#that still give me pains because i WISH i had pdf copies of them too

[rxttenfish]

while i understand why it doesnt happen, it does kinda irritate me when i pay 30+ dollars for a physical book and the shipping price and taxes, and then i dont also get a pdf copy of it (when the same store is selling pdf copies).

[ktaebwi]

Hwa Yang Yeon Hwa The Notes (Her, Tear, Answer) - Full Translation

KRN - ENG © ktaebwi Do not use for commercial purpose. Credit properly when reposting & re-translating. Do not repost PDF/DOCX file.

Download PDF: MF | Dropbox Download DOCX: MF | Dropbox

T/N: - The below translation is for Hwa Yang Yeon Hwa The Notes, a fictional work, part of BU (BTS Universe) published by Bighit Entertainment and comes with the physical copies of albums in ‘LOVE YOURSELF’ series. - The full translation has been rearranged into chronological order.

Hoseok 23 July YEAR 10

It was after counting to four that I heard the laughing sound like an auditory hallucination. The next moment, a younger version of me passed by, holding someone’s hand. I quickly turned around to look but there were only my classmates staring at me. “Hoseok-ah.” The teacher called my name. And then I realized where I was. I was in class, in the middle of counting the fruits in the textbook. Five, six. I went back to counting but the higher it went, the more my voice shook and my hands started sweating. That memory of mine kept rising up.

I don’t remember my mom’s face from that day. I only remember she gave me a chocolate bar while I was at the amusement park. “Hoseok-ah. Count to ten and open your eyes.” I counted and when I opened my eyes, mom was no longer there. I waited and waited but she never came back. Counting to eight was the last. I only needed to count one more but my voice just wouldn’t come out. My ears rang and my surrounding became blurred. The teacher gestured me to continue. Friends stared at me. I couldn’t remember my mom’s face. It felt like if I count just one more time, she would never go look for me.

I collapsed on the floor.

Taehyung 29 December YEAR 10

I took off my shoes, tossed my bad and entered the room. Dad was really in there. I didn’t think about how long it had been, or where he just came back from. I simply just ran into his embrace. I have no memory of what happened next. Was it the alcohol smell that came first, was it the curses, or was it the slap. I had no idea what was happening. There was the alcohol smell and there was the ragged, foul breath. His eyes were bloodshot, beard grown coarsely. He slapped me in the cheek with his big hand. He slapped me in the cheek and asked what I was looking at. And then he lifted me into the air. His eyes were terrifying, but I was too scared to cry. It wasn’t dad. No, it was him. But it wasn’t. My feet were trembling in the air. The next moment, my head crashed against the wall, body slumping down to the floor. It felt like my head was bursting. My vision went in and out and soon darkened. The only thing left in my head was the sound of dad panting.

Jimin 6 April YEAR 11

I went out to the front gate of the flower arboretum alone. The weather was dull and chilly but I was in a good mood. It was picnic day but both mom and dad were busy. I was sullen at first, but after getting complimented at the flower drawing contest and hearing my friends’ moms saying “Jimin’s all grown up”, I felt like I was quite cool.

“Jimin, wait here. I’ll come quick.” The teacher told me after the picnic’s over and we were about to leave the flower arboretum, but I didn’t wait. I was confident I could go by myself. I clutched the straps of my backpack in both hands and walked with slow and stately steps. Sensing everyone staring at me, I straightened up my shoulders more. It was long after the rain had started. All my friends and their moms left, no one was there to look at me and my legs hurt. I covered my head with the backpack and squatted down under the tree. The rain slowly began to pour down harder and there was no one passing by. I eventually started to run in the rain. No house or shop was in sight. I reached the back gate of the flower arboretum. The side door was opened and inside was seemingly a warehouse.

Yoongi 19 September YEAR 16

The flames blazed with a scarlet red. Until this morning, the house I lived in was devoured by the fire. People who recognized me approached me and shouted something. Neighbors scurried over. They said the fire truck couldn’t enter because they couldn’t secure an entrance. I stood still.

It was at the end of the summer, autumn was starting. The sky was blue and the air was dry. I didn’t know anything, not what I was supposed to think, not what I was supposed to feel, not what I was supposed to do. And then I thought “Oh, mom.” The next moment, the house collapsed with a thud. The house that had been devoured by the fire, no, now it had become the fire itself, along with the roof, the pillars, the walls, the room I lived in, they collapsed down like a sand castle. I watched them absent-mindedly.

Someone pushed me aside. The said the fire truck came. Someone else grabbed me and asked. They looked me in the eyes and shouted something, but I heard nothing.

“Who’s inside?” I blankly looked at them. “Is your mom inside?” They grabbed my shoulder and shook. Unknowingly, I answered. “No. No one’s inside.” “What are you talking about?” The auntie next door said. “What about your mom? Where’s your mom?” “There’s no one there.” I had no idea what I was saying. Someone pushed and walked past me.

Seokjin 2 March YEAR 19

There was a damp smell in the principal's office where dad led me into. Ten days after returning from the US, I was told yesterday that due to difference in school system, I would be held back a year. "Please look after him." Dad put his hands onto my shoulder and I unknowingly flinched. "School is a dangerous place. There have to be regulations". The principal looked straight at me. The wrinkled skin around his cheeks and mouth quivered whenever he talked and inside his tanned lips was a whole dark red. "Doesn't Seokjin here think so?" I hesitated at the sudden question and dad immediately squeezed my shoulder harder. His grip was so strong that it made my neck muscles throbbed. "I believe he will do well." The principal continued to look me into the eye and dad's grip slowly getting stronger and stronger. I clenched my fists at the bone-breaking pain. My body was shaking and breaking out in a cold sweat. "You have to tell me. Seokjin needs to become a good student." The principal looked at me with a smileless face. "I understood." I narrowly squeezed out an answer and for one moment the pain was gone. There was the sound of dad and the principal laughing. I couldn't lift my head up. I looked down the dad's brown shoes and the principal's black ones. I didn't know where the light was coming from, but they were glinting. I was scared of that glint.

Jungkook 28 May YEAR 19

“What’s your dream?” At my words, the hyungs turned around. “I need to fill in the career survey., so,” I equivocated. “Well,” Seokjin-hyung said, “I don’t think I have any dream. If there’s anything I wish for, maybe to become a good person?” He slurred at the end as if embarrassed. Yoongi-hyung, who was sprawling on the piano stool, then replied impassively. “It’s okay to have no dream. I don’t have such thing as dreams. I’m just gonna become anyone.” Everyone bursted into laughter at his typical answer.

“I’m gonna be a superhero. I’ll save the world from the villains.” Taehyung-hyung quickly climbed up the chair posing with his arm raised as Hoseok-hyung scolded him, “You’re gonna get hurt from messing around, get down now.” Then he added. “I want to find my mom and live happily. My dream is to be happier.” He cracked a happy-looking smile. “Does that mean you’re miserable now?” Jimin-hyung asked. “Does it?” Hoseok-hyung made a funny face, seemingly contemplating about it. He asked back Jimin-hyung. “What’s your dream?” “Me” Jimin-hyung blinked like he’s taken aback. “When I was in kindergarten I wanted to become the President, but afterwards, I’m not so sure what I want to become anymore,” he replied.

Only Namjoon-hyung was left now. Seemingly noticed everyone’s stare, he shrugged and said. “I wanted to give you some nice words, but I don’t really have any dream. I just want my part-time hourly pay to rise.” I nodded and looked down at the school newsletter. The job section of the newsletter was divided into two blanks, one for student and one for parents. What do I want to be? I couldn’t think of anything to write there.

Yoongi 12 June YEAR 19

I skipped school and went out, but the truth is I had nowhere to go. It was hot, I had no money, nothing to do. It was Namjoon who suggested going to the sea. The kids seemed excited but I didn’t really feel like going, nor did I hate going. “Do you have any money?” At my words, Namjoon made everyone empty their pockets. Some coins and a few notes. “Then we can’t go”. It was probably Taehyung who said “We could walk”. Namjoon made a face like he’s telling him to think about it and everyone chattered away, laughing and pretending to roll around on the road while walking. I wasn’t in the mood to respond so I just lagged behind. The sun was scorching. It was the middle of the day, not even the trees on the sides could cast any shade and on the road with no sidewalk, cars were passing, leaving clouds of dust behind.

“Let’s go there”. This time, it was Taehyung too. Or was it Hoseok? I wasn’t interested so I didn’t take a good look, but it was one of those two. I had my head lowered, strolling while kicking at the ground, but lifted my head up as I bumped into someone and nearly fell. Jimin was standing nailed to the spot. His face was shaking like he saw something very scary. “Are you okay?” I asked but it seemed like he couldn’t hear me. Where Jimin was staring at stood a “flower arboretum” sign.

“I don’t want to walk.” I heard Jungkook. Sweat was dripping down Jimin’s face. His face was pale like he was about to drop down. What was that? I felt weird. “Park Jimin.” I asked but he didn’t react. I looked up at the sign again.

“It’s so hot. Why would we go to an arboretum? Let’s go to the sea.” I said dully. I didn’t know what kind of place that flower arboretum was, but it felt like we must not go there. I didn’t know why but Jimin looked strange. “We have no money.” Hoseok answered me. “Then let’s walk.” Taehyung added in. “If we just walk to the train station, we’ll make it some way or another.” Namjoon spoke up. “Then we’ll have to skip dinner instead.” Jungkook and Taehyung whined and Seokjin-hyung laughed. After everyone began to head towards the train station, Jimin started moving again. He looked like a small kid walking with his head lowered, shoulders hunching. I looked up at the sign again. Flower arboretum, the five letters were slowing getting further and further away.

Seokjin 25 June YEAR 19

Someone had brought a flower pot and placed it on the window of the storage classroom. Who would most likely bring a flower pot among the other guys? I took out my phone. The classroom was dim and dark from the lack of electricity, green grass a stark contrast amid the weak rays of sunlight streaming through the dirty windows. The photo I took with my phone didn’t come out well. It wasn’t just because of the phone. I always think about this but photos cannot encapsulate entirely what the human eyes capture.

As I approached, a letter “H” showed itself under the pot. I picked it up. “Hoseok’s flower pot”, it said. I let out a giggle. If any of the boys was to bring a flower pot, it could only be Hoseok. I put down the pot so that the letters were entirely covered, even the “H”, and looked around. The window frames were covered in doodles, which I had never noticed until now. Not just the window frames but also the walls, the ceiling, there were doodles everywhere. “Pass or die”. Names of crushes. Dates, and countless of names that had now become illegible.

Perhaps this classroom wasn’t originally a storage. Students would go to school, take classes and leave the classroom empty in the afternoon. And it would stay empty throughout summer vacation until school starts and the students burst into the classroom noisily. Were there students like us, late for class and get punished and skip school? Were there endless tests and homeworks, teachers who ruthlessly inflict violence on students? And were there people like me? One who told the principal on friends.

I wondered if my father’s name was among here too. This was also his old school. My father was someone who believes attending the same high school and college for generations was bringing dignity to the family’s tradition. As I scanned through the names, I discovered his. It was among few other names, in the middle of the left wall. Under it was written a sentence. “Everything started here.”

Jimin 30 August YEAR 19

While Hoseokie-hyung was on the phone, I played around, kicking the ground coated with his shadow. He chuckled and made a face that said “Park Jimin has grown so much.” It took two hours to walk from school to home. Less than 30 minutes by bus and can even be shortened to 20 if I take the main road. But he always insisted on taking the path that has us go through a winding alley, passing a low hill and crossing the footbridge. After getting discharged from the hospital, I transferred to another school last year. The school was far from my house and there was no one I knew. I thought it was okay. I thought it wasn’t any big deal, after all, I had already changed school several times and who knows when I would be hospitalized again.

But then I got to know him. It was not long after the new semester started. He casually approached me and walked with me for two hours. Not until much later did I find out our houses weren’t in the same direction. I couldn’t ask him why. I hoped for the shadow that walks by my side, the two hours walking together under the sun, to last longer even just a day.

He was still on the phone, I kicked his shadow again and ran away. He ended the call and started chasing me. The ice cream melt under the sun and the sound of cicadas tingled in my ears. Suddenly, I was scared. How many of these days are left now?

Taehyung 20 March YEAR 20

I ran on the hallway and slid to a stop. Namjoonie-hyung was standing in front of ‘our classroom’. Our classroom. No one knew this but I called the place ‘our classroom’. The classroom of me, the hyungs and Jungkook, of the seven of us. I held my breath and came closer. I wanted to surprise him.

“Headmaster!” After five steps, I heard an urgent voice past the slightly opened classroom’s window. It sounded like Seokjin-hyung. I stop on my tracks. Is Seokjin-hyung talking to the headmaster? At our classroom? Why? I heard my and Yoongi-hyung’s names and Namjoon-hyung gasped like he was surprised. Seokjin-hyung jerked the door open, having seemingly sensed that sound. He was holding a phone in his hand. He looked evidently surprised and taken aback. I couldn’t see Namjoon-hyung’s face. I hid and watched them. Seokjin-hyung opened his mouth as if to explain himself but Namjoon-hyung raised a hand and said. “It’s okay.” Seokjin-hyung looked confused. “There must be a reason why you did that.” He said and passed by Seokjin-hyung to come into the classroom. I couldn’t believe in my ears. Seokjin-hyung told the headmaster what Yoongi-hyung and I did the past few days. He told everything, how we skipped school, jumped over the fences and fought with the kids. But Namjoon-hyung said it was okay.

“What are you doing here?” I turned around out of surprise, it was Hoseok-hyung and Jimin. Hoseok-hyung pretended he was even more surprised and draped an arm over my shoulder. Before I knew it, he was already dragging me into the classroom. Namjoon-hyung and Seokjin-hyung turned around as they were talking. Seokjin-hyung hurriedly stood up, said he had urgent business and left. I studied Namjoon-hyung’s face. He watched Seokjin-hyung leaving from the back and smiled at everyone like nothing happened. That moment, this thought hit me. There must be a reason why Namjoon-hyung acted like that. He knew much more than me, much smarter and more mature than me. And after all, this was our classroom. I entered the classroom flashing a smile, the smile that everyone teased me calling it a rectangle smile. I decided I would never tell anyone that I overheard that conversation.

Namjoon 15 May YEAR 20

I walked across the storage classroom, which had become a hideout for us who had nowhere to go, and set upright a few chairs. I picked up the desk that had fallen down and wiped the dust with my palm. The fact that it’s the last time always make people sentimental. This will be the last day I come to school. We have decided to move two weeks ago. Who knows, maybe I would never be able to return here. Maybe I would never be able to meet the hyungs and dongsaengs again.

I folded the paper in half, put it down on the desk and picked up the pencil, but I didn’t know what to say, only time passing by. As I was scribbling down some useless words, the pencil lead broke with a snap. “You must live on.” The lead broke and before I knew it, I was scribbling down on the paper, smudged with what looked like fragments. In between the black lead power and the scribble scattered messy stories, stories of poverty, parents, dongsaeng, my move.

I crumpled the piece of paper, put it in my pocket and stood up. A cloud of dust rose as I pushed the desk. I was about to turn around and leave, but went to breathe onto the window and left three words. No farewell would be enough, no words needed to be said to convey all and everything. See you again. Rather than a promise, it was a wish.

Jungkook 25 June YEAR 20

I stroked the piano keys, smearing my hands with dust. I put some force into the tips of my fingers and the sound that came out was nothing like what he had played before. It’s been 10 days since he last went to school. I heard he was expelled today. Neither Namjoonie-hyung nor Hoseokie-hyung told me anything, and I couldn’t ask them, as if I was scared of something. That day two weeks ago when the teacher opened the door and entered our hideout place, there were only him and me here. It was parents visiting day. I didn’t want to be in the classroom so I blindly headed to the hideout. He didn’t even look back, he just kept playing the piano and I moved two desks together, lying on top and closed my eyes pretending to sleep. He and the piano seemed different but at the same time they were also one, so much that I couldn’t even think of separating them. Somehow listening to him playing the piano made me want to cry.

Feeling my tears about to fall, I rolled over, but then the door was slammed open and the piano sound cut off. I was slapped in the cheek, staggering backwards and ended up falling down. I curled up to endure the abuse, but then the voice suddenly stopped. Looking up, he was pushing the teacher’s shoulder and standing in front of me. Over his shoulder was the teacher’s stunned face.

I pressed the piano keys. I tried to mimic the song he used to play. Did he really quit school? Will he never come back? He said a few hits, a few kicks was just common to him. If I hadn’t been there, would he not stand up to the teacher? If I hadn’t been there, would he still be playing the piano here?

Yoongi 25 June YEAR 20

All of a sudden, I opened the door, went to the desk and took out a bag from the bottom drawer. I flipped the bag and shaked it, and a piano key fell out with a thud. I threw the half-burned key into the trash can and lay down on bed. My seething heart did not cool down, breathing a mess and fingers stained with soot. There was one time I came back to the house, now a ruin because of the fire, after the funeral ended. I entered my mother's room and saw the piano burned to the point of unrecognizable. I sank down next to it. As the afternoon light pierced through the window and died down, I just sat there. A few keys were rolling around amid the last rays of light. I wondered what sound they would make when I pressed down. I wondered how much mother's fingers had touched them. I took one of them, put into my pocket and left the room. 4 years has passed since then. Our house was quiet. So quiet that I was going crazy. After 10 o'clock, my father would go to bed and everything must be done with bated breath afterwards. That was the rule of this house. It was hard for me to endure that silence. It was not easy to match the time and follow the rule, the formality either. But what I couldn't endure even more was that, despite of it, I still continue to live in this house. Taking the pocket money my father gives, eating with my father, listening to his scoldings. Even though I talked back to him, went astray and caused trouble, I didn't have to courage to leave him, leave this house and be alone, to really put that freedom into action and not just pure words. All of a sudden, I sat up from the bed. I took out the key from the trash can under the desk. I opened the window, letting the air of the night harshly rush in. Everything happened today flooded in as it they were carried by the wind, slapping at my face. I threw the key into the air as hard as I could. It had been ten days since I last went to school. I heard they expelled me. Who knows, maybe now I would be kicked out of this house even if I don't want to. I listened carefully but still couldn't make out the sound of the key falling to the ground. No matter how much I wondered about, I will never be able to know what sound that key made. No matter how much time passes, that key will never be able to make any sound again. I will never play the piano again.

Seokjin 17 July YEAR 20

Outside the school entrance, the sound of crickets prickled in my ears. The school yard was crowded with kids laughing, joking around, racing with each other. It was the start of the summer holiday, everyone was excited. I lowered my head and walked through them. I just wanted to leave the school quickly.

“Hyung.” I lifted my head up out of surprise as someone’s silhouette popped out. It was Hoseok and Jimin. They were smiling brightly, looking at me with eyes beaming with mischief, just like usual. “It’s summer holiday today, are you just going to leave like that?”  Hoseok pulled my arm and said. I just replied “Yeah yeah”, uttered some more meaningless words and then turned away. What happened that day was just an accident. It wasn’t on purpose. I didn’t think Jungkook and Yoongi would be in the storage classroom at that time. The headmaster suspected I was covering for them. He said he could tell my father that I wasn’t a well-behaved student. I had to say something. I told him about the hideout because I thought it would be empty at the time. But it ultimately led to Yoongi getting expelled. No one knew I was involved.

“Have a good vacation, hyung! I’ll contact you later.” Hoseok stealthily dropped his hold and greeted me more cheerfully on purpose, as if he read something from my face. I gave him no response this time too. There was nothing I could say. Walking out of the school gate, I thought of the day I first went here. I was late and we were punished together. It was why we could laugh. Those moments were ruined by me.

Hoseok 15 September YEAR 20

Jimin’s mother walked across the emergency room. She checked the name on the headboard and the IV bottle, then took out the grass leaf on Jimin’s shoulder. I felt like I should tell her why Jimin was rushed to the emergency room, how he had a seizure at the bus stop, so I hesitantly approached her. Only then did Jimin’s mother spot me, she looked at me for a while as if to figure something out. I didn’t know what to do, so I hung back. Jimin’s mother only said thank you and turned away.

The next time Jimin’s mother turned to me again was when the doctor and the nurses started to move the bed and I followed them. Jimin’s mother said thank you again and pushed my shoulder. More correctly, she slightly put her hand on my shoulder and took it off. But suddenly, an invisible line was drawn between me and Jimin’s mother. It was a clear and solid line. Cold and firm. It was a line that I eventually couldn’t cross through. I had lived at the orphanage for more than 10 years. I could tell it through with my body, my eyes, with the air. In an unguarded moment, I stepped back and fell to the floor. Jimin’s mother stared down at me with a blank look. She was a petite and beautiful woman, but her shadow was big and chilly. That shadow casted on me falling down to the floor of the emergency room. When I looked up, Jimin’s bed had already gone out of the emergency room, no longer seen. Since that day, Jimin didn’t go to school anymore.

Jimin 28 September YEAR 20

I stopped counting how many days I had been in the hospital. It’s something people do when they want to leave or when they have the hope of leaving. Looking at the trees and the grass outside the windows, people’s outfits, seems like it hadn’t been that much time. One month at most. Sometimes I saw school uniforms as well, but now even that didn’t really stir up any special feeling. Everything only felt so dull and hazy, maybe because of the medicine. But today was a special day. A day that must be written down on the diary if I had one. But I didn’t keep any diary and I didn’t want to cause trouble while writing such thing. Today I lied for the first time. I looked into the doctor’s eyes and pretended I was depressed. I said, “I don’t remember anything.”

Jungkook 30 September YEAR 20

“Jeon Jungkook. You’re coming there recently too, aren’t you?” I didn’t answer, just standing there looking at the tips of my sneakers. He hit my head with the roll book for not answering. Still, I made no move to talk, The classroom where I was together with the hyungs. Ever since the day I followed them and discovered that classroom, there was not a single day I didn’t come there. They probably didn’t know this too. Sometimes they didn’t  show up there, busy meeting friends or working part-time. Sometimes I didn’t see Yoongi-hyung or Seokjin-hyung for days. But not for me. I went there every single day. There were days no one else would come. But it was okay. If that place still exists, the hyungs would come today, tomorrow, or the following day, so it was okay.

“You learned only bad things from hanging out with those kids.” One more hit. I glared up at him. Another hit. I thought of when Yoongi-hyung was hit. I clenched my teeth and endured. I didn’t want to lie that I didn’t come to the classroom.

I once again stood in front of that classroom. It felt like if I open the door, the hyungs would be there. They would be playing games and turn around to ask me why I was so late. Seokjin-hyung and Namjoon-hyung would read books, Taehyungie-hyung would play games, Yoongi-hyung would play the piano and Hoseok-hyung and Jimin-hyung would be dancing.

But when I opened the door, there was only Hoseok-hyung. He was packing our stuff left in the classroom. I just stood there grabbing the doorknob. He approached and draped an arm over my shoulder. Then he pulled me outside. “Let’s go now.” The classroom door closed behind me. And then I realized. Those days are gone and would never come back.

Hoseok 25 February YEAR 21

I danced without taking my eyes off my reflection in the mirror. The me in there soared up without touching the ground, free from all the gazes and standards of the world. Nothing mattered to me but moving my body to the music, putting my whole heart into my body.

I first danced when I was about twelve. Maybe it was around the time of the talent show in a field trip. I followed my friends and stood on the stage. Among what happened that day, I could still remember the applause and the cheer. And the feeling of being myself for the first time. At that time, I was only thinking of moving my body to the music and having fun. It was ecstasy, and it was not until much later did I learn that that ecstasy didn’t come from the applause, it came from somewhere inside me.

The me outside the mirror is hung up by many things. I can’t lift my feet off the ground for more than a few seconds, I smile even when I hate it and smile when I’m sad too.. I take medicines I don’t need yet still collapse anywhere. So I try not to take my eyes off myself in the mirror when I dance. The moment I can truly become myself. The moment I can throw away all the weight and fly. The moment that makes me believe I can become happy. I keep my eyes on that moment.

Namjoon 17 December YEAR 21

People waiting for the first bus rubbed their hands together at the cold wind. I clutched the straps of my bag tightly and looked down to the ground. I tried not to make eye contact with anyone. A country village only two buses stops at a day. The first was approaching from afar.

I followed after people and got on the bus. I didn’t look back. When we’re desperate for something, when we has grabbed hold of it and now the only thing left to do is escaping, there’s one condition. To not look back. The moment we look back, all our efforts will go up in smoke. Looking back is doubting, is lingering attachment and fear. Only after we’re over it can we truly escape.

The bus departed. I had no plan. I wasn’t desperate for anything, not did I grab hold of it and was escaping. It was more like an impromptu getaway. A getaway from my mother’s tired face, my sibling who’s feeling lost, my father’s illness. A getaway from my household situation that’s getting more stressful over time, from my family who insist on sacrifice and peace, from myself who pretended like I knew nothing and resigned, striving to adapt myself, and most of all, from poverty.

If you ask if poverty is a crime, anyone would say it’s not. But is it really not? Poverty eats away so many things. It makes what we used to treasure become nothing. It makes us give up what we could not. It makes us doubt, fear and resign.

Just few hours later, this bus will stop at a familiar stop. One year ago, I didn’t leave any goodbye when I left this place. And now I’m coming back there without any omen or notice. My friends’ faces came up in my mind. I cut contact with all of them. How have they been doing? Will they welcome me? Will we be able to gather and laugh like we used to? Outside, the landscape was rendered invisible by the frosty windows. I slowly moved my fingers above it.

“You must live on.”

Hoseok 2 March YEAR 22

I liked being among people. AFter leaving the orphanage to live on my own, I started working part-time at a fast food restaurant, a job that required facing many people, smiling and being cheerful all the time. I liked it. Truthfully, there wasn’t much to smile at and be cheerful about in my life. It was evident I met more bad people than good ones. Perhaps that was why I liked that job even more. Beaming at them and responding with a loud voice, even if forcefully, I felt like I really felt that way. My mood’s lifted up as I laughed aloud and I became a kind person as I treated people with kindness. There were days so tough that by the time I finished cleaning the restaurant and headed back home, even taking a step felt gruelling already. Still, it was a little easier to make it through with my friends around than now.

Sometimes, I looked at the customers filling the restaurant and thought about my friends. Seokjin-hyung, who transferred school and left without a word; Namjoon, who just disappeared one morning; Yoongi-hyung, who went out of contact after getting expelled; Taehyung, who no one knew where and what kind of trouble he would get into; and Jimin, who I last saw at the ER and never came back to school again. I saw Jungkook coming home from school in his uniform several times through the windows not long ago, but somehow he didn’t stop by the restaurant. I wondered if those times had gone now.

At the sound of a customer coming in, I chirped a loud welcome. And I flashed a big, healthy smile, looking back at the door.

Taehyung 29 March YEAR 22

THe gas station owner spit at the ground and left. I lay there, curled up on the ground. I was graffitiing on the wall behind the gas station when the owner caught me. He beat me after asking what the hell I was doing at someone else’s wall. I rolled over on the ground. Getting beaten was something far too familiar to me but at the same time, something I could never get used to. It was not long ago when I started graffitiing. I tried spraying on the wall with a spray can someone left behind. It was yellow, I think. I just sprayed mindlessly and looked up, at the vivid yellow paint on the gray wall, then picked up another spray. For a while, I just sprayed, clueless of whatever was going on my mind. I only stopped after all the spray cans had run out. I threw the cans away and stepped back, out of breath as if I just sprinted with all my might.

I had no idea what the colors on the wall represented, clueless of what I was doing or why I was doing it. But one thing I could figure out was that it was my feelings. I had sprayed my feelings out onto the wall. At first I thought it was hideous, dirty, even. Foolish, useless, pathetic. I didn’t like it at all. I rubbed the wet paint with my palms, wanting to erase everything away.  The paint didn’t go away, instead smudged into another color and mangled into a different shape. I flopped back down against the wall. It wasn’t a matter of whether I liked it or not, nor whether it was pretty or not. It’s just, it was me.

I pushed myself up as a cough came out. Blood splattered on my palm, probably from the new cut inside my mouth. And then, I saw someone’s hand picking up the spray can. My gaze followed the hand until it met a face. It was Namjoon-hyung. I chuckled. So I was seeing things. He gave me his hand. I just looked up at him. He pulled my and and helped me up. His hand was warm.

Yoongi 7 April YEAR 22

I stopped walking at the clumsy piano sound. At the empty construction site in the middle of the night, there was only the crackling sound from a fire someone had lit in the drum can. I could tell it was the song I used to play, but I didn’t really have any thought. My drunken footsteps wobbled. I closed my eyes and walked even more mindlessly. Heat from the fire became stronger and the piano sound, the air of the night, even my intoxication fade away.

At the sudden horn, I opened my eyes, narrowly escaping a passing car. Amid the glare of the headlight, the wind from cars passing by and the chaos of my intoxication, I staggered helplessly. A driver was spitting out curses. I stopped, about to curse back when I realized, I could no longer hear the piano sound. Amid the sound of the blazing fire, the sound of the wind, the noise left behind by cars, there was no way the piano sound could be heard. Seems like it stopped. Why did it stop? Was someone playing the piano?

With a snap, sparks of the fire in the drum can surged towards the darkness. I stared vacantly at it for a while. My face flushed from the heat. That was when I heard the sound of someone slamming down the piano keys with fist. Instinctively, I turned around. In a second, my blood was running wild, breath growing ragged. My childhood nightmare. It was like the sound I heard at that place.

The next moment, I was running. My body turned around on itself not on my own will, running towards the music shop. Somehow it felt like this had repeatedly happened countless of times. Like I was forgetting something really urgent.

The music shop with broken windows. Someone was sitting in front of the piano. It had been years but I still could recognize him at once. He was crying. I clenched my fists. I didn’t want to get involved with someone else’s life. Didn’t want to comfort someone else’s loneliness. Didn’t want to become a meaningful person to someone else. I didn’t have the confidence that I would be able to protect that person. Didn’t have the confidence to be with them till the end. I didn’t want to hurt them. I didn’t want to get hurt.

I slowly moved my steps. I was about to turn around and leave, but unknowingly, I came closer. And pointed out to him the wrong note. Jungkook lifted his head and looked up at me. “Hyung.” It was the first time we met after I dropped out of school.

Seokjin 11 April YEAR 22

When I opened my eyes, it was the 11th of April again. Sunlight was streaming in through the open curtains. I pushed myself up as my eyes closed from the dizziness. My surroundings transformed into crimson afterimages and I thought of Taehyung, standing alone on the observation deck by the sea. It was the 22th of May. It was the past and the future, an occurrence that had happened and could happen in the future. It was the moment I thought everything was resolved.

I caught the sight of Taehyung climbing up the observation deck when the sun was starting to set. The sky was still blue but a dark red hue had begun to spread. I turned around and saw Taehyung climbing up the observation deck. Taehyung reached the top and lowered his gaze at us for a moment. And then he jumped. He leaped down like he was a bird, like he was carrying wings. For a moment, I thought he stopped in mid-air, until it felt like the mirror broke, curtains drawn open and the cold wind surged in.

When I opened my eyes, it was today, the 1tth of April.

Jungkook 11 April YEAR 22

At last, my wish was granted. I purposely bumped into the thugs on the street and was beaten as much as I wanted to be. I kept smiling as I was beaten, and so they beat me up more, calling me crazy. I leaned against the shutter door and looked up at the sky. It was already night. There was nothing in the pitch black sky. A single clump of grass stood not far away. It was lying flat from the wind. It was just like me. I forced myself to laugh to stop the tears from falling.

Under my closed eyes, I saw my stepfather clearing his throat. My half-brother was chuckling. My stepfather’s relatives were either looking somewhere else or talking about useless stuff. They acted like I wasn’t there, like my existence was nothing. In front of them, my mother was flustered. She pushed herself from the floor, making a cloud of dust rise in the process and coughed. It hurt, like someone was cutting into the pit of my stomach with a knife. I climbed up to the rooftop of the construction site. The city at night was stretching with frightful colors. I climbed on top of the banister, spreading my arms out and walked. For a moment, my legs wobbled and I almost lost balance. Just one more step and I would die, I thought. But if I die, everything would be over. No one would be sad if I disappear.

Jungkook 11 April YEAR 22

I walked on the railing on the rooftop of a building that had been left in its construction-halted state. I stuck out my foot as the darkness crept up from my toes. Beneath the railing, the night city spread out in a chaotic mess. Neon signs, car horns, acrid clouds of dust swirling in the dark. For a second, I swayed from the dizziness. I spread my arms wide to regain balance. And I thought. Just one stop. One step and all of this would be over. I leaned towards the dark a little. The darkness that began from the tip of my feet soon spread like it was going to devour my entire body. I closed my eyes and the chaotic city, the noise, the fear, all went away. I held my breath and slowly, I leaned over. No thought crossed my head. Nobody came to my mind. There was nothing I wanted to leave behind, nothing I would remember. This was just the way it ended.

It was then, the moment my phone rang. I came to myself like I just woke up from a distant dream. All the numbed senses returned in an instant. I took out my phone. It was Yoongi-hyung.

Yoongi 11 April YEAR 22

I walked, noticing Jungkook who was following from a distance behind. Containers popped up one after  another along the stretch of railway. “It’s the fourth to last container.” Hoseok added. “I planned to meet up with Namjoon and Taehyung, you should come too.” I said okay, but truthfully I had no intention of going. I loathed getting entangled with people and Hoseok knew that too. He probably wouldn’t have thought I would show up for real.

I flung open the door to Hoseok’s surprised face. He spotted Jungkook and came closer with his signature exaggerated face of mixed emotions. I walked past them, heading inside the container. “It’s been awhile.” I heard an embarrassed Jungkook scuffling with Hoseok who was trying to hug him.

Soon, Namjoon entered, taking Taehyung along. Taehyung’s T-shirt was ripped on one side. Asked what happened, Namjoon pretended to smack Taehyung and said, “Dude’s doing graffiti and got caught by the cops. Had to get him out so I was late”. Taehyung pretended to be sorry exaggeratedly and went on and one about how his shirt got ripped from running away from the cops.

I sat in the corner and watched them. Namjoon was giving Taehyung another shirt to change into. Hoseok was taking out some hamburgers and drinks. Somewhere between them, Jungkook stood awkwardly, not knowing what to say.

Looking back, it was also the same back in high school. Somewhere inside our hideout classroom, Namjoon would try to reason with Taehyung only to get teased back, Hoseok would bustle in and out while Jungkook, unsure of where his place was, paced around.

How long had it been since we gathered like this? I couldn’t remember. How had it been for Seokjin-hyung and Jimin? These thoughts were not like me at all. I had never been to this place before but strangely, I felt at peace.

Namjoon 11 April YEAR 22

I was groping around some T-shirts when Taehyung reached out from behind and grabbed one. It was a T-shirt with the same printed quote as the one I was wearing. Taehyung laughed sheepishly, taking off his torn shirt. Under the dim light hanging on the trailer box, for a second, I saw his bruised back. Hoseok looked at me in shock. Taehyung looked at himself in the mirror wearing my T-shirt. And he laughed.

“Dude’s doing some graffiti or something, got caught by the cops while running around. Had to get him out so I was late.” I pretended to smack Taehyung and Taehyung in turn made an exaggerated expression of fake apology. Yoongi-hyung, who was sitting at the corner of the trailer, slowly approached and tapped Taehyung’s shoulder.

Seokjin 11 April YEAR 22

I came to the sea alone. Inside the viewfinder, the sea was wide open and blue as ever. Even the sunlight dispersing on the water, the wind blowing through the pine forest, they were still the same. The only thing changed was that I was alone. One press of the shutter button and the scenery in front of my eyes flashed, for a moment, that day 2 years and 10 months ago appeared and quickly vanished again. That day we were sitting together in front of this day. Tired, empty-handed, hopeless, but we were together. I turned my car around and stepped on the accelerator. I drove through the tunnel, passing the rest stop. Somewhere near the school where we used to go to, I opened the car window. It was a night in spring. The air was warm and cherry blossoms were fluttering about on the trees ranging along the school walls. I left the school, crossed through the crossroad and made a few turns. Not far away, I could see the lights from the gas station where Namjoon works at.

Seokjin 11 April YEAR 22

The car screeched to a narrow halt. I was too deep in thoughts to notice the traffic lights changed. Students wearing familiar uniforms crossed the road and stared at me through the windshield. Some people were even pointing at me. I tried to laugh and bow.

I knew what I had to do. But it wasn’t like I was not scared. Will I be able to end all of these miseries and pain? Does these repeated failures mean I can never succeed? Does it mean I should give up? Is happiness only false hope to us? Thousands of thoughts flashed through my head.

In no time, I reached the gas station intersection and saw Namjoon pumping fuel some distance away. I took a deep breath in and exhaled. Yoongi, Hoseok, Jimin, Taehyung, Jungkook, I recalled their faces one by one. I changed lanes and drove into the gas station. I couldn’t give up. Even if there is only 1% chance of success, I will never give up. Past the windshield, I saw Namjoon walking towards me.

Namjoon 11 April YEAR 22

I finished with the refuelling and turned around. Something brushed past my face and fell down to the ground. Unconsciously, I stepped back and looked down to find a crumpled note at my feet. I instinctively bent down and reached out a hand. A spill of rowdy laughter came from people in the car. I momentarily paused. Seokjin-hyung must be watching from distance away. I couldn’t look up. What should you do when you meet eyes with people who ride in expensive cars and go around looking down and make fun of others? You stand up. You stand up if their actions are wrongful. It’s not a matter of courage, self-esteem or equality. It’s a matter of fact.

But this was a gas station and I was a part-time attendant. If a customer throws trash, I have to clean it up; if a customer throws curses, I have to hear it; if a customer throws money, I have to pick it up. My body trembled from the humiliation. I clenched my fists tight, nails digging into my palms.

That moment, someone’s hand picked up the note and handed it to me. The people in the car muttered and left the gas station, having seemingly lost interest. Even after they had left, I still couldn’t look up. I didn’t have the guts to look into Seokjin-hyung’s eyes. It wasn’t like he didn’t know about my cowardice, my poverty, my circumstance, but I didn’t want to show him this unconcealedly. He stood at the end of my sight unmoving. He didn’t approach, didn’t talk to me either.

Namjoon 28 April YEAR 22

I had noticed something was going on with Taehyung a long time ago. He acted like nothing happened on the outside but his momentary actions, his face, the way he talked was painted with the anxiety of not knowing what to do. He was in and out of police station, wounds visible on his body. And he had nightmares.

I didn’t ask what happened or urge him to talk about it to me, because I was waiting for Taehyung to tell me himself and on the other hand, I doubted I had any right to hear such distress. I pretended to be the older one, to be an adult, but in truth I couldn’t be by their side during their hard times. Everyone praised highly of how mature I was yet I wasn’t a real adult. I only hesitated, unable to look at the reality in front of my eyes.

“Yoongi-hyung was dead.” Taehyung had another nightmare today. I shook him by the shoulders and he jolted awake, then sat there vacantly for a while. He didn’t even think of wiping the tears in his eyes and just muttered incoherently. He said that Yoongi was dead, Jungkook had an accident and he got into a fight, that he kept having such dream and it was so vivid he felt like that dream was real and we were now inside a dream. “Hyung, don’t go anywhere.” His voice trembled with uneasiness.

Yoongi 2 May YEAR 22

The sheet caught on fire and blazed up instantly. Amid the unbearable heat, everything that was once humble lost their presence. I could no longer feel the sour, moldy smell, the unidentifiable dampness and the dank light. Instead, what remained was the pain. The physical pain that was the heat. The tips of my fingers and my skin felt like they would be blistered and melt down from the overwhelming heat. For the first time, my father’s expressionless face and the sound of the music dissipated.

My father and I were different in many ways. He couldn’t understand me, I couldn’t understand him. Would I be able to persuade him if I had tried? Perhaps no. The only thing I could do was to hide, rebel, to run away. Sometimes the thought that it wasn’t my father that I was getting away from crossed my mind. And then came the precipitous fear. What am I running away from? How can I escape from myself? Everything felt impossible.

I faintly registered the sound of someone calling my name, but I didn’t look up. I couldn’t breathe, whether from the heat or the pain I didn’t know. There was no strength to move left in me but still, I could make it out. It was Jungkook. He must be so mad at me. Probably would grieve for me too. I just wanted to sit down. I wanted to end all the smoke and heat, pain and fear here. Jungkook was shouting something again but I still couldn’t place it. My vision faltered and I lifted my eyes up for the last time. There they were, the last things I saw on this world. The dirty, isolated room, the glowing hot flame, flickering heat, and Jungkook’s face.

Jungkook 2 May YEAR 22

I looked up only to see myself standing in front of Namjoon-hyung’s container. I opened the door and entered. I gathered the scattering clothes, draped around myself and curled up. It was chilly. My whole body was shaking and I felt like crying, but no tear came out.

When I opened the door and came in, Yoongi-hyung was standing on the bed. Flames were bursting from the bed sheet. That moment, an uncontrollable rage and sense of fear coiled around me, I wasn’t good with words. I wasn’t good with expressing my emotions to persuade someone either. Tears welled up and I coughed and the words just kept getting stuck in my throat unable to come out. The only thing I could utter as I flung myself into the fire was ‘We all promised to go to the sea together.’

“What happened? Did you have a nightmare?” I opened my eyes at someone shaking my shoulders. It was Namjoon-hyung. Somehow I felt safe. He felt my forehead and said I had a fever. Maybe I really did. My mouth felt like it was on fire but my body felt uncontrollably cold. My head was throbbing and my throat hurt. I took the pills he bought me. “Sleep. Let’s talk later.” I nodded, and said. “Can I ever become an adult like you?” Namjoon-hyung turned and looked at me.

Hoseok 12 May YEAR 22

I opened the fire exit doors and ran down the stairs. My heart was pounding so fast it felt like it’s going to burst any moment. There was no doubt the fact that passed by me at the hospital corridor was my mom. The moment I turned around to look, the elevator door slid open and people stampeded out. Frantically, I pushed my way through the crowd and saw her walking into the fire exit in the distance. I ran down the stairs, taking two steps at a time from the restlessness. I went down several floors without resting.

“Mom!” She halted. I took another step forward. She turned around. I stepped down some more stairs. Her face started to come into my sight. It was that moment. My heel slipped on the stair edge and my body tilted forward. I squeezed my eye shut expecting a face plant. Someone grabbed my arm and I narrowly regained my balance. I looked back, Jimin was standing there with a shocked face. I didn’t get the chance to thank him and turned around again.

There was a woman. She looked surprised. Next to her was a young boy who was blinking his big eyes at me. She wasn’t my mother. I stared at the woman’s face and stood still on the stairs wordlessly.

I couldn’t recall what I said to get out of there. I didn’t ask Jimin how he showed up there too. My mind was too tangled to ponder over and care about the details. That woman was not my mother. Perhaps I had known the truth from the beginning. It had been more than ten years since the day I was left alone at the amusement park. She must have grown older and different from my memory of her. Even if we meet I wouldn’t be able to recognize her. No, I didn’t even remember her face now.

I looked back. Jimin was following me wordlessly. Jimin told me that after parting ways at the emergency room when we were high schoolers, he had spent his whole time at this hospital. I recalled his uncertain face when I asked if he wanted to leave. Perhaps Jimin was like me too, both prisoners of the memories that had been entrapping us, unable to send it away or capture it and just stay imprisoned. I took a step towards Jimin.

“Jimin. Let’s get out of here.”

Jimin 15 May YEAR 22

When I opened my eyes, Hoseok-hyung was standing there. Under the familiar ceiling, in the familiar darkness, he was looking down at me. Surprised, I pushed myself up but he put an index finger to my lips. It was quiet, like everyone else had gone to sleep. He immediately passed me a shirt and pointed his chin to outside the hospital room.

“We all came.” Namjoon-hyung was keeping watch and Yoongi-hyung was stalling by sticking to the nurse, he said. Jungkook and Taehyung would join later in the elevator. At first I couldn’t understand what he was saying. He reached out his hand to a bewildered me.

The day I leave the hospital. I used to dream about it. I wanted to leave the hospital and meet up with friends, laughing and chatting with each other like we used to before, but now, I’m not so sure anymore. Is leaving here a good thing? My parents who hid me here and treat me like I’m invisible. People who whisper that I have mental illness. Who knows, maybe Hoseok-hyung thinks so too. Maybe deep inside he could be thinking of me as a weird kid and find it uncomfortable to spend time with me.

“Quick. We don’t have time.” The clock’s ticking sounded strangely fast, perhaps because of his urge. Thump. Thump. Sound of footsteps rand like an auditory hallucination and slowly, it approached the room. He and I stared at the door at the same time and back at each other. His arm was still extended before me.

Jimin 16 May YEAR 22

Hoseok-hyung’s house was located on very high ground. A long walk up from the main road, through winding narrow alleys to the last house and its rooftop, was his house. We entered the house, a single room being its entire composition, as he boasted about how this was the top floor of the city and every place we grew up in was now under our feet. True to his words, I could see a lot from the rooftop.  A train station not far away, containers lining up along the railway. One of them was where Namjoon-hyung was living in. A diverting of the eyes and there was the school where we went to together. I looked for the school, then looked up at the other side of the city. Along the mountain foot lay a big apartment complex. That was my – no, my parents’ – house. I ran away from the hospital without a word. They must have contacted my parents and were already searching for me by now. I still hadn’t got the courage to face my parents. I left the hospital but I couldn’t come home. It didn’t mean I want to go back to the hospital. Yet, I had nowhere to go and no money to use. Seeing me standing hesitantly, he told me to follow him and led the way. And here we were, at his house.

I looked up at the apartment complex again. Someday I would have to go there, to meet my parents and let them know I would never go back to the hospital again. I took a deep breath. It felt like just the mere thought of it could trigger a seizure in me. Truthfully, even I couldn’t believe I would be able to endure it somewhere else other than the hospital. And intolerable fear struck me.

Jimin 19 May YEAR 22

At the end, I had to go to the flower arboretum. It’s time to stop lying I didn’t remember what happened there. Time to stop living in hiding at the hospital, stop having a seizure. In order to do so, I needed to go there. And so I searched days for this bus stop. But I couldn’t get on the shuttle bus to the flower arboretum.

Yoongi-hyung plopped down next to me after I had missed the third bus. I asked what he was doing here and he said he was simply bored and had nothing to do. He asked why I was sitting here. I lowered my head and kicked at the ground with the tips of my shoes. I thought about why I was sitting here. It was because I had no courage. I want to pretend that I was okay now, that I knew what I was talking about and I could easily overcome it but the truth is, I was scared. Scared of what I would face, whether or not I would be able to bear it and the chance of me having a seizure again.

Yoongi-hyung looked relaxed. He slumped down like had nothing to rush off for and said the weather’s nice along with some other nonsense stuff. Hearing him,I realized the weather was indeed nice. I was too nervous to look around me. The sky was blue and occasionally there would be a warm breeze blowing. Not far away, the shuttle bus to the flower arboretum was arriving. The bus stopped and the doors were opened. The driver looked at me. On a spur of the moment, I asked him.

“Hyung. Will you come with me?”

Taehyung 20 May YEAR 22

I looked down to my hands. They were smudged with blood. Suddenly, I lost all strength in my legs. I was about to flop down when someone hugged me from behind. The sun was beaming its weak rays through the window. My sister was crying and Hoseok-hyung was silently standing there without a word. The dirty furniture and blankets were littered around, just like usual. No one was left where my father was standing. I couldn’t recall when he left the room.

The uncontrollable rage and sorrow that was boiling inside me the moment I came at my father still remained the same. I couldn’t tell what held me back when I was about to stab my father. I couldn’t tell how to calm this insanity-bordering mind of mine. I didn’t want to kill my father, I wanted to die. If I could, I would gladly die now. No tears came out. I wanted to cry, to scream, to stomp on and destroy and break everything, to be broken, but I couldn’t do anything.

“Hyung. I’m sorry. I’m okay. Go.” My voice came out dry, a stark contrast to my mind that was bordering insanity. It didn’t sound like my voice. I send off him, who didn’t seem like he was leaving anytime soon, and looked down to my palm. Blood was seeping through the white bandage. Instead of stabbing my father, I hit the floor with the bottle. It shattered and gashed my palm. I closed my eyes and felt the world spinning around. What should I think? What should I do? How should I live? When my senses returned, I was looking down at Namjoon-hyung’s numbers. Even after things came to this, no, as things came to this, I was even more desperate for his presence. I wanted to tell him. Hyung. I almost killed my father, my father who gave birth to me, my father who beat me to a pulp every single day. I really almost killed him. No, the truth is I already did. I killed him thousands of times. I killed him so many times even I couldn’t count. I want to kill him. I want to die. What should I do now? I don’t know anymore. Hyung, I just want to see you.

Hoseok 20 May YEAR 22

I took Taehyung out of the police station with me. “Thank you for your hard work.” I bowed and shouted loudly, but I didn’t feel so. Taehyung’s house was not far from the police station. If he had lived somewhere far away, would he not need to go in and out of the police station this often? Why did Taehyung’s parents choose a place this close to the police station?  The world was so unfair to this kind, soft-hearted kid. I draped an arm around Taehyung’s shoulder, pretended like nothing happened and asked, “Are you hungry?” Taehyung shook his head. “Did the policemen buy you food?” I asked again but Taehyung gave no answer.

We walked in the sun. Cold winds were blowing inside my heart. If this is how I’m feeling, what about Taehyung? How torn and broken must he have felt? Was there even any piece of his heart left? How much pain there was inside him? I couldn’t look at him in the face with those thoughts in mind, so I looked up to the sky instead. An airplane was flying past the dim sunlight. The first time I saw the wounds on Taehyung’s back, it was when we met at Namjoon’s container hideout. Seeing Taehyung laugh so innocently over getting a T-shirt, no one could say anything, but inside a piece of our hearts was broken.

I didn’t have any parent. I had no memory of my dad and memories of my mom were only until I was 7 years old. When it came to wounds about family and childhood, I was never jealous with anyone. People say we must overcome wounds, we must embrace and grow used to them. We must reconcile and forgive in order to live. I couldn’t, not because I didn’t know nor I hated and refused to. Some things just can’t be accomplished through efforts. No one taught us the way. The world gave us new wounds before its knives grew blunt. I know there’s no one without wounds in this world. But why must the wounds be this deep? For what reason do we need them? Why must this happen?

“Hyung, I’m okay. I can go by myself.” Taehyung told me at the crossroad. “I know, kid.” I paid no attention to his words and led the way. “I’m really okay. Look. It’s nothing.” Taehyung smiled. I didn’t answer him. There was no way he was okay. He was far from okay, but if i admit this fact I wouldn’t be able to bear it. I was avoiding it. It had become a habit of mine. Taehyung pull up the hood of his hoodie and started following me. “You’re really not hungry?” I asked Taehyung at the hallway to his house. Taehyung just smiled foolishly and nodded. I watched him walking away from the back and turned around. The hallway he walked on and the path I took on the way back were desolate. The kid and I, we were both alone. I was about to look back when suddenly, my phone rang.

Taehyung 22 May YEAR 22

I was walking through the pine forest when I saw him taking the call, lagging behind. It happened a lot lately. He would make the call somewhere far away so others wouldn’t be able to listen. I purposely slowed down my pace and hid myself towards the sea. He didn’t see my and walked straight past. “He’s only a year younger than me.. I don’t care. It’s not something I can take responsibility for anyway. Please take care of it yourself.”

Something cold ran down my spine. Like the whole world had just collapsed, like I was floating in the middle of the deep sea alone. I was scared, terrified. I was miserable and pathetic. I was angry. Angry and couldn’t stand it. I wanted to do something bad, anything. I was always scared. Dad’s blood was flowing inside me. Who knows, maybe I inherited his violence gene. It felt like from inside the shield I had wrapped up so tightly, something was piercing through to come out.

Namjoon 22 May YEAR 22

“We’re just one year apart. No, someone said so. I’m older than him. I know. But he’s not a kid anymore. I’m just saying it’s time for him to do by himself. I got it. I said I got it. No, I’m not angry. Sorry.”

I ended the call and looked down to the ground. The warm sea breeze was sweeping through the pine forest. I felt so suffocated inside, like my heart would explode any second. On the ground mixed with half sand and half ground, the ants were lining up to go somewhere. If someone who’s greater than me in any aspect, physically or symbolically, look, would they see where I am going, know why I am going and how I will end up?

It’s not like I don’t love my parents, nor am I not worried for my sibling. If I can I want to look away, but I’m just me, so clearly that won’t happen. If it happens, what would all these struggles, anger, frustration and this desire to escape mean?

Some distance away, I saw someone from the back, standing nailed to the spot just like I was. It was Jungkook. Jungkook once told me this. “I want to become an adult like you.” I could tell him then. Tell him that I’m not a good adult like he thought, that no, I’m not even an adult. I felt like it would be too cruel to tell him so. I couldn’t tell a young kid couldn’t get the faith, the care and love he deserved that growing older, growing taller and living longer doesn’t make you an adult. I hoped for Jungkook’s future to be kinder to him than mine did, but I couldn’t promise that I would be there to help him. I approached and draped an arm around his shoulder. Jungkook looked up at me.

Taehyung 22 May YEAR 22

“Hyung, that’s all? Isn’t there anything else you’re hiding from us?” Everyone immediately fell into silence, every gaze directed at me. I stared straight at Seokjin-hyung. He stared back at me, his eyes tinged with weariness, discomfort and something akin to pity. The moment I tried to press him again, someone grabbed my arm and stopped me. I didn’t look back but I could know. It was Namjoon-hyung.

“What does this have to do with you? You’re not even my real brother.” I could feel he was looking at me. I shook his hand off without turning around. I was well aware too, that I was getting mad at Namjoon-hyung for no reason. I was repeating what he said on the phone to someone else to let him know that I was angry with him right now, that I was really upset. There was nothing wrong in his words. I was only a year younger than him. I wasn’t his real brother. I needed to take care of my own problem. But still, I was upset, even angrier at the fact that there was nothing to refute. I had hoped he could understand how I felt.

“Taehyung, I’m sorry. Let’s stop here.” It was Seokjin-hyung who spoke up. Calling my name, apologizing, both were Seokjin-hyung. Namjoon-hyung didn’t say anything. “Stop what? Tell everything while we’re at it. Hyung, you’re hiding something from us.”

“Let’s go outside and talk.” Namjoon-hyung said, grabbing my arm again. I shook him off one more time but he applied more force and tried to pull me outside. I held on. “Let me go. What right do you have to stop me? What do you even know? You know nothing. You think you’re some great guy?” It was then. He let go of me and I staggered from the rebound. No it wasn’t from the rebound. The moment he let go of my arm, it felt like a link was severed, everything that held me up cracking, splitting, crumbling to pieces. Perhaps I had hoped he wouldn’t let go of me until the end, that he would get mad at me and drag me outside. Perhaps I had hoped, wished he would scold me more, like one would to their real brother, to someone so close and important that they just couldn’t afford to back down.

But he let go of me. I laughed out loud. “What’s so great about being together? What are we even to each other? We’re all alone in the end.” That moment, Seokjin-hyung hit me.

Jungkook 22 May YEAR 22

I thought I was floating in the air but in no time, it turned into the hard ground. For a while, I couldn’t feel anything. My body only felt so heavy that I couldn’t even lift my eyelids. I couldn’t even gulp or breathe. My consciousness faded as my surroundings slowly grew faint.

And then, my whole body jolted in fits as if I was startled by something. In the midst of the pain and thirst which I couldn’t pinpoint exactly where, I unknowingly opened my eyes. Through my vision, strained like it was covered by sand, I saw something shimmering. I thought it was a fire, but it wasn’t. It was bright, grand and hazy. It wasn’t moving, just floating on the air. I watched it for a while and slowly, it took a shape. It was the moon.

I didn’t know if it was because I was twisting my neck or not, but the world was upside down. In that world, the moon was hanging upside down. I coughed to catch my breath, but I couldn’t move. After that, I felt a chill. I was scared. I moved my lips but no word came out. My eyes weren’t closed, yet there was only darkness in front of me. As my consciousness faded away, someone spoke up.

“To live would be more painful than to die, do you still want to live then?”

Hoseok 31 May YEAR 22

Breath suddenly stifled, I avoided the gazes as an instinct. My breath was shaking after dancing for a while, but it wasn’t the cause. I was struck with a thought of how she looked like my mother. No, it wasn’t a thought, wasn’t a recognition, nor was it something I could explain or describe. I couldn’t look straight at the face of the friend whom I had known for more than ten years. We learned dancing together, failed together, fell into despair and cheered up together. We lay down on the floor covered in sweat, throwing towels and joking around. As if touched by a sensation I had never felt before, I scrambled to my feet. As soon as I turned around the corner, I leaned against the wall and stood there. I tried to calm down my unsettled breathe, but there came a sound saying “Where are you going, Hoseok-ah?” A voice, maybe it was a voice. A voice calling “Hoseok-ah.” A voice that I can’t even recall well now, that goes back to when I was seven years old.

Yoongi 8 June YEAR 22

I took off my T-shirt. The me inside the mirror was nothing like me at all. The T-shirt with 'DREAM' written on it wasn't my type in any way. I hated the color red, the word "dream", and even the way it clung tightly onto my body. Annoyed, I took out the cigarette and looked for my lighter. There was nothing in my jeans pocket, so I looked through the bag and realized. It was taken away. It was taken from my hands just like that. I was left with the lollipop and this T-shirt. I ruffled my hair and stood up, but then heard a sound signaling a message came. The moment I saw the name with three words on the phone screen, everything around me suddenly lit up and my heart dropped with a thud. I read the message and snapped my cigarette into two. The next moment, I was smiling in the mirror. Wearing a tight red shirt with 'DREAM' on it, I was smiling like an idiot.

Seokjin 13 June YEAR 22

After returning from that sea, we were all alone.

Like it was all set, we didn’t contact each other. We only assumed the existence of each other from the graffiti on the streets, the gas station lighting brightly, the piano sound from the old building. Every time like that, the afterimage of that night came back to haunt me like a phantom. Taehyung’s pupils that blazed with fire, all the eyes that looked at me as if hearing an unbelievable story, Namjoon’s hands that stopped Taehyung, and me who couldn’t endure and threw my fists towards Taehyung.

After Taehyung ran away, we couldn’t find him, no one stayed at the seaside dorm after returning. The broken glass cup, the bloodstain that was starting to get clotted, the crumbled snack pieces, they only reminded us of what happened few hours ago. A photo fell down then. It was the photo we took at the sea, smiling together.

I passed by the gas station today. One day we will meet again. One day we will smile together like we did in that photo. One day I will gather the courage to face myself. But now, it is not the time yet. The humid wind blew today, just like that day. And the next moment, my phone rang like a warning. The photo hanging on the mirror of my room was shaking. Hoseok’s name appeared on the screen.

“Hyung, Jungkook got into an accident that night.”

Yoongi 15 June YEAR 22

I couldn’t perceive anything but the music blasting inside my head. How much I have drunk, where I am, what I was doing. I didn’t want to know, nor did I feel them to be of any importance. When I stumbled outside, the night had already come. I just let my feet take me. Pedestrians, stalls, walls, I just bumped against anywhere. It didn’t matter. I just wanted to forget everything.

Jimin’s voice still rang vividly in my mind. “Hyung. Jungkook—” Next thing I remember, I was running up the hospital stairs like crazy. The hallways in the hospital were strangely dark and long. Passing by were people wearing patient’s clothes. My heart was pounding. Their faces were ghastly pale. They showed no expression, like they were all dead. Inside my head, the sound of my breathing was banging loudly.

Past the slightly opened door of the room lay Jungkook. Unknowingly, I turned my head. I couldn’t look at him. At that moment, the piano sound, the flame, the sound of the building collapsing suddenly came to my ears. I covered my head and flopped down. It said “It’s all because of you.” It said “If only you didn’t exist.” It was my mom’s voice, no, it was my voice, no, it was someone’s voice. Those words tormented me for god knows how long. I wanted to believe that it’s not true. But Jungkook was lying there. Jungkook was lying there in the hall, with people whose faces were pale as dead passing by. I just couldn’t come in. I couldn’t confirm. And so I stood up, legs wobbling. As I came back out, my tears fell. Funny. I didn’t remember what was the last time I cried.

I turned around at someone grabbing my arm when I was about to cross the road. Who was it? No, it didn’t matter. Anyone was the same. Don’t come near me. Go. Please just leave me alone. I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to get hurt. So please, just don’t come near me

Taehyung 25 June YEAR 22

I slowed down on purpose and listened carefully to the small sound of someone running behind me. Today was the third time we ran into each other at the convenience store. If there was any difference, it’s that she ran away as soon as she saw me. She strolled around the empty lot behind the convenience store and hid away right after I showed up. She thought she were hiding well, but their shadow was stretching out to the front of the empty lot. I giggled. I walked away pretending I didn’t see anything, and she began to follow me.

I entered a narrow alley. This was the only place in this neighborhood where the street lamps weren’t broken. The alley ran long with the street lamp standing somewhere halfway. When the source of the light is ahead, the shadow stretches behind. So right now my shadow would cast behind me. Maybe it would even reach the feet of the person who had been following me with bated breath. I soon reached the street lamp and my shadow immediately hid under my feet. I began to speed up my pace. Leaving the lamp behind, now my shadow started to cast in front of me. Soon enough, another shadow that wasn’t mine appeared on the dusty cement road. As I stopped, she stopped and stood there as well. Two shadows of different heights standing still side by side.

I spoke. “I’m gonna wait until you come here.” The shadow jumped as if surprised, and held its breath like it wasn’t there. “I can see you.” I pointed at the shadow. Soon. the sound of footsteps began to approach me, stamping on purpose. I laughed.

Namjoon 30 June YEAR 22

With somewhat a weird feeling, I looked at my hands pressing the open button as if it had a will of its own. There were moments like this. Moments that even though it was clearly the first time, I feel like it had repeatedly happened countless of times. Right before the elevator door closed, it opened again and people crowded in. I spotted someone with hair tied up by a yellow rubber band. It wasn’t because I know that person would be here that I pressed the open button, but I felt like that person would definitely be here. I slowly stepped further to the back. I lifted my head up as my back pressing against the cold elevator wall, the yellow rubber band coming into my view.

A person’s back speaks up many thing.  Among them, I can only understand a few. Some I can vaguely guess and some are ultimately left ungrasped. I was suddenly struck with the thought that you can only say you know a person when you are able to read everything from their back. If so, maybe there would also be someone who can read me from my back. As I looked up, our eyes met in the mirror. For a second, I avoided the gaze. When I looked up, there was only my face in the mirror. My back was no longer seen.

Jimin 3 July YEAR 22

I eventually lay down on the floor. After turning off the music, everything around me became quiet, nothing heard save for the sound of my breathing and the thundering of my heart. I pulled out my phone and played the choreography video I learned by day. His movements in the videos were smooth and accurate. I knew it was the result of countless hours, sweat and practice, and it was greed to someone who didn’t have much like me. But understanding and desiring were different, so I often sighed. I stood up all of a sudden again. I could mimic his turns but my steps were still messed up. I kept making mistakes at the part where we changed position and match the formation. We decided to match it tomorrow, but until then, I wanted to do it properly, one way or another. Rather than a joking “Pretty good” compliment, I wanted to be acknowledged as a real and equal partner like when I danced with him.

Jimin 4 July YEAR 22

When my senses returned, I was already washing my arm so hard that my skin was threatening to come off. My hands were shaking, breathe coming up and down. Blood was streaming down my arm. In the mirror, I saw my bloodshot eyes. Fragments of what happened earlier came back to me.

Suddenly, I lost focus. I was dancing together with a noona from the dance club when our moves got tangled and we bumped into each other. I tumbled down the rough floor and my arm started bleeding. That moment, I thought back of what happened at the flower arboretum. I thought I was over it but I wasn’t. I had to run away. I had to wash. I had to turn away. The me in the mirror was still that same 8-year-old kid stomping in the rain to run away. And then suddenly I remember. She also fell down with me.

No one was in the practice room. Past the slightly opened door, the rain was beating hard. I saw Hoseokie-hyung running not far away. He was soaked in the rain. I took the umbrella and dashed out. I ran. Eventually, I halted.

There was nothing I could do. All I could was to fall down and make her hurt, tremble at my own injury and leave her there only to belatedly run and stop halfway. I turned around and walked. Rain splattered on my sneakers with each step. The cars’ headlights flashed by. I wasn’t okay. No, I was. It didn’t hurt. This wound was nothing. I was really okay.

Hoseok 4 July YEAR 22

I went out to the hallway while waiting for first aid. The hospital hallway was crowded with people walking around even at this time of the night. Water was dripping down from my hair drenched by the rain and sweat. As I shook my hair, her bag fell down. All kinds of miscellaneous stuff spilled out. Coins were rolling, ball pens and towels everywhere. Among them, there was an airplane E-ticket. I picked it up and briefly looked through it.

Then, the doctor called me. It was just a mild concussion, there was nothing big to worry about, the doctor said. A moment later, she came out. “Are you okay?” She said she had a little headache and was about to take her bag back from me. Then she saw the E-ticket sticking out and looked at me. I shifted the bag to the other shoulder, pretending like nothing happened and rushed her to go. When we got to the entrance, it was raining. We stood side by side in front of the door.

“Hoseok-ah”. She called. She looked like she had something to say. “Wait a moment. I’ll go buy an umbrella.” I mindlessly ran in the rain. There was a convenience store not far away. I knew she auditioned for a dance team overseas not long ago. Seeing she already got the airplane ticket, seems like she passed. I didn’t want to hear what she said. I didn’t have the confidence to congratulate her.

Namjoon 13 July YEAR 22

I rested my head against the window. From the library to the gas station, the same commute everyday. Outside the windows passed the sickeningly familiar landscapes. Will I ever escape these landscapes? I felt that it was impossible to predict what would come tomorrow, what I could hope for.

A girl sat few seats in front of me, hair tied back with a yellow rubber band. She raised her shoulders up as if heaving a sigh and sat down. And then she rested her head against the window. We have been studying at the same library and taking the bus at the same station for more than a month. We never talked but we saw the same landscapes, lived the same time and heaved the same sigh. The hair tie was still in the pocket of my pants.

The girl always got off three stops ahead of me. Every time I saw her getting off, I wondered if she would go to to hand out the flyers again. What did she have to go through? What did she have to endure? How much of the hopelessness that is tomorrow would never come, that is there was already no such thing as tomorrow from the start did she feel? I thought.

The girl’s stop was approaching. Someone pressed the stop button and shortly after, passengers stood up from their seats. But the girl wasn’t among them. She stood still in her seat with head resting against the window. Seems like she was sleeping. Should I go and wake her up? I debated for a moment. The bus reached the stop. The girl still remained the same. People got off. The door closed and the bus left.

The girl didn’t wake up once while the bus passed three stops. As I walked to the door, I debated with myself once again. Obviously if I get off, no one would pay attention to the girl. By the time she wakes up, the bus would be far away from where she was supposed to get off. Who knows how more tiring her day would get because of it.

I got off the bus and started walking to the gas station. The bus soon departed and I didn’t look back. I left the hair tie on her bag but that was it. It wasn’t the start nor was it the end. There was nothing from the beginning so there was no reason for anything to happen. So it was nothing at all, I thought.

Jungkook 16 July YEAR 22

I stood by the window, plugged in my earphones and slowly sang along to the song. It has already been a week. Now I could sing along without looking at the lyrics. I took out one earphone and practiced with my voice. She said she liked it because the lyrics were beautiful, but the lyrics were embarrassing, so I just scratched my head. The sunlight of July was streaming through the big window frame. The green leaves were fluttering and shining, probably because of the wind, and the touch that the sunlight left on my face felt different each time. I closed my eyes. I looked at the yellow, red and blue tingeing behind my closed eyes. I don’t know if it was because of the lyrics or because of the sun, but something was rising from inside my heart, tingling and burning.

Taehyung 17 July YEAR 22

My sides felt like they were being torn apart. Sweat was dripping down me. The railway, the vacant lot behind the convenience store, under the overpass, I couldn’t find her anywhere. I even ran to the bus stop but she was nowhere to be seen. People waiting for their buses gave me an odd look. What happened? We didn’t promise to meet but it was weird. She always popped up out of nowhere and followed me around. She wouldn’t give up even if I told her she’s annoying. But everywhere we went together, I couldn’t find her.

I stopped on my tracks in front of a familiar wall. It was a graffiti we drew together, her first ever graffiti. A giant “X” was drawn on top of it. It was her. I didn’t see it in person but I knew it. Why? I had no answer for that. Instead, the afterimages stacked up above the wall.

Her smile flashing at me when I knocked my head while lying on the railway. Her hands helping me up when I fell while helping her run away. Her face burning with anger when I stole the bread. Her gloomy look when we passed the photo studio where a family portrait was hung at the front. Her gaze unconsciously following the passing students. I told her when we were spraying on this wall together. “If you have any trouble, don’t suffer alone, tell me.” The X symbol was drawn on top of all those memories, like it was saying everything was fake. Like it was saying they were all a lie. I unknowingly clenched my fists. Why? I had no answer. I turned around and walked. Both I and she, we were once again alone.

Namjoon 20 July YEAR 22

I leafed through the advertisement pages of the magazine and looked up. It had been a different face sitting at the window seat of the table on the other side for days. A similar thick book, a similar big backpack, a similar white paper cup, but it wasn’t her. I lowered my gaze at the magazine again. I had been reading the same page for an hour. The repeating thoughts kept me from focusing on the words. Why am I sitting here? I couldn’t think of an answer. In the middle of people who were all indulging in something, I was just here idly flipping through the magazine. The rush to start doing something, anything, struck me. I just couldn’t stay like this.

I returned the magazine and went to stand among the bookshelves. Rows of bookshelves that were taller than my height, filled with books stacked in lins. Wind was blowing through the open windows, sending the dust and the smell of books into the air. It reminded me of high school, when I used to spend time at the hideout classroom with my friends. The books I read then had this smell too. I wonder if the me of the present has grown up any more from those days. I couldn’t say yes immediately. Who knows, maybe everything about me had stopped at those days. I walked to the bookshelf on the other side and picked up a book I used to study then. I needed to start again, one by one, everything starting from the things I had given up then.

Jungkook 26 July YEAR 22

I secretly picked some flowers from the hospital’s garden. I lowered my head from the laughter bubbling up my throat. The sun was beaming dazzlingly in a midsummer day. I knocked the door, no answer. I knocked again and pushed the door open. Somehow, the room felt chilly. No one was inside. Only silent darkness resided here.

I turned around and left the room. I rolled my wheelchair down the hallway feeling tired and frustrated, and that’s when I met her. I came to a sudden halt at something showing up and there stood a girl, hair tied into a ponytail. There was a bench somewhere outside the hospital. I remembered sitting on that bench and drawing while listening to music with her. We even shared strawberry milk on the roof. My hands were still clutching the wild flowers but I had no one to give it to anymore.

Jungkook 26 July YEAR 22

I turned around to find the hospital already far away. The bench where I left the wildflowers on, the window where we looked at the river together, were out of sight. Looking back, she had given me a break to breathe in my suffocating days at the hospital. We would sit on the bench chatting the late afternoon away and the sun would already have set before we even realized. I talked about hanging out at the hideout, the trip to the sea and even the time I walked to the train station. She told me about every inch of the hospital, about the window from which we could see the river and the stairs that was the secret path to the rooftop. There was nothing about the hospital that she didn’t know.

Her room was empty. I asked the nurses but couldn’t figure out anything, whether she was discharged or moved to another hospital I didn’t know.  Somehow, I felt empty. I turned around and started walking again. I could see the school from afar. Thinking of it, most of the stories I shared with her were what I experienced with the hyungs. Most of the stuff I said started with “the hyungs”. To me who was always alone, they became my friends, my family, my teachers. Every story of mine was in their story and I only existed in my relationship with them.

But at some point, this thought started to wander in my mind. Maybe one day they would no longer be by my side. Maybe one day I would come to look for them only to find no one there and no one would tell me why. Maybe something far worse could happen.

I thought of that night. The day the big moon was hanging in the night sky, the world flipping upside down, headlights piercing into the inverted vision, read light from the tail lamps and the strangely familiar sound of the engine. I didn’t want to make a pointless speculation but that moment. it kept coming into my head, over and over again.

Jimin 28 July YEAR 22

I stayed behind at the practice room again today. It was past midnight already, the buses had stopped running. The truth is I waited for the buses to stop running so I could have the practice room for myself. Practicing together made me see only my flaws and it was nerve-wrecking, scary, even. Yet, I still wanted to nail it no matter what, which was why I stayed behind by myself every night.

With each passing day, my fear dissipated, strangely enough, only the fact that dancing is so much fun remains. For a long time, I had lived thinking that the small, weak, sluggish image I shaped in my mind was the real me. Dancing got me thinking of constantly of my body weight, my arms length, the speed I could exert and the strength I could possess. When I danced, I was not small and weak. My dance skill improved as much as I had practiced. Even moved that I used to be scared of at first linked up in the end after numerous repetitions. I was growing. A little bit at a time but still, growing. I also found out that I was quite a talkative person, as when I danced it felt like all the things I couldn’t say and didn’t say just poured out. As I started dancing, for the first time ever, I had grown to like myself.

Yoongi 29 July YEAR 22

How is it that only after the person who would perform with you as you play the guitar had gone do that melody keep coming to your mind? I lay on the sofa, looking at the piano placed over there. One time, after getting expelled from school, I threw away the key from my mother’s piano. A half-burned piano key, the only thing I brought from our house that was destroyed in the fire, thrown out of the apartment window. I thought that was the end. I chanted to myself, determining to never touch the piano again.

It was the next dawn. I jumped down the stairs, unable to wait for the elevator. I thought I was only asleep for a moment, but the sun was already rising. What happened last night suddenly came rushing into my mind. There was nothing in the flower bed beneath the window. The guard told me the garbage truck left not long ago. Just like that, I lost the key from my mother’s piano.

Since that day, I had given up music countless of times. I don’t do it anymore. I won’t go back to it again. Music is nothing to me. But even in the moment of running away from it, I knew, that eventually, I would start making music again just like that time I tripped and jumped down the stairs. Music was like that to me. In music, I felt the pain but I also felt the freedom. I was addled but at the same time, clear. Fear and confidence, hope and despair, it seemed like I was living in all those conflicting emotions.

I suddenly wanted to play the piano. I wanted to meet myself there, a self that pretends to be strong but is actually timid and cowardly. I wanted to swear, to taunt, to hurt, hit, destroy, to hold myself and cry. And I wanted to stop running away. I wanted to complete the melodies I wrote with the guitar and piano. Perhaps I really could this time.

Seokjin 3 August YEAR 22

I opened the door to the storage classroom and entered. In the unchilly air of a summer night, the smell of mold and dust blended together. For a moment, several scenes crossed my mind. The shining shoes of the headmaster, the face Namjoon had standing outside the door, the day I avoided Hoseok and went back alone. Suddenly, I felt a pain inside my head and felt a chill. Those complex feelings, anger, fear, whatever you call it, flooded in like a pain. All the signals I felt with my body and my heart were clear. I had to get out of here.

Taehyung grabbed my arm as if he saw the look on my face. “Hyung, try a little bit more. Remember the memories here.” I shook off Taehyung’s hands and turned around. We had been walking around in the heat for hours. We were exhausted. The other guys looked at me like they didn’t know what to say. Memories, memories that Taehyung talked about were just meaningless stories to me. Stories about that thing I did, that thing that happened to me, that something that we did together. It could be the case. It was the case. But memories are not understanding or comprehension. Experience is not something you hear and figure out. It’s something that has to root deeply in your heart, your mind, your soul. But all the memories I had there were but bad things. Things that made me suffer and made me run away.

A fight happened when I decided to go back and Taehyung tried to stop me. But we were all exhausted. The way we hit, dodged and stopped happened with a sense of slowness and heaviness like we were in a dense, hot liquid. In a flash, Taehyung’s legs got tangled with mine. I was wondering if my shoulders hit against the wall when the next moment, I lost my balance and stumbled.

I didn’t know what happened at first. The thick dust made me unable to open my eyes and breathe. I had a fit of coughing. “Are you okay?” After hearing someone ask, I realized I fell on the ground. I pushed myself up and saw what I thought was the wall had collapsed. Beyond the wall was a huge space. No one moved for a moment. “Oh my god, but we had been here for so long!” Someone said. No one could imagine such space existed on the other side of the wall. But what is that? The dust settled and a cabinet standing in the middle of the empty space came into our sight.

Namjoon opened the cabinet’s door. I took a step closer. Inside was a notebook. Namjoon picked up the notebook and turned over the first page. For a moment, I held my breath. On the first page of the seemingly old notebook was an unexpected name. It was my father’s name. Namjoon was about to turn over another page when I snatched it out of his hands. Namjoon looked at me surprised but I didn’t mind. I flipped through the pages. The old notebook passed through my fingers like it was about to crumble.

It was a diary handwritten by my father about what he and his friends experienced together in high school. It didn’t tell the story of every day. Some were every month and there were even illegible pages coated with something akin to blood. But still, I could know. That my father and I went through the same thing, that he made mistakes just like me and that he ran and ran again to make up for it.

My father’s notebook was a record of failure. In the end, he gave up and failed. He forgot, turned away and avoided. He let his friends down. The diary’s last page was smeared with but black ink. The ink stained the blank page after it, after it, until the very last page. That stain was an eloquent evidence of my father’s failure.

I lost track of how much time passed by. Looking at the wind blowing through the window that had started to feel cooler, it musts be the darkest time of the day, before the sun rises. The other guys including Namjoon were sitting on the floor sleeping. I lifted my head up and looked at the wall. I once saw my father’s name written somewhere here. Under it was a sentence. Everything started here.

It was when I was about to close the notebook that I felt something at the top of my fingers. On top of the ink stains, blurry letters came into my sight. I felt the murky air outside the window. Seems like the sun would soon rise. But the night hadn’t ended yet. It was neither night nor dawn. In the stains black like darkness entwined with the hazy light, between lines and lines, were faint letters.

The notebook held more memories than it recorded. What my father decided to forget, what my father decided not to remember was left as it is on the letters, between the margins and the space. The color had faded but the many times my father went through, his fear, his despair and frail hope that he would never overcome it were swirling under my fingers like letter punches, left marks as they are once pressed. The distorted map to my father’s soul was left as it is.

After closing the notebook, my tears fell down. I sat still for a while. When I turned around, the guys were still sleeping. I looked at each of them. Who knows, maybe we had to come back here. This was where everything of us happened. We learned of the meaning of being together and the joy of laughing together. My first wrongdoing, my first mistake that I had never been able to admit myself was left like an open wound.

The thought that none of these was a coincidence crossed my mind. In the end, I had to come here. Only then would I be able to find the meaning of the pain and anxiety I faced because of the mistakes and wrongdoings I made and for the first time, take the first step towards finding the map of my soul.

Taehyung 11 August YEAR 22

I was about to turn my steps when I discovered small letters underneath the “X” letter, a short sentence scratched into the wall. “It’s not your fault.” It was her. I didn’t see it in person or knew her handwriting, but I could tell. It was like her last greeting, saying the reason she left wasn’t because of me, that what happened to me wasn’t because I’m a bad person. It was like she was telling me not to blame myself, not to be distressed about it and to have courage.

Next thing I knew, I was already in front of my house. There came my sister’s scream beyond the door. I slammed it open and came in to a familiar scene in front of my eyes. I blocked my father, grabbing his arm as I looked at him in the eyes. He seemed taken aback at first but soon he threw a punch at me. I was knocked out over and over again. My sister’s crying rang louder. My chin hurt and the inside of my mouth reeked of a rusty iron smell. I still didn’t give up. I clung tight onto my father as he shouted with rage and his blows rained on my back and shoulders, but the more he went the tighter I clung onto him.

It wasn’t like I didn’t feel the pain or didn’t feel scared. But the moment I let go, that daily life would repeat itself again. I wanted it to be different. I wanted to change it.

I don’t want to. I’m not like my father. I will protect my own family.

Hoseok 13 August YEAR 22

Jimin and she were standing in the middle of the practice room. The five seconds of silence it took getting into prep position and waiting felt like eternity. Music blasted from the speaker as they started with the first move. It was the choreography I had been practicing with her until recently. I sat on the floor, watching them.

When I was told I would not be able to dance for a while due to my ankle, it was tough, to be honest. Having to see someone else dance and not me was frustrating. But as I helped Jimin practicing and watched him grow, I realized that not getting to dance myself isn’t a big problem, that as long as I continue to dance in one way or another, I can be happy.

When I practiced with Jimin, I couldn’t let even a small mistake slide. Sometimes, when Jimin subtly misses the timing or dances smaller than expected, I would pause the music and check every move. But now, sitting on the practice room floor, some sort of audience seats, and focusing on him, Jimin’s dance looked different, something bigger than just single moves. What I thought to be nothing but mistakes when we practiced together felt different, trivial mistakes and rawness becoming his unique aura. Jimin had his own timing and expression, albeit clearly different from mine. Jimin was shining in his own way, his dances were speaking to the heart.

The music ended, so did Jimin’s dance. His face was glowing with joy and excitement. Next to him stood she. Soon, she would be leaving for overseas. Our eyes suddenly met. I raised a thumb at her, to which she gave a wide smile. She bore no resemblance to my mother. Strange. Why did I think they looked alike when I can’t even remember my mother’s face? I felt a pang of pain somewhere in my heart, a sore sensation from the yet to recover ankle.

Seokjin 15 August YEAR 22

It was after getting out of a jammed crossing and starting to speed up when I came to a sudden stop, unknowingly. The car behind beeped their horn and passed by, someone was hurling curses, but amid the noise of the city, I didn’t hear anything. There was a small flower shop at the corner of the alley on the left. I didn’t stop abruptly because I saw the shop. It was more like I discovered the shop after stopping my car.

When the owner - who was organizing papers at the side of the shop currently under interior construction - approached me, I had no expectation. I had already gone around several places but even the florists had no idea about the existence of the flower. They only showed me flowers with a similar color. But I wasn’t looking for something with a similar color. The flower had to be real. After I told the owner the flower’s name, he looked at me for a while. Then he said even though the shop hadn’t been officially opened yet, he could deliver the flower to me, and asked me. “Why does it have to be that flower?”

As I turned the handle and got back to the road, I started to think. The reason why it had to be that flower. There was only one reason. Because I want to make her happy. Because I want to make that her laugh. Because I want to show them the me that she likes. Because I want to become a good person.

Seokjin 30 August YEAR 22

Can anyone remember the moment love starts? Can anyone foresee the moment love ends? What meaning lies behind the incapability of humanity to perceive those moments? And for what reason was I given the power to undo all of them?

The car came to a sudden stop, the headlight flashed, the car crashed, she was thrown upward , she fell. In the midst of all those chaotic moments, I just stood defenselessly. I heard no sound, felt no sense. It was summer but the wind felt chilly. Something rolled down along the road, making sound on its way. And then there was the smell of flower. It was when reality hit me. The Smeraldo bouquet fell out of my hand. The girl was in the middle of the road some distance away. Blood was seeping through her hair. Dark crimson blood, flowing down along the road. I thought. If only I could turn back time.

Seokjin 30 August YEAR 22

She seemed flustered seeing the diary that she thought to have been lost. Her favorite movie, places she wanted to go, her favorite flower, the future she has been dreaming of, all showed up with every turn of the page. They were also what I did for her. I couldn’t utter out an apology. The diary lay between us like a traffic light in the crossroad.

I wanted to make her happy. I wanted to make her smile. I wanted to be a good person. I thought it would be possible if I follow what the diary said, but no. The more I try to become someone else, the more afraid I get. Would she find out my true self? Would she be disappointed and leave me? I had been frantically concealing myself and turning away from myself, but like how you can’t put a period to a sentence without subject, I lost my true self, unable to move forward any further and just wandering around in circles.

Now, I know. That my imperfections, my mistakes, my failures are also a part of me. That the only way I can take the next step forward is to be honest to myself. I stood up. She didn’t stop me.

I made my way out to the street and took off my hat. I swept my hair back, times of endeavoring to become someone else trickling through my fingers. I turned around, meeting the eyes of my own reflection in the window. Pale face, colorless lips, scrawny shoulders. I looked utterly shabby. I let out a laugh. The me in the window laughed along.

[soopranatural]

Come home to me (Part 1/3)

Summary: the reader gets injured on a solo hunt and hides it from the boys, causing her condition to worsen.

Pairing: Dean x reader

Warnings: Angst, depictions of injury, usual levels of violence, feelings of worthlessness, a wound getting infected.

Words: 1772 (it felt longer when I was writing it)

A/N: I've wanted to write this since forever you have no idea.

Marsterlist

Mobile Masterlist

Your name: submit What is this?

You like to consider yourself a fairly reasonable person. You are usually level headed and calm when having a discussion with someone, you try to see their point of view, and you don't make stupid choices because of a disagreement.

Usually.

The moment someone doubts you, however, you are instantly overcome with an overwhelming need to prove yourself. Usually you get angry, kick some ass, and then come back victorious and smug.

Usually.

You knew that Dean was only trying to protect you. But you weren't a fucking child. You knew how to handle yourself on your own. Yeah, so maybe it had been a while, but since you found the brothers you had no need to be hunting on your own.

That didn't mean you couldn't hunt on your own, and Dean seemed to forget that. Maybe he was right, though, and you were losing your touch.

Why would you be here if you weren't? Crying on the driver's seat of your jeep. You hadn't used it much since you started hunting with them. There was no point. You regretted not giving it a little shine more often. The windows had been in dreadful shape when you took the cover off to drive away.

You sniff and wipe your nose angrily with your sleeve, scolding yourself silently. "Get a grip, you moron."

You couldn't turn back, and you wouldn't until the rogue werewolf was six feet under. It was lonely, and hungry and dangerous. And it had been such an easy guess that you had been ready to go before you even finished reading the article.

Stupid Dean and his stupid overprotective nature.

"You can't do this on your own."

"Why not? I've been hunting on my own for years."

"Maybe you're not as good as you were before."

"What the hell's that s'posed to mean?!"

"You're our friend, Y/N, but maybe you shouldn't do things on your own anymore."

You sniff again harshly, wanting to stop crying so you can check into the motel already. You were starting to worry that the desk lady would call the police on you when she saw you sitting in your car alone like a parking lot creep.

So maybe you had screwed up the last hunt because you were distracted. So what? That didn't mean you couldn't hunt at all. Dean was being stupid and you were being a big baby.

You sighed, wiped your eyes, blinked a few times and stepped out of the car to grab your duffel and check in. Dean would freak out in the morning when he realized you were gone, for sure. But you were still pissed off, so you turned off your phone.

You would deal with the werewolf tomorrow and then get back to the bunker, and maybe you wouldn't say a thing, just let him soak in his own shame and defeat. That'll teach him.

.

The next day you get up early. You're still angry. You're kind of glad though, while you're angry you can be determined and strong, once that anger passes though, you just know that you'll be all wallowy and shit, and you can't afford that right at this moment.

You turn on your phone and rub at your eyes tiredly, yawning as you go to turn on your laptop.

You have about twenty missed calls, more than half from Dean and even a few from Sam. You check and you have even more messages. The last one from Dean reads "just let me know you're okay." You feel kinda bad, but not bad enough to open them. You're sure they know where you are. And you'll probably see them soon anyway.

You finish copying the details of the case to your journal quickly, closing the laptop and leaving to go get breakfast. You turn around at the last moment, looking at your cellphone lying on the table. You contemplate it for a moment before going back to take it.

As soon as you finish your breakfast you get back in your beloved jeep and head towards the forest, parking on a dirt road and hopping off.

You only bring your usual gun, knowing the werewolf was not out and about this time of day.

You're still careful, watching your step as to not make too much noise, even in the woods, where the ground is covered with leaves and twigs, your footsteps are silent. See, I can be a hunter.

You walk for almost an hour, tracking the wolf's steps. It was definitely feral. A normal were would have at least covered its tracks a little. With this one you find footprints and broken branches and even a few drops and smears of blood. You smile. This one was gonna be so damn easy.

You hop back in your car and drive away, going back to your motel to try and entertain yourself until night fell.

Time passed faster than you thought it would, you went back to the diner for lunch and spent most of the day reading a pdf Sam had sent you last week about greek mythology. Something you shared with him was your passion for reading, and as much as you loved his brother, it was nice to be able to be a nerd with someone once in a while.

As soon as night fell you headed out again. You're kind of surprised that the brothers haven't shown up at your doorstep. Your guess is that Sam probably talked Dean out of going after you. But part of you was kind of worried that you were no longer welcome back into their small family after going against their wishes and storming out like you had.

Just then, your phone started vibrating in your pocket, making you jump. You huffed at yourself and took it out, surprised to see it was Dean calling. You waited, frozen in shock and uncertainty as it went to voicemail.

You hesitated a moment before playing the message.

"Y/N I... you don't have to prove anything, I'm sorry for yelling at you like that. But I'm starting to get worried. I know.." he huffed and maybe it was a laugh "you're too stubborn to call me back but... just" he sighed softly "come home to me, us, goddami-"

His voice cut off with a loud beep, indicating that the voicemail was over and making you jump again. You stared down at the phone, thinking about what he had said and turning it over in your hands. You felt a bit guilty, and you were not as angry as you had been yesterday, but you did have something to prove, you would head back as soon as you were done.

You try not to think about what he said last, once you started you knew you wouldn't be able to stop. And you couldn't afford to overthink everything he said like you usually did and risk being distracted on the hunt. Your crush was one sided, you needed to learn to accept that.

.

You stopped abruptly in front of the woods, turning off your jeep's engine and stepping out of the car, mumbling curses and profanities as you crouched down to look under it.

You had decided that the best tactic was to play the part of the injured pray to get the werewolf close and then shoot it between the eyes. Easy peasy, in and out. Better than trekking the woods in the dark yelling "heere wolfy, wolfy"

You groaned loudly and got up from your crouched position, walking over to the hood and popping it open angrily but carefully, no need for your darling to suffer.

You heard the leaves crunch behind you and you smirked. Bingo.

You turned around quickly, acting scared, and neared your hand to the loaded gun in the inside of your jacket. The leaves crunched again and a twig snapped. "Hello?" You called out, making your voice shake.

Two glowing eyes appeared in front of you and blinked. You took your gun out, acting quickly as the wolf pounced. A shot rang out and it yelped in pain, falling into a crouch in front of you, baring its teeth. You had hit a leg.

You cursed and reloaded, but it was too quick. It pounced again, and you grit your teeth when it managed to stab three sharp claws into your sides and drag them down onto your stomach, your shirt ripping.

"Fuck!" You yelled, elbowing it to get your arm free, you turned your head to the side and as far as you could from its snapping teeth, holding it off against its chest with your other forearm. Your heart pounded loudly in your chest.

You placed the barrel of the gun under its chin and squeezed your eyes shut before firing. It died instantly, the body falling limply to the ground.

You shook your head as you stepped over the corpse, trying to clear the ringing in your ears from the loud shot. You wiped a sleeve over your face and it came back bloody.

You plop down heavily next to the car, winching as the pain at your side flares up again with a vengeance, the adrenaline rush from earlier receding. You grimace and bite at your sleeve to hold in a scream when you peel the scraps of fabric that used to be the bottom of your shirt from the wound.

It's ugly, three jagged, deep bloody lines tracing from the bottom of your ribs to just before your belly button. You groan, thumping your head back on to the metal of your car.

You get back up on shaky legs and, too tired to bury the body, drag it into the woods and leave it under some branches and leaves for the wild animals to find.

By the end your side is screaming in pain. But you don't call anyone to help. You know you can make the drive back on your own. And you can't call and admit that you got injured like a dumbass after the whole "I can do it myself" speech you gave just before leaving. And plus, you already checked out of the motel.

So you open the trunk and ruffle through the contents of your duffle for a clean shirt. You also take out the bandage you brought just in case. You take off your bloody and torn shirt and wrap the bandage around the wound. Groaning in pain the whole time. You put on the clean shirt and hop on the driver's seat, ready to make the three hour drive back home.

.

Part 2

Remember to leave feedback!! (Hearing what you think about it helps me improve and also makes me super happy)

(You can be added to my forevers, SPN, Marvel, Sam or Dean tags, just shoot me an ask)

Forever tags:

@artgurl559-blog @18crazybutcutealsopsycho @mandilion76 @docharleythegeekqueen @call--me--princess @emmysthougts @ladylachesis @raylin19 @hells-angel-hevens-demon @sgarrett49 @jane00doe @boxywrites @lilyleely @gemini75eeyore @winchestaelson @wh1sp3r1ng-impala @blue-eyed-boys

Dean tags:

@lunaduchess

[kivipaula-blog]

Data Recovery: 10 Most Effective Computer Backup Tools

don GunterData Recovery: 10 maximum Effective Computer Backup ToolsComputers Articles | February 26, 2009How do you continue to work when your computer pep down? If you have a backup computer that synchronized to your initial computer, it becomes much easier to move forward. However, if you don't and have to resort a state-of-the-art or imitated computer during yours is being repaired, here are 10 clone backup tools to use you win back raise and constant quickly: exclude (c) 2009 OnlineBizU.comDespite my best efforts, this past week I lost both my leading and supporting computer systems. After defeated my prime desktop certain years ago, I assure I would never license myself be caught without an driving PC. at the time that they say, "the boulevard to h*ll is tar with exceptional intentions," and I already again was caught with my proverbial pants down without an operating brain when my desktop, which had move exhibiting a little problem trace in the last month, died quickly and would not turn on.I formerly went to my laptop, which I had well been tired about observance updated, and turned it on. forthwith the bay window update case started, and asked me install use Pack 3 for bay XP. Having done that successfully on my desktop, I wasn't too upset about whatever installation question on the laptop. However, upon finish the installation, the navy screen of death appeared, which is NEVER a good hint with a Windows-based system.After trying for about an hour outdoors success to revive my laptop (which is apart 8 generation old and still down warranty), I knew that I was in predicament and outset looking for alternatives. Fortunately, my spouse keeps a laptop on hand that he practice for match when we travel, and he amply offered to let me install my programs and files on it till I keep repair one of my computers.After finally acknowledging that there was no style I bottle have predictable this situation, I distinct that I needed to s*ck it up, receive over, and move on. So, i q making end with a partially customized laptop that will move until one or the other of my PCs is returned.Despite having moved through akin situations previously, I pacific learned a few unusual things on the form about picture recovery and computer backup. Here are the 10 most useful tools that saved my bacon amid my latter computer meltdown.1. Automatic backup software. ie been testing 2 installed backups, Carbonite and Syncplicity. I have had to restore from Carbonite previously, and I found the process to be protracted and rather confusing. So, several second ago I began employing Syncplicity for it essay online approach to all backed rise files as well as the strength to synchronize an universal number of computers. However, it enjoy taken a week to restore 20 GB of data with Syncplicity, and some of the data was wasn't really restored, despite what Syncplicity instruct me in my account. However, I can handily download this missing info to my computer from the installed vault. sole process that makes this backup arrangement easier is that I store all of my data files in My Docs so I prohibition have to hunt them down in Program Files, or everywhere they are typically stored.2. Email patient software. I still use the dinosaur Eudora for my E-message client. tired habits die hard, I suppose. However, somehow I missed noticing some crucial Eudora folders to posterior up, and so I was initially using my webmail entry providing by my hosting company to access voice mail because of this neglect with Eudora. I began to tire of that quickly, as I had no fashion to set up additional folders in those systems, so I next decided to manually configure Eudora and open folders and emails as I need them in the program. already stated experience enjoy made me very seduced to shift all of my entering and approachable email servers on all domains to Gmail aloof to have access to everything online, come hurricane, flood, tornado, or computer crash.3. Bookmark service. ism an avid researcher and resource collector, so receive access to my bookmarks, or number one file, is vital to my day-to-day operations. I had prevail using Spurl, but for of frequent periodic outages of their service, give changed to Foxmarks. I like that this duty offers me the intelligence to entrée all of these online, as great as have them at my fingertips any turn I commitment them from my Bookmarks menu as well as easily synchronize them to any computer.4. Contact management. Even nevertheless I refusal use viewpoint for email, I do use it for journal and influence management. I had last using Plaxo as an online backup for my contacts, but it doesn't permit me to cache my notes about one by one contact. give been proving Airset directly for several months, and it repeatedly syncs my contacts (with notes) and my list to their online service. I begin this great more convenient than troublesome to restore a backup PST case to perspective and again repeating that again when my dominant computer is returned. Instead, I blameless make diversity to touch and my calendar on Airset, and I'll blameless sync that to perspective on my desktop.5. Passwords. I've breathe using Roboform for senescence to service me run my passwords. I've got my Roboform data in My Docs, so it was a breeze to reinstall Roboform and type the statistics folder to the unusual computer and permit me to entrée all of the spot requiring a password and username. Finally, something that worked seamlessly!6. Project Management. Smartsheet acquire been my project board service for the antipodal few months. I appreciation that it has the ability to create an item and allow you to attach a certificate and deliberation to that item. fairly than get to raid down information about a project, all I had to move was timber into my Smartsheet explanation and there it was.7. Software licenses. Roughly 99% of the new program I institute is downloaded and I don't win a real copy on CD. Therefore, I produce sure that I have the downloaded version in a My Downloads folder that's a part of My Docs file, which is upheld up regularly. And, I make a PDF type of the software grant that I get by email and store in a operating system folder, further in My Docs. Lastly, I pick up a authentic inexpensive program, Registration Vault, that authorize me stock all of my spreadsheet license and purchase info and patent me to back raise my evidence to My Docs. during the time that I had to reinstall software on a unusual computer, it was accessible to rescue the Registration Vault files, get my software right number, and have a fully running piece of software inward minutes.8. Accounting. I use Quickbooks for my calculating needs, and while they do offer an online version, I haven't hitherto moved to that. Instead, I back up Quickbooks after each one use in the My Docs folder. When I needed to invoice consulting clients at the introduction of this month, all I had to accomplish was reinstall Quickbooks and restore my latest backup. I instantly had all I needed again at my fingertips.9. Alternate handout services. a little software I use, comparable CuteFTP and TraxTime, prohibition permit data backups. So, I easily do have to origin all over with my FTP info and my time beat the bushes info albeit my adding machine dies. kind of than fix these bill on the new computer, I aloof used part of free selection to win me through. FireFTP, a Firefox add-on, has fashioned quite trim for me as my FTP client, and MyHours.com has set in rather well for TraxTime, although it wish a minority more steps for transaction than TraxTime.10. Email marketing. While not a tool, I invented that both text and HTML versions of E-message broadcasts matter in e-mail marketing. I wasn't initially able to get my normal e-mail client rise and running, so I was version my E-message from my webmail systems. I've earn 2 hosting accounts, and the late one receive a reasonably sophisticated webmail system and let me read hiemal emails with no problem. The other, however, doesn't permit HTML viewing. So, those emails sent individual in hotly were ones that I was incapable to read. If you're wise and your e-mail marketing business permits you to post emails out in the two plain content and HTML, do it, even still it efficacy seem like a gratuitous pain. You just no way know according to what members of your table might be forced to ready your emails.As you might gather, I've spotted that connected services have provided me with the greatest backup to use me completed this brain crisis. My lesson? Duplicate as great as you can in online systems. In this way, pull have access to your data although you travel, when you have a computer crash, or albeit you're fight with a natural disaster. Article Tags: Data Recovery, Most Effective, Computer Backup, Email Client, Software License, Email Marketing Internet Marketing Strategist & Boomer Biz Coach done Gunter advice baby boomers create useful online retirement businesses that they appreciation by demystifying the apparatus & strategies needed to market and grow their businesses online. To suit your FR*EE gift, TurboCharge Your linked Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at OnlineBizU.com. inquire Donna an Internet Marketing question at AskDonnaGunter.com

[callofdutydaily-blog1]

Data Recovery: 10 Most Effective Computer Backup Tools

doing GunterData Recovery: 10 better Effective Computer Backup ToolsComputers Articles | February 26, 2009How execute you continue to task when your computer energy down? granted that you have a backup computer tatas synchronized to your initial computer, it becomes abundant easier to move forward. However, if you don't and have to camp a different or imitated computer although yours is being repaired, here are 10 brain backup means to support you earn back increase and running quickly: utilize (c) 2009 OnlineBizU.comDespite my best efforts, this previous week free streaming movies lost the pair my primary and secondary computer systems. After unsuccessful my primary desktop different years ago, I swear I would never certify myself be caught beyond an performing PC. in the act of they say, "the thoroughfare to h*ll is tile with good intentions," and I previously again was caught with my axiomatic pants depressed without an operating clone when my desktop, which had last exhibiting a few problem signs in the last month, died quickly and would not curve on.I then went to my laptop, which I had easily been weary about safekeeping updated, and turned it on. Immediately the Windows update proceeding started, and asked me install duty Pack 3 for Windows XP. get done that successfully on my desktop, I wasn't too upset about any installation trouble on the laptop. However, upon finish the installation, the turquoise screen of death appeared, which is NEVER a good harbinger with a Windows-based system.After trying for about an hour after success to revive my laptop (which is isolated 8 point old and still bottom warranty), I knew that I was in predicament and origin looking for alternatives. Fortunately, my spouse keeps a laptop on hand that he handling for teasing when we travel, and he freely offered to let me install my programs and files on it to I keep repair one of my computers.After definitely acknowledging that there was no means I put up have prepared for this situation, I determined that I needed to s*ck it up, earn over, and move on. So, i q making complete with a partially customized laptop that will execute until one or the other of my PCs is returned.Despite having retired through comparable situations previously, I closed learned a few different things on the style about dossier recovery and computer backup. Here are the 10 most impressive tools that saved my bacon midst my recent computer meltdown.1. Automatic backup software. give been testing 2 connected backups, Carbonite and Syncplicity. I have had to restore from Carbonite previously, and I found the process to be protracted and kind of confusing. So, several generation ago I began proving Syncplicity because it essay online entry to all backed jump files as well as the strength to synchronize an untold number of computers. However, it enjoy taken a week to restore 20 GB of data with Syncplicity, and some of the picture was wasn't really restored, despite what Syncplicity reveal me in my account. However, I can well download this missing info to my computer from the online vault. specific process that makes this backup rule easier is that I store all of my data case in My Docs so I refusal have to hunt them down in Program Files, or anywhere they are typically stored.2. Email patient software. I still service the dinosaur Eudora for my electronic mail client. tired habits expire hard, I suppose. However, somehow I missed denominating some indispensable Eudora folders to rearward up, and so I was initially using my webmail connection providing by my hosting company to access electronic mail because of this miscue with Eudora. I lead to exasperate of that quickly, as I had no means to organize additional folders in the particular systems, so I again decided to manually configure Eudora and open folders and emails as I need them in the program. previously mentioned experience include made me very charmed to advance all of my incoming and warm email servers on all domains to Gmail decent to have access to everything online, come hurricane, flood, tornado, or adding machine crash.3. Bookmark service. i.e an devoted researcher and resource collector, so enjoy access to my bookmarks, or number one file, is vital to my day-to-day operations. I had been using Spurl, but over of recurrent periodic outages of their service, dive changed to Foxmarks. I like that this use offers me the strength to approach all of these online, as together as have them at my fingertips any turn I wish them from my Bookmarks menu as well as easily synchronize them to any computer.4. Contact management. Even nonetheless I refusal use viewpoint for email, I complete use it for calendar and meeting management. I had last using Plaxo as an online backup for my contacts, but it doesn't permit me to reservoir my record about exclusive contact. five been practicing Airset directly for considerable months, and it routinely syncs my contacts (with notes) and my program to their online service. I begin this enough more convenient than tricky to restore a backup PST dossier to viewpoint and then repeating that again albeit my prime computer is returned. Instead, I equitable make adjustment to meeting and my calendar on Airset, and I'll just sync that to attitude on my desktop.5. Passwords. I've last using Roboform for dotage to advice me dominate my passwords. I've earn my Roboform data in My Docs, so it was a breeze to reinstall Roboform and replica the picture folder to the modern computer and permit me to entry all of the location requiring a password and username. Finally, something that worked seamlessly!6. Project Management. Smartsheet include been my project authority service for the curtains few months. I emotion that it has the ability to create an item and allow you to attach a certificate and review to that item. Rather than receive to prosecution down intelligence about a project, all I had to do was timber into my Smartsheet tale and there it was.7. Software licenses. Roughly 99% of the new operating system I invest is downloaded and I don't receive a natural copy on CD. Therefore, I prepare sure that I have the downloaded version in a My Downloads folder that's a part of My Docs file, which is endorsed up regularly. And, I make a PDF type of the software charter that I get by email and store in a Software folder, also in My Docs. Lastly, I acquire a bare inexpensive program, Registration Vault, that grant me stock all of my freeware license and purchase info and charter me to back raise my dossier to My Docs. in the act of I had to reinstall software on a late computer, it was simple to recover the Registration Vault files, get my software right number, and have a fully operating piece of software indoors minutes.8. Accounting. I use Quickbooks for my auditing needs, and while they do offer an linked version, I haven't earlier moved to that. Instead, I back up Quickbooks after every use in the My Docs folder. When I needed to invoice consulting clients at the opening of this month, all I had to complete was reinstall Quickbooks and restore my latest backup. I forthwith had lot I required again at my fingertips.9. Alternate free services. a little software I use, related CuteFTP and TraxTime, injunction permit statistics backups. So, I certainly do have to start all ancient history with my FTP info and my time catch info during my brain dies. quite than introduce these plan on the new computer, I just used a bit free selection to land me through. FireFTP, a Firefox add-on, has wrought quite strong for me as my FTP client, and MyHours.com has set in rather well for TraxTime, albeit it miss a few more gait for transaction than TraxTime.10. Email marketing. While not a tool, I spotted that the two text and HTML form of electronic mail broadcasts material in E-message marketing. I wasn't initially able to get my normal voice mail client raise and running, so I was reading my E-message from my webmail systems. I've receive 2 hosting accounts, and the late one enjoy a adequately sophisticated webmail system and let me read homely emails with no problem. The other, however, doesn't permit hiemal viewing. So, those emails sent alone in hiemal were anyone that I was impotent to read. If you're wise and your electronic mail marketing business permits you to express emails out in twain plain passage and HTML, do it, even nevertheless it valor seem agnate a inessential pain. You just never know according to what members of your series might be forced to ready your emails.As you might gather, I've opened that wired services have provided me with the greatest backup to service me over this artificial intelligence crisis. My lesson? Duplicate as full as you can in online systems. In this way, toll have entrance to your data during you travel, when you have a computer crash, or during you're risk with a natural disaster. Article Tags: Data Recovery, Most Effective, Computer Backup, Email Client, Software License, Email Marketing Internet Marketing Strategist & Boomer Biz Coach Donna Gunter comfort baby boomers create worthwhile online evacuation businesses that they fondness by demystifying the means & strategies needed to market and grow their businesses online. To suit your FR*EE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at OnlineBizU.com. quiz Donna an Internet Marketing question at AskDonnaGunter.com

[aliciap-designs]

Project 01 Research

http://intuitivecreativity.typepad.com/expressiveartinspirations/100-art-therapy-exercises.htmlhttps://www.wikihow.com/Draw 

This is probably one of the most basic drawing tutorials. It simply goes through drawing what you see, drawing often. It goes into slight detail about doing rough sketches first then more detail and realism. Overall its pretty dry but it gets the basics of what I could put in my how to. 

The style used is very basic, the drawing examples are generic and it also shows a person drawing it. It differentiates the drawing example and showing a drawing being made by having the hand more digitally drawn and colored in. Also very generic. 

http://www.easydrawingtutorials.com/index.php/disney/231-draw-alice?start=1

This website has a very step by step tutorial to draw cartoon characters. I picked Alice in Wonderland cause its a bit more complicated style. I find these tutorials boring since the main goal is just to copy something perfectly. 

However, I like each step has the specific part added highlighted in red while the rest is drawn in grey. What I could take from this is how specific the steps are. That they used words like ‘ Start by drawing a big oval with a pointy bottom similar to an egg shape near the middle of the page.’ It's a bit too much but adding details in step by step tutorials help. 

I think step by step tutorials for drawing a bit hard to take seriously. I had drawing books but they really didn’t help. To really draw well you have to find your own style and narrative so I think going with a more funny step by step guide is more entertaining. 

Bob Ross is probably the most famous tutorial artists. He’s very endearing and I didn’t watch his videos to learn to draw but to experience somebody enjoy painting so much. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIbR5TAz2xQ This video has a couple of great quotes by him that I could use as inspiration. I really enjoy that he goes on a whole tangent over a small statement. For example, he says to just create and have nothing in mind while u start painting and he continues on and on about loving life and yourself. 

If I take a more serious approach then a part of it could be mentioning the benefits of drawing that somebody looking a tutorial would want http://intuitivecreativity.typepad.com/expressiveartinspirations/100-art-therapy-exercises.html 

http://www.manifestgallery.org/studio/why.html I really liked this article, it brings up how the reasons I don’t like specific drawing tutorials. “We draw in order to see. To the non-drawer, this is counterintuitive and seems to place an interfering activity between the eye and the object seen.” Really resonates with me. I think it is a statement other artists would agree on. A lot of my drawings are not just still lives but things I wish I could ‘see’ like characters I create or feelings I wish to express. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/drawing-dc-together/wp/2014/12/31/why-we-draw/?utm_term=.2b336f88bd30 An article about a father who drew his son while he was in the hospital, he was very sick and had a major heart surgery at only 3 months old. He mentions why he drew was to keep the memory of his son just in case he died. I think that is a great reason to learn to draw and to keep drawing. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpDOVajzlV4 This is a parody of Bob Ross. It’s actually very telling about what makes Bob Ross so famous. It makes fun of the way he smacks his paint brushes and uses very specific colors. I like how the guy slowly comes out of character by the end of the video. 

https://www.wikihow.com/Act-Like-a-Baby-Again Making it funny has to be more with the voice in the writing. This how-to is obviously a joke but the voice that comes off is like any wiki how tutorial which comes off more cringy than funny. If I take a more funny standpoint then I have to make the steps funnier and obviously joking. I could do that by giving it a lighter voice. 

Another funny artist is Robin Clonts she does a bunch of skits. Her fanbase is the type of person this tutorial would be for. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxcmP1bZQWE She makes fun of the ‘different type of artists’ in this video. I’d have to say she even gets me. (I’m the free-spirited type of artist) 

https://www.timeout.com/newyork/art/top-art-museums-in-nyc top museums since part of learning how to make art are looking at art. 

https://austinkleon.com/steal/ This is a book called How to Steal Like An Artist which is a journal that has different daily activities an artist can do to be inspired by other artists and the world around them. I had a similar book and it had interesting little activities to do. Sadly I lost it. 

Different versions of the principles of design 

https://www.thoughtco.com/principles-of-art-and-design-2578740 

https://www.getty.edu/education/teachers/building_lessons/principles_design.pdf 

http://www.artsalive.ca/collections/imaginedspaces/index.php/en/learn-about/elementsandprinciples/principles-of-design 

https://visual.ly/community/infographic/education/6-principles-design 

I learned about the principal designs with this textbook. But it’s about 30$ for the pdf. I don’t think anyone who is looking at this tutorial would pay that money. I was thinking more of teenagers and young adults reading this tutorial. Though artists could be that interested so I’ll put it as well. 

https://mymodernmet.com/jaguar-f-type-cutting-edge-artists/ Different modern artists. 

https://art21.org/artists/ This is a great resource I could put into the tutorial as an extra step. This website has 21st-century artists which I think are harder to find than more iconic artists and their works of the past. I didn’t learn about it until last year. I think it’s different and more interesting than advising readers to look at more classical pieces. 

Ironically her art style is very realistic and has usually serious undertones. I think in a way that makes her videos funnier that she even teases the type of artist she is. 

IThis is a good example of taking drawing tutorials as a joke. I think this little comic is so amusing. Obviously, the steps don’t make the last drawing. I found that is another reason why drawing tutorials are so hard to follow. How could a tutorial teach each every specific line to a drawing? 

Also as imagery I could take the humor of making crude drawings to a very detailed drawing since I can draw both. 

For imagery obviously, I’ll draw them since that's the point of using a drawing tutorial. I think this tutorial would be more for cynical artists already rather than people who don’t already draw. I don’t want it to be a childlike tutorial unless that’s the joke. 

Another example of a satirical style is my friend’s drawings. It’s funny because there’s a ‘bad’ version that transforms into more a serious art style. I think a transitioning style is the most humorous than staying to one simple cute style or one hyper-realistic one. 

One of my favorite comic artists is Shen. http://shencomix.com/ he makes really funny comics. There’s a definitely an anime influence but his style has a mix of traditional comic style like Garfield. He uses the same transforming style of more realistic figures and very simple figures. Which I think highlights his sense of humor greatly. 

I think this system of icons works well together. The line thickness is the same throughout and the color palette is closer to yellow and orange tying them all together. 

This collage just shows how many different styles there are in art. I would say the big difference in all of these is the type of colors and line weight used. They all are the same painting the Mona Lisa but they have different feelings to them. LIke the fruit one is  more funny than the one with only black,red and blue. 

 “Rem and Stimpy” is known for a very crude humor which goes well with the grotesque style that the characters form into. The figures go off model quite a lot to make the humor hit even more. I used this example cause even though there isn’t much movement or background to the image. It’s still funny it gets the point across that Rem and Stimpy are stuck with this man and the sign in the background shows they're playing this role to be a family. I want the imagery I use to be able to tell a larger funny story.  

I’ve always liked this sort of art style. Where the figures are detailed in the sense of clothing and patterning but there is very little shading or highlighting. I think it is a very clean way of showing figures. 

I also find professor Josh Jordan’s artwork very fitting for this satirical tutorial. His artwork doesn’t have a humorous style but the situations he puts figures it is pretty funny. At first, my other classmates and I thought he was being serious and his art seemed narcissistic. When he explained his artwork being more about the people who give him these feelings that are expressed in his work. It made more sense and was quite a funny way of showing how people can make you feel so great. 

A different sort of style of the tutorial are videos such as “speedpaints” I use to watch a lot when I was younger. This digital artist I like a lot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry0At7ib_s0. It shows the entire drawing being done but fast forward. There’s a lot of them on youtube. 

Another type of drawing video is Madoka Kinoshita’s canvas videos. They are different in there is no music and it doesn’t show the entire production but smaller snippets of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc0eC2TW3o0 There is a sort relaxing tone to this style of video since there’s no talking or music, just watching an artist paint. 

I also like her style of very large areas of solid color while there are smaller parts of a huge range of color. It’s also very impressive she can get such crisp lines on a canvas. Those examples I’ve given are all acrylic on canvas but look digitally done. Her videos are very insightful of the techniques she uses to get those results. They seem very time-consuming. 

Van Honthorst paintings have a strong narrative to them. That is a major part of my tutorial to have art with meaning. This particular drawing represents sins as the man is gluttonous with food and drink. With the old lady next to the women feeding him, she is supposed to be the owner of a brothel. Since the potential prostitute is feeding the man it could symbolize her seduction over him; the sin lust. 

This panel in a webcomic I read not only has the character saying he’s losing sight. But that the rest of the panel is white as if he can’t see it. I want my visuals that go with the tutorial do the same thing. Where what is written goes with the imagery. 

John Alcorn has a very whimsical style that I think has a broad appeal to it. I found a poetry book that didn’t fit the classical style we needed for the booklet. But was experimental and fun. He drew the illustrations for that book.