Soojung's favorite instrument was the piano.

After every lesson I taught her, she would always hop to the front of the keyboard at sunset and would play for hours on end. Soojung would play anything - show tunes, ballads, pop songs or just random words with a catchy melody behind it. I'd sing with her until my voice hurt, but she'd still have her fingers rested on top of the black and white keys. During the days when Soojung would fall asleep by the keyboard's side, I'd lift her up into my arms and hum musical numbers while I walked her to the bed.

I remember finding us a song, one so poetic and full of emotion that Soojung declared that it would be our song. Show tunes and silly childrens' rhymes were drowned out by that familiar melody playing over and over again, the sunlit air tinted with the notes that flowed out of the keys. Sometimes we'd make the song different with heightened tempos or high pitched voices which made us laugh until our stomachs hurt. But, at the end of the day, Soojung would be the one who would play it for the very last time with a soft smile on her face, her hair tucked behind her ears, and her voice singing a promise of a lifetime together.

She never did get tired of that song even as our days together rolled by, and when I asked her why she didn't eventually stop playing it, she said, "If I stop playing that song, then I'm afraid you might slip away. You made it ours, so I won't let a part of us go."

So, when Soojung started playing our song without her knowledge, I only saw my Soojung, the one who never stopped smiling, the one who I never stopped holding in my arms, the one who I promised I would never let go.

When Soojung started singing, I remembered the Soojung whose promise I broke.

When Soojung stopped playing, i envisioned the Soojung whom I lost three years ago.

Tears were falling out of my eyes, for I missed her so much that it hurt.

I couldn't help myself - when she looked at me, I brought my hands to her face, my thumbs caressing the skin underneath my fingers. I searched her eyes for a sign of recognition, some sort of memory locked within her pupils. If this Soojung could play our song, then the one that is in my memories is in there, too.

"What the hell did I just do?" Soojung whispered to me after a few moments of silence.

I shook my head. "You remembered me," I replied.

Then, I broke.

My hands slid down her arms until they rested on her fingers. Unconsciously, I found my way onto her shoulder and let my tears fall onto her bare skin. My body shook with sobs; my heart ached underneath my chest. I tried to stop my cries for Soojung - I couldn't let her see me break down - but instead of recoiling from my touches and my incoherent murmurs, she pulled me into her arms and held me there for several breathtaking moments with her nose buried into my hair and her fingers idly tapping against my back. I could feel that Soojung didn't know why she was doing this to me, for she thought that I was a stranger, but my shoulders stopped shaking and I calmed down because... I knew.

My Soojung is still in there. If she was gone, she wouldn't have done that.

I pulled away from her grasp and instead reversed our positions. I pulled her closer to my chest, wrapping my arms around her and rocked her back and forth. I knew that the girl wrapped in my arms probably thought that I was acting strange or delusional, but in my mind, I envisioned my Soojung hugging me back with a smile on her face and her lips on mine. 

I'm going to find you, I thought to myself; to Soojung. I promise that I'll make you remember me.

I love you, Soojung.

¿

When the sun started peeking over the orange clouds in the horizon, I realized that we had spent the entire night together wrapped in each other's arms. But I also realized that the night had come to a close, which meant I had to leave Soojung and return to my normal life. A life full of tailored suits, boring meetings, and no Soojung to carry me throughout another twenty-four hours.

I wasn't prepared to leave Soojung again.

I wasn't prepared for another goodbye.

To prevent one more farewell, I turned to her and said, "Do you want me to walk you home?" I at least wanted to see where she had been for the last three years; where she was when she was without me.

But to this, Soojung quickly refused. "No, you can't!" she said in a rush. In her hurried words, I could see, feel that she was searching for an excuse to get away from me. Even if she didn't say it, it broke my heart to know that I couldn't even be by her side for another twenty minutes.

I mean, who could blame her? I was the one who made her like this in the first place. 

A sigh came from my right, and then Soojung's voice thinking aloud, "Well, it wouldn't hurt for you to come in for a few minutes, wouldn't it?"

I nodded, but struggled to keep in my wide smile. "Thank you," I said, "for entrusting me to take you home."

"No, thank you," Soojung replied, doubt vanishing in her tone as her gaze cast upwards toward me, "for managing to stay with me."

I didn't - couldn't - ask her why staying with her was a burden for me.

Silence cut its way through us and the feeling of Soojung next to me was almost too much to bear. Before I could do something crazy again - like kiss her or break down in tears -  I felt a buzzing sensation in my left pocket. Reaching into the pocket, I found that my phone's screen was illuminated with six text messages, all from Jongin.

I cursed under my breath; I left Jongin in the dust last night. I could still feel Soojung's gaze on me, so I tried to redirect my attention on this momentary distraction. I read each and every text:

11:54 P.M. - You must be really picky with your ramen choices.

11:55 P.M. - And super into that girl, too.

11:57 P.M. - So, are you gonna stop flirting or what?

11:58 P.M. - Where are you going? The car's right here, bro.

11:59 P.M. - Okay, you're walking away now.

12:00 A.M. - Dude, I'm sorry, but I really gotta go. Naeun is gonna be pissed if I come home late again tonight. Girlfriends be crazy, am I right? See you at work tomorrow morning.

Soojung finally spoke up as we rounded a corner. "Who's that?" she asked. There was a hint of fascination in her voice, almost as if she hasn't used a phone in her life.

I shrugged and pocketed my phone. "My friend. He left last night."

"Must be nice," Soojung said, "to have a friend."

I became confused at this statement. "Sure, friends are nice," I replied, "but they come and go, you know?"

"It can only take one person to fill you with tons of memories," Soojung answered, melancholy making the aura around her blue with sadness.

You have no idea.

Soojung started to lead me straight ahead, where an apartment complex loomed over our heads. Drab brick walls made up the exterior of the building while windows were set into the walls in neat rows. Lines of rust fell from each of the said windowsills where curtains were drawn tightly through the glass panes. Balconies made up the walkways, but cracks formed alongside almost all of them as if it were begging to crumble and fall. There were no signs that could lead to one believing that there were elevators inside the building itself; there was only one lonely winding stairwell leading up the length of the complex.

It looked as if this place had been abandoned years ago, and yet, its only inhabitant was Jung Soojung herself. It was hard to believe that this is where she had been for the last three years. It was hard to believe that this is where I had driven her to stay.

I couldn't believe that this might've been my doing.

How did things get this bad, that her only solution was to resort to solitude?

I know Soojung noted the incredulous expression on my face, for she kept her head down as she led me up the stairwell to the third balcony. I tried giving her a lame attempt at a comforting gaze, but Soojung avoided my eyes as she unlocked the door to her apartment and shoved her way inside. In a few quick strides, she had taken her coat and shoes off, sitting down in the middle of a brown couch. I didn't know why Soojung buried her head in her arms, or why her long blonde hair shrouded her view from the rest of her home, until I actually saw where she lived.

The first thing I noticed was the living room. In the middle sat a big, brown ratty couch where Soojung sat. The cushions seemed to conform around her body like she had worn a permanent groove into the leather. On the coffee table next to her sat a broken picture frame surrounded by half-filled beer bottles and crumpled up tissues. The walls were what I once believed to be white, but were dirtied down to a sickly beige color. The floor was worse; the carpet stained a dark brown littered with pizza boxes and soda cans. I didn't bother to look at the kitchen for the only thing noticeable was a huge black garbage bag overflowing with beer cans and ramen packets.

I couldn't hide the horrified look on my face as I shrugged off my coat and my shoes, but it was Soojung's sobs that changed my expression into one of sympathy. Slowly, I made my way to her side and sat by her huddled figure. My hands found its way to her hair and I it softly, my lips pursed in a tight line.

"I didn't want you to see this," Soojung uttered as she cried. "I didn't want you to see me like this... I'm so ashamed of how I've been living - "

I said nothing as I pulled her into my chest, letting her body fit into the space between my legs. For the second time in the span of two days, I could feel Soojung's breath on my shirt and her hands clutching onto the white fabric. "It's okay," I said to her over and over again. "I promise it'll be okay - "

"No, it's not!" Soojung exclaimed as she sobbed, pulling away from my chest and looking at me with red eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks. "I've lived this way for three years, Taemin. I - I haven't moved from this spot since the accident, nor have I done anything worth living for since the accident. Do you even know what the worse part is? I don't even know why I'm like this! I am living in complete and utter solitude in the same place because my memory would not allow me to do anything else!"

I still tried to comfort her even as she was near the brink of insanity, my hand on her chest to stop her heavy breathing, when I noticed something by the wall near the kitchen.

Surrounded by beer cans and blanketed in a fine layer of dust, sat a keyboard. 

The same keyboard that Soojung and I played on, in the same location that it stood three years ago.

On the coffee table only three paces in front of it sat a broken picture frame. I nearly shrugged it aside when I first came in, but now as I look through the shattered glass, there is a couple with their hands joined together, their gaze focused not on the camera but rather on each other's crescent-shaped eyes.

I remember taking that picture with Soojung. I remember setting that said picture in a golden frame; I remember setting it down on the coffee table where I cleaned it every single day.

I've lived this way for three years, Taemin. I haven't moved from this spot since the accident.

I am living in complete and utter solitude

in the same place.

This dark brown and dust-ridden apartment used to be a white-walled, bright and happy home filled with the sound of laughter and piano keys; a place where sunlight would illuminate the tip of your eyelashes as you smiled. This apartment used to be filled with our memories, our laughter, our tears, our cries.

This isn't just Soojung's apartment. This was our apartment.

All this time... Soojung never knew that she was living with the one thing she lost: her memories. Even without her knowledge, Soojung has never moved away from this; from us.

Knowing this makes me both happy and sad.

Gingerly, I reach my free arm across the small sofa and take the broken picture frame from its resting place, putting it on my lap. As Soojung sobs on top of my chest, I gently move her hair aside and tuck it behind her ear, nudging her to show her the picture I've retrieved. "Soojung," I whisper to her, not even trying to hide the hurt in my voice, "have you looked at this picture before?"

Her sobs start to die down until I can only hear her breathing as she stares at the picture. Instead of nodding in agreement or shaking her head in disbelief, Soojung places her palm on the back of the picture frame and pushes it so that it's face down on her legs. Looking away, she places her head back on my chest, and silently breathes.

"I have a feeling that I've fallen in love with you before," Soojung breathes out dreamily. "But I don't know why and I don't know how."

Her words take the ones out of mine. "Then how do you have this feeling?" I reply, looking down at her.

"Love makes you feel things you haven't felt before," Soojung answers. "It can cause pain. But it also causes happiness. When I look at that picture, I feel pain, but when I look at you, I feel calm and happy." She doesn't look at me, but she fits her hand in mine and locks our fingers together. "I haven't felt these things in three years, Taemin, and I don't even know you. That's love... right?"

A rush of memories came back when I saw how perfectly her hand fit in mine, causing a surge of happiness, but I nodded nonetheless. "Yes," I said in a breathless whisper. "That is what I feel when I look at you."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"Even after all these years, I still don't know. And that, my dear, is a good thing."

"Good."

Soojung's eyes start to flutter shut along with mine, but our grips on our intertwined hands stay strong. With Soojung in my arms again, I feel as if a weight is lifted off of my shoulders. The depression that I've felt for the last three years seemingly evaporates into the air, even if it is for just one day. But even that means nothing if she doesn't remember us, or me.

Soojung makes me feel pain and happiness. 

To her, that's love. And that's all I need.

Before I drift off to sleep, I make my decision for tomorrow. Will I remember her, or toss her aside again?

For the first time in three years, I think to myself

and to Soojung

I will remember you tomorrow.