“The fourth container from the end. We had had a campfire here before we left for the sea. This was the first time I came here since that day. … From what I’d heard from JungKook, the others didn’t keep in touch with each other. No one updated me about TaeHyung, but nothing much would’ve changed. This container was the only place where TaeHyung could’ve taken shelter from his dad. I knew it but didn’t drop by. It was exhausting enough to go back and forth between the library and the gas station. It was the truth and an excuse at the same time. Deep down inside, I might have been avoiding TaeHyung. I couldn’t afford to confront TaeHyung, it was too emotionally exhausting.”
— NamJoon, 13 June Year 22. The Notes 1.
꩜
“I hadn’t been in touch with NamJoon since I saw him at the hospital. But I did pass by his container by the railroad one night several days ago. I was out in the street to get away from Dad and his drunken temper. I just blindly ran out, wandered around aimlessly, and saw the light on at the container. Someone was in there. It must’ve been NamJoon. I wanted to go in. But I couldn’t. I got closer and could hear a faint melody and snoring sound. I sat on the ground in front of the container and looked up at the sky. It was literally pitch black without any hint of stars.”
— TaeHyung, 10 July Year 22. The Notes 1.
꩜
“It’d been a while since the sun set, but the inside of the container was still hot. I spent every night here after I visited JungKook. … No one else had opened that door and stepped in here. Maybe no one ever would. All those who meet must part, without exception. It could’ve been our turn. But, if someone still felt the need for ‘us’ to be together, I wanted to send him a signal that I was here. I wanted to show him that ‘our’ hideout was still here and still lit.”
Timelines: 12 & 15 May Year 22 (Mother / Hospital)
“She wasn’t Mom. Maybe I knew that before I began chasing her. It’d been more than ten years since the day I was left alone in the amusement park. … Her face was almost completely erased from my memory.
JiMin was tagging along without a word. … When I asked him if he wanted to get out, he just kept hanging back, looking confused. Maybe JiMin was also bound within a web of memories like me. I took a step towards him. ‘JiMin, let’s get out of here.’”
— HoSeok, 12 May Year 22. The Notes 1.
✧ ✦ ✧
“I crossed over the line. Something inside me rolled and pitched as if I’d just leaped from one steep cliff to another. …
I pushed the door with all my might. Every cell of my body collided with the outside air. There was no oppressive sunlight or fierce wind like I had always imagined. I felt like crying. The sound of my heartbeat reverberated in all directions.”
“[HoSeok] had approached me like it was nothing and walked with me for two hours. I only realized a long while afterwards that our houses weren’t in the same direction. I couldn’t ask hyung why. I only hoped that those two hours with our shadows side by side, walking together under the sun, could stretch the day out just a little longer. … Our ice cream melted under the hot sun and the sound of cicadas stung my ears. Suddenly, I felt afraid. How many of these days could be left?”
— JiMin, 30 August Year 19. The Notes: Her. Translation cr. @origamifirefly tw.
꩜
“I looked back. JiMin was just tagging along without a word. He said he’d stayed at this hospital since high school, since I last saw him in the emergency room. When I asked him if he wanted to get out, he just kept hanging back, looking confused. Maybe JiMin was also bound within a web of memories like me. I took a step towards him. ‘JiMin, let’s get out of here.’”
“JungKook once told me, ‘I want to be just like you when I grow up.’ I couldn’t bring myself to confess that I was far from an adult, let alone an exemplary one. It seemed too brutal to crush his hope then. I couldn’t tell someone so young, someone who hadn’t been given the trust, support, and affection he deserved, that you don’t just become an adult by getting older and taller. I wish JungKook’s future would be kinder to him than mine was to me, but I couldn’t promise that I’d be of any help to him along the way.” — NamJoon, 22 May Year 22. The Notes 1.
“It was a deserted, unfinished building where construction had been halted. I tightrope-walked along the guard rail installed on the rooftop with my arms spread out. I stretched my foot out into the void, and the darkness began to permeate through my toes. … I felt dizzy and staggered. As I spread my arms out even wider to keep my balance, a thought came to me. Just one more step forward. That’s all it’d take to end this.”
“I didn’t clench my fist, but the wound on my palm began to hurt. The wound seemed deep but healed more quickly than I expected. It left a red scar. Sometimes it hurt intensely. Like I was being punished. Punished for all my wrongdoings. It hurt now.”
I stopped counting how many days I had been in the hospital. It’s something people do when they want to leave or when they have the hope of leaving. Looking at the trees and the grass outside the windows, people’s outfits, seems like it hadn’t been that much time. One month at most.
(~)
“After that day, I had a realization. A variable that could give YoonGi a reason to stop destroying himself. Someone who could share his scars and desires. That someone wasn’t me. ‘It’s not something you can do alone.’ I became painfully aware of the full meaning of those words I’d heard not long after this all started.
It was YoonGi who saved JungKook. The two had the same look in their eyes.”
