| What Remains Of Yang Jeongin | STRAY KIDS

|EPILOGUE|

Epilogue

"So, go out there and love, because life is so worth loving."

I had planned to tell you all of these stories myself, maybe even bring you back to the house. Though, if you're reading this... that means I never got the chance.

For a while, Jeongin was lost.

Granted, he had been lost his whole life, but now it just seemed to get worse. His mother left him, his brother committed suicide and his dad got murdered trying to save him, and yet Jeongin's heart didn't thump in sorrow and his head didn't spin because he got stuck in a loop of alcohol and drugs. Instead, Jeongin was empty, emotionally numb but physically too attached to the world around him. As much as he beat himself up for not feeling anything, he had to remind himself that it seemed to always be this way, that even before his mother, before Hyunjin, before his dad, Jeongin was emotionally incapable of feeling anything because he pushed, and pushed, and pushed emotions down until he couldn't feel anything at all.

So, he wondered. His head was clear, he knew that much, but he had absolutely no idea what he wanted out of life now. If Jeongin was any other normal human being, he would be in university, studying his absolute ass off so he could make a living, but Jeongin wasn't a normal human being. He was a high school drop out who was addicted to weed and causing havoc where ever he went. But yet, it was still quiet inside his head and everywhere else. He just went from motel to motel from city to city because that was all he knew now. Jeongin didn't quite remember how to settle down because hell, he had been on the edge of his seat his whole life wondering who was going to go next.

But now he knew he was next because he was the last one of them alive and he couldn't care less. His time would happen eventually, it was guaranteed at this point.

In the back of my head, I had told myself that I wouldn't just give you a short life lesson, I'd give you something long and meaningful that would stay with you until fate takes you as well.

"You lost, stranger?" A voice piped up beside Jeongin, that being the only sound inside the streets of Daegu aside from the scuffle of Jeongin's boots against the concrete and the occasional siren in the distance. Jeongin slowed but never stopped moving as he looked up towards the direction of the voice, seeing two figures leaned up against the wall. They both looked to be around Jeongin's age and based on the clothes the boy and girl were wearing, they were attending a nearby university that Jeongin had seen a few times walking around.

"Depends," Jisung took another drag of the joint between his lips, blowing it in their direction. The one who spoke up first, a boy around Jeongin's height with wide but sharp eyes and choppy black hair that stopped just beneath his eyebrows, laughed a bit and cocked his head to the side in wonder. It was very clear he was studying Jeongin in a way the man didn't like, but he wasn't in the mood to pick a fight that night. He just took another aggressive drag of his joint before the girl plucked it out of his hands with well-manicured fingers and took a slow drag of it.