Everything had been perfect until that man called her Namjoo. She wasn’t Namjoo. Her name was Min Sohye. She had been Min Sohye ever since she woke up…without a memory.

With a desperate plea that man had asked, “Why didn’t you come home? Where have you been?!”

Now she couldn’t forget him. He had sounded painfully heartbroken.

A hand touched her shoulder and she turned to see a warm cup of tea held out to her. “You ok?”

Oh Sehun was her husband. She had been told he was her husband. Had they been close before? With the inability to remember how they’d met or how they’d fallen in love she just went with him. Her mind was a constant blankness. What had happened before she woke up in the hospital? Why had she been in the hospital?

She hadn’t questioned it, never wondered why. He’d told her he was her husband, even showed her some photos they’d taken together – none of which she remembered – and she believed it.

But that man called her Namjoo.

Who was Namjoo?

“Sohye?” her husband called when she didn’t answer.

“Oh…yea, I’m fine.” she quietly replied and grasped onto the mug. All of a sudden there were so many questions flurrying through her head. Before this, everything had been disturbingly perfect.

∞∞∞∞∞

The machine buzzed around her as she lay on the bed. It was routine. She’d lost track of the number of times she had come here for a checkup. Regaining her memory hadn’t been an important matter to her before, but now she was starting to become curious about what kinds of things were locked behind that misty black. Were they happy memories?

Sehun extended his arm around her back when she walked out from the testing room and he led her to the hallway after thanking the doctor. He always spoke to the doctor while she went in for her scan. Was he waiting for her to regain her memory so she could remember him? Or was he anxious for something else?

Glancing up at him she felt like whipping herself. Why would her husband do that to her?

“Are you hungry?” he wondered.

“No.”

“Is it ok if you head home first? I have some errands to run. I’ll be in right after you,” he gently smiled. She nodded when they walked out of the hospital and they departed out front after he gave her some cab fare and extra cash to get lunch.

A few minutes later she wound up at the mart nearby their high rise apartment. Cheerily browsing the items on stock she wondered if she would make dinner tonight instead of letting her husband do it. Life was exceptionally graceful, better than anything she might ask for. Sehun was awfully sweet to her and was always there when she woke up from constant nightmares. He would even wake up in the middle of the night to sit with her quietly as she watched TV to reassure herself reality was no nightmare.

The sudden thought about what she would do if she did regain her memories hounded her suddenly. Yes, what would happen if she regained her memory? Would regaining it ruin what she had now? Would she end up losing Sehun? This life?

She abruptly turned around when the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. Her heart pounded erratically like a hummingbird pecking bark. It was a kind of vicious panic that sent her entire body – mentally and physically – on alert. Stepping away from where she was she searched around for her perpetrator.

Around her were shelves of food boxed and canned. At the end of the aisle were the buzzing freezers, the only noise she could hear. This afternoon the radio had been turned off. The mart seemed to be experiencing some kind of apocalypse. It was the kind of quiet before a disaster struck. An innate sense had her holding her breath as eyes searched left and right, her footsteps quiet. Doing this suddenly felt very familiar.

Leaning around the corner she peered down the aisle. Empty. Her entire nerves were on fire. Whoever was there was stalking her – how that revelation came about she couldn’t discern. Inner knowledge seemed to be seeping to the core. How did she know someone was watching her? Where did the fact come from? Who was she? She let out a yelp when someone snatched her arm from behind. Swerving around with an innate urge to attack she calmed when she immediately recognized the man that had called her Namjoo. Relief fluctuated through her body as her tense muscles relaxed.

“Can we talk,” he said then pulled her after him.

Run, Sehun had once told her, if anyone strange approaches you. She wasn’t running. She didn’t feel scared.

They walked down a block or so until they stopped by the tree lined road beside a beat up inn. Garbage was scattered out front and the white of the building was chipping, fading. When she turned to observe the man she saw desolation. He was the heart of a broken man.

Her heart pounded for him and this feeling confused her.

Eyes locked on him even more firmly as she tried deducing his identity. As hard as she tried to unfold her memories, none of it came back.

He grasped her hand, his face contorting painfully. “It’s me. What’s wrong? Why can’t you recognize me?”

Her heart raced even faster. “Who…who are you?”

“Me,” he croaked, “it’s me. Jisoo. Namjoo, why are you like this? Why are you here?”

She caught the tears lubricating his eyes then glanced down at the hand firmly holding hers. This touch was utterly familiar. A light scurried through her mind and she was confident she was going to remember something, but it quickly died into nothingness.

“I…” opened to make use of the confusion sweeping through her, but she didn’t know what it was she wanted to say to this sad man.

“Come home. Lets go home,” he nodded, urging her to agree and follow along. Namjoo felt quiver again to say something, but again, she had no clue what she wanted to say.

At last, she asked, “Who is Namjoo?”

A breathless sob escaped his mouth. He was deplored, crushed and stumped, unable to comprehend why this was happening to him; why it had happened to them. She swore her heart cracked a bit upon hearing it before he back of her head, as if to savor the touch of who she’d become. For a moment he just silently cried while she watched guiltily.

“We were…” he wept, “supposed to get married. We were going to spend the rest of our lives together. Where did you go? I waited for you.”

Her brows twitched. A part of her heavily ached with him and she couldn’t explain why. It wasn’t sympathy or pity. She insanely felt his pain as if it was her own. Raising her hand up instinctively she felt an urge to comfort him. She barely touched his face before someone screamed, “Sohye!”

Abruptly turning with heart wildly tripping she recognized Sehun crossing the lot, hurrying toward her. With a wild rush of panic she turned back to the weeping man. Her eyes darted toward her hand when Sehun pulled it out of Jisoo’s with a warning, “If you touch her again, I’m going to report you to the police.” Turning to her he ordered, “Lets go.”

Again, opened to convey something but nothing came. As Sehun urged her toward his car she turned around to look at Jisoo – their eyes connecting for the last time. She would never be able to forget that sorrowful gaze. Her heart sank to the pit of her stomach when Sehun closed the door after her. When he drove off her head turned to get a last glance of the man who felt all so familiar.

“Don’t look at him,” Sehun firmly said. “He’s just playing you.”

Her eyes landed on him. Without much effort she kept shut. Even if this familiarity bugged her, she was married. Yet, she couldn’t help but wonder, what if it wasn’t a trick?

∞∞∞∞∞

Even if she was a housewife it wasn’t very much like that. All she ever did was live there and stock up on grocery. Sehun took over cleaning, cooking, and washing dishes. After finishing her dinner she went in to wash up. The bath she took helped calm her nerves. Relaxing against the curve of the tub she peered up at the fresh painting hanging beside the sink. It was a gift from the hospital when she got discharged. The thought brought a faint smile to her lips. She hadn’t been alone for a single moment since waking up, but that man – Jisoo, who would be there for him?

Shaking her head to throw the thought of him away she scolded herself. Frustrated with the lingering thoughts of that man she clamped eyes shut and slid below the water. All became silent.

At the speed of lightning a flash struck her mind. Deep, dark, and murky. She was trapped. Unable to move. Her arm throbbed mercilessly. She was sinking and someone was beside her.  There was so much darkness, so much panic. It was frightening.

She couldn’t breathe.

instinctively opened to say something to man beside her before she abruptly burst up through the water coughing viciously. Gasping for breath she grasped onto the side of the tub to steady herself as reality hit her that she was in a bathroom and not the bottom of a river.

The face…she’d seen his face. The man that had been trapped with her, who was he?

∞∞∞∞∞

Suddenly everything that had felt somberly in place was out of place. There was a void in her world, a confusion rushing through her veins. She couldn’t find the words to describe her emotions, just she didn’t feel like she belonged here…anymore.

Sitting at her vanity in her nightgown she grabbed a bottle of cream and glanced at her right arm. There was a scar. From what, she didn’t know. It had faded somewhat thanks to the cream she’d been using over the year. Now she was beginning to wonder if she should let it fade or let it stay. It felt symbolic to her memories.

Her thoughts dispersed when she felt Sehun give her a peck on the top of her head. “You’re not in bed yet?”

Setting the cream back onto the table she stood, “I was just about to.”

“Hold on,” he stopped her. “I got a surprise for you.”

She watched him pull a silver locket out of his pocket and let it dangle before her eyes with a grin. There were two tiny pictures inside of him and her.

“Let me put it on you,” he offered. After locking it around her neck he mused, “It’s admirable. Don’t take it off.”

Sleep came to her fast that night. So did the nightmares she often had of manic laughter and men chasing her with the intent to murder. Bright lights blinded her as she tried running away. The scene transitioned and she was in a car this time around. Unlike the other dreams, a determined calm washed through her while the car zipped down the road at an intolerable speed.

It was nighttime. The time when ghosts roved the world and the grim reaper came to take his people. Her body jerked when the men chasing them crashed into her car. There was yet another crash before the person beside her became visible. Her body jerked in her sleep when a dozen other scenes flashed through her mind. The evasion of the police, gunshots, a knife, blinding lights, and the dark water.

“I’m pretty sure they want to drive us off a bridge, but we could go down in the Han River.”

“I’m not dying. Not tonight.”

The Han River. All of a sudden she felt her body jostling in her seat as the car skidded over the hilly grass, where the dark lay ahead. It felt so surreal she became confused over whether this was reality or again, another nightmare. When her neck back as they rammed into the bench up ahead she jolted awake sweating. She felt sick to her core. Getting out of bed she walked out of the room and grabbed herself a fresh cup of water. It took an hour for her to soak the dreams and the flashes in. Leaning against the counter quietly gasping she suddenly knew what she had to do.

Right after Sehun left the next morning she went straight to the police station. Officer Im had been on site when she was discovered floating on the river. She knew so because he’d come to visit once when she was in the hospital. She needed to talk to him.

“Certainly, I remember you. How are you doing?” Officer Im was a scrawny man with a white prickly beard growing around his chin area, not the man she had remembered. Perhaps she’d mistaken him for someone else in her groggy state.

“Was there someone else with me? Someone in the river, maybe you found him a day or a two later,” she tried.

“No, you were the only one we rescued,” he nodded with assurance.

“Are you sure? There was really no one else?”

“I’m positive.”

Slowly stepping out of the station with disappointment she gently hit her head. No, it wasn’t possible. Someone had been with her in the waters that night. They’d drowned together. If he hadn’t been found…was he alive?

The determination suddenly grew so strong. There was something missing in this picture, something her instincts were trying to bring to the surface, and she needed to do something about it. Dashing toward the street she grabbed a cab and moments later, found herself searching the grounds by the Han River. Miles away cars passed along the bridge overseeing the river, honking and racing each other. She stared before walking along the park grounds. For a long while she just walked aimlessly until she came across the jogging area. A dense wooded area up for preservation was not too far from her left.

A strange feeling hiked up inside her chest and turning, she let her eyes wander over the surface of the river. Here. It was here. Her dreams took place here. She had drowned here. Abruptly swerving around to stare at the trees she suddenly twitched when a white blinding light passed through her mind and before her eyes. Suddenly losing balance she fell onto the ground, eyes shut.

For a moment her body felt weightless and her control of it was lost. Her head twitched when the blinding light passed before her eyes again. Then she heard his voice, “Since when did you join the Interpol?”

“So Aejung, who’d she kill?”

“I don’t know. Some drug dealer, maybe.”

“She committed a crime, Joonmyun.”

She felt her head jerk again before a voice broke the flashes, “Miss, are you ok?”

A gasp emanated from her and ignoring the passerby who had stopped to help she sprung to her feet. Eyes wide she turned to soak in the surrounding area and the river glittering ironically underneath the sun, the water that gave life and the water that killed. Her heart erupted two-folds.

“Miss?” the passerby called again.

Breaking out of her thoughts she threw her hand out, “Do you have a phone? I need…I need to call someone.”

Still gasping loudly to catch both her sanity and her breath she could feel her entire body trembling. This whole year…what had happened?

Quickly grabbing the phone she immediately dialed a number she’d long memorized. While waiting for the person on the other line to pick up she felt her sanity crumbling, the bricks loudly collapsing into shambles at her feet.

Oh Sehun was not her husband. She’d never been married. What was going on?

The ringing ended and without waiting for that person to answer she immediately spoke with panic drowning out her control, “Chorong? Park Chorong? I need your help. This is…this is Namjoo.”