HYYH Notes 2

We Can Laugh When We're Together

Seokjin
2 August Year 22

When I came back from Jungkook's welcome home party, there was a pile of papers on my desk. A note on them said: A draft of your father's memoir. You're in it too so some feedback would be appreciated. The note was from Uncle Junho.

My dad's memoir. In the previous loops, this was about the time I got the first draft of it. It would be published mid September & I would even attend the celebration party for the publication without having read it. For the first time, I was asked to read it in this loop. It might have been a butterfly effect from having gone to Jungkook's party instead of the meeting.

I pushed the draft aside. I was not in the mood to read it. It might anger Dad but once the loop was in motion again, it was all meaningless. Ever since I realized how meaningless it all was, I had become unafraid of Dad. And my relationship was also no longer important. I had to focus only on my problems.

I turned the pages of the memoir by sheer accident. The wind from the window blew away the papers & while I was picking them up from the floor, my eyes landed on something interesting. It was the part where my dad was near the container village next to Songju Station & thinking of the future with me and holding my hand. It said he wondered if there would be a day when his boy would play soccer with a boy from the container village.

"Interesting" wasn't the right word for it. Nothing in that memoir was interesting. But I wondered whether that really had happened. Was my dad that kind of person?

I kept reading but there was an abrupt change in the story. The part was about me in high school & he compared it to his days in school but there were about 10 pages missing.

The fact that the pages were missing wasn't important. 10 pages from a memoir didn't make a dent in the story and I had no interest in my dad's high school years. I wasn't interested in which 10 pages were missing or what they were about.

I flipped to the table of contents & there I saw: The Map of the Soul. I gasped. I'd never imagined that I would see it in my dad's memoir. It was like getting punched while being completely defenseless. Namjoon telling me I should ask my dad passed through my mind. I knew right away where the 10 missing pages were. They were in the den. The inner room inside the den.

After making sure I was home alone, I crept into the den. When I walked in the door, I saw a painting over the desk. The vast sea, the raging waves and a precarious wooden raft. People without food or drinks. People without compasses or hope. Out of hatred, fear, and desire, they killed & sucked the blood of each other as they slowly died.

When I was young, I was so afraid of the painting that I stayed away from this place. I thought about why he had this terrible painting here. As time passed, the painting became a part of this den & no longer an object of fear or wonder.

But I had something else to fear. There was an inner room in the den. There was nothing special about the room. It had no lock & it was just an extension of the den. The only noticable thing about the room were the books. There were many books - books and papers he'd collected since high school. It was called "The Inner Room." Not because someone named it that but because it was the most fitting description of the place.

Dad spent time there organizing his thoughts or coming up with new plans & except for him, no one went in there. The exception was his secretary who went in to deliver papers.

I'd gone in only once & even though I was very little then, I knew that the place wasn't just a den with books. On the surface, the place looked ordinary, almost human, cluttered with boxes, papers & books placed or piled up without any order. But there was no usual warmth from the printed papers & no emotions from the paintings or pictures. Just standing there & looking up at the bookshelves, I felt an overbearing pressure that nearly shattered me to pieces.