SEOUL CITY MEDICAL CENTER (OFF CAMERA)
 

I opened my eyes, and I was oblivious at first. But then, everything came rushing back. Slowly but surely, the reality bit me again in ways that I desperately avoided all this time. The elder's punishment to me, Jiyong's sacrifice to save me, our conversation, his apologies... The past events swallowed my sanity, and my once stabilized emotions were thrown into shambles again.

Suddenly, I wasn't calm and oblivious in this very moment.

"You disappointed me very much, Jiyong," I heard my father's somber voice. When I searched for him, I found them all at the foot of my bed. My parents were there, and so was Jiyong, head bowed at my mother and father. "You shouldn't have said or done things that enabled her anxieties. You know very well how sensitive she is when it comes to you."

My father's reprimands of him reminded me how they had the same conversation years ago when I first experienced an emotional breakdown. It wasn't all Jiyong's fault, yet he played a very big role on how and why I became severely ill. Physically... mentally... emotionally...

There on the hospital bed, as I pretended to be unconscious while listening to my parents talk to him, the painful memories from three to four years ago crawled back in my senses...

One by one... excruciatingly... painfully...

 

August 19, 2010

"She's nothing to me baby. She and Seunghyun hyung hit it off. The picture of that kiss was a stupid misangling. I just kissed her cheek!"

That was the first draw. He met her on his 23rd birthday. His friends in Japan threw him a birthday bash, a wild one at that. That was one of the many social events he attended that I never felt comfortable with. His Japanese friends were wild and crazy, liberal and intimidating, and they changed Jiyong in so many ways that ate up all my self-esteem and trust in him. How I wish I attended that party. Maybe if I was there, she wouldn't have entered his life and wrecked my sanity.

"Everyone was drunk during his birthday party in Japan. Nothing happened between them!" Hyoyeon explained to me, because she was the only SNSD member to attend Jiyong's birthday party. "He was just introduced to that Japanese model. Tabi oppa went home with her."

 

Back to reality, I watched as Jiyong kneeled to the ground and bowed respectfully to my parents, exactly as he did many times in the past when he asked for their forgiveness.

"I'm sorry Kim umma and Kim appa. I didn't expect to meet her inside the house. If I had the choice, I would have prevented it. The last thing I would do is hurt her again."

He did the same thing countless times in the past, but my parents and I were unforgiving. Until one day, Kwon Jiyong eventually stopped seeking our forgiveness. Up to this day, I still resented him for stopping, even if he chased me for a whole year.

No one really could blame me and my parents for taking so long to forgive him. Following his first meeting with her, they eventually became friends, partying and hanging out with the same social circle, giving me reasons after reasons to be jealous and paranoid.

 

October 15, 2010

"They share the same crowd here in Japan. It can't be helped for them to hang out together. What's important is you are here in her birthday party because you are your boyfriend's plus one," Tiffany reminded me as we both watched her and Jiyong drink together, talking happily to one another on the next table.

Having heard of Jiyong's suspicious closeness to that one petite model, I started accepting invitations to his social gatherings in Japan, wild as they were. I was never jealous of Jiyong's previous female friends, but this time it was different. I researched about her, and I didn't like what I knew. She slept around. She partied and did drugs. And she had an open admiration for both T.O.P and G-dragon.

"Man, that girl's pretty wild, huh?" Jessica observed. She was Tyler Kwon's plus one tonight. "She can't keep her hands off the guys. Fine, it's her birthday party, but chill down girl!"

That night was my first time meeting her, and her behavior confirmed my right to be paranoid. She was all over so many men, but her closeness with Jiyong rubbed me the wrong way. How can a decent woman dance so provocatively with a man whose girlfriend was there to witness her?

"She's half-American and raised Japanese. Her liberal mind is something conservative Korean women would never embrace in a lifetime," Lee Soohyuk explained to us, and that did not help at all.

Because knowing and confirming the kind of woman Mizuhara Kiko was aggravated my already unstable mind. It pushed me to the edge of mental and emotional stability.

 

Now four years later, here I was in the hospital, possibly suffering from a relapse. It was like a cycle that repeated, as I watched my parents beg Jiyong to stop making things worse. I hoped to God this wasn't a relapse. I couldn't go through the hell that was 2011.

"Please set our daughter free from the past, Jiyong. As her mother, I humbly beg of you. You already hurt her enough."

 

December 31, 2011

"The kiss was a dare! It meant nothing!" he desperately explained to me, but I was still crying, shouting and throwing things at him.

Once again, he gave me a reason to be jealous and hurt. He kissed Kiko on the lips. For many weeks, he asked for my forgiveness, explaining and begging for my acceptance. However, all I did was freak out, and I was unable to calm down.

It didn't help that 2010's rigid SNSD promotions in Korea and Japan took a toll on my mental health. SM greatly overworked me and the girls, causing our physical health to deteriorate. The lack of sleep, daily flights, and strict diet, made me vulnerable to a mental illness.

Then Kiko came to my life, fully poking the bear.

"I was there Taeng. It was a childish game," Tiffany reasoned out to me another time. "They weren't the only one who kissed. I ing kissed Choi Seunghyun and it meant nothing to me too!"

It had been a week since I last saw and heard from my then boyfriend. He was in Japan, I was in Thailand. When he came back to Korea, I was in China. Then when he followed me in China, I went to Japan. There was no way to meet.

One day, the source of the problem came to me. Mizuhara Kiko visited me in one of our performances in Japan. For the first time, she actually addressed my months-lasting jealousy.

"Hi Miss Kim. I heard you and Jiyong are having problems. Please do not misunderstand. We kissed on New Year's eve because of a dare. I mean, I kissed three men and two women that same night. It meant nothing to anyone, I swear!"

Yet her audacity to talk to me in such casual manner only fueled my anger.

 

Up to this day, I could still recall how Kiko lied to me point blank. That same night, she told me the kiss meant nothing to her. All lies. Later on I would find out that she had fallen in love with my boyfriend since they first met each other.

"Please tell me what I can do to earn your forgiveness again," Jiyong asked of my parents in the present time.

"Stay inside the House of 20's," appa answered, also surprising me.

"What?!" Jiyong asked, shocked. "Why? W-what for Mr. Kim?"

Mr. Kim. He used to call him appa too. Those were the days of the past.

"You both need to stay and learn to live together in this world. That is the only way Taeyeon can begin truly moving on."

How do I live in a world with the man who wrecked m