AH-IN'S pov
"Sungmin-ah, your mom is going to be furious if she finds out where we are heading," I said, adjusting the strap of my bag.
It has been a year since Yoonsuh died. It had become massive news right before our high school graduation. Back then, Sungmin had begged his mother so much to let him visit Yoonsuh's funeral, but she refused, and he didn't attend the funeral. Because of her, he never got to attend, never got to say goodbye.
But today was his first death anniversary. Sungmin finally mustered up his courage to visit Yoonsuh's grave, at least today. He wanted to pay his respects and properly lay the past to rest.
We had been waiting at the bus stop for Hosung for over an hour. He had insisted on picking up something suitable for an offering, finally deciding on flowers. So we waited.
"You stole another cigarette packet again," I asked quietly.
I had noticed Sungmin staring down at the small, hand-sized cardboard box in his hand, his thumb brushing against the wrapper before he looked up with a soft, fragile smile that looked like it could shatter any moment.
"Hyung always likes it when I bring him these during detentions," he murmured, a thick gloss of tears shining in his eyes.
That moment I realised how close he had been to Yoonsuh finally hit me. I used to think he just hung around him out of fear or obligation. No matter how many times Hosung tried to convince me that it was just a normal friend thing between guys, I hadn't truly understood until now.
I watched carefully as he pocketed the cigarettes, looking so small and vulnerable against the backdrop of the bleak afternoon. He had looked that way for an entire year.
"Oh, Hosung is finally here!" I called out, waving my arm as his sprinting figure came down the sidewalk toward our bus stop.
Hosung panted heavily, clutching a bouquet of white chrysanthemums against his chest.
"Sorry…sorry I am late," He wheezed, resting his hands on his knees to catch his breath. "The florist near the station took forever to wrap these. Did the bus pass yet?"
"No, but it's coming in five minutes," Sungmin replied flatly.
He stared at the white petals in Hosung's arms. "They are just as white as his smile," Sungmin murmured, his gaze drifting away into somewhere far.
Hosung and I exchanged a worried look.
The bus ride to the cemetery was dead quiet. Usually, three of us couldn't stay silent for more than a minute, but that day there was a heavy, suffocating blanket of grief that sat between us. Sungmin kept his forehead pressed against the cold glass window, his finger tightly wrapped around his phone, watching the rain-slicked streets blur past.
By the time we stepped off the bus near the hillside shrine, the evening fog had begun to roll in, thick and damp, connecting the bus terminal to the cemetery path.
"Do you want your phone back now?"
"No, keep it," Sungmin murmured, pulling his jacket around his shoulders.
Hosung and I exchanged another concerned look; we couldn't see our best friend like this. As we walked, I stole another glance at Sungmin again. He was still staring at the packet in his hand.
Suddenly, an elderly, sharp, panicked voice shouted. The three of us froze dead in our tracks and turned around. That was when we saw Kwon Joohwan, the only best friend of Moon Yoonsuh.
His face had lost the light he used to have. The school's most handsome prince – that was what he got used to being called. Though he was a quiet student who minded his own business, he had held an aura. Now he looked like a soulless ghost merely walking down the street.
"Joohwan hyung…" Hosung muttered, recognising him instantly.
Joohwan was walking straight down the middle of the road, completely oblivious to his surroundings. He wasn't paying any attention around him, including the massive delivery truck that was barreling down the street at full speed. It was coming fast. It was already too late to call out a warning to him.
But it was too late to notice that Sungmin was already moving.
Before either of us could grab him, Sungmin sprinted forward. He threw his entire body weight into Joohwan, shoving him violently toward the opposite side of the road. Joohwan crashed heavily onto the safety of the far path.
The truck driver slammed on the brakes, but the vehicle failed to stop in time.
The brutal force of the impact threw Sungmin backward down the road. His body scraped violently against the rough road before finally coming to a terrifying halt.
Blood slowly began to pool outward, staining the dark concrete. The white cigarette packet, still clutched tightly in his hand, was instantly drenched in a deep red. His chest heaved just once, a desperate breath rattling in his throat, before his eyes slowly fluttered shut.
Everything happened too fast for our brains to process.
"SUNGMIN-AH!!!"
Hosung's raw, agonising scream made me flinch.
People gathered around Hosung, and he knelt while I walked and fell onto the ground, my trembling hand reaching my best friend; his smiling face was now dead and fully quiet, which shuddered my heart.
"Sung-Sungmin-ah!" I shook him, but there was no response.
"Han Sungmin, open your eyes," Hosung cried, his voice breaking as he hauled Sungmin's head onto his lap.
"Please, what am I supposed to tell your mother, Sungmin-ah!! Please open your eyes!!!" I screamed, the words tearing at my throat as tears poured down my face. "Please don't do this to us! Open your eyes!"
Sirens began to wail in the distance; the sound grew louder by the second, but it felt like it was happening a million miles away. The crowd which had formed around us was just a blur of horrified faces and pointing fingers; their whispers rang terrifyingly in my ears.
Through the tearful haze of my own crying, I looked across us. Kown Joohwan was there, unconscious too.
The force of Sungmin shoving him out of the path of the truck sent him crashing violently against the hard road. He lay entirely still, his arms splayed out on the cold road. Blood trickled from the gash on his temple where his head had struck the ground.
The paramedics scrambled out of the emergency vehicles, the harsh red and blue lights slicing through the thick evening fog. Everything became a messy blur of commands and tearing fabric and the oxygen masks.
They loaded both of them onto the separate stretchers in a rush. As they lifted Sungmin, his limp fingers finally loosened their grip, and the red-drenched white packet tumbled out of his hand, landing on the road with a soft thud.
It was left behind in the rain, completely forgotten, while the sirens wailed and the ambulance door slammed shut, stripped from the street, away from the bloodied road.
At the hospital, both sides of the family came.
"Doctor, how was he?" Hosung asked the doctor walking beside him hurriedly.
"He is out of danger, but sadly, he can't remember what happened before the accident," The doctor replied, slowing his pace as he looked at us with his professional sympathy. "The trauma to his temporal lobe has caused retrograde amnesia. He might have had a temporary or permanent gap in his memory."
Beside me, Sungmin's mother let out a strangled cry; her hands covered her mouth as I caught her elbows to keep her from collapsing onto the hospital floor.
"An amnesia?" Hosung repeated with his wide eyes, a mixture of fear and a strange, sudden realisation. "He won't remember the truck? He won't remember…why he ran?"
"He won't remember the last few days, possibly the entire year leading up to this," the doctor explained. "Forcing him to remember or giving him any sudden emotional shock right now could cause him danger. The brain swelling is stable but fragile. For his own safety, he lived in a reality his mind had built. Don't press him for details he doesn't have."
As the doctor walked away, the hospital corridor fell into a suffocating silence. I stared at Joohwan's father in complete disbelief, my grip tightening on Sungmin's mother's trembling arms. His face remained chillingly neutral, devoid of any real warmth or desperation, like he wasn't truly bothered by his own son's fading pulse or the fact that another boy was currently fighting for his life in the next room. He looked like a man who had completely checked out, ignoring his grieving son's reality to protect his peace.
"Please, my son, he cannot carry the guilt of knowing another boy destroyed his life to save his. If your son wakes up without these memories, please leave them buried. Let my son carry the blame for his own misery, but don't let your son break his mind over a boy who doesn't want to live."
Sungmin's mother could only let out a weak, broken nod, too exhausted by grief to fight back. Hosung and I looked at each other over the plastic chairs in the waiting room.
We had completely lost, completely terrified, standing on the edge of just entering adulthood, where the adults in the room were actively burying a chapter of a life like it didn't happen or ever exist.
And that's how the wall started around us.