My Light, My Jimin

Chapter 40: Eraser

JIMIN

I've been seeing Mrs. Chae-won for seven months, ever since I began my university coursework online. At first it was trauma-based therapy, but its turned into talking about Eomma, Taehyung, and the school life I once had as a whole. For the most part, it's an hour of me rambling about what sucks in my life, all for an overpriced charge.

Her office is a couple blocks from a ramen shop I frequent often, a naturally lit room with a sofa, an armchair, and a coffee table holding tissues and a small jar of candy. The windows look out the city, the view pointed at a nice garden her daughter tends to when she gets back from school. Mrs. Chae-won isn't much older than Eomma, sort of like my Imo, with spider black hair and long skirts. I like her necklaces that tangle up in each other, the chaotic jewelry endearing.

This week when I come in, she takes one look at me and says, "You look rough."

I try to raise my eyes to meet hers, but I only get to today's emerald pendant around her neck.

"What happened?"

I close my eyes. "I lost someone important."

She brings her hands to her chest, clasps her necklaces. "Not your Eomma."

"No," I say. "Someone else."

She waits for me to explain, and when I don't, she waits more. It feels ridiculous, creeping to the edge like I'm walking on a cliff. It's silly being this coy. I should know that she is under legal obligations not to share anything with anyone without my permission.

"The grief I'm going through is connected to Daegu University," I say. "A professor there is leaving."

"Are we talking about the same professor that abused you?"

I swallow. As much as I like her blunt nature, it still stings calling him an abuser. I focus on the window over her shoulder.

"Can we just call him a professor?" I ask.

Her eyes flutter, a few rapid blinks. "Doesn't matter what he's named. It still happened to you, and if we don't call it what it is, there's no chance at us making progress."

I stare, bewildered. "I'm not calling him that, okay? He is still a person in the end, and I want to treat him like one."

She treats my statement as my empathetic side showing, and she smiles tightly. "Maybe we should start from the beginning. Tell me what's going on. Is him leaving affecting you?"

I sit, press the heels of my hands against my eyes and try my best to explain the last call I had with Yoongi, how I typed up our entire conversation on my phone that night so I wouldn't forget anything. My brain is jumpy, my thoughts unhinged and barely focused enough to form full sentences. Mrs. Chae-won translates for me, her face softening in sympathy.

"This is so intrusive," she says. "He's stringing you along after all this time. Making phone calls to get a riot out of you."

I grab the arm of the sofa and yell out, "No! That's not what happened! I started the conversation. I dialed his number!"

"You did? Why would you do that?"

"I don't know," I say. "Maybe I missed him and wanted to talk to someone who made sense to me."

"Do others around you not make sense?"

I lift my shoulders. "Everyone thinks I'm crazy."

"No, not crazy," Mrs. Chae-Won says, "Traumatized."

I tell her it was complicated, my relationship with Yoongi, and to her credit, she does listen to me. I recount our moments alone together in his office, at the Halloween dance, his apartment. I've never told it with such detail, chronologically accurate. It's usually fractured memories and flashes of words he said.