Collection 2017, Spring: Unperturbed

(Unofficial) BONUS CHAPTER by another third party if you finally understand:

"His name is Park Jimin too?" Jimin asked. We were walking together on the streets one afternoon after buying a new bouquet of flowers for the office's kitchen. Jimin was pointing at the towering billboard sign that said 'Happy 25th Birthday Park Jimin!'. "And we both turn 25 today?"

"Oh my, that's very cool! My girlfriend is Park Jimin's birthday twin!" I turned my head to look at the sign, pretending not to know him. "He looks handsome."

"He looks... ethereal. Like a baby angel. Who is he anyway?"

"He's a singer. From BTS."

"Huh?"

"Biggest boy band in the world, broke Guinness for breaking too many records, map of the soul, LIGHT IT UP LIKE DYNAMITE, ring a bell?"

"No?"

"I'll turn on some of their songs when we get to your house."

"You don't have work today?"

"Your day off is my day off."

"I am serious."

"They're fixing up the set today. It fell apart when it rained for so long yesterday."

"Is that the same guy?" Jimin interrupted, pointing at a bus with the face of a man plastered on its side and a speech balloon next to it saying: Saranghaeyo ami. It had just come from the highway near the parking lot where I parked my car.

"Yeah."

After staring at it for a while, she became lost in thought and continued walking.

"Jagiya, you're walking to the highway," My voice pulled her out of memory lane. But then looking up to see the road and the sky, she remembered even more. Ignoring me, She continued to walk on. And after her hesitation completely evaporated, she ran as fast as she could through the highway, ignoring my shouts and the pounding headache she was most likely feeling from the splash of memories that her brain had to swallow. I quickly ran inside my car and followed her with it, but made sure that she thought she was alone. The sun seemed to set too quickly as she chased it all the way to a lonely place. Back to the daisy hill.

At times like this when she spaces out and spontaneously starts running, I was told to follow her to make sure she doesn't do anything stupid but also ensure that she doesn't see me. I've been giving her psychologists my secret observations since last year to help their research because Jimin doesn't have FPP. It's something else they can't figure out. She constantly switches her mindset from dreamy-fantasy states to serious and high-strung ones, and in her fantasy thinking, she behaves as if it's all fake and temporary and she's the only person in the world and does crazy things like run away or scream like a madwoman or simply stands still for a few minutes or randomly passes out then forgets it ever happens. In her agitated mode, she's a genius and that's how her company is running so well. Apparently she doesn't like being a genius. And when she's normal, which happens when she's with me, she talks a bit more and loves to watch sunsets with me, eat strawberry buns, and hugs me when she wants to. The same way she used to be when she's with him. But back then, her fantasy state of mind never existed and it used to be her calm one, who thinks that beautiful things such as spring sunsets with her counterpart aren't real (I know this because Yoongi showed me her sketchbook a while back and I made copies for the psychologists. Yoongi and I are close friends; I am close to BTS in general). I think the two mindsets come from traumas, the anxious one from losing her parents and the crazy one evolving from the calm one because of leaving him. Is that it? PTSD?

It's been so long. How could she forget? She let herself fall on the daisies and watch the magnified sun bid her goodbye before succumbing to the other side of the Earth. She laid down, but something hard bumped her already throbbing head. It was a piece of polished wood which was hammered to the ground. Taking a look at it from a better angle, she saw some words carved into it.

Our Place

Spring 2017

pjmXpjm

She then understood the mysterious yellow note in her desk drawer. She never forgot. She just thought it was never real. But feeling the pain in her legs from hours of adrenaline-fueled running, the sweat soaking her like autumn rain and the enlightenment in her blurry memories, it had to be real. It always has been. The moments she shared with the person she first loved, the days which were most precious to her, came flooding back one by one as each tear spilled out for the first time in a long time, as though they were the memories that brimmed over the previously empty tank of her emotions.

She quietly thanked serendipity. For Jimin. Her first real friend.