Spotless Mind; Soonhoon

01

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JIHOON STEPS OFF the train just when dawn starts to hit, pale orange filtering through the clouds and sending strips of light across his vision. After nearly three and a half hours of being parked in one seat with nothing to keep him entertained but the trees passing outside his window, it feels good to stretch his legs. It feels good to look around and spot the familiarity. He hasn't seen familiar in a while.

"Yeah, no, I know - Mom, I know." Jihoon doesn't even have to hold the phone up to his ear to hear his mother squabbling from the other end of the line. She's going on about having enough food and keeping busy and Please, if you start to get lonely, just come back home. He rolls his eyes.

"I'm only staying a week or two, not too long. I'll call you every day, I swear, just don't worry so much." I'm an adult, he wants to say. I haven't lived with you for years now, anyway.

He feels a little guilty for it, going about things the way he did. Buying a train ticket on a whim, calling no other person besides his mom to let her know he'll be out of town, and with no explanation for it. He's been ignoring all his texts and he's got eight missed calls logged with no calls back. He isn't off the grid, but he's pretty damn close to the edge of it.

For just a little while, he wants to be nonexistent. But even he isn't mean enough to ghost his own mother.

"Trust me," Jihoon says, "this will be good for me. I think I just need some time away ... I love you."

This little country house - barely a twenty-minute drive from the train station - is a second home to him. From weekend visits to spending entire summers here with the family, Jihoon's got photographs burned to the back of his memory, lake water smell and loud laughter clinging to his senses; he's alone, now, and he smells too much like sweat and car freshener to notice anything else, but his heart settles comfortably nonetheless.

It's awfully quiet when he drops his bags upstairs; the countertops are coated in a layer of dust and the shower water takes too long to warm up from lack of use. Things are sort of a mess, but he's comfortable. Maybe dusting out the cobwebs will be therapeutic. It'll be like brushing out the holes in his memory and replacing them with something cleaner.

Is this about the accident? Honey, it's been months. I thought you recovered.

Jihoon inhales a little too sharply and chokes on his own breath. His hair is wet and dripping in his face. His eyes are wide and staring back at him in the mirror.

If you want to talk, talk to me, talk to anyone - but don't isolate yourself, please.

He blinks, he swallows, his heart rate doesn't go back to normal.

If there are any gaps, we can try to fill them in. Going away won't help anything.

He blinks, he swallows, he runs a towel through his hair and closes a fist around his heart to make it still.

He doesn't want to think about what happened, so he forces himself to think about anything else. Folding his clothes neatly in a drawer while he unpacks, the steam from his tea burning the tip of his nose when he takes a sip. Birds outside his window. Wind rolling through the grass. It's still so early in the day.

Everything feels choppy, like he's watching his own life through a series of jump cuts. When did he get on the train, when did he get off? He can't remember the walk to the taxi, he can't remember relaying the address to the driver, he can't even remember when he walked through the front door. Shower water, slipping on his socks; standing with his palms pressed hard against the kitchen counter and just barely managing his breath. Everything he sees and does plays like a poorly edited film.