.
Before I got to finish my sentence, Yeo Ryung uttered, “It wasn’t my intention to lose memories.”
“Ah, of course, I know! I’m not saying that I hate you because you lost your memories. It’s that…”
‘I was concerned if you wouldn’t like me anymore. That was what scared me…’ However, Ban Yeo Ryung didn’t hear those words till the end and just quickly turned around.
I grabbed her shoulders with both hands urgently.
“Hold on for a second, Ban Yeo Ryung…”
The look on her face then slightly changed.
‘Oh, did I tighten my grip on her?’
With that thought in my mind, I loosened up the pressure I had on her and uttered quickly, “The fact that you lost your memories has nothing to do with my feelings about you. That’s because…”
The only thing I had in my mind right now was just to make an excuse for her since there shouldn’t be any more distance between us, but on the other hand, I also had another thought in my head–perhaps, this could be the perfect timing to tell Ban Yeo Ryung my long kept secret since she wasn’t able to recollect our fond memories.
I meekly ended my words, “… Because I’ve lost my memory too…”
“… What do you mean?” asked Ban Yeo Ryung in surprise.
I confessed, “Just as I said, I’ve also lost a part of my memories, and it didn’t come back yet.”
“Since when? Which part of your memories?” She asked in confusion.
Her voice bewildered me. In this situation, technically, she should be showing emotions of relief, rather than confusion, since we were both suffering memory loss at some point. In other words, she could feel more at ease that it wasn’t herself alone, going through such a thing.
And that’s why I decided to confess the truth. Although I felt odd after her reaction, it couldn’t stop me from unfolding the things within me. The look on her face was also very serious that I couldn’t make up the situation as a joke or lie.
I continued speaking, hesitatingly, “When I was thirteen, our first day in middle school, to be specific…”
“…”
“That March 2nd…”
“Which memory did you lose?” Ban Yeo Ryung asked, almost crying.
I wondered, ‘Does it matter to you that much right now?’
No matter which memories I had lost, she wouldn’t be remembering those as well. So, why was she asking me that way as if she would get what they were if I told her about them?
Despite my thoughts, I confessed everything.
“All the things before that day…”
The wind blew again roughly through our hairs. Just now, I felt like it would refresh my mind, getting rid of useless thoughts in my head. However, it pushed my brain into a tumult even more.
I slowly continued, “… My memories of you and your house are gone…”
“…”
Her face looked chaotic.
“So, I can’t hate you just because you lost your memories. What bothers me, instead, is that I’m afraid you’d hate me because you can’t remember me. I…”
I concluded my words as if I were confessing my sins.
“… I… I have no memories about how we became friends…”
“How…”
That was what initially came out of her mouth. I lifted my head. Her intense emotions within that word felt still dubious. Was it really possible for Ban Yeo Ryung, who lost her memories, to reveal such true feelings in this kind of thing?
Then I realized something as I found her pitch-black eyes shaking vehemently.
‘A person with amnesia can’t see me like that…’
At that moment, Ban Yeo Ryung opened her mouth again.
“How could you not tell me that until now?”
“Yeo Ryung, you–”
“Did you just say you lost all your memories of me before our first day in middle school? Then Donnie, the reason why you saw me that morning in surprise was…” Her voice was now close to a sob.
I uttered in wonder, “You… your memories came back.”
That was when the note I just took out from my pocket flashed through my mind. I quickly cast down my eyes on it.
‘The note!’
It was indeed in my grip. On all occasions, I grabbed her shoulders, holding this in my hand. Her memories came back right after that.
Geez, how should I accept this situation? I lifted my other hand and hid my face in it.
In the end, my very silly guess–a mix-up of imagination and exaggeration–turned out to be exactly correct. This was absurd!
However, regardless of my complicated mind, time went by so nonchalantly. Yeo Ryung raised her arm and wiped out her teary eyes.
She kept speaking, “Then the reason why you treated me awkwardly like a stranger and tried to keep a distance from me was that… everything was because of that memory loss?”
“Ah…”
“How… how can you keep it as a secret to me?”
Since I was standing against the ocean, I could see it over Ban Yeo Ryung’s shoulders that Eun Jiho and Jooin were stepping out from the convenience store. They soon gathered around Eun Hyung and were saying something, looking in our direction. Perhaps, they had also noticed that something was going on between Yeo Ryung and me.
Yeo Ryung’s tearful voice reached my ears again.
“If I didn’t lose my memories, you would have left the truth unspoken forever, no? Do you think I would have just moved on, regarding those times as just some bad days in our past?”
My lips dried out. Facing her eyes, pouring out beads of tears, made my brain stop working. As if I had met the eyes of Medusa in the myth, my entire body turned stiff as a rock.
I could, of course, just say no to her, but that was a lie. If Ban Yeo Ryung didn’t lose her memories, I would have definitely not told her the truth, just as she said to me.
Well, if I didn’t shift to the other side of the universe this year, I could have told her my secret one day. However, in the world I returned, I finally found the evidence that this universe was a place inside a web novel. Thus, it was proved that I was just a person outside the book, whereas these kids were characters in a web novel.
Ban Yeo Ryung and the Four Heavenly Kings were aware that March 2nd was the day when my world changed. If I added the fact that my memory loss had occurred on the same date, at least, someone would try to connect the dot between the two days.
The clues were already provided enough. Their brilliant brains would still remember some things I said during middle school, the time when I was shallow and believed that I could always go back to my original world.
But what if they eventually grasped that March 2nd was actually the day I was returning to my original world, instead of myself being dragged to another universe? They trusted that I belonged to THIS WORLD, not a person from a different universe.
And what if Ban Yeo Ryung also notice that, except for just having the same name and appearance, the Ham Donnie she had known was a completely different person from me right now?
My blood ran cold just by thinking about it. That was why I promised myself not to talk about my missing memory part to these kids. But now, only two options were in front of me.
One, reveal the truth that the Ham Donnie she knew and I are different, and therefore, clarify that it isn’t about myself having a missing memory but just two different people existing at the same time.
If that wasn’t the case, two, I had to drive the wedge, saying, ‘No.’ However, that was repeating lies and choking my own self in the end.
Until when would I be able to endure all these? When for God’s sake??!
I closed my eyes tightly. If a god or creator of this world had sent me to this place under their scheme or a plot, I wished they could get me out of here just once right now.
As if they were erasing a text from a paper or monitor, or ripping out a page from a published book, I begged for their damn mercy to help me out of this situation.
Once, at least, just once.
