(Ktaebwi) HYYH The Notes - Full

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Hoseok
23 July YEAR 10
It was after counting to four that I heard the laughing sound like an auditory hallucination. The next
moment, a younger version of me passed by, holding someone’s hand. I quickly turned around to look but
there were only my classmates staring at me. “Hoseok-ah.” The teacher called my name. And then I
realized where I was. I was in class, in the middle of counting the fruits in the textbook. Five, six. I went
back to counting but the higher it went, the more my voice shook and my hands started sweating. That
memory of mine kept rising up.
I don’t remember my mom’s face from that day. I only remember she gave me a chocolate bar while I
was at the amusement park. “Hoseok-ah. Count to ten and open your eyes.” I counted and when I opened
my eyes, mom was no longer there. I waited and waited but she never came back. Counting to eight was
the last. I only needed to count one more but my voice just wouldn’t come out. My ears rang and my
surrounding became blurred. The teacher gestured me to continue. Friends stared at me. I couldn’t
remember my mom’s face. It felt like if I count just one more time, she would never go look for me.
I collapsed on the floor.
Taehyung
29 December YEAR 10
I took off my shoes, tossed my bad and entered the room. Dad was really in there. I didn’t think about
how long it had been, or where he just came back from. I simply just ran into his embrace. I have no
memory of what happened next. Was it the alcohol smell that came first, was it the curses, or was it the
slap. I had no idea what was happening. There was the alcohol smell and there was the ragged, foul
breath. His eyes were bloodshot, beard grown coarsely. He slapped me in the cheek with his big hand. He
slapped me in the cheek and asked what I was looking at. And then he lifted me into the air. His eyes
were terrifying, but I was too scared to cry. It wasn’t dad. No, it was him. But it wasn’t. My feet were
trembling in the air. The next moment, my head crashed against the wall, body slumping down to the
floor. It felt like my head was bursting. My vision went in and out and soon darkened. The only thing left
in my head was the sound of dad panting.
Jimin
6 April YEAR 11
I went out to the front gate of the flower arboretum alone. The weather was dull and chilly but I was in a
good mood. It was picnic day but both mom and dad were busy. I was sullen at first, but after getting
complimented at the flower drawing contest and hearing my friends’ moms saying “Jimin’s all grown
up”, I felt like I was quite cool.
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“Jimin, wait here. I’ll come quick.” The teacher told me after the picnic’s over and we were about to
leave the flower arboretum, but I didn’t wait. I was confident I could go by myself. I clutched the straps
of my backpack in both hands and walked with slow and stately steps. Sensing everyone staring at me, I
straightened up my shoulders more. It was long after the rain had started. All my friends and their moms
left, no one was there to look at me and my legs hurt. I covered my head with the backpack and squatted
down under the tree. The rain slowly began to pour down harder and there was no one passing by. I
eventually started to run in the rain. No house or shop was in sight. I reached the back gate of the flower
arboretum. The side door was opened and inside was seemingly a warehouse.
Yoongi
19 September YEAR 16
The flames blazed with a scarlet red. Until this morning, the house I lived in was devoured by the fire.
People who recognized me approached me and shouted something. Neighbors scurried over. They said
the fire truck couldn’t enter because they couldn’t secure an entrance. I stood still.
It was at the end of the summer, autumn was starting. The sky was blue and the air was dry. I didn’t know
anything, not what I was supposed to think, not what I was supposed to feel, not what I was supposed to
do. And then I thought “Oh, mom.” The next moment, the house collapsed with a thud. The house that
had been devoured by the fire, no, now it had become the fire itself, along with the roof, the pillars, the
walls, the room I lived in, they collapsed down like a sand castle. I watched them absent-mindedly.
Someone pushed me aside. The said the fire truck came. Someone else grabbed me and asked. They
looked me in the eyes and shouted something, but I heard nothing.
“Who’s inside?” I blankly looked at them. “Is your mom inside?” They grabbed my shoulder and shook.
Unknowingly, I answered. “No. No one’s inside.” “What are you talking about?” The auntie next door
said. “What about your mom? Where’s your mom?” “There’s no one there.” I had no idea what I was
saying. Someone pushed and walked past me.
Seokjin
2 March YEAR 19
There was a damp smell in the principal's office where dad led me into. Ten days after returning from the
US, I was told yesterday that due to difference in school system, I would be held back a year. "Please look
after him." Dad put his hands onto my shoulder and I unknowingly flinched. "School is a dangerous
place. There have to be regulations". The principal looked straight at me. The wrinkled skin around his
cheeks and mouth quivered whenever he talked and inside his tanned lips was a whole dark red. "Doesn't
Seokjin here think so?" I hesitated at the sudden question and dad immediately squeezed my shoulder
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harder. His grip was so strong that it made my neck muscles throbbed. "I believe he will do well." The
principal continued to look me into the eye and dad's grip slowly getting stronger and stronger. I clenched
my fists at the bone-breaking pain. My body was shaking and breaking out in a cold sweat. "You have to
tell me. Seokjin needs to become a good student." The principal looked at me with a smileless face. "I
understood." I narrowly squeezed out an answer and for one moment the pain was gone. There was the
sound of dad and the principal laughing. I couldn't lift my head up. I looked down the dad's brown shoes
and the principal's black ones. I didn't know where the light was coming from, but they were glinting. I
was scared of that glint.
Jungkook
28 May YEAR 19
“What’s your dream?” At my words, the hyungs turned around. “I need to fill in the career survey., so,” I
equivocated. “Well,” Seokjin-hyung said, “I don’t think I have any dream. If there’s anything I wish for,
maybe to become a good person?” He slurred at the end as if embarrassed. Yoongi-hyung, who was
sprawling on the piano stool, then replied impassively. “It’s okay to have no dream. I don’t have such
thing as dreams. I’m just gonna become anyone.” Everyone bursted into laughter at his typical answer.
“I’m gonna be a superhero. I’ll save the world from the villains.” Taehyung-hyung quickly climbed up
the chair posing with his arm raised as Hoseok-hyung scolded him, “You’re gonna get hurt from messing
around, get down now.” Then he added. “I want to find my mom and live happily. My dream is to be
happier.” He cracked a happy-looking smile. “Does that mean you’re miserable now?” Jimin-hyung
asked. “Does it?” Hoseok-hyung made a funny face, seemingly contemplating about it. He asked back
Jimin-hyung. “What’s your dream?” “Me” Jimin-hyung blinked like he’s taken aback. “When I was in
kindergarten I wanted to become the President, but afterwards, I’m not so sure what I want to become
anymore,” he replied.
Only Namjoon-hyung was left now. Seemingly noticed everyone’s stare, he shrugged and said. “I wanted
to give you some nice words, but I don’t really have any dream. I just want my part-time hourly pay to
rise.” I nodded and looked down at the school newsletter. The job section of the newsletter was divided
into two blanks, one for student and one for parents. What do I want to be? I couldn’t think of anything to
write there.
Yoongi
12 June YEAR 19
I skipped school and went out, but the truth is I had nowhere to go. It was hot, I had no money, nothing to
do. It was Namjoon who suggested going to the sea. The kids seemed excited but I didn’t really feel like
going, nor did I hate going. “Do you have any money?” At my words, Namjoon made everyone empty
their pockets. Some coins and a few notes. “Then we can’t go”. It was probably Taehyung who said “We
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could walk”. Namjoon made a face like he’s telling him to think about it and everyone chattered away,
laughing and pretending to roll around on the road while walking. I wasn’t in the mood to respond so I
just lagged behind. The sun was scorching. It was the middle of the day, not even the trees on the sides
could cast any shade and on the road with no sidewalk, cars were passing, leaving clouds of dust behind.
“Let’s go there”. This time, it was Taehyung too. Or was it Hoseok? I wasn’t interested so I didn’t take a
good look, but it was one of those two. I had my head lowered, strolling while kicking at the ground, but
lifted my head up as I bumped into someone and nearly fell. Jimin was standing nailed to the spot. His
face was shaking like he saw something very scary. “Are you okay?” I asked but it seemed like he
couldn’t hear me. Where Jimin was staring at stood a “flower arboretum” sign.
“I don’t want to walk.” I heard Jungkook. Sweat was dripping down Jimin’s face. His face was pale like
he was about to drop down. What was that? I felt weird. “Park Jimin.” I asked but he didn’t react. I
looked up at the sign again.
“It’s so hot. Why would we go to an arboretum? Let’s go to the sea.” I said dully. I didn’t know what kind
of place that flower arboretum was, but it felt like we must not go there. I didn’t know why but Jimin
looked strange. “We have no money.” Hoseok answered me. “Then let’s walk.” Taehyung added in. “If
we just walk to the train station, we’ll make it some way or another.” Namjoon spoke up. “Then we’ll
have to skip dinner instead.” Jungkook and Taehyung whined and Seokjin-hyung laughed. After everyone
began to head towards the train station, Jimin started moving again. He looked like a small kid walking
with his head lowered, shoulders hunching. I looked up at the sign again. Flower arboretum, the five
letters were slowing getting further and further away.
Seokjin
25 June YEAR 19
Someone had brought a flower pot and placed it on the window of the storage classroom. Who would
most likely bring a flower pot among the other guys? I took out my phone. The classroom was dim and
dark from the lack of electricity, green grass a stark contrast amid the weak rays of sunlight streaming
through the dirty windows. The photo I took with my phone didn’t come out well. It wasn’t just because
of the phone. I always think about this but photos cannot encapsulate entirely what the human eyes
capture.
As I approached, a letter “H” showed itself under the pot. I picked it up. “Hoseok’s flower pot”, it said. I
let out a giggle. If any of the boys was to bring a flower pot, it could only be Hoseok. I put down the pot
so that the letters were entirely covered, even the “H”, and looked around. The window frames were
covered in doodles, which I had never noticed until now. Not just the window frames but also the walls,
the ceiling, there were doodles everywhere. “Pass or die”. Names of crushes. Dates, and countless of
names that had now become illegible.
Perhaps this classroom wasn’t originally a storage. Students would go to school, take classes and leave
the classroom empty in the afternoon. And it would stay empty throughout summer vacation until school
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starts and the students burst into the classroom noisily. Were there students like us, late for class and get
punished and skip school? Were there endless tests and homeworks, teachers who ruthlessly inflict
violence on students? And were there people like me? One who told the principal on friends.
I wondered if my father’s name was among here too. This was also his old school. My father was
someone who believes attending the same high school and college for generations was bringing dignity to
the family’s tradition. As I scanned through the names, I discovered his. It was among few other names,
in the middle of the left wall. Under it was written a sentence. “Everything started here.”
Jimin
30 August YEAR 19
While Hoseokie-hyung was on the phone, I played around, kicking the ground coated with his shadow.
He chuckled and made a face that said “Park Jimin has grown so much.” It took two hours to walk from
school to home. Less than 30 minutes by bus and can even be shortened to 20 if I take the main road. But
he always insisted on taking the path that has us go through a winding alley, passing a low hill and
crossing the footbridge. After getting discharged from the hospital, I transferred to another school last
year. The school was far from my house and there was no one I knew. I thought it was okay. I thought it
wasn’t any big deal, after all, I had already changed school several times and who knows when I would be
hospitalized again.
But then I got to know him. It was not long after the new semester started. He casually approached me
and walked with me for two hours. Not until much later did I find out our houses weren’t in the same
direction. I couldn’t ask him why. I hoped for the shadow that walks by my side, the two hours walking
together under the sun, to last longer even just a day.
He was still on the phone, I kicked his shadow again and ran away. He ended the call and started chasing
me. The ice cream melt under the sun and the sound of cicadas tingled in my ears. Suddenly, I was
scared. How many of these days are left now?
Taehyung
20 March YEAR 20
I ran on the hallway and slid to a stop. Namjoonie-hyung was standing in front of ‘our classroom’. Our
classroom. No one knew this but I called the place ‘our classroom’. The classroom of me, the hyungs and
Jungkook, of the seven of us. I held my breath and came closer. I wanted to surprise him.
“Headmaster!” After five steps, I heard an urgent voice past the slightly opened classroom’s window. It
sounded like Seokjin-hyung. I stop on my tracks. Is Seokjin-hyung talking to the headmaster? At our
classroom? Why? I heard my and Yoongi-hyung’s names and Namjoon-hyung gasped like he was
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surprised. Seokjin-hyung jerked the door open, having seemingly sensed that sound. He was holding a
phone in his hand. He looked evidently surprised and taken aback. I couldn’t see Namjoon-hyung’s face. I
hid and watched them. Seokjin-hyung opened his mouth as if to explain himself but Namjoon-hyung
raised a hand and said. “It’s okay.” Seokjin-hyung looked confused. “There must be a reason why you did
that.” He said and passed by Seokjin-hyung to come into the classroom. I couldn’t believe in my ears.
Seokjin-hyung told the headmaster what Yoongi-hyung and I did the past few days. He told everything,
how we skipped school, jumped over the fences and fought with the kids. But Namjoon-hyung said it was
okay.
“What are you doing here?” I turned around out of surprise, it was Hoseok-hyung and Jimin. Hoseok-
hyung pretended he was even more surprised and draped an arm over my shoulder. Before I knew it, he
was already dragging me into the classroom. Namjoon-hyung and Seokjin-hyung turned around as they
were talking. Seokjin-hyung hurriedly stood up, said he had urgent business and left. I studied Namjoon-
hyung’s face. He watched Seokjin-hyung leaving from the back and smiled at everyone like nothing
happened. That moment, this thought hit me. There must be a reason why Namjoon-hyung acted like that.
He knew much more than me, much smarter and more mature than me. And after all, this was our
classroom. I entered the classroom flashing a smile, the smile that everyone teased me calling it a
rectangle smile. I decided I would never tell anyone that I overheard that conversation.
Namjoon
15 May YEAR 20
I walked across the storage classroom, which had become a hideout for us who had nowhere to go, and
set upright a few chairs. I picked up the desk that had fallen down and wiped the dust with my palm. The
fact that it’s the last time always make people sentimental. This will be the last day I come to school. We
have decided to move two weeks ago. Who knows, maybe I would never be able to return here. Maybe I
would never be able to meet the hyungs and dongsaengs again.
I folded the paper in half, put it down on the desk and picked up the pencil, but I didn’t know what to say,
only time passing by. As I was scribbling down some useless words, the pencil lead broke with a snap.
“You must live on.” The lead broke and before I knew it, I was scribbling down on the paper, smudged
with what looked like fragments. In between the black lead power and the scribble scattered messy
stories, stories of poverty, parents, dongsaeng, my move.
I crumpled the piece of paper, put it in my pocket and stood up. A cloud of dust rose as I pushed the desk.
I was about to turn around and leave, but went to breathe onto the window and left three words. No
farewell would be enough, no words needed to be said to convey all and everything. See you again.
Rather than a promise, it was a wish.
Jungkook
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25 June YEAR 20
I stroked the piano keys, smearing my hands with dust. I put some force into the tips of my fingers and
the sound that came out was nothing like what he had played before. It’s been 10 days since he last went
to school. I heard he was expelled today. Neither Namjoonie-hyung nor Hoseokie-hyung told me
anything, and I couldn’t ask them, as if I was scared of something. That day two weeks ago when the
teacher opened the door and entered our hideout place, there were only him and me here. It was parents
visiting day. I didn’t want to be in the classroom so I blindly headed to the hideout. He didn’t even look
back, he just kept playing the piano and I moved two desks together, lying on top and closed my eyes
pretending to sleep. He and the piano seemed different but at the same time they were also one, so much
that I couldn’t even think of separating them. Somehow listening to him playing the piano made me want
to cry.
Feeling my tears about to fall, I rolled over, but then the door was slammed open and the piano sound cut
off. I was slapped in the cheek, staggering backwards and ended up falling down. I curled up to endure
the abuse, but then the voice suddenly stopped. Looking up, he was pushing the teacher’s shoulder and
standing in front of me. Over his shoulder was the teacher’s stunned face.
I pressed the piano keys. I tried to mimic the song he used to play. Did he really quit school? Will he
never come back? He said a few hits, a few kicks was just common to him. If I hadn’t been there, would
he not stand up to the teacher? If I hadn’t been there, would he still be playing the piano here?
Yoongi
25 June YEAR 20
All of a sudden, I opened the door, went to the desk and took out a bag from the bottom drawer. I flipped
the bag and shaked it, and a piano key fell out with a thud. I threw the half-burned key into the trash can
and lay down on bed. My seething heart did not cool down, breathing a mess and fingers stained with
soot.
There was one time I came back to the house, now a ruin because of the fire, after the funeral ended. I
entered my mother's room and saw the piano burned to the point of unrecognizable. I sank down next to
it. As the afternoon light pierced through the window and died down, I just sat there. A few keys were
rolling around amid the last rays of light. I wondered what sound they would make when I pressed down.
I wondered how much mother's fingers had touched them. I took one of them, put into my pocket and left
the room.
4 years has passed since then. Our house was quiet. So quiet that I was going crazy. After 10 o'clock, my
father would go to bed and everything must be done with bated breath afterwards. That was the rule of
this house. It was hard for me to endure that silence. It was not easy to match the time and follow the rule,
the formality either. But what I couldn't endure even more was that, despite of it, I still continue to live in
this house. Taking the pocket money my father gives, eating with my father, listening to his scoldings.
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Even though I talked back to him, went astray and caused trouble, I didn't have to courage to leave him,
leave this house and be alone, to really put that freedom into action and not just pure words.
All of a sudden, I sat up from the bed. I took out the key from the trash can under the desk. I opened the
window, letting the air of the night harshly rush in. Everything happened today flooded in as it they were
carried by the wind, slapping at my face. I threw the key into the air as hard as I could. It had been ten
days since I last went to school. I heard they expelled me. Who knows, maybe now I would be kicked out
of this house even if I don't want to. I listened carefully but still couldn't make out the sound of the key
falling to the ground. No matter how much I wondered about, I will never be able to know what sound
that key made. No matter how much time passes, that key will never be able to make any sound again. I
will never play the piano again.
Seokjin
17 July YEAR 20
Outside the school entrance, the sound of crickets prickled in my ears. The school yard was crowded with
kids laughing, joking around, racing with each other. It was the start of the summer holiday, everyone was
excited. I lowered my head and walked through them. I just wanted to leave the school quickly.
“Hyung.” I lifted my head up out of surprise as someone’s silhouette popped out. It was Hoseok and
Jimin. They were smiling brightly, looking at me with eyes beaming with mischief, just like usual. “It’s
summer holiday today, are you just going to leave like that?” Hoseok pulled my arm and said. I just
replied “Yeah yeah”, uttered some more meaningless words and then turned away. What happened that
day was just an accident. It wasn’t on purpose. I didn’t think Jungkook and Yoongi would be in the
storage classroom at that time. The headmaster suspected I was covering for them. He said he could tell
my father that I wasn’t a well-behaved student. I had to say something. I told him about the hideout
because I thought it would be empty at the time. But it ultimately led to Yoongi getting expelled. No one
knew I was involved.
“Have a good vacation, hyung! I’ll contact you later.” Hoseok stealthily dropped his hold and greeted me
more cheerfully on purpose, as if he read something from my face. I gave him no response this time too.
There was nothing I could say. Walking out of the school gate, I thought of the day I first went here. I was
late and we were punished together. It was why we could laugh. Those moments were ruined by me.
Hoseok
Jimin’s mother walked across the emergency room. She checked the name on the headboard and the IV
bottle, then took out the grass leaf on Jimin’s shoulder. I felt like I should tell her why Jimin was rushed
to the emergency room, how he had a seizure at the bus stop, so I hesitantly approached her. Only then
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did Jimin’s mother spot me, she looked at me for a while as if to figure something out. I didn’t know what
to do, so I hung back. Jimin’s mother only said thank you and turned away.
The next time Jimin’s mother turned to me again was when the doctor and the nurses started to move the
bed and I followed them. Jimin’s mother said thank you again and pushed my shoulder. More correctly,
she slightly put her hand on my shoulder and took it off. But suddenly, an invisible line was drawn
between me and Jimin’s mother. It was a clear and solid line. Cold and firm. It was a line that I eventually
couldn’t cross through. I had lived at the orphanage for more than 10 years. I could tell it through with my
body, my eyes, with the air. In an unguarded moment, I stepped back and fell to the floor. Jimin’s mother
stared down at me with a blank look. She was a petite and beautiful woman, but her shadow was big and
chilly. That shadow casted on me falling down to the floor of the emergency room. When I looked up,
Jimin’s bed had already gone out of the emergency room, no longer seen. Since that day, Jimin didn’t go
to school anymore.
Jimin
I stopped counting how many days I had been in the hospital. It’s something people do when they want to
leave or when they have the hope of leaving. Looking at the trees and the grass outside the windows,
people’s outfits, seems like it hadn’t been that much time. One month at most. Sometimes I saw school
uniforms as well, but now even that didn’t really stir up any special feeling. Everything only felt so dull
and hazy, maybe because of the medicine. But today was a special day. A day that must be written down
on the diary if I had one. But I didn’t keep any diary and I didn’t want to cause trouble while writing such
thing. Today I lied for the first time. I looked into the doctor’s eyes and pretended I was depressed. I said,
“I don’t remember anything.”
Jungkook
“Jeon Jungkook. You’re coming there recently too, aren’t you?” I didn’t answer, just standing there
looking at the tips of my sneakers. He hit my head with the roll book for not answering. Still, I made no
move to talk, The classroom where I was together with the hyungs. Ever since the day I followed them
and discovered that classroom, there was not a single day I didn’t come there. They probably didn’t know
this too. Sometimes they didn’t show up there, busy meeting friends or working part-time. Sometimes I
didn’t see Yoongi-hyung or Seokjin-hyung for days. But not for me. I went there every single day. There
were days no one else would come. But it was okay. If that place still exists, the hyungs would come
today, tomorrow, or the following day, so it was okay.
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“You learned only bad things from hanging out with those kids.” One more hit. I glared up at him.
Another hit. I thought of when Yoongi-hyung was hit. I clenched my teeth and endured. I didn’t want to
lie that I didn’t come to the classroom.
I once again stood in front of that classroom. It felt like if I open the door, the hyungs would be there.
They would be playing games and turn around to ask me why I was so late. Seokjin-hyung and Namjoon-
hyung would read books, Taehyungie-hyung would play games, Yoongi-hyung would play the piano and
Hoseok-hyung and Jimin-hyung would be dancing.
But when I opened the door, there was only Hoseok-hyung. He was packing our stuff left in the
classroom. I just stood there grabbing the doorknob. He approached and draped an arm over my shoulder.
Then he pulled me outside. “Let’s go now.” The classroom door closed behind me. And then I realized.
Those days are gone and would never come back.
Hoseok
25 February YEAR 21
I danced without taking my eyes off my reflection in the mirror. The me in there soared up without
touching the ground, free from all the gazes and standards of the world. Nothing mattered to me but
moving my body to the music, putting my whole heart into my body.
I first danced when I was about twelve. Maybe it was around the time of the talent show in a field trip. I
followed my friends and stood on the stage. Among what happened that day, I could still remember the
applause and the cheer. And the feeling of being myself for the first time. At that time, I was only
thinking of moving my body to the music and having fun. It was ecstasy, and it was not until much later
did I learn that that ecstasy didn’t come from the applause, it came from somewhere inside me.
The me outside the mirror is hung up by many things. I can’t lift my feet off the ground for more than a
few seconds, I smile even when I hate it and smile when I’m sad too.. I take medicines I don’t need yet
still collapse anywhere. So I try not to take my eyes off myself in the mirror when I dance. The moment I
can truly become myself. The moment I can throw away all the weight and fly. The moment that makes
me believe I can become happy. I keep my eyes on that moment.
Namjoon
17 December YEAR 21
People waiting for the first bus rubbed their hands together at the cold wind. I clutched the straps of my
bag tightly and looked down to the ground. I tried not to make eye contact with anyone. A country village
only two buses stops at a day. The first was approaching from afar.
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I followed after people and got on the bus. I didn’t look back. When we’re desperate for something, when
we has grabbed hold of it and now the only thing left to do is escaping, there’s one condition. To not look
back. The moment we look back, all our efforts will go up in smoke. Looking back is doubting, is
lingering attachment and fear. Only after we’re over it can we truly escape.
The bus departed. I had no plan. I wasn’t desperate for anything, not did I grab hold of it and was
escaping. It was more like an impromptu getaway. A getaway from my mother’s tired face, my sibling
who’s feeling lost, my father’s illness. A getaway from my household situation that’s getting more
stressful over time, from my family who insist on sacrifice and peace, from myself who pretended like I
knew nothing and resigned, striving to adapt myself, and most of all, from poverty.
If you ask if poverty is a crime, anyone would say it’s not. But is it really not? Poverty eats away so many
things. It makes what we used to treasure become nothing. It makes us give up what we could not. It
makes us doubt, fear and resign.
Just few hours later, this bus will stop at a familiar stop. One year ago, I didn’t leave any goodbye when I
left this place. And now I’m coming back there without any omen or notice. My friends’ faces came up in
my mind. I cut contact with all of them. How have they been doing? Will they welcome me? Will we be
able to gather and laugh like we used to? Outside, the landscape was rendered invisible by the frosty
windows. I slowly moved my fingers above it.
“You must live on.”
Hoseok
2 March YEAR 22
I liked being among people. AFter leaving the orphanage to live on my own, I started working part-time
at a fast food restaurant, a job that required facing many people, smiling and being cheerful all the time. I
liked it. Truthfully, there wasn’t much to smile at and be cheerful about in my life. It was evident I met
more bad people than good ones. Perhaps that was why I liked that job even more. Beaming at them and
responding with a loud voice, even if forcefully, I felt like I really felt that way. My mood’s lifted up as I
laughed aloud and I became a kind person as I treated people with kindness. There were days so tough
that by the time I finished cleaning the restaurant and headed back home, even taking a step felt gruelling
already. Still, it was a little easier to make it through with my friends around than now.
Sometimes, I looked at the customers filling the restaurant and thought about my friends. Seokjin-hyung,
who transferred school and left without a word; Namjoon, who just disappeared one morning; Yoongi-
hyung, who went out of contact after getting expelled; Taehyung, who no one knew where and what kind
of trouble he would get into; and Jimin, who I last saw at the ER and never came back to school again. I
saw Jungkook coming home from school in his uniform several times through the windows not long ago,
but somehow he didn’t stop by the restaurant. I wondered if those times had gone now.
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At the sound of a customer coming in, I chirped a loud welcome. And I flashed a big, healthy smile,
looking back at the door.
Taehyung
29 March YEAR 22
THe gas station owner spit at the ground and left. I lay there, curled up on the ground. I was graffitiing on
the wall behind the gas station when the owner caught me. He beat me after asking what the hell I was
doing at someone else’s wall. I rolled over on the ground. Getting beaten was something far too familiar
to me but at the same time, something I could never get used to. It was not long ago when I started
graffitiing. I tried spraying on the wall with a spray can someone left behind. It was yellow, I think. I just
sprayed mindlessly and looked up, at the vivid yellow paint on the gray wall, then picked up another
spray. For a while, I just sprayed, clueless of whatever was going on my mind. I only stopped after all the
spray cans had run out. I threw the cans away and stepped back, out of breath as if I just sprinted with all
my might.
I had no idea what the colors on the wall represented, clueless of what I was doing or why I was doing it.
But one thing I could figure out was that it was my feelings. I had sprayed my feelings out onto the wall.
At first I thought it was hideous, dirty, even. Foolish, useless, pathetic. I didn’t like it at all. I rubbed the
wet paint with my palms, wanting to erase everything away. The paint didn’t go away, instead smudged
into another color and mangled into a different shape. I flopped back down against the wall. It wasn’t a
matter of whether I liked it or not, nor whether it was pretty or not. It’s just, it was me.
I pushed myself up as a cough came out. Blood splattered on my palm, probably from the new cut inside
my mouth. And then, I saw someone’s hand picking up the spray can. My gaze followed the hand until it
met a face. It was Namjoon-hyung. I chuckled. So I was seeing things. He gave me his hand. I just looked
up at him. He pulled my and and helped me up. His hand was warm.
Yoongi
7 April YEAR 22
I stopped walking at the clumsy piano sound. At the empty construction site in the middle of the night,
there was only the crackling sound from a fire someone had lit in the drum can. I could tell it was the
song I used to play, but I didn’t really have any thought. My drunken footsteps wobbled. I closed my eyes
and walked even more mindlessly. Heat from the fire became stronger and the piano sound, the air of the
night, even my intoxication fade away.
At the sudden horn, I opened my eyes, narrowly escaping a passing car. Amid the glare of the headlight,
the wind from cars passing by and the chaos of my intoxication, I staggered helplessly. A driver was
spitting out curses. I stopped, about to curse back when I realized, I could no longer hear the piano sound.
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Amid the sound of the blazing fire, the sound of the wind, the noise left behind by cars, there was no way
the piano sound could be heard. Seems like it stopped. Why did it stop? Was someone playing the piano?
With a snap, sparks of the fire in the drum can surged towards the darkness. I stared vacantly at it for a
while. My face flushed from the heat. That was when I heard the sound of someone slamming down the
piano keys with fist. Instinctively, I turned around. In a second, my blood was running wild, breath
growing ragged. My childhood nightmare. It was like the sound I heard at that place.
The next moment, I was running. My body turned around on itself not on my own will, running towards
the music shop. Somehow it felt like this had repeatedly happened countless of times. Like I was
forgetting something really urgent.
The music shop with broken windows. Someone was sitting in front of the piano. It had been years but I
still could recognize him at once. He was crying. I clenched my fists. I didn’t want to get involved with
someone else’s life. Didn’t want to comfort someone else’s loneliness. Didn’t want to become a
meaningful person to someone else. I didn’t have the confidence that I would be able to protect that
person. Didn’t have the confidence to be with them till the end. I didn’t want to hurt them. I didn’t want
to get hurt.
I slowly moved my steps. I was about to turn around and leave, but unknowingly, I came closer. And
pointed out to him the wrong note. Jungkook lifted his head and looked up at me. “Hyung.” It was the
first time we met after I dropped out of school.
Seokjin
11 April YEAR 22
When I opened my eyes, it was the 11th of April again. Sunlight was streaming in through the open
curtains. I pushed myself up as my eyes closed from the dizziness. My surroundings transformed into
crimson afterimages and I thought of Taehyung, standing alone on the observation deck by the sea. It was
the 22th of May. It was the past and the future, an occurrence that had happened and could happen in the
future. It was the moment I thought everything was resolved.
I caught the sight of Taehyung climbing up the observation deck when the sun was starting to set. The sky
was still blue but a dark red hue had begun to spread. I turned around and saw Taehyung climbing up the
observation deck. Taehyung reached the top and lowered his gaze at us for a moment. And then he
jumped. He leaped down like he was a bird, like he was carrying wings. For a moment, I thought he
stopped in mid-air, until it felt like the mirror broke, curtains drawn open and the cold wind surged in.
When I opened my eyes, it was today, the 1tth of April.

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Jungkook
11 April YEAR 22
At last, my wish was granted. I purposely bumped into the thugs on the street and was beaten as much as I
wanted to be. I kept smiling as I was beaten, and so they beat me up more, calling me crazy. I leaned
against the shutter door and looked up at the sky. It was already night. There was nothing in the pitch
black sky. A single clump of grass stood not far away. It was lying flat from the wind. It was just like me.
I forced myself to laugh to stop the tears from falling.
Under my closed eyes, I saw my stepfather clearing his throat. My half-brother was chuckling. My
stepfather’s relatives were either looking somewhere else or talking about useless stuff. They acted like I
wasn’t there, like my existence was nothing. In front of them, my mother was flustered. She pushed
herself from the floor, making a cloud of dust rise in the process and coughed. It hurt, like someone was
cutting into the pit of my stomach with a knife. I climbed up to the rooftop of the construction site. The
city at night was stretching with frightful colors. I climbed on top of the banister, spreading my arms out
and walked. For a moment, my legs wobbled and I almost lost balance. Just one more step and I would
die, I thought. But if I die, everything would be over. No one would be sad if I disappear.
Jungkook
11 April YEAR 22
I walked on the railing on the rooftop of a building that had been left in its construction-halted state. I
stuck out my foot as the darkness crept up from my toes. Beneath the railing, the night city spread out in a
chaotic mess. Neon signs, car horns, acrid clouds of dust swirling in the dark. For a second, I swayed
from the dizziness. I spread my arms wide to regain balance. And I thought. Just one stop. One step and
all of this would be over. I leaned towards the dark a little. The darkness that began from the tip of my
feet soon spread like it was going to devour my entire body. I closed my eyes and the chaotic city, the
noise, the fear, all went away. I held my breath and slowly, I leaned over. No thought crossed my head.
Nobody came to my mind. There was nothing I wanted to leave behind, nothing I would remember. This
was just the way it ended.
It was then, the moment my phone rang. I came to myself like I just woke up from a distant dream. All
the numbed senses returned in an instant. I took out my phone. It was Yoongi-hyung.
Yoongi
11 April YEAR 22
I walked, noticing Jungkook who was following from a distance behind. Containers popped up one after
another along the stretch of railway. “It’s the fourth to last container.” Hoseok added. “I planned to meet
up with Namjoon and Taehyung, you should come too.” I said okay, but truthfully I had no intention of
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going. I loathed getting entangled with people and Hoseok knew that too. He probably wouldn’t have
thought I would show up for real.
I flung open the door to Hoseok’s surprised face. He spotted Jungkook and came closer with his signature
exaggerated face of mixed emotions. I walked past them, heading inside the container. “It’s been awhile.”
I heard an embarrassed Jungkook scuffling with Hoseok who was trying to hug him.
Soon, Namjoon entered, taking Taehyung along. Taehyung’s T-shirt was ripped on one side. Asked what
happened, Namjoon pretended to smack Taehyung and said, “Dude’s doing graffiti and got caught by the
cops. Had to get him out so I was late”. Taehyung pretended to be sorry exaggeratedly and went on and
one about how his shirt got ripped from running away from the cops.
I sat in the corner and watched them. Namjoon was giving Taehyung another shirt to change into. Hoseok
was taking out some hamburgers and drinks. Somewhere between them, Jungkook stood awkwardly, not
knowing what to say.
Looking back, it was also the same back in high school. Somewhere inside our hideout classroom,
Namjoon would try to reason with Taehyung only to get teased back, Hoseok would bustle in and out
while Jungkook, unsure of where his place was, paced around.
How long had it been since we gathered like this? I couldn’t remember. How had it been for Seokjin-
hyung and Jimin? These thoughts were not like me at all. I had never been to this place before but
strangely, I felt at peace.
Namjoon
11 April YEAR 22
I was groping around some T-shirts when Taehyung reached out from behind and grabbed one. It was a
T-shirt with the same printed quote as the one I was wearing. Taehyung laughed sheepishly, taking off his
torn shirt. Under the dim light hanging on the trailer box, for a second, I saw his bruised back. Hoseok
looked at me in shock. Taehyung looked at himself in the mirror wearing my T-shirt. And he laughed.
“Dude’s doing some graffiti or something, got caught by the cops while running around. Had to get him
out so I was late.” I pretended to smack Taehyung and Taehyung in turn made an exaggerated expression
of fake apology. Yoongi-hyung, who was sitting at the corner of the trailer, slowly approached and tapped
Taehyung’s shoulder.
Seokjin
11 April YEAR 22
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I came to the sea alone. Inside the viewfinder, the sea was wide open and blue as ever. Even the sunlight
dispersing on the water, the wind blowing through the pine forest, they were still the same. The only thing
changed was that I was alone. One press of the shutter button and the scenery in front of my eyes flashed,
for a moment, that day 2 years and 10 months ago appeared and quickly vanished again. That day we
were sitting together in front of this day. Tired, empty-handed, hopeless, but we were together.
I turned my car around and stepped on the accelerator. I drove through the tunnel, passing the rest stop.
Somewhere near the school where we used to go to, I opened the car window. It was a night in spring.
The air was warm and cherry blossoms were fluttering about on the trees ranging along the school walls. I
left the school, crossed through the crossroad and made a few turns. Not far away, I could see the lights
from the gas station where Namjoon works at.
Seokjin
11 April YEAR 22
The car screeched to a narrow halt. I was too deep in thoughts to notice the traffic lights changed.
Students wearing familiar uniforms crossed the road and stared at me through the windshield. Some
people were even pointing at me. I tried to laugh and bow.
I knew what I had to do. But it wasn’t like I was not scared. Will I be able to end all of these miseries and
pain? Does these repeated failures mean I can never succeed? Does it mean I should give up? Is happiness
only false hope to us? Thousands of thoughts flashed through my head.
In no time, I reached the gas station intersection and saw Namjoon pumping fuel some distance away. I
took a deep breath in and exhaled. Yoongi, Hoseok, Jimin, Taehyung, Jungkook, I recalled their faces one
by one. I changed lanes and drove into the gas station. I couldn’t give up. Even if there is only 1% chance
of success, I will never give up. Past the windshield, I saw Namjoon walking towards me.
Namjoon
11 April YEAR 22
I finished with the refuelling and turned around. Something brushed past my face and fell down to the
ground. Unconsciously, I stepped back and looked down to find a crumpled note at my feet. I
instinctively bent down and reached out a hand. A spill of rowdy laughter came from people in the car. I
momentarily paused. Seokjin-hyung must be watching from distance away. I couldn’t look up. What
should you do when you meet eyes with people who ride in expensive cars and go around looking down
and make fun of others? You stand up. You stand up if their actions are wrongful. It’s not a matter of
courage, self-esteem or equality. It’s a matter of fact.
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But this was a gas station and I was a part-time attendant. If a customer throws trash, I have to clean it up;
if a customer throws curses, I have to hear it; if a customer throws money, I have to pick it up. My body
trembled from the humiliation. I clenched my fists tight, nails digging into my palms.
That moment, someone’s hand picked up the note and handed it to me. The people in the car muttered and
left the gas station, having seemingly lost interest. Even after they had left, I still couldn’t look up. I
didn’t have the guts to look into Seokjin-hyung’s eyes. It wasn’t like he didn’t know about my cowardice,
my poverty, my circumstance, but I didn’t want to show him this unconcealedly. He stood at the end of
my sight unmoving. He didn’t approach, didn’t talk to me either.
Namjoon
28 April YEAR 22
I had noticed something was going on with Taehyung a long time ago. He acted like nothing happened on
the outside but his momentary actions, his face, the way he talked was painted with the anxiety of not
knowing what to do. He was in and out of police station, wounds visible on his body. And he had
nightmares.
I didn’t ask what happened or urge him to talk about it to me, because I was waiting for Taehyung to tell
me himself and on the other hand, I doubted I had any right to hear such distress. I pretended to be the
older one, to be an adult, but in truth I couldn’t be by their side during their hard times. Everyone praised
highly of how mature I was yet I wasn’t a real adult. I only hesitated, unable to look at the reality in front
of my eyes.
“Yoongi-hyung was dead.” Taehyung had another nightmare today. I shook him by the shoulders and he
jolted awake, then sat there vacantly for a while. He didn’t even think of wiping the tears in his eyes and
just muttered incoherently. He said that Yoongi was dead, Jungkook had an accident and he got into a
fight, that he kept having such dream and it was so vivid he felt like that dream was real and we were now
inside a dream. “Hyung, don’t go anywhere.” His voice trembled with uneasiness.
Yoongi
2 May YEAR 22
The sheet caught on fire and blazed up instantly. Amid the unbearable heat, everything that was once
humble lost their presence. I could no longer feel the sour, moldy smell, the unidentifiable dampness and
the dank light. Instead, what remained was the pain. The physical pain that was the heat. The tips of my
fingers and my skin felt like they would be blistered and melt down from the overwhelming heat. For the
first time, my father’s expressionless face and the sound of the music dissipated.
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My father and I were different in many ways. He couldn’t understand me, I couldn’t understand him.
Would I be able to persuade him if I had tried? Perhaps no. The only thing I could do was to hide, rebel,
to run away. Sometimes the thought that it wasn’t my father that I was getting away from crossed my
mind. And then came the precipitous fear. What am I running away from? How can I escape from
myself? Everything felt impossible.
I faintly registered the sound of someone calling my name, but I didn’t look up. I couldn’t breathe,
whether from the heat or the pain I didn’t know. There was no strength to move left in me but still, I
could make it out. It was Jungkook. He must be so mad at me. Probably would grieve for me too. I just
wanted to sit down. I wanted to end all the smoke and heat, pain and fear here. Jungkook was shouting
something again but I still couldn’t place it. My vision faltered and I lifted my eyes up for the last time.
There they were, the last things I saw on this world. The dirty, isolated room, the glowing hot flame,
flickering heat, and Jungkook’s face.
Jungkook
2 May YEAR 22
I looked up only to see myself standing in front of Namjoon-hyung’s container. I opened the door and
entered. I gathered the scattering clothes, draped around myself and curled up. It was chilly. My whole
body was shaking and I felt like crying, but no tear came out.
When I opened the door and came in, Yoongi-hyung was standing on the bed. Flames were bursting from
the bed sheet. That moment, an uncontrollable rage and sense of fear coiled around me, I wasn’t good
with words. I wasn’t good with expressing my emotions to persuade someone either. Tears welled up and
I coughed and the words just kept getting stuck in my throat unable to come out. The only thing I could
utter as I flung myself into the fire was ‘We all promised to go to the sea together.’
“What happened? Did you have a nightmare?” I opened my eyes at someone shaking my shoulders. It
was Namjoon-hyung. Somehow I felt safe. He felt my forehead and said I had a fever. Maybe I really did.
My mouth felt like it was on fire but my body felt uncontrollably cold. My head was throbbing and my
throat hurt. I took the pills he bought me. “Sleep. Let’s talk later.” I nodded, and said. “Can I ever become
an adult like you?” Namjoon-hyung turned and looked at me.
Hoseok
12 May YEAR 22
I opened the fire exit doors and ran down the stairs. My heart was pounding so fast it felt like it’s going to
burst any moment. There was no doubt the fact that passed by me at the hospital corridor was my mom.
The moment I turned around to look, the elevator door slid open and people stampeded out. Frantically, I
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pushed my way through the crowd and saw her walking into the fire exit in the distance. I ran down the
stairs, taking two steps at a time from the restlessness. I went down several floors without resting.
“Mom!” She halted. I took another step forward. She turned around. I stepped down some more stairs.
Her face started to come into my sight. It was that moment. My heel slipped on the stair edge and my
body tilted forward. I squeezed my eye shut expecting a face plant. Someone grabbed my arm and I
narrowly regained my balance. I looked back, Jimin was standing there with a shocked face. I didn’t get
the chance to thank him and turned around again.
There was a woman. She looked surprised. Next to her was a young boy who was blinking his big eyes at
me. She wasn’t my mother. I stared at the woman’s face and stood still on the stairs wordlessly.
I couldn’t recall what I said to get out of there. I didn’t ask Jimin how he showed up there too. My mind
was too tangled to ponder over and care about the details. That woman was not my mother. Perhaps I had
known the truth from the beginning. It had been more than ten years since the day I was left alone at the
amusement park. She must have grown older and different from my memory of her. Even if we meet I
wouldn’t be able to recognize her. No, I didn’t even remember her face now.
I looked back. Jimin was following me wordlessly. Jimin told me that after parting ways at the emergency
room when we were high schoolers, he had spent his whole time at this hospital. I recalled his uncertain
face when I asked if he wanted to leave. Perhaps Jimin was like me too, both prisoners of the memories
that had been entrapping us, unable to send it away or capture it and just stay imprisoned. I took a step
towards Jimin.
“Jimin. Let’s get out of here.”
Jimin
15 May YEAR 22
When I opened my eyes, Hoseok-hyung was standing there. Under the familiar ceiling, in the familiar
darkness, he was looking down at me. Surprised, I pushed myself up but he put an index finger to my lips.
It was quiet, like everyone else had gone to sleep. He immediately passed me a shirt and pointed his chin
to outside the hospital room.
“We all came.” Namjoon-hyung was keeping watch and Yoongi-hyung was stalling by sticking to the
nurse, he said. Jungkook and Taehyung would join later in the elevator. At first I couldn’t understand
what he was saying. He reached out his hand to a bewildered me.
The day I leave the hospital. I used to dream about it. I wanted to leave the hospital and meet up with
friends, laughing and chatting with each other like we used to before, but now, I’m not so sure anymore.
Is leaving here a good thing? My parents who hid me here and treat me like I’m invisible. People who
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whisper that I have mental illness. Who knows, maybe Hoseok-hyung thinks so too. Maybe deep inside
he could be thinking of me as a weird kid and find it uncomfortable to spend time with me.
“Quick. We don’t have time.” The clock’s ticking sounded strangely fast, perhaps because of his urge.
Thump. Thump. Sound of footsteps rand like an auditory hallucination and slowly, it approached the
room. He and I stared at the door at the same time and back at each other. His arm was still extended
before me.
Jimin
16 May YEAR 22
Hoseok-hyung’s house was located on very high ground. A long walk up from the main road, through
winding narrow alleys to the last house and its rooftop, was his house. We entered the house, a single
room being its entire composition, as he boasted about how this was the top floor of the city and every
place we grew up in was now under our feet. True to his words, I could see a lot from the rooftop. A train
station not far away, containers lining up along the railway. One of them was where Namjoon-hyung was
living in. A diverting of the eyes and there was the school where we went to together. I looked for the
school, then looked up at the other side of the city. Along the mountain foot lay a big apartment complex.
That was my – no, my parents’ – house. I ran away from the hospital without a word. They must have
contacted my parents and were already searching for me by now. I still hadn’t got the courage to face my
parents. I left the hospital but I couldn’t come home. It didn’t mean I want to go back to the hospital. Yet,
I had nowhere to go and no money to use. Seeing me standing hesitantly, he told me to follow him and
led the way. And here we were, at his house.
I looked up at the apartment complex again. Someday I would have to go there, to meet my parents and
let them know I would never go back to the hospital again. I took a deep breath. It felt like just the mere
thought of it could trigger a seizure in me. Truthfully, even I couldn’t believe I would be able to endure it
somewhere else other than the hospital. And intolerable fear struck me.
Jimin
19 May YEAR 22
At the end, I had to go to the flower arboretum. It’s time to stop lying I didn’t remember what happened
there. Time to stop living in hiding at the hospital, stop having a seizure. In order to do so, I needed to go
there. And so I searched days for this bus stop. But I couldn’t get on the shuttle bus to the flower
arboretum.
Yoongi-hyung plopped down next to me after I had missed the third bus. I asked what he was doing here
and he said he was simply bored and had nothing to do. He asked why I was sitting here. I lowered my
head and kicked at the ground with the tips of my shoes. I thought about why I was sitting here. It was
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because I had no courage. I want to pretend that I was okay now, that I knew what I was talking about and
I could easily overcome it but the truth is, I was scared. Scared of what I would face, whether or not I
would be able to bear it and the chance of me having a seizure again.
Yoongi-hyung looked relaxed. He slumped down like had nothing to rush off for and said the weather’s
nice along with some other nonsense stuff. Hearing him,I realized the weather was indeed nice. I was too
nervous to look around me. The sky was blue and occasionally there would be a warm breeze blowing.
Not far away, the shuttle bus to the flower arboretum was arriving. The bus stopped and the doors were
opened. The driver looked at me. On a spur of the moment, I asked him.
“Hyung. Will you come with me?”
Taehyung
20 May YEAR 22
I looked down to my hands. They were smudged with blood. Suddenly, I lost all strength in my legs. I
was about to flop down when someone hugged me from behind. The sun was beaming its weak rays
through the window. My sister was crying and Hoseok-hyung was silently standing there without a word.
The dirty furniture and blankets were littered around, just like usual. No one was left where my father was
standing. I couldn’t recall when he left the room.
The uncontrollable rage and sorrow that was boiling inside me the moment I came at my father still
remained the same. I couldn’t tell what held me back when I was about to stab my father. I couldn’t tell
how to calm this insanity-bordering mind of mine. I didn’t want to kill my father, I wanted to die. If I
could, I would gladly die now. No tears came out. I wanted to cry, to scream, to stomp on and destroy and
break everything, to be broken, but I couldn’t do anything.
“Hyung. I’m sorry. I’m okay. Go.” My voice came out dry, a stark contrast to my mind that was
bordering insanity. It didn’t sound like my voice. I send off him, who didn’t seem like he was leaving
anytime soon, and looked down to my palm. Blood was seeping through the white bandage. Instead of
stabbing my father, I hit the floor with the bottle. It shattered and gashed my palm. I closed my eyes and
felt the world spinning around. What should I think? What should I do? How should I live? When my
senses returned, I was looking down at Namjoon-hyung’s numbers. Even after things came to this, no, as
things came to this, I was even more desperate for his presence. I wanted to tell him. Hyung. I almost
killed my father, my father who gave birth to me, my father who beat me to a pulp every single day. I
really almost killed him. No, the truth is I already did. I killed him thousands of times. I killed him so
many times even I couldn’t count. I want to kill him. I want to die. What should I do now? I don’t know
anymore. Hyung, I just want to see you.
Hoseok
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20 May YEAR 22
I took Taehyung out of the police station with me. “Thank you for your hard work.” I bowed and shouted
loudly, but I didn’t feel so. Taehyung’s house was not far from the police station. If he had lived
somewhere far away, would he not need to go in and out of the police station this often? Why did
Taehyung’s parents choose a place this close to the police station? The world was so unfair to this kind,
soft-hearted kid. I draped an arm around Taehyung’s shoulder, pretended like nothing happened and
asked, “Are you hungry?” Taehyung shook his head. “Did the policemen buy you food?” I asked again
but Taehyung gave no answer.
We walked in the sun. Cold winds were blowing inside my heart. If this is how I’m feeling, what about
Taehyung? How torn and broken must he have felt? Was there even any piece of his heart left? How
much pain there was inside him? I couldn’t look at him in the face with those thoughts in mind, so I
looked up to the sky instead. An airplane was flying past the dim sunlight. The first time I saw the
wounds on Taehyung’s back, it was when we met at Namjoon’s container hideout. Seeing Taehyung
laugh so innocently over getting a T-shirt, no one could say anything, but inside a piece of our hearts was
broken.
I didn’t have any parent. I had no memory of my dad and memories of my mom were only until I was 7
years old. When it came to wounds about family and childhood, I was never jealous with anyone. People
say we must overcome wounds, we must embrace and grow used to them. We must reconcile and forgive
in order to live. I couldn’t, not because I didn’t know nor I hated and refused to. Some things just can’t be
accomplished through efforts. No one taught us the way. The world gave us new wounds before its knives
grew blunt. I know there’s no one without wounds in this world. But why must the wounds be this deep?
For what reason do we need them? Why must this happen?
“Hyung, I’m okay. I can go by myself.” Taehyung told me at the crossroad. “I know, kid.” I paid no
attention to his words and led the way. “I’m really okay. Look. It’s nothing.” Taehyung smiled. I didn’t
answer him. There was no way he was okay. He was far from okay, but if i admit this fact I wouldn’t be
able to bear it. I was avoiding it. It had become a habit of mine. Taehyung pull up the hood of his hoodie
and started following me. “You’re really not hungry?” I asked Taehyung at the hallway to his house.
Taehyung just smiled foolishly and nodded. I watched him walking away from the back and turned
around. The hallway he walked on and the path I took on the way back were desolate. The kid and I, we
were both alone. I was about to look back when suddenly, my phone rang.
Taehyung
22 May YEAR 22
I was walking through the pine forest when I saw him taking the call, lagging behind. It happened a lot
lately. He would make the call somewhere far away so others wouldn’t be able to listen. I purposely
slowed down my pace and hid myself towards the sea. He didn’t see my and walked straight past. “He’s
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only a year younger than me. I don’t care. It’s not something I can take responsibility for anyway. Please
take care of it yourself.”
Something cold ran down my spine. Like the whole world had just collapsed, like I was floating in the
middle of the deep sea alone. I was scared, terrified. I was miserable and pathetic. I was angry. Angry and
couldn’t stand it. I wanted to do something bad, anything. I was always scared. Dad’s blood was flowing
inside me. Who knows, maybe I inherited his violence gene. It felt like from inside the shield I had
wrapped up so tightly, something was piercing through to come out.
Namjoon
22 May YEAR 22
“We’re just one year apart. No, someone said so. I’m older than him. I know. But he’s not a kid anymore.
I’m just saying it’s time for him to do by himself. I got it. I said I got it. No, I’m not angry. Sorry.”
I ended the call and looked down to the ground. The warm sea breeze was sweeping through the pine
forest. I felt so suffocated inside, like my heart would explode any second. On the ground mixed with half
sand and half ground, the ants were lining up to go somewhere. If someone who’s greater than me in any
aspect, physically or symbolically, look, would they see where I am going, know why I am going and
how I will end up?
It’s not like I don’t love my parents, nor am I not worried for my sibling. If I can I want to look away, but
I’m just me, so clearly that won’t happen. If it happens, what would all these struggles, anger, frustration
and this desire to escape mean?
Some distance away, I saw someone from the back, standing nailed to the spot just like I was. It was
Jungkook. Jungkook once told me this. “I want to become an adult like you.” I could tell him then. Tell
him that I’m not a good adult like he thought, that no, I’m not even an adult. I felt like it would be too
cruel to tell him so. I couldn’t tell a young kid couldn’t get the faith, the care and love he deserved that
growing older, growing taller and living longer doesn’t make you an adult. I hoped for Jungkook’s future
to be kinder to him than mine did, but I couldn’t promise that I would be there to help him. I approached
and draped an arm around his shoulder. Jungkook looked up at me.
Taehyung
22 May YEAR 22
“Hyung, that’s all? Isn’t there anything else you’re hiding from us?” Everyone immediately fell into
silence, every gaze directed at me. I stared straight at Seokjin-hyung. He stared back at me, his eyes
tinged with weariness, discomfort and something akin to pity. The moment I tried to press him again,
someone grabbed my arm and stopped me. I didn’t look back but I could know. It was Namjoon-hyung.
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“What does this have to do with you? You’re not even my real brother.” I could feel he was looking at
me. I shook his hand off without turning around. I was well aware too, that I was getting mad at
Namjoon-hyung for no reason. I was repeating what he said on the phone to someone else to let him
know that I was angry with him right now, that I was really upset. There was nothing wrong in his words.
I was only a year younger than him. I wasn’t his real brother. I needed to take care of my own problem.
But still, I was upset, even angrier at the fact that there was nothing to refute. I had hoped he could
understand how I felt.
“Taehyung, I’m sorry. Let’s stop here.” It was Seokjin-hyung who spoke up. Calling my name,
apologizing, both were Seokjin-hyung. Namjoon-hyung didn’t say anything. “Stop what? Tell everything
while we’re at it. Hyung, you’re hiding something from us.”
“Let’s go outside and talk.” Namjoon-hyung said, grabbing my arm again. I shook him off one more time
but he applied more force and tried to pull me outside. I held on. “Let me go. What right do you have to
stop me? What do you even know? You know nothing. You think you’re some great guy?” It was then.
He let go of me and I staggered from the rebound. No it wasn’t from the rebound. The moment he let go
of my arm, it felt like a link was severed, everything that held me up cracking, splitting, crumbling to
pieces. Perhaps I had hoped he wouldn’t let go of me until the end, that he would get mad at me and drag
me outside. Perhaps I had hoped, wished he would scold me more, like one would to their real brother, to
someone so close and important that they just couldn’t afford to back down.
But he let go of me. I laughed out loud. “What’s so great about being together? What are we even to each
other? We’re all alone in the end.” That moment, Seokjin-hyung hit me.
Jungkook
22 May YEAR 22
I thought I was floating in the air but in no time, it turned into the hard ground. For a while, I couldn’t feel
anything. My body only felt so heavy that I couldn’t even lift my eyelids. I couldn’t even gulp or breathe.
My consciousness faded as my surroundings slowly grew faint.
And then, my whole body jolted in fits as if I was startled by something. In the midst of the pain and thirst
which I couldn’t pinpoint exactly where, I unknowingly opened my eyes. Through my vision, strained
like it was covered by sand, I saw something shimmering. I thought it was a fire, but it wasn’t. It was
bright, grand and hazy. It wasn’t moving, just floating on the air. I watched it for a while and slowly, it
took a shape. It was the moon.
I didn’t know if it was because I was twisting my neck or not, but the world was upside down. In that
world, the moon was hanging upside down. I coughed to catch my breath, but I couldn’t move. After that,
I felt a chill. I was scared. I moved my lips but no word came out. My eyes weren’t closed, yet there was
only darkness in front of me. As my consciousness faded away, someone spoke up.
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“To live would be more painful than to die, do you still want to live then?”
Hoseok
31 May YEAR 22
Breath suddenly stifled, I avoided the gazes as an instinct. My breath was shaking after dancing for a
while, but it wasn’t the cause. I was struck with a thought of how she looked like my mother. No, it
wasn’t a thought, wasn’t a recognition, nor was it something I could explain or describe. I couldn’t look
straight at the face of the friend whom I had known for more than ten years. We learned dancing together,
failed together, fell into despair and cheered up together. We lay down on the floor covered in sweat,
throwing towels and joking around. As if touched by a sensation I had never felt before, I scrambled to
my feet. As soon as I turned around the corner, I leaned against the wall and stood there. I tried to calm
down my unsettled breathe, but there came a sound saying “Where are you going, Hoseok-ah?” A voice,
maybe it was a voice. A voice calling “Hoseok-ah.” A voice that I can’t even recall well now, that goes
back to when I was seven years old.
Yoongi
8 June YEAR 22
I took off my T-shirt. The me inside the mirror was nothing like me at all. The T-shirt with 'DREAM'
written on it wasn't my type in any way. I hated the color red, the word "dream", and even the way it
clung tightly onto my body. Annoyed, I took out the cigarette and looked for my lighter. There was
nothing in my jeans pocket, so I looked through the bag and realized. It was taken away. It was taken
from my hands just like that. I was left with the lollipop and this T-shirt.
I ruffled my hair and stood up, but then heard a sound signaling a message came. The moment I saw the
name with three words on the phone screen, everything around me suddenly lit up and my heart dropped
with a thud. I read the message and snapped my cigarette into two. The next moment, I was smiling in the
mirror. Wearing a tight red shirt with 'DREAM' on it, I was smiling like an idiot.
Seokjin
13 June YEAR 22
After returning from that sea, we were all alone.
Like it was all set, we didn’t contact each other. We only assumed the existence of each other from the
graffiti on the streets, the gas station lighting brightly, the piano sound from the old building. Every time
like that, the afterimage of that night came back to haunt me like a phantom. Taehyung’s pupils that
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blazed with fire, all the eyes that looked at me as if hearing an unbelievable story, Namjoon’s hands that
stopped Taehyung, and me who couldn’t endure and threw my fists towards Taehyung.
After Taehyung ran away, we couldn’t find him, no one stayed at the seaside dorm after returning. The
broken glass cup, the bloodstain that was starting to get clotted, the crumbled snack pieces, they only
reminded us of what happened few hours ago. A photo fell down then. It was the photo we took at the
sea, smiling together.
I passed by the gas station today. One day we will meet again. One day we will smile together like we did
in that photo. One day I will gather the courage to face myself. But now, it is not the time yet. The humid
wind blew today, just like that day. And the next moment, my phone rang like a warning. The photo
hanging on the mirror of my room was shaking. Hoseok’s name appeared on the screen.
“Hyung, Jungkook got into an accident that night.”
Yoongi
15 June YEAR 22
I couldn’t perceive anything but the music blasting inside my head. How much I have drunk, where I am,
what I was doing. I didn’t want to know, nor did I feel them to be of any importance. When I stumbled
outside, the night had already come. I just let my feet take me. Pedestrians, stalls, walls, I just bumped
against anywhere. It didn’t matter. I just wanted to forget everything.
Jimin’s voice still rang vividly in my mind. “Hyung. Jungkook—” Next thing I remember, I was running
up the hospital stairs like crazy. The hallways in the hospital were strangely dark and long. Passing by
were people wearing patient’s clothes. My heart was pounding. Their faces were ghastly pale. They
showed no expression, like they were all dead. Inside my head, the sound of my breathing was banging
loudly.
Past the slightly opened door of the room lay Jungkook. Unknowingly, I turned my head. I couldn’t look
at him. At that moment, the piano sound, the flame, the sound of the building collapsing suddenly came to
my ears. I covered my head and flopped down. It said “It’s all because of you.” It said “If only you didn’t
exist.” It was my mom’s voice, no, it was my voice, no, it was someone’s voice. Those words tormented
me for god knows how long. I wanted to believe that it’s not true. But Jungkook was lying there.
Jungkook was lying there in the hall, with people whose faces were pale as dead passing by. I just
couldn’t come in. I couldn’t confirm. And so I stood up, legs wobbling. As I came back out, my tears fell.
Funny. I didn’t remember what was the last time I cried.
I turned around at someone grabbing my arm when I was about to cross the road. Who was it? No, it
didn’t matter. Anyone was the same. Don’t come near me. Go. Please just leave me alone. I don’t want to
hurt you. I don’t want to get hurt. So please, just don’t come near me
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Taehyung
25 June YEAR 22
I slowed down on purpose and listened carefully to the small sound of someone running behind me.
Today was the third time we ran into each other at the convenience store. If there was any difference, it’s
that she ran away as soon as she saw me. She strolled around the empty lot behind the convenience store
and hid away right after I showed up. She thought she were hiding well, but their shadow was stretching
out to the front of the empty lot. I giggled. I walked away pretending I didn’t see anything, and she began
to follow me.
I entered a narrow alley. This was the only place in this neighborhood where the street lamps weren’t
broken. The alley ran long with the street lamp standing somewhere halfway. When the source of the light
is ahead, the shadow stretches behind. So right now my shadow would cast behind me. Maybe it would
even reach the feet of the person who had been following me with bated breath. I soon reached the street
lamp and my shadow immediately hid under my feet. I began to speed up my pace. Leaving the lamp
behind, now my shadow started to cast in front of me. Soon enough, another shadow that wasn’t mine
appeared on the dusty cement road. As I stopped, she stopped and stood there as well. Two shadows of
different heights standing still side by side.
I spoke. “I’m gonna wait until you come here.” The shadow jumped as if surprised, and held its breath
like it wasn’t there. “I can see you.” I pointed at the shadow. Soon. the sound of footsteps began to
approach me, stamping on purpose. I laughed.
Namjoon
30 June YEAR 22
With somewhat a weird feeling, I looked at my hands pressing the open button as if it had a will of its
own. There were moments like this. Moments that even though it was clearly the first time, I feel like it
had repeatedly happened countless of times. Right before the elevator door closed, it opened again and
people crowded in. I spotted someone with hair tied up by a yellow rubber band. It wasn’t because I know
that person would be here that I pressed the open button, but I felt like that person would definitely be
here. I slowly stepped further to the back. I lifted my head up as my back pressing against the cold
elevator wall, the yellow rubber band coming into my view.
A person’s back speaks up many thing. Among them, I can only understand a few. Some I can vaguely
guess and some are ultimately left ungrasped. I was suddenly struck with the thought that you can only
say you know a person when you are able to read everything from their back. If so, maybe there would
also be someone who can read me from my back. As I looked up, our eyes met in the mirror. For a
second, I avoided the gaze. When I looked up, there was only my face in the mirror. My back was no
longer seen.
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Jimin
3 July YEAR 22
I eventually lay down on the floor. After turning off the music, everything around me became quiet,
nothing heard save for the sound of my breathing and the thundering of my heart. I pulled out my phone
and played the choreography video I learned by day. His movements in the videos were smooth and
accurate. I knew it was the result of countless hours, sweat and practice, and it was greed to someone who
didn’t have much like me. But understanding and desiring were different, so I often sighed. I stood up all
of a sudden again. I could mimic his turns but my steps were still messed up. I kept making mistakes at
the part where we changed position and match the formation. We decided to match it tomorrow, but until
then, I wanted to do it properly, one way or another. Rather than a joking “Pretty good” compliment, I
wanted to be acknowledged as a real and equal partner like when I danced with him.
Jimin
4 July YEAR 22
When my senses returned, I was already washing my arm so hard that my skin was threatening to come
off. My hands were shaking, breathe coming up and down. Blood was streaming down my arm. In the
mirror, I saw my bloodshot eyes. Fragments of what happened earlier came back to me.
Suddenly, I lost focus. I was dancing together with a noona from the dance club when our moves got
tangled and we bumped into each other. I tumbled down the rough floor and my arm started bleeding.
That moment, I thought back of what happened at the flower arboretum. I thought I was over it but I
wasn’t. I had to run away. I had to wash. I had to turn away. The me in the mirror was still that same 8-
year-old kid stomping in the rain to run away. And then suddenly I remember. She also fell down with
me.
No one was in the practice room. Past the slightly opened door, the rain was beating hard. I saw
Hoseokie-hyung running not far away. He was soaked in the rain. I took the umbrella and dashed out. I
ran. Eventually, I halted.
There was nothing I could do. All I could was to fall down and make her hurt, tremble at my own injury
and leave her there only to belatedly run and stop halfway. I turned around and walked. Rain splattered on
my sneakers with each step. The cars’ headlights flashed by. I wasn’t okay. No, I was. It didn’t hurt. This
wound was nothing. I was really okay.
Hoseok
4 July YEAR 22
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I went out to the hallway while waiting for first aid. The hospital hallway was crowded with people
walking around even at this time of the night. Water was dripping down from my hair drenched by the
rain and sweat. As I shook my hair, her bag fell down. All kinds of miscellaneous stuff spilled out. Coins
were rolling, ball pens and towels everywhere. Among them, there was an airplane E-ticket. I picked it up
and briefly looked through it.
Then, the doctor called me. It was just a mild concussion, there was nothing big to worry about, the
doctor said. A moment later, she came out. “Are you okay?” She said she had a little headache and was
about to take her bag back from me. Then she saw the E-ticket sticking out and looked at me. I shifted the
bag to the other shoulder, pretending like nothing happened and rushed her to go. When we got to the
entrance, it was raining. We stood side by side in front of the door.
“Hoseok-ah”. She called. She looked like she had something to say. “Wait a moment. I’ll go buy an
umbrella.” I mindlessly ran in the rain. There was a convenience store not far away. I knew she
auditioned for a dance team overseas not long ago. Seeing she already got the airplane ticket, seems like
she passed. I didn’t want to hear what she said. I didn’t have the confidence to congratulate her.
Namjoon
13 July YEAR 22
I rested my head against the window. From the library to the gas station, the same commute everyday.
Outside the windows passed the sickeningly familiar landscapes. Will I ever escape these landscapes? I
felt that it was impossible to predict what would come tomorrow, what I could hope for.
A girl sat few seats in front of me, hair tied back with a yellow rubber band. She raised her shoulders up
as if heaving a sigh and sat down. And then she rested her head against the window. We have been
studying at the same library and taking the bus at the same station for more than a month. We never
talked but we saw the same landscapes, lived the same time and heaved the same sigh. The hair tie was
still in the pocket of my pants.
The girl always got off three stops ahead of me. Every time I saw her getting off, I wondered if she would
go to to hand out the flyers again. What did she have to go through? What did she have to endure? How
much of the hopelessness that is tomorrow would never come, that is there was already no such thing as
tomorrow from the start did she feel? I thought.
The girl’s stop was approaching. Someone pressed the stop button and shortly after, passengers stood up
from their seats. But the girl wasn’t among them. She stood still in her seat with head resting against the
window. Seems like she was sleeping. Should I go and wake her up? I debated for a moment. The bus
reached the stop. The girl still remained the same. People got off. The door closed and the bus left.
The girl didn’t wake up once while the bus passed three stops. As I walked to the door, I debated with
myself once again. Obviously if I get off, no one would pay attention to the girl. By the time she wakes
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up, the bus would be far away from where she was supposed to get off. Who knows how more tiring her
day would get because of it.
I got off the bus and started walking to the gas station. The bus soon departed and I didn’t look back. I left
the hair tie on her bag but that was it. It wasn’t the start nor was it the end. There was nothing from the
beginning so there was no reason for anything to happen. So it was nothing at all, I thought.
Jungkook
16 July YEAR 22
I stood by the window, plugged in my earphones and slowly sang along to the song. It has already been a
week. Now I could sing along without looking at the lyrics. I took out one earphone and practiced with
my voice. She said she liked it because the lyrics were beautiful, but the lyrics were embarrassing, so I
just scratched my head. The sunlight of July was streaming through the big window frame. The green
leaves were fluttering and shining, probably because of the wind, and the touch that the sunlight left on
my face felt different each time. I closed my eyes. I looked at the yellow, red and blue tingeing behind my
closed eyes. I don’t know if it was because of the lyrics or because of the sun, but something was rising
from inside my heart, tingling and burning.
Taehyung
17 July YEAR 22
My sides felt like they were being torn apart. Sweat was dripping down me. The railway, the vacant lot
behind the convenience store, under the overpass, I couldn’t find her anywhere. I even ran to the bus stop
but she was nowhere to be seen. People waiting for their buses gave me an odd look. What happened? We
didn’t promise to meet but it was weird. She always popped up out of nowhere and followed me around.
She wouldn’t give up even if I told her she’s annoying. But everywhere we went together, I couldn’t find
her.
I stopped on my tracks in front of a familiar wall. It was a graffiti we drew together, her first ever graffiti.
A giant “X” was drawn on top of it. It was her. I didn’t see it in person but I knew it. Why? I had no
answer for that. Instead, the afterimages stacked up above the wall.
Her smile flashing at me when I knocked my head while lying on the railway. Her hands helping me up
when I fell while helping her run away. Her face burning with anger when I stole the bread. Her gloomy
look when we passed the photo studio where a family portrait was hung at the front. Her gaze
unconsciously following the passing students. I told her when we were spraying on this wall together. “If
you have any trouble, don’t suffer alone, tell me.” The X symbol was drawn on top of all those memories,
like it was saying everything was fake. Like it was saying they were all a lie. I unknowingly clenched my
fists. Why? I had no answer. I turned around and walked. Both I and she, we were once again alone.
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Namjoon
20 July YEAR 22
I leafed through the advertisement pages of the magazine and looked up. It had been a different face
sitting at the window seat of the table on the other side for days. A similar thick book, a similar big
backpack, a similar white paper cup, but it wasn’t her. I lowered my gaze at the magazine again. I had
been reading the same page for an hour. The repeating thoughts kept me from focusing on the words.
Why am I sitting here? I couldn’t think of an answer. In the middle of people who were all indulging in
something, I was just here idly flipping through the magazine. The rush to start doing something,
anything, struck me. I just couldn’t stay like this.
I returned the magazine and went to stand among the bookshelves. Rows of bookshelves that were taller
than my height, filled with books stacked in lins. Wind was blowing through the open windows, sending
the dust and the smell of books into the air. It reminded me of high school, when I used to spend time at
the hideout classroom with my friends. The books I read then had this smell too. I wonder if the me of the
present has grown up any more from those days. I couldn’t say yes immediately. Who knows, maybe
everything about me had stopped at those days. I walked to the bookshelf on the other side and picked up
a book I used to study then. I needed to start again, one by one, everything starting from the things I had
given up then.
Jungkook
26 July YEAR 22
I secretly picked some flowers from the hospital’s garden. I lowered my head from the laughter bubbling
up my throat. The sun was beaming dazzlingly in a midsummer day. I knocked the door, no answer. I
knocked again and pushed the door open. Somehow, the room felt chilly. No one was inside. Only silent
darkness resided here.
I turned around and left the room. I rolled my wheelchair down the hallway feeling tired and frustrated,
and that’s when I met her. I came to a sudden halt at something showing up and there stood a girl, hair
tied into a ponytail. There was a bench somewhere outside the hospital. I remembered sitting on that
bench and drawing while listening to music with her. We even shared strawberry milk on the roof. My
hands were still clutching the wild flowers but I had no one to give it to anymore.
Jungkook
26 July YEAR 22
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I turned around to find the hospital already far away. The bench where I left the wildflowers on, the
window where we looked at the river together, were out of sight. Looking back, she had given me a break
to breathe in my suffocating days at the hospital. We would sit on the bench chatting the late afternoon
away and the sun would already have set before we even realized. I talked about hanging out at the
hideout, the trip to the sea and even the time I walked to the train station. She told me about every inch of
the hospital, about the window from which we could see the river and the stairs that was the secret path to
the rooftop. There was nothing about the hospital that she didn’t know.
Her room was empty. I asked the nurses but couldn’t figure out anything, whether she was discharged or
moved to another hospital I didn’t know. Somehow, I felt empty. I turned around and started walking
again. I could see the school from afar. Thinking of it, most of the stories I shared with her were what I
experienced with the hyungs. Most of the stuff I said started with “the hyungs”. To me who was always
alone, they became my friends, my family, my teachers. Every story of mine was in their story and I only
existed in my relationship with them.
But at some point, this thought started to wander in my mind. Maybe one day they would no longer be by
my side. Maybe one day I would come to look for them only to find no one there and no one would tell
me why. Maybe something far worse could happen.
I thought of that night. The day the big moon was hanging in the night sky, the world flipping upside
down, headlights piercing into the inverted vision, read light from the tail lamps and the strangely familiar
sound of the engine. I didn’t want to make a pointless speculation but that moment. it kept coming into
my head, over and over again.
Jimin
28 July YEAR 22
I stayed behind at the practice room again today. It was past midnight already, the buses had stopped
running. The truth is I waited for the buses to stop running so I could have the practice room for myself.
Practicing together made me see only my flaws and it was nerve-wrecking, scary, even. Yet, I still wanted
to nail it no matter what, which was why I stayed behind by myself every night.
With each passing day, my fear dissipated, strangely enough, only the fact that dancing is so much fun
remains. For a long time, I had lived thinking that the small, weak, sluggish image I shaped in my mind
was the real me. Dancing got me thinking of constantly of my body weight, my arms length, the speed I
could exert and the strength I could possess. When I danced, I was not small and weak. My dance skill
improved as much as I had practiced. Even moved that I used to be scared of at first linked up in the end
after numerous repetitions. I was growing. A little bit at a time but still, growing. I also found out that I
was quite a talkative person, as when I danced it felt like all the things I couldn’t say and didn’t say just
poured out. As I started dancing, for the first time ever, I had grown to like myself.
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Yoongi
29 July YEAR 22
How is it that only after the person who would perform with you as you play the guitar had gone do that
melody keep coming to your mind? I lay on the sofa, looking at the piano placed over there. One time,
after getting expelled from school, I threw away the key from my mother’s piano. A half-burned piano
key, the only thing I brought from our house that was destroyed in the fire, thrown out of the apartment
window. I thought that was the end. I chanted to myself, determining to never touch the piano again.
It was the next dawn. I jumped down the stairs, unable to wait for the elevator. I thought I was only asleep
for a moment, but the sun was already rising. What happened last night suddenly came rushing into my
mind. There was nothing in the flower bed beneath the window. The guard told me the garbage truck left
not long ago. Just like that, I lost the key from my mother’s piano.
Since that day, I had given up music countless of times. I don’t do it anymore. I won’t go back to it again.
Music is nothing to me. But even in the moment of running away from it, I knew, that eventually, I would
start making music again just like that time I tripped and jumped down the stairs. Music was like that to
me. In music, I felt the pain but I also felt the freedom. I was addled but at the same time, clear. Fear and
confidence, hope and despair, it seemed like I was living in all those conflicting emotions.
I suddenly wanted to play the piano. I wanted to meet myself there, a self that pretends to be strong but is
actually timid and cowardly. I wanted to swear, to taunt, to hurt, hit, destroy, to hold myself and cry. And
I wanted to stop running away. I wanted to complete the melodies I wrote with the guitar and piano.
Perhaps I really could this time.
Seokjin
3 August YEAR 22
I opened the door to the storage classroom and entered. In the unchilly air of a summer night, the smell of
mold and dust blended together. For a moment, several scenes crossed my mind. The shining shoes of the
headmaster, the face Namjoon had standing outside the door, the day I avoided Hoseok and went back
alone. Suddenly, I felt a pain inside my head and felt a chill. Those complex feelings, anger, fear,
whatever you call it, flooded in like a pain. All the signals I felt with my body and my heart were clear. I
had to get out of here.
Taehyung grabbed my arm as if he saw the look on my face. “Hyung, try a little bit more. Remember the
memories here.” I shook off Taehyung’s hands and turned around. We had been walking around in the
heat for hours. We were exhausted. The other guys looked at me like they didn’t know what to say.
Memories, memories that Taehyung talked about were just meaningless stories to me. Stories about that
thing I did, that thing that happened to me, that something that we did together. It could be the case. It
was the case. But memories are not understanding or comprehension. Experience is not something you
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hear and figure out. It’s something that has to root deeply in your heart, your mind, your soul. But all the
memories I had there were but bad things. Things that made me suffer and made me run away.
A fight happened when I decided to go back and Taehyung tried to stop me. But we were all exhausted.
The way we hit, dodged and stopped happened with a sense of slowness and heaviness like we were in a
dense, hot liquid. In a flash, Taehyung’s legs got tangled with mine. I was wondering if my shoulders hit
against the wall when the next moment, I lost my balance and stumbled.
I didn’t know what happened at first. The thick dust made me unable to open my eyes and breathe. I had a
fit of coughing. “Are you okay?” After hearing someone ask, I realized I fell on the ground. I pushed
myself up and saw what I thought was the wall had collapsed. Beyond the wall was a huge space. No one
moved for a moment. “Oh my god, but we had been here for so long!” Someone said. No one could
imagine such space existed on the other side of the wall. But what is that? The dust settled and a cabinet
standing in the middle of the empty space came into our sight.
Namjoon opened the cabinet’s door. I took a step closer. Inside was a notebook. Namjoon picked up the
notebook and turned over the first page. For a moment, I held my breath. On the first page of the
seemingly old notebook was an unexpected name. It was my father’s name. Namjoon was about to turn
over another page when I snatched it out of his hands. Namjoon looked at me surprised but I didn’t mind.
I flipped through the pages. The old notebook passed through my fingers like it was about to crumble.
It was a diary handwritten by my father about what he and his friends experienced together in high
school. It didn’t tell the story of every day. Some were every month and there were even illegible pages
coated with something akin to blood. But still, I could know. That my father and I went through the same
thing, that he made mistakes just like me and that he ran and ran again to make up for it.
My father’s notebook was a record of failure. In the end, he gave up and failed. He forgot, turned away
and avoided. He let his friends down. The diary’s last page was smeared with but black ink. The ink
stained the blank page after it, after it, until the very last page. That stain was an eloquent evidence of my
father’s failure.
I lost track of how much time passed by. Looking at the wind blowing through the window that had
started to feel cooler, it musts be the darkest time of the day, before the sun rises. The other guys
including Namjoon were sitting on the floor sleeping. I lifted my head up and looked at the wall. I once
saw my father’s name written somewhere here. Under it was a sentence. Everything started here.
It was when I was about to close the notebook that I felt something at the top of my fingers. On top of the
ink stains, blurry letters came into my sight. I felt the murky air outside the window. Seems like the sun
would soon rise. But the night hadn’t ended yet. It was neither night nor dawn. In the stains black like
darkness entwined with the hazy light, between lines and lines, were faint letters.
The notebook held more memories than it recorded. What my father decided to forget, what my father
decided not to remember was left as it is on the letters, between the margins and the space. The color had
faded but the many times my father went through, his fear, his despair and frail hope that he would never
overcome it were swirling under my fingers like letter punches, left marks as they are once pressed. The
distorted map to my father’s soul was left as it is.
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After closing the notebook, my tears fell down. I sat still for a while. When I turned around, the guys
were still sleeping. I looked at each of them. Who knows, maybe we had to come back here. This was
where everything of us happened. We learned of the meaning of being together and the joy of laughing
together. My first wrongdoing, my first mistake that I had never been able to admit myself was left like an
open wound.
The thought that none of these was a coincidence crossed my mind. In the end, I had to come here. Only
then would I be able to find the meaning of the pain and anxiety I faced because of the mistakes and
wrongdoings I made and for the first time, take the first step towards finding the map of my soul.
Taehyung
11 August YEAR 22
I was about to turn my steps when I discovered small letters underneath the “X” letter, a short sentence
scratched into the wall. “It’s not your fault.” It was her. I didn’t see it in person or knew her handwriting,
but I could tell. It was like her last greeting, saying the reason she left wasn’t because of me, that what
happened to me wasn’t because I’m a bad person. It was like she was telling me not to blame myself, not
to be distressed about it and to have courage.
Next thing I knew, I was already in front of my house. There came my sister’s scream beyond the door. I
slammed it open and came in to a familiar scene in front of my eyes. I blocked my father, grabbing his
arm as I looked at him in the eyes. He seemed taken aback at first but soon he threw a punch at me. I was
knocked out over and over again. My sister’s crying rang louder. My chin hurt and the inside of my
mouth reeked of a rusty iron smell. I still didn’t give up. I clung tight onto my father as he shouted with
rage and his blows rained on my back and shoulders, but the more he went the tighter I clung onto him.
It wasn’t like I didn’t feel the pain or didn’t feel scared. But the moment I let go, that daily life would
repeat itself again. I wanted it to be different. I wanted to change it.
I don’t want to. I’m not like my father. I will protect my own family.
Hoseok
13 August YEAR 22
Jimin and she were standing in the middle of the practice room. The five seconds of silence it took getting
into prep position and waiting felt like eternity. Music blasted from the speaker as they started with the
first move. It was the choreography I had been practicing with her until recently. I sat on the floor,
watching them.
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When I was told I would not be able to dance for a while due to my ankle, it was tough, to be honest.
Having to see someone else dance and not me was frustrating. But as I helped Jimin practicing and
watched him grow, I realized that not getting to dance myself isn’t a big problem, that as long as I
continue to dance in one way or another, I can be happy.
When I practiced with Jimin, I couldn’t let even a small mistake slide. Sometimes, when Jimin subtly
misses the timing or dances smaller than expected, I would pause the music and check every move. But
now, sitting on the practice room floor, some sort of audience seats, and focusing on him, Jimin’s dance
looked different, something bigger than just single moves. What I thought to be nothing but mistakes
when we practiced together felt different, trivial mistakes and rawness becoming his unique aura. Jimin
had his own timing and expression, albeit clearly different from mine. Jimin was shining in his own way,
his dances were speaking to the heart.
The music ended, so did Jimin’s dance. His face was glowing with joy and excitement. Next to him stood
she. Soon, she would be leaving for overseas. Our eyes suddenly met. I raised a thumb at her, to which
she gave a wide smile. She bore no resemblance to my mother. Strange. Why did I think they looked alike
when I can’t even remember my mother’s face? I felt a pang of pain somewhere in my heart, a sore
sensation from the yet to recover ankle.
Seokjin
15 August YEAR 22
It was after getting out of a jammed crossing and starting to speed up when I came to a sudden stop,
unknowingly. The car behind beeped their horn and passed by, someone was hurling curses, but amid the
noise of the city, I didn’t hear anything. There was a small flower shop at the corner of the alley on the
left. I didn’t stop abruptly because I saw the shop. It was more like I discovered the shop after stopping
my car.
year
When the owner - who was organizing papers at the side of the shop currently under interior construction
- approached me, I had no expectation. I had already gone around several places but even the florists had
no idea about the existence of the flower. They only showed me flowers with a similar color. But I wasn’t
looking for something with a similar color. The flower had to be real. After I told the owner the flower’s
name, he looked at me for a while. Then he said even though the shop hadn’t been officially opened yet,
he could deliver the flower to me, and asked me. “Why does it have to be that flower?”
As I turned the handle and got back to the road, I started to think. The reason why it had to be that flower.
There was only one reason. Because I want to make her happy. Because I want to make that her laugh.
Because I want to show them the me that she likes. Because I want to become a good person.
Seokjin
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30 August YEAR 22
Can anyone remember the moment love starts? Can anyone foresee the moment love ends? What
meaning lies behind the incapability of humanity to perceive those moments? And for what reason was I
given the power to undo all of them?
The car came to a sudden stop, the headlight flashed, the car crashed, she was thrown upward , she fell. In
the midst of all those chaotic moments, I just stood defenselessly. I heard no sound, felt no sense. It was
summer but the wind felt chilly. Something rolled down along the road, making sound on its way. And
then there was the smell of flower. It was when reality hit me. The Smeraldo bouquet fell out of my hand.
The girl was in the middle of the road some distance away. Blood was seeping through her hair. Dark
crimson blood, flowing down along the road. I thought. If only I could turn back time.
Seokjin
30 August YEAR 22
She seemed flustered seeing the diary that she thought to have been lost. Her favorite movie, places she
wanted to go, her favorite flower, the future she has been dreaming of, all showed up with every turn of
the page. They were also what I did for her. I couldn’t utter out an apology. The diary lay between us like
a traffic light in the crossroad.
I wanted to make her happy. I wanted to make her smile. I wanted to be a good person. I thought it would
be possible if I follow what the diary said, but no. The more I try to become someone else, the more
afraid I get. Would she find out my true self? Would she be disappointed and leave me? I had been
frantically concealing myself and turning away from myself, but like how you can’t put a period to a
sentence without subject, I lost my true self, unable to move forward any further and just wandering
around in circles.
Now, I know. That my imperfections, my mistakes, my failures are also a part of me. That the only way I
can take the next step forward is to be honest to myself. I stood up. She didn’t stop me.
I made my way out to the street and took off my hat. I swept my hair back, times of endeavoring to
become someone else trickling through my fingers. I turned around, meeting the eyes of my own
reflection in the window. Pale face, colorless lips, scrawny shoulders. I looked utterly shabby. I let out a
laugh. The me in the window laughed along.

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I collapsed on the floor.

“You must live on.”

When I opened my eyes, it was today, the 1tth of April.

“Jimin. Let’s get out of here.”

“Hyung. Will you come with me?”

After returning from that sea, we were all alone.

“Hyung, Jungkook got into an accident that night.”

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