Hey guys welcome to the afterword,
Now to start this off.
What a plot twist huh?
That was always the plan since the very beginning because well, the title name is pretty much a red flag when you go into it.
If you haven't picked up on it in the last chapter of the book where essentially, he meets death.
The grim reaper, or whatever you want to call him but it's left ambiguous and by him, it's still in Y/N's perspective so he would see him as a man but in reality, he's actually just a god like being. Maybe not god himself but, he's just a being.
Now, in continuity between universes, it's in the same dimension as 'eternity' but all the universes share the same dimension.
It's sort of complicated but then again, I'm the one making up this shit as I go.
The entirety of the book is actually said and being remembered as Y/N 'narrates' it, it's why there's some things that's left out as he's dying in the ambulance in chapter 30.
Which is also why he says in the first line after the interval,
"That's all I could remember anyways."
So everything that you've read until he meets death is from his perspective of how he remembers things.
So, you can tell from the writing that from the beginning where it's so detailed. He's really trying to remember the night he fell in love with Haewon and then going on forward, it keeps getting shallower and vague where he's starting to forget everything but the one thing that keeps him going is Jinae.
And if you read the dialogue very very carefully, they all mean something for sure. But everytime he has a sense of doom or like his panic attack in one of the chapters (I forgot which one it was)
It's like his brain knows that he's dead, and all of whatever is happening in the chapters is just a memory as his life flashes through his eyes and also meeting with death at the same time, which could also be a metaphor in a sense that, his life flashing through his eyes is just the two of them watching the 'TV' that Death conjures up.
It's tragic, I know.
But then again, most of you weren't expecting it at all and I'm quite proud of that really.
But, let's get onto the breakdown of our main characters. (Which is only five actually)
Y/N
What could I say about this guy? He's a bit bleak, bland. I guess in a way he represents a normal working man, he's tired constantly, has headaches constantly from working late into the night and he's just a normal guy striving to live everyday. His hobbies sort of mimic ours in a way. He loves games a lot, he has his hobbies of almost being like a nerd, reading comics, collecting memorabilia and Lego sets and trust me, I think I was also self-projecting a bit because I do the exact same as he does in his hobbies and I mean, it goes without saying. You can relate to him more in any way you see fit. In one small detail or even a big one.
As you can tell, he was born in 2000. The start of a millennium, so he would be a Gen Z person but not like the usual I guess. You know he doesn't really use his phone a lot since he's just working or too tired to even use it.
A lot of his details all conclude to a reference that I usually hold dear towards the media that I usually like.
His 'jacket' that he always wears is actually a windbreaker or something like that. It's like tan or something, it looks green in the games which what I'm referring to is
Ethan Winters from Resident Evil 7 & 8.
You get where I'm coming from right?
You can see where the similarities lie between Y/N and him, mainly centered on Ethan during the events of Resident Evil Village.
He's not necessarily an interesting character per se, but I think his sort of nonchalant attitude really stems from the events when Karina/Jimin left him in care of Jimin, he has a sort of feeling of duty to uphold and he's severely used to disappointment in a way and also the feeling of being left behind.
Since he left his parent's house, he's sort of really acting as Jinae's protector like any father would be. So he can be a bit cold, brash at times but that's just because he's always thinking about loads of things as well since he's living in an apartment by himself with Jinae prior to the events of 'Memory' as a whole.
His love for his hobbies really stems from as well, missing in his twenties because he had to raise Jinae, so it keeps him at bay. I personally find him as average as he can be, representing the norm of modern men without the extent of being glued to our phones, and with no offence obviously.
Just a common trait between all of us.
In terms with his emotional qualities including his feelings for each girl. His connection to Haewon would be stronger than it was with Karina/Jimin because of the fact that if it wasn't for Haewon, he wouldn't have got out of his usual, unredeeming rut that he was constantly in. His mental health is to be a play on mental health as viewed by other men where we have constantly endured the events where it stresses upon us everyday.
He's just having to endure it and when he's all by himself, he lets it out.
You wonder how this works if Jinae keeps him going?
A person in general and applying to everyone has their own certain limits which only do so much for you no matter how great you have or what you have. Everyone has a limit that they can only handle.
In the way he was prior to 'memory' happening, he would've been just stuck in the cycle as I mentioned, where he just feels like a husk of his former younger self. Where he was happier, active and just an empty mind. Now it's just worry, self-doubt, and tiredness stemming through. Sure he's okay when he's with Jinae but he doesn't want to show that part to her to worry her in any way. It's why you never see him sad or in any conflict in front of Jinae ever and also said as well in one of the chapters which again, I don't remember which one.
But do I have any personal opinions on him before going on forward?
Not really, all I can say is that I tried my best on trying to depict a single father, it's not a personal connection I can try to depict but I just tried my best and I hope my best was good enough for you guys.
Haewon
Pretty much, it's not the exact same Haewon as we see IRL or in her Vlives but, other than that.
Her 'character' in the book is pretty much what Yeji or IU was in 'just a manager' or Suzy in 'Home' and no it's not the other stuff you're thinking but rather what she means to him and to the story of the book.
Like I said before in other afterwords, she keeps him at bay. He usually goes to her for everything when his sisters are not there or Red Velvet with the exclusion of Seulgi.
She's not the happy go lucky Haewon like she is IRL, I just wanted to portray her as this raw, almost exaggerated version of what an idol would actually be like outside of the media we see them in as I always try to do.
She's supportive and despite the relationship conflicts that both her and Y/N have regarding the inclusion of Seulgi in their relationship and her members going on forward from that event. She sees him as a good man still, in ways of being a father and how he keeps himself down to earth and honest he is. At times when he struggles to emotionally process things, she keeps him at bay. Wanting to be an emotional pillar for him even he couldn't even process anything at all.
She's a good person too, and despite everything that conflicted the both of them. She pushed through because she in turn, has learned to love Jinae and really does try and own up to be the mother she wants to be even after Jimin had returned to Y/N's and Jinae's life.
I think of her as someone who's trying their best like Y/N. She knows who she is in their life and sometimes doubts herself about being a mother, but Jinae accepts her. Maybe because she doesn't know the difference or that she never really truly knew her real mother but then again. She's the mother that stepped up, that Jinae needs.
Even I feel proud of her.
Regarding her personality, she's stern like how she would be acting like a leader. But knows when to put her foot down, and that in turn makes her a good mother as well. Because she understands when to control her members or Jinae and hell even Y/N when he goes a bit too far sometimes.
Even though she's never really truly seen him angry, and the only time she ever did was the last time she saw him. She harbours the love she has for him deeply and clearly has affected her by the end of the story.
Where in actuality, some of the girls have actually moved on from his death.
Where I never really said it or wrote it, but it was only our main three who never really moved on from Y/N's death.
Which were Haewon, Seulgi and Karina/Jimin.
Haewon was a little more accepting of his death and still held her motherly qualities even doubting herself when she gave the envelope to Jinae.
But that's all I have to say for Haewon,
Give a hand to Haewon. She's truly the mother that Jinae needed.
Karina/Jimin
Karina or Jimin, I'll just use Jimin for this.
Is a character I'm proud of too.
Writing her was a moral balance and understanding the reasons why she left Y/N and Jinae.
She's remorseful for ever leaving them, and sometimes when portraying that type of character in the media. You often learn to hate them or go against them even when they're trying to redeem themselves.
But here, she's worth redeeming because as you understand her thoughts and her words, she really means it.
That she missed out on five years of both Jinae's life and Y/N's while she was an idol. You can't blame her for doing her job but if you remember, Y/N was the one who told her to go on and do it where he made that deal with SM to keep the pregnancy hidden away from the industry.
He loves her, and he still loves her even after being gone for five years.
Her guilt and remorse for leaving them still stayed with her, being the best she could being the mother that was lost due to time.
You don't want to hate her, you want to hate her for leaving which is understandable. But you can't deny that she's trying her best to make up for lost time.
Understanding that too, she still loves Y/N as much as she tried to move on. Because who could?
The man who loved you till the very end, supported you even after. Took care of their daughter and still reminisces on the past of their love.
It was right for her to feel that way towards the two of them.
Writing the chapter where the three of them as a family go out on their birthdays, I was really excited to write it because we get to understand his love for her and that she reciprocates them deeply. She loves him not because he's the father of their daughter but because of the man he still is and that never changed. She never changed either, she had her ups and downs over the years telling herself that she should move on but she knew eventually, she'll come back to the both of them.
And that's for the better.
Seulgi
A bit of a latecomer to the story but she's quite eccentric, honest to the earth.
Understanding her isn't that difficult because rather, she is sort of the wildcard to Y/N where she's completely honest and brash towards him, making him hear things he has to hear without sugarcoating her words to him.
I love writing about her character because she's more like Suzy in 'Home' . She's honest and tells him that she loves him without having to really say it.
It's more of her actions rather than words.
She is essentially one of the original loves in Y/N's life.
Where, if you think about it.
He's sort of had two first love's.
Jimin and Seulgi.
Seulgi was rather tough because of her being in his life as an older sister to him, something that unfortunately Joy wasn't in terms of being nice.
Joy is nice to him, just not all the time.
And due to him being around her all the time when he was a teen without Jimin, he sort of loves Jimin and Seulgi equally until in their later points in life where they understand their feelings a bit more especially Y/N.
A large part of making Y/N the way he is, is because of Red Velvet, especially Seulgi who in turn taught him about the things he needed to learn and grow on in life.
She's a big pillar of his upbringing, having known her since his teens like Jimin.
Seulgi taught him about what to expect in life and how everything isn't handed to him on a spoon despite her success in Red Velvet.
Jimin taught him how to love and to understand emotions and what it meant to cherish someone.
And Haewon taught him that it was okay to learn to love again.
Seulgi is just an important character towards him as a whole whether or not she was late to the relationship aspect of the story.
Jinae
And lastly Jinae, but mostly the unknown older details of her at the end of the book.
Jinae, depicted in the last chapter of the book after the timeskip, is nineteen years old. The same age her father and mother had her.
That was a coincidence actually, I didn't put that into account when I wrote that part but that's cool to know.
She's like her father more rather than like Jimin.
It was expected since she was more used to her father when she was younger, having him teach her about how to be good in his own way and being around him in everything he did like playing games, his hobbies.
And what Y/N said in one of the chapters. She's exactly just like her father.
She loves playing games, still gets and builds legos. Read comics like her father and indulge in pop-culture. She also took on the same music taste as her dad except that she still loves k-pop as a whole and views her mothers as heroes to her.
When she grew up, she always knew that her life wasn't exactly normal. She had eleven mothers who took care of her and always wondered when dad was coming home because she was only ten when he passed. She understood a fair bit but always expected that he'll come home eventually but never did.
Her eleven mothers were idols, and in reluctance to their beliefs. She didn't want to become one either but still appreciated their work as a whole in their careers.
She may look like her mother more, act the same as her mother. But she took on her father's habits, everything.
Still wears his jacket and funny enough, as another reference to Resident Evil Village that I vaguely mentioned.
She wears a black fleece, skinny jeans, sneakers and a baseball cap alongside her dad's jacket.
And you know her dad's jacket is basically Ethan's so what do you think the reference is?
Exactly, Rose's outfit when she visits Ethan's grave and during the Shadows of Rose DLC in the game.
You can tell I really liked the game.
She's proud of her father for what he did to protect Haewon that night, to have given her the life she got because of him.
She misses him not because he was her gaming buddy, her friend to play legos with but that it was her father.
Just like Y/N missed him.
Maybe they haven't both known each other in a long time, but they still both loved their fathers a lot more and they share that in common.
*the final part*
And welcome to the final part of the afterword, closing out the entire book as a whole.
First, I'll address the retcons.
I know I said his birthday was January first in the earlier chapters of the book, sharing it with Min-Jeong but the thing though was.
I don't know whether or not to use the Korean Age system, as if you were aware. They changed it like two years ago? Last year?
So I'm kind of confused now on how it works.
And then, next thing you know. I just decided to go by the universal age system, or american age system. I don't fucking know but.
There was a lot of planning that I was just fucking up and had to get help and all of that.
And the age differences and stuff.
Having to get Jinae's correct year of birth and age and just concluded that Y/N and Jimin had her when they were both nineteen.
I played it just as safe as I could for the age gap between Jinsol, Kyujin and Jiwoo. As you may know there is no smut in this book (thankfully) but I did keep the dirty talk in there. I mean, I think I played it safe?
I hope I did, please don't cancel me.
And other stuff I know I fucked up, because I did take a break for a while because I was sick and I did have a bit of writer's block.
I have the synopsis of every chapter planned out but not the dialogue.
So getting the dialogue to make sense in between each character's interaction was a bit hard.
I do regret the fucking pacing and just fucking up the pages. I initially wanted every chapter to be 10 - 15k words but I was a bit too ambitious and I sort of lost my mojo. Like the way I was writing for 'home' (which I still consider my best book) it sucks, because I wish I could write as good as I did for 'home'
And knowing that 'home' really didn't have a narrative, it was a bit shallow honestly and kind of lacking on the narrative part and honestly, this book doesn't really have a narrative until many chapters later. It's sort of my regret that I feel like I fucked this up as I did with 'home' and 'just a manager' and it's sort of unworthy to feel and be given such praise for those books because they're really a story at all. Which I want to portray but executed very very poorly.
I'm sorry for that, still.
But then moving forward.
What do I have planned out for the future?
Fuck all, because I don't know what I want to do moving forward with my next plan.
Initially, I wanted to bring 'timeless' back but then like I said literally a few words ago. I can't write as well as I used to. And it's pissing me off because I just can't. I wish I could, but I can't.
For 'cafe', 'tell me', 'sorrow'
I just can't anymore write those as well regarding what I just said.
I just can't.
So I'm sorry If I disappointed you once again.
Though 'tell me' was more of an abrupt ending and I know. Because of the NJ's/NJZ situation, it feels disrespectful to tell a story with their current situation they're in.
It's not a matter of which idol or groups I want to tell a story to, it's just making the stories themselves.
Having to make a good book that I hope I can successfully tell a story to and be proud of in my writing.
I don't know if I deserve another break because I've had too many already. But then I don't know what to write or deserve at this point where I am regarding my bibliography if I had to put it that way or it's probably ficography or some shit, I don't know.
All I can say is just wait.
Just wait for me to say something again or just some surprise book.
But that's all for now.
Like I say,
Be safe, be good, I hope you're doing okay.
I hope your personal life is great as well, because trust me.
It'll be better.
- Nagisa/Author-nim