A walk to remember || Tk

「 Chapter 16 」

—Chapter sixteen

He had leukemia; he'd known it since last summer.

The moment he told me, the blood drained from my face and a sheaf of dizzying images fluttered through my mind. It was as though in that brief moment, time had suddenly stopped and I understood everything that had happened between us.

I understood why he'd wanted me to do the play: I understood why, after we'd performed that first night, Dohyun had whispered to him with tears in his eyes, calling Jungkook his angel; I understood why Dohyun looked so tired all the time and why he fretted that I kept coming by the house. Everything became absolutely clear.

Why Jungkook wanted Christmas at the orphanage to be so special...

Why Jungkook didn't think he'd go to college . . .

Why he'd given me his Bible . . .

It all made perfect sense, and at the same time, nothing seemed to make any sense at all.

Jeon Jungkook had leukemia . . .

Jungkook, sweet Jungkook, was dying . . .

My Jungkook...

"No, no," I whispered to him, "there has to be some mistake. . . ."

But there wasn't, and when he told me again, my world went blank. My head started to spin, and I clung to him tightly to keep from losing my balance.

On the street I saw a man and a woman, walking toward us, heads bent and their hands on their hats to keep them from blowing away. A dog trotted across the road and stopped to smell some bushes.

A neighbor across the way was standing on a stepladder, taking down his Christmas lights.

Normal scenes from everyday life, things I would never have noticed before, suddenly making me feel angry. I closed my eyes, wanting the whole thing to go away.

"I'm so sorry, Taehyung," he kept saying over and over. It was I who should have been saying it, however. I know that now, but my confusion kept me from saying anything.

Deep down, I knew it wouldn't go away. I held him again, not knowing what else to do, tears filling my eyes, trying and failing to be the rock I think he needed.

We cried together on the street for a long time, just a little way down the road from Jungkook's house. We cried some more when Dohyun opened the door and saw our faces, knowing immediately that their secret was out. We cried when we told my mother later that afternoon, and my mother held us both to her bosom and sobbed so loudly that both the maid and the cook wanted to call the doctor because they thought something had happened to my father.

On Sunday Dohyun made the announcement to his congregation, his face a mask of anguish and fear, and he had to be helped back to his seat before he'd even finished.

Everyone in the congregation stared in silent disbelief at the words they'd just heard, as if they were waiting for a punch line to some horrible joke that none of them could believe had been told. Then all at once, the wailing began.

We sat with Dohyun the day Jungkook told me, and Jungkook patiently answered my questions. He didn't know how long he had left, he told me.

No, there wasn't anything the doctors could do.

It was a rare form of the disease, they'd said, one that didn't respond to available treatment. Yes, when the school year had started, he'd felt fine. It wasn't until the last few weeks that he'd started to feel its effects.

"That's how it progresses," he said. "You feel fine, and then, when your body can't keep fighting, you don't."

Stifling my tears, I couldn't help but think about the play.