amnesia || renmin au

sixteen

"Hey Jeno?"

Jeno looked up from his laptop to look at Jaemin, who had stopped working on the project and was staring into space.

"Jaemin? Is something bothering you?" Jeno shut his laptop and focused his attention on Jaemin who seemed to be distracted because of something.

Jaemin nodded. "A few days ago on my way home from school I bumped into this guy..."

Jeno's eyes widened, but returned to their normal size quickly to hide his emotion. Was he talking about that day where Renjun had almost broken down at the cafe? "Oh?" Jeno asked, trying to sound like he didn't know anything. "Who?"

"I don't know, but he looked familiar..." Jaemin's voice trailed off. "Oh, I don't know. I'm not sure why I'm telling you something so insignificant but I don't know if it's important, it kinda felt like the same kind of familiarity as when I saw you but stronger. I also got I think a flashback of us two meeting in the past, what do you think it means?"

"No it's okay, I said I would be here for you if you ever wanted to talk." Jeno paused, thinking for a moment. "Is this the first time something like this happened? What did you see in your flashback?"

Jaemin scratched the back of his neck, trying to piece together his memory. "Well, I've gotten tiny flashes when doing everyday things, but this is the longest and most vivid memory I remembered so far. In the flashback I was sitting alone, and I remember my back feeling sore, and a boy stood in my way when I was trying to leave and offered to be friends and I followed him. That's all that happened."

Back feeling sore. Jeno had remembered Renjun talking about how his family treated Jaemin, but didn't know much of the details because talking about it made Renjun upset. "It seems like you're remembering bigger bits of your past," Jeno observed, not wanting to say too much.

"Yeah, the doctors told me that everyday things will trigger memories. But this is definitely bigger and more significant. Do you think I should look for the boy then? Would it help me remember more?"

Jeno's heart pounded. Should he look for Renjun? If he said yes to look for Renjun, all of Renjun's efforts would go to waste, everything that Renjun wanted Jaemin not to remember would come back and Renjun would surely hate him. If he said not to look for Renjun, Jaemin would stay in this helpless state of confusion. No matter what Jeno said, it would hurt one of his friends.

But at the same time, if Jaemin did look for Renjun, there was a chance they could both be happy.

"Maybe," Jeno said slowly. "It might be kind of hard to find him since you don't know his name but you can try. I don't know how significant that memory is to you but if you think you're onto something you could look for him and potentially find answers." There, he said it. Renjun was going to hate him.

Jaemin nodded. "Yeah, I was thinking that too. But I'm scared to remember, too. Everyone who knows my past seems to not want to talk about it, as if there's something they don't want me to remember." He sighed heavily. "If only you knew. If you knew, would you tell me?"

"I don't know, probably," Jeno said, lying straight to Jaemin's face. "There must be a reason why no one's telling you about it though, so I guess it depends."

On the way home, guilt washed over Jeno as he thought about what he said, and he started to wonder if his shallow advice would actually cause more harm in the end than good.

~~~~~

A/N:

aksjskk im sorry for not updating in over a week, i couldnt think of anything for this au. it kinda feels dragged out imo so i might just speed it up, rn it's probably only 1/4 into the story and i'm already out of motivation.

i usually write this when im feeling down, so if u see me updating 'rent me' (my nomin au) instead of this that probably means im in a good mood, which i guess is good ?? but at the same time the updates for this are not as frequent so idk

exams are starting in a few weeks and i still havent started the review for any subjects so i might be kinda ia on updating for a bit, idk yet tho so we'll see what happens

thanks for 300 reads ?? where are the reads coming from damn thank u sm for reading this piece of shit wau i expected like one(1) read in each chapter from me forcing my friends to read it and thats it. so rlly thank u

anyway now that im opening up more ive kinda started rambling to no end in these authors notes so ima stop now before it gets too long hehe

- amy