopped and the door opened. The driver looked at me. On impulse, I spoke. "Hyung, do you want to come with me?" TRANSLATED BY @ORIGAMYFIREFLY. PLEASE DO NOT REPOST.
As we entered the alley, I saw furniture and household goods piled up on the street. "Namjoon-ah, what's going on” my father asked. Breathing with some difficulty we were on the way back from the hospital. It was only a hundred-odd meters from the bus stop to our house. But my father struggled even with that. I ran toward our house. My mother was crouched against the wall behind the piles of household goods. And when she saw me she straightened up "Namjoon-ah, what should we do," she said that she had fought with the landlord's son, who had come to collect the rent that my younger brother hadn't paid. I brought my father to the storeroom behind the neighborhood supermarket. As I moved the furniture. My mother cleared up the dishes and food items. Soon, the storeroom was full of all the things from our two-room apartment. There were things I wanted to throw away, but to do that we needed money. When it was all done, it was nighttime. My back ached and I was sweating. My mother gave me chopsticks, telling me to eat at least a little, but I couldn't force anything down. It was stuffy in the storeroom. So I went out to sit on the wooden benches by the supermarket my mother asked. "Namjoon-ah, where did Namhyun go?" I shouted back “how am I supposed to know?” Namjoon-ah. Namjoon-ah. Namjoon-ah I was tired of it. I regretted telling him to live without being discouraged. Even if we could withstand a few days in the storeroom, what were we supposed to do after that" I couldn't think of anything. The supermarket ahjusshi set down a can of beer and went back inside. TRANSLATED BY @ORIGAMYFIREFLY. PLEASE DO NOT REPOST.
When I came to my senses, I was walking along the bridge. The sun was so bright that it was hard to open my eyes. I wondered how I had gotten here, but then I felt dizzy and my vision blurred. I wondered if my legs were collapsing under me, and the sounds of car horns coming and going assaulted my ears. At one side of my vision, I could see the black water of yangjicheon. The auntie at the orphanage was the first person who comforted me after I lost my mother. She had been at my side when I woke up in the middle of the night with a fever, in my empty bed after a friend was adopted, when I woke in the hospital after a narcolepsy seizure, from my elementary school entrance ceremony to my high school graduation. She had gotten sick. The voice on the other end of the ordinary phone call had been that of a friend from the orphanage. I couldn't remember how I made it to the auntie's house. What I remembered was her house, and her face through the open window. She was talking with someone, and then she laughed. That she was sick, that she needed surgery. That there was no hope--all of it sounded like lies. When we almost made eye contact, I hid myself. I felt like I would burst into tears if I saw her face. I felt like I would spit out words of resentment like, “even you're going to leave me?" I started walking. It seemed like someone called to me. But I didn't look back. A large bus kicked up a wind as it passed me. “Mom,” I muttered as I watched the bus drive away. On the day I lost her, we had ridden that kind of bus. Would the auntie leave my side too, just like my mom? Would I lose another person who was so precious to me? I lifted my head and sunlight poured down. Then the world started to collapse. The sibilant noise of tires on asphalt, the wind coming off the river, and all the memories I had with the auntie all crumbled under the sunlight. I collapsed to the ground. TRANSLATED BY @ORIGAMYFIREFLY. PLEASE DO NOT REPOST.
I reached the container a little before we were supposed to meet. I was going to congratulate Jungkook for getting out of the hospital, but that wasn't all I had something to tell Seokjin hyung. It seemed like something important, but also like something hyung might not like. Instead of going into the container, I walked a little longer along the train tracks. A train passed and a strong wind blew the platform filled with people and then emptied again. At some point, our meeting time had passed. I turned around and took a deep breath. There was no one in the container. Only hot air, heated by the summer sun, rushed out as if it had been waiting for me. I was ten minutes late, but I was still the first to arrive. What had happened to the others? Had something come up? Were they even coming? I turned on the fan and went into the container. Namjoon hyung's container was too still and silent to suit the mood of a party. I got a piece of paper from the desk drawer and wrote "Congratulations, Jungkook,” then stuck it to the wall. It wasn't enough to totally chase away the run-down feeling, but it was better than doing nothing. Ten more minutes passed as I checked in our chatroom that everyone was on their way. Trains passed outside the open door, and the container shook. As I looked out at the world that seemed to tremble, I thought about that time I'd opened the hospital door and run out. Without the hyungs, without Taehyung and Jungkook, would I have been able to open that door? Just because the door is there, or the door is open, didn't mean just anyone could go through it. Wasn't Seokjin hyung locked up somewhere like that too? Wouldn't he be waiting for someone to knock on the door? Nothing was certain. I didn't know if it would help, but if the pieces we had fumbled for could become even a small clue. As my thoughts reached this point, the container door swung open, and Yoongi hyung entered. TRANSLATED BY @ORIGAMYFIREFLY. PLEASE DO NOT REPOST.
When I saw that there were notifications in our chatroom, I opened my phone. At some point it had gotten dark outside. It wasn't easy to put together all the music I had scribbled out until now. I sorted through the ones that had survived the fire and the melodies still in my memory. Surprisingly, among those, most of them were ones I had made in the storage classroom in high school. Even looking back, it didn't seem like I'd worked on that much music during that time. Back then--no, at any given time, I was always running away from music. I opened the chatroom and saw that there were already quite a lot of messages. The one who had made the chatroom was Jimin, surprisingly, and it seemed like they had already been talking before I was invited, because the conversation started in the middle. Taehyung asked everyone. "Do you know what the map of the soul is?" It took a long time for Hoseok to answer "what's that?” "Hyung. If I knew, would I be asking?” Taehyung said. "Good point. Then why are you asking?" They went back and forth like that for a while before Jimin explained the whole story that he had gone to the hospital, and on the way back run into Seokjin hyung, who said he was looking for the map of the soul. A long while later. Namjoon appeared. He said, "Seokjin hyung asked me that too, a while back. If I knew what the map of the soul is. He said that the map of the soul was the way to end all of this." After that, the conversation didn't continue. Maybe we were all lost in thought. What was the thing that Seokjin hyung needed to end? We had all guessed that Seokjin hyung had become a little strange. So if he found the map of the soul. Would he be okay again, what on earth was it, and where could it be found? The conversation that picked up later went like this. "Nobody invited Jungkook to this chat room?" Jimin replied. “I thought about it, but Jungkook is still hurt." His answer was murky and unconfident. Suddenly I wondered why Jimin had gone to the hospital. What was he feeling, having visited the hospital he was locked up in for so long? I had closed the chat, but I opened it up again and wrote, "okay you did well. Let's let Jungkook rest a little more." TRANSLATED BY @ORIGAMYFIREFLY. PLEASE DO NOT REPOST.
When I came to my senses, I was at the bus stop. I looked back to see how far I had walked, but the hospital was already out of sight. I waited for the bus and then boarded. It was a bus to that place. I hadn't planned it, but maybe I already knew in my heart. That I had to go back to that place. Had to know the meaning of what happened there. I looked out the window at the passing summer weather and thought to myself could I trust the hyungs? When I got off the bus. It drove off right away. A cloud of dust swirled up. I walked slowly toward the site of the accident. I thought about that night. The huge moon hanging in the sky, the world upside-down, the headlights that came toward me in my reversed vision, the shape of the car that passed me and disappeared, the lights of the tail lamps. An engine sound that seemed somehow familiar. I laid on the asphalt just like I had that night. I tilted my head and looked up at the sky. It was getting dark, but I couldn't see the moon. It was a quiet street, but if a car were to come, they might not see me and I could have another accident. As I thought that, I asked myself once again. If I couldn't trust the hyungs, who could I trust? TRANSLATED BY @ORIGAMYFIREFLY. PLEASE DO NOT REPOST.