Chapter Text
Pain.
It’s the first sensation Sol registers when she comes to– an intense throbbing pain behind her eyes that she almost wishes she hadn’t woken up. Next is the steady beeping of the patient monitor beside her, the characteristic smell of hospital antiseptic, and then, finally– the comfortable weight of a hand engulfing hers.
When she looks down, it’s Ryu Sunjae that greets her, face turned to her side as he sleeps uncomfortably on a monobloc chair. A frown forms on his exhausted face, and Sol finds herself reaching out to soothe his knitted brows before she could stop it. The act strangely feels familiar, as if she’s done it before. His eyes fly open as soon as her hand touches his skin.
“Sol?” Sunjae sits up, going from unconscious to fully alert within seconds. “You’re awake! Thank god, thank god.” He brings the hand he was holding up to his forehead, head bowed down slightly as he seems to struggle to contain his emotions. He takes a few calming breaths before looking up, eyes shiny with unshed tears.
“Are you okay? How are you feeling?” He reaches out a hand to caress the side of her face lovingly, and Sol is hit once again with a sense of familiarity. “Do you want me to call a doctor?”
“Uhm,” Sol starts, voice scratchy from unuse. She clears her throat, and then says, “What are you doing here?”
It must be the wrong thing to say– the worst thing, actually, when all of a sudden Sunjae freezes up.
“You-” Sunjae retracts his hand from her face, expression going from tender to nervous. Sol has to shake her head to get rid of the unbidden sense of loss she felt from the lack of his touch– what the hell?
“You don’t remember?” He says, almost too quietly. Like he’s afraid to ask. Afraid of the answer.
“Did I fall from the university statue? Is that why I’m here?”
It’s the most plausible explanation. The last thing she remembers is climbing up that stone statue in front of their university as some sort of hazing ritual for the academic organization she was joining. Idiotic, really, but Sol thought it was easy and safe enough. Climb up, take a photo, and then come down. Except it wasn’t, or else she wouldn’t be here right now, lying on a hospital bed, would she?
“What? What statue?” Sunjae replies, looking like he’s hanging on to her every word. She explains the whole initiation thing, despite her embarrassment, and when she finishes, she actually sees the way his face falls, like she just told him the world is ending, or something. He looks utterly heartbroken that Sol feels like she should apologize.
“Are you okay?” She can’t help but ask when a lone tear escapes his eyes. He takes a deep breath.
“Sol, it’s May now. That was two months ago.”
Oh.
Oh.
—
“Wait– what? ”
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you got kidnapped!” Hyunjoo wails.
She arrived here earlier, along with her family. To say they were worried is an understatement– both her mom and grandma were inconsolable, Hyunjoo got snot running down her nose from crying, and Im Geum couldn’t decide whether he should hug or hit her for hiding all this from them (she had half the mind to tell him that she didn’t know herself, but thought better of talking back.) She did see him shed a tear or two– she reminds herself to tease him about it later, when they all come back from talking to the police.
“Im Sol! If you weren’t hurt I would be hitting you right now! You got me so worried!” Hyunjoo continues, oblivious to the explosion of the atomic bomb she just dropped on her.
“Hyunjoo!” Sol grabs her arm, shaking it to get her attention. “Did you just say Sunjae is my boyfriend?”
Sol knows she really should be more concerned about the fact that she got kidnapped– twice– and escaped death by a narrow margin– again, twice– than the news of Ryu Sunjae being her boyfriend. She knows, she knows– but her nineteen year old brain seems to be hung up on that fact, especially.
“What?” Her friend stops, sniffling. “Yeah, he’s your boyfriend?” Her eyes widen, first with confusion and then shock. “Oh my god, you also forgot about that?”
Sol sits back down, trying to absorb the information. How the actual fuck?
—
The doctors can’t tell what’s wrong with her.
Except for a severely sprained ankle, a few cuts here and there, and some light bruising, she’s healthy enough, physically. They scanned her brain for possible head trauma, but nothing came up. They can’t find a single medical explanation on why she doesn’t have any recollection of the last two months.
In the end, they just chalked it up to psychological trauma– getting kidnapped and all that.
Post-traumatic stress disorder, or something, they called it. Sol calls it bullshit.
Sure, it may explain why she doesn’t have her memories– but it absolutely doesn’t explain how Ryu Sunjae became her boyfriend.
Ryu Sunjae, her neighbor. Her tall-as-a-door, ex-swimmer, P.E major neighbor who, the last time she recalls, she rejected and avoided all through senior year.
“Are you sure you didn’t hit your head?” Hyunjoo asks, palming said head.
“The doctors said my head is fine.” Sol replies, taking a bite of a strawberry from her bedside. She wonders who brought it.
“Then why can’t you remember? Forgetting about the whole crazy kidnapping shit is one thing but Sunjae? A whole ass two months?” Hyunjoo’s silent for a moment, contemplating, and then, with wide eyes: “Don’t tell me– you won’t break up with him, right?”
“About that-”
“Yah! Don’t be stupid, maybe you’ll remember him soon!” Hyunjoo interjects.
“Isn’t it unfair, though? I don’t even know him.”
“But… you were so happy.”
“I was?”
Hyunjoo nods. “You two are so good together, it’s almost sickening. He clearly loves you, and he makes you happy.”
Sol recalls the crestfallen look he had earlier, the devastation in his face. What Hyunjoo says must be true, because why else would he look like that if he doesn’t love her?
From what she heard from the police, he was the one who first found her, struggling to get away from Kim Young Soo in the cliff. He arrived just in time before she got stabbed, and then fought with the kidnapper until the police arrived (which, Sol was happy to know, she called prior.) He was the one who rode the ambulance with her, the one who stayed through the night while she recovered. And if that wasn’t bad enough, he wakes up to a girlfriend who doesn’t know him?
Sol feels a pinch in her heart imagining what it must have felt like for him.
No matter how hard she tries, though, that’s all there is to it: pity is the only emotion she feels for him at the moment. And it’s not exactly what a girlfriend should feel towards her boyfriend, is it?
All thoughts of Sunjae fly out the window when her brother comes back.
“Baby, they don’t have tteokbokki downstairs, so I just got you a gimbap.” He says to Hyunjoo, voice sweet as candy. He turns to Sol to give her the yoghurt she ordered. “Here, strawberry.”
No.
“No problem, baby. Thank you!” Hyunjoo replies, and did Sol just hear her for-boys-only high tone?!
No.
Oblivious to her inner turmoil, Geum proceeds to unwrap the gimbap he got and hand feeds her friend. He strokes her hair, making baby noises, telling her how cute she looks with her cheeks full.
Her brother and her bestfriend.
No fucking way.
“What…” Sol starts to say, quietly, like a volcano waiting to erupt. Hyunjoo stops mid-chew, and Geum drops the food when he takes a look at Sol’s expression which is slowly turning from confusion to rage. Silence engulfs the room.
“WHAT THE FUCK?!”
—
It takes several threats of death (from Sol to her brother), and unfriendship (from Sol to Hyunjoo) to calm her down. And also the proclamation that they actually love each other, and that no, her son-of-a-gun brother didn’t seduce her bestfriend.
Sol still wasn’t convinced, however, and told them both that she’s gonna keep her eyes on them. No funny business, she pointedly told her brother.
All the ruckus tired her out, and Sol found herself drifting asleep. When she wakes, the clock on her bedside reads 2 am. Her stomach is grumbling– she remembers that she missed dinner. Not wanting to disturb her mother, who was peacefully sleeping on the couch, Sol moves to get up, and is then promptly reminded of her sprained ankle.
The wheelchair by the foot of her bed catches her eyes, but she strangely feels an aversion to it. She settles on the crutch. Walking was painful, and she has to take a pause once she’s out of the doorway.
“Sol? Why are you awake?” Sunjae’s voice break the silence of the hospital hallway. There he is, sitting on the bench outside her room. He rubs his eyes, which is puffy from sleeping.
“Sunjae.” She breathes out, startled. He’s still here?
He notices the crutch and the way she’s limping. He makes a face. “Why are you walking around with a sprained ankle?”
Sol suddenly feels foolish at the face of his worry. “I was hungry…” Sol reasons.
He stands up to guide her to sit on the bench, and then kneels to look over her foot. Sol lets out a noise of discomfort. “See, it’s swelling again.”
It’s so delicate, the way he handles her. His hands cup her foot so softly, you’d think he was holding a newborn baby. Not for the first time Sol feels a pang of something she can’t name.
“You’re hurt,” she blurts out, taking note of the gash on one of his fists. When he looks up, she also notices his slightly split lip. She stops herself just in time before her hand reaches his face. Sunjae follows the motion with his eyes, holding a breath.
“It’s nothing.” He says, after a few tense and awkward moments. He sets her foot down, then stands up. “What do you want to eat? Just stay here, I’ll get it for you.”
She has to crane her neck to look at him. “A sandwich, maybe? Anything available at the cafeteria, actually. I’m not picky.”
When Sunjae comes back, he’s armed with a plastic full of food– gimbap, tteokbokki, sandwich, and a rice bowl. On the other hand he holds a cup holder with coffee and juice.
“I wasn’t sure what you’d like, so I got these just in case.”
“Thank you,” Sol says, smiling at him sincerely. She nudges the rest of the plastic towards him. “You should eat too.”
Wordlessly, they eat together, side-by-side. It should be awkward, but Sol feels comfortable with the silence.
“So,” Sol begins, fiddling with her hands, after she finishes eating. Now’s a good time to talk about the elephant in the room. “You’re my boyf–”
“We should break up.”
What?
Her head whips to the side to look at him. He’s looking ahead, face unreadable. His tightly clenched fists are the only indication of what he’s feeling.
“You don’t remember me, right? So we should break up.”
“But,” Sol starts to protest– before stopping herself. Wasn’t she contemplating this herself just hours before? Hearing it from him though, she feels strangely wronged. Like the decision is snatched from her, which is childish on her part, she acknowledges. Still, it feels wrong hearing it from him.
“Shouldn’t we at least wait? What if I get my memories back?” Sol asks, echoing Hyunjoo’s words from earlier.
“You won’t,” Sunjae says, voice tight, shaking his head.
“How are you so sure?” Sol suddenly feels indignant. Why is he acting like this, when he was so soft to her just moments before?
And why does she get the niggling suspicion that he knows more than he lets on?
“Didn’t this already happen to you before? The first time, you got exorcised; and then at the reservoir. You never recalled your… lost memories, right?”
Sol can’t say anything to that logic.
“So just like that, you want to break up?”
“Why– do you even like me?” He finally looks at her, and Sol wants to hide from the intensity of his gaze. There’s so much longing in his eyes she feels breathless from it.
Her silence is his answer. He looks away, and then stands up. He gives her a tight-lipped smile, so fake it’s obvious. “Don’t worry, it’s not your fault. I won’t bother you anymore, like I did before.” He takes one long look at her again, like he’s imprinting her on his memory.
“I should go. Goodbye, Im Sol.”
As Sunjae walks away from her, Sol feels an acute sense of loss. Everything in her is protesting to go after him. She clutches her chest, confused.
This can’t be the end,
Sol thinks. A seed of a plan blooms in her mind. She needs answers, and if Sunjae thinks he can get away from her just like that, well, he’s got another thing coming for him.