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It’s a huge invasion of privacy. Jungkook had told him specifically never to open the notebook, on the first day he began writing in it. But things had taken a turn for the worse. He’d woken up to see nothing but rumpled sheets and an empty space on Jungkook’s side of the bed. Again. Frantic, heart beating right out of his chest, he’d called Yoongi, Seokjin— everyone they knew— and no one knew a thing. They found him last time. This time was different.
So here he stands, at the side of their bed, with Jungkook’s worn leather notebook in between his shaky hands, about to do the thing he swore he never would.
He won’t even remember you reading it, says a small voice inside of Namjoon. One he doesn’t want to listen to. He looks down at the metal band on his ring finger. He’d promised not to read it, but he had also promised to love and care for Jungkook no matter what. And he can’t do that until he finds out where Jungkook has gone. His vision starts to blur. Before he can change his mind, he opens the notebook, and begins to read Jungkook’s familiar handwriting.
-
March 30
Hi. It’s me! I’m you. Well, I’m your past self, writing this to the you in the future. You were in a car accident a little while ago. Sometimes you‘ll wake up with no memories at all. It can happen once every month or so, or once every few days, or even every day. But that’s okay. That’s why I’m here to help you.
Your name is Jeon Jungkook. You were born on September 1, 1997. Your favourite food is lamb skewers and your favourite drink is banana milk. You love to sing, and dance, and take photos and videos with your camera of the people you love. (You did that before the accident, too. So lucky you— you have a lot of photos to jog your memory!)
Speaking of which…
You’ll probably have woken up next to a handsome stranger. A very handsome stranger! I know he might look like an angel, but don’t worry, you’re not in heaven. Yet.
His name is Kim Namjoon, and he’s your boyfriend. I know what you’re thinking— lucky you! You scored an 11 out of 10! And you’re absolutely wrong. He is a 100 out of 10 at worst. Past Jungkook really knew what he was doing!
For starters, he’s a musical genius. I’ve put one of his mixtapes in the bedside drawer for you to listen to. You have to listen for yourself. This is how you first fell in love with him— through his music.
But he’s also a genius at everything else, too. He has an IQ of 148. 148! See, this kind of thing would never have happened to him. He’s too smart to lose his memory. Which is good for you, because he can fill in all the gaps of the things you forget. He knows everything, and you’re always learning new things from him. He reads a lot, and the sound of his voice reading you a story is your favourite sound to fall asleep to.
And there’s his face, which I’m sure you’ve noticed. Now, just so you can be sure that I’m not lying to you, I’ll describe him and you can match the description to the guy next to you. He has really pretty chocolate brown eyes and soft lips. He’s tall and has perfect proportions and is really strong even though he’s kinda skinny.
Your favourite part of him, though, if you had to pick, might be his dimples. One’s bigger than the other. They’re so cute and soft to the touch. Dipping your fingers in them feels like heaven. When you poke them, you cause a little chain reaction— he smiles so bright and scrunches his eyes right shut and it’s the prettiest thing you’ll ever see. Try it.
I’m getting a little bit carried away here. Sorry. The point is, even if you don’t feel in love with him yet, you will be. I promise. I don’t have a lot of time to write this, but just know that you can trust him completely. Whatever he tells you is true and whatever he does is best for you.
Even if you forget everything else in the whole world, just remember this: you love him. And he loves you. And everything is going to be okay.
-
It was the first entry. A place where any logical person would jot down historical facts, numbers, dates— and all that was written was an essay about Namjoon. He sits down on the bed, watching the world spin around him.
He flips through. There are snippets of their days, things that Jungkook wants to remember. What Namjoon made him for breakfast in the morning. What his mom said when she called. His eyes land on one date in particular.
-
June 13
Today, you went to the beach. The weather was beautiful. Sunny and warm, just a few soft tufts of white cloud against blue sky.
There were five other people there, too. Namjoon says it’s been a while since you all hung out together. But today was an important day, so everyone squeezed it into their busy schedules, somehow. You wish you could remember why.
You sit on the shore, watching the waves swallow the sand. The water feels nice and cool on your toes. The conversation drifts from topic to topic. Someone brought a barbecue grill and is making lamb skewers. Someone else brought beer. Everyone’s happy. The one named Jimin cuddles up real close to you, leans his head on your shoulder like he’s used to it, and apologizes when you flinch. His eyes are gentle and sad.
Someone named Seokjin starts to sing at one point and everyone joins in, loud and unabashedly off-key. You laugh a little, and Seokjin looks at you, a surprised smile dawning on his face, an endearing smile that squishes his cheeks. Broad shoulders, full lips. That’s the one.
Near the end of the day, someone mentions how it’s been ten years since the important event.
“Where do you think you’ll be in the next ten years?” asks Taehyung, good-naturedly. Jimin elbows him and you don’t miss the way he glances over at you.
“It’s okay,” you say. “I want to hear it.”
So everyone says their thing, and then they get to Namjoon, and he just says, “Here. I’m happy right where I am, on this beach, with the people I love. I want to be here again, in ten years, with the same people. That’s all I want.”
Afterwards, Namjoon brings you home, and everybody goes back to wherever they live. “Text me when you get home,” Namjoon tells Yoongi and Taehyung, and you realize that some of them crossed the country for you, and it’s going to take them hours, maybe even more hours than they spent with you today. You blink back tears and turn away so that no one notices. But everyone leaves with a smile on their face.
Remind me to print out the group photo so I can paste it in here, write down what everybody is like. It’s going to be hard to study up on it every morning. But it’ll be worth it. They’re your brothers.
-
It’s almost too much to bear. Namjoon is torn between the desire to explore Jungkook’s thoughts and the urgency to find him, the real him. He begins to flip faster, hoping that what he is looking for will stand out.
-
September 21
There’s a little studio near the back of the house. Namjoon doesn’t spend a lot of time there, preferring mostly to hang out with you. But when you ask about it today, a familiar look flashes across his eyes, like it’s not the first time you’ve asked.
“Why don’t I show you,” he says, with a small, awkward little smile.
On the door, there is a wooden plaque, with ‘Golden Closet / Rkive’ inscribed on it. Figurines line the walls in neat, colourful rows. Namjoon explains that he used to collect them before he got busy. You don’t have to ask to know that what he means is he’s busy taking care of you. On the desk, there’s a computer with two screens, and various musical equipment that you don’t quite understand. A keyboard— you know how to play that, at least. You sit down in the chair and press the keys, tentatively. Muscle memory, apparently, is something you still have. You play some simple keys, a melody you don’t recall remembering.
When you finish, Namjoon is smiling at you so brightly it would put the sun to shame. “That’s ‘Jamais vu,’ he says. “It was a song you used to sing.”
“Oh,” you say, scratching your neck, pleased. It’s not often you impress Namjoon with something you do.
“Do you want to listen?”
“Yeah.”
He scoots his chair over next to yours and finds the song file on the computer. You’re surprised to hear it. You’re a good singer, and your voice contrasts nicely with the others’. Hoseok and Seokjin, Namjoon kindly points out, and you recognize them from the group photo in your notebook. The song is emotional, melancholic. There’s something about it you can’t quite put your finger on.
“Did you write this?” you ask.
“Partly,” he answers. “Hoseok and I, and some other songwriters.”
“It reminds me of me,” you catch yourself saying. “How many times have you showed me this studio for the first time?”
Namjoon shifts in his chair uncomfortably. His legs stretch out for days. Long fingers tug at a stray string on his shirt. You want to hold his hand.
“A couple times,” he answers. “Do you want to try making a song?”
“Okay,” you say. Anything to get out of having this conversation.
It turns out to be nice, actually. Throwing yourself into music is a very welcome distraction for both of you, and you work well together. A couple hours later, you’ve come up with a minute-long demo track. You both sing on it. It’s beautiful. No title yet. Maybe tomorrow you’ll wake up with a title. Maybe tomorrow you won’t remember the song at all. Or maybe tomorrow, you won’t even wake up.
I’m feeling a little dizzy, so I’m going to stop writing here. If you want to listen to the song, it’s saved on the computer, under ‘untitled, 520.’ Yes, track number five hundred and twenty. He writes a lot of songs.
-
Namjoon listens to the track every single day. He would listen to it again, right now, if the urgency of the situation wasn’t eating away at him.
“Please, Jungkook,” he whispers to himself. “There’s got to be something in here that could tell me where you are right now.”
He forces himself to flip through the entire book until he finds the last ink-filled page.
-
November 30
You were supposed to get married today. You and Namjoon. He didn’t say anything, but he was acting strange and you snooped around and found out.
That kind of sucks, doesn’t it? You almost could’ve had a husband. A happy ever after.
Maybe you want to go through with it. It could work. You can’t spend forever together, but you might get lucky, go for a month or two without losing your memory.
Don’t.
Because if you marry him, you’re his burden for life.
After the accident, he told you you didn’t have to wear the ring if you didn’t want to. You used to wear it. You took it off after the first time you ran away. The day you realized that you can’t do it. You can’t let him be tied down to a promise made by a version of you that you can’t even remember.
Namjoon remembers, all too well, the worst day of his life. It had been exactly one month ago. He had woken up, just like today, to find Jungkook’s side of the bed empty and the rest of the house empty as well, offering no hints to his whereabouts. He’d called Seokjin, who lived nearby, and Seokjin had happened to glance up and see a figure in a black hoodie walking aimlessly across the street.
“I just wanted to go to the store,” Jungkook had told Namjoon, teary-eyed. “And I didn’t want to wake you up, but then I forgot how to get there. I’m sorry.”
Don’t do what you did last time, okay? Don’t do it spontaneously. You’re just going to forget the bus routes and forget your wallet and forget everything. You don’t know anything and you can’t make it on your own. He’ll find you, bring you back home, and cry for days and days, and we don’t want to make him sadder than we already have.
If you’re going to do it, then do it all the way. Do it properly. For his sake.
And then, in a messy scribble at the bottom—
untitled, 520.
-
That’s it. That’s all that’s been written down. Namjoon stands up and stumbles, dizzy, trying to regather his thoughts.
He had been right in his assumption that Jungkook had planned to run away. He had never been so devastated to be right. But now, he didn’t know what else he could do. He had already called everyone. Their mutual friends. Even Jungkook’s parents. No one had any idea where he was.
There was just one last thing.
His feet take him to the studio, chest heaving, panting for air as he leans against the doorframe to catch a bit of respite. No. No time. He turns the computer on and looks for untitled, 520 and finds it. The file information shows that it had been last modified at 1:00 AM, when Namjoon was asleep and thought Jungkook was asleep, too.
He clicks play.
-
The song is still there— Namjoon fasts forward through it, to the end of the one-minute mark. All he hears is static, at first, and then Jungkook starts to speak.
Hey, Namjoon. It’s me. Jungkook. I’m assuming you read my secret notebook, even though I told you not to. Don’t worry, I didn’t replace the song with my voice recording. I want you to keep it, even though it’s not finished. It’s a really great song, but I don’t remember writing it, so I don’t know how to end it. I just know I have to.
Um… I don’t really know what to say. Thank you. I’m sorry. I— There’s just so much. I was going to say something nice for you, but I don’t know what could hold a candle to what you’ve done for me. Well… you really wanted to be at the beach in ten years, right? Me too. I think I’d like to be there forever.
So… Even if you forget everything else in the whole world, just remember this: I love you. And you loved me. And everything is going to be okay.
Static, again. The audio ends there.
-
Namjoon doesn’t pause to think for a second. He turns on his heel out of the studio, grabs his keys, and runs to his car.
-
He finds Jungkook at the same beach they went to back in June. Not on the shore, but standing near the edge of a secluded, rocky cliff. There’s a tiny abandoned cabin nearby. Namjoon wonders if Jungkook had planned to live in it. But he had not brought an overnight bag. He had come empty-handed, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his thick winter coat. His breath fogs up the cold winter air as he looks out onto the surface of the water, waves crashing in a steady rhythm.
“Jungkook,” Namjoon calls out, hopeless. The loudness of his voice rings out in the quiet dawn.
Jungkook turns and flinches, eyes wide with shock and hurt, and immediately Namjoon knows that he remembers.
“Who are you,” he lies weakly, unable to hide the tears that fill his eyes.
Namjoon doesn’t answer, simply crosses the distance between them and pulls Jungkook into a tight hug.
“Stop,” says Jungkook, shakily. “Why did you have to find me? Why can’t you just let me go? I don’t want to tie you down anymore. I don’t.”
In all that time since the accident, Jungkook’s eyes have never looked so cold and defeated.
“I’m sorry,” says Namjoon hoarsely. “I’m sorry, Jungkook. Please.” He can’t breathe through the pain, inhales harshly against the fabric of Jungkook’s coat, and stammers out words of reassurance, unsure of who exactly he’s reassuring. “I’ll take off my ring. You’re not a burden. I don’t care where we are in ten years as long as you come back. Remember? I love you. You love me— you don’t have to love me— everything is going to be okay.”
Jungkook lets Namjoon wipe his tears with trembling thumbs. He lets Namjoon kiss him on the forehead. But he doesn’t answer. He doesn’t say a word the whole way home.