A persons lifespan starts somewhere in the middle –lost in pure essence of childhood and adolescence. We remember moments of happiness and sorrow vaguely, and each time we reminisce, the memories get tangled in between knots of utter confusion; what if’s and needing another individual’s form of rectification. Each time we remember, the memory disintegrates further.

This thought process comes about when Hana involves herself in a contemporary discussion of nihilism with her best friend, Kim Jongin over grilled beef on a casual Saturday night. From the corner of her eye, she sees him poking his food with a pair of chopsticks; zoning out amidst their intense conversation. Chuckling, she picks up a piece of beef from his plate and stuffs it in his mouth triumphantly, snapping him out of his thoughts.

“Sorry,” he says, almost inaudible to her ears, his eyes searching frantically for something. “You were saying?”

“Forget it.” She mutters in defeat, scowling. Incoherent words escape her lips out of frustration as she continuously chews with slightly open. The bracelet on her right wrist comes into contact with the grill and she hisses slightly in agony. Jongin, opposite of her, doesn’t take notice.

“You know how I can read minds right?” he asks absentmindedly, pouring a glass of water into what is supposed to be a soju glass. She nods. He’s told her about his magical capabilities, to which she thinks is a load of horse at first, but she believed him in the end when he predicted that her Biology teacher was going to reprimand him in class for ing his shirt that one time in fourth grade.

Soon, he attempts to read her mind (for the heck of it), through which she finds is an intrusion of personal privacy. However, it did become a benefit when she didn’t need to say a single word to him when her douche of a boyfriend broke up with her for the hottest girl in school during junior year. He’s never read her mind ever since.

“Yeah, what about it?”

“Apparently there’s some sort of upgrade with this thing,” he inches a little closer, shoving his elbows on the table and cradling his face in his palms. The dimly lit light and echoed dinner room does no justice when he whispers. She snorts, unable to contain slight laughter from emitting her lips because she’s basically friends with a boy who could potentially be a super hero in the not-so-distant-future.

“What form of upgrade? Can you predict the future too?” she argues, folding her hands neatly on her lap and leaning back against the wall. “I mean, I had to deal with you telling me that Aaron was checking my out, even when I’m flat as it is.”

“No, nothing like that.” He flatly says, but with his eyebrows arching as to figure out a response to what Hana might say. “It’s something really cool.”

“Sure,” she waves a hand in front of her face. “What could be cooler than hearing the thoughts of someone else?”

“Manipulating them.” He smugly responses and cracks his knuckles with a smirk plastered across his pretty little face. Nothing changes the fact that he’s a cocky brat who’s somewhat adorable in her eyes.

“You’re joking.” She huffs and turns the other way and notices that the time stated on her wrist. It’s far too late to keep going on about these ridiculous conversations. Sometimes, she wonders, why she even trusts him. He’s been her best friend for far too long and she knew all the secrets he had in store.

What she didn’t expect is for Jongin to be running his mouth with words that are too straightforward for her to solely comprehend. He runs his mouth as though they’re on a marathon and he wants to be the winner in the end. He runs and his words penetrate her. She blinks. “What?”

“I know that you like me.” He utters, slower this time, almost inaudible to her ears. She lets out a sigh that signifies that she’s just really tired. She’s just really tired on how she had to frequently hide her emotions, just so that he wouldn’t catch on; how she could change the subject in her mind from his enticing lips to mathematical equations.  “I also know that you tried hiding it.”

“You shouldn’t have told me,” she mutters coldly, standing up abruptly with her things in hand. She opens the door of the private room and leaves almost immediately due to embarrassment. She couldn’t believe that Jongin is doing this.

Jongin rushes past the waiter, passing him a few bills before running towards her when she’s about to walk to the other side of the cross-walk. He grabs her arm roughly, attempting to turn her around. The little gesture leaves her baffled, if not angrier at Jongin and his menacing ways. Her face is tear-stricken, he notices.

“How long?” she asks, her voice cracking; she nibbles on her bottom lip.

He doesn’t want to meet her eyes. The idea of him having knowing for the past four years had been painful enough on himself because he couldn’t do anything about it when he found out. He couldn’t reciprocate her feelings because he only sees her in a platonic light. However, seeing the descriptions of him in her eyes made him want to kill himself.

The worst thing about reading someone’s mind with Jongin’s capability is understanding them –every little detail that’s put into thought process, Jongin notes and he lives them every single second of the day. He knows that she liked the way he would mess his hair and hated the way he would wear a V-neck on a V-neck during winter holidays. He knows that she falls in love with him every time he dances –he knows everything.

It’s unfair because she doesn’t know anything about him.

“Long enough,” he drops his hand and puts it in his right pocket. “Look, could you please just listen to what I have to say? I know that you must hate me right now-“

“Stop violating me.” She takes a step back and crosses her arms. “How dare you? How dare you violate someone else’s thoughts and take advantage of that? Don’t you have any ounce of dignity in you?”

“I didn’t mean to.” He whispers. Sighing, he unwraps the scarf around his neck and holds it in his hands. “I didn’t choose this, Hana. It happened to me and I can’t explain it.” He tries to justify and prevents himself from screaming at the top of his longs. He didn’t want any of this; he didn’t get to have a choice to be born with the ability to violate individuals.

 

 

“Then don’t because you promised you’d never read me.” she pushes him away and runs across to the other direction where she would be able to escape the harsh crusades of reality. She can’t accept the fact that everything that she’s been striving to bury is brought to surface by something as inevitable as a supernatural power. “You’re a pathological liar.”

 It’s ludicrous, if not, painful on her part.

Everything is in a blur as blood splatters all over the windshield of a random driver. She should have noticed that the light was red when she tried to escape the pain of self-discovery.

“Oh my God,” Jongin falls to his knees. The winter breeze seeps into his pail bones, leaving him cold, helpless and in sorrow. The people around him are in a mess as they scream in horror at the unbearable sight of a lifeless human being on the concrete road. It’s a vomit of colours as red paints taints his beige French coat and takes away the colour from his tinted cheeks. “Oh my god, Hana,”

“What-“ he lets out a breath of exhalation, asphyxiating. “Somebody call the ambulance!” he screams into the distance at no one in particular. Mobile phones are whipped out to record the horrendous event as Jongin frantically tries to wake her up with his bare hands. He can’t even look at blood without trembling.

 

The vibrating of his mobile phone in Jongin’s left pocket jolts him awake from a long night at Seoul Hospital. He hadn’t even realized that he had dozed off and peers over to his left, emitting a sigh from his lips. He regrets a lot of things –most of all, he regrets spilling the truth when the timing wasn’t right. Truth to be told, the right timing never comes when it came to spilling the absolute brutal truth to someone.

The monitor indicates a stable state; one that seemingly makes Jongin’s heart palpitate a little faster.

He picks up the phone, yawning. “You’re here?” Jongin stands up abruptly and rushes out of the ICU, sprinting towards the exit on the way to the carpark. “Alright, I’m on the way.”

When the heels of his shoes halt to an abrupt stop, he sees Hana’s parents dressed in black with their faces not facing one another. Worried glances and cold shoulders are passed on between the two. Jongin timidly walks in their direction with and he couldn’t pair their painful expressions as Hana’s father pulls him into an embrace and sobs into his shoulder.

Jongin breaks down and he didn’t even need to read the latter’s mind to know that they felt like dying.

 

Hana doesn’t wake as the doctor enters the room with a clipboard in his hand and a stethoscope around his neck. He’s young, somewhere in his mid-twenties and has the skill-sets of a person in their late years of working as a doctor. Jongin seems to trust him by reading through his mind. Hana’s parents opt otherwise.

“Hello, Mr and Mrs Jung. You can call me Doctor Kang.” He introduces. Apparently, he’s expecting their parents to be one to pester him with questions. Jongin gives him credit for anticipating realistically. “I’m the doctor who operated on your daughter last night after her fatal car accident.”

“Thank you.” Hana’s mother said, her breath restricted. “I don’t know what we would’ve done without you.”

“There are many important details that I need to discuss with you two.” He stares at Jongin blankly and Jongin can feel a dull ache pool at the bottom of his stomach. He clenches his fists together and his knuckles turn white as the doctor mutters, “In private.”

“Of course.” Mr Jung agrees and the doctor guides them down the hall towards the end before breaking the news. Everything is in a series of sharp intakes of breath and forced comprehension. So many terms are being spluttered from his lips. Terms Jongin from the other side of the pillar wishes he could understand.

“Your daughter is in a stable state for now. We’ve given her the best treatment we’ve yet to offer and we’ll be conducting an MRI scan later on to ensure that there’s been no brain damage.” He starts off. “Nothing is absolute at the moment but we would like your cooperation and appreciate it if you’d be patient with us.”

“But there is one thing I need to tell you.” Doctor Andrew lowers his voice this time as he takes off his worn out glasses. It’s his first time breaking news to patients and he’s trying to break the ice as slowly as he can. Jongin blends into the background as he looks through the doctor’s eyes from afar and sinks further and further down the stack of bricks painted to become a support structure to those breaking down from a distance –like right now.

 

 

It is a few weeks after Hana’s undergone complete operation; when Jongin finally decides to eat his favourite chocolate ice cream that results in him having rashes and bumps on his skin that he decides to settle down to visit her once again. He puts on his trench coat in the now autumn breeze, the wind sashaying his newly cotton-candy hair.

He walks through the hospital halls, dirty converses against polished floors, that he realizes that he had been selfish for trying to distance himself away from what was his entire wrong-doing. It’s a moiety of reminisced memories that floods his mind when he finally stands in front of Hana’s room, destitute of any pride.

She lifts her head up when she hears the door of her room open, with furrowed eyebrows and her lips pursed in a thin line. Jongin enters otherwise, not knowing what to expect from looking at the shell of the person he once knew. “Hi,” he mutters quietly, waving in her direction as she observes this foreign person from her hospital bed.

“Do I know you?” she questions, defensive and ready to click on the red button to call one of the nurses to handle him outside. A lot of things are flooding through her mind –firstly; that he’s someone whom has been plotting against her and is finally going to kill her. Secondly; that he’s her friend or someone that she’s supposed to be familiar with.

“Ah,” he figures he should’ve seen it coming, but he’d never thought that being forgotten would be so irrefutably painful. “My name is Jongin. I’m a friend of yours from high school. We go to the same college together.”

“So I don’t know you very well then,” she holds up the remote control of the hospital bed to her chest protectively.

“I’m your best friend, actually.” He opts to say and holds in his breath when she finally takes a look at his face. Nothing floods through her mind because all she sees is a tan-skinned, good-looking young man with an awfully bad hair dye. All he sees is a person he loves, and remembers that this is not the same person anymore.

“Oh.” Is all she manages to say. She doesn’t trust this young man, obviously, as she texts her mom using her phone about a tanned skin best friend that she has with the name of Kim Jongim.

‘it’s Jongin, Hana.’

With that, she warmly welcomes him with a smile and invites him to sit down on one of the leather chairs. The atmosphere is cold, just as the room is as Jongin fiddles with the hem of his shirt and Hana anticipates their conversation to begin.

It’s oddly unsettling, considering the fact that when things were as they were before, Hana would always be the one initiating conversation. However, Jongin now has the obligation to do so, since she doesn’t know a thing about him.

“Uh,” he balks. “So I’m a dance major.” He starts off humbly and she nods in acknowledgement.

“I guess that explains the pink hair.” She chuckles slightly and Jongin instinctively runs his hand through his hair. Maybe she’s offended him, he thinks when he glances around the room and the reality hits him like a 50 tonne truck. She doesn’t remember anything –nothing at all. “I have retrograde amnesia. But I’m sure you’re well aware of that since you seem pretty lax about me not remembering you.” She announces.

“Yeah, your parents told me.” He lies smoothly before smoothing the crease on his pants. “It’s just really weird.”

Hana feels awful that she can’t say anything to comfort him. It must be tough losing a friend. Memories are strings of hope that knot with one another to form relationships. Maybe that’s all it took for them to become friends. She doesn’t know how close they were or how Jongin hates it when he’s the only remembering.

It’s ironic because Jongin is usually the one who forgets. Now, all he can do is remember.

 

 

 

When Hana finally gets discharged from the hospital, her parents encourage her to get in touch with her friends, not knowing that she’s accrued more detached friendships than the amount of times she had misplaced her worn out spectacles. Hana doesn’t know that she doesn’t have that many friends either until she looks through the contacts on her phone. There are less than ten names on the screen.

She huffs.

The first person she tries to get in contact with is a girl by the name of Krystal Jung (because she’s female. Let’s be honest, she’s too afraid to contact any other person unless they sounded like a girl’s name at the moment)

Krystal comes by her house one Saturday afternoon. She’s really pretty, Hana notes.

“Hey,” she says coolly, hair in a messy bun; wearing a sundress. “We haven’t spoken since a couple months back. What’s up?”

When the both of them settle down under a cocoon of blankets and Hana’s parents leave the house, she explains her unfathomable situation to the person she doesn’t remember. She explains everything to how she’s perplexed, at awe, hurt and most of all upset that she can’t remember anything.

The worst thing about losing your memory is that everybody expects you to recover. Everyone expects you to understand when they pin-point something that was previously an inside joke. How you try to reminisce a moiety of lost things. The saddest part of being Hana is that she’s trying really, really hard but it’s just so difficult and she can’t seek refuge anywhere or ask help from anyone except for this one stranger that she’s inevitably crying to.

She tells Krsytal that it had been difficult for her when she’d first moved in with her parents and she didn’t even know if they were actually her parents. Everything seemed foreign. She didn’t remember names, dates or even faces. She’d cried for nights on end in her supposed bedroom that’s still too big and too vacant for her. She still cries now.

Her mom told her that she doesn’t have any siblings and that she enjoyed locking herself up in her room and pretending that she was at a SHINee concert back in ’09. When she’d tried playing back the CD’s on the stereo, she realized that the music was too loud and she couldn’t find significant value in them.

Her father told her that she always ate Carbonara pasta every weekend at a restaurant called Cuisines, and tried to whisper under his breath that she had always ate there alone.

She doesn’t need to know these things. She doesn’t want to relive memories of someone else.

Krystal laughs at the beginning because she thinks it’s a joke. She’s a mess of cascading tears and washed up makeup now because Hana doesn’t even remember that she isn’t even supposed to be a friend anymore and that Krystal just came here to rub it in Hana’s face that she’s doing fine after making out with Jongin under the bleachers, fully aware that Hana really liked him.

It’s such a shame.

 

 

The sound of silverware clinking is audible to Hana’s ears as their family dines in the dining hall together for the first time in the longest time. It’s an awkward position for her parents to be dining together as though nothing is going on behind closed doors and as though they hadn’t just signed the divorce papers earlier that day.

Something triggers Hana’s mother as she chews on her steak. “I heard that Jongin visited you at the hospital. How did that go?”

“It was really awkward.” She blurts, continuing to munch on her food. “He didn’t really know what to say. Honestly, I wouldn’t in his position.”

“Good. ‘Cause I invited him over for dinner.” The expression on Hana’s face is priceless as she chokes on a tortilla over the course of two fine meals. Her father seems to be in on it as well with his knowing eyes and calm demeanour. A few minutes pass and the doorbell rings and Hana wants to bury her face in mud.

She walks to the front door and Jongin stands there with a bouquet of flowers in hand. Quaffed hair; cardigan resting on his shoulders and a pair of jeans, Hana doesn’t remember meeting him up until he says his name. She’s only seen him once up-close; perhaps she hadn’t been observant enough. is ajar.

“Hana?” he waves his hand in front of her face. “Where should I put these?”

“Right,” she says things under her breath, taking the flowers from his hands, planning to go upstairs and take them up to her room, planning to plant them in a dirty vase she’d found earlier. It’s not until she starts being in a frenzy mess of sneezing that Jongin goes up a few steps on the staircase to retrieve the flowers.

“You’re allergic to daisies,” he laughs, eyes turning into crescent-moons. “These aren’t for you.”

Hana scurries to get a box of tissues ready as mucus is already dripping down her nose.

When she’s done, she heads back to the dining room and the three individuals are conversing on their own happily. She catches something along the lines of “Graduated.” And “S.M Entertainment.” With a small smile forming on Jongin’s lips. She situates herself opposite of Jongin and opts to stare at her food instead of his face.

“You three seem awfully close,” she decides to comment anyway and the three of them look at her with an amused expression.

“You made us to be.” Jongin says.

The dinner commences and finishes exactly before midnight with the addition of dessert and the occasional chatter that lingers after a long night ends. When Hana’s yawning and pleading to go to bed, Jongin decides to announce that he’s leaving very, very soon. It’s perfect timing, she insists.

When she settles herself underneath the duvet, she has the sudden intention to head outside for some fresh air. The balcony seems comforting, she thinks as she opens the windowsill and sits on the edge of the rooftop. She’s flabbergasted to see that Jongin’s already there with a drink in his hand and what appears to be one of the soju glasses she had seenher father hold in his hand.

Instead of screaming, like any other sane person would, she sits a few inches away from him. “Is this something we do as friends on a weekly basis or,” her words linger as he stares upwards at the polluted sky, imagining stars that cease to exist.

“Yeah.” he props one knee upwards. “We started doing this in freshman year after I got punched by the captain of the football team for not scoring a goal for the school.”

He reminisces the cuts and bruises on his face as Hana pestered him about quitting the team already since he didn’t even like football but was coerced to join by his dad. She’d said that she wanted to plummet the six foot and three inches worth of cocky beef-jerky, Kris Wu; his face and his body into the Earth for hurting him. (she opted to report him to the school principal instead.)

“What happened back then? And was I okay with this?”

“Well, you felt bad for me, partly because it wasn’t my fault that I got beaten up.” He looks at her, smirking. “Your sympathy lead to your leniency.”

“Right.” She brushes her hair back, chuckling. “You’re supposed to be my best friend anyway. I guess I should get used to this.”

“I don’t mean to put pressure on you or anything.” He looks at her sincerely and she honestly feels sorry that she can’t help him in his conquest to unlock her stored memories. “but I can’t let a night go to waste without great company.”

“You think I’m great company?” she thinks she isn’t. She can’t relate to his problems and discuss with him worldly affairs that go about this chaotic universe. “Wow, that’s nice to hear, for once.”

“I used to always say that you were as a best friend back then. Guess I kind of miss telling you that now.” He pours liquid in a soju glass and downs it. She doesn’t drink now, she doesn’t know if she did back then. She’s extremely curious to know what alcohol tastes like and takes the remaining liquid from Jongin’s hand and swallows.

“It tastes exactly like water.” She’s so confused. She thinks that alcohol is supposed to taste bitter and make you feel fuzzy, like in the books and movies and daily reminders Krystal texts her when she’s wasted from partying all night and studying all morning. “I don’t get it.”

“Maybe it’s because you’re so immune to it,”

It makes her wonder many things. Firstly, if she’s an alcoholic. Secondly, if she’s genuinely believing him. Thirdly, if they’re both insensitive to alcohol after drinking it for too long. Hana’s an open book and her expression portrays her worries.

“It is water, you dummy.” He ruffles her hair. “We both promised that we’d never drink because it doesn’t keep us sane. I’m not even curious to what alcohol tastes like.”

“Why not?”

“Have you seen what it does to people?” It’s a statement more than it is a question on Jongin’s part when he asks. He’s seen how his dad had turned against his mom and how things just fell apart when a person’s addiction and obsession trumps love and sanity. He’s seen people take refuge in alcohol. “Water’s a universal solvent –basic biology.”

“God, you’re so lame, Jongin.”

 

Hana heads over to Starbucks one day because Jongin asks her to.

She her lips, looking at the menu opposite of her, staring upwards. The barista’s probably in the bathroom, she suggests, pondering on waiting a little longer. When the barista does arrive though, he offers a slight smile in Hana’s direction. Hana hesitates before saying. “Uh, I’ll get the caramel macchiato, please.”

“Oh, so you’re trying something new today. You sure you don’t want to stick to the usual?” the barista asks scribbling in chicken-scratched writing with a pen. He stares at her for confirmation.

Hana thinks about it for a few seconds before cancelling her order and just sticking to his usual, which apparently tastes similar to in .

When they try to reconnect over a cup of a coffee, Hana learns that she’s supposed to have a degree in medicine right now; her lost memories being a barrier to her graduating. Well she thinks that’s a pretty solid justification, seemingly because she’s had a difficult time reading through her anatomy text book at home that’s one thousand pages thick.

Her parents encourage her to study anyway, because it’s been her life-long dream to open up a hospital that adapts to progressive values and change that the world has to offer. Therefore, she delves her head in her books when she has the chance in order to make them happy.

Jongin looks through the shelves, Hana on the opposite side, intent on finding a book for her next Physiology assignment that’s due on Monday. He doesn’t even know why he’s here, to be honest, or why he followed her because he really doesn’t like places that are too quiet; places that aren’t blasting R&B music. He’s so accustomed to the studio life and quiet just doesn’t do it for him anymore.

“Do you think I ever liked libraries?” he comments softly, afraid that she might here the hesitance and strain in his voice. He continues to look through the shelves, finding a book that he finds mildly interesting, instead of wasting his time in this boring place.

“That’s highly unlikely.” she answers, placing her fingers on the book that she needs. “Libraries are too quiet and you’re too loud.” He chuckles; well at least she’s got something right about himself.

He helps her place all of the books she’s collected to get started on her assignment one of the desks, secluded from all the exterior sections of the library. She thanks him and he sees how grateful she must be in the corner of her eye when she gives him a supportive pat on the shoulder. Taking out her needed stationeries, she flips to one page and starts scribbling down words he can’t see when he’s sitting opposite of her.

“You could go to practice, you know.” She utters under her breath. “I think I’ve got it settled.”

“Nah,” he shakes off the thought almost immediately. “I’ve had enough rest. And I’ve practiced all day last night.” From under the table, she can see that he’s snuck in chocopies from under his sleeve to binge eat in the library.

She doesn’t notice the time flying until her shoulders start to ache and she begins to crack her knuckles from all the writing she has done. She brushes her hair aside, finishing one more paragraph before deciding to wake the sleeping figure that sits in front of her, his mouth agape –slightly snoring.

Some things never change.

 

It’s when the moon basks in the night sky; when the last candle is blown, dogs howl and people are snuggled up beneath their duvet that Hana decides to embark on an adventure to the attic alone. Her house is unlike others. It’s big, mysterious and has an eerie feel to it. It’s all fun and games as she quietly places the ladder and climbs all the way to the top, feet clumsily atop the other in absolute darkness.

A dimly lit torchlight is held between her bony fingers. She walks through cob webs and can’t help but sneeze as she inhales dust. Many things had been left untouched. With uncertainty, she steps forward and lands on her face on top of a pile of books that seems miraculously enough to save her face seconds from hitting the wooden base of the attic.

A slight laugh escapes her lips. She gathers the books together in her arms and sits on the opposite end of the cramped room. She doesn’t know what she’s doing or how her parents would react to this, if they ever found out.

She flips the pages open and sees black and white pictures; faces undistinguishable and foreign to her eyes. The next page is filled with baby photos to what she assumes is her, a date written: 14^th of September, 1994. It’s not until a few moments pass that she recalls that she’s twenty, it’s 2020, and that baby isn’t her. It brings forward some form of curiosity and peaks her interest. She keeps the photo for good measure.

There’s a diary beneath it this photobook and a picture of a girl that looks similar to her, wearing a navy-coloured dress, her hair in a ponytail. The girl is smiling brightly with a younger child who seems about ten or slightly older. They look like siblings.

It’s a little too late for Hana to be snooping around and her little night escapades can be conducted on another night, she thinks as she tip-toes to her bedroom, the notebook in her hand. She stuffs it underneath the bed, where a pair of socks lie, and awaits a different moment to start reading through it. Maybe she could be the next Nancy Drew, her mind imagines.

 

 

2^nd of May 2016 reaches at 12 am; it’s Hana’s 26^st birthday. She receives a whole bottle of champagne, “1959, classic year.” Krystal says, and a mix-tape from Jongin of all his favourite songs compiled in one purple CD. There’s a post-it attached to the back of the CD that writes in chicken-scratched writing, “Listen to track number 8. Makes me want to dance on my happy shoes.”

She thinks it’s a joke because the title of the song is Medicine by Daughter and she thinks the track is absolutely depressing and really old. (“No it’s not!” Jongin retorts, crossing his arms.) When Jongin blasts it on her stereo the next night, she feels undeniably uncomfortable listening to the lyrics and soft melancholy voice through her gigantic speakers in her room.

Her parents aren’t home and she’s alone with a strange boy she’s only knew for half a year. It’s funny how she just seemingly trusts everyone around her. Someone could shake her up and tell her that this is all a dream and she would believe it too.

“You’re still doubting me, aren’t you?” Jongin spouts, out of the blue whilst flipping through a few of Hana’s worn out textbooks. “A little too late now, isn’t it? I’m already in your room.”  

“Nope.” She chuckles and leans against the peach walls. “Never too late to think everyone is telepathically colluding to lie to me about everything.”

She moves towards Jongin and situates herself on a vacant chair a few inches away from his physique. A comfortable silence bestows itself in their presence. They go on about their own things for a few minutes before Hana remembers that she has something secretive stashed underneath her bed.

She crouches on her knees and extends her hand, successfully grabbing the spine of the diary that she had found in the attic that she had forgotten about. She blows off the remaining dust on the hard cover. “I found this in the attic when I was snooping around a few months back.” She turns around and smirks. “Figured I’d be a little adventurous.”

“Well,” Jongin immediately sits on the floor, putting his shins on his thigh; his hands rubbing against each other. “Let’s see what we have in here.”

When they flip over the first few pages of the book, they see old photos of Hana’s parents in black and white, unfamiliar people around them with a little girl in the centre; a birthday cake and candles to signify the celebration of one’s birthday. There’s a note written at the end of the page.

‘Hana’s 1^st birthday.’

Jongin flips towards the back of the book, to Hana’s discontentment and laughs out loud when he reads, “Property of Jung Hana. See no touch, touch no see, see and touch, pay money.”

“What?” she pushes him over and he hits his head on the wall, still bursting into fits of laughter that seems unstoppable at this point. “I wrote that?”

 It’s a cute combination of words, really. She assumes she must’ve compiled all these photos into a notebook, like any other middle-schooler would’ve. It’s still a trend up to date, she guesses and tries to justify to herself. She ignores Jongin’s idiotic comments due to her sense of maturity and continues to look through her life.

The handwriting abruptly changes within the next few years of her existence. As her eyes skims through the text, she realizes that she must’ve gotten older when she’d decided to start updating the diary again. It’s sad that she had not written any dates or pasted any more pictures. From what was initially a scrapbook became diary entries of what she supposes is a teenage girl. (or a really smart middle-schooler, which is highly unlikely.)

As Jongin sits beside her, his fingers grazing the crisp pages of the book, he realizes that the entirety of the situation has changed. The writing’s gotten darker as they flipped through; the experiences becoming more and more elaborate. The diary entries have become more descriptive and the grammar has excelled immaculately.

She begins to notice a pattern. In every single one of her stories, a girl’s name is mentioned.

“Who’s Cheonsa?” she asks, her face centimetres away from Jongin. She hadn’t even realized the proximity between them until Jongin lands his eyes on her lips. He snaps out of it and shakes his head. He hasn’t heard of that name before in his life. He swallows “I don’t know. But the name does sound nice.”

“Her name literally means angel.” Hana laughs. “I must’ve envied her a lot. Each and every one of my entries was about her.”

Jongin remembers religiously reading through the mini-texts at the beginning of the diary whereas Hana had just hastily skimming through everything. “I think you wrote her name a couple of times at the start of the diary. That birthday picture.”

“Did I?” she thinks and turns over to the specific page.

Her eyes religiously scans the page to one corner on the right of the page; My sister, Cheonsa, it reads.

She gasps and places a palm, covering . She doesn’t remember any one of her parents telling her that she had a sister before. All she’d been indoctrinated with is the thought of herself being the only child living with two parents that loved her absolutely. The thing that scares her most is that one lie could possibly turn into many over milliseconds, soft smiles and comforting hugs.

“They never told me I had a sister.” She sits there, baffled; trying to put the pieces together with every ounce of inhaled breath she had left. That feeling when you digest something that’s not appetizing but you’re forced to live with your decision because it’s irreversible comes to haunt Hana in the form of a diary entry that dated all the way back to ’09.

Jongin is just as surprised, if not more with the series of turned events. He flips over the pages; Hana sobs in her palms. He hadn’t known either, and they’ve been friends for years.

When he sees blood stains at the back of the book, a similar signature and blue ink that bleeds a mess on the yellow pages, he swallows the bile in his throat and skims through the last entry of the diary with shaking hands.

 

 

I was so jealous of Cheonsa. I hated her so much to the point where I felt like killing myself. She aced all of her studies. She made mom and dad proud; things that I wish I could’ve done. She got accepted into Cambridge University and I just got kicked out from Yonsei.

Back then, we’d get into so many fights and in the end, it was always me to blame. There was nothing I could do fix my retched self. I hated being second best. I hated not being able to meet up with the standards that my sister set up. With a heavy heart, I left Yonsei, only to come back to astounding news that made my heart crumble. I was so angry and I blamed everything on her; in the same way I used to back when we were in middle school. It’s not like my parents compared her to me, I did that myself.

I just couldn’t get over the fact that nothing went right for me and everything was amazing for her. I blamed her for all of my failures. I thought she would understand.

She didn’t.

I came back to a dead body at 4am hanging by the ceiling. I came back to my dead sister.

And all she wrote in her letter was that she wanted me to be happy.