HYYH The Notes Chronologically

Namjoon, 17 December, Year 21

The people waiting for the bus rubbed their hands together in the cold. I looked down at the dirt, clutching the strap of my bag. I was trying not to make eye contact with anyone. It was a countryside village where only two buses stopped per day. From a distance, I saw the first bus approaching.

I boarded the bus behind everyone else. I didn't look back. When I was passionate about something, when I barely had something in my grasp, when I had nothing left but things to escape; I had a rule. I was not to look back. The moment I looked back the efforts I made until now became little more than sea foam. Looking back, that was a kind of suspicion, a kind of lingering attachment and a kind of fear. Only when 9 had overcome these things I could finally escape.

The bus started off. I had no plans. I had nothing I was passionate about, nothing in my grasp, no particular reason to escape. It was closer to thoughtless running away from my mother's tired face, my wandering sibling, my father's illness. Starting with the situation in our house that grew more difficult with every passing day, from my family, who enforced sacrifice and tranquility, and from me who pretended to know nothing and restrained myself from trying to adjust and grow resigned. Most of all it was poverty I was running from.

If anyone asked if it was a crime to be poor, everyone would say it's not. Is that really the truth? Poverty gnaws on so many things. Things that were precious became meaningless. You give up things you can't give up. You grow suspicious and fearful and resigned.

The bus would arrive at a familiar stop in a few hours. When I left that place a year ago, I had left no message behind. Now I was returning with no sign or warning. I tried to recall my friends' faces. I had cut off contact with all of them. What were they all doing these days? Would they be glad to see me? Would we be able to get together and laugh like we used to? There was frost on one of the windows and I couldn't see the scenery outside. I slowly moved my finger over the frost.

"I had to survive."