The rain blurred the city into watercolor. Streetlamps smeared gold across the pavement, and neon signs bled their colors into the puddles that swelled along the gutters. Seol-ah drove with the wipers keeping time, the faint squeak of rubber cutting through the hush inside the car.
Her camera bag sat in the passenger seat, the familiar weight shifting when she turned. The air smelled faintly of wet asphalt and the chemical tang of developer that never seemed to leave her things.
On the radio, an old ballad flickered in and out of static, the melody warping like a memory half-forgotten. She reached to adjust the dial, and for a moment she caught her reflection in the side window — pale in the dashboard light, her expression unreadable, as if she were looking at someone else entirely.
The intersection ahead was empty. Red light. She waited. The hum of the engine paired itself to the dull throb at her temple. Somewhere beyond the rain, a motorcycle passed, the sound fading before it was real.
Then: a sudden wash of white.
A horn. Sharp. Urgent.
The screech of tires on wet asphalt.
Impact. The seatbelt dug deep into her shoulder, glass burst in a spray of cold light, and her camera bag spilled open in a clatter of lenses and loose rolls of film. The glovebox gave way, scattering papers, pens, and—
A Polaroid.
It lifted into the air, caught in that strange suspension where time hesitates, spinning once before floating toward her. She caught only the faintest image: a man's silhouette beside a woman with her own face, both beneath drifting cherry blossoms.
Darkness closed in before she could blink.
When she opened her eyes, the light above her was too bright, too white, bleeding into the edges of her vision. The antiseptic tang was sharp enough to taste. A nurse moved into view, checking a drip, her words soft but muffled, as though coming from underwater.
The door banged open. Jin-ae appeared, rain still tangled in her hair, clutching Seol-ah's camera bag like a lifeline. She smiled — too quickly — and then the smile faltered.
"Do you know where you were going?" she asked, sitting beside her. "Or who you were meeting?"
Seol-ah searched the space between her thoughts, but everything beyond a certain point was blank. She shook her head, throat aching.
The doctor explained the rest: retrograde amnesia, four years gone, the rest untouched.
Later, Jin-ae emptied the camera bag across the blanket. Lenses rolled, film cartridges clinked. A small stack of Polaroids slid free, curling slightly at the edges. Seol-ah turned them over one by one — strangers' faces, street scenes, frozen smiles she didn't feel.
She paused at one. Cherry blossoms. Her own smile. A man's hand just at the edge of the frame.
Days later, discharged, she followed Jin-ae into the apartment that was supposed to be hers. The bookshelves lined with photography books felt curated by someone else. On one wall, a corkboard held rows of Polaroids — her face in half of them, caught mid-laugh, mid-thought, always with someone else just out of frame.
Jin-ae made tea in the kitchen, glancing over. "You should probably see Eli."
Seol-ah turned. "Who's Eli?"
There was a pause, too long for a simple answer. Jin-ae looked down at her cup before she said, "You'll know when you see him."