You go home. Your steps are heavy and your eyes downcast, but you don't care about the prying gazes that follow your back as you walk. None of that really matters compared to the tumult bubbling inside your heart. 

Your mind recreates your memories with Yongguk like an outdated movie. Yongguk, doing push ups in the street. Yongguk, forcing himself to eat jjampong. Yongguk, inserting dollar bills into random books. Yongguk smiling. Yongguk, holding your hand. Yongguk, throwing a paper airplane into the sky. Yongguk laughing. Yongguk breathing, Yongguk existing, Yongguk living. 

Yongguk, walking away.

You return home and bury yourself in the sweet comfort of your bed. Your errand book sits next to your hand, and you grab it and flip to the first page. You stare at the signatures written haphazardly over the paper. So many names. So many people who didn't know how much they were helping a guy like Yongguk. 

I need to get Yongguk's signature, You realize. You don't have anything of his that you own besides this book. You grab a pen and write your name in the margin. You leave enough space for Yongguk in case you ever get the chance to see him again and ask him to write his name. Holding the book to your chest, you lay back down and stare unblinkingly at the ceiling. You memorize the texture of the walls and the details of the molding. 

You're not required to mentally inspect your home, but you do it anyway. It's the only thing you know how to do. Countless times, you've remained in your house and simply stared at the walls like a forgotten shell of a soul. You weren't so much thinking as you were simply being. But there's a difference in being and living. 

So you focus on things that don't matter. It's easier to think about things that don't hurt. It's less tolling, less debilitating, less discouraging. If you let your mind stray to Yongguk, you might actually break down and cry, and you don't want to do that, because you hate crying. You hate how you get when you start sobbing, hate how those tears soil your face and wet your blankets. You hate how sad you feel, hate how sick it makes you.

But the feeling it gives you is nothing compared to what Yongguk has had to deal with.

No. You can't do that to yourself. You can't think about that. You can't start regretting. That's not