BTS HYYH Notes (Book 1, 2, BUS Game) // COMPLETE [Part 2]

2022, Aug 7 - Namjoon (The Notice)

[Place: Container town]

I switched on the light and looked at the flier that was attached to the door of my container. It read "redevelopment" and "demolition." People must be talking about the redevelopment of this area again. There was always chatter about tearing down the containers lining the railroad and the squatters buildings across the railroad. I crumpled up the flier and threw it into the trash can. The talk of the redevelopment didn't begin yesterday. But it always boiled up as if the demolition would take place the next day and then subsided after a short while.

I put down my bag and lay on the floor. It'd been a while since the sun set, but the inside of the container was still hot. I spent every night here after I visited Jungkook. It felt exhausting. My nose bled from time to time when I was washing my face, but I always came here instead of the tiny back room of the gas station. No one else had opened this door and stepped in here. Maybe, no one ever would. All those who meet must part, without exception. It could've been our turn. But, if someone still felt the need for "us" to be together, I wanted to send him a signal that I was here. I wanted to show him that "our” hideout was still here and still lit.

***

(A/N: This must be another loop or just another POV of Namjoon.)

I walked out of the gas station. It was deep in the night, but the heat of the day seemed to have made the road its permanent home. I glanced at the downtown area where Taehyung and I had roamed around.

What had happened several days ago seemed ages ago. After coming back from the classroom that day, I had to adjust back to my daily routine in no time. Making a living was still the most important thing. Besides my job at the gas station, I had found another temporary job. When I dragged this dead tired body of mine home, I ended up crashing onto the bed.

When I got to the container village, a sense of something eerie in the night air blew against my face. I gave darting glances into the dusk. A notice was posted on the containers: In accordance with the redevelopment plan of the city of Songju, this area will be cleared out starting September 30.

Are they really going to clear out the area? I had received the notice a couple of times, and a person from City Hall had made a visit. He said the residents here including me, had no rights whatsoever. He was right. We had just come here and made these abandoned containers our homes, so of course we had no rights of possession.

Are they really going to do what they say they'll do? A man who lived at one of the last containers shoved the notice in my face and asked, "I don't know, but seeing how things are now, I don't think they're bluffing."

He glanced at the notice from top to bottom and ripped it to pieces. "How can they do this when they know people live here? I'll see if they will carry this out. If they do it."

The document disclosing the police's non-interference agreement even in the case of violence was made public, and the news and media poured out criticism against going ahead with the plan. There were protest against Kim Changjun and the mayor of Songju. Some residents in the village thoughts things were not so hopeless. But I wondered if the media would really protect us.

There were people who would benefit from the redevelopment plan for sure, and they had their justifications. The world did not side with powerless have-nots whose only means of fighting was to kick and scream. Other people could sympathize with us once or twice but not for long. The law and the system were never on our side.

I squatted in front of the container. There was only a month and a half left before they kicked us out. I had no choice but to stay in the backroom of the gas station. There were people here who had no place to go. People who had no other means but to scream at the top of their voices or to face violence with nothing but their bodies. People who had no best alternative, not even a worst alternative. And I thought of U-chang.

I took out my phone. I opened a text message from Seokjin hyung from a couple of days ago.

Namjoon-ah, I'm sorry and thank you. We'll talk later, I'll call you.