Chapter 31

.

Yoo Chun Young had his eyes lost in thought, but after a while, he heaved a sigh and slowly nodded.

Kwon Eun Hyung detached his back from the window and walked back to his bed. He then dropped his gaze on the phone perching on the bed.

The screen remained black still. There weren’t any messages or calls from her yet.

Kwon Eun Hyung asked abruptly, “What do you think?”

“What do you mean?”

“I was talking about what Donnie said. It is unbelievable if we would apply our common sense to it. What do you think? Do you think it’s true? I mean, maybe she just dreamt about it, right?”

After his questions, Kwon Eun Young had directed his eye contact to Chun Young. Yoo Chun Young turned off the monitor and swiveled the computer chair to face Kwon Eun Hyung.

A heavy silence dropped between the two. Soon, Yoo Chun Young broke the ice.

“There might be something she wasn’t telling us yet.”

“… What makes you think so?”

“If that happened on March 2, 2009, she shouldn’t be scared about March 2, 2008, but based on what I remember, Ham Donnie had texted me she couldn’t sleep around that time.”

“Maybe she hates back-to-school day or something like that.”

“When I thought about it… her problem is not about her inability to fall asleep, it’s about not wanting to fall asleep.”

Yoo Chun Young’s face seemed serious as he could be when he spoke of that remark. He seemed to admit that what she had confessed earlier were true, but he was not convinced that she’s telling every detail they needed to know.

Kwon Eun Hyung tried to recall his memories of what Donnie was like around 2008. At that time, she grew her dark brown hair up to her chest, and it looked quite well on her.

What Yoo Chun Young pointed out was accurate. Right. Ham Donnie seemed to be unusually sensitive around March 2. One time, he saw Donnie stabbing her arm with a mechanical pencil, so she wouldn’t fall asleep. However, that did not mean she studied or did something worthwhile when she was awake.

At that time, it was hard to understand the cause of her desperation; however, if she was just afraid of falling asleep, then Yoo Chun Young’s assumption made sense.

She might have definitely gone through something else before, and that would explain her trouble falling asleep. In other words, her insomnia existed way before 2008.

While Kwon Eun Hyung remained silent while he had his thinking cap on, Yoo Chun Young suddenly opened a folder on his phone and pressed the buttons with his thumb. Kwon Eun Hyung had his eyes back at him and asked in wonder.

“What are you doing?”

Yoo Chun Young’s blue eyes were tracing the phone screen busily. Then he, at last, slammed the folder and raised his eyes to Eun Hyung.

He asked, “… On March 2, 2009. When Ban Yeo Ryung and Ham Donnie left, what did we do?”

“If you’re talking about that time…”

Kwon Eun Hyung retraced his memories at a slow pace. The four boys, who were looking vacantly at the two girls leaving, tried to come up with a plan to celebrate the day in their own way. Going to an Internet Cafe was rejected since they would always come there on a daily basis. They also did the same in going to the movies and the arcade.

They, eventually, plodded along the street and agreed to hang out in the weekends. Since March 2, 2009, was a Monday, they all thought it was quite a good plan. Kwon Eun Hyung and Yoo Chun Hyung then walked back home together. After that, they arrived home and…

“We were texting about our hang out at the weekends.”

“Yeah, we did… Ban Yeo Ryung texted back around 4 pm.”

“Right.”

Kwon Eun Hyung’s composed response triggered Yoo Chun Young to frown his black eyebrows in silence. While he continued speaking with Yoo Chun Young, Kwon Eun Hyung also seemed to piece the remaining pieces of the puzzle together.

He thought that on that day, Ban Yeo Ryung returned to her home and only after 2 hours, around 4 pm, did she responded to his text. Then wouldn’t they also ask if Ham Donnie was awake at that time?

No, from the very beginning… Kwon Eun Hyung’s cheek turned a little pale. He dropped a glance at the phone sitting on his hand. The screen was still dark. His face reflected in the darkened monitor to reveal that his eyes were slightly trembling.

All six of them planned to hang out together to begin with at that time. It was around 2 pm when he texted Ban Yeo Ryung. The texted contained that he would have sent the messages to Donnie as well.

However, he did not text her. He decided that once she got up she would text her back. With this thought in mind, he sent a message to Ban Yeo Ryung but not to Ham Donnie.

From 2 pm to 10 pm, when they found Ham Donnie in front of Jooin’s house, Kwon Eun Hyung did not text her for the next eight hours, not even a phone call. As if… as if he had forgotten her existence.

Then, Yoo Chun Young opened his mouth and addressed what’s inside Kwon Eun Hyung’s mind until that time.

“We were supposed to hang out together, but is it possible to only forget texting her?”

“… It was not only you.” Kwon Eun Hyung barely detached his lips and replied but soon remained silent.

The bright sunlight slowly increased the temperature within the room, but the silence burrowed between them chilled the atmosphere into an endless burst of coldness. As the frostiness permeating upon the air dominated every nook and cranny where they were standing on, they both felt an invisible hand caressing their spines.

While looking at the dark shadow hanging under the desk, Kwon Eun Hyung recalled his memories of what Ham Donnie went through that day.

If he remembered correctly, the family living next door changed all of a sudden. All of the phone numbers saved in her phone did not exist or it belonged to a stranger. The areas where their homes stood turned into dust as if their properties never existed. He could barely imagine what would it feel to go through all these in real life.

Yoo Chun Young and Kwon Eun Hyung, on the other hand, experienced something similar and smaller to what she withstood that day. They totally blacked out of her existence while she was undergoing that situation. They were not even aware of the fact at that time; things just went so seamlessly…

Then Kwon Eun Hyung raised his head when he Yoo Chun Young’s voice. Yoo Chun Young’s face reflected dazzling white rays making his pale face look like a glass doll.

Only his lips were red; however, they were surprisingly trembling.

When their eyes met, Yoo Chun Young spat out his words abruptly.

“It scares me.”

“…”

It was the first time he heard Yoo Chun Young expressing his fear out loud with such seriousness in his face. Kwon Eun Hyung startled was startled when he remembered how Yoo Chun Young did not even flinch an eyelash when they were watching horror movies and the like.

Yoo Chun Young’s blue-black lashes bent downward while it trembled as he murmured with his eyes closed.

“Rather than the fact that she could vanish away overnight, both of us did not even recognize that fact that she was completely removed from our memory the following day… was even scarier.”

“…”

“If contact numbers were still on her phone, but it belongs to no one, in other words, we could also see the name ‘Ham Donnie’ on our phones. The problem is what if we couldn’t remember anything about her even after seeing her name? Soon, when we would browse our contacts to make a call and find that her number doesn’t exist, would we simply delete it? Would that mean the last fragment of her existence in this world would vanish as well?”

“Geez.”

A hollowed smile ran across Kwon Eun Hyung’s face.

It was exactly what he said. What if they hadn’t found Ham Donnie in front of Jooin’s house? How long would they cease to remember her?

The time of her oblivion could have persisted for over 8 hours and would last for a day, a week, or even years.

They were speechless for a while. The fact that the surreal things could happen beyond their perceptions whirled around their minds and rendered them speechless. Yoo Chun Young remained seated on the computer chair and as his silence continued with his pale face.

Then Kwon Eun Hyung arose from his seat as he noticed that the rain had stopped.

He said to Yoo Chun Young who was looking at him in wonder, “Let’s go meet Donnie.”

“…”

“As soon as she finished speaking, she just ended the call even though I didn’t even say a word. Maybe she’s crying in her room alone now.”

Eun Hyung’s words made Yoo Chun Young rise from his seat. Afterward, he wore the jacket he took off last night.

It was around 11 in the night yesterday when Yoo Chun Young broke into Kwon Eun Hyung’s house. The fact that he was staying awake meant he was up all night playing video games. Yoo Chun Young would never be wide awake around this time of the day unless he was up all night playing.

Both stepped out of the house with their bed hairs. The clock was pointing at 9 in the morning already.