Seokjin/The Notes

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

I followed my father into the principal office, it had a damp smell. It had been 10 days since I had returned from America, I had to start a year lower because the education system is different.

"I am leaving him in your hands." My father said. I flinched unintentionally when he put his hands on my shoulders.

"School, in general, is a dangerous place, we need order and control." The principal said staring dead into my eyes. Every time he spoke, the fat around his wrinkly cheeks and area around his mouth would shake, and the inside of his black lips was dark red.

"Don't you think so as well?"

I was hesitating at the abrupt question and my father squeezed my shoulder harder. The strength caused shocks to go up and down the muscles of my neck.

"I trust that you'll do well."

The principal persistently continues to make eye contact and my father squeezes me tighter. He clenched his fists around my shoulders to the point that my bones felt like they would shatter. My body was shaking and dripping with cold sweat.

"You have to tell me right now. You have to be a good student for your dad." The principal told me with a straight face. "Yes." I squeezed out a response and the pain disappeared. I heard the laughter of my father and the principal. I couldn't raise my head. I could only see the brown shoes of my father and the principal's black shoes. I didn't know where the light was coming from but it twinkled. I was scared of that twinkle.

In the warehouse classroom I saw a pot on the window. I had no idea who had brought it, but it certainly looked like Hyung's. I pulled out my cellphone to take a picture. The classroom was dull since the electricity was off. The green grass outside contrasted painfully with the dark classroom and the dirty glass windows. I didn't get a good picture. It wasn't the cellphone's fault, though, because any camera could simply not see
things the same way our eyes could.

When I approached the pot, I lifted it and turned it upside down. It was a flower pot.
I caught the scent of figs. If one of my Hyung's bought this pot, I wouldn't be able to resist giving it a closer look. I noticed the window frame was covered in graffiti. So was the wall and the ceiling. Pass or die. People's names. Ineligible handwriting.

This classroom would not have been a warehouse from the beginning. Students would have cleared out at the end of every day and been in class again late afternoon. It was empty throughout the holidays, but students would have flocked the minute class started. At that time, there were students like us who were perceived and punished. We dropped out of classes. There were endless examinations and homework from that ruthless, violent teacher.

And there were people like me: People who talk to the principal about their friends. People who tell on their friends. I was wondering if my father's name was there. This was also my father's alma mater. My father was a man who believed that attending the same high school, same university, after his father gave dignity to the family tradition.

I skimmed through all the names on the wall and finally, I found his name. It was in the middle of the left wall, among several other names names.

Below that he'd written a short sentence: "Everything started here".
 **17 July Year 20**

As I stood at the entrance of the school, the sound of cicadas was stinging. The sports field was buzzing with children smiling, joking around, and running around competitively. The beginning of the summer holidays, everyone was terrifically buoyant. In the midst of them, I bowed my head and stepped past. I wanted to slink out of school quickly.

"Jin." Someone's shadow appeared. With a jump, I lifted my head. It was Hoseok and Jimin. Like always, shining their big and pure smiles and watching me with their mischievous, young eyes.

"It's holidays today, and you're just going to leave?" Hoseok spoke, dragging my arm. I agreed, saying a couple of meaningless phrases before turning my head back.

What had happened that day was definitely an accident. It had not been planned. I had not thought that at that time in the storage classroom, Jungkook and Yoongi would be there. The principal had a suspicion that I was defending my friends. He said that he could say that I wasn't a good student, I had let down my father. I had to say something. I spoke of that hideout because I thought it would be empty. But Yoongi had gotten expelled. Nobody knew that I was involved.

"Spend your holidays well, Jin! I'll call you." However he noticed my ignorance, Hoseok furtively lets go of my hand and said goodbye even more brightly. This time, too, I was not able to respond in any way. There was nothing I could say. As I came to the school gates, I remembered the first day at this school. We were late, and all were punished together. And so we were able to laugh.

I ruined those times.

With a screech, the car stopped. Having fallen into thought, I had not seen the traffic lights change. Students with familiar uniforms stared at me through the car window as they crossed the road. There were even people pointing at me. I gave a strained smile as I drooped my head.

I knew what I had to do. But that did not mean I was not afraid. Would I truly be able to end all this misfortune and pain? Don't repeated failures mean there can never be a success? Shouldn't I be giving up? Isn't our happiness only a vain hope? So many thoughts came and left.

Without realizing, I had reached the road of the petrol station and I could see Namjoon working there. I drank a deep breath in before exhaling slowly. I thought of Yoongi, Hoseok, Jimin, Taehyung, Namjoon and Jungkook's faces, one at a time. And with that, I changed lanes and entered the petrol station. I could not give up. Even if there was only a 1% chance, I would not give up.

Over my window, I could see Namjoon come closer.
 **11 April Year 22**

The current plot of the webtoon circles in this date. Seokjin first opened his eyes on April 11, but he was watching the events of May 22. At that time, Seokjin saw Taehyung standing alone on the beach observatory where Taehyung looked down at his friends and jumped from the observatory. It was April 11th when Seokjin opened his eyes again. The same loop appears in the first or second chapter of the webtoon Save Me. Seokjin continues to suffer from meeting Namjoon at a gas station, Jungkook falling out of a building, and Taehyung being taken by the police for the murder of his father. However, Seokjin continues to fail to stop the same situation from being looped.

Back then, after returning from the sea we were all alone. We didn't keep in touch as if we had specifically planned not to. We merely assumed our existence by the graffiti left on the street, the brightly lit petrol station, and the piano sound from the old building. This was when the afterimage of that night came alive like a vision. Taehyung's eyes looked as if they breathed fire, the way his eyes watched me as if he had heard something unbelievable. Namjoon's hand tried to stop him, and I, who couldn't suppress it, threw a punch at Taehyung.

Failing to find Taehyung, who ran out, I returned to the dorm near the beach. No one was there. Only a broken glass cup, blood stains, which began to dry up, and cookie crumbs brought me back to what had happened a few hours ago. There was a photo lying in the midst of this. In the photo, we stood together smiling while we posed with the sea as our background.

I continued to walk past the front of the petrol station. The day when we would meet again would come. Someday we'd smile together just like in the photo. The day when I had the courage to face myself entirely would come. However, right then, that very moment was not the right time. The damp wind blew similar to how it did that day. My phone began to ring as if in warning. The photos I hung on the room mirror began to shake. I saw Hoseok's name on the screen.

"Jin, Jungkook was hit by a car."
 **11 July Year 22****Highlight Reel**: Seokjin picks up a notebook that a woman dropped. |  | **3 August Year 22**

The same things I had. He had made mistakes and blunders just like I had, and had run and run to try to make up for them. My father's notebook was a record of his failures. In the end, my father had given up and failed. He had forgotten and turned away and ignored. He had betrayed his friends.

On the last page of the notebook were nothing but smeared black and stains. The stains had permeated to the blank next page, and the next, and the one after that, all the way to the very last. Those stains announced my father's failures. I was unsure how much time had passed seeing how the wind from beyond the windows had become cool, it seems like the darkest time of day, at the time right before the sun rises. Namjoon and the others were asleep where they had sat down.

I lifted my head and looked up at the wall. Somewhere here I had seen my father's name written before. Underneath had been written a sentence like, "This was where everything started." The moment that I started to close the notebook, a sensation started at the end of my fingertips and moved up my arm. I saw faint letters appear atop the smeared ink stain. From beyond the window I felt a murky kind of energy. It seems like the sun would rise soon. But the night was not out yet over. It was a time when it was no longer night, but not yet dawn. Like the tangling of darkness and greyish light. Letters merged between the lines in the black spot.

The notebook held more memories than what was recorded. Atop the letters, between the margins and the empty spaces were the things my father I decided to forget, things he decided not to remember. Like the indentations of writing left behind once the colour has faded, beneath my fingertips whirled my fathers many struggles and fears, the despair he couldn't overcome and his weak hopes. The map of my fathers bent soul was right here in this note. As I closed the notebook, tears began to fall. I sat for a long time, and when I lifted my head my friends were still asleep as ever. I looked at each one of them. Maybe we had been meant to come back to this place.

Everything started here for us. I came to understand the meaning of doing something together and the delight of laughing together. My first blunder, the mistake I had never once acknowledged aloud, remained like a wound. The thought occurred to me that maybe none of this was by chance. Maybe I had to come to this place in the end. Only then I could I find the meaning of my mistakes and blunders, and the pain and anxiety that we suffered as a result.

I was, for the first time, able to take the first step to find the map of my soul.
 **15 August Year 22**

I didn't know that there will come a time when I will be able to get out of the traffic jam at the intersection and speed up my car. A rear car passed carefully, and I felt someone had said something but didn't hear a thing. I saw a small flower garden to a right alley corner, but I didn't stop. Rather? It felt like I found the store after a sudden stop. I was not expecting anything when the owner, who was fixing some documents, approached me. I have already gone to a few flower shops, but the florists did not even know the color. They showed flowers of the same color, but I wanted that flower only. So I told the owner its name and they looked at me for a long time. The shop wasn't open yet so I asked if I could have it delivered instead.

"Why that specific flower?"

As I turned the steering wheel, I thought of entering the store again. Why do I need the flower? I can't think of a reason. I want to make you happy and make you smile. I want to see you with a good expression on your face. I want to become a good person.

Who would be able to remember the moment love begins. Who would be able to predict the moment when love ends. Why might it be that humans are not given the ability to perceive such moments? And why is it that I have been given the ability to restore everything to the way it had been.

The car suddenly stopped, the headlights flashed, crashed her. She was thrown up, and she fell. Facing all of those disturbing moments, all I did was stand there, defenseless. I could not hear anything and I could not feel anything. Though it was summer, the wind felt cold. Following the road, there was a sound of something rolling away and falling. And then, the smell of flowers. Only then was I able to come back even a little to reality. The Smeraldo bunch of flowers dropped limply from my hands. She was in the middle of the road. From between her hair, blood was running down. Dark blood trickled down the road.

And I thought. If only I could turn back time.
 **30 August Year 22**

She seemed flustered, looking at the diary she thought had been lost. The movies she liked. Places she wanted to go, flowers she preferred. And futures that she dreamed of papered every time she turned the page. It was something I had done for her. The words "I'm sorry" didn't come easily. The red diary lay between us like a traffic light.

I wanted to make her happy. I wanted to make her laugh. I wanted to be a good person. I thought that if I followed the words written in the diary, I would become so. But it wasn't so. I become more frightened the more I tried to be someone else. Wouldn't my real self be discovered? Wouldn't she be disappointed and leave me? I frantically hid myself and turned my head away. But just as one can't put a period on a sentence without a subject. The me who had lost myself could not improve and instead wandered in the same place.

I know now, that the insufficient me who makes mistakes and fails is indeed part of myself. No matter how cruel and merciless things are, only being true to myself can I take the next step forward. I stood up from my spot and she didn't try to grab me.

I went out to the street and took off my hat. I swept my hair back. All the time I had spent trying so hard to be someone else seemed to slip though my fingers. I lifted my head and locked eyes with the me reflected in the window. A frail face, pale lips, thin shoulders. I looked endlessly shabby. I laughed. The me in the window laughed too.