Even If This Love Disappears From This World (jenlisa adaptation)

The Blankness Of Blanks - IV

Rose

Within several days, Lisa’s funeral was held, and I was done checking the diary. Without telling Jennie, I talked with her parents and Jisoo about what to do next. Jennie’s parents had known about Lisa since before her death and were deeply grateful for her and sad that she was gone.

Jisoo tried to buy Jennie a new phone, saying it was Lisa’s last wish, but her parents insisted they wanted to buy it. In the end, they split the cost. After they bought it, I kept it with me.

In Jennie's current phone, Lisa was there—in photos, videos, messages, and even in her text exchanges with me. We had to buy a new one to erase all the traces of her existence. We decided her parents should tell her they had to get it because her old one broke. We’d write the same thing in the new digital version of her journal and notes. As for the messaging app…we’d say we messed up the data transfer.

It was the morning of the third day after Lisa’s funeral. I’d arranged with Jennie’s parents in advance to visit her room early in the morning. Since she was still weak, she was sleeping in her parents’ room at her mother’s suggestion.

I breathed in the quiet morning air and opened the desk drawer in Jennie's room. I gathered the binder and numerous volumes of her journal and placed them carefully in my bag. I set her laptop on the desk, turned it on, and transferred the digital journal and notes Jisoo had given me to her computer. Her sister had created entries for the days since her death as well.

Using a certain program, she even falsified the time stamps on the folders and documents. Starting today, Jennie would read the digital version of her notes and journal to learn about herself and her daily life and add her own new entries there as well.

Her old phone was plugged into a charger on another table. I took out the new one, intentionally messed up the data transfer, and registered her on a new messaging app. Now, she wouldn’t be able to see our past messages that referred to Lisa. She would no longer find any trace of her life with Lisa Manoban anywhere.

If that happens, I’ll leave the rest in your hands.

I thought of that joking exchange with Lisa. Reflexively, I looked up.

Lisa, this is what you wanted, right? That reminds me, I never felt comfortable enough to call you by your first name when you were alive.

I set the new phone on the desk and put her old one in my bag. I planned to keep it for her. She had lots of sketchbooks. I carefully tore out the pages with drawings of Lisa and tucked them into the large folder I’d brought with me. Then I went back and cut out the torn edges that remained in the sketchbooks.

I didn’t think I’d forgotten anything, but just to be sure, I looked over the checklist I’d written. I had forgotten something important. I had to change the notes taped to the wall. I looked them over.

I’ve suffered memory loss in an accident. Read the notes and journal on my desk.

But I graduated from high school. I worked hard for that.

Put my heart and soul into each day.

Don’t forget to be grateful for my family.

They were mere sheets of white paper, not the kind of things that have souls, but they had watched over her day after day. I couldn’t bear to look at them for long. I felt as if I was violating them.

I was only changing one, but since she might become suspicious if one looked different from the others, I switched them all for sheets I’d typed and printed from my computer. I knew every word by heart.