FADE Chapter 6: Unforgettable Details | Drama Web Novel

I

When memory returns, it doesn't return whole.

This was what the doctor had told her, and it was exactly what she discovered for herself.

It returns like pieces of a puzzle whose complete shape you do not yet know. A piece here, a piece there, and sometimes you don't know where to place each fragment or what image they will form once they finally come together.

But the pieces were beginning to arrive.

On the second day of the second month, the memory of a voice arrived.

She was sitting in the library when she heard music coming from a distant place in the mansion, something quiet and slow. Suddenly, there was a voice in her head, the sound of a different melody, and a voice singing softly, as if it didn't want to be overheard.

His voice.

She hadn't heard him sing once since she left the hospital. Yet, the voice in her head was so distinct that she turned her head automatically, as if he were right there in the room.

There was no one there.

But the voice remained.

On the fourth day, the memory of a hand arrived.

She was walking in the garden, her hand brushing against the leaves of a shrub in the cold air, when suddenly a sensation flooded her hand, the feeling of a larger hand holding hers, fingers wrapping around her with a gentle squeeze.

She closed her eyes.

The sensation was so real that she looked down at her hand.

It was empty.

But the warmth of the feeling did not fade immediately.

On the seventh day, the memory of a laugh arrived.

Her own laugh. A full, ringing laugh that she didn't remember making in any of the past weeks. And in that memory, he was the reason for the laughter. She couldn't remember what he had said, but she remembered the feeling, the feeling of laughter that erupted entirely uninvited.

She gathered these three pieces and tried to arrange them.

A voice. A hand. A laugh.

Three things from a lost memory. Three things, and all of them were about him.

And this told her something she wasn't sure she was ready to hear.

II

On the tenth day of the second month, something unexpected happened.

She asked Joon to tell her a story.

She hadn't meant a story in the literal sense. She was sitting while he worked, reading the book he had given her, when she stopped at a passage featuring a dialogue between two characters where one says to the other, "Tell me something nobody knows about you."

She lifted her eyes from the pages.

"Tell me something nobody knows about you."

He raised his eyes.

"What?"

"A question from the book. I preferred directing it to you."

He looked at her again, then closed his folder.

"Something nobody knows."

"Nobody."

He thought for a moment.

"I am afraid of very enclosed spaces. It isn't a sharp phobia, but if a room is too small and has no windows, I feel a tightness I can't quite explain."

She stared at him.

"The President of the country is afraid of enclosed spaces."

"I dislike them. I didn't say I was afraid."

"The difference?"

"Fear stops you. Dislike just irritates you."

"And did anyone know?"

"You knew. And that was the first time I had ever told anyone."

She fell silent.

"Why did you tell me?"

"Because you asked, and because you weren't the type to use what you were told as a weapon."

"And how did you know that?"

"I just knew."

She returned her gaze to the book, then lifted it once more.

"Now you."

"What?"

"Tell me something nobody knows."

She thought about it.

"I don't remember enough to know what people know and what they don't."

"Then tell me something from right now. Something you know about yourself these days."

The word now struck a different chord.

Now. Not before the accident. Not the lost memory. Now.

"I'm afraid that when my memory returns, it will change something I don't want changed."

The sentence escaped before she could think about it.

And once it was out, she couldn't take it back.

Joon looked at her with eyes holding something she couldn't entirely decipher—something warm yet aching at the same time.

"What is it that you don't want to change?"

"I don't know yet."

And she returned her eyes to the book.

He didn't ask her anything further.

III

On the thirteenth day, she saw a photo she didn't know existed.

Seo-yeon was tidying up the room and accidentally knocked down an envelope that sat on the top shelf of the wardrobe. A shower of small, instant polaroids scattered across the floor.

Jina bent down to gather them before Seo-yeon could.

And she froze.

The photos were of the two of them together.

They weren't official photographs. They weren't from public events. They were ordinary pictures. She was laughing, and he was looking at her within the same frame, his eyes holding the exact same expression she recognized now. They were in a place that looked like a small restaurant, and he was holding her hand over the table in a casual way, as if he did it all the time.

And there was a photo of her alone, asleep, while he read in the background.

The photo from her memory.

The one she had seen as a flash in the corridor.

It was real.

She lifted the photo slowly.

She was wearing pajamas, her hair was untamed, and she looked comfortable in a way people rarely choose to be around a camera, comfortable in the way a person only is in a place where they feel completely safe.

"These are yours," Seo-yeon said in a timid voice. "You used to keep the photos you didn't want published in here."

"Why didn't I want them published?"

"You said once that some things are more beautiful when they remain private."

Jina looked at the photos.

Some things are more beautiful when they remain private.

She had said that. The woman she was before the accident. And she had meant these moments.

These moments with him.

IV

In the evening, she found Joon in the small kitchenette, as was his habit late at night.

She placed the envelope before him on the counter.

"I found them."

He looked at the envelope, then at her.

"Seo-yeon dropped it by mistake."

"I know."

"Did you know it was there?"

"I put it there when we returned from the hospital. I wanted you to find them when you were ready, not for me to just hand them to you."

When you were ready.

He hadn't forced her. He hadn't presented things to her ahead of their time. He was waiting for her to reach them on her own.

"The photo where I'm asleep."

"Yes."

"Did you take it?"

"Yes."

"Didn't you know I'd be angry?"

He picked up his cup.

"I knew."

"And you didn't care?"

"I cared. But I wanted to keep it more than I cared about the consequences."

Jina looked down at the envelope.

"And what in that photo was worth all that?"

He looked at her quietly.

"The fact that you were comfortable in the place you were in."

The sentence didn't leave her that night.

The fact that you were comfortable in the place you were in.

The place she was in within that photo wasn't the grand mansion or the formal furniture. It was an ordinary sofa, a blanket, an open book resting on her chest, and him in the background, reading.

The place where she had been comfortable was by his side.

V

On the seventeenth day, she asked him about their wedding day.

They were walking in the garden, the sunset painting the horizon in a warm orange hue, when she suddenly said:

"Tell me about the wedding day."

He stopped.

He turned to her.

"What do you want to know?"

"Everything."

He resumed walking slowly and began to speak.

He told her about the morning of that day, and how he hadn't slept the night before. He spoke of the photo he carried in his pocket, of the garden whose flowers she had chosen herself, of the way she walked toward him, and the expression on her face when he saw her. He spoke of the sentence she muttered in a voice meant for his ears alone, and how he hadn't looked at the cameras in that moment because her face was more important than anything else in the room.

And when he reached the accident, he stopped.

"Don't continue if it's too difficult," she said.

"No. I want you to know."

And he told her.

He spoke to her with a measured calm about seconds he still couldn't arrange in his head to this day. He told her of the hospital and the blinding white, of the thirty days, and of just one thing he had omitted.

"And when she told you 'I don't know you,' what did you feel?"

A long silence followed.

"I felt as though something in my chest broke silently."

"And how did you act?"

"I decided to start from scratch."

She looked at him.

"Just like that?"

"It wasn't simple. But it was the only possible decision."

"And what if my memory never returns?"

"I will stay at zero with you."

The sentence landed with a weight entirely different from everything he had said before.

Because it wasn't a romantic promise; it was a statement of fact. A man informing her of a decision he had made and was living by.

"Why?"

He looked at her.

"Because of who you are when you sit and hold your cup with both hands, who you are when you correct a mistake instead of ignoring it, and who you are when you don't lie even when lying is easier. Memory doesn't construct who you are. Who you are is present in all of this."

VI

She didn't sleep early that night.

She sat on the edge of her bed, the envelope with its polaroids before her.

She pulled out the photo where she was asleep with him in the background.

A man reading by the light of a lamp.

The exact same image from her memory.

But now, she looked at it differently. Because now she knew how he had taken it. She knew she would be angry, yet he wanted to preserve it more than he feared the consequences.

A man who preserves your moments at all costs.

She returned the photo to the envelope and closed it.

For the first time in weeks, she fell asleep without a massive question spinning in her head.

VII

On the twentieth day of the second month, a moment occurred that wasn't in any plan.

She was on the ground floor when she heard a faint commotion from the grand hall. She walked in to find Joon standing with an official, the two of them speaking with distinct sharpness, even though they kept their voices low. The moment he saw her, the conversation ended instantly.

The official excused himself, and Joon walked toward her.

"Is everything alright?" she asked.

"Nothing important."

"It looked important."

"Trivial matters look important when people raise their voices."

She looked at him.

His face was perfectly composed. But she had learned how to read beyond the composure, and there was a hidden tension in the line of his jaw.

"Is it about me?"

He paused.

"Don't trouble yourself with it."

"That isn't an answer."

He looked at her.

"Some people find the situation... complicated. They think it's taking too long."

"And you?"

"And I think it's none of their business."

In his tone was the same sharp line she had heard in the phone call from behind the door, the line he draws and permits no one to cross.

"I am causing a problem for you."

"No."

"Joon..."

"No," he said with absolute calm. "You are not a problem. You are a priority. And there is a vast difference."

The grand hall surrounded them.

And the distance between them was far less than it had been in the first few weeks.

She realized it now.

The distance had shrunk gradually, and she hadn't even noticed.

VIII

On the twenty-third day, the greatest memory arrived.

It wasn't a flash this time; it was much clearer.

She was sitting in the same library when she found a book that had fallen from the shelf. She bent down to pick it up, and when she raised her head, the memory was there.

The exact same room.

But from before.

She was in the exact same chair, but she was laughing. He was standing near her, holding a book, saying something that made her laugh in that specific way. She couldn't remember what he had said, but she remembered the feeling, the feeling that he knew exactly how to make her laugh, and the feeling that she didn't mind him knowing.

She closed her eyes.

The memory didn't vanish.

It remained crystal clear for a full minute before it slowly began to dissolve.

And when she opened her eyes, her hand was trembling slightly.

IX

She told the doctor.

"This is a very clear memory," the doctor said. "This is real progress."

"It held details that weren't in the previous flashes."

"Because the brain rebuilds gradually. Things that are repetitive or carry a greater emotional weight return first."

"Emotional weight."

"Yes. Emotional memory is stronger than informational memory. You might forget a date or a name, but a powerful feeling attached to something remains longer."

Jina left the session with this sentence anchoring her mind.

Emotional memory is stronger.

And the very first memories to return were entirely of him, his voice, his hand, his laugh, his face in the library.

The memory was saying all of this in its own silent way.

X

On the twenty-fifth day, she asked him a question she never expected she would ask.

They were in the garden, in their usual morning routine, coffee cups in hand. The air was cold, and the white flowers looked starker under the winter sunlight.

"Did I love you?"

The words came out directly, without any prelude.

And he froze.

For the first time in weeks, she saw something akin to surprise flash through his eyes.

"What?"

"Before the accident. Did I love you?"

He looked at her for a long moment.

"You were on your way to it."

"On my way? Meaning I hadn't said it yet?"

"No. But it was obvious that you..."

"How was it obvious?"

He paused.

"Because when someone is on their way to something, they do things they don't realize point toward it. You used to do that."

"Like what?"

He looked down at his cup.

"You remembered what I said. Not the important things, but the small details. Like how I hate cinnamon in my coffee. You would tell the secretary not to put cinnamon in my coffee without ever telling me you did it."

"That doesn't prove anything."

"You named the flower on your balcony after me."

"What?"

"You had a small plant on the balcony of your apartment. You named it Joon. Your sister let it slip by mistake."

Jina stared at him.

"Then you told her she lied, and that you only named it that because the plant was stubborn and refused to grow quickly."

And he smiled.

A rare, genuine smile.

Jina looked at him, then down at her coffee.

Then, she said in a quiet voice:

"Was the plant alright?"

"It was. We brought it to the mansion."

She raised her eyes.

"Where is it now?"

"In your room. On the shelf beside the window."

Jina turned her head slowly toward the mansion.

She remembered the shelf beside the window.

And resting upon it was a stubborn little plant she hadn't paid attention to before.

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