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"But, how...?" Yoo Joonghyuk hated that question. It was the most commonly asked question while living as a Regressor.* He hated it so much that he would sometimes simply kill the ones who might ask it - they were usually his enemies, after all. Yet, it was not the question he hated the most.
There was another question he hated even more, though he never killed the ones who asked it. That question was "Who are you?", when spoken by the voices so familiar to him.
Lee Hyunsung or Kim Namwoon always asked it first, voices tinged with bewilderment, shock and fear, just after the First Scenario. Lee Jihye, a few days later, would ask it with awe and curiosity. Lee Seolhwa, asking with her soft voice in the turns when she was not possessed by the alien parasite queen... Always this question, the one that cut into Joonghyuk like a knife, each and every time.
And that was why the one he cherished the most was the only person who never asked who he was: Yoo Mia. To Yoo Joonghyuk, it was this difference that set her apart from everyone else, that was the very definition of 'family' to him, what made Mia truly his sister; not because she resembled him, not because they supposedly shared parents neither of them could remember anyway, not even because of the, to him now distant, memory of having raised her - but because the reality of her being his sister was engraved deeper into his soul with each and every turn, by hers being the only pair of eyes that would always light up brightly with recognition at his first approach. Her voice, calling out to her oppa with relief and joy.
Even if to her the apocalypse had just begun, and their life before it was still a recent memory, even if there was now so much he couldn't share with her; she would never ask him who he was, would never turn to him with the blank, unrecognizing eyes, filled with suspicion and wariness toward a stranger, that he had to endure from all the other people he cared about, every single turn, while reassembling his party anew yet again.
Their eyes meeting his, their emptiness silently asking who he was, hurt even more than their voices did.
There were a couple of exceptions. Nirvana Moebius, the Reincarnator trapped in cycles of their own, their paths sometimes intersecting with his, was one, but to Yoo Joonghyuk Nirvana was just a monster he wanted nothing to do with.
Then, there was Anna Croft, the Prophet. After the first turn they ran into each other, she would also look at him with recognition, and that meant so much to him. That was why he kept giving her more chances, even knowing her treacherous nature that would sacrifice anything and anyone for her own goal, until her accumulated sins against him and his loved ones outweighed even that near-invaluable knowing look in her eyes, and he could no longer forgive her - and hated her all the more for that. Then, he erased her from the list of "his" people with finality, and there was only Mia again.
His precious little sister, she who would always be the only one to greet him with the light of recognition in her eyes.
He thought he already knew all the exceptional players in the game of the Star Stream, until one day there was suddenly someone new, who met him with the same eyes as Mia's. A look that wasn't asking who he was.
The look that Yoo Joonghyuk treasured the most, yet it was so strange to see it in the eyes of someone completely unfamiliar to him. Was this how he himself always looked to his companions, then? But, how...?
Oh. What an odd, upside-down turn this could become. And if only what he felt when looking into such eyes hadn't been poisoned by Anna Croft. It didn't help that this guy seemed to be a Prophet as well. Maybe he too would just be someone to be wary of.
And yet... his gaze, somehow, felt more like Mia's than Anna's. There was something new and fresh in this world, now. Alarming, but still somehow precious. Maybe it was a blossom of hope.