POV: Jungkook (Age 23)
Timeline: Just after his final meeting (Taehyung’s first)
Location: Small hostel rooftop, abandoned photo lab, memory trails
Season: Spring, late night
---
The wind didn’t feel cold anymore.
It felt hollow.
Like it had passed through something it loved and couldn’t find its way back.
Jungkook sat on the rooftop of the hostel, hoodie drawn tight around his ears, journal on his lap. He stared at the empty page like it had betrayed him. Like it was supposed to save something and didn’t.
He had already written the last line.
> This time… I hope you forget me first.
He hadn’t meant it.
Not really.
But when he saw Taehyung yesterday — sketching him with wonder, eyes full of beginnings — the lie had felt necessary.
It was easier to pretend it didn’t matter.
Easier than falling in love again only to be forgotten… again.
---
He ran a hand down his face.
He was tired. But sleep never came after a goodbye.
Especially not the last one.
There had been so many versions of Taehyung. So many days spent tracing his laugh, memorizing his posture, capturing him in photographs and sketches and the back of receipts.
And now?
Now Jungkook couldn’t even remember what his voice sounded like the first time they met.
It was starting.
The forgetting.
---
He left the hostel before sunrise.
The city was still asleep, lights flickering, fog hanging low like secrets.
He walked without knowing where he was going, footsteps echoing against wet pavement. Until suddenly, his legs stopped in front of a rusted green door tucked between two bakeries.
The photo lab.
It had been abandoned for years, but he still had the key.
He slipped inside.
The smell of chemicals and dust hit him like a memory — sharp, metallic, real.
He switched on the single hanging bulb. The room glowed dull yellow.
Stacks of forgotten negatives, curled prints, and broken frames lined the shelves. And in the middle: a corkboard covered in pinned photos.
Only one face repeated.
---
Taehyung.
In the park. On the rooftop. Standing beside a mural he never knew Jungkook painted.
Smiling in some. Crying in one.
Blurry in the rest — as if even the photos had started to forget him too.
Jungkook stepped closer.
He stared at one in particular — Taehyung, eyes closed, wind in his hair, hands mid-gesture. A moment so small, so ordinary, but Jungkook remembered taking it like it was yesterday.
Except it wasn’t yesterday anymore.
It was years ago for him.
And seconds ago for Taehyung.
That’s how unfair time was.
It made you love someone in reverse.
Made you hold on while they let go.
Made you remember while they erased.
---
He touched the photo. Fingers trembling.
"Don’t forget," he whispered.
To himself.
To the wall.
To no one.
He opened the drawer beside the board. Pulled out a fresh roll of film. Loaded it into his old camera — the one that still worked, barely, if he hit it twice.
Then he stepped back out into the morning haze.
He would retrace their love.
Capture what little he could, while he still remembered when to find it.
Before time took it all.
---
His first stop was the train station.
Not to find Taehyung — he wouldn’t be there.
Not yet.
But Jungkook had left something behind.
He moved quickly past the turnstiles, heart racing like he was late for something — or someone.
He found the bench where Taehyung had sat sketching.
It was empty now.
The light hit it differently in the early hours, casting long shadows across the wooden slats. He sat there anyway, camera on his lap, eyes scanning the tracks.
A feeling stirred in his chest.
An ache.
He imagined Taehyung’s figure beside him again. Head tilted. Fingers smudged with pencil dust. That look of soft confusion — the one that said he didn’t know Jungkook yet, but he wanted to.
He snapped a photo.
The bench. The platform. The empty space where a boy once looked at him like he already belonged.
---
He walked for hours after that.
To the bookstore where Taehyung would see him again.
To the rooftop where he once carved their initials into rusted metal.
To the alley with the vending machine Taehyung had kicked when it ate his coins.
Each place held a version of them.
But none of them held both of them anymore.
That’s what it meant to live backward.
To be the only one holding all the memories, while the other slowly slipped away.
---
By evening, his steps had slowed. His limbs ached. His mind was starting to fog.
He sat by the riverbank — camera beside him, shoes off, toes brushing the cold water.
And for the first time in months, he felt scared.
He couldn’t remember what Taehyung’s favorite color was.
Not fully.
He knew it had something to do with rain. Or rooftops. Or maybe the pale purple of his sketchbook covers.
But the word itself?
Gone.
---
He took out the journal. The one he’d sworn he’d never write in again.
He flipped through pages.
Some filled with their story.
Some with letters Taehyung never read.
Some with nothing at all.
Then he picked up his pen.
> “Today I forgot something. It was small. But it won’t stop there.”
He closed the book.
Pressed it to his chest.
And whispered, like a prayer, to a version of Taehyung that no longer existed:
“If I forget you too soon…
please find me first.”
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