Seokjin
3 August YEAR 22

I opened the door to the warehouse classroom and stepped inside. It was a midsummer night, and there was a mix of mold and dust in the unfiltered air. Flashbacks crossed my mind momentarily. I started remembering the principal’s shining shoes, Namjoon’s expression from outside of the door, the day I ignored Hoseok and left alone. I felt achingly sick revisiting these memories. I was overwhelmed by complex emotions fueled by pain. It’s difficult to articulate, but these emotions weren’t anger nor fear. The signal was clear to me. I had to get out of this place.

Taehyung seemed to understand my cognitations. He reached out to hold onto my arm. “Hyung, try a little harder. Remember the things that happened here.” I removed Taehyung’s hand from me and turned away.

We had exhausted from walking for hours through the heat. Others had looked at me with a look of uncertainty, a look of not knowing what to say. Memories. What Taehyung had said about memories was meaningless: that I did that, that it happened to me. The stories of what we did together? It’s possible that they actually happened. I do believe they happened. However, memories and remembering are difficult things to understand. You can’t understand something by simply listening to it. Experience is something that’s deeply rooted within your mind, body, and soul. I perceive these memories as bad things. I dream of being able to run away from them.

Taehyung and I fought when he tried to stop me from leaving. But we were both exhausted. We grew tired of hitting and yelling. It felt like fighting in a hot, viscous liquid. Taehyung and I tripped over each other. This happened suddenly. My shoulder hit a wall and I lost my balance.

I couldn’t tell what happened at first. I couldn’t open my eyes or breathe through the heavy dust. Coughs bursted out relentlessly. “Are you okay?” someone asked. I realized I’d fallen after hearing that person. The moment I tried to stand, I noticed the vacant crumbling walls. No one moved. I felt at a loss for words. Someone said, “We spent so much time here. We couldn’t imagine a place beyond these walls. What is that?” As the dust settled, a cabinet in the vacant space came to our attention.

Namjoon opened it. I stood a footstep back. Namjoon picked a piece of paper up. My breathing ceased for a moment. The front of the page had an unexpected name on it. It was my father’s name. When Namjoon tried to flip the page over I took it from his hands. Namjoon seemed surprised, but he didn’t seem upset by my actions. I went through the bookshelf with trembling fingers and an old, crumbling note.

The notes were a compilation of my father’s handwritten diary. He recorded his experiences with his friends in high school. Every day wasn’t recorded. Sometimes he skipped a month. Blood stained some pages. I knew my father went through the same things I’ve had to. I know he made the same mistake I made. He tried to run to make up for his wrongdoings.

He wrote about his failures. I know my father eventually gave up. He forgot, ignored, and avoided his miseries. He lost his friends. He gave up on them. The final entry had a date, but the rest of the page was ruined with black ink. It bled through to the following blank pages. The stains seemed to announce my father’s failure.

I didn’t know how much time passed. All my senses were dullened. I felt a chilled breeze from the window. The darkest part of the day, the time before the sun rise, had arrived. My dongsaengs, including Namjoon, were sleeping. I looked up toward the ceiling. I remember seeing my dad’s name etched up there. When I catch sight of his name, I notice a sentence written below: “Everything started here.”

I felt something from my fingertips when I was about to close the diary. On top of the many words, in the spaces between the lines, were the things my father decided to forget. The color faded away, but the traces of how the pen was pressed against the paper remained. My father’s times of fear, hopelessness, and despair swirled around the pages. My father’s twisted map of soul was reflected within the diary.

When I closed the dairy I began to tear up. I looked at each of my friends. Maybe this was us coming back. Everything started here. I realized the meaning of being together and being able to laugh and feel joy together. My first mistake, the mistake that I’ve never been able to confess, felt like a scar.

I thought these things couldn’t be a coincidence. Eventually, I had to come here. I had to come here and realize my faults. I had to come back here and seek what was behind the pain and agony. I had to come back here and, for the first time, take a step closer to finding a map to my own soul.