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It was only natural for things to get awkward after that.
Sooyoung can’t be blamed for it. She only spoke what was on her mind and how was she supposed to know that Peace Land was based on a real story when Kim Dokja hadn’t bothered telling her? It’s all his fault, that tight-lipped bastard.
And what happened after, well… it wasn’t as if she’d said anything wrong. Sooyoung lifts her gaze to Asuka Ren, seated across from her against another boulder. Her knees were pulled up to her chest, chin resting on her arms and she was gazing back at Sooyoung.
There’s an extended silence, as there has been for the past couple of hours. Asuka coughs awkwardly. “So, um,” she begins abruptly, a futile attempt at filling the quiet. “How long have you known Kim-san?”
She may as well have asked about the weather. Still, known is a strong word, and Sooyoung is kind of flustered to hear it. “I only met him at the start of the scenarios,” she confesses, a bit too honestly.
“Oh!” Asuka’s bewilderment is almost palpable. And it’s outrageous because why? “But earlier he said he’s known you from before?”
Sooyoung waves her hand, hoping she could just brush it off. “We had our reasons.” Always best to be vague. She doesn’t really want to get into the technicalities of I tried killing Kim Dokja’s companions during the early scenarios but they don’t know that and since Kim Dokja and I have come to an understanding and they don’t completely hate me now, I don’t want them to freak out on me. Again.
Ugh. Relationships were so hard.
Asuka cants her head. “Even so. You appear to be quite close so I thought…”
“Heh? That guy?” Sooyoung barks out a laugh. What a ludicrous idea. “We’re not close at all.” If we were close, he wouldn’t have made a fool of me at every given opportunity. She crosses her arms, the idea unfathomable. “We’re two very different people.”
Asuka Ren wouldn’t understand the implications of that but it feels nice to get it off her chest. To admit that despite their shared knowledge, they were different in the ways it mattered.
And still. Friend, he said so easily.
“You are a writer, aren’t you, Han-san?”
“I am.”
“I take it Kim-san is not.”
Sooyoung tilts her head, a sly sneer on her lips. “What do you think?”
“It is hard to say,” Asuka frowns, the mockery completely flying past her. “He speaks with a knowledge of the narrative unlike any other. It would be nice if he were a writer but I don’t think…” She studies Sooyoung for a moment. “You two are very different people.”
Han Sooyoung blinks, then the corner of her mouth tugs upwards. “Yeah.”
“Was he a reader, then? He does seem to fit the part… perhaps an editor?” Asuka sucks on the inside of her cheek. “Did he read your story?” She presses. Where all this interest is coming from, Sooyoung has no idea. “Is that why you’re so close with him?”
Sooyoung squints. “What nonsense are you on about? I told you I don’t know him. He never read my stories.” She leans back. Well, that was false to some degree, if he were still hanging onto those plagiarism accusations. Sooyoung is still certain he doesn’t believe her and she’d long given up trying to persuade him. It’s not like his opinion ever meant anything to her. On the contrary, she’s been trying to piss him off with all the comments about how this was “just like her novel”. “What would you know about readers anyway? It’s not like you ever had many.”
Asuka’s face blooms red in that shade amusingly close to her hair. Instead of flustering into silence, she responds, indignant. “At least my story wasn’t a mass-produced fantasy!”
Her temper flares up the exact same way it did earlier. “Mass-produced?!! Why you—“ Ugh, no. Han Sooyoung isn’t going to do this again. She’s the bigger person, of course, so she’s not going to let this third-rate manga writer rile her up. “Forget it.”
Asuka’s lips twitch, but she doesn’t have the satisfaction of someone who’s won an argument. Han Sooyoung has noticed that any mention of her story does that.
Besides, her story wasn’t mass-produced. It just… utilized cliches and conveyed them effectively. Yes, that’s right. At least she wasn’t passing it off as some authentic fantasy. “No use talking about stories now that we’re here, in reality,” adds Sooyoung.
The words seem to strike Asuka Ren harder than Sooyoung intended. She looks away and the conversation conclusively ends, a little bitter in both their mouths.
In the distance, the steady sounds of Kim Dokja’s training could be heard.
———
Han Sooyoung knew Kim Dokja wasn’t all that talented. After all, he was no protagonist, and none of the plot armor that adhered to Yoo Joonghyuk applied to him. She knew that, but she seriously hadn’t expected it to be that bad. Five days now, and Kim Dokja had barely graduated into a slight variation of the stabbing that he’d done a million times over the previous week.
At least things between her and Asuka Ren were… well, better wasn’t the right word. Nor was amicable. Impartial, maybe. They managed to forage for food and keep themselves entertained without any more awkward blow-ups. Progress, Sooyoung thinks.
“He wanted to go back in two weeks,” Sooyoung grumbles as she doodles something into the dirt with her twig. An arm’s length away, Asuka sat against the same rock, squinting earnestly at Sooyoung’s drawing. “Yet he’s made literally no improvement.”
“Oh, I know!” Asuka exclaims, eyes shining. “An ichthyosaur!”
Han Sooyoung blinks, baffled. “No, you idiot, it’s a Gyarados. Don’t you know your Pokémon?” She gestures with her stick at the creature’s back. “Look at the fins, the fins!”
Asuka looks as if she wants to protest that, maybe blame it on Sooyoung’s lack of drawing ability. Well, sorry that not everyone here was a manga artist! But instead, Asuka leans back, looking up at the sky. “I am afraid Kyrgios will not teach him.”
“What?”
“Electrification.” Asuka purses her lips. “It’s… I don’t know.”
“You don’t think he’ll teach him,” repeats Sooyoung slowly, the statement sinking in. If he won’t teach him, then—
“That is what I just said.”
“No, you—” Asuka Ren was occasionally sly in her taunts, especially with that innocent fluttering of her lashes. “I get what you mean. He’s not the kind to easily give that sort of information away, is he?” Especially if it’s something so powerful that Kim Dokja thinks will save them all.
Asuka shakes her head, chewing on the ends of her fingers. Sooyoung all but groans. Surely, surely Kim Dokja accounted for this, didn’t he? There was no way he’d come all the way out here, leaving everyone practically defenseless, just to learn from a stuck-up midget that wouldn’t even share his skills.
“Kyrgios… he…” Sooyoung thinks Asuka’s struggling to find a proper description, rolling the words around her mouth until they were able to be said aloud, but she ultimately produces nothing.
“Well?”
“I don’t know,” she replies and it’s so… exhausted that Sooyoung has to resist the temptation to press further, like she’s actually interested in what Asuka has to say. She waits a couple of beats, watching Asuka’s nails finally get a rest as she pulls them away from her mouth. “I don’t really know him. Kyrgios.”
Sooyoung stares for a long moment before the sentence parses. “What the hell are you on about?” She gesticulates broadly, trying to encapsulate as much of this world between her hands as she can. “You created all of this. Those measly characters and this boring-ass setting and that overpowered bastard over there. How do you not—”
“These… these are not the characters I created.” And there is something so painfully helpless in her tone, like someone who’s resigned to their fate. “This is a world outside the manga that I drew. And I- I cannot say I know it exactly the way I once did.”
Han Sooyoung’s mouth is parted, ready to dispute it because it’s nonsense, because… well, is it? If there’s anything Sooyoung’s always believed, it’s that the story falls out of your hands the second it’s read. Readers exist to fill in the gaps she’d left intentionally and the ones she’d failed to consider. They exist to write the words she hadn’t, imagine their own world with the one that she had.
Sooyoung has always thought about the reader but the writer…
“I guess”—the words have to claw their way out of her throat—“maybe you’re right.” Asuka’s proclamation settles in slowly, like the steady burn of muscles when trekking uphill. The weight of it is terrifying. That an author is no more powerful than the reader in the face of their work.
She wonders if Kim Dokja knows that. He was certainly taking advantage of the story he read, what with everything he’s changed, but she’s not sure if he truly understands the scope of his authority. And the lack thereof.
Does he realize that the Yoo Joonghyuk here is beyond the one he read of?
Perhaps one day she’ll be brave enough to ask.
The admission visibly startles Asuka Ren, who has only ever been arguing with Sooyoung since they met. But then she smiles, and it’s so incredibly vulnerable that Sooyoung’s stomach twists.
“I do hope Kim-san somehow learns the skill that he needs. Until then, we must wait.” Then she offers out her hand.
Sooyoung blinks. “What?”
“Stick,” Asuka says, gesturing at the twig Sooyoung was using to doodle their little game of pictionary. “It’s my turn.”
———
She squints, arms crossed. “I’m not seeing any difference.”
Asuka chokes in the midst of drinking her water and Sooyoung thumps her on the back several times. She clears her throat before speaking. “I don’t— I mean… He doesn’t look that bad.” She stammers to no avail. Of course no one could defend this. It had been well over a week and Kim Dokja was still stabbing.
“This is useless. We’re entrusting the fate of this place on this guy,” rambles Sooyoung, still in utter awe of Kim Dokja’s absolute incompetence. “Yoo Joonghyuk would’ve acquired this skill in minutes. We’re all going to die.”
At that, Asuka flinches, just as she always does whenever Sooyoung mentions death flippantly. It’s admittedly thoughtless of her; they were in a fucking apocalypse after all, with people dying here and there, and it was only normal for those deaths to feel personal. Though for Asuka, she suspects it might be a bit more than that.
“You’re worried,” says Sooyoung flatly, with absolutely no tact whatsoever. She’s been wanting to bring it up for a while now; no better opportunity than now. “About that— what’s his face? Izuku? Inami?”
“Izumi.” Asuka’s voice takes a sharp inflection, and there’s no doubt that Sooyoung’s treading over thin ice, messing with a fraying thread. “His name is Izumi Hiroki.”
“Right,” Sooyoung drawls out, squinting at Asuka’s face. A defensive tone, curled fingers, eyes overwhelmed with remorse. “Is the guy your boyfriend or something, because this is—“
“No!” Asuka’s eyes blow wide, some mix of indignation and agony. “Izumi and I weren’t— it’s not like that!”
“But you care for him.”
“You care for Kim-san!”
Wait, what? That’s not what they were talking about. The back of her neck grows warm. In anger, obviously. “What the hell are you talking about? We’re not even friends, that guy and I! I don’t give a shit about him!”
It’s terrifying, just how easily she’s able to lie. Well, she’s had tons of practice and it was bearing its fruit in these cutthroat scenarios.
“I— I… Izumi is…” As if all the fight leaves her at once, Asuka sinks her face into her hands. “This is all because of me.”
Sooyoung scratches her ear, lips pressed into a thin line. “Yeah, well, we knew that part already. Tell me something new.” Because she’s a naturally inquisitive person, she presses even further. “Tell me about your Izumi.”
“He’s not— ugh. I met Izumi in the scenarios, he-“ Asuka grits her teeth. “We did not begin on the best of terms.”
Now didn’t that sound familiar? “Well, ‘scenarios’ and ‘best terms’ don’t really go hand in hand.”
Asuka scoffs through her misery. “We had a lot of clashing ideologies, even before we arrived at Peace Land.” She winces, as if reminded of some shameful moments. Sooyoung knows the sentiment all too well. “We… got into disagreements.”
“I mean,” snickers Sooyoung, thinking of the ridiculous first encounter she had with a certain all-knowing reader, “at least you weren’t trying to kill each other.”
“…”
“…You weren’t trying to kill each other, right?”
At Asuka’s continued silence, Sooyoung pinches the bridge of her nose. It seems they weren’t all that different after all.
“Well,” continues Sooyoung, ever the one for optimism, “clearly you reached some agreement if both of you are alive.”
Asuka nods, her smile crooked. “We… managed to put aside our differences after I learned he despised the powers of the ‘Absolute Throne’ as much as I did. He was considerate to those in need, even when others were suspicious.” Wasn’t this a little off-topic? She didn’t ask for a wiki page explanation. “In this world we were thrust into, he was a strong leader, firm yet kind. He took up the mantle as if he were always meant to.” Her gaze grows impossibly, sickeningly fond. “I suspect he was always that type of person, even before the scenarios.”
Han Sooyoung eyes her over. And what kind of person were you, Asuka Ren, before you entered Peace Land? She imagines an author pouring over their work in earnest, sketching and writing. Not quite like her own experiences, but close enough. What kind of author were you before the scenarios?
“When we entered Peace Land, as I explained then, people became disasters by killing pygmies and…” Asuka doesn’t seem to want to recount those details. Fair enough. Sooyoung has noticed from earlier how Asuka’s eyes trembled when recalling the memories, how easily she took the blame for Izumi Hiroki becoming the ‘Ruler of Disasters’. How she hesitated when it came to Izumi’s sponsor.
Han Sooyoung also remembers how her first suggestion was to just kill him off.
Somewhere deep down, Sooyoung is certain she has sympathy. But she also has common sense, something she can’t afford to lose in this world they were in. She still stands by that suggestion.
“You know we have to kill him, right?”
Asuka doesn’t say anything for a long time. She picks at the pebbles near their feet, chewing her lip so hard Sooyoung’s surprised it hasn’t bled yet.
“He’s powerful,” she finally murmurs, through gritted teeth. “That Serpent is no easy foe to defeat.”
Sooyoung throws a thumb over the shoulder. “Hence the Electrification.”
“Hence the… Electrification.” Asuka Ren presses her palms against her eyes, as if trying to shield herself from Sooyoung’s piercing gaze.
“Are you really going to mope about it like this?” Sooyoung scratches the skin beneath her brow, uncomfortable. “What’s done is done. It’s not like you can magically save him.” Though Kim Dokja might have some ridiculous plan like that. “Whatever… feelings you have for this dude—”
“I have none,” Asuka says sharply, though it appears more a feeble attempt to convince herself.
“Then what’s the fucking matter?” Sooyoung hisses. This was getting ridiculous. There were too many lives on the line for Asuka Ren to be wavering now, not that Sooyoung really cared about things like that. “You might’ve created this world, but you aren’t God. Izumi…” All that, and yet Sooyoung’s throat still feels clogged with rocks when she tries to spit it out. Asuka’s narrowed brows do nothing to mask the terror creeping along the edges of her face. “Izumi will have to die.”
There’s another stretch of silence. Han Sooyoung wonders if she’s finally gone too far.
“What would you do if you were in my place?”
Sooyoung freezes. “What?”
Asuka’s eyes are blazing. “What would you do if you had to kill Kim Dokja-san to save everyone else?”
The thing is, it’s not really an equivalent question. Han Sooyoung doesn’t know Kim Dokja like that. Doubts she ever will. He was just some guy who read a trashy novel and she was a genius pretty girl writer. They didn’t share sentiments on most things. They could barely tolerate one another.
They just knew more than others about a certain novel that had become reality.
And that was it.
That was… it.
Han Sooyoung looks away. She doesn’t have it in her to respond back.
But she figures Asuka Ren knows the answer anyway.
———
“Let’s bolt.”
Han Sooyoung scowls. “What? You learned all of it?” All she’d seen for the past two weeks was a guy who stabbed a million times, and then a couple more. “You couldn’t do a thing earlier.”
Kim Dokja’s expression slants at the edges with a smug smirk. “I stole it.”
He mutters something under his breath and the air around them begins crackling. His entire body takes on a brilliant, blinding white hue and he grins through the electricity. No way. But he had no talent…?
“Eh?” Sooyoung glances at Asuka, who looks just as surprised as she felt. “What the hell? You clearly couldn’t…”
“I told you. I stole it.” He puffs his chest slightly, almost instinctively. Sooyoung finds herself biting back a smile.
Veronica Castle is in flames when Sooyoung scouts ahead, with long lines of smoke billowing upward, like some sort of offering to the cruel, hedonistic constellations above.
Her palms sting where her nails dig into them. She remembers the gratitude overflowing from the pygmies when she struck down the disasters, and the unending hospitality that followed. These people may have just been feeble characters of a supposed authentic fantasy but they were still people, even if they were almost maliciously written to be weak.
She wasn’t here as some miraculous savior for these people, but to see them being slaughtered for no reason…
Kim Dokja rushes past her when she tells him of the situation. Asuka Ren’s fingers are at her mouth, aghast, as her entire body trembles at the sight.
Sooyoung looks back at Kim Dokja. She’s certain his priority isn’t to save Veronica. His goal isn’t to save these pygmies because no matter how much of a “nice guy” he likes to play himself off as, he was just as self-centered as Han Sooyoung.
But his teeth are gritted, and Sooyoung strangely understands the emotions he’s suppressing.
“I’m going ahead. Stay close.”
As he dashes off, Asuka makes a move to follow but Sooyoung snatches her by the wrist. “Wait.”
Asuka flinches at the contact. “What—”
“You can’t go in there like this.” She gestures at Asuka’s shaking frame. “You’re gonna be useless.” Sooyoung pauses, then corrects herself. “Even more useless.”
The blush crawls in quickly, a cross between shame and anger. “What- what are you—”
“Hey.” Sooyoung swallows. She can’t believe she’s doing this. “Before we kick this fucking snake’s ass, you need to know it wasn’t your fault.”
Sooyoung’s words hits Asuka like the sudden thunder that appeared when Kim Dokja mentioned Yamata no Orochi aloud. Her face crumples immediately, a reaction fit of someone who’s one hit away from shattering completely. “But that’s not—“
“It wasn’t.” What had the last two weeks done to her, fucking hell, for her to be offering comfort? “The kind of guy you’ve described to me—selfless, noble, kind, whatever other disgusting adjectives you threw at me—that kind of guy would’ve done this no matter what.” Asuka’s golden eyes are glossy, but trained firmly on Sooyoung’s. “And maybe you put the idea into his head, but he’s the one who acted on it.” Quieter, as if sharing some inside joke, Sooyoung adds, smirking: “Just like characters.”
It might be going overboard, but oddly, Sooyoung thinks it’s the right thing to say. It’s a vernacular Asuka should understand, from author to author, even if they differed in genre and medium and tongue. A language you learn when you realize the words you put on paper are merely a hurdle, and it is the characters who decide whether they'll cross it or not.
“So if he dies today”—out of some incomprehensible kindness, she doesn’t say the word when instead—“it’ll probably be exactly what he wanted.”
Sooyoung’s not sure how much of it Asuka believes—it’s not as if Sooyoung’s exactly the most reassuring source to hear from—but she swallows thickly and nods nonetheless.
“Maybe this is a world you no longer know, Asuka Ren.” The words coming out of her mouth don’t feel like her own. Sooyoung manages one last squeeze on her shoulder before turning away, stepping towards the path Kim Dokja took. “But you created this. And you should take responsibility till the end.”
At the very least, an author must do that, shouldn’t they?