You know without you I'm so lonely - [CHEOLSOO]

ㅡEpilogue 2ㅡ

A bell rang throughout the apartment. A Sunday morning at ten o'clock sharp.

Yoon Jeonghan opened his front door this morning in a bathrobe and his hair disheveled. On the landing stood a schoolboy with coal-black hair.

"Yoon Jeonghan?" he asked. "I have a few questions to ask you.

"Sorry kid. Sunday it's a lie-in. Go back to bed." Jeonghan replied in a bored tone as he closed his door.

"It's about Jisoo."

Yoon Jeonghan froze for a few moments. Hundreds of thousands of memories come to mind. A silhouette stood out in front of him, his face smiling, his two eyes forming crescent moons, brushes by the thousands between his fingers, and multicolored paint stains on his clothes and his skin. A 16-year-old silhouette that will never grow. Hong Jisoo, he hadn't heard that name for years, he had finally let him go, he hadn't realized how badly he missed him.

"Come in."

The high schooler didn't make him rehearse twice, he walked into his apartment and sat on the couch without even waiting for Jeonghan to permit him. He reached into his bag and pulled out a small microphone.

"I need to record everything that will be said here." He justified himself as Jeonghan settled in front of him, bringing back two glasses of orange juice at the same time.

He pressed one of the buttons to start recording. Jeonghan watched him, totally overwhelmed by this young man in front of him and still overwhelmed by the memories that resurfaced. Something told him it wasn't going to end there.

"Did you know well Jisoo?"

"I think we can say that. He was my best friend. I was his only friend, we had hit it off when he entered our high school. He was very intelligent, he arrived during the year. You know, back to school in the United States doesn't happen at the same time as we do in Korea. He wasn't very rich, he was a scholarship student. But... why? How do you know him?"

"Why didn't you do anything that day?"

Jeonghan's eyes suddenly began to burn. The snow, the cold, and the ice come back to him full in the face. The guilt comes rushing back. He stood up, he didn't even realize that tears had started to roll down his cheeks. How a high school student who had just arrived allowed himself to lecture him on an event that had happened twenty years earlier, he hadn't even been born that day. Jeonghan was mad with rage.

"You think I didn't try to stop him!? Jisoo died in front of me! Do you really think I had fun watching my best friend jump into the lake!? Jisoo didn't speak! How could I have guessed that he was planning to end... Damn... I'm not a psychic... I'm sorry enough already."

In his anger, he had spilled the two glasses of juice on the table. Their contents had leaked and were now tasting on the carpet. Slowly, one drop at a time. Repeating itself indefinitely.

"He loved you very much." Only replied the teenager. "He always had a huge smile when he talked about you."

"Who are you?"

"Why did he kill himself?"

"Who are you? How do you know Jisoo?!"

"Why is he dead?"

Jeonghan sat back in his chair. He promised himself to find out who this boy was before he left.

"Let me tell you a story. This is the story of a boy abandoned by his mother. No one ever knew why she left, but she did, leaving her son all alone with the monster from his most terrible nightmares. Isn't a mother's love the only thing immortal? How could this person take his suitcase and leave him like that without even glancing back? The little boy waited for her day and night. While his father drank day and night. One day they left, and they came back to Korea. The little boy cried a lot, he was sure his mother would come back, but there, in the United States."

The teenager didn't cut him off for a single second in his story. Jeonghan got up to mechanically tamper with everything that came to hand. As he spoke, his voice cracked and the tears continued to flow.

"As the years passed, the little boy developed a hatred towards his mother. She who had left him in the hands of his father. He ended up no longer waiting for his return. And by dint of receiving blows, he ended up not feeling anything at all. The little boy was empty. The only thing he wanted was to run away, to be free once in his life. In the end... The little boy ended up free but alone in the dark and the cold. And his father fled as soon as the police reported the body..."

Jeonghan paused to wipe away his tears.

"But it's me who killed him. I didn't pay enough attention to him. You can blame me, young man..." Jeonghan approached the high school student and grabbed his t-shirt. "The police... The police..." Jeonghan felt that he was having more and more difficulty in formulating his sentences. "The police said that they had found, among the... The alcohol bottles, traces of blows and... Fingernails, blood... In... In the closet of his apartment.."

"Jisoo said he was afraid of the dark." Just replied the boy.

And then Yoon Jeonghan snapped. He cried for an hour on the teenager's shoulder. He let him do it without saying anything. He had cut the recording and cried with him.

Before that day Jeonghan hadn't let himself cry. He had kept everything in him. It was his fault, he shouldn't cry. It was all just his fault. The teenager's hand rested timidly on his head.

"Jisoo doesn't blame you. He will never blame you."

And Jeonghan's tears grew louder.

"Can I ask you a question too?" Jeonghan asked him when all the tears he had been holding back finally came out. "Why? Why are you trying to find out? Why now?"

"I think..." The teenager had averted his gaze to a photograph of Jisoo smiling in a wooden frame. "I think I really loved him."

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Author note : So finally? That's the very end of the story? The last chapter you'll read?
Yes hihi

With this chapter, I wanted to give a little explanation. Because the story is about Seungcheol, so Jisoo don't have a proper back story. So... This chapter came out.
We talk about Jisoo's mother... Who is like the opposite of Seungcheol's. We talk about his dad too, the one who killed him.
We see Jeonghan trying to be okay even if he's not. Maybe he don't wants to look weak. Maybe it's just his culpability.

Oh man I'm talking too much ;w;
Anyway, I really really really hope that you liked this story.

OH AND!
Jeonghan is also 20 years older than Seungcheol :0
That's maybe confusing.

I hope to see you again on my other stories u.u

Today you'll have some Jeongcheol :