Chapter Text
He wakes up to blinding white walls, curtains, bandages.
It’s a jarring change – from the distant days of blinding orange, red, yellow. The clinical smell of sanitizer stings his nose the moment he wakes, like the pungent fumes of smoke.
Except; the air is clear. Only his mind remains cloudy, unaware of why he’s here, where he is, and why his palms and chest hurt like the supernova of a thousand suns.
The next two days pass at a snail’s pace, and he’s left with more questions than answers. He knows this, at least, from passing comments from the various nurses treating his wounds:
His name is Kim Taehyung, he is twenty-three, and he was in a coma for three days until he woke up.
The name feels foreign to him as he weighs it upon his tongue, mouthing it silently when the other patients in his ward are asleep. Today, he learns something new as he reads his patient details hanging on front of his bed.
Kim Taehyung, twenty-three, coma for three days… gas poisoning… Arson victim.
He sits back in bed, feeling the soreness of his raw skin under layers upon layers of bandage. The list of questions only get longer, as he repeats the phrase arson victim over and over again.
The doctor asks him about his wounds, the nurse gives condolences to his schoolmates, and he gets a letter from Canada from a certain Mr and Mrs Kim. He hardly says anything, just faint smiles and thank-yous to send them on their way so that they can attend to other patients in far worse condition than he is in. Taehyung would much rather to keep silent about his lack of understanding of everything, figuring out the events to come by himself once he gets discharged. He thinks he can keep up with the pretense, until on the third day, the day of his discharge, two police officers show up in his ward.
They ask for a witness to testify for the murder of forty-five students in Seoul National University in the arson incident he was involved in.
He smiles the usual Smile Of Dismissal, but they press on. They don’t go away. They want his contacts, address, email, full account, but this is the problem.
He doesn’t even remember a fire.
“Jiwoo, we need your help,” is the first thing she hears from her ex-boyfriend in years.
There is no caller ID, but Jeon Jiwoo doesn’t need any to identify the familiar timbre of his voice.
“Hello, Matthew. What could be so urgent that you finally decided to grace me with a call after our breakup over text in 2014?” It comes out sounding much more bitter than she intended it to be.
“Please, not now Jiwoo,” he pleads, and she’s this close to hanging up until he continues – “The Pucheon police department urgently needs a witness for an arson incident that happened last week,”
“You mean the university dorm fire?”
“Yeah, the first court dealings are scheduled for next week but right now we’re dealing with the murder of forty-five students, of which six of the corpses we found were burnt beyond identification. They’re still going under DNA processing, and the results won’t be back until next week. But according to night attendance by the campus security, forty-eight students were supposed to be in the building at that time.”
Jiwoo tries to comprehend the information overload in her mind. “That… doesn’t add up. Three people are missing, but according to the news all of the students were dead?”
“Apparently not. Two people are missing, and there’s one more.”
“Is he alive?”
“Yes, most thought he was dead but he woke up from his coma three days ago.” Matthew says, but she can hear his exasperation.
“Can’t he be the witness then?”
“You see, this is where we need you. He doesn’t recall a thing.”
Jiwoo processes the information, a part of her brain still numbly disappointed that this call wasn’t to reconcile or give closure to their shitty relationship. But there are more pressing issues,and she forces herself to stay focused.
“Amnesia?”
“I hoped not, but it looks like it. Today was the day of his discharge from the hospital and he’s staying overnight at the physiotherapy facility that you work at. Because, you know, his lodgings burned down and all.”
“I’ll see if I can schedule in a meeting with him tomorrow. But you know, you can’t overcome amnesia in a day or a week.”
“Yeah, but it’s urgent. Please do whatever you can… I believe in you.”
And for a second, she almost believes in those words, in the guy she used to trust when she was seventeen and out there making Bad Life Decisions.
“I’ll do what I can, but don’t expect anything…” Jiwoo says, the bitterness drained out of her voice, leaving the dregs of afterthought and regret – “… I think you believe in me too much.”