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Kim Dokja watched as his companions flooded in and out of his room, sometimes chattering away, sometimes going about their business in silence. His hospital room – if it could even be called that anymore – had become a small living space. Armchairs, stools and small tables were scattered around along with cushions and duvets. There were laptops charging, notebooks and flying sheet of paper covered in notes, mugs and plates, little trinkets, even clothes.
It was a space where the presence of each companion could be felt, rather they were there or not. They were there more often than not, though. Since he woke up, Kim Dokja couldn’t recall a single instance where he had been alone. There was always someone around, multiple actually. When someone left, someone else would soon come to fill their spot. It was like watching a cup of water that was always refilled, never allowed to go empty.
Kim Dokja laid back and observed them. All of them had changed, even minutely. Lee Jihye had started getting tattoos, some silly while some carried a weight that even Kim Dokja didn’t know about. Jung Heewon’s patience had thinned, but she was very good at hiding it when on a business call. Yoo Sangah had grown confident, smiling more often and standing straighter. Lee Hyunsung had become more affectionate, offering hugs and head pats to whoever willing to accept them. Shin Yoosung and Lee Gilyoung grew even closer – and more mischievous – than before, able to understand each other with a glance.
All of them had changed, but he couldn’t help but particularly take a notice of Han Sooyoung and Yoo Joonghyuk. While everyone’s personalities seemed to have blossomed over the years, theirs became more muted. It wasn’t very noticeable. Han Sooyoung was still her usual sharp and witty self around the others, while Yoo Joonghyuk’s unimpressed face and concise way of speech seemed to be his default setting.
They were outwardly the exact same than when he last saw them. But if one paid enough attention, they would notice that Han Sooyoung’s eyes, whose unwavering focus when she worked were one of her most impressive qualities, strayed away from her screen every so often, never fully concentrated on what she was doing. They would notice that her sarcastic replies, that used to come unprompted, now had to be stolen from her through direct address.
They would notice that Yoo Joonghyuk had developed a nervous tick of pinching and rubbing the skin between his fingers, eyes boring into a certain someone lying on a bed. They would notice that his usually unmoving self jumped from seat to seat throughout the day, not quite able to stay still but not willing to step out of the room.
They would notice that the unlikely duo was often side by side. They would notice that unlike the others, relief didn’t taint their every feature even weeks after Kim Dokja’s return, but restlessness did. They would notice that Yoo Joonghyuk sometimes stood in front of the door at night, like an unmoving guard. They would notice that Han Sooyoung called out to Kim Dokja very so often for things that didn’t quite need to be told specifically to him, as if the sole purpose was to speak his name out loud.
They would notice that they were scared. They would notice that while everyone looked at him as if he was the most precious thing in the world, a treasure that had finally been returned to them, they looked at him as if he could be stolen away at any second.
Kim Dokja observed all of this. Observed his companion’s relief, their fear, their joy, their blabbering. He observed all of this and realized he had changed too. Maybe the most out of all of them because of precisely that: he observed.
He may no longer be some sort of higher being looking at every story in the world, but he continued to watch this smaller world from afar, as if he wasn’t quite a part of it.
If Kim Dokja’s Company members heard that thought of his, he knew he would have to deal with several tears and loud protests.
You are here.
You are with us.
You are a part of this.
He was, wasn’t he? He was in a room filled with his companions, in a hospital led by a companion, in a world partly built by his companions, in a worldline he created along with his companions. He talked with them, laughed with them, touched them, sometimes cried with them. He was there, like he hadn’t been in a very long time, longer than they thought.
Yet, even out of his subway, even without the Fourth Wall, he still felt like something was standing between he and they. Like he was watching yet another story. One where Probability was allowing him to interfere way more than before, but another story nonetheless.
This was a scary feeling when he truly thought about it. However, he rarely did. His mind, that used to always think about something, always turning over a piece of information, trying to figure out what was the next step, seemed far away even to him. Yet, he felt like a prisoner inside it. Looking at the world through its barriers, seeing and feeling everything, but nothing seeming to truly reach him either. Like in a dream.
Kim Dokja was aware that technically speaking, he was still the Oldest Dream. His companions had managed, after much difficulty, to tell him what happened after he boarded the subway. He knew of their first failed attempt at rescuing him. Had known about it since a while actually, the broken off sentences retracing his companions’ adventures through another worldline still fresh in his mind.
Then, they told him of the second attempt, a last and desperate one they knew was close to impossible but wanted to believe in, carried by the one person who faced the word 'impossible' countless times and spit in its face. The attempt that worked, that allowed him to be there with them, back in an adult body with his stories swirling inside of him, alive and kicking and whole. Even though he was everything but. Even though there were pieces of him littering this universe, unconsciously dreaming and maintaining this world.
Perhaps a fragment of himself was still traveling the universe in that subway.
And so, even when freed from his moving prison, he continued to dream, to observe the stories of this world. He tried to hide it as best as he could, not wanting to inflict anymore pain to his companions. It worked, in a sense. Because just like he was pretending, they too choose to act as if they couldn’t see it.
Couldn’t see the way Kim Dokja was way quieter than before, unmoving as he looked at them seemingly from miles away. Couldn’t see the way he often got lost in his thoughts, having to be shaken out of them every so often. Couldn’t see the way there was an unspeakable depth behind those eyes, that seemed to have witnessed far more days than his still crease-less face and fully brown hair spoke of.
They pretended not to see it, just like he pretended to be fully there.
The first night Kim Dokja spent alone was well after ten months of coming back. His body, even back to its original form, had been way too weak to manage on his own. For the first few days, he couldn’t even speak, resorting to sending indirect messages the barely functioning system surprisingly still delivered. Now though, even if his body still felt weak, he could walk a bit on his own and move through his day more or less by himself.
After seeing him spend a full day out of bed, moving around the hospital with his cane, the others had relaxed. Seeing him every day, at nearly every waking moment, had helped most of them believe that he wouldn’t scatter into thin air again were they to let him out of their sight.
So, with a bit of coaxing, he managed to convince them to all spend this one night in the comfort of their home, in their own bed. Reluctantly, they agreed, but sworn to be back by the first ray of sunshine. And so, as the evening progressed, his room slowly emptied. Only two people remained. Sitting side by side, Han Sooyoung, who had dropped the pretense of working, and Yoo Joonghyuk, having finally left his hand alone, stared straight ahead, a stubborn look on both their faces.
Kim Dokja chuckled. Indeed, these two would be harder to convince, wouldn’t they?
“Don’t you two think you can drop the Cerberus attitude? I'm not going to escape.”
“Can never be too sure with a record like yours,” Han Sooyoung shot right back. She finally looked at him, eyes unreadable. “Why the sudden urge to be alone? Sick of us already? Too bad, we are here to stay.”
Kim Dokja grinned. “You are, aren’t you?”
There was a fondness in his voice that softened the hard edge of Han Sooyoung’s gaze. They spent some time in silence as Kim Dokja watched his friends. Both of them had let a bit of the mask slip as the last of their companion left, revealing an exhaustion carved into their every feature.
“Sooyoung-ah. Joonghyuk-ah.” Their gaze flickered towards him at the same moment. “Go rest. Just like you are here to stay, I’m also not planning on going anywhere.”
It was their turn to study him, weighing down his words. Then he heard a soft noise. The voice was quieter than it was before, the screen dimmer, but it was still easy to decipher the messages.
[‘Han Sooyoung’ has used ‘Lie Detection Lv. ???’.]
[‘Yoo Joonghyuk’ has used ‘Lie Detection Lv. ???’.]
[‘Han Sooyoung’ has confirmed that the statement is true.]
[‘Yoo Joonghyuk’ has confirmed that the statement is true.]
Kim Dokja laughed. As the saying went, old habits die hard. With mirthful eyes, he looked at the scowl they sent each other’s way before resignation and exhaustion slowly crept on their faces. With a deep sigh, Han Sooyoung got up.
She looked at Kim Dokja for a long time, as if she was trying to draw imaginary bonds that would prevent him from ever moving again, before looking down on Yoo Joonghyuk.
Lightly kicking him in the shin, she said, “Come on, you bastard, gotta let the princess get her beauty sleep.”
Yoo Joonghyuk remained firmly in his spot, he too staring at Kim Dokja with conflicted eyes. Kim Dokja offered a small smile in return. After a lengthy period of time, and some more kicks and insults from Han Sooyoung, she finally managed to get Yoo Joonghyuk to get up, then dragged him to the door. These two have grown really close, Kim Dokja thought as he looked at a grumbling Han Sooyoung and completely unfazed Yoo Joonghyuk.
Once they opened the door, both looked back reflexively. Kim Dokja was still very much there, lying in his bed with his hands crossed over his belly, a foolishly warm expression on his face. With one last look, they exited the room.
Kim Dokja looked at the closed door for a long time before letting his eyes drift towards the window. The night was still young, the moon barely high enough to bathe all of Seoul in its gentle light, but the streets were already mostly empty. After the events of the scenario, many people started revaluing their lives, and it seemed that many had chosen to give back all of its importance to domestic comfort. A warm home, filled with the scent of food and what remained of your loved ones sitting around the table had become a very popular activity everyone wished to indulge themselves into.
Kim Dokja observed the calm scenery for some time, before slowly rising from his bed. He took his time, not trying to rush through even such a simple action. He had spent years feeling like every second counted and was wasted if he wasn’t doing something. Then, he had spent even longer completely unmoving because time didn’t exist anymore so why did it matter if he didn’t do anything? As he recalled those awful memories, he thought that the luxury of time was one he was going to enjoy every bit of.
With slow and careful movements, he slipped on his shoes and grabbed his cane. He then crossed the room, eyes fixed on a piece of clothing resting in its corner. His signature white coat was there, draped over a mannequin like an item exposed in a museum. Lee Jihye had brought it, declaring dramatically that she had been the one to look after his precious coat during all of his absence, bringing it out every day to brush it clean and grieve the loss of its owner alongside it. Yoo Sangah had the kindness of waiting until the girl left to tell him that his coat had, in fact, been sitting in a cupboard in her very house, never seeing the light of the day until now.
Kim Dokja looked at it for a long time, reminiscing, before slowly removing it from the mannequin and putting it on. The last time he wore that coat, his child body had been too small to fill it completely. Now, it was back to fitting him like a glove, almost like a second skin. He thought about digging in its pockets, just to see if the items he had stored there still remained but resisted the urge. Even if they hadn’t removed all of them to expose them in the scenario museum Yoo Sangah told him about, now wasn’t the time to bring them out.
Taking a hold of his cane, Kim Dokja exited his room. His pace was unhurried, taking in the quiet atmosphere of the city. During all of his preparations, the moon had risen much higher. Nowadays, only it brightened up the night sky, nearly all of its star companions gone. A few still weakly winked at him every once in a while. He should ask Jung Heewon about Uriel. He hadn’t seen her since she went on yet another world tour with the Abyssal Black Flame Dragon and the Great Sage. He couldn’t help but chuckle at these three’s choice of career.
Kim Dokja crossed multiple streets before reaching his destination. Carefully, he climbed down the stairs until even the moon couldn’t see him anymore, the tapping of his cane his sole companion. The Apgujeong subway station was completely empty. It could be blamed on the late hour, but Kim Dokja knew it wasn’t the only reason.
“The subway is a really unpopular transportation nowadays,” Yoo Sangah had told him once. “A lot of people would much rather walk than step foot in a station again. That’s why we thought it better to not build back up all stations and reduce the number of lines. Now, there are only two or three trains per day cycling around Seoul, serving the most important locations.”
And among them, only one functioned at night. Actually, it never stopped, continuously circling around the city. That’s the one Kim Dokja was waiting for right now.
If his companions knew of his location, he would probably actually get chained to his bed. They would never understand why he would willingly go back there, at this station out of all of them. Even he questioned his own choice. He didn’t have a single good memory associated with the subway since the scenarios. It was in a train that the nightmare began, and it was in another train where it nearly ended in the worst way possible.
After spending all this time in a train car, staring at stories as he slowly crumpled away, one might wonder how he could even stand the sight of it as it slowly stopped in front of him. Kim Dokja wouldn’t be able to explain it either, actually. All he knew was that when he stepped into the empty train, he felt like he had fulfilled a mission of his. As if he had cleared another scenario. It was without being assaulted by any system or indirect messages that Kim Dokja sat down though, everything still utterly silent.
This subway was barely any different from the one he lived in as the Oldest Dream. His lack of use was evident by its cleanness, looking nearly new. Kim Dokja sucked in a shaky breath as the doors closed and the subway got back on tracks.
He stared at the windows, at the utter darkness beyond them. He knew that nothing but the tunnel walls were beyond there, but he couldn’t help but be reminded of the dark universe spreading behind the glass for him to see. And this time, there were no story panel to fill his view, and no Fourth Wall to distract him from it.
The Fourth Wall. He wondered many times what happened to it. His companions had told him all about the fight that opposed them to it as they retrieved his fragmented body. Han Sooyoung had revealed its identity to him in a long conversation they had one night, as she described to him her trip back in the first worldline.
Still, even with all these elements, he couldn’t bring himself to quite hate it. If it wasn’t for this wall, how many times would he have died in the scenarios? How could he even have cleared them if it wasn’t for this fragment? How could he have saved Yoo Sangah, or fulfilled his promise to the Secretive Plotter?
How could he have survived this unending length of time in this subway, dreaming away this universe stories?
He wondered if the Fourth Wall was still up there. If it too was looking out of the window at this dark expanse of nothingness. Maybe it ceased to exist. Maybe that subway, having lost its occupant, had ceased to exist as well. As he looked around this car, he wondered if it was a bad thing.
Kim Dokja continued to think as the subway circled Seoul. One stop, two stops, three stops. Nobody ever boarded it.
That is, until the fourth one.
As a tall and broad silhouette of a man draped in black appeared beyond the glass, Kim Dokja almost believed himself to be the Oldest Dream again, watching this very man’s story as he went through hundreds of regressions. And then, the doors opened, and the man left the story panel to plant himself right in front of him.
Kim Dokja looked up. Yoo Joonghyuk looked back.
They stayed like that as the train continued his course, not a word exchanged. A hint of anger could be detected in Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes, but Kim Dokja’s own never strayed or shied away from it. It was a righteous anger. But just like he had all the rights to be mad, Kim Dokja had all the rights to be there.
And Yoo Joonghyuk seemed to know it as that anger slowly drained out of him to leave place to resignation. Without speaking a word, he dropped next to Kim Dokja. His unhappy eyes took on a glassy look as he too started to reminisce about the past. After all, Kim Dokja wasn’t the only one to have spent an ungodly amount of time in a subway. Hadn’t Yoo Joonghyuk awakened in one 1864 times? Going through the same horrible first scenario over and over again, starting to prepare for the horrors to come in the same train car.
As he thought it over, Kim Dokja suddenly remembered something.
“There was this young boy in the front-most subway car that always died during every regression turn.” Yoo Joonghyuk stiffened before looking at him with furrowed brows. He didn’t know why he was recalling such a thing right now, but he still felt the need to speak. “In the 1865th turn… did you manage to save him?”
Yoo Joonghyuk looked at him for a long time before replying, “No.” He hesitated before saying, "I didn't try to this time."
Kim Dokja looked at him curiously. "Why?"
"Is it worth it to save someone only to put them through so much more pain afterwards?"
Silence blanketed the car. Kim Dokja reached for his hand, intertwining their fingers tightly as if to convey everything he wished to say but didn't have the words to express. Or rather, what he could never manage to say enough.
I'm sorry.
Yoo Joonghyuk squeezed back.
I forgave you a lifetime ago.
Both went back to observing the darkness, lost in their own thoughts. They went by several stops like that. Until another figure appeared on the otherwise empty platform. The doors opened to reveal a grey-coated and very grumpy-looking Han Sooyoung.
“I knew you bastard would do something like that.”
Grumbling away about how Kim Dokja could never be trusted, Han Sooyoung sat by his other side, glaring at the darkness once again enveloping the subway train. She glanced at their joined hands and prettily grabbed his other one, sticking out her tongue at Yoo Joonghyuk's blank stare.
“I don’t understand why you would even think about coming here,” she spoke after a long silence. “There cannot be a single positive memory associated with that place in that small brain of yours, can it?”
“Correct,” Kim Dokja nodded. He smiled at Han Sooyoung’s glare demanding an explanation. “Sometimes, the worst place on earth needs to be visited at least once more for one to truly feel like they have left it.”
Han Sooyoung’s expression darkened at the same time as Yoo Joonghyuk’s. He knew his words held a lot of unspoken emotions. A weight his two very tired companions shouldn't have to carry with him. But he had done enough hiding, hadn’t he?
“Kim Dokja.” Yoo Joonghyuk didn’t look at him as he asked, “How long did you spend in that subway?”
Han Sooyoung looked bewildered by the question and was preparing herself for a scathing reply related to how he could simply count himself when Kim Dokja whispered, “21,763 years.”
Yoo Joonghyuk remained silent.
“How…” Han Sooyoung muttered, the gears in her brain working around this information.
Understanding dawned on her before he opened his mouth, but he replied nonetheless, “Considering where I was, earth time didn’t exactly apply. That’s the perceived time the Fourth Wall gave me, though.”
21,763 years scattering away in a subway train car, all in order to preserve this universe. This feeling of slowly losing himself to the stories he consumed was one he couldn’t shake off until now. The idea that pieces of him were still wandering about the universe, doing what he had done in that damn subway, haunted him every single day. He would never be whole again. A part of him would always remain in this subway.
“Kim Dokja, what’s your favorite color?”
He blinked once. Then twice. Then once more before looking with utter bewilderment at a dead serious Han Sooyoung.
“What?”
“I asked you what your favorite color is.”
He stared some more before slowly replying, “Green?”
Han Sooyoung looked down on his coat for some time before shaking her head and continuing on. “Your favorite food?”
“Murim dumplings.”
“Your favorite place.”
This continued on and on for several stops. Han Sooyoung fired a basic question and Kim Dokja replied with confusion. Then, as the questions continued to pile up, he slowly started to see what Han Sooyoung was aiming at.
She looked at him for a long time before saying, “I don’t know what stupid thoughts have been running inside your head, but you, you are Kim Dokja. I don’t care about how long you spent somewhere or soul fragments wandering about. The fool sitting before me is Kim Dokja through and through, without a single piece missing. All these dumb facts make up who you are.”
Kim Dokja liked the river better than the sea. Kim Dokja hated tomatoes. Kim Dokja liked foxes the most. Kim Dokja enjoyed autumn. Kim Dokja had an irrational fear of dolphins. All these little facts, that seemed insignificant taken individually, became him once put together.
With a shaking but firm voice, Han Sooyoung dropped the bomb, “Nothing was left behind in that damn subway.” Kim Dokja sucked in a sharp breath and looked at her. Han Sooyoung was teary-eyed, thousands of emotions lurking behind her determination. That was when he realized that maybe this fear of not being whole, of having left something behind that he would never recover… maybe that fear wasn’t one he alone dealt with.
She continued, “Whoever ‘reincarnated’ as you in other worlds isn’t Kim Dokja. They don’t like the same things as you, they don’t remember the same things as you, they haven’t lived through the same things as you. Maybe their name is Chad Anderson from Ohio who loves tomatoes, have you thought of that?”
Kim Dokja laughed loudly at that. Right. Wasn’t she right? If Kim Dokja was Kim Dokja who hated tomatoes and could remember every single moment of those damned scenario, could someone else who didn’t share his tastes and memories, even with a piece of his soul residing inside them, also be Kim Dokja? If he were to unknowingly be faced with his reincarnation, would he be able to tell? Sure, they apparently all shared a passion for reading and tendency to daydream, but couldn’t it be blamed on the Oldest Dream pieces living inside them rather than Kim Dokja himself?
Kim Dokja’s attention returned to the present as the doors of the subway opened once more. They were back at Apgujeong station. They had come full circle already.
Without exchanging a single world, the three of them got up in a single movement and walked out of the subway. As his two companions walked forward, each of them supporting one of his arms as the tiredness of his little expedition started to dawn on him, Kim Dokja looked back. He watched as the doors of the subway train closed and it slowly left the station. He watched until it completely disappeared in the dark tunnel, on its way for another turn.
He waited for this feeling of loss to submerge him, but it never did. If anything, he felt like he had picked something back up inside there. He turned back, taking a look at his companions, who never once faltered in their step. They walked forward without even taking a glance behind them. What they were looking at was him.
Yoo Joonghyuk observed him for a long time, as if looking for something. Kim Dokja didn’t know what it was, but he seemed to find it as something in his expression relaxed. Tightening his grip on his arm, Yoo Joonghyuk said, “Let’s go back, Kim Dokja.”
Kim Dokja smiled and nodded, following the sure but unhurried pace of his companions.
They walked out of the station. The night had gone. Dawn greeted them.