2016

I had been living in this house for more than a decade but I never seemed to have the courage to step my foot into that room. I wondered why that one tiny room had such a great impact on my nerve although I guessed I knew why.

“It’s now or never!” I said it out loud. I felt like my legs suddenly turned into stones. So heavy that I might need help from ten people just to lift one of them.

“Okay. It’s easy, Chanyeol. Hand to the doorknob!” I put my hand onto the knob.

“Push!” I gave it a light push.

“Voila! I made it! See, it wasn’t as hard as you thought!” Who was I trying to fool anyway? I smiled to the dark in front of me. I switched on the light then suddenly I felt all the memories coming back to me. Good ones, wonderful ones, breath-taking ones, and heart breaks.

“Here you are. I’m sorry it took so long to finally touch you again,” I whispered those words to one black box on the second shelf. I decided to bring it to my room. In case something bad happened when I opened it, I would at least be laying in my bed not on the storage floor.

I sat on my bed. Quickly open the box before I let my brain discouraged me. The first thing caught my eyes was a big brown envelope. I knew what it had inside. I opened it and found many pictures. There was a picture of two boys in their school uniforms. They both laughed and I remembered what made them laughed so hard when the picture was taken. Some others were pictures of them on the beach, in front of his uncle’s first car, and on their high school graduation. And then I found it. It was taken on the day I proposed my wife and she said yes. I still remembered that was one of the best times in my life. Best time that led to a broken heart to the man on the left. Best time that made me lost my best friend. It was the time when I lost Baekhyun.

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January, 1976

Today my father took me to the clinic. I told him that I had this stomachache for the past five days. He made me drink some traditional Chinese medicines but urrghhh….it tasted awful and somehow it did not work on me.

I knew the doctor, dr.Byun Jinsub, but people simply called him dr.Byun. He was a very good doctor. I saw him helped my old neighbor, Mr.Kim Minseok, a few years back. Everyone thought he was not going to survive but miracle happened sometimes. The 81 year old Mr.Kim Minseok was still alive until today.

Inside dr.Byun’s room, on the table, I saw a picture of him and a young boy. I guessed he was about my age. “Who is this, Doctor?” I asked.

“Oh, it is my nephew. He lives with my sister in law – his mother – back in my hometown. He’s about your age actually.”

“Where is that, Doctor?”

“Yangsan. Do you know where it is?”

“No, but I guess I’ve heard the name before.”

“I’ll tell you about Yangsan one day when we do not see each other as doctor and his patient. Okay?”

“Okay.”

So I told him that I had had stomachache for about five days and my father gave me some traditional Chinese medicines but I hated them. He checked on me and asked a few more questions before writing a prescription. He said that I should come back to see him if I still have the stomachache in three days.

“I will make sure that he gets his medicine, dr.Byun. Thank you very much,” my father said. We bid our goodbye then went back home after getting my medicine from the local pharmacy.

I got better the next day and believed that I did not have to go back to dr.Byun. So, I kind of ignored some of his suggestions (most of that, to be honest) and ate anything I wanted. The result wa