Work Text:
Kim Dokja wakes up, and as expected, it changes nothing.
Of course, it also changes everything. There’s someone to fill the empty spaces. It’s not the same someone, it’s not the same way, the disconnect of those years without any conscious version of Kim Dokja is still there, and so is the fragility around Yoo Jonghyuk’s sense of purpose.
Han Sooyoung’s novel served its purpose. And again, Yoo Jonghyuk served his purpose to one of Han Sooyoung’s novels.
Now Kim Dokja was home, the fool’s smile was the same that immediately brought on stress, and things were once again as close to ideal an ending as they could hope and —
And once again sleepless alone at night, Yoo Jonghyuk wondered what his ■■ could be.
A body that is used to moving forward does not stop easily.
Before, he’d been overwhelmed by the need to ask Kim Dokja. That memory was also becoming fragmented. But the need to ask Kim Dokja had, for a time, been a purpose. Kim Dokja, who always smiled as he cut infuriatingly close to the core of Yoo Jonghyuk. Or, worse: completely missed while he was trying.
Usually it was obvious when he was up to something, yet Kim Dokja had wormed his way to the core of Yoo Jonghyuk’s heart without being caught. Yoo Jonghyuk hadn’t realised it until the days of endlessly trying to convince himself it was fine to leave 51% of him in that damn subway, because it was what Kim Dokja wanted, and something was better than nothing.
But it wasn’t enough.
Yoo Jonghyuk hadn’t fought through 1864 lifetimes to stop fighting at ‘good enough’. Especially not where Kim Dokja was concerned.
Or so he’d thought. Right up until he’d had nothing to do but read their novel.
Things he’d lived came across unrecognisable on the page. Yoo Jonghyuk hadn’t hovered endlessly over Han Sooyoung as she wrong the way the others had, but he’d often enough seen Han Sooyoung brush off any complaints about the way things were represented by talking about how novels had to be structured with the reader in mind, not reality.
And wasn’t Yoo Jonghyuk the ultimate proof of how fundamentally Han Sooyoung put that reader first?
Yoo Jonghyuk. A character constructed thoughtlessly by a writer who cared only for her reader. Yet a character who craved purpose in every moment of every fragmented memory.
Finding his parents. (Who never existed.)
Raising Mia. (Who was consistently safer without him, then too grown up to really need him.)
Saving his companions. (Who needed Kim Dokja more.)
Destroying the <Star Stream>. (With Kim Dokja.)
Seeing the ending. (With Kim Dokja.)
Meeting Kim Dokja again. (Who would never be the same.)
Asking Kim Dokja who he is supposed to be. (Because Kim Dokja always knew who to fight.)
But however poorly constructed, that novel was Yoo Jonghyuk’s entire reality. There was no sense in acting as though it was anything else.
A poorly defined character constructed only to withstand the Scenarios cannot find definition outside of Scenarios.
And the novel wasn’t so poorly constructed it couldn’t convey the themes of the stories they’d fought for. It reminded Yoo Jonghyuk of ones he’d forgotten.
It reminded him who a ■■ was really for.
Narratively speaking (as the author would say while wearing fake glasses to look smarter than she is), nobody had ever satisfactorily defined Yoo Jonghyuk’s ■, therefore, there could be no satisfactory ■■.
Yoo Jonghyuk’s ■■ doesn’t exist.
But his meaning outside Scenarios did.
There was nothing else Kim Dokja could tell him. Yoo Jonghyuk hadn’t asked Kim Dokja anything unrelated to his health and memories yet, but seeing him again, remembering that he was just a man foolish enough to demand the best from a ruined world…
It told Yoo Jonghyuk the same thing the novel had.
The only person who could decide his purpose was him.
The only person who could decide his ■■ was him. And he hadn’t decided what he wanted from a rebuilt world yet. Therefore, Yoo Jonghyuk’s ■■ couldn’t exist.
But he would keep living every day searching for purpose alongside his companions like it did.