Chapter Text
Let's see... it started maybe around the tenth scenario? Or after. Definitely after. Nobody would have joked about this stuff before- they were all so trusting in Dokja-ssi.
I think it was around the 12th scenario, after Joonghyuk-ssi had gone away, and Dokja-ssi was... gone, too. We still had hope. Even within that short time, we had already divided ourselves, with Sooyoung-ssi trying to follow the path of that damned novel, and Heewon-ssi working hard to clear the scenarios, and I... was admittedly distancing myself from the party. It was then that Jihye said something about dying.
"Why don't we die, just to see if ahjussi's there?" We had all laughed, of course. He was alive, and would always be alive- always.
But that question, and its answer, popped back up again throughout the party's time on earth. I don't think worries like that can ever truly go away, and they didn't. We waited for Dokja-ssi to come back, and he did. But if you come back only to leave again, does that count as coming back? Is it really worth it, to wait and to cry and to love so deep that you become blind and let it happen again, and again, and again? How long would his luck last, as Dokja-ssi smiled that unlucky smile we'd all come to despise? We found our answers slowly, as we realized that there was no point in asking any other question than if dying was truly worth it.
"If ahjussi does it so many times, it must have some appeal," murmured Shin Yoosoung as she waited with me for Dokja-ssi to come back yet again.
Lee Gilyoung, never far behind, followed soon after with his cries of "Just you wait- I'm not afraid of death!" while he threw himself into battle after battle.
Others did the same, although quieter- didn't Joonghyuk-ssi mention something like that to Dokja-ssi one time or the other?
Well, suffice it to say that by the time it all happened you didn't need to know everything about the world to know what we would do next. It's one thing to treat this world like a game, or like a novel, but god, Dokja-ssi. It's another thing to truly live it. And that's what we did, for four years. We lived that novel like we were afraid to do anything else. Because, in all honesty, we were.
And then you died. And you died again. And you showed to us that living here, in this world, without you- well, it wasn't worth it.
You always talked about a happy ending. But you never even got to live yours. And for that reason, we rejected it all. We cleared scenario after scenario as if trying desperately to make up for your deaths, as if clinging to your simple, old dream of living together after the end would change the fact that we had fought tooth and nail to get there.
And yet, we didn't get there. Your dream was just that: a dream. And now here I am, sitting in a world that teeters so close to the end, and I have to put the pieces back together.
"Yoo Sangah," Han Sooyoung-ssi startled me out of my thoughts, and I turned around.
"Is there anything you need, Sooyoung-ssi?" It was morning in Seoul's Industrial Complex, which we had returned to last night.
Sooyoung-ssi sighed and made her way over to the large window of our apartment. The complex was almost empty, and whether that was from the time of day or from the events that had occurred a week ago, I still wasn't sure. I saw people walking around, occasionally- but never too many. Maybe they were just staying inside, like me. I'd like to think so.
"No," she replied, but the tone of her voice made it seem sarcastic. "Just- y'know-" I cut her off before she could say anything.
"How about breakfast?"
Sooyoung-ssi groaned. "Why not ask that bastard to make some?" In the past, there were many people whom Sooyoung-ssi called a "bastard". Now, there was only one.
"I believe Joonghyuk-ssi has been updating Aileen-ssi on our current situation," I kept my voice cool and my tone casual, but something broke in me as I did so. Current situation? What a joke.
Sooyoung-ssi noticed it, of course. How could she not, as a writer? "Don't stress too much," Sooyoung-ssi added, maybe trying to convince herself as much as me. "It's nothing that we haven't handled before."
I laughed at that, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Sooyoung-ssi smirk. The morning sun was bleeding through the apartment like an oil painting, and yet the remaining stars shone faintly in the sky, like we couldn't escape them just yet.
I made eggs. I didn't trust Sooyoung-ssi to make them, although I knew she was a competent chef. She, however, had a habit of burning the food "for flavor," which did not go well with coffee.
She was put to work making rice, which could arguably go very badly but it was almost nine in the morning and I was too hungry to care. I had been awake for hours, and I assumed that she had done the same.
Thirty minutes later, breakfast was ready, just in time for a man in a black coat to walk through the door of the apartment.
"You're late," declared Sooyoung-ssi around a mouthful of thankfully unburnt rice.
Joonghyuk-ssi just sighed and shrugged off his coat before taking a seat at the kitchen table.
"How's Aileen?"
"The industrial complex is fine," Joonghyuk-ssi muttered. "It's us who we need to worry about."
"Does anyone have a plan?" I began, although I stopped when I was greeted with the stares of two very tired people. How silly of me to trust a writer and the main character, two of the people who knew this world the best, to come up with an idea on how to fix everything. "Alright," I smiled, and started again. "Here's what we know."
They're dead.
[The 99th scenario is still in progress]
[The 99th scenario has been completed]
"The world is a mess," Sooyoung-ssi summed it up with another laugh that almost sounded self-deprecating. "Our companions are dead, what's left of the nebulas are in havoc, and..."
"We won," Yoo Joonghyuk-ssi muttered.
That was the most troubling factor. We had, in fact, won. Yet it was a Pyrrhic victory, with a loss so great I wasn't sure if we'd come back from it.
We had to come back from it.
The 99th scenario had been cleared, and yet the constellations weren't ready to accept defeat so easily. Clearing all the scenarios had seemed like an impossible feat, and yet a small nebula filled with nobodies had done it. In their eyes, the eyes that watched everything that happened but ignored it all the same, it wasn’t fair.
"Those damn constellations are so predictable," I remember Sooyoung-ssi saying one time or the other.
And she was right. If you are used to looking down all your life, it's so hard to make an adjustment and look up.
Olympus, Vedas, Papyrus, even Eden... they tried so hard to keep their place in the darkened sky. And so they killed him.
Killed you, Dokja-ssi. Of course, our nebula wouldn't stand for that. The fact that you would come back was a given, so we weren't that upset...
One week ago, the Final Wall.
"Damn you, Dokja-ssi!" Heewon-ssi screamed and slashed her sword over and over, her own power far outshining that of the constellations.
Hyunsung-ssi followed soon behind her, wordless but with an expression like he'd been stabbed, despite the fact that no wounds marred his steel armor.
The kids were crying ugly tears, Jihye was laughing and muttering something about how, yet again, they were left behind.
Over and over again, Kim Dokja's Company waded into the sea of hostility, battling myths and legends and all kinds of stories just so that they could see the ending that one person had dreamed about. In the distance, the great tree of the Korean peninsula spread out, and bodies were scattered like floor tiles.
The explosion had taken care of everything.
"Idiots," Joonghyuk-ssi growled. We had somehow found our way to each other amidst the confusion of battle. "They're going to get themselves killed."
Ah, who am I kidding? We broke, just as we had a thousand times before. All of us revisited that question that Jihye had asked so long ago. Is dying worth it? And all of us arrived at different answers. As much as I wanted to, I couldn't hate them. After all, I had thought the same as them, and was just about to join the battle when I felt a hand pull at me.
"What the hell are you doing?" Sooyoung-ssi hissed at me. "You think you can trust me and that depressed idiot to bring you all back? Have some reason. I thought that's what you were known for."
So as much as death was welcome, it wasn't the wisest option here. To be honest, it was always an option; maybe even always a welcome one. After all, how many times did Mino Soft give me hell? But if I survived the apocalypse- if I managed to make it to the 99th scenario (and clear it)- I'm sure I could handle anything else. Even death itself.
Hopefully.