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"Can you remember anything else, Jungkook?"
The ceiling was white. Not just any white, but an extremely clean and pure white, as if it had just been painted. There were no cobwebs, no scratches, no imperfections. It was completely different from his mind. So Jungkook preferred to keep his eyes open when he was lying on the couch.
Unlike the ceiling, his mind was not blank. The first time he had to describe to the psychoanalyst, Jungkook had used the word mist. It was as if a mist covered everything Jungkook needed to know to understand why he had woken up in a hospital bed, with two broken ribs and a broken leg, with a concussion, and his memory erased. Somehow, he knew that everything was still there, scratched, covered by the imperfections, clinging to the cobwebs. Jungkook only needed to make some repairs, or paint all over again, as the doctor had suggested.
But Jungkook was afraid. What if he decided to forget what lay beneath all that mist? What would happen if there was a leak? How would he deal with problems at the foundation if they were all covered by someone blindfolded like he felt he was? What if the problem were impossible to correct even by passing another coat of paint?
As he had explained the first time, his mind was not a blank canvas, but a house built by all the experiences he had ever lived. He could see some details, like the quick, diffused lighting caused by the reflection of the sunlight in the ocean, or the fragment of a perfectly framed smile. He could taste the salt, the loss, and the pure joy as if they were spices from a dish that used to be his favorite. Jungkook could still feel the barbs left by a chuckle in his heart. But above all this, there was a detail in all the lost structure, hidden by the mist, that Jungkook did not want to erase. A part of his past that still seemed unfinished.
"No," Jungkook replied, perhaps for the thousandth time since he had awakened from the coma caused by the accident. "But I think I can hum more than half of my song now."
His song. That was how Jungkook thought of the melody in his mind when he was too distracted to notice that he was humming. It was the first thing in his mind when he'd woken up in the hospital, and somehow he felt it was the last thing on his mind when he had the accident. Even though Jungkook could only remember the song enough to hum two-thirds of it, it felt as if it belonged to him, as if someone had made it to him while they had him on their mind.
"What happens if you remember the whole song?"
It was madness, he knew, to hold on to that song when he needed to remember so many other things, but Jungkook felt that when he remembered that, whatever was hidden under the mist in his mind would be revealed, and he would be a house again. He didn't even know if the house he had built in his mind, which now stood for who he was, was whole, or well built, or even a house. But he wanted to know. He needed to know.
From the moment the psychoanalyst first suggested that Jungkook should perhaps return to a normal life and give his mind some time to recover, Jungkook knew he could not do that. Whoever he was, whatever he did before the accident was too important to be forgotten.
He had met many people in the hospital who wished they had woken up with their memory erased, with a mist in the place of who they were; people who wanted a blank canvas instead of the poorly made paint they had built during their lives. Jungkook had thought a lot about it. What if, before the accident, he also wanted to erase everything he had lived? What if who he was, what he had built, was just a distorted painting, a house about to collapse?
Even considering all these possibilities, Jungkook still wanted to know what would need to be rebuilt. He wanted to understand who he was to decide for himself if he should just start from scratch. As much as he feared the result of regaining his memory, Jungkook wanted to have a choice about his own destiny, and to have a mist on his past was not the choice that he thought was best.
"What happens if you don't remember the whole song?"
Of all the possibilities he had imagined, of all the options he had discussed with the psychoanalyst and the other people he had met in the hospital, that was what most frightened him. What would he do if he could not remember? What would happen if, even looking under the mist and scratching the hidden walls, he could not see what he had built? Who would he be then? Would he be able to simply start painting again, building walls and foundations on an unfamiliar ground? Or would he be forever trapped in that mist, searching for all that he had lost?
Once more, Jungkook looked at the ceiling of the consulting room. The ceiling was white, perfectly built upon a firm foundation on a ground chosen for that purpose. Again, Jungkook wished his mind was like that ceiling.
***
"Good Morning!"
Jungkook looked away from the drawing he was doing at the sound of his manager's voice. He did not even bother to take a look at what he had just scribbled on the paper, he just put the notebook face down on the bed, paying attention to the man who had just entered his room.
"I've heard your leg is almost good and that you can get out of here soon," the manager said, placing two boxes on the nightstand and some flowers on the boy's lap. "We're ready for your return."
The smile on the man's face made it clear that he expected Jungkook to think this was good news, but it was impossible for Jungkook to smile and be glad to be ready to leave the hospital. Yes, he still had some memories of who he was, and he knew he was a singer, but Jungkook was not yet ready to devote himself to music again as that melody that no one recognized played on his mind.
"We need to assure the fans that you're recovering and that you'll be back soon, Jungkook," the manager said, losing his smile at the boy's disheveled face. "I know it's hard to sing and dance again after such an accident, but you'll do well. You were born for it."
That was the manager's favorite line. Every time he went to visit Jungkook in the hospital he would say the same thing, "You'll do well. You were born for it." Jungkook was not sure if he had been born for that yet.
He could remember some of the songs he listened to on the radio and that people recognized as his own, but he did not feel the same uneasiness for those as he could feel for the one he could only hum.
Sighing, he picked up the notebook he'd been drawing on and frowned at the sketch. What was that? Why had he scrawled a face? In fact, what Jungkook could not understand was that he had not just drawn someone's face, he had drawn several expressions of a person, one over the other, preventing him from identifying the owner of that face.
He called the manager, who was distracted by his cell phone. When the manager looked at him, Jungkook showed the sketch.
"Do you know who this is?"
For a second, when the manager looked at Jungkook's notebook, the boy thought he saw an air of recognition on the manager's face, but it was so fast that Jungkook thought he was imagining things. He wanted someone to recognize the person in the drawing, so he was very disappointed when the manager simply denied it and looked back at the phone, casually asking why he wanted to know who the person was and if they were someone important.
"I don't know," Jungkook sighed, looking back at the sketch. "I can't remember."
"If you can't remember," the manager commented, catching Jungkook's attention, "it's not anyone important."
Jungkook snorted but did not look at the drawing, putting it upside down again on the bed. He looked out the window, into the clear, pale blue sky. He did not say anything, but in his mind, the question was clear: if it wasn't anyone important, why had he drawn it?
Silence reigned in the room again, almost like when he was alone trying to force his mind to remember everything it had erased. The only difference was the noise coming from the manager's cell phone.
A little annoyed by the repetitive and invading sounds, Jungkook turned to the manager, "Why did you come here anyway? Just to tell me I'll be discharged soon? I already knew it."
"Not really," the manager replied, blocking the cell phone screen and placing the object in his back pocket. Then he stood up and went to the window, blocking Jungkook's view of the blue sky. "We're getting the deadline tight," the manager explained. "Before the accident, you were about to release a new album. Now we need you to come back soon so we can release it. Even if you don't have any dancing in your performances, you need to go back to the spotlight."
This was not what Jungkook expected, but he was not surprised. Somehow, that demand sounded familiar to him. The urgency of preparing a new song, the need to re-appear in public, the impatience of his label, it all seemed to have happened many times before, even though Jungkook could not remember exactly how or when they happened.
Again the young man sighed, but this time he simply lay down and closed his eyes. He felt that arguing would be useless, but he did not want to accept it right away, saying he would do it all when he was ready.
It was the manager's turn to snort, which made Jungkook open his eyes and look at him with a frown.
"We're not discussing the possibility, Jungkook," the man said, putting his hands on his waist in a dictating pose. "You need to come back, no arguing. You've spent too much time procrastinating."
"Procrastinating?" Jungkook exasperated, sitting up once more to face the manager. "You think I'm kidding? You think I wanted to be here?"
"That's not what I said..."
"Whatever," Jungkook grunted, leaning down on the bed, picking up the sketchbook and turning the page. "It's not like it matters to you."
"I don't…"
Before the manager could say anything else, a nurse opened the door. She stopped and watched them both, obviously noticing the state of tension between them. "Sorry," she said cautiously, "it's time for your medicine."
Without looking again at the manager, Jungkook offered a friendly smile to the nurse who had nothing to do with his discussion with the manager. "Come in," he said, "He was already leaving."
That said, the nurse looked at the manager, but did as the boy said. As she prepared the medication, Jungkook watched the manager leave the room.
He was tired of sighing simply because he had no answers to everything that was happening to him, but that was all he could do. Then he began to pay attention to the nurse as she placed the IV in his arm.
Once more the room was silent, only broken by the nurse arranging things on the aluminum tray. Jungkook took the sketchbook and began to scribble, but then he stopped and turned the page again to see the drawing of the unknown face.
Before the nurse left, he dared to ask, "Do you know if anyone else came to visit me?"
Tilting her head, the woman looked out of the room, as if looking for someone, and then looked at Jungkook again. "You mean someone other than your manager?"
Jungkook simply nodded, giving a friendly smile again, wishing it would bring the answer he wanted to the nurse's lips. But he was disappointed once more.
"I'm sorry," the woman said, moving uncomfortably on her feet, "only the people from your record label came to see you."
He did not even bother to thank her, for it was clear he had been saddened by her response. But maybe not all was lost, because just before leaving, the nurse added, "and some fans, of course."
Even without having the chance to ask who the fans were, Jungkook knew that was not true. No fan would know he was there, and no fan would be allowed on the hospital premises. It meant that someone had come to visit him, someone who was not from the label and who was not really his fan either. Jungkook only needed to find out who it was, and whether that person was the same as the one he had drawn.
***
It was not long before Jungkook discovered that his record label was giving more orders than simply asking for his treatment to go faster. He tried to ask the nurses and the doctors if they knew who the fans were that had come to visit him, but none of them even tried to remember. They didn't seem to mind the apparent despair of the young patient.
Fortunately, one of the friends he had made during his hospital stay, Kim Taehyung, noted how much he wanted to find out the truth and put an end to Jungkook's despair.
"That's a bad idea," Jungkook whispered as he and Taehyung moved quietly from their rooms to the reception, trying to sneak into the blind spots of the cameras.
"That's a great idea," the other one replied, "and you know it."
"I just know that's the only idea left," Jungkook replied, taking a smile from his friend.
When Taehyung suggested that they look at the visitor's records, Jungkook cheered up a bit. Even when visitors could not enter the hospital to see patients, they had to leave their names in a book. Apparently, it was very important to keep all the records.
But when night fell and Taehyung appeared at his door to "start the mission," Jungkook noted that it would be much harder than he had imagined. Not only because the nurses and security at the reception had access to the cameras, but also because he still couldn't move freely with the foot that was not completely healed.
The problem was that he had no idea how to find out who had tried to visit him, and that seemed very important. Although he didn't think he could name the person when he read it, at least he would have a clue that he could research when he left.
When they reached the end of the corridor that would lead them to the visitor's book, Taehyung made the combined signal to tell Jungkook to lie quietly against the wall and then ran off.
"Help!" He shouted as he nodded to the nurses, who stood up immediately upon seeing him. "Please, I need help!"
"What happened?" Jungkook heard one of the nurses ask.
"Someone invaded the hospital," Taehyung's voice sounded drowned as if he was having trouble breathing for running up there. "They jumped in through my bedroom window."
Jungkook couldn't help smiling. It had been the best excuse they could ever invent. It would be a plausible story if someone believed it. Taehyung's room was on the ground floor, which left his window a few inches off the ground, moreover, it seemed to be the only hospital Jungkook knew that there were no bars in the windows. The probability of an invasion would be great if the hospital didn't have a great security system. So Jungkook had thought no one would believe, but Taehyung made everything sound so pertinent that he finally accepted the madness.
And it looked as if the older patient was really capable of convincing everyone because it wasn't long before Taehyung managed to get the two nurses and the security man at the desk and make everyone run to his room. They passed so fast through Jungkook squeezed against the wall that they didn't even notice him standing there.
As soon as he was alone, Jungkook hurried to the front desk and searched for the book, which was not so hidden, since everyone had to have access to it. The visitor's book was well above the counter, next to one of the monitors with the cameras.
Again, Jungkook smiled. This was very convenient since he had to monitor the progress of Taehyung's plans and see if anyone was coming back.
Without any care, since he was in a hurry, Jungkook opened the book. He noted that it was a simple log book, with date, visitor name, and patient name. Soon, he began to look for his own name in the patient column. He found several records of his manager, some of the owner of his record label and his secretary.
He was almost losing his hopes as he approached the day he was admitted to the hospital after the accident, when he came across new names, such as his friends who were still trainees and other singers and dancers, and a special name that caught his attention, as if it were written in bold on the sheet.
Of course, it was his imagination, for all the names were written in the same way, with the same blue pen ink. But the name he saw made him feel a familiarity that tore through his stomach as if he had a flock of butterflies flying inside him.
In the next instant, Jungkook heard voices. His time was up.
He closed the book quickly and ran, or limped off quickly, down the hall from where he had come, entering the first door he found. He just left after seeing the two nurses and the security man coming back to the reception, complaining that they had to leave their posts because of a Taehyung joke once again.
Another smile broke out on Jungkook's face as he imagined his new friend had done things like that before.
After sneaking through the corridors once more, Jungkook was able to return to his room, where Taehyung was sitting on the bed waiting for him.
"So," The other patient asked, "Did you find what you wanted?"
Sitting on the bed to put his aching foot up, Jungkook shrugged.
"What does that mean?" Taehyung asked with a frown. "Did you find it or not?"
"I saw some names I recognized as people from the label," Jungkook replied, "and a name I don't know who it is, but it seemed familiar to me."
"That's good, it may be the name you're looking for," Taehyung cheered, "What was the name?"
Glancing at the sketch he had left on the bedside table, Jungkook answered in a whisper, "Min Yoongi."
***
The next day, when Jungkook's manager came to visit him again, he was accompanied by the owner of the label. The young singer knew that this could only mean that they would talk about the next steps that would follow for Jungkook to release the new CD.
"You still have to record a couple of songs and then finish recording the music video," Jungkook heard the label owner say, but all he could do was look at the sketch he had done.
He'd spent the night looking at that picture and thinking of the name he'd read in the visitor's book. Jungkook knew they were connected, but he could not remember exactly the face that was there.
It was that, he knew, that was hidden in the mist. It was what he needed to remember.
Suddenly, a smile appeared in his mind. The same smile he had seen before, sweet and gentle and cheerful. A smile that he could recognize between the expressions he had put on paper.
"I want to put Min Yoongi's song on the album," the phrase came out of his mouth in a rush that came along with the memory, and he himself was startled by the request.
Min Yoongi's song? How did he know it was his song? And if it was Min Yoongi's song, then that was no longer his song? As he looked at the smile he had been able to recognize on the paper, Jungkook thought that even though it was Min Yoongi's song, that was still his song. It was their music.
"What did you say?!" The owner of the label said, forcing Jungkook to look up from the paper.
"I said I want to put Min Yoongi's song on the album," he replied firmly.
The owner's face turned grim, while the face of Jungkook's manager showed concern. The latter quickly recovered, laughing strangely to disguise the surprise.
"What do you mean? We don't know this Min Yoongi."
"You do know him, " Jungkook replied, "and I know him, even if I can't remember him."
Unsure of where that courage came from, Jungkook lifted the sketch he had made and showed it to the two men in his hospital room.
"This drawing again?" The manager asked, angry this time. "I told you I've never seen this person before."
"You're lying," Jungkook felt once more that he knew what he was talking about, even though he couldn't really remember the truth.
But his intuition had more to do with the hatred held in the face of the owner of the label than with his shaved memory.
"What if we don't include the song?" The label owner asked, and Jungkook felt like a rabbit. Somehow, he knew it was more of a threat than a question.
But just as he wanted to refute the psychoanalyst about rewriting his memory on the blank screen that the accident had given him, Jungkook felt that that was the right thing to do, and he gained a courage that he didn't know where it came from.
"You have your means of getting me out of the media," Jungkook replied, lifting his chin as he lowered the notebook with the sketch. "But I also have the means to end your reputation."
He didn't even remember what these means were, but the two men who tried to stop him from doing what he wanted had no way of knowing that.
Jungkook stared at them, firm in his decision. The two men seemed to notice that he would not retreat and Jungkook felt a kind of euphoria when the label owner agreed to let him use Yoongi's song. Soon after agreeing, however, he threw a bomb at the young singer who was trying to rebel.
"You can use Min Yoongi's song," the label owner continued, "if you can find him to finish it."
***
During all the days he was in the hospital after that conversation with the owner of the record label, Jungkook tried to find Min Yoongi on the internet, through the phone book, and by any other means he could imagine, but none had worked. Min Yoongi looked like a ghost that only existed in his mind and in the hospital visitor's log book.
In his last consultation with the psychoanalyst before being discharged, Jungkook had told him everything he was thinking and how he would like to recover his memory to find out how to find the only person who could finish the beautiful, incomplete song in his mind. The doctor wished him good luck and Jungkook left his room with his head down, hopeless.
It was the note that rang through the hallways that made him look up. A simple piano note, followed by another, and another. There it was, the melody, the song that never left his mind.
Without thinking, Jungkook rushed toward it. He chased through the hospital corridors the notes that didn't leave his mind. His leg was already good, so he used it with all his might, running toward what he knew to be what he was looking for.
It wasn't long before he reached an amphitheater, where he was having a presentation. A young man with dark hair was sitting in front of the piano, sliding his fingers over the white and black keys.
Jungkook walked slowly this time, following the notes he didn't yet know but that he knew that completed the song that had been in his mind. He was approaching the boy sitting at the piano while his mind was bombarded with flashes of memories that decided to go through the fog in his memories: someone invading his house to play on his piano, that kind and cheerful smile, a face that his subconscious I would never let him forget, a kiss in front of the piano keys.
Upon reaching the piano, Yoongi played the last note of the song. Slowly he turned to Jungkook, and the young man's eyes widened as he found the smile that made his stomach turn over with the butterflies.
"Hello, Jungkook," Yoongi said, while all Jungkook could do was look at him and record his features once more, "I think we need to talk."