Welcome to Your Last Race (Street Racers #3)

epilogue 01

Taehyung

This was the moment I knew I let go.

My therapist – a cool guy a couple years older than me – gave me a piece of paper and put a cup with crayons in front of me. I looked at him like he was a bit unserious, but he must have been used to this kind of reaction.

Insu pointed at the crayons. "Go ahead. I want you to draw your family."

"Again? Haven't we done that at the beginning?"

"That was a long time ago."

I chuckled, but reached for the crayons. "Aren't I a bit too old for so much drawing?"

"No one's too old for a bit of drawing." He smiled.

It had been a few months into my therapy at that point. Day by day, I was feeling lighter and lighter. Better. Everything was easier. My mind wasn't as dark as it used to be. Once that became a better place, everything slowly improved.

It took me forty minutes to finish. The first time I was doing it, I finished much faster. Though I don't remember the first time that well. I wasn't in the best mental place, then. Despite my less than impressive skills, this time I did my best. I made the figures look like actual people.

I handed my drawing to Insu when I was done.

"Can you tell me about each person?" he asked.

I pointed at the person on the left. "This is me." I drew myself with a wrench, for the vibes. On my right, I drew Wooshik. "This is my fiancé." At his feet, I drew Boogie. Then, next to Wooshik was Jungkook, and next to him Yeeun, in her self-designed Barbie outfit. I told him all of that.

"Look at the drawing again," he said.

I did, trying to examine it. Find something I was supposed to find. I tried to make us look realistic, height wise, and I gave Yeeun high heels. I was thinking of drawing a car, but I didn't think I had skills for that. The colors were somewhat realistic – as much as you can make a realistic drawing with eight colors. I even drew the ring on my finger.

I looked up. "I think it's a pretty decent drawing."

"Yes, you're right." Insu chuckles. "Let me show you something." From the stack of papers he usually took notes on, he pulled a piece of paper and gave it to me. "This is what you drew the first time." I drew my father, and mother, and Hyun. I didn't draw myself. "What I meant is that ever since we started meeting up, when your 'family' was brought up, you talked about your father, mother, brother. This time I also asked you to draw your family."

Looking at the new drawing one more time was the exact moment I realized I had let go. In my mind, father, mother or Hyun were no longer associated with the word 'family'. They were people who'd hurt me, who I wanted nothing to do with. And who had no power over me anymore. They just were. A blip in the past. Influential before, but not anymore.

I smiled at the drawing. "Yeah. This is my family. I should have added Yoongi, too."

"Go ahead. Add whoever you think of as family. There is no time limit for that task."

So I drew. Yoongi. Sue. Yeeun's dad. Sunhee. They were a bit in the back, because there was no denying my immediate family were Wooshik, Jungkook and Yeeun. But these people mattered. Only these people could be a family to me. I even drew Jimin's head, again, for the vibes. He'd been coming in a 1+1 package with Yoongi ever since he reappeared in our lives.

When I came home that evening, I slapped the drawing onto the fridge and held it up with a Penguins of Madagascar magnet I once got from a box of cereal. Wooshik stood in front of it, examining my work of art before breaking into a wide smile.

"I look good," he said. "You've got some talent."

"I think so, too," I said. "Did you read what I put at the bottom? I added it after the session."

Wooshik squinted at the messy writing I put under the drawing when I was in my car, with a pen I had in the glove compartment. Then he laughed. "Why did I expect something deep?"

"This is deep!"

"I don't have friends. I've got family?"

"It's deep and it's true."

Smiling, Wooshik wrapped his arms around me. "So this is your family?"

"My only family."

"You're feeling better?"

"I haven't felt so good in a long time. On the surface level and... deep inside. I didn't think I could feel better than a couple years ago."

He brought his palms to my cheeks. "I'm really glad that you feel good, my love."

Looking into his eyes as he said it, I started nibbling on my lower lip.

"What?"

"I'd really want to be married to you already."

"Officially?"

"I don't care. I just want someone to say hey, now you're married."

"Okay, so," he said. "Do you want to get married illegally now or for Yeeun to officiate it and pretend it's real?"

"Get married illegally? Are you that crazy?"

"Do I look like someone to put legal matters over the guy I love? Do you think I'm scared of the law?"

"You're definitely not scared of the law." I hugged him tighter and dropped my head onto his shoulder. "How do you imagine it?"

"I don't know. Your brother is a pretty powerful criminal."

"I'm really curious what exactly you mean by that."

"He could fuck around with the law, right? Or with whoever decides on the law. Rigged voting. Put a mole in the government or in the court."

I couldn't help but laugh. I loved him. (Still do.) "You're aiming high."

"I wish I could give you everything you want."

"I'll wait," I said, smiling. "It's okay, I'll wait." Though...

Somehow, later that day, we were at Jungkook and Yeeun's, reenacting a wedding. Yeeun was the officiant. Sunhee played the wedding melody on her phone, then scattered flowers around – torn into pieces toiler paper. Jungkook, for lack of a better role, was that one person running into the venue (their living room) opposing the wedding. The security – Sunhee, again – kicked him out. He came back two seconds later to be a photographer.

It was a whole ass chaos. With Sunhee screaming "security, security!" after the kissing got too much, and with all of them pulling us apart and somehow turning it into a scene of arresting.

But I heard what I wanted to hear. I now pronounce you husband and husband. With that, I could wait a lifetime to hear it during our actual wedding. That would happen one day. I was sure of that.