Chapter Text
It starts with a sudden crash landing.
No, really. 36 years old Kim Rok Soo, having fallen asleep while reading a fantasy novel, wakes just as he's falling down from the sky.
Imagine his shock when he wakes up and feels the wind on his skin as he falls, falls, and falls. Unfortunately, the man is unable to do anything but curse before he finally lands on something both hard and soft, a loud groan coming out of his lips.
It takes no more than two seconds before he is pushed away by what can only be human hands, and Kim Rok Soo groans again, his body curling up automatically to protect himself from a possible attack. He's faced temperamental guild members before, and he knows they'd beat him black and blue for something as simple as accidentally crashing into them. As team leader, he's trained his body enough that he can stay in the vanguard, but it is instinctive to protect himself from the first--and possibly hardest--blow.
Except, nothing hits him. What he expects doesn't come towards him, instead it is a stunned silence that greets him. Scooting himself farther from where the other person is located, Kim Rok Soo’s eyes flick upwards to face the other person, surprised to see a youth who can't possibly be older than eighteen.
The youth looks as surprised as him, black eyes shaking as he stares at Kim Rok Soo. His condition is horrible, Kim Rok Soo notes with a frown. Dirty and torn clothes, his hair are also clumped with dirt, his face is also dirty. Basically, he looks unkempt and horrible. It reminds Kim Rok Soo of the time when society hadn't steadily grown to the one they have right now, when it was just the first few weeks since the apocalypse happened. Dirty, messy, frazzled. Like insects rolling on the mud just so they could survive.
Lifting himself up, Kim Rok Soo’s trained eyes don't miss how the youth flinches and raises his sword towards him. The sword trembles in his hold, but the youth looks at him in something akin to wariness and hope, and it is Kim Rok Soo’s many experiences that tell him how alert the other is right now. Someone who is alert yet anxious; it’s very likely that if Kim Rok Soo displays any signs of being a threat, he will get attacked by this young man.
The sword looks like it has seen better days, what with it being rusty as hell and dented in some places, but a sword is a sword, and he has no desire to startle this person more and accidentally getting himself stabbed or slashed by this sword. It would be hard to get himself a tetanus shot, after all.
" Ya ," Kim Rok Soo calls out, lifting his hands in a non-threatening manner when the other flinches again. "Kid, calm down. I'm not going to hurt you." The other person doesn't seem to be inclined to answer, though Kim Rok Soo doesn't miss how he is still shaking. Kim Rok Soo can't help but to frown.
He looks at his surroundings, noting that they're in the middle of a forest.
Tentatively, he asks. "Have you been here for a while?"
He can't believe it; has this kid been in this place since the apocalypse? Or did he accidentally get lost when he travels out of the shelter?
"Where is this?" No answer. Kim Rok Soo wonders if the other can speak. He doesn’t look like Mirror Mask. Is he? ...Shit, man, he really wishes he has his gun right now.
"Can you answer me?"
"Ha--" The boy stutters, speaking slowly and with odd pauses, as if he's forgotten how to speak. "--한...글? 한글? Ko--rean?"
He can speak. Not a Mirror Mask, then.
Relieved by this confirmation, Kim Rok Soo nods, "yes, Korean. You look Korean, can you speak Korean?"
The youth nods, "--think so--? I, I think so."
This is worrying , Kim Rok Soo thinks. He sounds like someone who hasn’t spoken to anyone in at least months. Though the teen doesn't look like he's inclined to stab him anymore, at the very least.
"Han," the teen suddenly says. And as if reciting a mantra, he keeps going, something desperate in his eyes as he speaks. And perhaps he is desperate. Perhaps this is something he’s repeated to himself, over and over again, as if by doing so he won’t forget how to speak his own language, so he won’t forget his own name.
"Choi Han. My name. My name is, Choi Han. I am, I am Choi Han."
Choi Han. A familiar name.
Where has he heard it before?
Choi Han.
His memories are sorted for him, and Kim Rok Soo realizes that Choi Han is the name of the protagonist from the fantasy novel he read before he fell asleep the night before.
Choi Han.
The Korean teenager who got transported to the Forest of Darkness.
After surviving for tens of years alone against the monsters in the forest, he’d find Harris Village and experience human warmth for the first time in a long while.
Choi Han.
Kim Rok Soo looks at the Choi Han in front of him.
A teen in ruined clothes and clumped with dirt. Old sword in his hand and how it seems as if he hasn't spoken in a long time. How they're in the middle of a forest, and how it seems that Kim Rok Soo has fallen out of thin air.
"...No way," all of a sudden, the back of Kim Rok Soo's neck feels cold, as if something is brushing it. "Choi Han? Your name is Choi Han?"
"I am," he opens his mouth, closes it, before saying it again, something painful shuttering in his eyes. "I am, Choi Han."
It seems that he really is, Choi Han.
Seriously?