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Thrown away, yet again. Bah, what did he expect. It wasn’t something he could feel particularly angry or lacklustre about. At this point, it was just how the world worked and it was no concern of his. He had decided so for himself, allegedly, ages ago and it had only diminished the amount of thoughts to juggle in his head. And now… it was a given, wasn’t it?
Kim Namwoon looked up to the sky from his position amongst the smoking debris of the fallen Pluto, some of his remaining limbs were sticking out in odd angles. An ironic gesture, in his mind at least. What sky? Those clouds must be castles.
—
“A character,” is what he heard the grasshopper ahjussi say at that time. It had certainly baffled him. The feeling of palpably heavy lead, thundering down a metal shaft. His initial reaction had been to have a laugh.
”Well, isn’t that just wonderful!” He had said, arms open, gesturing enthusiastically.
“I’m sorry,” Ahjussi had said, his eyes briefly flickering with something Namwoon had been unable to pinpoint. It had been tedious to try to guess what it could be, so he had just grinned and teased ahjussi for a little while. It was only now that he was brought back to think about it.
Well, he had never thought it all had much meaning in the first place, sensed it, entertained it even. What if his life were a story, what type of character would he like to be? What type of things were important? What sort of abilities would he care to have or not have? It could be said he had always lived his life fancying himself a character. It was so much more interesting that way, so much more doable to adapt to the constantly changing environment. In fact, the Dokkaebi-ridden, Truman show-like world where every single day required such quick adaptations had felt like he had finally come home. Finally, they could all enjoy the festive pandemonium and freely resort to what they always wanted to do. The excuse of survival had been served on a silver platter, there was magic and there had been nothing more or less to think about but to enjoy the ride for what it was worth.
Nevertheless, to be told he was just a character...
To be told it hadn’t been a deliberate choice he had made as opposed to the mindless masses and their common gripes? It had snapped and crushed something deep inside he hadn’t known was still there.
Is that right, a character with a setting. A cogwheel for a plot. Entertainment for common folk that couldn’t even be touched by his life. An accelerator and device for the protagonist to move forward and to explore the protagonist and his world from different angles. It had never been about him in the first place even if he had always earnestly ‘lived’ as if it could have been. He had to scoff.
Did he feel lost? No, not particularly. Nothing had to change - they had always been fodder for somebody’s entertainment after all - it just was the case that, this time, there was no other option. For somebody who defied definitions of any kind, the world and its many uncertainties had been his biggest agony and biggest solace. If nothing were entirely certain and the systems in place were merely optional fabrications, why, he could be anything and anybody, right? Follow your dreams! Wasn’t he technically a Gundam, right about now? But the moment it could be put into a concise summary, it was limited and inevitable. Commonly, it would bring upon somebody immeasurable despair.
But all he came up with was a strangely empty feeling of nothing together with the usual menu of amusement and thrill. In any case, nothing had to change.
Why would it have to crush his soul? He could still enjoy this and that. He was no longer part of a life he never lead in the first place. The precursors had merely been descriptions, fickle assumptions to be had to give him a semblance of a soul. He had never been abandoned. He had never had to deal with people’s constant rejections, aside from ahjussi's sudden epiphany. So even the decisions he had made to live, as he did currently, had no single meaning. Just devices. Another screwed in bolt to keep the dumb thing together. It didn’t have to be him. It never mattered.
The ultimate filter had lifted, finally, he could read what that Ahjussi had been staring at before. His character description. Ever entertained the possibility of reading your own entire existence? It included information about his age, about his stature, his looks and abilities. His personality. His past…
Abandoned by his parents, disillusioned by reality, bad at studying, delusional, a military otaku, chuuni, unpredictable, consumed by his constellation, etc. No wonder ahjussi had flicked him out of his story the second he could.
In the most recent run, his run, he had died in the first few chapters and later on reappeared, at the singularity protagonist’s convenience, as a sort of chaotic deus ex machina device to defeat something or the other where the singularity protagonist could not. For all the rest, he was to be discarded and contained somewhere he could not influence the flow of the plot.
‘How flippant,’ he thought dryly. From a bird’s eye view like this, he didn’t appear all that interesting. Boring. A cliché disillusioned, delusional character. For all the mentioning of how stupid he was, he could see that clearly, at the very least.
What stirred him more so than the intrusive information provided was the little there was. Was that all? In the end, the choices he had made and the things he had pursued only amounted to a few boring lines. And none of them treated him as anything beyond the character he had fancied himself to be. Truly, he ought to rejoice. This was what he had wanted for his entire life, after all… his entire…
If what the ahjussi had said was true, wasn’t it so that his ‘life’ had started in that train? The moment he caught the eye of the singularity protagonist, to be exact. And it ended, when he was killed. And then his story continued, but he hadn’t been entirely alive for it. So, he supposed, it only made sense it only amounted to this much.
It was an odd feeling. Rationally speaking, that it was simply as much as was written down. Yet deep down his“setting” rebelled against this idea.
“He had lived,” it spat angrily, “he had gone to school. Hell, he had been in his uniform when he arrived in this world. He had, had parents. He had also lost them. He had lived through the hardships he did. He had been into fights over his behaviour and defiance towards this twisted world of systems. He had been killed by ahjussi. He had befriended Yellowy. He had been absorbed by Pluto. He had laboured away in Tartarus and had spent years, upon years…” what a headache.
But had he truly lived? For as brief and sudden such a time, it would suffice to say he had “existed,” perhaps.
… fuck, he was here now and he was definitely dying. Death of non-existence. Perhaps that’s why he was suddenly contemplating all these confusing things.
... He had done his best, hadn’t he?
Ha, when did that ever matter. His ‘best’. What a laugh. He just moved according to the plot anyways.
Uselessly lengthy ramblings, desperate storytelling with only himself as the audience.
(It was unfair)
It was to be expected.
(It was unfair)
Wasn't he supposed to be flexible?
His role had ended. He had fallen out of the interest of the protagonists, of the constellations, of the Gods and outer Gods... of the readers. He hadn’t any interesting bonds to keep him tethered... he had been so close to sky... though, to be fair, he had never been given the chance to form them in the first place. Not that he wanted to, who even wanted to.
In other words, this was surely the end of his story. He hadn’t made enough of an impression to continue telling it, to explore it. He was too easily definable, always too easily discardable…
He had, had his only chance that one time, didn't he? Screwed it up good, but there had been that one time... In another timeline, but that hadn’t really been him in the first place. Just a whimsical fancy that, ultimately, hadn’t left an impression either. It was a story that dissolved in an endless sky as if it had just been smoke.
He reached out as if the smoke billowing up from pluto could be touched. The castles drifting by were so high up...
“I suppose it’s just you and me, huh, Pluto,” he laughed.
Pluto’s broken body could no longer respond, but he did feel its faint presence trying to wrap a blanket around his distress. He shook his head, coughing painfully. Even that story would never be told. What a shoddy end. Poor Pluto.
“I wonder if anybody will play with Yellowy when I’m no longer able to,” he thought distractedly, “Yellowy loves to eat up rotten things, she might get sick at this rate. Some souls aren’t good for her digestion.”
It was unfair. He was happy he had existed. Tartarus, it could be said he had, had a hell of a great time - he would always feel grateful to ahjussi for it - but more than that, he realised, he had really…
Shit, why now…
he had really wanted to ‘live’, after all.