Resonance | Bboing AU

Prologue - Youngie

Youngie

They say that every person you meet in this life impacts your fate one way or another. Oftentimes that impact could be as little as a nudge to keep you going. Other times, it could be a shove. Whether you fall forwards or backwards depends on the direction you choose to break your fall. Sometimes that impact could also be a collision. The kind that breaks and crushes your bones beyond repair.

Bo Young didn't know what it meant until her whole life turned upside down with a single impact that not only broke her bones but crushed a part of who she was beyond recognition.

Her life had always been filled with beautiful memories of her adoring parents who raised her in a loving household. Her mom, who was a bibliophile, gave her a tour of different worlds through her books. While her dad, who was a perfume enthusiast, introduced her to the wonderful world of scents and fragrance oils.

But she ended up loving the perfume world more. Naturally, she grew up mixing perfumes for her loved ones, creating unique blends that matched their personalities best. The people around her always came to her for advice when choosing their signature scent, which only cultivated her love for perfumes.

She had always dreamed of putting up her very own perfumery but creating her own line was too costly, even for an only child of a middle class family. So she put that dream on hold for a while, and took up a degree in journalism in a university in Seoul, instead.

That was where she met her best friend, Do Hyun, the most dramatic, hopeless romantic in her life. They discovered later on that they were distant cousins from her mother's side of the family.

After they graduated, they moved to a small apartment in Seoul, so they could easily look for a job together. Until sad news came about Bo Young's father who died on the job as a military officer. They had to go back to Gyeonggi to mourn and to support her mom, who sadly, also passed away a few months later due to heart failure.

Bo Young pursued her dream of putting up a perfume shop out of the money her family received from the government as her father's beneficiary. Do Hyun joined her in her pursuit and put up a studio beside her shop and chased her own dream of becoming a photographer.

Using their degree in journalism as leverage, Do Hyun and Bo Young  gained several clients in the span of three months. This paved the way for Do Hyun to land a contract with a publishing company where she met Joo Hyuk - a brilliant art director who would make her placid life chaotic.

Bo Young on the other hand, still struggled to create her own line of perfumes. She would mix a few bottles from time to time but only the luxury brands would always sell out. Until one day, a young perfume enthusiast named Dawon, graced her store and tried out her personal blends.

Dawon quickly became a regular customer at Bo Young's shop. He eventually revealed to her that he was a piano prodigy who strongly associated scent to his songwriting. Oddly enough, he also used different scents to get in the mood to play the piano. And so he started using Bo Young's unique concoctions..

During one of Dawon's performances as a front act for a jazz singer, he forgot to bring his stash of perfume oils. So he contacted Bo Young to bring him a few bottles of her new blends to Itaewon.

But on her way back to Gyeonggi, Bo Young got into an accident when the taxi she was riding collided with a public utility bus.

When she was brought to the hospital, the doctors had to put her in an induced coma after her surgery to reduce her physical and cognitive activities to speed up her recovery. Everything seemed fine when she finally woke up a week later, except for her physical injuries that still needed more time to heal then.

The following day during the doctor's visit, everyone was confused when Bo Young started talking to her physician as if it was the first time  they met  since she woke up from her induced coma. And after several tests, they had confirmed that she was suffering from a rare type of selective amnesia. Her head trauma had left a portion of her brain unable to retain specific memories for more than 24hours.

Do Hyun witnessed how her best friend suffered from the aftermath of her accident. Bo Young cried every morning from the moment she opened her eyes upon realizing that a chunk of her memories from the day before was either distorted or completely missing. They both tried to figure out what kind of memories she lost and what could be the cause.

After a few weeks of observing her interactions at the perfume shop, Do Hyun realized that Bo Young only lost her memories when meeting someone for the first time. She was unable to retain any of her memories with that new person, after 24 from when she first interacted with them. It broke her heart, knowing that her best friend would never be able to make meaningful connections with someone new ever again.

Do Hyun tried her best to help her keep a record of important interactions with her customers by taking their photos, while Bo Young wrote down the important details of her conversations with them. That secret record was her go-to whenever an unfamiliar customer graced her shop and acted familiar towards her. And that was how she maintained a normal looking life as a perfume shop owner.

However, as fate would have it, her life took a sharp turn after getting involved with an ostentatious man who refused to believe that she simply could not recognize him.