BTS: HYYH The Notes (Complete ENG)

Seokjin

9 August Year 21

I took photos as I walked along the beach. The look of the beachfront was constantly changing, but the ocean itself looked the same no matter what. I got out of the car and walked along the shore. I sat down on the sand and looked at the pictures I'd taken. The locations and time were different, but the pictures themselves were the same to me. The sky and the sea were the center of the photos.

It'd been a year since I fled Songju and came to LA. My mother's family's house, the place where I spent my childhood was neither strange nor familiar. It was the place for me to stay. I hid my emotions and faked my smile. These are ways to become a good person, as I had learned from my father. In most cases these things were useful, and this time it was no different.

After coming here, I didn't take photos of people because there was no reason for me to do so. I just didn't want to. Instead, I took photos of the ocean. Maybe I had wanted to take photos of things that didn't change in this place. It's funny, because looking back it wasn't that my friends had changed nor I had changed. I'd always been that kind of person, and now I was caught. I didn't bring a single photo from highschool with me. Back then I was too different from who I am now. I didn't hide my feelings, and I had no reason to find a place for myself. The fake smile looked the same, but it was different too. Back then, I was smiling for real.

I lifted my camera to take a photo of the ocean. It was cloudy. The sea and sky were the same color, and the horizon was fogged. Of all the many photos I'd taken of the ocean, none of them looked the same. The weather was different, or the light, or the wind. My feelings were different, and my heart was too. This was true of the photos I'd taken today, and of the many photos I'd taken during high school. A photo contains the feelings and the heart of the person who took it.

Maybe that was the reason I didn't bring any photos from that time. I was afraid to see who I was back then. I was afraid I would miss the person that was in those photos. How are my friends doing? What did they think of me? I was afraid I would start wondering about things like that, so I put all the photos of them in a box and closed it.