HYYH 1 Notes (ENG)

After Returning from the Sea (PT 2)

YoonGi
15 June Year 22

I woke up from a weird dream. I thought I heard someone knock on
the door, but I couldn't hear anything after getting up. I must've heard it in my dream. "What time is it?" I picked up my phone, but the battery was dead. I connected my phone to the charger and got out of bed. My head ached
and my shoulders felt stiff. The piece
I'd worked on until dawn was replaying again and again. I'd been staying up all night for several days, but I still couldn't find the key to unravel the tangled notes.

Maybe it was because of that piece replaying over and over again, but
in my dream. I was roaming around
in the fog following a faint whistling sound. After a long time, I arrived at
a garden of an apartment complex. There I found a piano key lying among thick bushes. The half-burned piano key was covered with soil and rotten leaves. I walked into he garden and reached out for the key. Just as I almost grasped it, the apartment complex,
the fog, and the whistling sound all disappeared at once. The next minute,
I was standing in the middle of this workroom. In the distance, I was sitting in front of the piano with JungKook. JungKook said something, and I laughed. When was this? I couldn't recall the exact date, but this scene
was imprinted on my memory as clear as day. There were many days I could clearly see the scene. All of a sudden,
it became dark outside, and I was wandering through the night street.
I was on my way back from the beach.
I put my hands into my pockets as I talked about my work to HoSeok, and
I felt the piano key with my fingertips. The dream continued on in this disjointed manner. Moments overlapped with one another and fragments of memories piled up in
a mess.

I heard a banging sound at the
entrance just as I turned off the
music. Who could that be? I opened
the door but no one was there. I
drank a cup of water and lay down
on the sofa. The past few weeks have been a hectic merry-go-round. Everything just couldn't go smooth when composing music. It was hard
to concentrate at first. And I was also not used to working with a partner.

The woman was straightforward and outspoken. She popped in and out of my workroom whenever she felt like
it. She never hesitated or beat around the bush when she evaluated my work. She took away my lighter when I tried to smoke and threw me a lollipop instead. She nagged me to eat and
sleep. I couldn't argue with her because her performance and pieces were impressive. Because her evaluation was accurate.

That provoked me. I began to spend more and more time at my workroom.
I lost my sense of time and became addicted to my work. I would stay up
all night once I got down to work. I didn't answer calls or check my messages. All my nerves were on edge, and I didn't want to talk with anyone.
I switched off the alerts for every chat app. Would I have turned out as skilled and talented as the woman if I hadn't wasted my time and had continued training in music? I wondered. I didn't want to fall behind her.

"This is really nice." That was what
that woman said after listening to the unfinished piece yesterday evening.
It was an upgraded version of what I'd perviously written. "This is really nice." It felt as if I'd heard the exact same words before. I was trying to call up
the memory when she got her guitar out. Then, she began to harmonize
and play variations of the melody. I sat in front of the piano and played along.

"Don't forget. We're meeting at the hospital tomorrow morning." The woman packed her guitar and stood
up about two hours later. I looked up
at her with a blank face, and she rolled her eyes. Then, I remembered. She'd been giving me free solo performances at hospitals and schools. She'd told
me last week to tag along to the next performance. I hadn't answered, but she finalized the plan on her own. She said she'd call early in the morning
and I should make sure to pick up the phone.

After she left, I sat in front of the
piano again. It wasn't bad. But it felt
as if something substantial was missing. I distinctly remembered that I'd almost grasped what it was the last time I worked on this piece. I made changes, but nothing clicked. I stood up from
the piano bench, feeling pressure on my chest. Maybe I was putting too much emphasis on that something because it didn't come to me. Maybe
it'd be better to fine-tune the piece a
bit more and stop waiting for that something. I looked out the window. The sun was coming up.

My phone vibrated as it powered up again. She hadn't called yet. The name JiMin appeared on the screen. That instantly reminded me of a scene from my dream last night. A house was aflame. Someone asked me. "Is there anyone inside?" I answered. "No, there's no one inside." The scene shifted, and I was sitting in Mom's
unlit room. Mom was saying "If I hadn't had you••• If you hadn't been born•••."

I don't know how I got from my workroom to the hospital. I was running up the stairs like crazy
when I snapped out of it. The
hallway was strangely long and
dark. People in patient uniforms
slid by. My heart kept throbbing.
Their faces were pale like sheets.
And expressionless. They seemed
dead. I could hear my heavy
breathing in my head.

I could see JungKook in his patient uniform lying on the bed through
the cracked door. He must be asleep, but he seemed as if he were dead.
"He almost died. The doctors said
it was a miracle that he was alive.
It was that night, that night we came
back from the beach." JiMin's voice
was still ringing in my ears.

I turned my head. I couldn't look at him anymore. A multitude of images flashed before my eyes like a panorama. The flame that made a crackling sound in
a drum at a construction site, Mom's room that had always been unlit, the sounds of the piano that came from
the fire, JungKook's back as he clumsily played the piano at the music shop, JungKook lying unconscious on the empty street, and the pain and fear
he must've gone through as he lost consciousness•••.

She said, "It's all because of you."
She said, "If you hadn't been born•••." Mom's voice. Or was it mine? Or was
it someone else's? I'd been tormented my whole life because of those words.
I wanted to believe that they weren't true. But JungKook was lying there. He was lying in a hospital where patients roamed around like the living dead. If I'd just ignored him and left the music shop, if I'd just died in the flames, would none of this have happened?

At that moment, the melodies of the woman's guitar penetrated my mind. The guitar sound overlapped the crackling sound of the blazing fire,
the sound of the piano, and countless other sounds. I covered my head and ears with both arms, but the sound of the guitar only grew louder. I turned and began to escape down the hallway. I bumped into passers-by, but I didn't have time to turn around and apologize. They shouted curses at me.
I didn't look back. I had to run away from that voice and the hallucination. My head ached. I'd lost all my confidence. I ran down the hallway, faltering and staggering, and got out
of the hospital.

JungKook
15 June Year 22

A noise from outside the room roused me from sleep. I was having a strange dream but couldn't quite remember
the details. The night of the traffic accident replayed like a blurry CCTV screen in black and white. I could feel my heartbeat slow down and then quicken explosively. All of a sudden, pain surged, and someone was whispering faintly. The next minute,
I woke up writhing.

My entire body was soaked with sweat. The sunlight came through the window and right onto my face. I stepped into the hallway and was met by the usual scene. It was my first time to use the crutches. I still needed to get used to them but they were much easier than
a wheelchair. I went outside through the entrance. It was breezy. My sweat cooled quickly, and it felt chilly on the back of my neck. It wasn't as warm as
I thought inside my patient room.

As I sat down on a bench and opened my sketchbook, the doctor in charge came over to me. He said it was a miracle that I had recovered, he hadn't thought it'd be possible. He tapped me on my shoulder, saying I was the living proof of a miracle.

"You should be good for the rest of
your life." I turned my head and saw
a girl standing there who I'd met yesterday in the hallway. The girl said
it was so amazing to find a miracle right next to her and asked me how I felt. I responded that I was just really healthy.

I lowered my eyes again to the sketchbook. Before I knew it, I
was drawing what I'd seen in my dreams. My memories were blurred like the CCTV screen. It was hard to concentrate on my drawing or the memories because the girl kept asking me questions. After a while, I looked up. A familiar song was playing. Someone was giving a performance in the distance. I definitely knew this song. YoonGi sometimes played this in his workroom. I went over to the stage in my crutches. A lighter marked YK was hanging on the guitar.