Here's a letter that probably doesn't often pop up in the advice column of teen magazines:

Dear Random Magazine Editor,

There's something I need to tell my boyfriend, but I'm not sure how to bring it up. You see, until a few weeks ago, he was a spirit inhabiting a younger version of his own body. Or not a spirit, exactly. He wasn't dead yet; he was just seriously injured, dying at some point in the future. His younger self was able to access memories from his future self, connecting to his thoughts across time and space until his older body died.

Makes perfect sense, right? Okay, maybe it doesn't, but I promise you, it's all true. I'm not writing to ask if you believe it, anyway.

Before his future spirit disappeared, my boyfriend knew he was going to join the marines. He was going to die in a war. A war that hasn't happened yet. And now that he can't remember this anymore, I'm tortured by questions. What I want you to tell me is this: Should I tell him? Should I beg him not to enlist? How can I make him believe me when I am so convinced no one in their right mind would that I'm not even going to mail this letter?

                                                                         Sincerely,

                                                                          Confused

Forget mailing it; I never even sat down to write it. Advice letters are just not me. I don't even read the magazines that print them. But I thought about those questions all the time. I thought about writing to someone, asking for help. Who could I turn to? Eomma - and raise her suspicions? Since the day she'd held me as I cried in the hospital, I'd noticed her staring at me when she thought I wasn't paying attention. She'd been suggesting I go visit appa, and when I reminded her that I couldn't exactly miss school during my junior year, the ones colleges look at most closely, she, who was always so enthusiastic about my education, would say things like "What? They have schools in Seoul."

And Shinhye? I hadn't told her about Jin's delusions before he went into the hospital because I hadn't thought she'd believed me. Why would she now?

˭̡̞(◞⁎˃ᆺ˂)◞*✰

Jin was discharged from the hospital two days after he'd flatlined and revived. He wasn't allowed to climb stairs or go to school, but even just sitting on the couch, we had fun. I couldn't stop touching him, reaching for his hand, tucking my head into the crook of his elbow. We watched dramas and tv shows.

We ate all the microwave popcorn Jinnie was supposed to be selling for Boy Scouts.

A photographer from the local paper came to take Jin's picture.

I taught Jin how to make friendship bracelets I taught the little kids how to make at camp, and he made me anklet.

All the neighbors dropped off dishes and we ate ourselves sick on bibimbap and jangjangmyeon.

For a week, Mrs. Kim set her alarm for two-hour intervals during the night and woke Jin to be sure he didn't drift too deeply into sleep. They were both exhausted. She joked it was like having a newborn again.

His dad moved back in, supposedly so he could get Seokie and Jinnie's breakfast and dinner while Mrs. Kim slept on Jin's clock. But Jin believed that his dad's moving back in meant the separation was off. "It's disgusting," he said, sounding pleased. "I heard them laughing. The other night, eomma said she needed some fresh air and was going to walk around the neighborhood and appa went with her. They were like a pair of senior citizens or something."

I tried hard to remember what Jin had said. That his parents got divorced? Or just separation for a little while? The distinction mattered. Was the future not set in stone?

All the doctors except Dr. Kat lost interest in Jin's case once it was clear he was out of danger. They said he was allowed to go back to school, but I still went home with him to make sure he was okay. Shinhye gave us rides, as Jin wasn't allowed to drive yet.

Then Dr. Kat said Jin was okay to be left alone. He was okay to drive a car and sleep through the night. But still no dancing. That was when I thought he was probably well enough for me to tell him why he had to stay away from the marines.

But I didn't.

I thought about bringing it up after a round of aggressive thumb wrestling on the Kim's couch (Jin cheats). I thought about it while sitting on a bench in his backyard on a suddenly warm early-spring day, the moisture from the ground soaking through the soles of the old pair of sneakers I was wearing.

I thought about it when Shinhye showed me and Jin the latest batch of Taejoon letters she'd had to hide from her parents and said, "I wish he never even existed." I thought about it when Jin and I were on a bit of a sugar high after buying Seokie and Jinnie a package of Oreos and eating most of them ourselves.

I've lost track of all the times I opened my mouth to explain, or to ask if any what he'd told me sounded familiar now, or to try to let him know that there was much more to the story than just the parts everyone talking about. But there was something sharp, something worried, about the way Jin looked at me. He was guarded, even when we were playing games or watching TV or listing the fifteen CDs we'd bring with us to a desert island or the top ten disaster movies of all time. It was like he sensed that I had something to say and knew he didn't want to hear it. So I kept waiting. And as I did, the shell of his not-knowing grew thicker, felt harder to crack.

I didn't have much time. His eighteenth birthday was coming up. And since he could drive but not dance, Jin began spending more afternoons hanging out at the MEPS in the mall, counting down the days until he could sign up.

We fought.

"How come all the marines profile in this procedure end up owning their own businesses?" I said while we were eating sundae cups in his car after he taught me to parallel park in preparation for taking my driving exam. "Are they impossible to hire? DO they have problems acclimating to work environments where it's not okay to settle disputes with your fists?"

Jin rolled his eyes.

"What about the ones who end up in prison because they can't reacclimate to society after being in the military?" I said. "How come there's nothing in here about the ones who turn out to like prison because it reminds them of living on a base? Where do they talk about all the chemicals soldiers were exposed to during the Desert Storm?"

"Are you jealous?" he teased. "Because you can't serve in combat? Admit it - handling a rifle is your secret fantasy. You're a closet gun nut."

Jin still had the power to make me laugh. Really hard.

But laughing or fighting, he wouldn't talk about the marines for real, as if by engaging in a sincere conversation - no matter where things went after that - he would be conceding whatever point he believed I was trying to score.

"Look at this," I said one time when Jin picked me up after a visit to the MEPS and there was a folder of information "for parents" in the backseat of the car. "See this list of frequently asked questions? Every single answer tells you to 'contact a recruiter.' Look here. They tell parents that every man deserves a chance to serve his country. What's your mom think about all this?" I said.

"She thinks it's great," Jin said, his mouth a straight line after he told his lie that he was halfheartedly trying to pass off as a joke. And then, as close as he ever got to taking me seriously: "She's made her peace with it. It's a part of having appa back home. So you can see, it's good."

It wasn't good. "Is she going to go down to the recruitment office with you and take pictures as you swear the oath of service?" I said. The brochure said there was a room set up for this at the MEPS.

"Somehow," he said, his voice short and clipped, "I don't think she'll find the time."

While we were arguing, we were still often holding on to each other. Talking about the brochures in the car, Jin didn't take his hand off my leg, where he'd casually draped it. Another time, sprawled on the porch furniture at N's cousin's beach house, I laid out all the ridiculous defense-spending numbers from the federal budget. I was leaning against Jin's arm and he had one leg wrapped around mine.

In the school newspaper office, I'd look up from my table a dozen times, hoping to see him swaggering into the room. And he often did. He would usually be waiting for me when debate practice was over.

He cold still make me shiver just by looking at me. He teased me; he tickled me; he'd come up behind me, push my knees forward with his so I lost my balance, and then reach his arms around in front and catch me just before I fell.

He was still friendly beyond reason. Strangers smiled at him. Waitresses gave him free drinks. Kids in our school, kids on his team - they liked him. I liked him.

And . . . this is important for me to remember. Jin still loved me. He would still run his finger down this little curve just beneath my rib cage and say, "This is my favorite part of your body." I would finish saying something that seemed perfectly innocuous, and he'd say, "I just don't know anyone else like you."

I remember the last dance performance of the season. Jin was finally allowed back on the ice. Out of loyalty, Manager Sejin put Jin in the front. I guess he felt sorry for Jin. Jin's errors were costly. It was like he'd forgotten about key-point moves, and he wasn't enough of a player for that to work out in the team's favor.

That was new.

On the Saturday night after the game, when he was still under strict orders from the doctor not to drink, to be home by nine, to take it easy, Jin decided to hang out with the team and drink himself into a stupor.

"Why don't we just rent a movie and go to your house?"

Jin said, "No way." Later, I'd realized he was frustrated by the way he performed, by the limits of his mysterious brain condition. But at the time, he anger felt personal.

He said, "We don't always have to be together, you know," and I felt as if he'd slapped me in the face. How could someone who said he loved me lash out in that way?

Monday, it was like that conversation had never happened. We held hands in the hallway. He kissed me in the front seat of his car. He came over after school and we did our homework together on the room of my bedroom, then chopped onions while eomma cooked dinner.

Before he'd gone to the hospital, he used to hold my face and just look at me, like he was trying to sear an image into his brain. He didn't do that anymore. But he knew me; he knew the best parts of me, the private self that no one else except Shinhye and eomma could see. I could look at him across a room and know that he knew I was me.

And also that he was going to die.