💭Forget-Me-Not: Chapter 29

In prison. 🗡️

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I am what happened to me.

I am my memories.

I am what I do.

What I do is borne from my memories.

She can erase my memories.

She can erase me.

In Ha was happy the experiment was a success. She was happy for both Joo Young and Sae Ra—but she knew she was even more happy that Sung Joon had laid witness to it all.

What will this do to his sense of self? she thought. Now he knows the biggest threat to his plan is Sae Ra. But that might also make her his biggest asset.

It was a risky move, but knowing Sae Ra’s character and Sung Joon’s ambitions, it was a move she was willing to make.

–

In Ha had been aware of Sung Joon’s effect on people for a while—after all, his charm had won her over, as well. She knew something was off about it, but she ignored it, even as she followed him around as his personal assistant for two years since the incident, learning his habits and memorizing his schedules to be as helpful as possible. After all, he had saved her. This was the least she could do.

But she couldn’t keep ignoring the fact that some people who crossed his path—bad people— often ended up suddenly behaving in completely uncharacteristic ways, like donating all their money or confessing to the police.

And those were the best-case scenarios. Some weren’t as lucky.

One day, his eyes caught hers and he smiled. He had known keeping her close to his side would lead to suspicion and a need for explanation eventually.

He told her the truth, and gave her a necklace with an emerald stone on it.

Without taking the necklace, In Ha blurted, “Could you make me forget everything…”

He shook his head. “I can’t make you forget your pain. It doesn’t work that way. I can’t demand, ‘Forget everything about so and so,’ because your brain won’t know how to go about it. It’s not a computer clearing cache.”

She mulled over that in disappointment. Sung Joon placed the necklace over her head, snapping her out of her thoughts.

“I wouldn’t want to change you anyway,” he murmured. “You are you. Your pain isn’t a flaw.”

She bit her lip in silence, both touched by his words and conflicted about his perception of her. This is the person he wants by his side, she thought. He needs me as I am.

But that was also the start of the estrangement.

–

Sae Ra was exhausted after the memory surgery, but she was also so pleased that the smile wouldn’t slip off her face. It was like a heavy burden had lifted from her shoulders, and even thoughts of Mi Ra started to evaporate.

She was alone on the yellow couch in the dark writer’s room after sending a lighter Joo Young off. She did worry a little whether Joo Young would still be able to write, considering how deeply embedded the trauma was, but she did know that what she did was good—it was the best option for Joo Young at the moment.

The door slowly opened, and she looked up to see Kang Yoon peeking inside. When he saw that she was alone, he entered, holding up a plastic bag of delivered food. The smell of fried chicken wafted over to her, and she instantly salivated. She hadn’t realized how starved she was after hours of working on Joo Young’s memories.

She leapt up and joined him by the desks so they could eat.

“How’d it go?” he asked after she had a few bites. He could tell from her happy face and how lightly she moved that it must have gone well.

She confirmed with, “It went as well as it could have. Joo Young seemed like an entirely new person!”

“I can’t wait to meet her tomorrow, then.”

When they were nearly done eating, Kang Yoon was called down to the studio to check on something. “Go ahead and get home safely,” he said. He had wanted to walk her home, worried she was too tired, but it looked like the studio would need him for some time.

A few blocks away from work, she ran into Tae Ri’s mother. “Oh! Hello!” Sae Ra said enthusiastically. “Are you out to handcuff somebody?”

Tae Ri’s mother shook her head. “No, I’m on my way back from visiting the prison. I had to interrogate some people…and catch up on others…If you can call them people, anyway.”

Sae Ra just nodded along politely.

“Oh, that reminds me,” Tae Ri’s mother said, “I remembered something else about that lady, that In Ha or whatever. I remember at that prison she had met some guy and never returned after that. We thought it suspicious as her father disappeared shortly after, but we could never prove anything, especially with that guy and his lawyer around. Interestingly, I saw that guy again recently…”

Sae Ra already knew who she was talking about. In Ha had mentioned to her before about how they had met. Sung Joon must know someone at the prison, too, she mused.

Tae Ri’s mother exhaled. “His father sure is a piece of work, huh? Both their fathers, I guess. Oh, anyway, I should stop gossiping.”

For a detective, she sure is loose-lipped, Sae Ra noted drily. It’s the opposite of the tight-lipped, cold Tae Ri. Maybe this is why Tae Ri’s like that…

After Tae Ri’s mother left, Sae Ra took a few more steps before she halted again. Why does Sung Joon visit that prison? His father’s there? Why did he visit his father recently?

She shook her head to clear her thoughts. Nope, I’m going to rest tonight! No thoughts. Empty brain. She cheerfully headed home.

–

Sung Joon was at the prison once again. He didn’t face his father in the visitor’s center—no, his father was too dangerous for that. They had a special separate room as his father was always kept in isolation.

“I swear. You’re him.” His father stared at him icily.

They had this conversation all the time, so Sung Joon was unfazed. He stared blankly back.

“You were born right after I killed that ———” his father continued, ending with a string of expletives as usual to describe his own father, Sung Joon’s grandfather.

His father spit on the floor, then added, “...with that stupid stone. First him, then you. I was always just trapped in the middle.” He whispered more to himself, “I can’t get away from it,” before snarling at Sung Joon, “Why do you keep visiting me when I don’t want to see your face?”

The emotional ups and downs were another aspect of his father that Sung Joon was accustomed to. He was already well aware of the past. His grandfather had been less calculating and more cruel with his gift of mind manipulation, often messing with his son just for the fun of it. Perhaps he got a power high from it. After years of abuse, his father in a fit of rage had murdered his grandfather, entering prison before Sung Joon was even born. Sung Joon had only known his father behind bars.

“What did he tell you about the stone?” Sung Joon asked placidly, his tone as even as ever, his whole body exuding calculated patience to get his father to comply and realize that the antics weren’t affecting him.

Not that it matters, Sung Joon thought. He’s lost his mind. And there’s no manipulating a mind that’s not all there—if it’s there at all.

“Why don’t you demand that I tell you? Why are you asking so nicely?” his father asked with a wild glint in his eyes to match his smirk as he tilted his head at his son.

“The stone has broken,” Sung Joon replied flatly. No point in hiding this from him anymore. I need answers, he thought, his mind flashing back to Sae Ra’s bright and naive face.

His father roared in laughter, clutching his stomach. “You were always broken, anyway,” he said in-between gasps. “That reminds me. Your grandfather once lost his powers and went crazy! Broke his mind trying to put the pieces back together. He had to abuse me the old-fashioned way during that time.” He almost looked fond of those memories.

Sung Joon narrowed his eyes in thought.

“You’d think a stone like that wouldn’t break,” his father mused.

“How did he piece it back together?”

His father scratched his head in deep thought. “He really did almost lose his mind…I wish I could’ve seen that. Anyway, I always thought it strange that around then he had some lackey hanging around him all the time. He was treating this man like his own son, you know? Well, not like me, his actual son, but how a father should treat a son, you know?”

“I wouldn’t know myself,” Sung Joon replied drily, a corner of his mouth slightly ticking upwards in amusement.

“Right, right,” his father continued, brushing it off. “He thought this guy was amazing. I thought he was kind of creepy. He had this look in his eyes, like he knew everything. He could remember every single detail. He was always assessing something, reading me, you know? He would make a great successor to the company, you’d think, right? That’s why that old man kept him around, I thought, since he definitely wasn’t going to pass it onto me.”

A coldness washed over Sung Joon.

His father shrugged. “But what good was all that intelligence for? That successor-to-be ended up in a coma and died years later. The old man didn’t seem to care since his powers returned around that time. That’s why I eventually…”

His father kept going, making stabbing movements in the air, but Sung Joon was no longer listening.

He used another vessel to glue the pieces back together.

He made the gift whole first.

Then he took it back.

At a cost…

The cost was somebody else’s life. And fortunately or unfortunately, Sung Joon knew of somebody who, according to his father’s words, would fit the criteria perfectly.

End of part three.

Next time on 🌸Forget-Me-Not🌸

It had to be done.