Dreams of Arcadia

6

"Um... in theory, if I get a few banknotes from the till... will you keep taking your clothes off if I throw them at you?" I asked with a grin, whereupon their heads turned in my direction Jisung laughed, while Mingi held his clothes in front of his chest.

"How much are you paying?" Jisung raised a brow, while Mingi fled back into the changing room.

"Whatever the cash register has to offer," I replied, giggling and was suddenly pressed against him.

"I didn't think we'd see each other here again..." he smiled at me regretfully as he let go of me again. I had known the guys from Stray Kids for a while, had spent a lot of time with them at a few K-Cons and had a lot of fun.

"Did the others die too?" I asked and he grimaced.

"I don't know, I'm pretty sure something must have happened to Chan, Felix and Changbin, they were walking right in front of me.... The others had hopefully run far enough ahead. I hope the others all made it. I've been on my own for three days now, and this Grim Reaper didn't tell me much except that he'd be in touch soon and he was gone," he said.

"I'm here with Minji and Bora, we've secured a villa just around the corner... It's best if you two come with us, we have enough space there and it's much more fun with others instead of alone." I suggested and he nodded enthusiastically.

"Yes, please... I don't want to be alone anymore," agreed Mingi, who came out of the cabin dressed. I remembered that I also wanted to change and looked at Jisung promptly. When we were finished, we left the store and I showed them the way to the villa.

"Ah Mingi... that reminds me... I died right in front of your dressing room... San and Wooyoung were still in there... chances are we'll find them here too. I don't think anyone survived in the area we were in, the biggest piece of ceiling fell right on top of us..." I told him and he looked at me with a mixture of sadness and relief. I could understand him, he didn't want to be without them completely, but if they were here, it meant they were dead. It was a real quandary.

"Guys... stop... no one here has a guilty conscience anymore if they're happy to see someone familiar here. We'll stop now, we're dead, there's nothing more to regret here, we'll savor everything the afterlife has to offer. We'll also get rid of all negative thoughts and nobody will regret being here anymore... those who are here should be happy to be in our company, because the other world no longer has that." Jisung intervened, not wanting to leave us with bad feelings.

"You're right... There's no point in thinking about it too much. It is what it is." I agreed and Mingi nodded with a smile.

"I'll be happy to have my friends back anyway," he said, shrugging his shoulders. When we arrived at the villa, I opened the door.

"Eomma, Appa... I'm back and I've brought friends to play with." I called out before taking off my shoes.

"Good, I hope you're hungry." came back from the living room, but neither of them came running curiously, they were so strangely quiet... When we entered the living room, I started to laugh... both of them were lying on the couch, looking tired and full of food, while there must have been 20 pizza boxes on the coffee table.

"I take it that means delivery service works?" I asked, only to receive a weak nod.

"Hey, Mingi and Hanni... eat as much as you like, we only managed seven..." Bora suggested and the boys literally pounced on the pizza.

"How did you even manage seven?" I asked incredulously.

"They were just delicious..." Minji grumbled, which made me giggle. After two hours, there was no pizza left and I got up with a sigh, grabbed a couple of boxes and headed for the door.

"Who's coming to take out the trash? I don't want this place to get as filthy as Dreamcatcher Dorm." I asked and Jisung jumped right up while everyone else was in a food coma. He took the rest of the boxes and came out with me.

"There's a paper container at the crossroads." Jisung pointed in that direction and we started moving. When the boxes were all in the containers, Jisung's eyes suddenly widened.

"Am I crazy, or is there a streaker running back there?"