Autumnal Equinox (JinJi)

Eleven

He didn't know that it was an antique. He didn't know the gun was obsolete. All he knew back then was that his best friend, his sister, and his new brother-in-law were going to die if he didn't do something.

It struck him just how fragile and impermanent life really was. No matter how beautiful or tragic or exciting it was, it could all be gone in a moment.

"Oh, Park Jinyoung," said a weak voice. Jinyoung looked up and saw that Harabeoji had awoken. His sunken eyes darted around the room. "Where am I?"

He was lucid, Jinyoung realized. He leaned forward in his chair.

"You're in the hospital, sir," Jinyoung said, answering his question calmly so as not to upset him.

"In the hospital?" Harabeoji said, then grunted. "Did my daughter finally scrape up the money to get me the attention I need? She must have been quite a slave to her piano students."

Jinyoung couldn't help but smirk. A rare moment of clarity for the old man, he realized. Harabeoji turned his observant eyes onto the young man and looked him up and down.

"How tall are you now, son?" Harabeoji asked.

"178 centimeters," Jinyoung answered.

"Do you remember when you first walked into my daughter's house, and my granddaughter was taller than you?" he asked and then gave a weak, raspy laugh. "The banker's boy. That was you. How is your father's business?"

Jinyoung shrugged. "It's doing fine, I guess," he answered.

"Is he still grooming you to take over?" the old man's voice shook. "Haven't you told him yet that you have other plans?"

Jinyoung frowned. "Actually," he said. "I might just do it."

"What happened to music?" Harabeoji asked. "You are still writing music, aren't you, son?"

Jinyoung shrugged. "Not so much now, sir," he said.

"Why not?"

To this, Jinyoung could only laugh helplessly. "I don't know," he said, shrugging. "Writer's block, I guess."

"Ahh, writer's block," Harabeoji said. "I understand that struggle very well."

Jinyoung leaned forward. "That's right, you used to be a writer, didn't you, sir?" He remembered that Jisoo's grandfather had written a profound war memoir and had it published. In some local schools, it was still required reading. The old man nodded slowly.

"I don't do much writing nowadays, either, though," he said and gave the young man a smile. Jinyoung returned the gesture. When he wasn't accosting young women and shouting nonsense about Japanese spies, Harabeoji was actually a pleasant conversationalist, Jinyoung realized.

"You know how to get through writer's block, don't you, son?" Harabeoji asked. Jinyoung wrinkled his brows.

"Uhh," he said. "I guess so? I'm not exactly sure. I suppose you just have to move on."

"You can't move on, not when you have writer's block," Harabeoji said firmly. "You know what causes writer's block?"

Jinyoung shook his head.

"Writing must be an expression of truth," Harabeoji preached. "When you get writer's block, it means that somewhere in your draft, you told a lie. And now, the powers that be won't let you move on. You're doomed to go back to that lie again and again and again until you fix it. Only then can you move on."

At first, Jinyoung nodded, absentmindedly letting the old man's words go in one ear and out the other, but what he said began to resonate with him. Especially the idea of not being able to move on, the idea of a single mistake leading him down the wrong path.