•The persistence of memory• [ Taekook ]

Chapter 1: Wanderer above the sea of fog

|• I was born tomorrow
I live today
Yesterday killed me. •|

_______________________

Seoul
October 14, 2011
Friday

He had nothing left but memories.

.
.
.

But the memory of him suddenly blurred.

He tried to relive some of the most vivid moments spent with him, but he couldn't. He only remembered the pain and as much as he wanted to focus on the good things, his mind always wandered to the last time he saw him.

And then it happened again.

This time it was exactly seven minutes past midnight when the nightmare happened.

The banging of the car on the curb.

The sound of rain pouring down.

The fall on the already wet asphalt.

His mother's cry.

A scream and then a pale hand on the pavement.

Damn, he has to run but he can't move. His legs seemed to be paralyzed.

When he looked around, Jungkook met some unfamiliar faces, mostly the faces of sleepwalkers and people who surely scared him.

They held his hands tightly and kissed him with mouths stinking of dark sediments. Holding his hand, they led him into a dark room he didn't recognize. Again.

Then they lit the wicks of the lamps while their voices were deep and hoarse. He couldn't make out what they were talking about, but he knew it was important.

In front of the thirteen-year-old Jungkook stood a whole legion of people, unknown and awful, covered in black huge manes and faces as pale as the first snow. With frightened and angry eyes, the boy went from one to the other, trying to get every detail on them deeply etched into his consciousness. Into his memory.

Some of them hugged him, some kissed him. He couldn't escape. His legs were as if tied by an anchor at the bottom of the ocean, he felt as if he had shackles.

For a moment he felt an extreme disgust for some of them. Their skin tasted bland, and when they bent their folded necks to place their cheeks, he was struck by a corpse-like smell like paraffin candles and pale roses in stagnant water.

However, some hand tore him from that paralyzed embrace and his ears rang. For a moment he didn't feel anything, only some strange closeness and intimacy.

And so carried away by the warm smell of musk and firm fingers around the wrist, Jungkook woke up still thinking about that honey complexion of a man whose face he had almost completely forgotten.

Suddenly the shrill sound of the bell was etched into his consciousness like a sudden flash of light from car headlights and then Jungkook opened his eyes completely exhausted and defeated.

Though he was instantly aware that the ringing of the doorbell again triumphantly signaled some novelty, he still lay covered over his head. Frowning, he closed his eyes again, not wanting to wake up. While he was summoning consciousness and returning slowly to reality, the clock was ticking the morning hours and the sun was barely visible from the fogged window.

The constant banging and ringing made him slowly stagger to the door on his shaky and thin legs. In order not to lose his balance, he knocked over a few glass bottles of soju along the way. He deftly ignored the noise they left behind with his hand on the lock.