Jimin/The Notes

**The Notes** by **Jimin**, written in the form of diary entries.

I walked out the entrance of the arboretum alone. The weather was cloudy and a bit cold, but it still felt good. Though it was picnic day, my parents were still busy. So, in the beginning, I was a bit sad. But in the flower drawing competition, I received a compliment, my friends' mums said that I was dependable. And so from then, I thought I was a bit cooler.

"Jimin-ah, wait here. The teacher will come soon." After the picnic, as we were to leave the arboretum, the teacher warned me but I did not wait. I was confident I could do it alone.

I grabbed onto the straps of my backpack tightly with both hands and I walked purposefully. It felt like everyone was staring at me so I straightened my shoulders more. This was a long time after the rain had started falling. My friends and their mums had already gone, there was nobody to look after me, and my legs hurt. I used my backpack to cover my head and I crouched down under a tree. The rain fell harder and there were no people that walked past. In the end, I ended up running through the rain. I could not see a house or shop. And the place I arrived at was the back entrance of the arboretum. The side gate was open, and I could see something like a storage space within it.

I stopped counting a few days after I was hospitalized. Counting was something you'd do when you wanted to get out. Counting was something you'd do when you thought there was hope of getting out. The trees and leaves, far off outside of the window, still looked like a colorful painting. Due to this observation, I knew not that much time had passed. At most, a little more than a month could have passed. The medicine made everything boring and dull. Even so, today was a special day. The kind of day you'd have to write about in a diary. But I didn't have a diary. I didn't want to have any problems to write about anyway. Today I lied for the first time. I looked into the doctor's eyes and pretended to be gloomy.

"I don't remember a thing."
 **28 September Year 20**@Smeraldo\_Books: Today I lied for the first time. I looked into the doctor's eyes and pretended to be gloomy.
"I don't remember a thing..

When I opened my eyes, I saw Hoseok standing above me. I looked up at the familiar ceiling in the darkness. I sat up and placed my index finger roughly onto his lips. Everyone was sleeping around us. It was quiet. Hyung put on his t-shirt. I then pointed outside the room with a finger.

Namjoon Hyung looked at the net, and Yoongi had said that he was holding time for the nurse. He said that he would join the elevator after a while. At first, I could not understand what I was talking about. The day I left the hospital, I had a dream. I wanted to go out of the hospital and meet with my friends and spend time laughing and chatting like we all used to.

But now I do not know. Is it a good thing to get out of this place? My parents treat me like they want to hide me in here. They are people who say I have mental illness. Hoseok Hyung might think so too. In the depths of my heart, I might have thought that it was hard to get along with a strange guy.

I do not have time to think. I was suspicious because of the knocking we heard on the door... The knocking was fast.

"Tuk-tuk tuk-tuk"

Hyung and I looked at the door at the same time and looked at each other. His hand remained on my arm.
 **15 May Year 22**@Smeraldo\_Books: "Run, Jimin-ah." We all started running. I was caught up in the excitement and ran with them. The snacks and plastic soda bottles flew into the air.

The stone house was in a very high area. Walking for a long time on the main street, winding down a narrow alley, I spotted the roof of Hoseok Hyung's house. I went into one of the rooms with Hoseok.

"You can see where we grew up from here," Hoseok said as we sat on the rooftop.

In the distance we could see the train station and the containers along the railway tracks. Namjoon Hyung was living in one of the containers. If we looked a little further into the distance we would find the school that we used to go to. I looked up at the school, turned my head and looked at the other side of the city. There were large apartment complexes along the mountains. It was our home, not our parents' house. I ran away from the hospital without saying anything.

I would have contacted my parents saying: "You may be looking for me by now."

I was not confident to face my parents yet. I left the hospital but could not go home. I never wanted to go back to the hospital, but there was no place to go and I had no money. I stood up and walked ahead with Hoseok Hyung.

"Don't follow me," Hoseok said. "I'm going to Hyung's place."

I opened my eyes and looked at the apartment complex again. One day I had to go there. I had to tell my parents that I would not go back to the hospital. The thought alone seemed to cause seizures. In fact, I could not believe myself if I could endure well in places other than hospitals. I can go back to the hospital again. But I was unbearably afraid.
 **19 May Year 22**

In the end, I had to go to the arboretum. I had to give up on the lies that I did not remember what had happened there. Hiding out in the hospital, having seizures; I had to stop all these things. And to do that, I had to go to that place. With that decision in my heart, I had come to this bus stop for days on end. But I had not been able to ride the shuttle bus to the arboretum.

Yoongi plopping down on the seat next to me was after three buses had already come and gone today. When I asked why he'd come, he said it was because he had nothing to do and was bored. And with that, he asked why I was sitting here like this. With a bowed head, I hit the ground with the edge of my shoe. I thought about why I was sitting here like this. It was because I had no courage. I wanted to pretend I was okay now, pretend to know something now, pretend that I was able to easily deal with such things now, but I was actually afraid. What I'd run into, whether I'd be able to bear it, if I wouldn't have a seizure again; I was afraid of all these things.

looked at ease. As if there was nothing in the world deserving to be rushed, he said that the weather was good, and other useless things. Only once I heard this did I realize that the weather really was good today. I had been so anxious that I had not been able to survey my surroundings. The sky was so blue. A warm breeze blew intermittently. And the shuttle bus to the arboretum was coming. The bus stopped and the door opened. The driver looked at me.

I impulsively asked.

"Hey. Can you come with me?"

In the end, I sprawled out on the floor. I turned off the music and all at once my surroundings were quiet. I heard nothing except the sound of my breathing and my own beating heart. I pulled out my phone and played the choreography video I learned previously that morning. In the video, Hoseok's movements were smooth and accurate. That was the result of countless hours and sweat. It was the result of practice. Since I was nowhere near that I was incredibly jealous. Understanding and hoping were different. I was discontented often. I suddenly stood up again. I imitated the turn as he'd done it, but my steps kept getting tangled. I kept making mistakes at the part where we had to match our flow when moving positions. We had decided to try again tomorrow, but until then I wanted to show that I was serious. Rather than the playful praise of "that was better than I expected" I wanted to be recognized as a serious and equal partner, one who could match breaths with Namjoon.
 **4 July Year 22**

By the time I returned to my senses, I had washed my arm so much that I was losing skin. My hands were trembling and I was short of breath. My eyes were bloodshot. What had just happened came back to me in fragments.

For a moment I had lost focus. I was dancing with a girl from the dance club, a collaborative dance, but I had lost my flow and we collided. I fell to the rough floor and my arm started to bleed. At that moment I had remembered what happened at the Flowering Arboretum. I thought that I had overcome it. But that wasn't the case. I had to run away. I had to wash it away. I had to look away. The me in the mirror was the same eight-year-old kid who had run away in the rain. Then all at once, I realized. She had fallen down too.

There was nothing I could do. All I could do was fall and hurt someone, leave them behind, and tremble at my own pain only to run after them too late with an umbrella before stopping. Every time I took a step rainwater soaked my sneakers. Car headlights pass me by. It wasn't okay. No, it was okay. It didn't hurt. It wasn't that serious of an injury.

I was really okay.

Already time to go... In fact, i was alone in the practice room the entire day. I crossed the street next door and waited 5 minutes to buy tea as a reward. I was able to practice completely alone, only my shortcomings seen by myself. It was scary. I wanted to do it anyway, so I stayed alone at night. So the day went by and the thought of dancing at the studio at night would've been scary disappeared.

For a long time, I believed that I was a small, weak, and helpless person. As I danced, I was constantly thinking about the weight of my body, the length of my limbs, the speed I could dance at, and the strength I had to have. I was not small and weak when I danced. My dancing ability increased as much as I practiced. If I repeated the action enough I would finally master it. I was growing up. It was as much as a fingernail, but it was still growing.

I also found that I was a pretty talkative person. When I danced, I felt like I was telling a story that I could not put into words. I started dancing and finally

I could see an improvement.