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It wasn’t just naïve of him to think that he’d be the only guest at the Constellation Banquet. It was almost moronic , considering that the event and its participants had been openly mentioned in the novel.
Dokja sighs, quietly disappointed in himself. In his defense, it is still tough to keep all the contents of over 1000 chapters in his head, even with his enhanced Reader’s memory ability.
The waiting room is full of incarnations from Earth. But Dokja just quickly glances at them all in search of a certain person before finally turning to his immediate left.
There he is. Owning the entire couch because no one would ever dare sit next to him. One leg on the other and arms crossed on his chest, Yoo Joonghyuk looks as relaxed as if he's waiting for a coffee he ordered.
Heck, as long as it's him, Joonghyuk can indeed make some lesser dokkaebi fetch him one.
The moment this thought appears in Dokja’s mind, making him chuckle at the imaginary picture, Joonghyuk turns his way.
Worst timing.
“What are you laughing at, Kim Dokja?”
Dokja clears his throat and sits down on the couch next to Joonghyuk.
“Just wondered how you liked your coffee, Joonghyuk-ah.”
“..What?”
“Nothing, never mind.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Dokja can still see hostile bewilderment on the other man's face.
And now that he thinks of it, all emotions Yoo Joonghyuk has ever displayed are always coupled with hostility.
Hostile disbelief. Hostile smugness. Hostile suffering, even.
This isn’t something that was spelled out in the text of ‘Ways of Survival’, but the reality of him being like this seems very fitting somehow.
“Why are you here?”
“Well, it’s probably similar to your reason.”
“When will you revive?”
“Maybe tomorrow.”
A completely normal discussion of your completely normal and everyday things.
Joonghyuk slightly turns his head to the right, furrowing his brow.
“The others are worried.”
Ah, hostile concern. Rarity class: ‘SSSS’.
“...I’m sorry about that.”
Their conversation comes to a halt – one that Dokja expects to only be broken either by the large screen in front of them or by someone else present in the room.
But all of a sudden, he sees a message box in front of his eyes.
Yoo Joonghyuk: I've got questions I want answered.
Midday tryst? Seriously, does it ever expire or is this little private chat they have here to stay?!
Dokja suspects some foul play by a certain devil-like sponsor but has to read a new message before he can mentally collect evidence.
Yoo Joonghyuk: Follow.
He turns to the left – and Joonghyuk has already stood up, heading in the direction of the glass door at the waiting room's far left end.
As both of them near it, Joonghyuk pushes the door open. A wave of cold air immediately hits Dokja and he realizes that they've arrived at the small balcony.
He closes the door behind himself once they are outside and approaches the railing, hoping for a better view than the one they enjoyed from the roof in Seoul.
His wishes are granted.
What Dokja sees beneath, above, and all around is basically the night sky itself with no horizon. Because of that, It's impossible to even tell which floor they're on. It feels like the entire structure is in outer space – except they both can freely move and breathe in it.
Joonghyuk doesn't seem that interested in taking in the mindblowing view, though.
"You've told me something last time, on the roof."
"I've told you lots of stuff there," Dokja parries. "You'll need to be more specific."
Joonghyuk scowls but gives in and elaborates.
"The number of my future regressions."
Still trying to feign ignorance, Dokja raises an eyebrow.
"I don't think I've named such a thing."
"Don't take me for a fool, Kim Dokja," Joonghyuk narrows his eyes. "I've seen your reaction when I said that I wouldn't agree to go through hundreds of turns."
Dokja can't help but conclude that wearing mostly one expression all the time isn't so inconvenient after all.
"And there's Shin Yoosung."
He also has to admit that Yoo Joonghyuk has been alone in the waiting room for long enough to do some unnecessarily deep thinking.
"So you've realized…" Dokja sighs.
"I should've noticed earlier but didn't have the time to stop and think." Yoo Joonghyuk averts his gaze – the best proof of him experiencing guilt and shame. "If she was sent here by me from the 41st regression, going through fewer than at least that is absolutely impossible."
"Why?"
Just as Dokja expects, Joonghyuk replies to this calm question by abruptly turning to face him.
"Why?! It's an obvious time paradox!"
"And?" Dokja shrugs. "You think it's our responsibility to take care of logical contradictions now?"
Joonghyuk finally looks more surprised than simply annoyed.
"What is a 'paradox' at this point, Joonghyuk-ah?” Dokja goes on to ask, leaning his elbows against the balcony’s railing. “It used to be an irregularity in the scientific laws that existed for life on Earth. But this Earth is now so drastically different from the one we knew, that all the old scientific rules and principles are no longer relevant.”
Dokja can’t see Joonghyuk’s expression and only infers some level of agreement or at least consideration of the idea by the silence that follows his words.
“Anything and everything can happen,” Dokja sums up. “Including your regressions ending this very turn."
Joonghyuk scoffs.
“With how much you’ve meddled so far, it’s much harder to believe in this than in the idea that it’s best to skip all the turns until the 41st right away.”
The words make Dokja immediately flash a cold look at the other man.
“A brilliant takeaway, Joonghyk-ah. It makes a thousand years of Shin Yoosung’s suffering even more meaningless.”
His caustic tone is enough to convey the message – and Joonghyuk falls silent for a while.
“Why do you care about that girl so much?”
“That girl is my incarnation, in case you forgot.”
“I didn’t mean the child,” Joonghyuk shakes his head. “I meant the Beast Lord. You’ve only met her for a few hours. And during them, she took away your life and threatened all your companions.”
Of course, there’s no way Dokja can tell Yoo Joonghyuk about spending some of those hours in Yoosung’s mind. About experiencing the emotional pain that she went through during the millennium as if it were his own. About hearing her honest thoughts and wishes at the very end.
“I just happen to know a lot about loneliness,” he ends up saying in reply, “and how it can sometimes mess with your head.”
Yoo Joonghyuk snorts in disbelief.
“Loneliness? You ? The person who took on the role of a ruler and willingly surrounded himself with a dozen companions?”
It’s hard to disagree here. From Joonghyuk’s standpoint, Kim Dokja must be someone who’s not simply used to the company of others but someone who literally thrives in social settings.
This illusion is enough to make Dokja breathe out a bitter chuckle.
“Let’s just say.. my life was very different before the start of the scenarios,” he responds before the other man can attack with his “what-are-you-laughing-at” again.
Thankfully, this line is enough for Yoo Joonghyuk to pass on a sharp comeback.
There’s no way he can guess that for Dokja, the deathly dangerous scenarios are an experience of reliving his favorite novel, which he’s been engrossed in for the past 10 years.
That he's simply been blessed by the fact that fiction – the only realm he’s ever felt at home and comfortable in – has somehow become his and everyone else’s reality.
“You’ve adapted quite fast then…”
The words – or rather the recognition they imply – make Dokja’s eyebrows fly up in surprise.
“Especially to the company of women.”
Ah . That again.
“Didn’t I tell you that you’ve massively misunderstood my and Sangah-ssi’s relationship?” Dokja retorts, eye nervously twitching.
“You did. That fact doesn’t mean that I believe your words and not what I actually saw.”
Figures.
“Well, at any point in my life I, at least, wouldn’t easily give up on the woman I love when she’s possessed by an alien life form, seriously consider killing her, and then dare to get back with her when she’s no longer possessed – like nothing happened.”
Dokja drops the sarcastic bit, intending to pay Joonghyuk back, and expects his face to contort with anger.
Instead, the other man keeps neutrally looking into the dark, starry, and empty distance in front of them.
“Lee Seolhwa and I are not in a relationship this turn. If that’s what you mean.”
“Yeah, sure,” Dokja chuckles while waving his hand.
“I told you the truth – believing or not is up to you,” Joonghyuk says and the tone of his voice proves that he indeed doesn’t care. “I don’t even know why I feel the need to clarify this to you of all people.”
[The exclusive skill ‘Lie Detection Lv. 1’ is activated.]
[You have confirmed that the statement is true.]
Surprised by the skill’s conclusion, Dokja looks at Yoo Joonghyuk’s face in profile.
“Wait, seriously? You two… Why??”
It’s tough for Dokja to explain the scale of his surprise.
He knows for a fact that Lee Seolhwa has been Joonghyuk’s support system up until now. She’s his crutch, his human heart, and his tangible motivation for seeking a better future in this god-forsaken world.
The sheer reason Dokja went so far to save Seolhwa was because he was convinced that Joonghyuk would break otherwise and give in to his Regression Depressive Disorder right away. Because as much as it may seem to an outsider that Joonghyuk is entirely self-sufficient, his sanity heavily depends on others. On Mia and Seolhwa first and foremost.
Yoo Joonghyuk isn’t sentimental, though. He wouldn’t reject Seolhwa of the 3rd turn just because she is not the “Seolhwa from the previous regressions” and not “the one that he knew”. If Joonghyuk ever followed that logic, his own existence would be contradictory after all.
Dokja even spotted the glances Lee Seolhwa threw Joonghyuk’s way during the few times their groups met. He wasn’t an expert in such things – at least when it came down to him and didn’t concern the attention of two certain kids – but the emotions he witnessed were evident enough.
There was no way Joonghyuk of all people had missed those signs. Not from the woman who used to be his wife in two previous lives.
“I’m.. tired.”
When Yoo Joonghyuk finally breathes out an answer, it raises Dokja’s eyebrows.
And then it hits him.
Simply wanting to die and regress at the slightest inconvenience or an unfortunate change of plans isn’t the only symptom of the Regression Depressive Disorder. Thanks to Joonghyuk’s inherent loner attitude, Dokja has completely forgotten about the other, more obvious repercussion–...
“Building or sustaining this relationship doesn’t make any sense. Neither for me, nor for her.”
–...the increasing levels of detachment to rival the ones Yoo Joonghyuk currently has.
It’s this very consequence that can gradually turn Joonghyuk into the person Shin Yoosung the Beast Lord was talking about. Someone who has no room for any connections and human attachment in his heart. The apathetic ‘Captain’, who sees no meaning behind love, friendship, and fondness, since the only thing all these emotions have ever brought him is lone suffering.
“Then, you two are… just friends this turn?”
Dokja doesn’t even know why he asks this – perhaps to confirm that things aren’t too bad yet. They shouldn’t get too bad until the 15th regression at least.
Besides, while the emotions behind Seolhwa’s glances are real, friendship would only be impossible to establish if she still had her memories. Then, Joonghyuk's one-sided decision to suddenly demote her from the role of a lover would create too big of an internal conflict in her, and that would eventually cause a rift.
But Seolhwa obviously doesn't remember the previous lives, so this isn't a problem.
Yet, Joonghyuk’s expression is still complicated. He frowns and takes a moment before replying.
“..We’re just fellow survivors of this ruined world. That’s all.”
The mere two sentences make Dokja realize that even though Seolhwa's memories are gone, even though she doesn't remember the time they spent together anymore, Yoo Joonghyuk does . He remembers everything – and it hurts him to no end.
Continuing to stare into the vast nothingness straight ahead, Joonghyuk tries to draw the line in their conversation.
"There is no need to spend time on something so meaningless as human relationships in this current reality. She and I both are better off directing our energy elsewhere."
[The exclusive skill ‘Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint’ is activated.]
"Learning, understanding, achieving closeness, getting used to someone's presence… All only to be forced to accept isolation in the end…"
"Everything crumbles every time. I'm sick of that. People are the most uncontrollable variable in any world of this eternally perishing universe that I'm part of. They leave of their own accord, quit behind your back, or disappear."
"Regardless of what exactly happens, all there’s left is hurt. Choosing to pursue something that's so doomed and destructive would be pure madness."
"And I have enough of it in me already… "
Dokja opens his mouth to contradict Joonghyuk's fatalistic thoughts but suddenly stumbles over his own words.
Can he – someone who's endured bullying as a kid and a teen, survived the harsh army years, and carried on with an isolated life of a QA department employee only thanks to a web novel – really preach about the importance and greatness of social connections?
Does he have the right to push Joonghyuk into the inevitable pain he himself has always consciously chosen to bypass? Motivate him to believe in other people when the only ones he has ever trusted until just recently were fictional characters ?
Dokja realizes he’d rather vomit than squeeze something so fake out of his mouth.
"..You may be right," he says before he wastes more time on useless contemplation. "To be honest, I'd even disagree with the popular idea that it's better to get wounded by someone than to be alone. Whoever said that either never got hurt by people or doesn't know how to treat loneliness."
He chuckles softly and feels Joonghyuk’s surprised look from the right.
The wounds left by his mother and former classmates were incredibly deep ones because “no trauma is normal”. And if he could, he’d gladly override them with the familiar pain of loneliness, which he always healed from by reading and reading 'again'.
"It's even harder if you remember the past hurts but are supposed to move on from them. Because "it's been long enough". Because "they had no choice but to act that way". Because "they also hurt". Knowing all these reasons doesn't change the way you feel – discarded, damaged, or apprehensive. Or all at once."
“Are you talking about your prior ‘life’?” Joonghyuk asks, sounding decently confused.
“Maybe,” Dokja shrugs, “or maybe I’m just sharing my general observations. Because up until recently, it was my main role – to observe other people’s lives from the sidelines.”
And not just real people’s – characters’, too.
Mainly the life of Yoo Joonghyuk himself.
"I can imagine how exhausting it is for you to open up and get close to people time and time again." He smiles wryly. “Eventually, it may feel like you know everything about them while they know nothing about you. They may be seen by you in one life – but you’re a replaceable blank-slate to them the very next turn. It’s a one-way game that anyone would get tired of...”
"What encouraging nonsense are you even planning to spew out in your 'But…'-part after all of this?"
Dokja turns Joonghyuk's way and blinks in confusion.
“There is no 'But…' part. That's it."
After a momentary shocked pause, Joonghyuk brings a palm to his face.
"So all your blabbering just now could've been reduced to a simple 'You're right'??"
"Hey, I did say those words at the start," Dokja reminds. "And my 'blabbering' could've been a display of empathy. Or proof that you're not a blank-slate to everyone out there. That you don't need to force yourself to "build", "put effort in", or “spend energy on” something to not end up alone. The ‘happiness paradox’ is mostly about people, after all."
Joonghyuk looks surprised for a second or two before he schools the expression into something more neutral.
"..The more actively you search for happiness, the harder it is to achieve?"
"Yes, but make it about connections," Dokja nods. "Don’t hold onto any hopes and don’t shove people aside either. Just do what you do. The ones you really need will end up and stay by your side no matter what." He smirks. "Even if you don't really want that at the start."
Dokja almost expects Joonghyuk to roll his eyes in response to the final dig but the man, surprisingly, simply lets out a sigh.
"How did we even arrive at you by talking about Lee Seolhwa… And wasn't somebody saying that paradoxes don’t work anymore just a few minutes ago?"
"I only meant scientific ones. For better or worse, relationships aren’t science."
"You truly worm your way out of any corner, don’t you," Joonghyuk clicks his tongue in annoyance as he steps back to the glass door, intending to return to the waiting room.
But as soon as his hand touches the door handle, Joonghyuk turns around to face Dokja again.
"So, did that ‘unscientific paradox’ ever work for you , Kim Dokja?"
"It did," Dokja nods without a moment of hesitation. "That 'happiness' wasn't something I could've achieved with effort and it basically fell down on me when I least expected it. When my whole world was on the brink of collapse, even."
In a quite predictable fashion, Yoo Joonghyuk scoffs before pulling the door open.
"Some ironic words considering the world is on the brink of collapse right now ."
Dokja replies with a mysterious smile – and doesn't say anything else.
Instead, he just silently follows Yoo Joonghyuk and returns to the waiting room of the Constellation Banquet as well.