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For the first time in this regression, for the first time since Lee Seolhwa, Yoo Joonghyuk breaks down.
Black wings on a white coat. Horns on a familiar head. The dark corruption of Demon King Transformation like flames devouring paper. Kim Dokja, smiling. Kim Dokja, dying. Bleeding out in his arms from the wound Yoo Joonghyuk made of his heart. Kim Dokja. Kim Dokja.
It should have been me.
Yoo Joonghyuk had been prepared to die. Welcomed it, even, if it meant that someone, somewhere — Kim Dokja, here — would bring an end to these damned scenarios. Yoo Joonghyuk didn't care that he wouldn't get to see it, because Kim Dokja was the one who could tear down this rotten world. Kim Dokja, who was always one step ahead, who always had a plan, who always, always, always interfered. At first it had enraged Yoo Joonghyuk. All his training, his resolve to do things differently this time, to do things better, the knowledge he'd gained from three past lives and deaths — thrown away like nothing the instant Kim Dokja appeared. Kim Dokja, laughing in his face and ruining his plans. Infuriating, unpredictable, and so, so sure.
And yet. This time was better. Better than anything Yoo Joonghyuk could have managed on his own. Because of Kim Dokja. Yoo Joonghyuk could scarcely believe how fast and how far they had progressed — he is certain, now more than ever, that without Kim Dokja, his third regression would have ended long ago. Perhaps in the Cinema Dungeon, when the Cinema Master had taken over his mind. Perhaps to the Catastrophe of Floods Shin Yoosung, with Yoo Joonghyuk too weak to properly defend Seoul. Surely to the reincarnator Nirvana. Maybe even to his own blade had he not been stopped cold by those words, delivered like a slap to the face.
"Don't fool yourself into thinking that things will get better if you keep repeating everything."
For every time Yoo Joonghyuk was backed into a corner, Kim Dokja had swooped in, taken a sledgehammer to the wall, and shown Yoo Joonghyuk a new way out. Every solution Yoo Joonghyuk could scrape together, Kim Dokja had a better one. I would have killed Lee Seolhwa, to eliminate the Parasite Queen. The thought sticks like a knife in his throat. He thought it had been necessary, that there had been no other way. But Kim Dokja — Kim Dokja was the way. He'd proved that, over and over again. He was the one who could end this.
And so, Yoo Joonghyuk resolved to be the sacrifice that opened the way for Kim Dokja. Yoo Joonghyuk made sure, confirmed with his sponsor that this world and Kim Dokja would continue without him. Extracted a promise from Kim Dokja that he would do whatever it took to reach the end of the scenarios. Because Kim Dokja was the one who could reach this world's conclusion.
Was supposed to be.
And now, Kim Dokja was dead.
It was supposed to be me.
Once again, his best plan had been foiled by Kim Dokja. Wasn't that what that man always did? Always interfering, always throwing himself into harm's way like nothing could touch him. If not for the unbearable tightness in Yoo Joonghyuk's chest, the situation might have been laughable. Instead...
Yoo Joonghyuk's hands curl into fists. His nails dig crescents into the meat of his palms. The hands that held Kim Dokja, that drove the blade through his chest. The pain in his palms is as dull as his guilt is sharp.
Yoo Joonghyuk does not weep. He does not think of Kim Dokja vanishing into nothing beneath his fingertips. He does not remember the wet warmth of Kim Dokja's blood clinging to him like hot tears when he held him by the collar — too tight, but not tight enough to keep Kim Dokja here. He does not hear the words Kim Dokja left him with ("It was a great story, wasn't it?") or his own, thrown back at him in cruel mockery ("Survive, Yoo Joonghyuk."). He does not feel the raw ache that is the absence of Kim Dokja. He does not feel like he's losing him all over again.
He does not weep, and he does not think of Kim Dokja, dead.
Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t know how long he remains in this room.
Time, to him, has always been meaningless. No. Not always. Once, long ago, his time mattered. But the gulf between then and now is so vast that even the Indescribable Distance would be lost to it. To a regressor who can always return to the beginning, the distinction between past, present, and future has ceased to matter. All it takes to move between is death.
The edge of Yoo Joonghyuk's sword hovers at his neck. All his willpower is focused on the edge of the blade, the boundary between this life and the next. Like turning a page. One clean cut to stop the hands of the clock. And wind it back.
If I regress, would I be able to stop him?
It isn't only Kim Dokja's words that make Yoo Joonghyuk hesitate. His own doubts sit in him like poison, corroding from within. If he had been faster, or stronger, or smarter, or better, could he have prevented this? Could he have taken Kim Dokja's place as the 73rd Demon King like he'd intended? He, who couldn't save Lee Seolhwa, who couldn't save himself, who couldn't save anyone?
Would I be able to save him?
Some part of him wonders. Maybe it wouldn't have mattered. The tide of what-ifs surges until he's up to his neck in it, the mire of his thoughts level with his sword. Yoo Joonghyuk is tired. So, so tired of regressing. Of living like this, or at all. It would have been a relief to die in that castle. It would be a relief to die now. He knows he can't. He knows what he promised. The urge remains.
I want to regress.
I want to fix it.
This world without Kim Dokja feels unspeakably wrong, like a sky with no stars. A world that keeps turning, inexorable, without its axis. But this outcome... wasn't Kim Dokja's plan always better than his own? "Don't give up on this life," Kim Dokja had told him. "Do your best in this chapter, now." If this world lost both him and Kim Dokja, what chance did it have of reaching the end? Hadn't Yoo Joonghyuk said he would live this life to the fullest? Hadn't that been what Kim Dokja wanted — the last thing he'd asked of him? If Yoo Joonghyuk regresses now, would he be throwing away his only chance to see the end of this world as a human?
And yet… the thought remains, like a chain around his neck, a wound that doesn't heal.
I want to die.
This world is Kim Dokja's world. Kim Dokja should be here, and Yoo Joonghyuk feels like he's drowning. He knows that even if he regresses, there's no guarantee that Kim Dokja will be there in the fourth regression. If he is there, there's no guarantee he would act the same. Just like Lee Seolhwa. Yoo Joonghyuk does not think he could bear going through that a second time, to have Kim Dokja forget him, too. To be forgotten by the only person who has ever seemed to truly understand the eternal hell that is his existence.
The words from the rooftop. "To be able to regress whenever would mean that death is meaningless for you. But when death becomes meaningless, so does your life."
Yoo Joonghyuk's knuckles are white from gripping his sword. But the blade is steady. Slowly, like something unlocking, his grip slackens. The tension holding his shoulders begins to lift. He knows. He's known since they left the castle where Kim Dokja died. What he cannot do. What can no longer be changed. The hands of a clock that move ever forward.
I...
"Yoo Joonghyuk-ssi!"
A woman's voice. Yoo Joonghyuk almost flinches. Tightens his grip on his sword again to keep it from sliding across his neck. The movement is misunderstood. Golden thread flashes through his vision. His sword jerks from his hand and his arms are abruptly and tightly bound. On any other day, being disarmed and restrained in such a way would trigger his survival instincts, set him thrashing to get free. But today, Yoo Joonghyuk can barely bring himself to care. The bite of the golden threads digging into his biceps barely registers.
"What the hell are you—"
"I told you we shouldn't have left him alone—"
Voices overlapping. The words blend and become unintelligible. A face appears in front of him. For a moment, Yoo Joonghyuk sees something that makes his heart go utterly still. Dark eyes. A plain face. The face he most wants to see. Horns on a familiar head. His voice scrapes the inside of his throat.
"Kim-"
And the spell is broken. Before him stands Han Sooyoung, face ashen and tight with anger.
"What the hell," she says, "was that." Her words are harsh as always. But her voice shakes. Yoo Joonghyuk doesn't understand why she sounds so afraid.
"I'll get Lee Seolhwa-ssi," says Yoo Sangah. Yoo Joonghyuk hadn't seen her. But the mention of that name makes his heart twist.
"No," he manages. Weakly. Yoo Sangah stops, looks at him. He can't. He can't see her now. Not when the reminder of all he's lost is still so raw.
Han Sooyoung and Yoo Sangah go on speaking in urgent tones, but Yoo Joonghyuk is too busy following his own spiraling thoughts to hear. Lee Seolhwa of the second regression is dead. Their... child — the one he can barely bring himself to think of without his mind fracturing into continents of grief — is dead. No matter how many times he goes back, the Lee Seolhwa of his past life will never return. She has forgotten him. And now, Kim Dokja is the same. Even if Yoo Joonghyuk regresses, even if he finds Kim Dokja again, the Kim Dokja of this life will be dead.
Yoo Joonghyuk stares ahead at nothing. He makes no effort to fight the golden threads binding him. He wishes they would squeeze tighter, collapse his ribcage, crush the breath from his lungs to force out the gnawing emptiness in his chest.
Han Sooyoung's voice comes from in front of him, louder this time. He doesn't know what she's saying and doesn't care enough to try and make it out. It doesn't matter. Yoo Joonghyuk feels like a puppet held aloft by Ariadne's thread. Everything would have been better if he just...
A sudden pressure at his temple. One word breaks through.
"Sleep."
Yoo Joonghyuk's consciousness is swallowed by merciful blackness.
When he becomes aware again, he's lying on the bed in that same room. There's a story pack affixed to his wrist. His fingers flex, unconsciously missing his sword. It's nowhere in sight. Confiscated.
Yoo Joonghyuk closes his eyes again. It's a small mercy that he slept without dreaming. The ache in his chest is unrelenting in the waking world. He wills himself to go back to the oblivion of unconsciousness, though he knows the usual nightmares likely wait for him there.
"I know you're awake."
Han Sooyoung. She’s still here, then. Opening his eyes again is too much effort.
"Are you ready to tell me what that stunt back there was about? Trying to sacrifice yourself just like everybody's favorite demon king?"
Unbidden, the image of Kim Dokja under the effects of the demon king transformation appears behind Yoo Joonghyuk's eyelids. Kim Dokja... had smiled at that time, hadn't he? A smile like broken glass. To banish the memory, Yoo Joonghyuk forces himself to open his eyes. His face is stiff with the dried remnants of something he doesn't wish to name.
Han Sooyoung is glaring at him from where she sits at his bedside. She waits for him to say something. He doesn't. She tries again. "You were really going to die, just like that." Her lip curls. "Leave all of us here. Even after that little speech you gave when we left the castle. Even after everything he said to—"
"I wasn't." The words come out sandpaper-rough.
Han Sooyoung scowls at him. "Wasn't what?"
Yoo Joonghyuk recalls the familiar weight of his sword in his hand. How easy it would have been to throw himself into it. He's bled out before. With a deep enough cut in a vital enough place, it would be over in minutes. Seconds. And then he would be back on that subway for a fourth time.
Han Sooyoung kicks the post of his bed. "Answer me. Wasn't what, you bastard?"
"I wasn't going to," says Yoo Joonghyuk. “Regress.”
And he means it.
"Bullshit." Han Sooyoung makes a gesture like she's swatting away a fly. "You've done nothing but sit in this damn room like a ghost since the scenario ended. You didn't touch the food they left you. Barely said a word to Lee Jihye. Aren’t you supposed to be her master or something? You wouldn't let Lee Seolhwa look at you until we staged a damn intervention and found you like that. And you expect me to believe you were just — what, pulling a prank?"
Yoo Joonghyuk says nothing.
Even without his input, Han Sooyoung's anger continues to rise. "Everyone is worried about you, you worthless idiot. When they should be worrying about themselves. You don't get to sit there and act like you're the only one suffering right now when we all—" She cuts herself off with a sharp breath.
Lost him, Yoo Joonghyuk's mind supplies numbly. Killed him. Everyone had played a role in the Star Stream's farce. Everyone in that room had a connection to Kim Dokja, and was forced to take up arms against him. But Yoo Joonghyuk had been the one who drove the blade into his heart and made sure he couldn't come back.
As if she can read his thoughts, Han Sooyoung says, "We didn't have a choice and you know it. If we hadn't played along with the damn scenario, all of us would be dead now. Would that have been better? Is that what you want?"
"Not all of us," says Yoo Joonghyuk. It could have just been me.
For a long moment, Han Sooyoung says nothing. The only sound is of her breathing, getting faster and heavier as the fury in her eyes blazes brighter.
Then Han Sooyoung jumps to her feet.
"Yoo Joonghyuk." She says his name like a curse. Yoo Joonghyuk is hoisted into a seated position by Han Sooyoung's hand gripping his collar. "Wake up," she snarls in his face. "You're not the one who died back there. Kim Dokja is. He died, so that we could live. And it sucks. Every goddamn minute of this sucks. You think you’re having a hard time? You should’ve seen those two brats crying like they lost a real parent. Yoo Sangah knew him way longer than you did. Even Lee Hyunsung and Jung Heewon have been going through hell because of this. But that idiot is the one who chose this option, not you. So…" With this last, her voice breaks.
Han Sooyoung is crying. Furious, bitter tears. The hand holding Yoo Joongyuk's collar trembles. Han Sooyoung releases him and sinks down on the side of the bed, then scrubs her face with her sleeve like she's trying to erase her tears and any evidence they existed. Yoo Joonghyuk remains sitting just as she left him. He says nothing to comfort her, because he has no comfort to give. The most he can do is spare her the indignity of acknowledging that she's crying.
"This is what he wanted," Han Sooyoung says like the words are choking her. "He wanted us to live. He wanted you to live, dammit, even if you're determined to throw your stupid life away just like he did. If you want to blame someone, blame him. But for fuck's sake, stop acting like you died in that castle, too."
She's right. He didn't die in Kim Dokja's place. Even though he should have.
Han Sooyoung fights to steady her breathing. She puts forth a valiant effort to sound like she isn't suppressing a sob when she speaks again. "Bastard." She realizes it isn't clear whether she means Kim Dokja or Yoo Joonghyuk and adds, "Both of you, in the same way. Always deciding things on your own without telling anyone. Always choosing the option that lets you get out easy and leaves everyone else to pick up the pieces."
Yoo Joonghyuk blinks. The thought that he is in any way like Kim Dokja hasn't occurred to him before. Thinking it makes his throat feel tight and fills his head with unnecessary, complicated thoughts. He tries to push them away. It would be so much easier if he could close off his mind. Maybe then, he could be more like the Kim Dokja who clears scenarios like it’s nothing, who’s able to do whatever it takes without looking back. Who turns all of Yoo Joonghyuk's plans upside down with a smile.
But Yoo Joonghyuk is weak. He is... afraid, he realizes, with shame settling over him like a cool rain. Because choosing to live is so much harder than choosing to die for someone like him.
When he speaks, his voice sounds like it belongs to someone else. It’s shaky and weak and almost scared. "What should I do?"
Han Sooyoung looks at him. Yoo Joonghyuk can't meet her eyes. His own feel suddenly and alarmingly warm. "What should I..." His throat constricts. He inhales, ragged and panicky, like a drowning man gasping for air that won't come. No. Yoo Joonghyuk cannot allow himself to cry. To do so would be to admit that this world has broken him, and to let himself fall apart for what would surely be the last time. If he breaks, he will not be able to put himself together again. If he stops moving, all that he has failed to save will catch up to him. He cannot let these feelings out. He does not cry.
Han Sooyoung is staring at him. She doesn't do him the same favor of pretending not to notice his eyes are as wet with unshed tears as her own. Instead, she moves. Slowly, like she's approaching a wild animal, like she expects him to maul her if she gets too close or makes a sudden move. In this condition, Yoo Joonghyuk couldn't hurt her even if he wanted to. He is too fragile now, too close to losing his grip on the last frayed thread of control that keeps him from unraveling.
Han Sooyoung turns to face him on the bed. She puts one hand on the side of his head ever so gently, like she's afraid he'll break. He thinks he might. Han Sooyoung draws Yoo Joonghyuk towards her until his head rests against her shoulder. He doesn't stop her.
Like this, Yoo Joonghyuk can't see the way her face crumples as her tears begin to fall anew.
She doesn't say anything. Perhaps she also feels that no words are enough to comfort those left behind in the grief of Kim Dokja’s salvation.
Like a man hanging from a ledge, Yoo Joonghyuk clings to what he feels. But his hold cannot last forever. Despite it all, a regressor is still a human. Kim Dokja died to protect this round where Yoo Joonghyuk's humanity remains. With deceptive ease, like reopening a wound, Yoo Joonghyuk lets go of the last fragment holding him together.
Han Sooyoung holds him through it all. In cold hands that tremble faintly, she cradles Yoo Joonghyuk's head.
He thinks of black wings and a white coat stained red with blood. He remembers the jolt of the sword in his hand when he drove it home. The sound of it entering flesh, sick and wet. Feels it like it pierces his own chest. Like he wishes it did. He thinks of Lee Seolhwa — in the castle, treating his wounds, but also before. He thinks of the warmth of her embrace and then of the absence of that warmth, her corpse already cold when he found her. He thinks of people dying by his hand and by his inaction.
He thinks of Kim Dokja, dying for him. He thinks of Kim Dokja, alive. He remembers the ridiculous look on Kim Dokja’s face at the constellation banquet when he’d announced their nebula. He thinks of the reluctant appreciation with which Kim Dokja had sampled his cooking in Peaceland and then tried to snatch another bite when he thought no one was looking. He remembers how he saw Kim Dokja last, with spiderweb cracks across his face and the smile of someone who’d triumphed even as his life bled out on the flagstones. For the first time since he heard that prophecy, he thinks of what it means for him, of all people, to be the one Kim Dokja loves most.
Kim Dokja... loves him.
Loved.
Yoo Joonghyuk thinks of Kim Dokja and all he has lost.
And Yoo Joonghyuk weeps.
A few days later, Yoo Joonghyuk leaves his room.
Outside it, seated against the wall, is Lee Jihye, who nearly drops her weapon at the sight of him. Yoo Joonghyuk gives her a hard stare. Her rumpled clothing and tired eyes tell him it's likely been almost as long since she last slept as it has been for him. Damn Kim Dokja. Yoo Joonghyuk closes the door behind him and turns to leave.
"Wait, uh, master? Where are you going?"
"To retrieve my sword."
"Um," Lee Jihye sputters. "Seolhwa-unnie said—"
Yoo Joonghyuk stops. He is silent for a moment. "I don't intend to die." Then he continues down the hallway.
From behind him, he hears, "I'll... go get Unnie."
Yoo Joonghyuk finds Han Sooyoung where he expects to, in her room.
In fact, he finds two of her, facing off with their fists in the air. They both regard him with the same slack-jawed look of astonishment when he enters the room.
"My sword. Return it."
The Han Sooyoungs share a look. "Why, so you can try to kill us all?" says the one on the right.
Yoo Joonghyuk glares at her. He knows enough about her Avatar skill to be aware that she doesn't need to be an active participant to reap the benefits of her training. He's seen her do it before, when she sets her clones on each other while she lazes around with a lemon candy in her mouth and collects the experience after. But when the rightmost Han Sooyoung dissolves the other, he thinks he can understand the impulse to be the one landing blows and receiving them, this time.
"No," says Yoo Joonghyuk.
"So you can kill yourself, then?"
Despite having just stated his intentions not to kill her, the look Yoo Joonghyuk gives Han Sooyoung is borderline murderous. "When I said I wasn't going to give up on this life, I meant it."
Han Sooyoung wipes the sweat from her forehead. She gives him a searching look, eyes narrowed. Considering. Not trusting him.
Yoo Joonghyuk forces more words out. "Kim Dokja was right. There's no need for me to regress anymore." Then, quietly, "I know now. What I have to do."
Another beat of silence. Han Sooyoung seems to find whatever she's looking for in Yoo Joonghyuk's expression. "Tch." She manifests his sheathed sword from her inventory and tosses it to him without giving him another glance. "Took you long enough."
Yoo Joonghyuk catches it. As he's fastening it to its place at his belt, Han Sooyoung summons up another clone and resumes her fighting stance. She swings a punch that her other self dodges, then counters with her own. His reason for coming here is done, but Yoo Joonghyuk finds himself hesitating to leave. Conflicting emotions cross his expression.
"Was there something else?" says Han Sooyoung.
"About... before." Yoo Joonghyuk swallows. Opens his mouth to speak again. Closes it.
Han Sooyoung parries a kick, then rolls her eyes. "I'm not going to tell anyone. Nobody would believe me anyway if I said that the high and mighty Supreme King is actually just a big crybaby."
A muscle in Yoo Joonghyuk's jaw twitches. He's torn between a strange gratitude and a desire to draw his sword and cut down both Han Sooyoungs to escape being perceived by them.
The other Han Sooyoung throws him a smirk. "I was crying back there too, you moron. It's mutually assured destruction if I tell anyone."
"Traitor!" the first Han Sooyoung shrieks. "Don't say unnecessary things!" She launches a flurry of blows against her clone, who blocks them with a complaining yell.
Something in Yoo Joonghyuk eases. He doesn't smile. The ache in his chest is still too heavy for that. But if he can continue on this road, he thinks, there just might be a future somewhere in which he can smile again.
He turns to leave.
Han Sooyoung calls after him. "Hey! Yoo Joonghyuk!"
He stops and looks back. Han Sooyoung holds her clone in a headlock, face flushed with exertion. The expression she wears is difficult to read. After a moment of struggling with herself, she says, "You look like shit, by the way. Go wash your face."
Yoo Joonghyuk meets her gaze. Han Sooyoung stands there wrestling with herself, and he recognizes something in how she looks in that moment. He's seen that same tiredness, the haggard exhaustion of someone backed into a corner, haunted and bleak, in his own reflection. The look of someone who has survived. He turns to leave again. "As if you're any better," he says.
"Hah?" one of the Han Sooyoungs calls out, while the other shouts, "What was that, bastard?" in a tone that makes it clear she heard him just fine. Yoo Joonghyuk has already left the room.
An unpleasant woman. But one, Yoo Joonghyuk begrudgingly admits, Kim Dokja was not wrong to place his trust in.
The next day, he leaves the compound with his sword at his side and Kim Dokja's name on his lips.
Kim Dokja is dead. Yoo Joonghyuk saw it happen. He held him until he couldn't anymore.
But Kim Dokja has died before. And that man, if nothing else, always has a plan.
If there is even the slightest chance that Kim Dokja still exists somewhere, Yoo Joonghyuk will find him. He will find him and drag him back to this rotten world, even if it takes the rest of this lifetime. And if no trace of him remains, then Yoo Joonghyuk will carry on anyway, as the last one who can bear this world’s weight on his shoulders. That is his answer.
Yoo Joonghyuk is not going to give up on this life.
Yoo Joonghyuk is going to live.