Chapter Text
Yoo Sangah’s intrusions had already become the new normal.
The moment Han Sooyoung woke up, she was met with the sight of Yoo Sangah in her room again, smiling softly.
Han Sooyoung had crashed on the couch, and Yoo Sangah was now sitting on her chair, reading the manuscript of her new novel.
Han Sooyoung wanted to rebuke her but found she didn't really have the energy. She had been buried in her writing the entirety of last night, and the consequence of not having eaten was that her anger was sapped.
Noticing that she had awoken, Yoo Sangah went over with a polite, warm smile, even carrying fancy hot tea and snacks.
“You should eat some,” Yoo Sangah said softly, and it seemed as if she was good at caring for others, seemed as if Han Sooyoung needed her care.
Han Sooyoung opened her dry eyes and stared at Yoo Sangah. No matter how one looked at it, she wore a fake and perfect mask.
Her head hurt.
The worst thing about writing all night was the consequences after.
The consequences involved oversleeping, as well as people she didn't want to see being in the room.
In this house, it was only Yoo Sangah who would invade her writing room. Whenever Han Sooyoung wrote, she wouldn't eat or sleep the entire day, and since staying up put her in a bad mood, no one dared bother her—except for Yoo Sangah.
Out of everyone, Yoo Sangah was the least afraid of bothering Han Sooyoung.
So, Yoo Sangah would take advantage of Han Sooyoung’s sleep comas by intruding into her room, cunningly bringing along delicious food.
Han Sooyoung’s stomach had already surrendered to the seductive fragrance of waffles.
But she did not surrender to Yoo Sangah.
“Why’d you come again?” Han Sooyoung asked, dismissive and unfriendly.
Still, someone had to eat the food.
She grabbed a piece of waffle, put it in her mouth, and quickly chewed on it. Soft and sweet, it tasted like happiness in the form of carbs.
Yoo Sangah seemed to frown—Han Sooyoung didn’t care if her unmannered eating disturbed her—and handed her a tissue and a fork.
“I wanted to read it,” she answered curtly.
Actually, Yoo Sangah was already reading it. She was already thoroughly and carefully reading Han Sooyoung’s story.
An uninvited reader was still a reader, and it wasn’t as if Han Sooyoung rejected them.
But the most hateful part about Yoo Sangah was she wasn’t just satisfied with being a reader. She had to be an editor, too.
Not only did she point out typos or punctuation errors, but Yoo Sangah also voiced a lot of opinions on revising Han Sooyoung’s narration of Kim Dokja.
Han Sooyoung mostly skimped them. She was exhausted and had too much to deal with. In the beginning of the story, trivial stories hadn’t become myths yet, so only those who had been there remembered the details of such stories. In order to write Kim Dokja’s story, she needed to source from these people. As a writer, Han Sooyoung gave them voices, but how one adapted them was the author’s decision.
She could veto things since she knew what was important, and her writing didn’t need too much of Yoo Sangah’s narrative.
But one evening, Yoo Sangah was quietly recounting it.
The moonlight flowed over her like water.
The moonlight dimly traced her silhouette.
The overcast Yoo Sangah looked like the carefully carved statue of a goddess, inhumanly beautiful within her compassionate sorrow.
As Yoo Sangah looked at her, a tear suddenly fell from her eye.
Only this single, restrained tear trickled in the moonlight.
“I’m… sorry…”
But she suddenly couldn’t hold back her tears.
In front of Han Sooyoung, Yoo Sangah could not stop sobbing.
That moment of her rolling tears, her trembling voice, her anguished expression, that urgent sorrow was exclusively human, was exclusively Yoo Sangah’s to express.
“I… please give me a minute or two. I’ll be fine in a second—I just want to finish what I have to say.”
Han Sooyoung suddenly realized that Yoo Sangah had no other place to tell these things.
There wasn’t any place in the world that could hold her narrative other than the tip of Han Sooyoung’s pen.
The Kim Dokja from the past, the Kim Dokja who was ordinary, the Kim Dokja who worked at Minosoft, the Kim Dokja behind the fourth wall, in the library within that wall, the Kim Dokja who forged the apocalypse… the Kim Dokja that only Yoo Sangah remembered.
The person they had lost, the story that was doomed to be forgotten, Yoo Sangah wished for Han Sooyoung to listen to her talk about it.
Yoo Sangah knew that she would understand this.
Yoo Sangah also wished for her to write it.
Han Sooyoung clutched her pen tightly.
Han Sooyoung sat up straight, quietly a little more serious.
In Yoo Sangah’s narrative, she tried to describe Kim Dokja’s kind heart, the side of him that worried for his companions.
She said when Kim Dokja saw the scar on her hand, he would look at her with sad eyes.
She said she knew that, from the bottom of his heart, he was sorry to her…
“Did he really think that then? Are you sure?”
“I know he thought like that, I was the one who was there. I know you’re the one writing, but please respect the true story.”
This was what made her so dislikable. They really couldn’t get along.
Han Sooyoung thought, Though, the kind of person one is makes them see the same side in others, so her words might not be false.
Han Sooyoung couldn’t win over Yoo Sangah.
In the end, she could only write down Kim Dokja’s remorse, but she secretly added the reality of Kim Dokja’s cold-blooded, selfish behavior.
She wrote in how Kim Dokja cut Yoo Sangah’s neck just to threaten Olympus—she prevented Yoo Sangah from watching her write it.
It wasn’t because she wanted to yield to Yoo Sangah, but because she wanted to write her stress relief in secret, berate her a bit. Then she would delete those venting words before she started writing seriously.
Yoo Sangah would always find out, since she was Han Sooyoung’s unwelcome guest. Han Sooyoung silently “falsified” the story she provided, and when Yoo Sangah finished, she also silently left a comment.
“This part’s wrong.”
Yoo Sangah kept quietly submitting text comments as if she was correcting some sort of document.
Han Sooyoung simply smiled when she saw them, and though she occasionally accepted the revisions, most of the time, she didn’t.
They communicated wordlessly through reading and writing, only reading and writing, neither fighting nor quarreling.
Because now, their confrontation went on in silence.
“What’s going on with ‘Moonlight Empress’ and ‘Black Flames Demon Ruler’?
Sometimes, Yoo Sangah would directly ask questions while reading, completely unembarrassed.
Han Sooyoung didn’t expect her to be so calm, as she originally wanted to tease Yoo Sangah a bit. Only the Abyssal Black Flame Dragon liked such embarrassing titles, and Han Sooyoung had just been writing them as a joke.
She wanted to wait until an embarrassed Yoo Sangah protested before changing it. To be honest, she had just done it on a whim, something for Han Sooyoung to take a break from serious writing.
But alas, Yoo Sangah was so fickle—either she was too humorous, or she had no sense of humor at all.
Or, Yoo Sangah actually liked being called ‘Moonlight Empress’. If that were the case, Han Sooyoung wouldn’t mind advertising herself as a “Black Flames Demon Ruler” to the world. It wasn’t that embarrassing a name.
“I copied the top secret document from the Gyeonggi Alliance that you brought me recently…”
Han Sooyoung stared at the apple waffles and lemon sorbet that Yoo Sangah had brought. She had barely been staring for two seconds before Yoo Sangah had already given her tissues, a fork, and a straw.
“When Kim Dokja isn’t here, the company’s decision-making split into two factions fighting over power and profits… To them, our divisiveness is Kim Dokja Company’s biggest weakness.”
Han Sooyoung stuck in her straw and took a sip—Yoo Sangah’s choice of cafes was always not bad. She was pretty talented at living a petty, bourgeoisie life.
“You definitely haven’t read it. That document was a full forty-five pages about our conflicts.”
Yoo Sangah definitely hadn’t seen it, as she had been too busy and preferred not to read any articles after work, regardless of content.
But she surely remembered how they were constantly fighting at that time, and she definitely remembered it more clearly than Han Sooyoung.
They weren’t that well known figures.
Even then, when a street in the Gyeonggi Province exploded, rumors passed around: It was the “Black Flames Demon Ruler” and “Moonlight Empress” fighting.
However, such a weak link in Kim Dokja’s Company never existed, as even though they frequently clashed, they never actually fought.
“Are you going to add fictionalized elements?” Yoo Sangah asked a little coldly.
“Nah.” Han Sooyoung sucked on her sorbet, which was extremely chilly. “We’re not the protagonists, so we won’t have that many lines. Also, you hate me, so it’s not fiction.”
Yoo Sangah looked at her.
Han Sooyoung looked back.
They were both silent.
Yoo Sangah’s eyes were complicated, since when had her eyes become so complicated?
Was it after she became the survivor, became Sakyamuni’s successor?
After Yoo Sangah returned from samsara, her vision had become otherworldly and compassionate.
But there were some things that her reincarnation didn’t complicate. Some things, for Yoo Sangah, had never changed. She was sometimes sharp and prickly, others times, like now, somewhat unreadable and vague—the only similarity was that these traits were always for Han Sooyoung to see.
“Chungmuro.” Yoo Sangah finally whispered, “don’t forget to write the origins.”
Oh, and here she thought this Sangah-ssi would never mention Chungmoro again for her whole lifetime.
Han Sooyoung sucked on her sorbet so hard that the straw deflated.
The First Apostle, Han Sooyoung.
Chungmuro Station’s Deputy, Yoo Sangah.
These identities were from long ago.
At that time, Han Sooyoung was still establishing her emerging order in a new world, and Yoo Sangah was also reconstructing her ivory tower in a ruined world.
It was the first time Yoo Sangah had an important task, desperately rebuilding Chungmuro’s Station.
Then, the First Apostle came. The First Apostle ruined everything.
Their first meeting was terrible, where the explosion sowed the station with suffering.
Han Sooyoung made her first attempt in this brand new world, which just happened to shatter the fruits of Yoo Sangah’s hard work.
But at this point—and it wasn’t because Han Sooyong was being cold—the Chungmuro Station explosion wasn’t a major event, since the world was constantly facing even more drastic crises, and people were hurt at far larger scales. That was undeniable.
Even after she reincarnated, Yoo Sangah still remembered the Chungmuro explosion. It seemed that the first scar would always be unforgettable.
“Of course, the First Apostle was an important villain in the early stage. I’ll write it carefully.”
Han Sooyoung smiled at Yoo Sangah.
Yoo Sangah was looking at her with complicated eyes again.
Of course Han Sooyoung also still remembered. She remembered how they fought side-by-side, became long-time feuding companions, and she remembered the explosion at Chungmuro Station.
The First Apostle had fatally injured Lee Jihye and Lee Gilyoung.
And those people who the deputy of that station, Yoo Sangah, had considered companions, who had lost their lives in the explosion, would remain unnamed in the story.
Yoo Sangah’s deep, calm eyes held burning flames, as if the explosion’s aftermath still remained in the depths of her pupils.
Han Sooyoung looked at Yoo Sangah and saw anger destroy her saintly aura.
Now this was finally right. If anything, this was the real truth.
Yoo Sangah’s humanness returned because she hated her, wasn’t this an honor?
When I go to bed, I should lock my door—she might use that time to strangle me in my sleep, Han Sooyoung thought.