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When Kim Dokja opens his eyes, he cannot see.
Correction: it takes a minute for his eyes to adjust to the vast darkness surrounding him. In every direction, it stretches on and on without an end in sight.
There are stars in the distance, he thinks, tiny insignificant specks too far away to aid him. Not that they would even if they were able.
This is not a scenario he recognizes. He had been on his way to meet with Yoo Joonghyuk when he paused mid step, feeling an unease as if he had passed some invisible barrier. He blinked, and when he opened his eyes again, he was here.
A flash of blue in his peripheral catches his attention, and he turns to see nine screens pop up around him. It takes a moment to process what he’s seeing.
There is a screen for each of his companions, showing what must be live footage of them. Most are still back at the camp he had just left. Yoo Sangah is avidly discussing something with Han Sooyoung. Shin Yoosung and Lee Gilyoung are bickering as usual, chasing one another around. Kim Dokja lets himself smile fondly, before he remembers the situation he’s in.
This view… is akin to what the constellations might see. Why is this being shown to him?
A more familiar screen pops up.
[ Hidden Scenario:
Type: Hidden
Difficulty: ???
Clear conditions: Witness the death of your companions.
Time limit: --
Reward: ???
Failure: ??? ]
Kim Dokja stiffens. His eyes flit back and forth across the screen rereading it in disbelief, as if the words will transform if he tries one more time.
Witness the death of my companions? Kim Dokja is caught in a flurry of rapid thoughts, each one frantically trampled by the next. Meaning they are all at imminent risk of death, or that I will stay until they all…How long will this scenario last? How do I win this? How do I get out? How do I–
Calm down, he wills himself, taking in a deep breath.
There must be a catch, something he missed. There always is. There is always another option.
A shriek rips him violently from his thoughts. He quickly searches for the source, and finds it to be coming from Lee Jihye’s screen.
She stands with her sword drawn, but she is frozen still, her expression contorted as if she has just seen a ghost. There is a familiar looking girl stepping towards her, a short-haired youth. Kim Dokja considers where he has seen this character before.
“This isn’t real,” Lee Jihye whispers desperately. “You’re dead.”
The girl continues to approach, unfazed.
“You’re wrong.”
“No, I can’t be wrong, I killed you myself!” Lee Jihye’s voice is shrill and terrified as she backs away.
Kim Dokja frowns deeply as realization dawns on him.
The girl must be Na Bori, Lee Jihye’s former best friend. The girl Lee Jihye killed with her own two hands in the first scenario.
Kim Dokja does not know what to make of the situation, but Na Bori is certainly dead. There was no regression in all of TWSA where she survived Lee Jihye. It could only be a cruel illusion.
“You’re a smart girl, Lee Jihye. Do not fall for it,” Kim Dokja mutters, watching the scene intently.
“Yet I’m here,” says Na Bori, voice dripping with spite. “You will have to kill me again.”
Lee Jihye lets out a sob, and Kim Dokja’s heart twinges with sympathy.
He reaches forward, stupidly, as if he could cross this 2D boundary and enter the scene playing out before him. His hand passes through the screen. He can only watch the flickering image of Lee Jihye as she backs away from the visage of her first victim.
Kim Dokja reminds himself to be calm, to control his worry with reason. Lee Jihye has survived far worse, this is not where her story ends.
He is wrong.
In a flash, Na Bori lunges forward. Kim Dokja reaches towards Lee Jihye again instinctively, but his hand grasps only air.
He hears the wet sound of a sword piercing flesh, and Lee Jihye’s gasp. She had not moved to defend herself, though he knew her reflexes were fast enough to do so.
Lee Jihye falls to her knees, her eyes never leaving Na Bori’s face.
“Is this my karma? I’m sorry, Na Bori, I’m so sorry.”
“Lee Jihye, stand up! That is not your friend!” Kim Dokja shouts at the screen despairingly. It’s futile, he knows, but what else can he do?
He feels like a kid again: hidden in the shadows, peeking out at the violence. All his efforts, his coins, his skills, they were worth nothing now. Kim Dokja had been stripped bare, and he saw himself as who he really was: a weak, helpless man. How had he deluded himself into thinking he could be anything else?
He cannot watch this. He does not want to see.
(And yet hasn’t he read scenes like this for years?)
He remembers the scenario criteria. Witness the death of your companions. Will he fail if he closes his eyes to this? He grinds his teeth and clenches his fists, forcing himself to look. He has to trust in his companions. He knows they are strong, and he can only hope that they are strong enough.
(To read about something is not the same as experiencing it.)
Kim Dokja’s heart cries at the sound of the sword being pulled cleanly out of Lee Jihye’s chest. Na Bori drops it, letting it clatter metallically against the floor, blood splattering around them. She leans forward and reaches for Lee Jihye, hands slowly wrapping around her throat.
“I’m sorry,” gasps Lee Jihye, as she struggles against Na Bori’s tightening grip.
“No!” Kim Dokja yells. He wants to do something, but there is nothing here he can touch, nothing even to meaninglessly bear the brunt of his rage.
[ The Fourth Wall has partially nullified the shock ]
Kim Dokja thinks. It is the best he can do, to use his stupid brain. It is all he has.
He widens his eyes as an idea comes to him. If he can trigger Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, he can intervene! Why did he not think of this earlier?
His hand immediately reaches for his hip, but his sword is missing.
The hope shrivels up as fast as it came. He reaches into his pockets and finds that they are empty. His heart sinks; he cannot conceive of any method to bring himself to the verge of death in this empty space.
“I’m sorry. I cannot die here.”
Kim Dokja looks back at the screen to see Lee Jihye reaching for her sword.
“Yes, come on–”
She is too slow.
In the next few moments, there is this: a twist, a head snapped to an unnatural angle, a girl crumpling to the ground, a man’s scream filling an infinite chasm.
[ The Fourth Wall is shaking tremendously. ]
A screen blinks out.
—
It is in this order that it happens:
1. Lee Jihye
Kim Dokja cries the same way he did that first night after his mother was arrested.
2. Jung Heewon
In the haze of his anguish, he tries to find some comfort in the fact that Jung Heewon had already lived far past what was written as her fate. It does nothing to slow the fracturing of his heart.
Kim Dokja wonders what the point of this scenario could possibly be, wonders about what choices he made that have led him to this point.
(It was a stupid question. What point was there to any scenario besides for the entertainment of some higher being?)
3. Lee Hyunsung
Lee Hyunsung died trying to avenge Jung Heewon, and Kim Dokja vows to finish his revenge.
He holds onto this fury as tightly as he can, for it is the only thing he can hold here that is not himself.
4. Lee Gilyoung
Kim Dokja tries.
He wraps his hands around his own throat as he cries, urging himself to squeeze harder, to bypass the evolutionary instinct that screams at him to stop.
When his fingers cannot press hard enough, he yanks off the waist strap from his coat and ties it around his neck, pulling and pulling until the lack of oxygen weakens his limbs and he collapses. He lays curled in a fetal position, shaking from exertion, his body treacherously gasping for breath.
He fails.
In the end, he is still a coward.
5. Lee Seolwah
“Yoo Joonghyuk,” Kim Dokja murmurs.
Yoo Joonghyuk would not have ever allowed his companions to die like this while he just stood by and watched.
But he is not Yoo Joonghyuk.
6. Shin Yoosung
It shouldn’t be possible for someone to feel like this, Kim Dokja thinks. It is too cruel.
7. Yoo Sangah
Kim Dokja does not sleep much anymore. He sees them whenever he closes his eyes.
8. Han Sooyoung
She was looking for him, though Kim Dokja had long given up on being found.
Kim Dokja aches.
9. Yoo Joonghyuk
Of course, Yoo Joonghyuk is last. It is a brutal death, and he dies alone.
It is not like he has not seen Yoo Joonghyuk die before; he has spent a decade of his life reading, in great detail, all the ways Yoo Joonghyuk has suffered, regression after regression. In theory, this one should hurt the least, because at least he knows this version of Yoo Joonghyuk still persists in some other worldline.
And yet Kim Dokja feels a profound sense of loss, like a blackhole has split open within him. He is hollow.
He failed the third round, and Yoo Joonghyuk will regress over a thousand more times. This world has lost its protagonist, and is now doomed to be torn apart by the scenarios until the end of time. Even worse, Kim Dokja realizes selfishly, is that there is no longer any writer who will record Yoo Joonghyuk’s story after this round.
Yoo Joonghyuk is lost to him, and that is something unbearable for Kim Dokja.
He sinks to his knees, sagging like a puppet suddenly cut from its strings.
[ Scenario criteria has been met.
Reward: Freedom ]
—
The darkness recedes around him.
His eyes instinctively shut tight as bursts of blinding daylight flood his vision. The warmth on his icy skin feels unnatural.
He finds himself wishing the darkness would not leave him, as everything else had. He was given back his freedom, but what freedom was this, to be plunged back into a bright and cruel place? What world had he returned to? It was not one he felt ready to face.
For the first time since the apocalypse started, Kim Dokja doesn’t know what to do. He knows of 1,864 regressions of this world, all the ways each scenario has played out, and he has no fucking clue what he can do.
He was naive to think that being a reader meant he could rewrite the ending he wanted. When has he ever been able to have what he wants? He chuckles a little at the thought, swaying before collapsing onto the ground out of sheer exhaustion. He doesn’t mind the hard collision, the impact rattling his head and momentarily stunning his ability to think.
The grass grazes his cheek with every stuttering breath he takes. It grounds him a little, but he doesn’t know if he wants to be grounded.
To be grounded means to be present in his reality, in this world where he is now like he always had been before the apocalypse: completely and utterly alone.
As he had watched the slaughtering of his friends in horror, the constellations probably watched with glee. He should feel resentment, should feel flames of revenge fanned by the unspeakable things he had seen, but he thinks distantly that he no longer has the capacity for such emotions.
He has been burnt to his core and all that remains is dead ash.
He thought he knew Yoo Joonghyuk better than anyone. He had seen all of Yoo Joonghyuk’s happiness and pain written out on those pages that he adored. He had experienced it with him, had used his tragedies as comfort.
But he was wrong.
He has never truly understood Yoo Joonghyuk until now. To have seen with his own eyes the irreversible deaths of everyone he cared for, such was the fate of a regressor.
He now knows with certainty that he is nothing like Yoo Joonghyuk. He cannot experience such tragedy and continue to go on.
He doesn’t know how long he lays there. He doesn’t know how long he was trapped in that darkness, watching. Time is meaningless now, anyway. There is no urgency. There is nothing to do, no one to save.
Eventually, he forces himself to his feet, and he begins to walk aimlessly, dazed. He feels as if he’s walking under water, each step heavier than the last. It is a difficult thing to move forward when there is nowhere you want to go.
He finds himself in the city, the streets barren as dusk descends upon it. He had once felt a strange fondness for the demolished buildings, the toppled street signs, the ruined cityscape. It meant he was in a world that he understood, a world that he could control.
Kim Dokja felt that he had been wrong about everything from the start.
-
It is cold. Kim Dokja stands on the roof of his old office building, leaning against the edge, the concrete digging hard into his forearms.
He looks up at the stars, at the untouchable constellations with their insatiable hunger for a good story.
What had he hoped to do? What did he think he was capable of accomplishing?
It seems to him that there is only one choice he has left. Of course, there have only ever been three ways to survive the apocalypse.
He will regress.
He feels like he has never thought so rationally before in his life, like some fog he never knew existed has finally cleared away. He feels young again.
Kim Dokja begins to hoist himself onto the ledge.
This is who he really is, someone who abandons ship the moment things stop going his way, the moment he can no longer handle his own existence. Maybe the next time he wakes up, he’ll find that all of this was just one old, fading dream.
“Kim Dokja, what do you think you’re doing?”
He freezes. He knows that voice.
He does not turn around. He does not think he could bear it if he turned to see that no one was there, that no one had ever been there.
“This isn’t real. You’re dead.” Even as he says it, Kim Dokja begins to feel an uncomfortable sense of deja vu.
The unwanted visions of his companions dying one by one swarm his mind, and Kim Dokja can no longer breathe. Emotion he didn’t know he could still feel wells up in him. He is dizzy with pain.
Somehow, he finds footing on the ledge and stands on trembling legs. He doesn’t want to think of these things anymore. There is no more hope for this round.
Kim Dokja steps forward, and finds himself falling backwards.
There is a death grip around his arm as he topples to the ground, crashing inelegantly onto an uneven surface. Onto a person.
Kim Dokja’s eyes are shut. He is scared of what he might see, and what he might not. He is scared.
Although he doesn’t look, he can still feel. There is a heartbeat thumping fast beneath him, under his own heaving chest. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Alive. Alive.
“Kim Dokja, you stupid bastard.” The voice is furious. “Are you going to say something?”
A scarred hand grabs his collar and yanks him upwards.
He meets Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes, and immediately regrets it. Yoo Joonghyuk is wearing an expression Kim Dokja has never seen before. It makes his heart twist, sharp and raw.
Do not look at me like that, he thinks tiredly. Like I am something precious to you.
The vision of Yoo Joonghyuk’s death resurfaces again, a horrific overlay across his vision. His mangled form, his final expression one of utter defeat, staining his features forever. Kim Dokja shudders and desperately tries to blink it away, but that vision feels more real to him than what his eyes are showing him now, which is something too good to be true. Something he does not deserve to be true.
I couldn’t save you.
Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes widen as he assesses him, slowly releasing his hold. Kim Dokja winces when Yoo Joonghyuk’s fingers touch his throat. It must be bruised, he thinks vaguely.
Yoo Joonghyuk brings his hand to cup Kim Dokja’s cheek, and brushes away tears with a gentleness Kim Dokja did not know he possessed.
Oh, I’m crying.
He doesn’t have it in him to feel embarrassed. He leans into the touch and cries harder.
“...”
Yoo Joonghyuk sits up, and after a moment’s pause, pulls Kim Dokja into a firm embrace.
Kim Dokja does not protest. He digs his fingers into the black fabric of Yoo Joonghyuk’s jacket, anchoring himself as if he might collapse in on himself if he doesn’t, as if he might get sucked in by the blackhole that has replaced his soul. It is solid, something he can touch, something he can hold. It is warm.
With a hand supporting his head and back, Kim Dokja feels a sense of security that he’s sure he has never felt before in his entire life.
“Are you real? Are you Yoo Joonghyuk?” Kim Dokja whispers. He hates how weak he sounds.
Yoo Joonghyuk’s arms tighten around him.
“Yes.”
[ 'Lie Detection' has confirmed 'Yoo Joonghyuk's words as truth. ]
They stay like this for a while, until Kim Dokja is no longer choking on uncontrollable sobs. He does not think about the implications, about what anything means; he only knows that what he is holding is real and alive, and in this moment, that is enough.
“What happened, Kim Dokja? Who has done this to you?”
There is an edge to Yoo Joonghyuk’s voice now.
When Kim Dokja calms enough to collect his thoughts, there is only one all-consuming thing on his mind. He sits back hastily to look at Yoo Joonghyuk.
“Where are the others?”
Yoo Joonghyuk furrows his brow at the question, but his expression is one of confusion, not of immense grief. Before he even speaks, Kim Dokja feels a heavy weight starting to lift from him, the pieces beginning to click. It was only a cruel illusion.
“They are at the camp. Where have you been?”
Kim Dokja blinks.
“How long have I been gone?”
“Four days since you were supposed to meet me at the station.”
Four days? Kim Dokja almost laughs. It has felt like months of solitude for him. Time dragged on at a snail’s pace as he watched from that darkness, playing the sick game of guessing who would be the next to die.
Yoo Joonghyuk reads the change in his expression.
“Explain yourself, Kim Dokja.”
Kim Dokja breathes in shakily. He does not want to repeat what he has seen, to put it into words. There is no good way to say, I saw you and everyone I care for ruthlessly killed in the scenarios while I was helpless to do anything about it.
He tries anyway. “I watched you die.”
Yoo Joonghyuk says nothing, only stares hard at Kim Dokja as if he is a puzzle that needs to be solved at this very moment.
“I watched…I watched everyone die.” Kim Dokja’s voice trembles, frail. The images flash before him again and maybe Yoo Joonghyuk sees it in the way his eyes glaze over because he puts a strong hand on Kim Dokja’s shoulder. It grounds him, and he’s grateful for that now.
Afterall, Yoo Joonghyuk is the one person in this world who can understand what he’s experienced.
His gaze grows more complicated as Kim Dokja describes the scenario he found himself trapped in. He spares him the gory details. The worst things that he has seen and done, he will keep to himself.
At the end, Yoo Joonghyuk takes Kim Dokja’s hand and squeezes it. He is looking at him with that horrible expression again.
All he says is: “Let’s go back.”
—
Kim Dokja is adamant that none of the others learn the true nature of his sudden disappearance. Yoo Joonghyuk scowled when Kim Dokja demanded this, but did not protest beyond muttering that he was an idiot.
Kim Dokja has regained enough of his sanity to act passably normal, or at least that’s what he hopes. He walks ahead of Yoo Joonghyuk, the embarrassment of his clinginess beginning to set in. He wants to pretend that it was all a dream, that he doesn’t see broken limbs behind his eyelids every time he blinks.
When they arrive back at camp, there are no words that can encompass the sheer relief he feels. Seeing everybody sitting around the campfire, Kim Dokja thinks that he’ll never wish for anything again; he has returned to find that he has everything he could ever need. They look tired, but they are alive. They are alive.
“Ahjussi!”
Kim Dokja smiles as the kids rush to greet him. The expression feels foreign now, and there must be something off about his demeanor that gives away all that he is trying to bury deep inside him.
“Ahjussi?” Shin Yoosung looks worriedly up at him. “Did you get hurt?”
Kim Dokja laughs, and sweeps both her and Lee Gilyoung into a bear hug. He hides his face in their hair, and swallows back the lump in his throat. He cannot cry in front of them like this.
“I am fine.”
[ ‘Yoo Joonghyuk’ has used ‘Lie Detection’ to confirm ‘Kim Dokja’s’ words as false. ]
Kim Dokja shoots daggers at Yoo Joonghyuk with his glare.
“Dokja, where have you been?” The others step towards him as he releases the kids.
Kim Dokja laughs again, sheepishly scratching his head. “I … I ran into some unexpected trouble. I’m just tired, I’ll sleep it off.”
He spots Li Jihye and steps towards her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “You look well.” His voice comes out uncharacteristically soft.
“Uh. Thank you?” Lee Jihye looks perplexed.
It is extremely apparent to everyone that Kim Dokja is acting erratically, that like always, he is hiding some ugly truth behind that placid smile. He looks weary and aged. They exchange glances, sending pointed looks towards Yoo Joonghyuk, who remains silent to Kim Dokja’s relief.
Kim Dokja just continues to smile.
-
He sees them die again, and jolts awake drenched in sweat. After frantically wiping the wetness from his face, Kim Dokja immediately begins darting his eyes around like a madman.
It’s dark, and he can only make out the silhouettes of his friends scattered about the room. He feels an unreasonable surge of panic upon seeing their stillness.
Stumbling to his feet, he quietly goes around to check each body, pausing systematically at every sleeping bag to watch for that steady rise and fall of breath. His heart is thundering in his ears, he is jittery with apprehension.
With each check, his nerves fizzle out bit by bit, but there is an undercurrent of suspicion that refuses to subside.
Some part of him still fears that he cannot trust what he sees, that this is what’s not real. That he’ll blink and realize that he is alone. What if he is still in the scenario, and the lights will turn on to reveal that he has been laying amongst corpses?
“Kim Dokja.”
He halts, turning towards the low voice. Yoo Joonghyuk is sitting by the dying campfire, watching him.
Kim Dokja is suddenly overcome with shame. He is acting irrationally, he needs to get a grip on himself, needs to remember what he was–
“Stop thinking and just come here.”
Kim Dokja obliges. He steps slowly towards the man he owes his life to, the man who has saved him in more ways than he knows. There is a pull that he cannot and does not want to resist; he lets himself fall into the orbit of Yoo Joonghyuk.
The pair sit next to each other in a strained silence. Kim Dokja stares at the campfire, watching the final embers sputtering out atop the charred remains. The logs look like dead bodies.
“Tell me what’s on your mind.”
Kim Dokja swallows. There is no need for false pretenses between him and Yoo Joonghyuk. He speaks plainly.
“I couldn’t save anyone.”
Those bitter words hang between them for several moments.
“It wasn’t real. You know that now.”
“That doesn’t matter.” Kim Dokja clenches his fists. “It felt real. I just watched,” he spits, putting emphasis on that last word, “I watched it all happen and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t do anything to stop it.”
He can feel Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes boring into him, but he stares pointedly ahead.
“It doesn’t matter if it wasn’t real,” Kim Dokja repeats. “What if it was? What if next time it is real and I still can’t–”
His breath hitches as he shudders involuntarily, unable to even finish the sentence, as if he might will it into existence with his words.
“Kim Dokja, look at me.”
He turns. His vision is distorted by tears.
“There is always the what-if. What if I had brought someone different to this scenario, what if I hadn’t taken that weapon, what if I saved this person over the other one, then maybe I would have gotten farther in this round.”
Kim Dokja can see the memories behind Yoo Joonghyuk’s dark eyes.
“None of that matters. You’re the one that told me this before: all we can focus on is the present. And in the present, you have saved us all. You have paid more than enough in saving everyone here.”
Kim Dokja tries to allow himself to believe these words. He shakes his head and laughs self-deprecatingly.
“I’m sorry. I’m being pathetic right now. I’m sorry you have to see me like this.”
“Do not apologize.”
“You know, your pity makes me feel worse. Do you want to know what I thought of often during that time?” Kim Dokja swallows hard. “I thought: if I were Yoo Joonghyuk, I would never have let this happen to my companions. I would have found some way out, or at least been able to do something besides just watch.”
“Do not compare yourself to me. You are not me, you are Kim Dokja, and that is the only reason any of us have made it here.”
The sincerity of his words is overwhelming.
“I don’t believe that.”
“I have no reason to lie to you.”
That, Kim Dokja does believe.
“… Thank you.”
Yoo Joonghyuk blinks, a hint of surprise dusting his features.
“For what?”
Kim Dokja shrugs. “For being you.” Perhaps in the morning, Kim Dokja will roll around in humiliation when he thinks back on all that he has said. However, tonight he is feeling particularly sentimental. “For existing.”
Yoo Joonghyuk is the one to break eye contact this time. As the seconds tick by without a response, Kim Dokja begins to think he’s made the biggest mistake of his life, and he mentally prepares himself for a beating.
“Um—“
“You should go back to sleep, Kim Dokja.”
“...Alright.”
He moves to stand up, but Yoo Joonghyuk tugs him back down. When Kim Dokja shoots him a confused stare, Yoo Joonghyuk reaches towards him — Kim Dokja squeezes his eyes shut — and places Kim Dokja’s head on his shoulder.
Kim Dokja stiffens, eyes snapping back open with visceral fear. Every possible alarm is blaring in his mind.
“...”
This… might be worse than if Yoo Joonghyuk had actually beaten him up. He has no idea what to make of this behavior, of this new, psychologically damaging punishment. Once again, Kim Dokja was wrong about something. He thought he had finally understood Yoo Joonghyuk to the fullest extent, but now he realizes he knows absolutely nothing at all.
You sunfish, you really think I can sleep like thi—
Kim Dokja falls asleep. It is the best sleep he will have had in his entire life.
By Yoo Joonghyuk’s side, the world grows dark, peacefully.