BTS Love Yourself: The Notes

Love Yourself: Answer Notes

Seokjin
30 August  YEAR 22

She seemed flustered as she stared at the diary she once believed she lost. Within every turned page were the movies she liked, the places she wanted to go, the flowers she preferred, and the future she hoped for. I had done this for her. “I’m sorry,” never came easy for me. The diary acted as a starting and stopping spot for us.

I wanted to make her happy. I wanted to make her laugh. I wanted to be a good person. I thought that following the words from the diary would help me do so. But that’s not how it worked. The more I tried to be someone else the more frightened I became. Wouldn’t my real self be discovered? Wouldn’t she be disappointed and leave me? Desperately, I hid and turned away from myself. But just like how a person can’t end a sentence without it being complete, the me who I lost couldn’t improve and instead wandered around the same places.

I know now that the me that is incapable and makes mistakes and fails is still a part of myself. No matter how terrible things become, only by being true to myself can I continue to move forward. I stood up and she didn’t stop me.

I left onto the street and took my hat off. As I swept my hair back, all the hours I spent trying to mold myself into someone else slipped through my fingers. I lifted my head and looked at my reflection in the window. Staring back at me were pale lips, a frail face, thin shoulders. I looked wretched. I laughed. My reflection laughed too.

Seokjin
25 June YEAR 19

A lone flowerpot rested on the storage room’s window. I didn’t know where it came from. Which of my dongsaeng brought it? I took out my phone. The classroom was always dark with shadows since there wasn’t any electricity, but I could still distinguish green leaves from the pale light coming from the windows. The photo I took on my phone didn’t come out good, and it wasn’t because I simply took it with a phone. I pondered this often - how a photo never captures what eyes can.

I noticed an ‘H’ written below the flowerpot when I approached. When I lifted it up I read ‘Hoseok’s flowerpot.’ I laughed. Hoseok was the only dongsaeng who’d bring a flowerpot here. I placed it back on the windowsill so only the ‘H’ is visible again. I then looked around. I didn’t notice this before, but the windowsill was covered with scattered writing. The walls and ceiling were covered in it too. “Pass or die,” the names of unrequited love, dates, and countless names that had become worn and illegible.

This classroom hadn’t always been a storage room. Students used to filter it every day. It’d be filled when school began and emptied during vacations. Were there students like us? Would they receive punishments for being late and missing class? Were there mercilessly violent teachers and never ending exams and coursework? Were there teachers who’d tell principals about their students and their friends?

I wondered whether my father’s name lied among the words. The school was my father’s alma mater. He was someone who believed attending the same schools maintained a family’s dignity. I read over the names and found my father’s. It was in the middle of the left wall surrounded by other names. A quote was written underneath it, “Everything started here.”

Seokjin
11 April YEAR 22

It was April 11th again when my eyes opened. Sunlight shined through the open curtain. I was overwhelmed with vertigo when I stood up. I had to close my eyes. When I did this, my surroundings morphed into a red afterimage, and I saw Taehyung. He was standing alone on top of the observation platform at the sea. That happened on May 22nd. It was the past and the future. It was something that’d happened already and something that still had the chance to happen again. It was then that I thought everything had finally been fixed.