12Ep.. Again, the First Panel

A young man woke on the floor. His clothes were soaked with rain. He didn't know who he was. This room, the pen that felt both familiar and strange in his hand—all of it seemed new. His mind was white, like a freshly wiped blackboard. Yet, strangely, he was not afraid. Like someone who had finished something great. And on the desk lay two diaries, one of them open at its first page—as if they had been waiting for him.

On the first page—the page right after a torn stub—neat, careful handwriting. 'Hello. You are Siu. A webtoon artist who works at dawn. You like cold coffee, and though you fear deadlines, you always finish. And—you just did something very brave. You saved someone, and broke a terrible cycle.'

Spellbound, he turned the pages one by one. The second page was blank. So was the next. And the next. He kept turning, and it stayed white. The second volume was the same. Paper enough to fill two volumes, without a single word on it. Only the sound of pages under his fingers.

On the last page of the second volume, a photo of a girl and a short note. 'My name is Hari. Your first reader. This morning, I'll come to meet you. Let us start over—from the very beginning. This time, losing nothing.'

Those two pages were the whole of the story he could read. A story he didn't know—yet the further he read, the warmer the center of his chest grew. At some lines his nose stung without reason. His head didn't remember, but his body remembered the story.

Then came a knock. He rose slowly, the diary held to his chest. Outside, the rain had cleared completely, and beneath the streetlight stood no one. Just an ordinary, bright morning. The only wet thing in the room was his clothes.

He opened the door. A girl with a black bob was smiling, her face on the verge of tears. The girl from the photo.

Before any greeting, Hari took his left hand and pushed the sleeve back. There was nothing on the wrist. No pale marks, no band. Only after pressing her thumb to the skin did she let out her breath.

…What about it?

There was something I had to check. It's gone now.

…Hello. I think I'm… called Siu. That's what it says here.

Yes. That's right. It's good to see you again, Author. So, so good to see you.

He opened the diary and showed her the middle of it, wiped white. Hari didn't look at the paper. While he turned the pages, she watched only his face. They were the eyes of someone who had watched those lines go out, one by one, from the first to the last.

I know. I watched it happen last night. …It's the price I paid.

He wanted to ask what she meant, but he didn't. Hari didn't explain.

It's all right. Everything that was in there is still in my head. I'll just write it again, from the beginning.

A lost story, if someone remembers it—can begin again. That day, with Hari sitting beside him, Siu drew the first panel on a blank page of the diary. This time, a drawing that loses nothing.

When he set the pen down, nothing disappeared. Hari's name, the taste of the coffee he had just drunk—all of it was still there.

“Someone Stood in the Alley I Drew” — The End.