Chapter Text
You opened your eyes slowly getting used to the lights that came through the curtains – that were there only for decoration seeing as they did a poor job of blocking the light coming through the window.
You knew, even before you looked around, that you were at a completely different place from where you had been the night before. You were scared of making any movement that could break anything in that foreign place, something that was very unlikely to happen.
The other side of the bed moved and an arm made its way around your waist. Your eyes widened. You had spent the night with someone and had probably gotten stupidly drunk since you couldn’t remember anything.
You ran a hand through your face. What did I do last night? The last thing you remembered was having the worst fight with Bella, your best friend and roommate, and leaving the apartment in the middle of the night. It was unlike you to get drunk when you were feeling upset or angry, that simply wasn’t the kind of thing that you did. Suddenly you felt icy material against the tip of your nose.
Slowly you pulled your hand away from your face and looked at it. A thin, golden ring circled your finger. You knew that it wasn’t a simple ring, something that you could have bought at some cheap jewelry shop on the corner of your apartment. The ring on your left hand was heady, made of gold.
You looked to your left, to the owner of the arm around your waist. He looked so peaceful that part of you thought it might not be a good idea to wake him up. Something about him was familiar, but you couldn’t think of where you could’ve met him. Maybe, you tried to convince yourself, he looks familiar because you met him at a random bar.
“What did I do last night?” you asked yourself. You had gone through, probably, one of the wildest drinking benders of your entire life, was out with a complete stranger and - as if none of it had been enough - had somehow gotten married to him.
The urgency to call Bella and ask her to go pick you up was bigger than anything you had ever experienced in life. Caring little about the man beside you, you shot out of bed making far too much noise and movement than intended. But you weren’t able to go far because the stranger grabbed your wrist.
“Came back to bed, honey” the man said, voice muffled by the pillow “Lola doesn’t have piano lessons today, we can sleep till a little later.”
Who was Lola? And why was that man talking to you as if he knew you? Why was he calling you honey?
The desperation that only a second before was almost completely under control, had now become something quite scary.
With a sudden movement, you released your wrist from the loose grip of the man and began searching through the mess of clothes that were on the chair, looking from your own. You left the apartment wearing jeans, a sweatshirt that Bella had gotten herself but you stole the second she took it out of the bag and sneakers, none of which were in front of you or anywhere in the room. Giving up the clothes, you focused on finding your phone - the sooner you called Bella the sooner you would be home, safe and sound. But the device was nowhere to be found.
“Why can’t I find the damn phone anywhere?” you shouted.
That was enough to wake the man. In a leap, he was out of bed and looked around as if he was ready to strike someone. In any other situation, you would have laughed at the sight of him with his eyes open wide and his hair sticking everywhere but that wasn’t the best moment to laugh.
“I need to go, okay? I have a boyfriend and this was a mistake, I’m sorry” the lie slipped so easily through your lips that it even surprised you.
The alarm and concern in the man’s eyes gave way to sadness and fatigue. He ran his hands through his hair a few times without taking his eyes off of you. He stepped forward and you took a step back.
“I thought today would be different, you promised you would remember” the man said almost in a whisper, but it was loud enough for you to hear “I don’t know why I still believe it when you say that you’ll remember”
You paused for a second to look at the man standing in front of you. Your heart suddenly skipped a beat. He had brown eyes and the reflection of sunlight made you believe they were golden, beautiful lips, a slightly round face.
“What did you just say to me?” you asked.
The man breathed, the sound resembled that of someone who had been defeated after an arduous and exhausting battle.
“My name is Jihoon, I’m your husband. We are in our home. Bella is at her house with her husband”
You took a few steps back until your knees were pressed against a dresser. The man in front of you, Jihoon, said that he was your husband and Bella also had a husband of her own. But he was wrong, he had to be.
You and Bella were still in college and neither of you had a boyfriend. You were like two lone wolves who walked together so the loneliness would hurt less. If Bella had a husband, or just a simple hookup for that matter, you would know.
And you sure as hell would know if you had gotten married.
“You’re lying,” you said aloud, “I’m twenty, I’m in college and I have no boyfriend.”
Jihoon took a step forward, in a completely failed attempt to touch you.
“Do not come near me!” you shouted.
Jihoon a step back and raised his hands in surrender.
“I’ll go check on Lola” he walked up to the door “Can just you, please watch the video? You just have to turn on the tv”
And with that, Jihoon left the room and closed the door behind him.
Something in his voice made you look at the tv, your fingers drumming on your thighs, nervousness settling in the pit of your stomach. Even so, you watched the video. Uncertain of what you would see. You sat down on the edge of the bed and took a deep breath before pressing play.
The blurred image of sofa quickly came into focus and the man who was in that room with you just a few seconds appeared on the screen.
“You can start” Bella’s voice sounded through the room.
Why Bella’s voice? Why did this man seem so familiar, but why at the same time you had absolutely no idea where you could have met him?
Jihoon cleared his throat and began to speak.
“Good morning, babe. I don’t even know where to start. I think if I were to say everything in this video you’d watch it all day and tomorrow it still wouldn’t make any sense to you,” he paused for a moment, his eyes focused on his hands, before looking up and continuing “We met thirteen years ago. You were at the tattoo shop where I worked at, you made fun of me for not having a tattoo or even a single piercing. From the first moment I saw you I was completely fascinated. It was as if I had become blind to all the other girls. All I could think about was you. ”
You looked down at your wrist where the little drawing of a blue rose was.
“You kept going to go the shop constantly just to see me, you denied but we both know that it was true. Quickly you infiltrated yourself into my life. My friends became your friends, and Bella became one of mine” throughout the whole time while he was speaking, Jihoon had his fingers in the wedding ring and kept spinning it on his finger “It took me way too long to make some kind of move, but when I finally did something I knew I had made the most correct decision of my life.”
“Jihoon, I need you to look at the camera okay?” Bella’s voice sounded again.
“Right, sorry” Jihoon cleared his throat and looked back at the camera “Where was I? Okay, the best decision of my life. We dated for four years before getting married. I never knew if it was something that you wanted, you never gave me a lot of clues telling me what you wanted. We got married when you were just about to give birth to Lola. I remember that being the happiest day of our lives, or at least the second best”
This image of Jihoon sitting in an armchair changed and it became the image of a lounge, fully adorned. In the center, a couple danced. You couldn’t say that you were surprised to see that the couple was you and Jihoon. You wore a beautiful wedding dress and Jihoon had a suit on. A slow track song playing in the background, one that you couldn’t identify, as you danced, your head on his shoulder, as his rested on top of yours as you swayed from side to side.
The screen then changed and Bella’s smiling face came into focus.
“Hey y/n and Jihoon, just wanted to say that I wish all the best to you both. I couldn’t be happier for you. Thanks for asking me to be a godmother to little Lola, I can hardly wait for her to see this world. I know that I’ll have to split it her attention with your brother but I think we’ll manage. I love you, even you Jihoon”
In Bella’s place appeared an unknown man, you could only assume he was Jihoon’s brother.
“Hello, Jihoon and y/n. I’m very happy that you two are finally official, I know that before you were already together and living together, but nothing says ‘I love you’ like a marriage and a baby. Once someone said 'Children are proof that pure and true love still exists and that God has not given up on us’, well, for me you are proof that true and pure love still exists. Hopefully, both will enjoy your week in Paris. ”
Other people’s messages appeared, your parents and people whom you didn’t know or couldn’t remember, no matter how hard you tried.
You didn’t realize that you had tears in your eyes.
Somehow, although in a way you didn’t fully understand, that seemed to be the life you always dreamed of. Apparently, you had a man who loved you, friends and family, and a daughter.
Jihoon’s face came back and you did the best you could to push away the tears that clouded your eyes.
“We lived happily for almost a year. Lola was born a month after the wedding. You were at home for seven months, to make sure she was okay, you have always been that mother that fusses over every little thing. You got a job as a substitute teacher after the winter holidays”
Jihoon paused, looking down at his hands, and took a deep breath.
“I know that’s the hard part, but you need to continue,” Bella said in the video “We are almost at the end, okay.”
Jihoon nodded and ran a hand over his face.
“In a cold day, when the snow was melting, you were coming home. As always you drove carefully, but that day – one that single day – you forgot to put on the seat belt and in a slightly more closed curve the car… you got launched through the windshield.”
Jihoon just came out from behind the bedroom door after making sure that you were watching the video.
He walked over to the end of the hall, where was the room of your daughter. Jihoon silently prayed that you hadn’t woken up Lola.
He had been the one to tell her about you, about the accident. He couldn’t think of anything else to do, how to further hide it, when Lola would run up to you in the morning and you didn’t remember her. At first, the she looked confused, as if you, her world, had been torn away from her, but then she understood why her mother didn’t remember anything the next morning.
Or at least, Jihoon likes to think that Lola understood.
How could an eight-year-old grasp a concept that he, a grown man, past his thirties, was yet to comprehend?
His prayers were not answered when Jihoon saw Lola sitting in bed holding a stuffed bunny.
“I was hoping that you would still be asleep,” Jihoon said while sitting in bed.
Lola shrugged and climbed up her father’s lap, her arms going around his neck.
“Do you think” Lola began quietly, “that one day mommy will remember? That one day mommy will wake up and know who I am?”
That question was something that Jihoon knew would come one day. It was a question that he had prepared himself to hear many times but finally hearing it had been enough to crush the last remaining pieces of his heart.
He could still remember the very moment when he received the call that you had been in a car accident. Jihoon was at home, entertaining Lola until you got back from work. Everything had happened so fast. In a second he was happily giving Lola something to eat, and the next he was calling his brother, asking him to take care of Lola while he went to the hospital as the purest form of fear and despair had taken over his body.
Jihoon spent all possible seconds’ by your bedside during the month you spent in the hospital. No matter how much he wanted to stay with you until you finally came back to him, he needed to go home and take care of his daughter. Lola had never cried so much. During that one month you were unconscious in the hospital Lola cried desperately, as if she knew something was wrong - that her mother wasn’t there.
The hardest part was when you woke up.
Jihoon knew there was a possibility, that maybe, you could lose your memory, but he believed it would be only temporary - as the doctor said. But then six months went by and you still didn’t remember anything. All the progress they had made the previous day was completely erased from your memory when you closed your eyes to go to sleep.
In the first few months, Bella went to your house every day in the morning to help. She was the only person you remembered and the only one who could confirm that Jihoon was who he claimed to be, and things would be easier for that day. But after a while, Jihoon asked Bella to stop going. You were his wife, and it was his job to get you to remember him every single day.
“I don’t know, honey. I guess that it might happen” a lie. Jihoon knew that it was a lie.
Two years after the accident you underwent brain surgery. The doctor found that there was still some swelling in your brain, even after such a long time since the accident. In theory, it was all very cute and colorful, but the reality couldn’t be further away from the truth.
The surgery didn’t help, not in the way both you and Jihoon expected. The doctor said, “The brain is an inexplicable part of the body, there’s nothing wrong with her brain, but she can’t seem to keep her memory.” That was the hardest thing he had ever heard. The doctor was, with covered words, saying that you would never remember him, Lola, or the life they spent together.
“Why don’t you change into your uniform while I make breakfast?” Jihoon suggested. Lola nodded and got out of bed in complete silence.
The idea for the video came soon after news of the failed surgery. Jihoon had nothing to lose, if the video didn’t work they would have lost just one day. He asked for help from all the people who were active in your life: Bella, Jihoon’s brother, your parents.
There wasn’t a day when he could point to and say “This was the worst one” because the truth was that all days were very similar. Every day he’d wake up in the same bed with a woman that didn’t know who he was and that they had a daughter together, but that was the same woman he loved unconditionally and wasn’t willing to give up on. No matter what he had to do, Jihoon would always be by your side.
When Jihoon had just finished making breakfast, you went downstairs. You had put on a pair of jeans and the same light yellow sweater that you wore every morning.
“The last thing that I remember,” you started, and it was the same expression that Jihoon had seen in Lola’s just a few minutes before “was that I left the apartment after a fight with Bella”
That was a conversation Jihoon had with you every single day for the past seven and a half years, sometimes it went a little different but it was basically the same thing.
“You never left the apartment. You went to your room and slept to forget the fight” he told you
You nodded, leaving the kitchen and Jihoon followed you. He knew you were going to the piano, which was another daily routine.
“Is she any good?”
“She is the best of all”
You smiled, trying to accept the fact that you were married to the gorgeous man standing in front of you and that you had a daughter with him. You heard the sound of a door closing and then quick steps going down the stairs.
“Don’t run on the stairs,” you warned the girl automatically. You didn’t understand why you did it, it was as if your brain was programmed to say that.
“Sorry, mommy” Lola said as she went down the stairs slowly and holding onto the handrail.
Lola was the most beautiful girl you had ever seen in your entire life - or at least the part of your life you remembered. Lola had nearly black hair like Jihoon with cute curls at the ends, round brown eyes, but her most beautiful feature was her smile - it was exactly like her father’s.
“Do you remember me already?” Lola asked, stopping in front of you.
You bent down so you were at the same height as your daughter. Somehow, you knew in her entire bein, that that little girl with hopeful eyes was your daughter, it didn’t matter that your idiotic brain didn’t remember her. In your heart, you knew that it was true.
“Yes, baby, I remember”
“Then you will take me to school with daddy?”
You smiled and nodded. You didn’t know what would be the position Jihoon’s about it, but something said he wouldn’t oppose it.
“Go eat before it gets cold,” Jihoon said to her.
Lola stood on tiptoes to give a quick kiss on your cheek and ran to the kitchen. Your heart warmed with that small gesture. That little girl loved you, despite the fact that you couldn’t remember anything. Everything you knew about Lola was what you saw in the video and what you had just witnessed, even though you felt like you knew her.
“You want to know about the accident?” Jihoon asked behind you.
“No,” you vehemently denied “you were very explicit during the video”
Jihoon raised his eyebrows and smiled a little.
“That’s new, you always ask about the accident”
It was strange for you how Jihoon remembered every moment and you didn’t, even though you tried. It seemed unfair that he got to have it all, while you forgot everything when you closed your eyes. If you loved this man as much as the people in the video said, you wanted to be able to remember and perhaps even feel it.
“How does this work? How is it at her school?” you couldn’t begin to imagine how it was for Lola. The kids don’t usually let go of something, and if a child is taken as “different” the other ones might see her as the bad one, the one who doesn’t fit, for problems that weren’t even hers.
“She doesn’t care. You told her once that you would always remember her, no matter what happened.”
“But I don’t remember her,” you said sadly. You wanted to remember your daughter, wanted to remember all the times you spent together, wanted to remember the feeling of being pregnant, the first moment you saw Lola and fell in love with her even more; you wanted to remember Jihoon and every moment that you had shared. But that, at least for the time being, seemed the most distant and impossible thing in the whole world.
“I’m sorry” you said “This all must be hard for you. I mean, you have to remember me every day of who I am and what my life is like now, and take care of our daughter alone”
Jihoon took a step forward, nervous. In those first hours, everything was very uncertain. He wasn’t sure of what he should do or say. Before, completely detached from the reality that you now lived, a simple touch was enough to soothe you and make things calm down. But in that moment, even after eight years, he still didn’t know what to do.
“You don’t have to apologize for something you can’t control,” Jihoon said softly. He held your hand and when you didn’t pull away he continued “And I don’t do anything alone, you help me every day even if you don’t remember.”
You wanted to cry. Jihoon was a good man and didn’t deserve to go through all of that. It wasn’t fair to him. You wanted to scream to the world and do something, anything at all, so everything could to go as it should be. But crying wouldn’t do anything and there was no magic remedy that would bring back the memories you suddenly felt so desperate to have.
Taking Lola to school wasn’t the most difficult task of the day. You didn’t get weird looks, as you had expected the entire drive there. In fact, it was as if everyone knew exactly who you were and what happened.
With a smile you watched Lola get out of the car and run to the school gate, where two other little girls were waiting for her. One of them was like a little Bella and knowing that it was quite possible that she was her daughter, you made a mental note to call your friend later. Lola only entered school after waving at you with both hands and shouting “I love you.”
And there they were again, the tears. You felt almost stupid for that to be the third time that you wanted to cry that day. You cried watching the video, after seeing Lola in the living room and now saying goodbye to her at the school, all because you knew that the next day you would have to do the exact same thing without remembering that you had done it a thousand times before.
Jihoon took you to the roof of the old shop where he worked, a place he now owns. That was a place for you two, where you had shared memorable moments that were now just his.
“Why do you do this every day?” you asked after a few minutes of silence “Why do you insist on reminding me of who I am? You could have left me with my parents. I would be their problem and not yours. You could raise Lola the right way and maybe even find someone else ”
It hurt you to ask those questions, but you had to know. Jihoon was still young, he was only 33. You were sure that he wouldn’t have to search long and hard to find someone who loved him, someone who could actually remember him every morning and who could love him as much as he loved that person.
Jihoon didn’t answer for a few minutes, his eyes on the city in front of him. He knew everything he wanted to say and everything inside him screamed for him to say it, but he didn’t think he should. You were having a good day, asking questions that usually you didn’t, scolding Lola for doing anything remotely dangerous for a child. You had never done those things before.
With you, there was always a routine that was followed to the T by everyone around you. You woke up and didn’t recognize him, watched the video, asked about the accident, took Lola to school, went to Lola’s bookstore and spent the day inquiring her about your new life, returned home and had more questions, played with Lola and would go to sleep.
It had been the same way, every day for the past seven years. But not that day. For the first time, you didn’t run to Bella the first chance you got, you didn’t ask about the accident. Instead, you decided to stay with him and talk to him.
Jihoon was afraid to say something and things went back to that same routine. But what would he lose at the end of the day? Just a day you wouldn’t remember, and he still had many others to come. Then maybe, just once, he would say whatever he felt. He just needed to tell her everything, just once and never again.
“You once told me I was your superhero. You said that you knew I would always find you and make things right again. I never understood what you meant. I was always just a guy who liked a girl and would do anything for her, but now I understand why because you were also my superhero. Whenever I needed to, for any nonsense it was, you were there for me. We were each other’s lifeline, and you’re still mine. I couldn’t and still can’t imagine how my or Lola’s lives would be without you, if you weren’t there with us every day. Do we have problems? Of course, we have, but what couple doesn’t? Our problems are just a bit different from the most couples out there.”
Jihoon stopped for a second to breathe. He wasn’t someone who just talked about his feelings, it was always easier to shut himself out in order to protect those around him. But he knew he would have to talk about it, at least once - withholding nothing - or never have the courage to speak again.
You played with your fingertips listening carefully to what he was saying. You were sure that it was difficult for him to say those things, but it was also hard for you tp hear them.
“Lola loves you, she would love you anyway, no matter what. I see in your eyes every time you look at her, doesn’t matter if for you it’s the first day, you still have the same look as years ago” Jihoon ran his hand through his hair, “What I mean is that I don’t want any another person. I know this is hard, but if it was easy then it wouldn’t be fun and wouldn’t have half the importance it does. I do what I do because I love you, y/n. It’s hard? Yes, but I wouldn’t change a thing.”
You didn’t know what to say, absolutely nothing was going through your mind. At that moment, after listening to his words, you started to understand why you fell for him in the first place. Jihoon wasn’t someone who lived his life just for himself, he was the kind of person who cared about others and the people he loved were put on the priority list – at the first sign of trouble he would drop everything and go to them.
"You think one day I’ll remember? Because I know everything’s here,” you pointed at your head “Everything is just really clouded. I know it’s in here but I don’t know how to reach it”
“To be brutally honest about it? I don’t think so” Jihoon ran his hand through his hair again and sighed “I told Lola that your memory could come back, but I’m not so sure. It’s been seven years. If it was going to happen then I suppose it would have happened by now. Then what? Remember everything until the moment of the accident? But then you wouldn’t remember anything of what happened after that. None of it seems fair to me”
You nodded and stayed silent for a long time, just looking at the beautiful view in front of you.
You stayed most of the day on the rooftop, talking about everything that you missed. Moments you had been there for but at the same time you weren’t. Every single question that left your lips was met with Jihoon’s easy answers. He didn’t leave anything out, even if it meant that what he said wasn’t nice to hear.
You took his hand in your, your head leaning against his shoulder. He took a deep breath and you did the same.
“I promise I’ll try to remember everything. I’ll make notes, write everything. I’ll remind me of you every morning.”
Jihoon squeezed your hand back. Little butterflies danced in his skin, something inside him waking up after a long time.
“I don’t know how the other me felt when she fell in love with you, but what I feel right now should come really close to that.”
“I love you, y/n” Jihoon said intertwining his fingers with yours.
“I’ll fall for you every day, for the rest of my life”