After more than half an hour, "Damn it!" Jinn cursed the moment his mother hung up the phone. He rubbed his ears, which were completely red from the long lecture.

 

"Hahaha, you bastard! I thought you were joking! That was awesome!" Van burst into laughter, getting hit in the face with a cushion.

 

"I'm going in! What are you kidding about? I'm 100% serious. Especially about this, damn it!"

 

"So what? Even though I knew, I still dumped it. And then Jay actually sued. Damn it, I'm laughing so hard! Haha!"

 

Jinn rolled his eyes but didn't know what to argue because it was all true. After what happened in the bathroom, Jinn kicked Jerome out of the bedroom, locked the door to prevent him from coming back in, but then couldn't sleep himself. In the morning, he rushed out of the room to find a friend, while Jerome was still sprawled on the sofa. He could sleep, but Jinn couldn't sleep for a single minute!

 

On his day off, he called to complain, but before even ten o'clock in the morning, his mother called directly to give him a long lecture because he was the one who had been abandoned and left all alone.

 

Damn, I knew this was going to happen, but wouldn't it have been better not to run away first?!

 

Jinn was confused about himself, no, confused about Jerome. Two people who used to argue, fight, and compete for men, they were suddenly kissing, helping each other out like this, how was that normal?! What would his mother say if he told her about this?!

 

"Why did you run away from him? What did he do to you?" Van asked, voicing his suspicions. Normally, he could fight back, so why did he run this time? It was really strange.

 

"He's possessed, I think I really need to find an exorcist. And Van, Jay has changed so much. He doesn't treat me the same way anymore." Jinn quickly swallowed the word "kiss" and chose to speak generally rather than specifically.

 

“How?”

 

“It feels strangely good to me… Hmm, not amazing, but okay. You know what I mean? Normally, we’re always insulting each other, right? We still do, but there’s a different feeling to it. How do I explain it? Like the animosity has lessened, and I’m really not okay with that.” He was deeply troubled and didn’t want things to be like this. He wanted things to go back to how they were!

 

"Well, isn't that good? If we're not enemies, we can be friends. Have you gotten addicted to having rivals, Jinn?" Van was utterly confused. Isn't it better if they're not enemies, don't insult each other, and don't fight over things?

 

"I want things to stay the way they were. Jerome and I, fighting like this, I don't want it to change. I don't want us to be friends like other people are."

 

"Jinn?" Van stared at his best friend in shock because Jinn was making an expression he'd never seen before. His handsome face was expressionless, but his eyes were trembling, and his lips were muttering something unintelligible.

 

"I can't be anything other than an enemy to him. That's all I can be."

 

Yes, because this is all it can be, and I don't want to lose it. JJ doesn't get along well. That's what everyone says, isn't it?

 

Jerome stood spinning around in the middle of the room, his dark eyebrows furrowed so tightly they almost touched. He looked left and right, unsure where to begin searching for the "item."

 

After waking up and realising someone had secretly run away, Jerome didn't feel anger or resentment at all. Instead, he felt amused and affectionate. He called Jinn several times, but Jinn kept hanging up, which started to annoy him. Just then, his mother called, so the young man complained, guessing that Jinn was probably getting a serious scolding from his mother right now.

 

Jerome just wanted Jinn to come back soon. He had so many questions he wanted to ask him. But before that, he needed to find something—the thing that the future Jinn said was in this time period—the crucial evidence that would leave the stubborn one with no way out.

 

A diary. 

 

I never thought someone as hot-headed and ill-tempered as him would have a habit of writing in a diary. If it weren't for seeing him writing so often in my dreams, I would never have known.

 

"I used to write back then, during high school and university. I didn't just start writing now."

 

"Back then, he didn't seem like the type of person to write something like that."

 

"See? You don't know me well enough. Haha. Can you call it writing? Or rather, complaining. I'm venting everything that's bothering me. Anything I don't want others to read—your problems are in there too."

 

"Really? Where is it? Let me read it. You don't have to be shy anymore, do you? It's Jinn’s heartfelt feelings for Jay."

 

"Damn it, haha! Please, I beg you, I'll even bow down to you, just stop. Besides, it's not that I'm embarrassed or anything, it's just that I don't know where it went!"

 

"Really? You just didn't want me to read it, Jinn."

 

"It's a mess. It's been there since the old condo. When the incident happened... I just haphazardly packed my things and didn't know where I put them."

 

“Maybe it's been thrown away. I tried looking for it, but couldn't. It's been a long time, decades or so.”

 

"It's a shame. I wish I knew what he wrote about me back then. If I had known, we might have been together for a longer time."

 

"Hmph, no way. Back then, you and I were such jerks. If you knew, you'd definitely make fun of me and think you had the upper hand. That's why I had to do everything to keep you from finding out. Pretty clever, huh?"

 

"Wow, you're incredibly good. I really didn't know how you felt."

 

"What kind of notebook is it?" The right hand, with only two normal fingers, pulled out a series of small and large notebooks, slowly flipping through them. But after opening more than half the room, he still couldn't find the diary that the other person mentioned. There were only sketchbooks, school notebooks, and other things.

"Or maybe it's just tricking us in the future?"

 

Jerome started to think hard. He searched around until he decided to go into the bedroom. The room didn't have many shelves or cupboards, but it did have a few drawers. He carefully opened each one, looking for a place where he thought he could hide it. He figured Jinn must have hidden it very well by now, since they were together all the time. If he were in Jinn's shoes, he would hide it as well as possible, never letting the person being written about find it.

 

If it really existed...

 

"Oh?" Just as Jerome decided to give up searching, his gaze fell on one spot. He narrowed his eyes before stopping in front of it. His large hand slid open the drawer where Jinn kept his underwear. Normally, he would never want to touch something like this, belonging to someone else. He didn't even see the point of opening it. But now it was different. He had touched more than this before. Even he thought this way; perhaps the other person felt the same.

 

The large hand reached down to the very bottom, its fingers touching something smooth and tapered. It’s right here. A smile of delight curved the corners of his mouth. The young man picked up the notebook, then froze when he saw it clearly.

 

It was a black notebook, slightly larger than the palm of my hand, with prominently inscribed letters that read: Death Note “... Jerome.

 

"You're writing about your crush in Death Note? I can totally believe it, haha." But even so, the young man thought it should be this way. After all, the other person said it was a notebook for venting frustrations; it wouldn't make sense to vent in a brightly coloured notebook.

 

Jerome put everything back in its place, just as it was before he'd taken everything out. He tried to tidy it up as much as possible, but he didn't intend to hide anything that Jinn wouldn't recognise. He wasn't trying to hide anything. If the notebook truly contained heartfelt messages from the other person, Jerome planned to talk to them and clear things up. He didn't intend to ignore it. He didn't know why his heart felt so restless every day, as if it were waiting for something.

 

The young man wasn't sure if he was imagining things, but he thought that the sooner he could clear things up with Jinn, the more beneficial the future would be, just as it had always been. He wanted to know what had happened to the other person recently and whether it could still be changed.

"Jinn, what the hell are you writing?" The person who had opened someone else's notebook couldn't help but curse. The handwriting inside seemed illegible only to the writer, as it was so messy that the letters were almost impossible to distinguish.

 

But did he think this would stop his curiosity? He was wrong. The tall man walked out of the bedroom and sat down on the soft sofa, concentrating on his thoughts. He carefully deciphered each word. He had to say, this notebook couldn't even be called a diary. The writer seemed to write wherever they pleased; there were no dates, no beginning, just as the future Jinn had said. It was pure venting, easy for the writer but difficult for the one choosing what to write.

 

"What kind of person punches me and then has their friend bring me drugs? Go die, you idiot!"

 

Jerome burst out laughing after reading just the first sentence. He struggled to decipher Jinn’s handwriting, but was confident he had gotten almost all of it right. As far as he could remember, Jinn’s handwriting wasn't this difficult to read. He suspected this was a unique style, especially for this particular notebook.

 

"If I don't choose this topic, you won't either, will you? You're trying to be nice to me, aren't you? Just you wait."

 

"With your face all green, you still have the nerve to give me that cheeky look? Tomorrow I'm going to punch you in the face again, right in the eye socket."

 

"Why did I have to get beaten along with him? Aunt Jenny has such a heavy hand. He’s just like his mother."

 

"Damn it, we can't fight now. What are we going to do?"

 

Jerome thought this story must have been written during middle school, because that's when they only used physical force. After being threatened with expulsion if they fought again, they both changed their bullying methods. But he said he wrote it in high school, right? He's lying.

 

The young man turned to the next page and raised his eyebrows again. The handwriting on this page seemed easier to read than the first, but images of a hand making a middle finger were interspersed throughout almost every line, as if representing how the writer felt when they wrote it…

 

"Just because you beat me once, you're acting all cocky, you idiot. You're such a kid. Next time, I'll shove a basketball in your face." (Image of a small hand holding up a finger)

 

In the middle of the two pictures, one says, "Do you know that naming your Instagram account after mine isn't just copying me? It's like... whatever." The picture shows a small hand holding up its fingers.

 

Jerome raised his eyebrows slightly, his mind drifting back to when he was sixteen. Back then, all his classmates were starting to like posting pictures on an app called Instagram. He and Jinn were among them, like most teenagers who follow their friends' lead. Jinn created an account first and named it...

 

jjinn.room

 

"Room" was a name similar to his mother's clothing store. Seeing that, someone who loved to compete in everything like him immediately copied it without hesitation.

 

jje.rome

 

Looking back, there were many things I unforgivably overlooked at the time. For example, why two J's? Jinnroom? Jerome? The strangely similar spellings. That's why "JJ," which others used to call them, came about—not just because their names both had two J's, but also because their Instagram usernames both started with two J's.

 

Many things that were never seen before became visible through reading the other person's journal. Journals that seemed to be used for venting or cursing, but in another sense, also served as a release of innermost feelings and desires of the journal's owner—desires that had never been expressed to anyone before.

 

"What...is this?" But the next page of the journal left the reader frozen, their heart aching with a sharp pain in their chest. The white paper was almost filled with deep pen strokes, as if the writer had poured all their feelings into this entry. On this page, a few words were written repeatedly, endlessly. Just a few words, yet they made the reader feel breathless.

 

Jerome breathed heavily, the notebook he was holding dropping onto his lap. He then raised his hand to his heart, where a sudden, sharp pain shot through him. It wasn't a familiar pain, yet he knew what it was. It was a tightness in his heart, a constriction caused by something deeply upsetting him.

 

"You liar! You liar! You liar! You liar!"

 

"You're a liar, a bigger liar than anyone."

 

"I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you."

 

“I really hate you.

 

The word "hate" that Jinn wrote to him made him feel so heartbroken that he could barely breathe. Heartbroken to the point he couldn't find the words. Heartbroken to the point he wanted to cry.