9. You open the door and find yourself in... nothing. There is nothing around you. Just a dark, dark void, throughout which you will wander with the unsettling sense that you are completely alone. Even the person at your side doesn't feel at all real, though perhaps you will cling to them just to stave off the loneliness. After an indeterminate amount of time, your surroundings will shift and twist, places you've been to within the hotel and in your own games flitting before your eyes in an instant - and then you will find yourself back in the hallway, disoriented. Only four minutes have passed.
it's uncomfortable at first, the second the void fills around them. but the sensation of being alone... it snaps him back to that moment on the train. without warning, he reaches out to take his companion's hand with a sudden exhale. unaware of the breath he was holding. ]
Another one of those rooms where you're in a void.
[ Joonghyuk is used to loneliness, so he doesn't... Feel all too different? Maybe some fidgety, so he accepts the hand. It's pleasant. More pleasant than usual. ]
[ but even the rooms are not safe from stardust "says who" idk i'm just adding it here because this void is the perfect place for yet another mem ]
[ While panting heavily, you lay unmoving on the floor for a long time. Only the same exact question continued to swirl around in your head – the question of “But, why?”
⸢Why, for someone like me?⸥
You remain collapsed for a while. You thought you cried, too. However, no matter how you thrashed and screamed and sobbed, the already-written sentences couldn’t be changed. Han Sooyoung had to spend 13 years of life just for you, and helped you live by crafting sentences literally carved out of her. And then, she was extinguished.
⸢Kim Dokja⸥
( The 4th Wall ) was calling out to you. You quietly listened to the next words.
⸢Y o u sho uld r e a d⸥
You gingerly stood back up. Your reflection on the windows was a complete mess. It’d be hard to call your body an adult’s anymore. Your height had decreased a lot, and your face had gotten younger, too. The coat you wore no longer fit you. You stared at that face for a long time, before taking the coat off for good. ]
...How many years has it been?
⸢Ear th’s ti me h a s no mea ning he re⸥
[ You understood what that meant. This subway was the location where the ‘Most Ancient Dream’ had his dreams. So, the time of other world-lines couldn’t measure the ‘time’ flowing within this train. In all honesty, you had completely lost all sense of time after entering this train, anyway. ]
Even then, there should still be this thing called perceived time, right?
⸢Ar ound 21763 y e a r s⸥
It’s not as long as I thought. I’m still way younger than the ‘Secretive Plotter’, right?
⸢St ill a li ttle r un t⸥
[ You heard ( The 4th Wall ) cackle away. If it wasn’t for this guy’s presence here, you’d have gone insane a long time ago. Along with the ‘Pah-sususu’ noise, the tip of you pinky decreased a little. Since when did this start from, you wondered. You didn’t do anything, yet your body continued to grow smaller. Well, if you were to be more specific, it wasn’t really ‘I didn’t do anything’, though. ]
...Will I keep getting smaller? [ You stared at the crumbs of Fables drifting away outside the windows and asked. ] Where are those Fables going off to, anyway?
⸢To uni ver se’s sub con scious ness⸥
And where is that?
⸢In a wor ld-li ne y o u ar en’t con sci ous of⸥
[ The role of the ‘Most Ancient Dream’ was to imagine all of the world-lines. Even if you weren’t conscious of it, your subconsciousness was still continuously watching the world-lines. ]
⸢Tho se Fables wi ll be reb orn as ano ther Kim Dok Ja⸥
As another Kim Dokja?
⸢Me ta phor ica lly spea king its li ke th at⸥
[ You thought you could understand what [The 4th Wall] was saying. Fables were streaming beyond the galaxies to head towards another world-line. Those Fables were, in essence, ‘you’. Just like the 49% version of you living along with your companions somewhere in the 1864th regression turn, your fragments could very well be reborn as ‘Kim Dokja’ in a world-line somewhere out there. ]
If it’s only that little, I think it’ll be a bit of a push to call that guy ‘Kim Dokja’. I mean, he won’t be the same as me with such a small fragment.
⸢Y o u mi ght be ri ght⸥
[ An existence that might have a different name and face to you. Even then, that existence would come to life and start imagining the universe. He’d be moved after reading the story, and then, stare at the world-line. And just like that, he’d maintain this universe. ]
...I see.
[ Somehow, you thought you could understand the principle of this universe just a little. You pressed your crumbling fingers against the window. When you did, the rate of crumbling began accelerating. ]
⸢If y o u do th at⸥
This is my way of atoning for this story.
[ Not just from your fingers, but the Fables began scattering away little by little from the shoulders as well as your legs, too. The scattered Fables would fly around in the universe and become sentences that go on to support this universe from somewhere.
⸢To say that, though you have grown up while reading this story, there’s no need for you to become it.⸥
That’s what the author of the ‘Ways of Survival’, Han Sooyoung said. You had clearly heard her. Even then, you couldn’t heed her words. How could you make any other choice when looking at such a story? When you closed your eyes, the overview of the entire universe would get drawn inside your head.
Han Sooyoung wrote the story. Yoo Joonghyuk lived that story. And, you read that very story. And that’s how this world barely managed to reach its completion.
⸢”Dokja-ssi.”⸥
Because this tragedy existed, you got to meet certain people. Someone was able to get saved, too.
⸢Kim Dokja stared into the universe with no visible end.⸥
And now, you knew what your future was like. Every time you read something, you’d crumble away. Your crumbling Fables would scatter to countless world-lines out there and become the ‘gaze’ that maintained this universe.
You would lose all of your memories, and lose everything that you hold dear. And in the end, only the desire to see the ‘next story’ would remain in you. But, without that desire, this universe couldn’t continue.
This universe could only continue telling its story as long as someone was looking at it.
when the memory dissipates, they're left once more in darkness. ]
[ ... The darkness really does explain how Joonghyuk feels right now. There's a strange emptiness, but it stokes flames of... Anger? It's a slow rise. ]
[ Sorry, he is just lost in his thoughts… Further lost as he thinks about Mia who told him to fetch Dokja, saying she’ll come with him, and even trained to be strong to fight off the stars alongside her big brother.
… It weighs in his heart that he took her with him, that she would help him save the person he was meant to save, and yet he would throw her away. This may not be the first time, but those regressions where she would die, where he would fail her—they rush him in the silence. ]
[ Still no response, uncertain as to what Joonghyuk could potentially be thinking about. His lips part once more but no words come from him.
⸢Y o u sho uld r e a d⸥
What's to say he isn't still reading. His grip loosens, even if the fear of loneliness is still there. The absence of the fourth wall was noticeable in the last game but this time he's much more aware of it. It hasn't been a consistent thought, he's had some time since he's woken up, but that... that memory. ]
[ He tightens his hold on Dokja's hand, trying to snap him out of it.
You and your companions regressed. You made it to the final scenario... You finally reached Kim Dokja, but you failed. You all have failed. The scene at the last train car still haunts you, with the letters and sentences coming from Kim Dokja's small body flit and flutter in the air.
... You feel. Empty.
“Orabeoni.”
Whenever Mia uses that term, she wants to ask you (for) something.
You knew that after going through many, many regressions, but you listen to her, anyway. You owe that to her after the many lives you've failed her, after having trained her and allowed her to suffer the scenarios alongside you another four years. This time, you were able to protect her. She did not need to die. She did not need to be sacrificed. Your sister is here in front of you because of a man, a man who is no longer here—Kim Dokja.
...
She quietly stares at you and you stare back, but you worry that she will read you. Mia is smart, intuitive, and knows you well. Maybe that's why her next string of words isn't so rude.
“Orabeoni, you did your very best. No one can do more or better than what you have already done.”
... Do you look so sad that your sister is comforting you? You're a poor excuse of an older brother, of a guardian, and you want to reassure her. Before you can utter a word, she climbs up on a chair and places her hand on the crown of your head. Pat pat. The child you've raised since infancy is trying to lift your spirits.
... It makes you feel worse, but grateful.
“Let’s stop and go back home.”
You can go back home, the ending that Kim Dokja gave you and everyone else. You don't answer back, but you pick her up from the chair and she settles on your arm. Holding her close, you give her a hug and she keeps patting your head.
he feels that tighten hold on his hand but his thoughts do flicker to Mia. what Joonghtuk had said in trial and he... he sucks in a small breath.
he raises his companion's hand still in his own, it's still so hard to see but he manages to bring that hand up to press his forehead lightly to it. ]
We'll save her too.
[ both yoo mia and biyoo deserve to get out of this situation they're in. (assuming it's real) he won't let Joonghyuk risk losing her again. he has lost her too many times already. ]
[ He also remembers what he says in trial and it doesn't weigh light on his heart. It was in the moment... And both him and his sister owe Dokja for their happiness, more than once.
Maybe Mia and himself would be happier if they didn't live without the other, anyway, but he shakes his head. The touch also helps cement the words. ]
That's right. We will save her and Biyoo.
[ Assuming this is real at all, which he isn't sure about. ]
[ Dokja already knows the ending he wants, the one he's living in, they're both there. All four of them are. He won't settle for less. ...Yoo Joonghyuk deserves the ending he wants as well. There's some reassurance when he responds to him. Words of agreement.
Then, suddenly, they're thrust back into the hallway and Dokja takes a moment to adjust to the light again as his head swims disorientated. ]
[ Joonghyuk does not know that future. He isn't there yet, isn't sure if he will get there. Even if Dokja here should be a testament to their hard work, a vision of what's to come, Joonghyuk remembers the possibilities. It could very well not be his future.
But Joonghyuk allows himself to be comforted, to believe that it will be his. Niah whines some, but stops when they're back in the hallway. ]
... I don't think we would find anything useful in these rooms.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
w3, tuesday.
it's uncomfortable at first, the second the void fills around them. but the sensation of being alone... it snaps him back to that moment on the train. without warning, he reaches out to take his companion's hand with a sudden exhale. unaware of the breath he was holding. ]
Yoo Joonghyuk?
no subject
[ Joonghyuk is used to loneliness, so he doesn't... Feel all too different? Maybe some fidgety, so he accepts the hand. It's pleasant. More pleasant than usual. ]
more spoilers for novel epilogue aaa
[ but even the rooms are not safe from stardust "says who" idk i'm just adding it here because this void is the perfect place for yet another mem ]
when the memory dissipates, they're left once more in darkness. ]
.....
aaaaaaa
You still think it's atonement?
no subject
I did. ..It was.. an assured way the universe would continue moving. Even if it meant I would forget everything.
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However, he knows that he shouldn't know. It could change his ending far beyond his control. It could jeopardize their happiness. ]
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... ] How do you think we get out of here?
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… It weighs in his heart that he took her with him, that she would help him save the person he was meant to save, and yet he would throw her away. This may not be the first time, but those regressions where she would die, where he would fail her—they rush him in the silence. ]
no subject
⸢Y o u sho uld r e a d⸥
What's to say he isn't still reading. His grip loosens, even if the fear of loneliness is still there. The absence of the fourth wall was noticeable in the last game but this time he's much more aware of it. It hasn't been a consistent thought, he's had some time since he's woken up, but that... that memory. ]
no subject
... The room will spit us out soon.
[ He tightens his hold on Dokja's hand, trying to snap him out of it.Mia... ]
no subject
he feels that tighten hold on his hand but his thoughts do flicker to Mia. what Joonghtuk had said in trial and he... he sucks in a small breath.
he raises his companion's hand still in his own, it's still so hard to see but he manages to bring that hand up to press his forehead lightly to it. ]
We'll save her too.
[ both yoo mia and biyoo deserve to get out of this situation they're in. (assuming it's real) he won't let Joonghyuk risk losing her again. he has lost her too many times already. ]
no subject
Maybe Mia and himself would be happier if they didn't live without the other, anyway, but he shakes his head. The touch also helps cement the words. ]
That's right. We will save her and Biyoo.
[ Assuming this is real at all, which he isn't sure about. ]
no subject
Then, suddenly, they're thrust back into the hallway and Dokja takes a moment to adjust to the light again as his head swims disorientated. ]
Right.. so, not that one again.
no subject
But Joonghyuk allows himself to be comforted, to believe that it will be his. Niah whines some, but stops when they're back in the hallway. ]
... I don't think we would find anything useful in these rooms.
no subject
[ He reaches out to pat Niah, it's okay. No more void for them. Jin fusses a little as she circles them. ]
Some of them add questionable injuries too at times so.
[ it's. probably safer if he avoids getting any sussy evidence on him. again. ]