My memories of school days are entirely a faint shade of gray. In my memories, I was always a child who seeped into the shaded corners to avoid anyone's gaze. I heard words like 'useless' even from teachers. My family history was too horrific to simply lump under the word 'misfortune,' and the depression and lethargy that sprouted within it captivated me all too easily. I felt no emotion as the number of absences grew larger than the days I crossed the school threshold. A life with nothing I was good at and nothing I wanted to do. I never really wished for anything. Since the world is irrational, I felt no will to live.

Time flowed with a cruel fairness, and before I knew it, I was wearing the proper label of an 'adult.' But the trajectory of my life hasn't changed a bit. Even now, there's no way to describe my life other than the single phrase 'wasted.' The lethargy that took root deep in my heart since childhood and the void that pierces through a corner of my chest. No matter how much time passed, those things remained unfilled, quietly eating away at me. There was always a contradiction between the feeling of wanting someone to appear and do something about me, and the wish for the world to just leave me alone so I could disappear without anyone knowing. Almost at the same moment I thought that in my life—where I don't even have anyone to call a friend—no one would even be sad, Luen came to mind. Oh, right. I'm at his house now.