가까이 다가가고 싶었지만 가까이 다가갈 수 없었습니다

Although I wanted to come closer, I couldn't possibly go closer

내가 가까이 다가가는 만큼

Because the more I grow closer,

그대가 멀어질 것 같아서 . . .

The more I feel that you would drift away from me . . .

When Sungjong rose from his makeshift bed on the couch, he found himself squinting against the honey-glazed sunlight filtering in from the drapes, clutching at the blanket wrapped around his shoulders that he didn't recall sleeping with. And in this moment of stupor, he turned, his eyes flickering open only to be met by an image that brought everything to a standstill. Seated at his desk and nonchalantly glancing over a light stack of police reports with his fingers brushing against his lips, Kim Myungsoo seemed oblivious to the fact that Sungjong was awake, let alone staring in his direction. But what seemed to surprise Sungjong was that Myungsoo appeared to be wonderfully vibrant with the halo of sunlight surrounding him, gently wrapping around the contours of his body and presenting him in the most beautiful and inviting manner. After seeing him like this for the first time in three years, the younger boy realized that perhaps some things haven't changed. Much to his relief.

Sensing the heat of the boy's gaze on his, Myungsoo glanced up from the disarray of papers on his desk to meet Sungjong's curious eyes. Suddenly growing uncomfortable, he hastily reverted his attention back to his messy workspace to do something, anything, that didn't involve looking at his house guest. "Good morning," Myungsoo murmured, barely audible. 

But Sungjong seemed dissatisfied with such a response. "I'm starting to think that I really did do something wrong," he said. Myungsoo suddenly stopped pawing through his papers, his hands dropping to his sides. "But I guess time really can distance even the closest friends." Sungjong stood from the couch and walked into the bathroom after withdrawing from his duffel bag the toiletries that Myungsoo had packed the night before. The detective exhaled and held his head in frustration.

It wasn't that he hated the kid. Far from it, actually. But after three years, Myungsoo couldn't pretend that he was living in the past as Kim Myungsoo the teenager. The days of his adolescence, of his one-sided love for Lee Sungjong, of his soft-hearted ways were over; he couldn't afford to let his personal feelings affect his job as a detective. However, since Sungjong had left the room, Myungsoo felt inexplicably empty, and a strange urge seemed to claw at his heart. It was a vaguely familiar feeling, one that he recalled from three years ago, but he didn't want to think much of it. He only wanted to forget about it all.

Breakfast. The thought suddenly crossed his mind just as he leaned back into his seat; he should start making breakfast. 

The thing that most people failed to realize about Myungsoo was that beneath his seemingly perfect persona, there had to be something that the detective couldn't do, something off about him. And there was — his inability to cook. It was terribly unfortunate, really. There had been a time when Myungsoo had actually attempted to prepare a meal that didn't have ramen on the menu, but that had only resulted in a complete disaster in which he had no choice but to call Sungjong over to help him scrub the sauce off his walls and eventually hose him down in the balcony. "How is it that such a brilliant mind can be so hopeless in the kitchen?" the younger boy had snickered while towel-drying Myungsoo's sodden locks of hair. It was because of that day that the detective had sworn off cooking almost anything other than the usual instant meals he just sticks into a microwave for three minutes. However, today, it couldn't be helped.

When Sungjong walked out of the bathroom with the tips of his hair still wet from his morning shower, he found the older boy seated at the dinner table with a steaming pot placed in the center. He glanced from the meal to Myungsoo who seemed to have been waiting for him to finish washing up. "Is this for both of us?" Sungjong asked with caution, pulling back a chair to sit across from the detective.

Myungsoo nonchalantly picked up his pair of chopsticks. "It's not like I'm going to let you starve."

"Since when did you start cooking a meal by yourself?" Sungjong joked with a light smile. He took off the pot lid, peered inside at the contents, and hurriedly stifled a laugh. "Never mind."

The older boy looked at him, unknowingly holding his ramen noodles in mid-air. "What's so funny?" Myungsoo asked.

"Nothing, nothing," Sungjong replied with a slight shake of his head, reaching into the pot with his chopsticks. "It's just that . . . maybe you still are the Kim Myungsoo I knew from three years ago." 

Myungsoo was surprised by this not because of what Sungjong said but because the boy's smile still managed to tug at his heart just like it did back in high school. He was starting to think that Sungjong was right, that there were just some things that couldn't be changed even after three years.

~

"So," Woohyun said as he approached Myungsoo from behind, clapping his hand on the younger detective's shoulder, "how was last night?" Myungsoo, who had been holding a paper cup to his lips, found himself fumbling with it in his hands and choking on the gulp of water he barely managed to swallow. He glanced back at Woohyun, meeting his questioning gaze. "I meant to ask how your talk was with Sungjong last night about the case. Why? What were you thinking?" 

"N-nothing," Myungsoo sputtered, wiping his lips with his sleeve. "I didn't get a chance to talk to him about that yet. I'll get to it tonight." 

"Maybe you should take him to a specialist." Myungsoo turned to face him, perplexed. "Y'know, like a doctor? One that specializes in memory loss or head trauma? It might help, and we've got nothing to lose after all."

"Is it really necessary for him to go to a doctor?"

"Well, we don't exactly have all the time in the world, Myungsoo. Lee Sungjong's our only witness at the moment; the other one might not even be the country. The faster he remembers, the faster we solve this case."

~

Sungjong has never been too fond of hospitals, or rather, what happens in them. Three years ago, when he had woken up in one, he remembered feeling absolutely terrified mainly because he had no idea how he had ended up in the intensive care unit and whether or not his body had been cut into by scapels or other unfamiliar surgical tools (he hadn't been intending on finding out either). So when Myungsoo had proposed earlier that they were going to see a doctor, he couldn't help but question loudly why he had to go, and the fact that the detective hadn't given him an answer only made him feel even more uneasy. Sungjong thought this was unfair; Myungsoo knew more than anyone that he had always hated hospitals. Or so he thought.

Seated uncomfortably in an office in the neurology ward, Sungjong stole repeated sidelong glances at Kim Myungsoo, who seemed to be trying too hard not to look him in the eye. He swallowed nervously as the specialist waltzed in, instinctively reaching for the older boy's arm before thinking better of it and placing his hand firmly on his lap. The doctor — Dr. Yoonsung Ahn, according to his nameplate — peered down at the two of them curiously. "I'm sorry," he began, eyebrows knit as he situated himself across from the pair behind his own desk, "but I was informed earlier that a detective would be joining the patient today, not a friend."

Myungsoo reached into his jacket and withdrew his police badge, holding it up briefly before returning it back into his pocket. "I'm a detective from the Crime and Violence Department," he informed nonchalantly as though this were an everyday occurrence. The doctor raised his brows slightly in disbelief. "I'm sure one of my teammates told you already, but we're investigating a murder case that involves an incident from three years ago. Our eyewitness, Lee Sungjong, was apparently attacked that night, and he has no recollection of what happened."

"Well, it isn't a rare occurrence nowadays," Dr. Ahn said with a sigh. "From what you're telling me, I can guess that Sungjong suffered some severe head trauma that damaged his hippocampus, which is an area of the brain that stores and processes memory. Because of that, he's unable to retrieve the memory even though it's been encoded and processed in his system."

"So you're saying that the memory still exists in his head, but he can't get it out?" Myungsoo asked.

"Precisely."

"Is there a possibility that Sungjong can somehow retrieve the memory? Even now?"

"Yes, it's still very possible." The neurologist turned slightly to face the younger of the two. "By chance, Sungjong-ssi, does the name Sigmund Freud sound familiar to you?"

Sungjong blinked at him, uncertain of where this was heading. "Yes, I learned about him in psychology," he said.

"Can you tell me who he was then?"

"He was the European psychologist who founded psycholoanalysis, which was the study of the unconscious mind."

"Correct," Dr. Ahn nodded. "And what about his theory of repression?"

"Repression is the theory that people have the tendency to subdue painful memories to maintain their emotional stability and well-being. They intentionally forget to avoid feeling hurt like they were in the past."

"Right again. Although the theory of repression has been proven to be false by memory researchers, your case is a bit different. While the memory exists in your mind, you can't seem to retrieve it because you're afraid of what it holds. You're afraid that the memory would hurt you in some way, so you've been thinking all this time that you're better off forgetting." The neurologist leaned forward slightly. "What I'm telling you to do, Sungjong-ssi, is to stop running away. I need you to stop running from that fear and try to bring out that memory. If you can do that, if you really try, you'll be able to remember."

~

When Myungsoo blinked awake, he found himself staring at the small opening of his bedroom window from where the moonlight spilled inside. It wasn't exactly a rare occurrence, but these only seemed to happen whenever he felt excruciatingly anxious over something — late-night rouses and hours spent gazing up at his ceiling until the sun cracked over the horizon. Deciding that he wasn't going to end up falling asleep anytime soon, Myungsoo sat up and swung his leg over the mattress before making his way towards his dresser. He soundlessly pulled open the first drawer, digging out the two photographs he took from Lee Sungjong's wall the previous night and trying to distinguish what had really changed over the years. Besides having a better haircut, nothing really seemed different about him at all. Then why was he pretending as though things were?

Myungsoo placed the pictures back underneath the neat stack of folded shirts in his drawer, and at the distant sound of his balcony door being slid open, he peered out into the main room to find Lee Sungjong stepping outside with his blanket pulled over his shoulders. The detective soundlessly hurried after him, closing the glass door shut behind them to which the boy swiveled around in surprise. But Myungsoo only plopped down on one of the fold-out chairs he had once set up and waited for Sungjong to do the same. "I told you not to step outside without me," the older boy murmured as Sungjong pulled up a chair beside his. "What are you doing awake?"

"Trying to get my memory back," Sungjong replied with a sigh. "Nothing's working so far."

They were silent for a moment before Myungsoo brought himself to look at the younger boy with caution. "Is what the doctor said true?" he asked. "About how you're afraid to remember?"

"In a way, yeah. But then again, wouldn't you be? For three years, I've known that I was attacked yet I'm not sure who did it, how it happened, or why I ended up in that situation. It's not something I want to picture." Myungsoo kept silent; there were always things he wanted to say, but the words seemed to always roll back down his throat and fade away into the emptiness in his stomach. Right now, there were so many questions he had yet to ask, so many answers he had yet to receive, but he couldn't help but remain silent. "What about you?"

"What?"

"You seem pretty intent on forgetting about the past," Sungjong said, meeting his eyes with a ghost of a smile on his lips. "It doesn't take a detective to figure something like that out."

"It's not like that. I . . . I'm afraid, too," Myungsoo confessed with hesitation, his gaze wavering slightly. "That's why . . ."

"Is that why you've been uncomfortable around me? Because you don't want to remember?"

But the detective couldn't bring himself to answer; he could only stare back at the boy and hold his breath as the truth anchored itself to his conscience, sinking in and demanding to be heard. I just didn't want to come close enough only to have you slip away again.

~

Tightening the rope wrapped around the target's bare wrists and ankles, he dragged the limp body further along the riverbank with a strained grunt escaping his lips. It had taken him a while to find this one (the clever bastard managed to take off with a head start, after all), but he managed to nonetheless. He shoved the body towards the edge, sneering in amusement as his target's muffled pleas swirled in his ears. "You should consider yourself lucky," he said quietly, lips curling into a snarl as he bent down to search through the victim's pockets. He withdrew a phone and tossed it away onto a nearby tuft of grass before straightening up. "You're one of the last. What an honor." With that, he kicked the squirming body into the river, watching without remorse as the ripples seemed to broaden only to fade away and the oxygen bubbles ceased to resurface. 

And all was calm. All was still.