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The first time Kim Dokja tries to die, it’s with purpose.
The cold air whips against his skin on the rooftop — bare, purple and brown with bruising and giving him an ill-fitted limp as he walks. He barely managed to hobble his way up here on the first place, barely managed to scramble up the wire fencing and across the protective barrier. He could easily lean over the edge, fingers gripping the wiring so harshly that the metal digs into his fingers, but it barely registers within his mind. All Kim Dokja can think about is his mother, of a night of broken glass and shouts, a knife taken from his hand and the embrace that held him as a boy being handcuffed and only ever seen beyond a plastic pane.
He can hear the faint shriek of laughter, of a life he'll never have — the son of a murderer, a wolf-in-sheep's-clothing, who's biggest crime was surviving and punishment being that he wished he never did. Here, where his feet shift and slip and he can feel his heart in the base of his throat, Kim Dokja wonders if this is what he's been surviving for. To crawl on his hands and knees through the days, each one worse than the last, each one bringing another scar or bruise he cannot explain away with a stray trip or fall.
Experimentally, Kim Dokja releases one of the hands that kept him plastered to the wiring fencing, allowing himself to balance idly with one foot out the metaphorical door. He can hear the brief sound of the first bell, the noise jolting him out of whatever trance he had been trapped in.
He'd gotten so far this time — his first attempt had him crying before he could even approach the fencing, too afraid of failing to even attempt it. Too afraid of being told he should've gone all in if he were to attempt it at all. It took him weeks to be able to even climb the fence, and even then all he did was sit on the edge, teetering but never taking the initiation to do what he dreams of day in and day out.
Now, after waiting for a twisted ankle from a particularly bad hallway encounter to heal enough for him to be able to climb at all, he realizes that things were building up for this moment alone.
Time seems to slow down for a moment as Kim Dokja lets his other hand go from the fence, only relying on his own balance to keep him in place even as his feet hang over the edge. The second bell chimes, this one a warning for classes to officially begin, but he can barely hear it due to the waves rushing in his ears. He pushes against the fence and hopes something will take pity on him and give him a better life next time.
(Kim Dokja falls to the sound of children laughing, but all he can hear are the trees rustling in the wind and the cracking of the branches underneath him as he tumbles down... down... down...)
The second time Kim Dokja dies, it wasn't meant to happen at all.
He had been looking into the Revelators, a rogue group of people who were more infatuated with a knock-off version of his beloved Three Ways of Survival than interested in thinking critically. It's a bit ironic, he thinks, that these people so similar to him in their knowledge of this world were the ones to cause his first death within it. He had barely been able to reach the flag and get his King of No Killing attribute before the flames were upon him and his party members could only watch on in horror, unaware of his (albeit rushed) back-up plan for his upcoming demise.
This wasn't to say that Kim Dokja was prepared for his death, no matter how many times he's read and read of Yoo Joonghyuk's experience with it.
He feels the heat of the flame before he can even register seeing it, but that faint heat quickly turned scalding within moments. His nose filled with smoke, but he was unable to cough due to everything else feeling set alight. He couldn't breathe, a mixture of all of the oxygen in his general proximity being burnt away as well as the burning within his throat and lungs making him unable to even consider it, but the worst was undoubtedly the feeling in his hands and head.
Kim Dokja had burnt himself before — burnt himself on a cup of too hot ramen when he was too tired and hungry to care, burnt himself on his overheating hand-me-down personal laptop moments before it was beyond saving in the middle of a major assignment of his, but nothing could compare to the feeling that he was experiencing in that moment.
At first, the feeling was so overwhelming that it almost seemed to blend together. Kim Dokja felt nothing but numbness and could smell the faint scent of burning hair before he realized it wasn't just his hair that was burning. Then everything seemed to rush in — he felt like he was melting, like nothing could hurt more than this moment in time no matter how many things he's done to himself before it. His brain felt like it was melting within his skull, unable to even cry from agony as he could only gasp for air that wasn't there; air he wouldn't have the time to breathe in anyway.
The Fourth Wall kicked in after a few seconds, but those moments felt like years. The pain had lessened, but it was more like it went from him literally burning alive and feeling each moment of it to feeling like he was simply being boiled instead. It was no more than a small comfort, but Kim Dokja was thankful for it nonetheless. As his vision grew blurry and spotty, all he could think of was how he hoped he'd never need to use this way out again.
(All Jung Heewon, Lee Hyunsung, and the Apostles could see was a man grinning in the face of his own death, even as he was engulfed in flame. Jung Heewon swore to herself to never see the scene again.)
The third time Kim Dokja dies, it was out of frustration.
Yoo Joonghyuk, for as much as he was a daring, intelligent protagonist, was quite stupid when it came to considering anything other than slashing down his immediate obstacles. Kim Dokja knew this, in the way his manner of speaking was often clipped and blunt, and had almost grown fond of it — but facing down Shin Yoosung of the 41st Round made him realize how screwed he would be without his protagonist halo.
"—It's all for that damned sense of justice of yours," the cloaked girl gave a shaky gasp before continuing. "I hate you for living in this world alone."
Shin Yoosung's sentiments felt like a hollow echo of Yoo Joonghyuk's. Both were simple cogs in the machine of the Star Stream, just that they were unfortunately given the curse of being aware of their roles and unable to move beyond them. In the way that Yoo Joonghyuk felt despair in the face of the fact that none of his companions would remember their lives before that round, Shin Yoosung found despair in the way she would never be anything more than a tool to the regressor.
Kim Dokja couldn't help but find a bit of himself within the disaster, couldn't help but remember his nights of reading and thinking that he'd do the same thing in her position. What was the point of wandering the labyrinth, of losing her world again and again only to be considered nothing more than a source of information for the man she'd survive long enough to aid? If it were Kim Dokja, he would've long since allowed himself to fade away, just like how he had tried in his own youth.
"There's one thing that I'll tell you, Captain," she sneered the title as though it were bitter on her tongue, drawing back and gathering energy in her right hand. "Your third regression will end here, and by my hand alone."
Kim Dokja isn't quite sure what moved him to act in that moment — maybe he was afraid of what would happen to the world without it's regressor, maybe he just didn't want to see the protagonist die right in front of his eyes — but before he knew it he had shoved Yoo Joonghyuk to the side and was suddenly missing half of his abdomen.
The metallic taste of blood filled his senses as he coughed, falling to the ground like a rag-doll as he could just barely register his name being called. He staggered, grasping at Yoo Joonghyuk's coat as though to stabilize himself, but it was far too late. The realism of the scenarios hadn't quite set in completely, despite his encounter with the dragon, some part of Kim Dokja was still viewing this world through the lens of a reader. Only then and there did he remember that in this world, all it took was one stray misstep or a bit of bad luck before you were gone.
Even through it all, Kim Dokja managed to give Yoo Joonghyuk a bitter smile. His teeth were stained crimson, with some bits of blood still stuck on the corner of his mouth, but he managed to scrape together enough energy to speak.
"Hey, you stupid sunfish, there's still some time left. Go ahead and kill me already."
"What? No, there's still time!" Kim Dokja's vision was swimming now, overwhelmed with nausea and a need to vomit, but the vision of Yoo Joonghyuk holding him close as though he mattered felt like some sort of deathbed hallucination.
"Idiot. Just kill me already and get your coins," the reader scolded, though there was no bite behind his words. Somewhere, in the back of his mind before his consciousness had begun to fade into nothing, he remembered how he never told Yoo Joonghyuk about his king privilege. His ears were ringing now, the aching numbness from blood loss just barely nullified by the Fourth Wall.
(Here, Kim Dokja had died on the battlefield, died being held close like there would be someone to mourn him.)
The fourth time Kim Dokja dies, it was out of desperation.
The butterfly effect was in full swing, perhaps most exemplified by how warped the incarnation rankings were, and the conflict between Yoo Joonghyuk and Nirvana were only another one of Kim Dokja's problems. The definition of "strongest" was left vague, but some instinct deep within Kim Dokja's gut told him that things wouldn't be based off pure strength alone. He had played all his current cards when trying to convince that damned sunfish not to regress, but that was only a drop in the ocean of issues Kim Dokja found himself waist deep in.
"I'm only fourth? Really?" Han Sooyoung almost whined, giving a quick glance to where Kim Dokja had been lying on the ground in a slowly growing pool of his own blood. She poked him with an almost disinterested stare, as though seeing a man slowly bleed to death in front of her wasn't that unusual. Considering everything that had happened so far, maybe it wasn't. "Imagine you're in third place and you die for nothing! I'd love to see the expression your face after you revive — you will revive after this, right?"
Kim Dokja didn't respond, more concerned with trying to stay conscious enough to think through the next steps of his plan than bicker with the plagiarist next to him. Han Sooyoung only gave a sharp exhale, turning away from the reader and complaining under her breath. It was strange to see the man who had practically singlehandedly guided their entire group into the coming scenarios slowly dying in front of her, at his request no less.
Distantly, Kim Dokja could hear the faint smashing of terrain and the aftermath of Yoo Joonghyuk and Nirvana's battle. It quickly faded into the background as Kim Dokja found it more and more difficult to think about anything aside from the sticky sensation of blood in his clothes and flashes of heat and cold running through him. He felt dizzy, as though he were standing at the top of a tall tower and looking down. The irony of once again being at the edge of a tall building and expecting a coming death wasn't lost on him, it even led to him reminiscing of his school days for a moment, but the dull memory of the sensation of broken bones made him realize that making himself suffer more than he was already wasn't the best decision.
[108 evil spirits have begun to gnaw at your mind!]
Things were falling to shit, and quickly. Kim Dokja let out a sharp hiss as he readjusted himself, unintentionally irritating the wound more as he tried to will himself to faint faster. Finally, after what seemed to be eons, Yoo Joonghyuk finally did his end of the (unsaid) bargain and thought exactly what the reader had been waiting for.
Took you long enough, you jerk, Kim Dokja mused from within Yoo Joonghyuk's mind. Take a break.
The conflict was over rather quickly once Kim Dokja took the helm, but it could only have been accomplished that smoothly based on what Yoo Joonghyuk had managed so far. The Fourth Wall had devoured Nirvana, Yoo Joonghyuk hadn't regressed, and everything seemed to be back in place. Kim Dokja clenched and unclenched his — no, Yoo Joonghyuk's — hand as the satisfaction of winning set in.
As the adrenaline begun to slow, a wave of exhaustion suddenly overcame Kim Dokja. His movements felt sluggish and his head felt like it was underwater, he could barely catch the announcement of the dokkaebi before he collapsed, vision blurring as he hit the ground below.
(Kim Dokja died an unsung hero, bathed in the glory of a battle he had only ever experienced through written word. Perhaps this was the best death a reader could've asked for.)
The sixth time Kim Dokja died, he did it after fighting by Yoo Joonghyuk's side.
The Devourer of Dreams was a necessary evil, one that Kim Dokja was confident he could defeat if need be. He had plan after plan, and if all else failed, he knew there was at least one surefire way to see it to the end.
"Yoo Joonghyuk." The pair were far beyond their limits, with Yoo Joonghyuk's body seeming to creak with each minute movement and Kim Dokja just barely able to stay conscious. "Can you do it? For old time's sake."
The regressor gave him an odd look, a depth to his gaze that went far beyond emotions that could be described with mere words. "We won't need to hold yet another funeral, will we? Building that coffin took far too long."
Kim Dokja only gave him a smug grin in response. "Don't be like that, you know I'll be back — after all, you can't get rid of me yet. I have a promise to keep, and so do you."
Seeming to have been sated with the response, Yoo Joonghyuk moved to dangle the reader over the lovecraftian beast that he would be tasked with defeating.
"Just think of it like the second scenario," Kim Dokja's voice was oddly soft, and maybe that was what caused Yoo Joonghyuk's firm gaze to shake for a moment. "So release that hand of yours and get lost, you damned bastard."
Yoo Joonghyuk's grip stilled from where it had been trembling with overuse and exertion before he finally dropped Kim Dokja with a sense of almost reluctance.
The sensation of falling wasn't unfamiliar to Kim Dokja, tucked in his memories of long ago and promptly shut away like an unloved book on a bottom shelf. Once he got past the open part of the creature's wound, his drop seemed to slow until he began to simply float in place instead. Kim Dokja could feel a gaze far beyond his own upon him as the Fourth Wall valiantly struggled to protect its user.
"I've come to tell you a story." It was time for Kim Dokja to get to work.
Just as it had been so many times before now, Three Ways of Survival had done him no wrong. Or, more specifically, the 135th Yoo Joonghyuk of it that had saved him this time.
[You... What the hell are you?] By the time the Devourer of Dreams had realized what was going on, it was far too late. Kim Dokja only shrugged and let the consequences of its actions speak for themselves.
"It seems certain stories aren't fit for consumption, even by you."
(Kim Dokja learned far more during this death, about himself, about the Fourth Wall, and perhaps about the foundation of the world he had started to live in to begin with. As his stream of consciousness faded out yet again, Kim Dokja found himself wondering when exactly the feeling of dying had become so familiar to him.)
The seventh time Kim Dokja dies, it was premeditated.
"Kim Dokja, make sure you keep your promise."
The absence of the original 73rd Demon King wasn't exactly what Kim Dokja had expected to happen as a result of all the twists he'd put into the story so far, but it wasn't exactly out of the question either. There were many times that Yoo Joonghyuk had taken on the mantle of demon king, for varying reasons each time, but this time couldn't be one of them.
There was a clashing of blades and the blinding gleam of the sword edges as Yoo Sangah, Han Sooyoung, Yoo Joonghyuk and Kim Dokja all danced around each other in the world's worst game of hot potato.
"He never cared about us at all!" Han Sooyoung shouted, trapped under debris even as her clones ran wild. "He's just going to become the demon king and leave us behind, just like I always knew he would!"
But Han Sooyoung didn't know Yoo Joonghyuk the way Kim Dokja did, she didn't know the way the regressor had his jaw set firm as though he would rather die than give up his role. She didn't know just how far the man in front of them would go once he found something to fight for; someone to fight for.
"Stop making this difficult, hunt me and go onto the next scenario." Yoo Joonghyuk held a blade to Kim Dokja's throat, his face just as close as the day on the bridge. "Your resurrection skill is useless here, and your fate has yet to be realized."
Kim Dokja pushed back against him, managing to send him flying if only for a moment. "You idiot! What about your goal?! What about the promise you made!"
Yoo Joonghyuk only glared at the reader with renewed vigor, clearly unable to be convinced of anything different than his current decision. "Do it on my behalf." If his voice cracked, then Kim Dokja made no comment on it.
Kim Dokja hesitated for a moment, lost for a moment in trying to find a way to fix the scenario before it got too out of hand. Maybe Yoo Joonghyuk misread his moment of silence, because he spoke again with a tone so resigned it was as though he were a dead man. "This world won't end the moment I do, so there's no issue."
He activated Red Phoenix Shunpo before abruptly clashing against Kim Dokja, knocking the smaller man to the ground and pinning him down with a blade next to his head. "Live, Kim Dokja. Save this world in my place."
Kim Dokja, of course, proceeded to do the exact opposite.
"Are you insane? Absolutely not, who would read a story without the protagonist?" Kim Dokja said, activating Miniaturization with a flourish as he rolled out of his hold. He searched the cave around him before finally landing on Lee Gilyoung.
"Gilyoung-ie, please give that to me," Kim Dokja's voice was soft even as Yoo Joonghyuk continued to scream from where he had been thrown into the wall. The boy had tried to protest, but Kim Dokja was simply too fast. As weak as he was to him, this was simply something that couldn't be avoided.
The overflowing power of the jade filled Kim Dokja instantaneously. The adrenaline that filled him felt like that day on the subway when it all began — the thrill of a new world, the power of being at the top of a newly created food chain. With a quick glance to his party members, amidst the crumbling rubble and the faint filtered sunlight, Kim Dokja realized that maybe this wasn't the worst way he'd have to die.
("It was such a great story, wasn't it?"
Kim Dokja was once again held in Yoo Joonghyuk's arms in his final moments, once again left to bleed in exchange for those he cared about's lives. Yoo Joonghyuk's grip was firmer this time, more desperate than it had been back in the Disaster of Floods. His face was twisted with an emotion that Kim Dokja was too tired to try and understand.
"Let's meet again," Kim Dokja murmured, his tongue like cotton and his head growing heavy as it drooped against Yoo Joonghyuk. Blearily, Kim Dokja attempted to reach out for his head, if only to relieve his long held yearning to give his beloved protagonist the hair ruffle of the century. In the blindness of his fading vision, he instead knocked weakly against the man's face. "Sorry, ruined that dark and brooding vibe you had going on," Kim Dokja managed to chuckle out even as he streaked his own blood against his cheek.
"Please, not like this. Anything but this." Yoo Joonghyuk seemed to be crying now, his grip only ever tightening even as Kim Dokja began to fade away. "Kim Dokja, don't leave me like this. Not you too.")
The eighth time Kim Dokja almost dies, he had tried his best to struggle against it with all his might.
The Final Dragon had been difficult, perhaps the most difficult battle that Kim Dokja had fought so far, but he still fought on. The fog of darkness was beyond any of his nebula member's reach, leaving him with no choice but to hope that at least one of the people he had pleaded with before hand would be willing to come and fish him out.
[The story "Demon King of Salvation" is continuing with its storytelling!]
It was something akin to when children who were lovingly raised by their parents had grown up enough to take care of them in return. The very stories that Kim Dokja had nurtured and adored were now the only things keeping him from being reduced to nothing. Even after speaking with Sakyamuni and ensuring his companions safety, some deep part of him hoped that he'd be right there with them. But when the Mandala's Guardian had firmly told him he was beyond saving, when even his stories began to dwindle and fade in time with his vision, Kim Dokja began to wonder if this really was it.
The desperation with which he used to cling onto what was left of his life was strange, especially with how lax he had been with all of his deaths beforehand. Maybe it was his new promise to his companions to avoid that method, maybe it was his own selfishness in wanting to see the story through to the end, but even as his own stories began to die out, Kim Dokja read. He read his beloved Three Ways of Survival the same way he had read it all those years ago — with a sense of thirst that only a dying man had, in the same fervent manner as someone struggling not to drown in the ocean.
[The story "Life and Death Companions" is continuing with its storytelling!]
The same protagonist he had lived through, had gotten through each excruciating day to read of, the very man that had brought him this far wasn't all that far away now. Kim Dokja felt sluggish, partially due to his stories having cut out a long time ago and the precarious state of his incarnation body. He could practically hear Yoo Joonghyuk now, could almost see his scarred hands reaching out for him.
Even as half dead as he was, Kim Dokja would never do anything in spite of his beloved protagonist. So, he met him halfway, and reached out in return.
(But it was too late, the arm of the beloved protagonist he had reached for wasn't the one he had been traveling with all this time, but a different one entirely.)
The first time that Kim Dokja survives, he finds that maybe he would've preferred to have died instead.
The subway was just as cold as the rooms where he met with his mother so long ago. Clinical and empty, foreign and just off-putting enough for Kim Dokja to be unable to ease the bristle he so often wore like a well loved coat.
[Yo u cho se this.] The Fourth Wall reminds him, maybe a bit too smug than is needed for a simple pop-up message, but that's beside the point. It's ironic how quickly the relationship between them changed — from skill and skill-user to man and captor — but the inherent humor of it fails to wash away Kim Dokja's exhaustion.
The eerie silence of the subway carriage, broken only by the rumbling of the train (How? Are there tracks somewhere?) that drains what little energy he had left in their monotony. Though he still technically had the Fourth Wall, he felt exposed in the silence, wholly and truly alone for the first time in a long time.
It's cold, even with his coat on, but Kim Dokja isn't sure that his shivering is entirely due to the temperature. He leans his head against the subway window, feeling the shaking and stuttering along it's passageway in the way it sends his head reeling and nausea coursing through his entire being. He's filled with a primal urge to flee; to get off this godforsaken subway and go home, go anywhere but be stuck in place, but he knew he lost that chance the moment he watched his companions walk away with the inferior version of himself.
In his misery, Kim Dokja feels his grip on the chair he's sitting on tighten as he wonders whether or not he had played into the Fourth Wall's hands all along. As his hands tighten even more against the metallic steel of the arms, he wishes his hands were once again twisted in the wire fencing of his school rooftop. At least, back then, all he had to do was fall.