Collection 2017, Spring: Unperturbed

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It's been 3 years and a half. I've gone so high so far. A lot has happened to me. Oh, but how can I forget you? Park Jimin. I never knew your name, and it was difficult to believe that we do share the same name. But the sticker label on your sketchbook validates it, especially when it has your phone number and picture on it. With your sketchbook sitting inside my studio, greeting me every time I come inside, how could I ever forget you? I've learnt how to do a bit of watercoloring lately, and I've decided to use this last page in your sketchbook to finally complete it. After it's all done, I'll make each one of your pages framed paintings and decorate all my favourite places with them. I love all of your works and I want to see them everyday and relive our sunsets everyday. I was hesitant to read your sketchbook at first, for the past years, because I believed you would come back and I would give it back to you. I thought you left it there by accident. But out of curiosity and losing the prospect of you ever coming back after years (actually it's only one, but it felt like forever) of waiting, I decided to wonder why and read the sketchbook. It's been a very long time, but I still remember every single detail like it was yesterday. I miss you.

I wonder what you're doing right now. Are you healthy? Are you happy? Have you made any friends? Do you know how much I miss you? Do you know BTS yet? After all we've achieved, after the harsh process in between, are we famous enough to reach you? How's your company? You're still painting and baking strawberry buns, right? Mochi is still with you, right? Do you know that my nickname is mochi? Did you know my mascot is created based on us? His name is Chimmy, and he belongs to a gang called BT21. Cute, huh? He's a yellow puppy. Yellow because the thermos of milk you gave me was yellow, a colour I like to call the beginning of our peculiar relationship. Chimmy is my other nickname, but I prefer its meaning to be your puppy plush toy's name reversed and mixed with ours. Mochi, Jimin, Chimmy. Our mascot, then, right? He was born on October 2017. He's very cute.

That Sunday I showed up at our place, you weren't there. Only your sketchbook was on the grass where we usually sat. The front cover used to be blank but you painted it Cotton Candy pink and then used a permanent marker to give this sketchbook a title. Collection 2017, Spring: Unperturbed. I kept coming back every Sunday in the hopes you would actually come back one day and welcome me in your arms like you used to if luck was on my side. I still hoped that you really didn't mean what you said when you'll leave forever. But I understand now, because I've learnt a lot about FPP. You can't tell the difference between reality and imagination and you probably think all those sunsets we watched and all of our healing days are in your head. That they are all made up and I'm just a fictional character invented by your mind to cope with your mental struggle, when all along I've been there with you and still remember every single moment with you. I don't know why you make me sound so wise, when in reality I don't know so many beautiful words. I had to search up some of the ones you used here in a dictionary. We even used some of them as titles in our songs. Taehyung and Jin have already taken stigma and awake since 2016 (coincidence much?), Taehyung also wrote a song for the word scenery, but Jin, (?) and Jungkook read through this sketchbook and thought that epiphany, persona, and euphoria were very pretty and wanted Namjoon to write songs titled after them. I told Namjoon I wanted him to write Serendipity. He read this journal of yours and incorporated a lot of your sentences and words into the lyrics, and I really love that. Other words we used were Spring Day as a title of a song Namjoon randomly wrote out of the blue, galaxy for Magic Shop (Hobi's pick), "I see you in my dreams" and "these ebon nights" for Mikrokosmos, "you're my light" for our Japanese song Lights and "I know it's time to go" for one of Namjoon's mixtape's song called Tokyo and "if love and hate are the same words, I love you" for Seoul, another song in his mixtape. We used "destiny" in so many songs that I forgot which ones. Now all the songs have been released and I can't thank you enough for what you've done for me just by leaving this trinket of yours behind.

I rarely visit our place anymore, but I still do sometimes. I come as often as I can but don't force myself if I'm tired, and obviously I can't go when I'm on tour. I still picture you being by my side each time I sit on the grass and hum the sweet (or to match your IQ199 vocabulary, I'll say mellifluous) melody to your "random keys using an odd picking pattern". I turned it into a song after asking Namjoon to help me write the rest of the lyrics. The song broke a SoundCloud record, and it's now the MVP of the app. It's called Promise because you made me promise you to not forget us and our Sundays. I miss you.

I wish I knew more about you, but I think this sketchbook gave me enough to know I probably shouldn't. I hope you find someone to open up to soon. I hope you don't forget us too. I'll take these days and relive them for the next hundred years of my life, even in my afterlife, even in my next life. I'll keep these pages with me forever. Thank you, Jimin, for being with me in my darkest days, for fighting through them Together, even if we never really knew what was happening inside each others' lives. Thank you, for being part of my Youth. And for showing me what it's like to be so important to someone else. I love you.

P.S.: I realised that in every page, one word's capitalisation is out of place. The misplaced capital initials spell out SERENDIPI in order from the first page to the last page you filled out. So I used the last page to complete the word. Serendipity (n) - when you are lucky and find something interesting or valuable by chance, luck that comes in the most perfect times and forms by accident.

November 21, 2020