Date: December 1st, 2018

Yoongi nurses his bandaged hip, in a shaky breath. Apparently, nearly answering that she had been Namjoon’s girlfriend had not been a good idea. He had moved slightly closer to her to try to calm her down, and before he could finish the word girlfriend, the scalpel had buried itself into his hip. Her aim was just as good as he remembered.

He regretted ever telling Namjoon that it would be a good idea for her to learn how to throw knives. Thankfully, scalpels didn’t enter the flesh too deeply, so he and Hoseok were relatively unscathed in comparison to the numerous injuries they had over the last year and a third.

But Nari not remembering anything put a damper on everyone’s spirit. They had all become jaded from the war, and the end had been pushed out of their minds. For the last month, they had waited for Nari to wake up while trying to adjust to their civilian lives.

Tried. They failed miserably. Most of them were still left with the effects of PTSD.

So Yoongi couldn’t help but feel a little bitter that Nari remembered none of it. What he would do to remember none of it. What he would do to go back to his life a year and a half ago.

Namjoon wasn’t faring well. Yoongi could tell, his eyes flickering to the man who had carried them through the horrors of war. Nari had been weak, yes, but only at the beginning. She had turned into the biggest shoulder of support, and she was hardly weak in the end.

And now, Yoongi could tell that Namjoon felt like he had a gaping hole in his life. Namjoon fingers the simple band of a ring in his hand, flipping it over and over and over. It matched the one on his finger, and he had slid it off of Nari when she was in her coma. The nurses said it would cut off circulation if her fingers swelled up, so he had kept it close by for the last month.

He was planning on returning it, along with a question that none of them had thought they would ever ask. Namjoon had been putting it off, telling himself that he would ask at the end of the war when they were safe and protected.

But how was he supposed to protect her from her own mind? It was ironic really. She was trapped in her brain. She wasn’t the one who needed protecting anymore. And now, when she did, it was from herself.

Jungkook is the one who speaks up, breaking the silence, “So, what’s the plan?”

What’s the plan? It’s odd how that question seemed so innocent now. Normally, what followed after was deadly.

“I don’t know,” Namjoon says shakily, and that’s a surprise in itself. Namjoon always had a plan. He always knew what to do. And as if he could sense that, his lips part again, “The doctors say she needs time. Maybe. Maybe she’ll never remember.”

“And she’ll be treated like a queen for the rest of her days,” Yoongi finds himself scoffing, sullenness rising in his stomach. “The restored government gave us all great rewards. And now she won’t remember the price that she paid.”

Her humanity. They all had paid that price. Their humanity.

Namjoon’s eyes flicker up, and his mouth slips into a frown, “She can’t help it.”

“She can’t help it,” Yoongi repeats. “Don’t you wish we couldn’t remember?”

Hoseok cuts through the rising animosity, “There’s no point in arguing over this.”

“I want her to feel what we feel,” Yoongi hisses, palms slamming down at the table and chair scraping back.

“She feels a lot worse than we do,” Hoseok murmurs. “Did you see how confused and frustrated she was? It was like she had no idea who she was anymore. She had no idea how she was able to throw a scalpel, she didn’t recognize her own reflection or her hair, and she was scared.”

“We’re all scared, Hoseok.” Yoongi’s mouth twists, “We’re all scared because in this new society, we don’t know