Hyungwon arrived for his appointment a little early next week with a folded piece of paper clenched in his right hand. He'd tried to write down the "episodes," as she'd called them. They were strange. Not scary, really. Just...odd. Like he'd see someone riding a bike, and just for a second, it would turn red, but then he'd blink again and it would be blue or green or whatever color it was supposed to be. Not scary, but...odd.
There were, in total, about a dozen different moments listed on the sheet of paper. He didn't know what they meant – he was concerned that maybe he'd gotten a head injury from the crash that had never been addressed – but he was hoping she could tell him today.
Even though he was just under half an hour early, she opened the door and popped her head out. "Hyungwon," she greeted, seeming surprised but also like she was in a rush, which was very out of character for her. "Why don't you come in?"
Hyungwon's eyes darted past her, trying to see inside the room, but he couldn't make out much. "Don't have you another person right now?" He felt weird calling them clients. And then he felt weird for thinking of himself as a client.
"I cancelled all my other appointments today," she said, and Hyungwon felt a small flame of panic ignite in his stomach. "I just thought that we have a lot to talk about." She paused, misreading his nerves. "Don't worry, Hyungwon, I won't charge you for any extra time today. I just think that we're very close to something, and I think it's best if we try to figure that out today, however long it may take."
Don't be scared, I'm right here. The words were from a memory, one that hadn't yet crystallized in his mind, but instead of providing him calm, he felt a spike of panic.
After a moment, Hyungwon nodded, putting the unclear memory out of his mind. He wanted to know what was wrong with himself as well, after all. He followed her in and took his usual seat, setting the folded paper on the table, but he blinked because he had the acute sense that something was missing.
The yarn. The ball of yarn wasn't on the table where it normally was.
He looked up as she closed the door. He felt like asking her about it would be stupid, but she seemed to notice his distress as she sat down.
"I'm sorry, Hyungwon. I decided to put the yarn away for today because I've noticed that you use it to avoid thinking about things or answering honestly sometimes, and I think that honesty is especially important today."
Hyungwon frowned but nodded. Maybe it was due to all the changes – starting early, her cancelling her other appointments, her general demeanor, the missing yarn – but he could feel his anxiety growing.
"I know I usually ask you to start our conversations," she said. Beside her armchair was a small coffee table upon which rested a notepad. She glanced over at it, her frown dipping before she looked back at him. "But today, I'm hoping that it's all right for me to start off with a few things. Is that okay, Hyungwon?"
He nodded because she was the expert on psychology, not him.
"Okay," she said, and she took a deep breath as though in an attempt to calm some of her own nervous energy, but it didn't seem to work. "Last week, you mentioned your new friend Jooheon and the club you've joined, right?"
Hyungwon shrugged, his fingers itching for the yarn. He didn't like sitting still. "I haven't officially joined, but yes."
She was silent for a long moment before exhaling sharply. "Hyungwon, I've had a week to work on your case and think over what to do, but I don't know exactly how to go about this. Please forgive me if I will have made this process more painful for you, but it's my job to help you grow past what's holding you back and to speak truth to you, even if it's not always what you want to hear."
Hyungwon blinked before sinking back into the couch, not at all liking the fact that pain had just been mentioned in correlation with himself. "What process? What do you mean?"
"Hyungwon, there is no Jooheon at your college."
Hyungwon just stared at her because that was an entirely ridiculous thought. His immediate instinct was to deny her words outright, but he knew that she wouldn't have spoken them if she didn't have some basis. He tried to think about what she could be getting at. "Are you saying that he isn't officially registered as a student there? That maybe..." His brain was spinning, trying to find a logical explanation that would fit both his experiences and her statement. "Maybe he just hangs out there because his friends attend? Or he just sits in on classes?"
"Hyungwon, I'm afraid that neither of those are the case," she said carefully. She had her arms resting on the armrests as though she were trying to force herself to be relaxed, but her nails dug into the fabric. "Jooheon is actually attending a different college, one that's about two hours away."
"Maybe he just skips class sometimes," Hyungwon said, his own hands clenching up.
"I called an academic advisor at his college, and Jooheon has been marked in attendance for nearly every class since the beginning of the semester."
Hyungwon shook his head. "That doesn't make sense. I saw him earlier this week, and last week, and the week before that. Someone messed up the attendance records." He stopped as a better explanation came to mind, and he looked up at her. "Or you have the wrong Jooheon. That's probably it."
"I don't think so," she said, and she looked down first, breaking their eye contact even though she was the one who had always been so adamant that he try to meet people's eyes to raise his own confidence. "I contacted your high school counselor to check about a few things, and when I mentioned Jooheon, she remembered him."
Hyungwon's head was starting to feel light in contrast with the heaviness of his body. "So we went to the same high school and never met?"
"Hyungwon, you were friends with Jooheon in high school. He's the one who told the counselor to check in on you because he was your friend and he thought something might be wrong."
Hyungwon shook his head. "No, I met Jooheon in college, not even that long ago. And I don't remember ever going to a school counselor."
"Hyungwon," she began slowly, and that was how he knew her next question wouldn't be something pleasant. "What do you remember about your life before the car accident?"
Hyungwon opened his mouth, but he stopped. He frowned when he realized it was more difficult to answer than he thought it would be. "That's easy," he said despite his own confusion at his resistance to the question. "I had Mother, and Father, and Mi-Yeon."
"All right, but what about high school, for instance?"
Hyungwon shrugged. "It's a blur." When he saw her slight frown, he added, "It was four years of the same thing over and over – math and language and science and whatever else. You can't possibly expect me to recite calculus formulas off the top of my head, do you?"
"But you don't remember meeting Jooheon in high school?" she pressed.
"No, because it didn't happen."
"What about when you were younger, in grade school? Did you have a lot of friends?"
Hyungwon winced as two memories flashed in his mind. The first was an image of classmates surrounding him, cheering as they won a baseball game. But it replaced with a similar view, only he was watching everyone else from far away. "I- I'm not sure. Probably a few. That was a long time ago."
"Can you tell me a little about your parents? Maybe let's start with your mother?"
Hyungwon's first thought was just a ubiquitous feeling of cold. His skin prickled unpleasantly, and he had to resist the urge to rub his arms. But he looked at his therapist and said, "She always told me to make sure I eat breakfast. And..." He frowned as a dull pain settled into his skull. "Something about laundry. I don't remember exactly."
After Hyungwon's statement wasn't followed by anything else for five seconds, she spoke up. "What else?"
"She was..." Hyungwon's eyes skittered across the carpet. They were talking about his mother. He knew everything there was to know about her, yet why couldn't he come up with anything right now? "Nice," he said after a few seconds, although he didn't sound completely confident in his answer.
His therapist seemed to sense how blank his mind was and decided to switch the topic. "Let's talk about your father."
Hyungwon couldn't suppress recoiling further back into the couch at the mention, but when he searched his mind for an explanation, he received nothing in return. "He...he..." Like before, Hyungwon couldn't think. His mind was completely blank until an image of Father filled his mind, and he felt something ugly and dark in his stomach react to the recollection. "Why are you asking me these questions?" Hyungwon asked instead of answering, looking up at her with just enough anger in his voice to hide the fear.
She let his question hang in the air for what seemed like a long time to Hyungwon, but maybe it was only a few seconds. Then, without answering, she asked, "Hyungwon, we haven't talked about it in all the time I've been your therapist, but I think we need to. What do you remember about the crash?"
He stared at her, and the smell of metal and blood filled his senses, overwhelming him. But he saw in her eyes that she needed an answer. "We're driving," he began, his entire body tense. He hadn't told anyone the story. Not the insurance agent, not her, not even Jooheon. But there wasn't much to tell. "We're on a backcountry road. There's nothing in sight but some trees and road. And I look at Father, who's driving the car, and- and I ask him something. He doesn't have a chance to answer, because then- then we crash." Hyungwon looked up at her, at the unreadable expression on her face. "That's it, that's all I remember."
She exhaled slowly, closing her eyes for a moment before opening them and looking directly at him. "Hyungwon...your father wasn't driving the car."
Hyungwon stared at her. "He was," he said, not quite sure what else there was to say or how he was supposed to prove it.
"Hyungwon, your father wasn't driving the car," she repeated, still staring at him, and he sensed that she didn't want him to look away, that she needed him to process every word. "Hyungwon, you were driving."