Chapter Text
JL jolted awake to the shrill sound of his alarm.
His heart was already racing before he even opened his eyes. When he did, he froze. The ceiling above him was unfamiliar — white, plain, wrong.
Where am I?
A hollow silence filled his chest.
Why am I here?
He pushed himself up slowly, his breath shallow, palms damp against the sheets. The room felt lived in, yet distant — like stepping into someone else’s life.
His gaze wandered.
Notes. Dozens of them. Plastered across the wall in careful rows.
A neat desk. Too neat.
A framed picture of him and his best friend, Juwon, smiling at the camera — arms slung over each other’s shoulders like they’d done it a thousand times.
He stared at his own face in the photo.
He didn’t remember that smile.
Swallowing hard, he forced himself to stand. His legs felt weak as he approached the wall. The handwriting on the notes was unmistakably his — the slight slant, the way he curved his letters.
His own handwriting.
“JL, you have anterograde amnesia from the car accident that happened three months ago. As soon as you wake up, DON’T PANIC. Open your laptop and journals on the desk and you’ll see the daily happenings from the previous days. Fighting! 😊”
His breath hitched.
Another note.
“When you wake up, your memory resets to the day the accident happened three months ago.”
The words blurred for a moment.
Resets.
Like a broken machine.
“Jay Lawrence Gaspar, 21, Seoul University, Major in Arts.”
“Only your parents, Juwon, and your professors know.”
“Always write down everything that happened during the day.”
Everything.
He staggered back slightly, his mind struggling to catch up with the reality laid out before him. Three months. Three months of living he couldn’t remember. Three months of becoming someone new — someone he’d never get to meet.
Fear coiled tightly in his chest, threatening to suffocate him. But beneath it, something else flickered.
Determination.
If this was his life now, then he would survive it. He had to.
-
His hands trembled as he opened his laptop. Miraculously, muscle memory guided him through typing his password. The desktop appeared.
Familiar stickers decorated the surface — some he remembered placing himself. Others felt foreign, like souvenirs from a trip he never took.
One folder stood out.
JL, Open!
His throat tightened.
Inside were monthly folders. Inside those were daily entries — each one a version of him speaking to a future self who would forget.
January 30, 2025.
He clicked.
"I’ve been discharged from the hospital. The doctor explained what happened and what will happen in the future. He advised me to keep short daily journals so I can remember yesterday and the days before.
My parents are devastated, but I told them I’ll be fine.
I don’t know if that’s true."
The honesty made JL’s chest ache.
"They told Juwon about my condition. He came over right after the call. He hugged me so tight while crying. He didn’t let go until his parents fetched him."
Tears pricked JL’s eyes unexpectedly.
Someone cried for him. Someone held him like he was about to disappear. And yet, he couldn’t even remember the warmth of that hug.
He kept reading. Day after day. Version after version of himself trying to stitch together a life that refused to stay whole. Until he reached yesterday’s entry.
April 1, 2025.
"Start of my birth month!"
The cheerfulness felt almost forced.
"I almost got late today because the bus schedule changed. Reminder: update it tomorrow!
Uni was great. My professors presented my art piece from last Wednesday. Thank God I journaled about it or I wouldn’t have been able to answer my blockmates’ questions.
Juwon and I ate gukbap after class. It felt normal."
Normal.
JL stared at that word.
How could something feel normal when every morning erased it?
His gaze shifted to the notebook on his desk.
JL’s JOURNAL 😛
The playful sticker felt painfully intimate. He flipped through the pages. These entries were different. Messier. Ink smudged in places. Words pressed harder into the paper. Here, he found emotions his laptop entries tried to tidy up.
"I’m tired of forgetting."
"I hate waking up scared."
"Sometimes I pretend I’m okay so my parents won’t cry again."
"Juwon tries to act normal."
"I’m grateful."
"I think I’m falling apart a little."
JL’s breathing grew uneven.
He was grieving himself.
A version of him that lived, loved, laughed — and died every single night.
By the time he closed the journal, his eyes were burning.
He checked the calendar. 11 AM classes.
Life doesn’t pause, he thought. So neither will I.
-
Downstairs, the smell of food greeted him like it always had — apparently. His parents stood in the kitchen, smiling at him like nothing was fractured.
“Good morning, my baby!” his mother beamed.
As if he hadn’t just met her again for the hundredth time.
“Let’s eat before you go to the university, okay?” his father said gently, already sitting down.
Is this normal for them? JL wondered.
Do they wake up every day wondering which version of their son they’ll get?
He sat quietly and ate while they talked — stories, reminders, small updates about relatives and neighbors. He didn’t remember any of it. So he nodded. Smiled. Performed. He hated how easy it was to pretend.
-
At the bus stop, he quickly typed everything onto his phone. Every word his parents said. Every detail.
Proof that this morning existed.
“Hi, JL!” He looked up.
A girl waved brightly at him. He didn’t know her. He offered a polite smile and looked back at his phone.
“Girl, he smiled at me!”
“His smile is so pretty. No wonder boys and girls line up for him.”
Their giggles faded into background noise.
He wondered how many people thought they knew him. How many memories of him existed that he would never be able to hold.
The bus arrived.
As he stepped inside—
“JL! Sit here!”
“JL, here!”
“JL!”
Voices. So many voices. His pulse spiked.
They knew him. He didn’t know them.
Panic crept up his spine like ice. Instead of answering, he scanned the seats quickly — searching for safety.
Then he found it. Or what looked like it.
A boy who hadn’t called his name. Unfairly handsome. Sharp features softened by the morning light. A Seoul University lanyard hung from his neck. Major in Photography. Earphones in, staring out the window, untouched by the chaos.
JL moved quickly and sat beside him. A collective gasp echoed through the bus.
He ignored it.
The boy glanced at him briefly — eyes unreadable — before looking back outside. No greeting, no recognition, no expectations. Relief washed over JL so suddenly it almost hurt.
This was safe.
Someone who didn’t know him, someone who wouldn’t ask questions about shared memories he didn’t have.
For the first time that morning, JL allowed himself to breathe. Even if just a little.