Mnemophobia: Fear of memories

31^st July 2014

“Jiyong!”

“Jiyong! C’mon, I’m sure we can try again.”

“I’m sure there are better companies out there! I’m sure we can find her! Jiyong!” Yang Hyun Seok shouted, but the 26 year-old man just kept walking, showing no signs to stop. “Where are you going?!”

“You told us to hold on to our faith, to believe that we can find her!! You can’t just give up just like that! You have to keep holding on!!”

Jiyong stopped in his track as his right hand gripped onto the brown envelope tightly. Today, he realized that he is the biggest hypocrite of them all. He tells everyone to keep holding on and that there is light at the end as long as they keep searching and that everything gets better as long as they continue to wait. He always tells everyone to have hope, that they need to keep trying because it is too early to give up when there is him, who is barely holding on already.

“But I tried, didn’t I?” Jiyong choked out, “God damn it! At least I did that!”

With that, he walked out of the building and right into his car. He threw the brown envelope onto the passenger seat and sped down the highway of Seoul, gripping his steering wheel tightly. He has nowhere in mind, but his heart took him home. Their home.

Jiyong stepped into his house, his hand still holding onto that brown envelope. Swiftly, he uncapped the bottle of hard liquor that was sitting alongside with other liquor on his dining table and he poured down his throat right away, letting the liquid burn his throat. Now he understood why people drink, because they get to see the person they miss; he could see her now. How she sprawled on the floor to study for her exams while waiting for him to be back from a concert, how she would cook for him and serve it to him with that smile he loves the most and how she would always make a face at him whenever she loses in their argument.

“Ji, shall we have Kimbap for dinner?” Her voice echoed in the furthest end of the living room, and Jiyong saw himself wrapping his arms around her. Instinctively, he clenched his fist as he tried to reminisce the feeling of her body around his hands.

“Sounds good. I will call for delivery.”

“I will just go and get it. It’s just a few streets away.” She pecked his lips, “Go and bathe. I will be right back.”

“Okay. Come back quickly alright?”

With a bright smile, the girl nodded her head back at him and grabbed her coat, closing the front door behind her.

Closing his eyes painfully, Jiyong leaned his head back on the chair. He feels so terribly sad but he had long reached the point where he had stopped crying because he had no more tears left. He could only lay there, feeling miserable and let the misery continue filling him. How could emptiness be so heavy?

“Stop drinking.”

Jiyong opened his eyes slowly to see his best friend standing in front of him. With a forceful smile, he sat up and grabbed another bottle of liquor. “When did you come? Have a drink friend!”

“Stop it.” Taeyang grabbed the liquor away from him and frowned. He stepped into his apartment after receiving calls from their CEO saying that Jiyong disappeared after receiving news about her. And his sixth sense told him right away that it wasn’t a piece of good news and he was right afterall.

Surprisingly, Jiyong didn’t snatch it back. Instead, he reached out for his cigarettes and lit it, blowing the puff of smoke out with his dazed eyes.

“Stop doing all these things that are harmful for your body! You will get addicted to them!!” Taeyang grabbed the cigarette away from him, not caring that it burnt his hand, ceasing it straight.

“Addicted?” Jiyong laughed, “It’s better to be addicted to all these things than people. You get hooked on a thing and if someone takes it from you, you can find another source. Only people can hurt you. Only people can push you out into the cold permanently.”

“Jiyong…”

“They say it is better to have loved and lost than never be loved at all. But when it’s 3.04am and I am in our bed, haunted by the memories of what it felt like when she was holding me, I begin to wish that I had never loved at all.”

“How can she break her promise?” Jiyong asked, his hand shaking. “She said she would be right back. But it had been 2 years, why is she not back?”

“I’m still waiting.. Everyday I wait for her to come back hyung.. but how can she not come back? She promised me too….”

“Jiyong…” Taeyang looked at his best friend with pain in his eyes. Before him sat a man whom is idolize by millions but who he sees right now is a man who is badly broken, inside out. “I’m sure we can find her. We hired the best private investigators in the world didn’t we? Give them some time, they will definitely be able to find her.”

Shaking his head, Jiyong felt tears escaping his eyes. The pain is searing his heart again. “I did everything I could.. the only one thing I can’t do is make her come back.”

“She will come back!” Taeyang raised his voice angrily, “You can’t give up now Jiyong! You need to keep holding on! I’m sure the people CEO Jang hired will definitely find her!”

“She won’t!!!” Jiyong screamed as tears flowed from his eyes, his shoulders shaking violently. He grabbed the brown envelope that was sitting on the table and tore them into tiny pieces like his heart. “She left!! She left and she won’t come back anymore!!”

“How can she not keep her promise.. how can she lie to me…”

Taeyang watched his friend cried, his nose turning sour at the sight of his tears that he had to turn away. Then, the logo on the brown envelope caught his attention. He took the pieces of paper that Jiyong crushed in his hand with his shaking hands, holding his breadth as he pieced them up.

Covering his mouth, Taeyang slumped into the seat, all of his energy dissipated instantly. He stared at the torn pieces of paper unbelievably as he felt his heart sank. Holding onto Jiyong’s shaking shoulders, tears escaped his eyes, wetting the paper in front of him.

How he wished this wasn’t true. How he wished he could change the result. How he wished there was something left for them to believe in. But, there was none left. Their last hope was gone.

The World Association of Professional Investigation

Cha Haewon

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Welcome to Mnemophobia! I'm glad to be able to meet you guys with this story.

Just wanna clear some things first, I'm not familiar with Big Bang fandom so pardon me if I were to make any mistakes. I just needed to use an additional character. (You guys will know why as the story progress).

I'm not very sure about how much Jiyong is going to appear in this story so if you are a gdragon fan, this is not the fic for you as Exo will definitely take up more chapters.

Enjoy the first chapter!