I opened the door and went into the storage room of the classroom. In the middle of a summer night, the odor of fungi and dust were mixed with the humid air. I had flashbacks of many different moments at that time I remembered the shiny shoes of the principal, Namjoon’s facial expression when he was standing outside the door, the day I ignored Hoseok and walked back alone. My heart started hurting and I got chills. I had this complex feeling that overwhelmed me with pain. It’s hard to say how it felt like because it wasn’t annoyance but it wasn’t fear either. The sign was clear. I knew I had to get out of this place. It seemed like if Tae knew what I was going through & held my arm. “Hyung, try a little harder. Try remembering what happened here". Then I got Tae’s hands off of me and turned back. We walked through the heat for hours. We were as tired as we could be. Other guys looked at me as if they didn’t know what to say to me. Memory. What taehyung said about memory was just a meaningless story. That I did that …That it happened to me… A story that we did something together. It’s possible that it happened. I think we did that. But, memory isn’t something that you can understand or accept. You don’t understand experience through just hearing something. Experience is something that is deeply rooted in your mind, head, and soul. But for me, the memories I had about that place was only about the bag things. Things that made me painful and made me want to escape. A fight happened between me and taehyung who stopped me from going back and leaving. But we were both tired. Hitting or avoiding…it both felt heavy and slow as if we were in a hot viscous liquid. It happened in a sudden when Tae and I tripped over each other. My shoulders bumped into the wall and I faltered as I lost my balance. At first, I couldn’t tell what happened. I couldn’t open my eyes or breathe due to the dust filling up the whole place. I continuously coughed. “Are you okay?” I realized I fell after hearing that person. As soon as I tried to get up, I something that I thought as a wall crumbled. There was a huge space over the crumbled walls. No one moved for a second. Oh, my world. Someone said, “we spent such a long time here” we never imagined there was a space beyond the walls". But what’s that? As the dust settled down, we were able to a cabinet in the middle of the empty space. Namjoon opened the cabinet. I took a step closer. There was a note inside the cabinet. Namjoon picked the note up and turned to the first page. I instantly held my breath. The first page of a note that seemed pretty old…the page had an expected name written on it. That was my father’s name. As Namjoon tried to flip another page over, I took the note away from him. Namjoon seemed surprised and looked at me but didn’t mind much. I went through the bookshelf then an old note tipped over as if it was about to crumble. This book written in my father’s handwriting was a diary by my father that recorded what he experienced with his friend in high school. All the days weren’t recorded. Sometimes, the diary skipped a month and there were pages where there were covered with blood stains. I knew that my father went through the same thing as me. He also made a mistake in his life and tried to run and run to make up for his mistakes. The things that were written on my father’s note were the records of his failures. My father ended up giving up and failed. He forgot, ignored, and avoided it. He lost his friends. The last page only had a date written and the rest was covered with dark ink. The ink was stained into the next page and the page after where nothing was written on it. That stain seemed to show my father’s failure like if it was some sort of an announcement/speech/advocate. After some time passed by, all my senses got blurry. I felt the cold wind blowing over the window and knew it was the darkest time of the day, the time right before the sun rose. My Donsengs including Namjoon were scattered around sleeping. I looked up at the ceiling. I remembered seeing my dad’s name written somewhere here. Below that, there was a sentence written: “everything started from here.” I felt something from the tip of my fingers when I was able to close the note. I was able to letters written under the ink stain. I felt something out the window. I guess the sun was about to rise. But this night didn’t end yet. The time wasn’t night or past midnight (AM). As the darkness and blurry light intertwined, I was able to see the words on the line from the darkly stained page. The note had memories that were beyond something that was recorded. On top of the words, in the spaces in between the lines, the things that my father decided to forget and not remember remained on the pages. The color evaporated but the traces of how the pen was pressed onto the paper were left. My father’s time of fear, hopelessness. And his small and fragile hope and despair whirled around. My father’s map of the soul was reflected and left on the note. When I closed the note, I teared up. I looked at each one of them. Maybe we had to come back here. Everything started here. I realized the joy of being together. I realized the meaning and the joy of being together and being able to laugh together. The initial mistake that committed…the mistake that I was never able to confess was left like a scar. I think all these things are not a coincidence. At the end of the day, had to get here. So that I will find out about the mistakes and faults that I have committed and find the meaning of the pain and my agony. And perhaps take a step closer to finding a map to my soul.
