Part 1: VIVID

 

Nayeon wakes up from a dream where she’s having a concert again. Then she chuckles after thinking to herself "after all these years, that dream’s still alive?" It has been one and a half years since she last dreamt of a similar dream. It was on her last day in the trainees’ dormitory. The shattered dream still breaks her heart a little but she has already long accepted that that was not her fate.

She takes her phone to check the time. 7:14. She still has 16 minutes to lay down and close her eyes or scroll on some social media apps before the alarm goes off. She chose to do the first one.

She opens her eyes upon hearing the alarm go off. She didn’t notice had fallen asleep right when she closed her eyes earlier. She’s still very sleepy and to wake her body and mind up, she opens tiktok to watch a few funny videos. After having a good laugh at the first couple of short videos, the next one on her feed is a motivational video. These kinds of videos are starting to lose their motivational effect on Nayeon. Instead of feeling motivated and inspired, they make her feel terrible as a daughter—because she still lives with her parents and she still lives off of their financial support—and as a person in general. She’s studying something she likes in university now and she’s in her second year now. But somehow, she’s still unsure if she made the right decision. She still wonders what could have happened if she did not quit the training to become an idol. She wonders what could have happened if she waited a bit more. But here she is now, going to a totally different path of career.

“Why is your girlfriend so grumpy on the last first day of Second Year?” Jeongyeon says, sitting beside Sana.

“Oh, she’s just angry cuz Jihyo forgot it’s their first weeksary.” Momo responds.

“I only know monthsaries and anniversaries.” Jihyo grumbles. “I didn’t know we had to celebrate our weeksary, too.”

“I gave you a hint the other day to prepare a gift for me.” Sana answers her girlfriend back.

“You were winking at me! I thought it was just your way of flirting.”

Sana rolls her eyes. “I can’t believe you’re my girlfriend.”

“I can’t believe it either.” Jihyo turns her back away from Sana.

“These lovebirds are having their first fight?” Jeongyeon laughs. “You guys are so funny.”

“Who started making weeksaries a thing anyway? It’s not a big deal.” Nayeon remarks.

“Right?” Jihyo raises her voice. “At least one person here understands me.”

“Just let it go Sana and stop acting like a child.” Momo tells her cousin like she’s the only grown adult in their circle of friends. “It’s only your first week. Jihyo will make up for it.”

“I’m not going to. We’re breaking up.” Jihyo says sternly.

“Nope. No one’s breaking up. You guys are twenty-one. Act your age and apologize to each other.” Nayeon turns Jihyo’s chair so her friend could face Sana. Being the oldest, Nayeon tries to be a reliable unnie to her friends although she had always been one of the youngest—if not the youngest—in every group of friends she’s been in before she started being in university. Now, most of the people around her are 3 to 5 years younger than her. She doesn’t like this. She misses being with her unnies in the dorm who trained with her. She misses all her friends in Seoul. But she has a new group of friends now and she had to learn to grow up and be mature in front of her younger schoolmates.

Sana apologizes first, acknowledging that it was her fault for not reminding Jihyo properly about their weeksary and for not telling her before that weeksaries are important to her. And her apology is followed by Jihyo’s apology and they’re back to being disgustingly sweet to each other.

//

All the students in their second year are required to have an interview with the university’s guidance counselors before they start their internship in the following summer, and also to document their future plans. Today is the day Nayeon was scheduled to go to the guidance counselor’s office and be interviewed.

It’s her first time in this office although she had planned numerous times to visit and get some counsel from the professionals. But the idea of having to talk a lot of things about herself from the past up till the present sounds very tiring for her. She feels like her mind is too messy to get to speak out what she needs to. So, whenever she thinks of making an appointment, she backs out thinking it won’t help her because she won’t be able to express herself in an organized manner—although a professor she had become friends with had told her before that she doesn’t have to worry about that because it is the counselor’s job to help her organize her thoughts.

“How do you feel?”

“I feel chill.” Nayeon shrugs and smiles.

“Good.” The guidance counselor smiles. “So.” She pauses for a moment and that pause just made Nayeon feel a little nervous. “What do you plan to do after you graduate?”

Oh no. Here goes that question. “God, what do I do after graduation?” she internally asks herself.

“I have asked myself that question many times.” Nayeon starts. “I’ve had this plan when I decided to go to uni: go to uni, graduate, take the licensure exam and become a licensed therapist, and open my own clinic. And I have to go at a pace where I don’t delay nor stop. I have to get to the finish line within 5 years.”

“It’s good that you already have those plans to guide yourself to where you want to be.”

“Yeah, but I still feel lost.” Nayeon shrugs. “Like, I don’t know what I need to do to accomplish my goal.”

“Just take one step at a time, Nayeon. You seem like you’re in a hurry.”

“I am. I’m already turning 27 before this year ends. I started university pretty late and while I’m here, all my peers from high school are already reaching for the stars. At this age, I’m supposed to be, you know, I should have reached at least one star.”

“Just take one step at a time.” The guidance counselor repeats herself. “Everything that happened and is happening in your life right now are products of your decisions in the past. And I believe that every decision we make have already been written in the stars.”

“Like, our lives have been predestined?”

“Right. Someone supreme have already written your story.”

“But how will I know if the decisions I’m making are right and according to that supreme author’s story?”

“Just trust that he’s guiding you. He has been guiding you all along, even though you don’t sense it. He puts the right desires in your heart.”

Nayeon came out of that office feeling like the weight that’s been on her shoulders for years has been lifted. She’s not regretful about her past decisions anymore and she feels like she’s really on the right path now, that she made the right decision to quit her dream of becoming an idol and aim for becoming a therapist which she has grown to genuinely like.

 

 

Part 2: VAGUE

 

Mina’s doing her weekly grocery shopping. As she goes to get a tray of eggs, a cart hits hers. She looks up and sees an apologetic guy, bowing and apologizing. Then the guy’s facial expression turns into something that looks like he’s looking at a celebrity.

“Mina?!”

The woman looks at him, curious. “How do you know my name?”

“It’s me. Yugyeom!”

She looks at him with a judgemental look. “Sorry, but I don’t know you.” She says as she starts walking away.

//

“Yugyeom oppa, get up!” Dahyun sternly orders her older brother after asking him nicely multiple times this morning. All her patience for the day is already spent.

"She still doesn’t remember me!" Yugyeom whines, crying.

“It's been forever, oppa. I thought you’ve already gotten over her. Besides, there are a lot of other girls out there!”

“But she's the love of my life!” Dahyun mimics her mockingly and she almost gets caught when Yugyeom turns his head and strikes a look at her to correct her and say, "And it's only been two years!"

Mina has retrograde amnesia. She should eventually get her memories back but it's been seven months since the accident. She can’t remember a year’s worth of memories before the accident. But the rest, she remembers. She doesn’t remember her fiance Kim Yugyeom—the only son of Mina’s family friend—who she met about six months ago at a dinner with their parents to talk about their marriage. When Mina parted ways with Nayeon, she got hit by a car. She was running the streets away from the driver her parents sent to find her and take her home.

"It’s also been two years of me witnessing you pining over her." His little sister moans. “Come on, oppa. Mom’s getting angry. You’re gonna be late for your date!”

Yugyeom’s parents had asked him who he wanted to date and marry among their businessmen friends’ daughters and he chose Mina. She’s the only one he knew among the women presented to him. They’ve met each other in some events in the past few years but they never got close. After Mina’s accident, they still went on dates and tried to get to know each other again. Yugyeom felt like Mina was a new person. She doesn’t have much memories about him since they only met a few times. After a year of dating, Yugyeom’s parents gave up on the arrangement and started setting their son up with other women to help him find someone else he might like.