The world had stopped making sense a long time ago. Yoorin had accepted that.
But now, with Seon beside her, the chaos didn't feel as heavy. Even silence felt softer.
They wandered through the shifting corridors of what the notebook now called The Archive of Unwritten Memories. Each door they passed was labeled—not with numbers, but with emotions:
Regret, Version 3Joy (Almost Remembered)What If: Summer 2018
Some doors were open. Others were locked, humming with static.
They stopped at a faded, wooden door simply labeled: Yoorin.
Seon glanced at her. "Do you want to open it?"
"I think I have to," she replied.
The moment her fingers touched the knob, the door creaked open on its own.
Inside was a single room with high windows. Dust floated in soft beams of light.
And in the center: a desk, a lamp, a photo frame turned face down.
Yoorin walked slowly to the desk.
On it sat dozens of pages—some stained with tears, others crossed out in anger. Snippets of thoughts she had never dared to say aloud:
"If I disappeared, would anyone notice?""I'm tired of being a background character in my own story.""Maybe I'm not broken. Maybe I'm just… waiting to be understood."
She read them all.
She cried.
Not because they hurt—but because they were hers.
Seon didn't interrupt.
When she was ready, she turned the photo frame over.
It was a picture of her—arms around a younger version of herself.
Both were smiling.
It was the kind of smile that had once felt like fiction.
"I forgot she existed," Yoorin whispered. "That part of me."
"But she's still here," Seon said. "She never left."