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Yoo Joonghyuk often wondered if Kim Dokja was right in the head.
The moment the old woman in a prison uniform, which labelled her as Prisoner 406, arrived, saying that she had been called by a 'Kim Dokja', Yoo Joonghyuk regretted leaving the Kings to their own devices. This was who that fool had decided to take? Don't tell him, was his mind still addled…?
Memories of the past night returned, unbidden, and irritation flashed through Yoo Joonghyuk. He'd started assuming Kim Dokja to be different from all the others, even if he didn't want to admit it, so seeing him drunk in the middle of the scenarios, and about to… well, it was more than simple disappointment stewing in him.
This man, the one with a plan for everything, was he really this shallow? To be able to succumb to lust and drunkeness this easily…
Still, it didn't erase all that he had done. He had saved Yoo Joonghyuk quite a few times, and for now at least, they seemed to be on the same side. Yoo Joonghyuk could go clear the scenario for both of them, if it meant that Kim Dokja would be able to remain safe enough to be with his lover.
A heavy feeling came over his heart. Who else, if not him, understood the pain of losing the one dearest to the heart? He still couldn't quite look Lee Seolhwa in the eye, knowing the woman he loved was forever gone beyond his reach. The woman who smiled, laughed and adored him as he did her, she wasn't the one who accompanied him now.
Well… if he was able to spare his companion and his lover that, maybe some of his burden would lessen.
(Get out of the way, Yoo Joonghyuk!)
"I’ve heard a lot about you from Sookyung. It is a pleasure."
"It is also a pleasure."
The familiar voice shook him out of his musing. Yoo Joonghyuk's mood darkened even further. He'd come anyway, was it? It wasn't like that was unexpected. But it seemed Kim Dokja was still a 'regular' incarnation in the sense that he didn't know what this world could to do. The heights of cruelty that those damn stars in the sky could put him through.
(Flowing white hair in the breeze, a gentle laugh, eyes that looked at him like he was the entire world.)
(Blood. So much of it. Indescribable despair and madness in his heart. A sweet innocent face, a child, who hadn't even properly opened its eyes, lying unmoving, next to its mother.)
(A man in a white coat, with a huge hole in his torso, blood decorating the grass around him in some terrible halo.)
Kim Dokja had made it to his side by now. Yoo Joonghyuk hoped his face was still impassive.
“You came.”
“Yes. Unfortunately.”
The words were spoken lightly, as if he didn't realise what price he likely would have to pay in the near future. Well, even if he was a prophet, Kim Dokja wouldn't understand. He wasn't a regressor, like Yoo Joonghyuk. He wasn't the one whose entire life was defined by this apocalypse. A horrifying cycle of the same tragedy.
“It doesn’t matter if you sit this one out.”
Why were the words so difficult to get out, all of a sudden?
“You have a woman you love.”
The expression on the fool's face might have been amusing. Utter bewilderment and shock painted Kim Dokja's features. “…What?”
Was he acting clueless on purpose? Did he really just dare?
“It’ll be hard.” Yoo Joonghyuk didn't think the depth of those words would reach Kim Dokja. After all, he was just one of the many nameless, faceless office workers the previous world mass-produced. No one here understood what 'hard' meant. They all still hoped for a light at the end of the tunnel, but Yoo Joonghyuk knew. This tunnel was an endless circle, a hell of eternity.
(She isn’t the person I remember. I knew it. Still, I wanted to believe for a moment that the woman in my memories was still alive. I wanted to be with her again.
–I understand.)
Meanwhile, Kim Dokja seemed to have several emotions on his face, namely shock and disbelief.
“It’s not like that." And he was lying again. Yoo Joonghyuk knew what he had seen. "This isn't a time for love."
Was he serious? How could he say that so shamelessly, after what Yoo Joonghyuk had clearly seen? But… Kim Dokja really didn't seem like the 'type' for love. Perhaps it truly was a misunderstanding?
"Then you won't mind dying." Yoo Joonghyuk looked at the man's face, and there did not really appear to be any lies on his face, for once.
"Come on," Kim Dokja wasn't looking at him, speaking in a dry voice. "Do you have to be so harsh? You're hurting my feelings."
Yoo Joonghyuk blinked. There did appear to be some strange sense of melancholy in Kim Dokja's voice, which he hadn't ever heard before. Though he had his usual irritating smile on his face, his words sounded… off.
Now that he noticed, Yoo Sangah was looking at his companion with a distinctly sad gaze, which matched Kim Dokja's.
Was it really a misunderstanding?
“Don’t forget, I still have one hit left.”
Hopefully, it would knock some sense in him.
“…Ah, yes. I had almost forgotten. Thanks for reminding me.”
Yoo Joonghyuk watched as Kim Dokja shut up, presumably to hand out instructions to his party through whatever means of communication they had.
Yes, there was certainly something wrong with him today. His eyes, which usually seemed to sparkle as if stars resided within them, now looked as if all semblance of light had been forcefully sucked out. It was a strangely unnerving sight.
(Yoo Joonghyuk had seen those eyes dying once. "Hey, just kill me now. You'll even get coins if you do it." Yoo Joonghyuk remembered that absurd request.)
But, despite everything, a part of Yoo Joonghyuk seemed to find comfort at that. Outside of a mirror, he hadn't seen such eyes. A peculiar feeling of being understood resonated throughout him. In this regression turn, this was his second time experiencing such a thing. And both times, it was because of this man.
He had seen much, much despair and devastation in his three lives. They had become an everyday sight, and he just grew more and more desensitized everytime he witnessed such a thing. Yoo Joonghyuk had had more than his fair share of tragedy—
(A beautiful child, and only a dream of what its future could have been. Same for its mother, lying beside it, dark liquid the same colour as her lips oozing out of her chest.)
—and he had eventually reached this point. He could now watch the apocalypse eat his world up with cold, empty eyes. A mild twinge of regret might cry out from somwhere in him, but it would fall upon deaf ears.
It wasn't really the same for Kim Dokja. His lack of light spoke of something else, something Yoo Joonghyuk didn't really understand. But Kim Dokja's gaze always seemed to relieve that fundamental loneliness in his long-dead heart.
(A somewhat cold gaze which would immediately soften as soon as it landed on him. How he adored that.)
This wasn't the time. He wasn't so weak as to be having such thoughts so early on in this regression. No, he had to focus…
The abandoned world awaited.