Spotless Mind

2.7k, angst, warning: word vomit. from the movie eternal sunshine of the spotless mind
the tense changes a lot, and sometimes bomi & chanyeol uses different tense in their thoughs and dialogue - it's intentional

As he stares, the video starts, and the view of the room he’s currently at fills the screen. The white wall in the background, the shimmering sun light peeking from the big windows on the side. Someone behind the camera fixes its position, and his breath hitches when she comes into the view, sitting on – he swallows and glances down with a realization – the same couch he’s sitting at right now. Her hair’s a light shade of brown, falling to her shoulders,she’s wearing a simple peach-colored blouse and make-up. She still looks beautiful in his eyes, and the memories of why he thought she’s more than beautiful invades his mind.

“Is this really necessary?”

He startles at the sound of her voice, coming from the speaker, and his mind focuses back to the video’s playing in front of him. She doesn’t look at the camera, instead, she looks at someone, presumably someone who sits behind the desk. Dr. Kim, he thinks.

His thought is confirmed when Dr. Kim’s voice answers her question, “Yes, it is. To prove that you really want this, that it is you who come to us. At some cases, the family, or even the subject themselves, they don’t believe us and we have to show them the videos, to remind them why they want to do this in the first place.”

She keeps quiet before she nods. “Fair enough.” She looks down to the ground, still not raising her gaze to the camera. He can tell she’s gathering her will. He knows her habits too well.

Finally she raises her head and stares at him ­– at the camera. “I’m ready.”

“… Alright,” Mr. Kim says, “Would you tell us why you want to go through the procedure of erasing your memory, Miss Yoon Bomi?”

---------

“I never thought that I will be… this person,” Bomi starts, her thoughts spinning around in her mind and she’s not sure what to say. There are a lot of things she wants to tell, a lot of things she wants him to know, and she feels too much and nothing at the same time, now she just feels sick and kinds of want to vomit.

“I thought… I always thought, that everything that happened is something that you need to treasure, the good things, the bad things. That it’s okay, that at the end of the day, even if it ends, you still have the happy memories. I thought that… at least I was happy.” There’s a brief memory of laughter. His laughter. It pains her, and it shows in her face with a crease between her eyes. “… We were happy.”

When Bomi doesn’t continue, Dr. Kim has to ask. “Then, what happened? Why do you change your mind?”

“What happened…,” Bomi blinks, eyes no longer focused on the camera. There’s a sorrow look on her eyes. “… I’m being forgotten, that’s what happened.”

---------

“I thought I had fallen in love before, but when I fall in love with him, I realized that I didn’t know love,” there’s a faint smile grazing her lips. Somehow it suffocates him, the images of her younger self, bright and full of excitement at everything. The young girl he fell in love with.

“It happened so fast, and I fall so hard, it’s ridiculous. Even though we only started to get to know each other when we began to date, I already knew back then, that he’s the man I want to be with for the rest of my life.” The smile tightens, obviously tainted with the bitter truth of what happened.

“I was so, so happy. He made me so happy, I thought it’s impossible that he would hurt me, that I would hurt him. But it’s a relationship, so I knew, eventually, we’d hurt each other. I just didn’t think– I never thought that it would be… this hurt. I guess I flew so high, it hurt more when I fell back.”

The fights, he remembers them.

He remembers her childishness, her charm that entranced him, but also one of the reasons of their petty arguments. She’s lovely, with her surprises and her admiration for him, but she also drove him mad, clingy and demanding even when he’s tired and needed time for himself.

She wanted him to care, he needed her to understand.

“It’s been… almost four years, since we officially broke up. We still, huh, kept in contact until a year and a half ago? But, even until now, I still don’t understand…” Her voice drifts off again, and she scrunches up her nose in a way that he knows, she’s holding back her emotion. She wipes her nose once, now staring at the ceiling. “… I still don’t know why he broke up with me.”

“He said it’s for the best, that I knew it too, but, honestly, I don’t?” There’s a shaky laugh, but then she rubs her eyes. “Where’s the best in it? Maybe he meant it’s the best for him, cause I definitely don’t—” A sharp inhale of breath. “Every time I try to think about it, I just end up thinking, what did I do? What went wrong? Why he’s so scared of trying? Why he didn’t try to fight? Was I… Am I not good enough?” She’s not crying – but the tears keep on falling down, as if on automatic. It’s heart-wrenching to look at.

“He said he loves me, but if he loves me, then why? I guess he thought he’s protecting me by not saying the real reason, but it hurt me more, and I keep on thinking why? Why?”

He never expected that it would hurt him to see her breaks down, even though it’s only through a computer screen.

He had never seen her falls apart like this.

And it’s because of him.

There’s silence, both in the room where he’s at right now, and in the room on the monitor. A hand, Dr. Kim’s, pushes a box of tissue to her direction, and she takes two pieces with a small mumble of thank you.

“Take your time,” Dr. Kim on the recording says, voice low and soothing. “We can take a break if you want.”

“No,” she tells him, taking a hard wipe across her face with the tissues and grips them in her fist after. “I need to—I want to get it done as fast as possible.”

“… You said you change your mind because you’re being forgotten.”

Her cheeks glisten with dry tears, but her words are no longer shaky when she answers. “… Yes.”

---------

“We live in the same city and we share the same favorite restaurants and cafes. Bumping into him will happen sooner or later,” Bomi continues, and she tightens her fist which holds the tissues. She wasn’t ready to see him again – they hadn’t meet for months. “I was just finished my lunch break, and he’s about to have his. We met, like that.”

Bomi hadn’t seen him in months, and he was chubbier, his cheeks rounder, and hair shorter than what she remembered. But he’s still the same person, tall and long legs, his eyes were still as wide as before when he saw her, and his plump lips still parted in a comical way that she always teased about.

“… We exchanged greetings, and he asked me about…,” Bomi stops mid-sentence. “Actually, I don’t remember what he asked me. Because… I saw his finger. And there’s a ring. An engagement ring.”

---------

He clenches his fists; the cold metal of his ring’s burning his skin. He remembers that day, too.

The way Bomi’s eyes glanced down to his hand, and how all colors seemed to leave her face.

The urge he had to hide his hand behind his back, and to apologize – for nothing, yet at the same thing, for everything.

He didn’t.

“He moves on,” Bomi on the screen says, now staring at the camera again, at him, and he’s the one who can’t bear to look at her eyes any longer – he looks down. At his engagement ring.

“He moves on,” she repeats. “He forgets me. And it’s...”

“… It hurts. They say time heals, but it doesn’t, and it’s been years since we broke up, I should have move on by now. It shouldn’t matter that he… loves… another woman… yet it does. It hurts, and I… don’t want to feel like this anymore.”

“I want to forget too.”

The way Bomi says it, so blunt, so raw, it stings, somewhere in his heart. He doesn’t – forget her.

He remembers her, he remembers them.

“I don’t want to remember. I don’t care, those happy memories, I rather don’t have them at all. I don’t want them. If it means that it won’t hurt like this, I’m fine with being never happy.”

He sees Bomi on the screen straightens her back, she already made up her mind, and it already happened, yet he finds himself wishing she didn’t.

“Dr. Kim, you have my full consent with going on with the procedure of erasing my memory.” Bomi doesn’t even stop to blink before she continues. “I want to erase Park Chanyeol from my memory.”

***

Chanyeol curls his fingers around a paper cup of coffee from his favorite café, thankful for its warmth for his freezing fingers but also cursing himself for forgetting his gloves in this cold day in mid-December. His fiancée had reminded him this morning, but Chanyeol in the morning is a messy Chanyeol and he searched for his socks while trying to swallow down his toast that he hadn’t remember the gloves she prepared on the bedside table.

He’s about to leave, balancing the coffee on one hand and a muffin on the other while his briefcase clamped in his right armpit, and when he turns around, he only gets to see a bright blonde hair before he almost topples down over the person.

“Whoops!” he hears, and his brain short-circuits.

He knows that voice.

The coffee is no longer sending warmth to his fingers – it’s icy cold to his toes.

“Woaa, there!” She stands straight, taking a step back, and she holds Chanyeol’s muffin in her hand. “Ha! I save your muffin!” She says with a childish proud, a smug look on her face, a look he always thought as ridiculously endearing – thinks.

Chanyeol stares down, doesn’t even realize his briefcase is on the floor, or how his coffee was spilled on the floor.

Because it’s her, in front of him, and she’s blonde.

Flashes of memories from years ago, of how she said she wants to dyed her hair blonde but Chanyeol didn’t agree because he’s a little bit conservative like that.

“Oh, but your coffee…” She looks to the paper cup on Chanyeol’s hand, almost empty now. She looks back up at him, staring, so innocently, as if he’s no one, as if she doesn’t remember—

It hits Chanyeol like a punch in his gut.

She doesn’t remember.

Flashes of memories, fresher, just a couple of weeks ago – a memory of when he visited a two-storey building after his conversation with Eunji, her best friend.

It sounded unreal to him, the doctor’s explanation, what they do. Erasing someone’s memory, completely wipe out years of someone’s existence from their patient’s life. The doctor had shown him the video, a recording of her asking for the procedure herself, and the doctor told him that he should respect her decision and not try to make her remember him.

Because she wants to forget.

They met a little bit over two months ago, he’s entering the restaurant to start his lunch break, she’s walking out after having hers. That’s when she knew he’s engaged.

They met again, a couple of weeks back, at the same road as the previous one, this same road that has their favorite restaurant and their favorite café.

She was with Eunji, and it’s heart-warming how the two are still friends after years. Chanyeol hesitated to greet them – considering the last time he met her, she left without saying goodbye right after Chanyeol admitted he has a fiancée – but then Eunji saw him.

He smiled, waving his hand.

What he didn’t expect was for Eunji’s eyes to widened seeing him, and for her to turn around on the very next second, pulling her away from Chanyeol.

“Wha—Eunji? Eunji!” he called her, but Eunji didn’t even look back, she fastened her steps, dragging her along. “Eunji!”

This time, she heard him as she looked over her shoulder. She pulled Eunji back, stopping her, and she said something that made Eunji shake her head fervently. Before Eunji could pull her to walk again, Chanyeol caught up with them.

“Hey,” he said, looking back and forth between her and Eunji. “Eunji, what was that—”

“I’m sorry,” Eunji cut him off, “I think you’re mistaken. I don’t know you.”

“What? Eunji, what are you—” He glanced at her, and the look on her eyes raised red flags on his head. Because there’s nothing there, there’s no fondness like when they dated, not even hurtful and betrayed like after they broke up. There was — nothing.

Like he was nothing for her.

What she said next made no sense for him. “Eunji-yah, you know him?” she asked her best friend, and Eunji didn’t even think about it before she shook her head. “Maybe your old classmates…”

“No, I think he just mistook me for someone else. I’m sorry, but we need to go,” Eunji said, and she glared at him, sending a warning look with her eyes, quickly pulled her to walk again.

She threw him a curious look but followed after Eunji anyway, leaving a speechless Chanyeol behind.

It took a while until he got Eunji’s number and he called her, asking for explanation.

At least Eunji remembers him, and she only pretended in front of her.

She still wants to dye her hair blonde, she still likes the same café, but without Chanyeol in her memory, she doesn’t need to think twice to dye her hair, she has no reason to avoid their favorite café.

She looks… free.

“There’s something… on my face?” She raises her eyebrows, mistaking Chanyeol’s quietness.

Chanyeol forces himself to smile. “… No, nothing. Thank you.” He nods to her, taking back his muffin from her hand and picks up his briefcase. His fingers are trembling.

“Hey, this may sound weird but…” She tilts her head to the side, narrowing her eyes a little. “Do I know you from somewhere? You look… familiar.”

His stomach drops at the sentence.

There’s a burst of hope, of maybes and what ifs, but then he remembers Eunji’s warning to ‘stay the away from her, you’ve done enough damage’ and he remembers her voice, so determined, ‘I want to erase Park Chanyeol from my memory.’

Chanyeol swallows, not sure of what to say.

“Ah! I know!” She bounces a little at her heels. “You’re the guy who mistook Eunji as your friend, aren’t you! It’s you! Ha, I know I have a good memory.”

The irony.

Chanyeol feels like burying his head under his pillow, covering himself with the blanket, and forget the world.

“It’s hard to forget a cute guy after all,” she sends a wink to him, flirtatious, and Chanyeol thinks fate is cruel – that she’s still the same person, she still thinks he’s good looking.

She doesn’t notice the ring on his finger this time.

She doesn’t remember him, and it means they can start over from the beginning, fixing everything that’s wrong, a second chance for them.

But he remembers, he remembers the way they love and the way they burn.

Once is enough, and even though Chanyeol knows he will never love someone else like he loves her, at least he won’t burn like he did before.

It’s better this way, it’s for the best.

She’s still staring at him, hopeful.

Chanyeol musters all energy to smile, just one last time, as he tells her, “… Thank you.” He bows, after, leaving the café without looking back, afraid that he’ll change his mind if he looks at her eyes any longer.

She can forget him, them, and he will be the one who holds the memories for two, so they won’t burn again – and again, and again, and again…

Would you be that kind of person?