“Hey!” his voice sounded like a rescue in the middle of my mental breakdown. I looked up straight towards the house entrance and I saw Andy smiling back at me wearing a moss green wind breaker jacket with its zipper slightly pulled down revealing his white shirt inside while his jogging pants are rolled up to his knees.

He was holding something cupped in his hands. He went down our mini-stair case and asked me to open my hand towards him and he rested an orange paper crane on my palm. I looked at it and his face glow with amusement on my frowning expression.

“Cute isn’t it? I made a smaller one for you. I hope you liked it.” He said with his well-modulated speaking voice.

I can’t still get a grip of what he is talking about when he pointed inside the house. He asked me to come nearer to him and as we reached the entrance, he looked at the ceiling and I just realized that it was the same with the colourful origami hanging alternately on the top of our heads.

“All of these. You made them.” And I looked at him in awe.

Andy nodded his head. “Yes, all 204 of them. I promised you that I’ll be hanging a crane every month until you come back. Every single one contained my messages to you all throughout those 17 years while you were gone. They are basically unsent letters that are floating above you right now.”

I wanted to cry upon hearing it. I wanted to give Andy a hug but my body’s resisting to do so. He stood by my side as he looked up at his letters. My emotions crumbled inside my chest because of the fact that I can’t even remember a single thing about our friendship. He then caught me staring at him teary eyed and controlling my overwhelming emotions when I noticed a tear rolling down his baby cheeks as well.

He wrapped his right arm over my shoulder and squeezed my arms saying “Thank you for coming back. I always believed you’ll appreciate them even if you will never remember.” He wiped his tears in an instant and faced me looking at the paper crane on my hand.

“Thank you Andy for all of these.” I told him with my emotionally inflicted voice and continued – “I’m not sure yet of what to think about all of these or how I deserved all of your hard work but something in my mind is telling me that all of you have known me all along. I wanted to know what really happened here between all of us but the agony of my lost memories tortures me the most.”

“You shouldn’t feel upset about it. It was never your fault in the first place.” He said trying to comfort me but I am indeed hopeless with the blind side of the unknown twist of this mission.

“Kris, I’m sure you’re getting confused right now with all the facts misplaced from one person to another. Come on, take a seat. I came here to let you know.” He sat on the sofa with me and took a deep breath while gathering his thoughts.

He knew something about it. All this messed up equation. I thought it was just me but having him beside me and taking his time delivering this message to me is something that I really need. He just came at the right time when everything’s falling apart inside my head.

Nana told me that they will know exactly three facts about me and the one with the most will tell me five trivial things which are entirely different from the rest given.

I slowly get to understand what’s going on when Andy started to speak, “Dongwan didn’t really know that you have asthma. Someone told him to bring you medicine for it because he’s the one who knew about it. If Dongwan already knew about it first-hand, he must have given the inhaler to you since day 1.”

What Andy said made sense.

“About the star-gazing activity, Hyesung tried to add it to your itinerary today. The original plan was for you guys to only have a picnic together that’s why my surprise visit didn’t work like how we originally planned it.” He added.

“Originally, he also asked me to give you a false expectation but I decided to turn the tables since I know that he deserves to get recognized.” He paused with a smirk in his lips. “This hyung (older brother) is very close to me. I knew him even before we met the rest in our detentions. I can understand why he is acting that way and that is because he does not want to get the spot light.” He explained.

“He asked me to tell you about how you feared house lizards so much that I hanged those paper cranes up on your Villa’s ceiling. I didn’t want my letters to be overpowered with that lame excuse. My promise to you remains the same as time passed.” And he gave a wink as he admitted being an almost probable accessory to a conspiracy.

“I’m sure that there’s only one left on your list who had a lesser account than expected after we showed you all our hidden cards.” He said playfully as he shifted on his seat to lay his back on our soft couch. He closed his eyes trying to pretend he is trying to sleep while he waits for my answer to the obvious riddle.

My blood rushed with facts collecting them thoroughly inside my memory for the past few days. I got my black journal from my bag and started to right down everything again on the list. Andy watched me joyfully as he smiled brightly to the nearing of this mission.

It was the professor! It was Eric!

The one who only showed up once and never did again. He was the person who decides to just appear when nobody else is there to help up. He was the shy guy and always thoughtful. He was successfully concealed with his weird behaviour that only lurks and observes from afar.

I can’t still believe that I was able to discover all of it, thanks to Andy. I raised my head to look at him but I caught him staring at my journal as if something surprised him.

“Andy?” I tried to get his attention but he continued looking down, staring at something on my hands. I finally noticed it was not my journal but my pen.

“Kris, you..” he paused and think of the next word that he will say.

“Wait a minute, since when did you have that pen?” he asked while his eyes are still fixed on the thing.

“Nana gave this to me together with this journal.” I told him honestly but the trace of confusion is still visible on his face that made me think that it could have been a clue too.

“The day the accident happened was the first time I saw that; Eric rushed riding his bike to give that as memento for you. He chased your car on that rainy day ignoring our words to just send it by mail. It was the same accident that caused your parents death.” Andy’s voice broke at the end of his sentence.

He looked at me as I felt numb while listening to his words. This was the first time I’m going to hear a more detailed version of that tragic accident that was never told by Nana.

“Your parents picked you up that day to bring you back to the city but you cried so much when they forced you to get inside the car. We knew about it all along so all five of us came here to comfort you and say our goodbyes. You finally agreed to come with them with the condition that you’ll come back after 17 years when you are done studying abroad.” He shifted his head as he looked outside the door, I can see his eyes reflecting what he felt years ago, Andy’s sorrowful gaze magnified the past.

“Eric came late for some reason and didn’t have any choice but to do his best to catch up with your distance. He saw everything happened with a blink of an eye when your car a sharp curve and lost its control on the slippery highway. It flipped on the side of the road and he drove faster to reach you as soon as possible.” He paused and looked at me.

“You were unconscious with a bleeding forehead while your parents were barely talking and asked him to take you out first and make sure you’re safe. It was just a short moment after he was able to get you out of the car when the gasoline leak blew your vehicle with an explosion together with your parents. He watched you speechless as you lay on the grass and glanced helplessly on your burning car.” He closed his eyes and reached out to hold my trembling hands.

“Your seatbelt is indeed a saving grace because it avoided you from getting serious injuries but the trauma got the best of you when you woke up. When Nana told you about your parent’s death, you ended up blaming yourself about it. You kept on asking Eric why he had to save you first before them. He does not know what to tell you, even us – we were all excruciatingly thinking of a way to comfort you but nothing worked out.” He shook his head slowly as he brushed my hair with his free hand.

“Being the youngest among us, I saw how my hyungs (older brothers) tried to brain storm on what to do to make you feel better since Nana decided to keep you here for the time being. Your smile was gone. You don’t eat either. Nightmares always visit you at night and it looked like the accident destroyed your inner strength. You never played outside and didn’t come out of your room even if we came to visit you. We will always desperately listen to you crying by yourself, so Nana decided to take the risk to let you undergo extreme medications and therapies for possible recovery.” He grabbed the pen from my hand and faced it to me upside down, and I understood what he meant when he said Eric gave it to me – it was an ambigram of our name all along.

He wiped my tears with his hands and joined me unceasingly in facing my painful past.

Andy, he will never be just a skilful chef but a person that I will treasure forever just like now – this moment when he decided to face this inevitable truth with me without holding himself back from the pain of the memories, helping me to accept this huge blow of reality for my personal growth.