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Chapter Text

Yoo Joonghyuk had thought he’d run out of tears to cry. When Kim Dokja had died at his hands at the Dark Castle, when he disappeared inexplicably for three years and left them all to fend for themselves, when he’d learned the truth of Ways of Survival —no matter how strongly he felt anger or sadness or fear or any combination of the three, his face reflected none of that loathed vulnerability. It was a skill he’d learned at some point during a past regression, what he thought to be a testament to his mental fortitude. After all, come face to face with so many tragedies amidst a single regression, how could he spare the tears for each one? 

To Yoo Joonghyuk, crying was a sign of hopelessness, of an unresolvable despair, of a resolute powerlessness to change anything. Crying was useless; therefore if he cried, he must be useless as well.

—But because the entirety of Kim Dokja’s existence was proof that the narrative could be changed, he didn’t cry when it quietly struck him, shortly after leaving that subway for the last time, that they didn’t quite have all of Kim Dokja. 

Nor did he cry when Han Sooyoung realized that same truth, later than all the others, knowing that she would be the only one unable to accept that this was the closest thing to the ending Kim Dokja wanted that they could get. 

Even after learning the truth of the 0th regression, even after willingly continuing his hellish regression cycle one last time just to get that other half of Kim Dokja back… 

Even after they all come back with truly despairing expressions, watching the 49% that they had had slip through their fingers. 

No, Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t cry until Han Sooyoung approaches him wordlessly, shortly after their return, eyes downcast like she’s afraid of what she’ll see if she looks at his face.

In her hand is a black notebook, countless loose pages shoved haphazardly into the space between the cover and the first page. 

She hands it to him, biting her lip. 

“I didn’t read anything,” she blurts out. “It looked like it was meant for you—” 

…But anything else she had to say is lost to him, drowned out by the erratic pounding of his heart.

He remembers the words he had written: return the notebook when you are ready . But this is all wrong, because the Kim Dokja he knows would never have returned it like this unless it was really his last goodbye—and that’s not a truth that Yoo Joonghyuk will accept. 

A brief glimpse into the pages shows that they’re filled with black ink, words scrawled into the margin and compressed until they’re almost overlapping, nearly illegible. He closes the book just as quickly, breathing in slowly and then breathing out. 

Han Sooyoung finally lifts her gaze to his face, inhaling sharply at what she sees. “You—”

Her hands tremble at the sides, but he can’t focus on her. His vision is blurring, eyes burning: a sensation he used to know so well, now so alien to him. His throat constricts as his hands tighten their grip on the leather, swallowing painfully. 

“ Leave ,” he manages to force out, voice hoarse, right before a single hot tear trickles down his cheek and lands squarely on the notebook cover. She looks like she wants to protest, but any of her complaints are drowned out quickly. With one last parting look, she walks away, and Yoo Joonghyuk is alone. 

Alone . He’d felt that way during his first two regressions, the realization that he was the only constant between regressions haunting him throughout his every waking moment. It had been difficult to grasp the fact that the events surrounding him had been real, to the point where he’d made horrible mistakes and lost valuable companions by disassociating in the middle of difficult scenarios. The meaning of reality had warped itself until everyone he knew was just a shadow, a ghost come to torment him from a previous lifetime. 

Though he’d known her to be untrustworthy even then, he’d depended on Anna Croft more than he’d like to admit in the second regression: just the possibility of someone knowing the future, someone who might remember him and all his regressions, had been a thought he’d clung onto like a lifeline. 

But Anna Croft had betrayed him, cold and remorseless: whether she knew him or not was irrelevant, for she would never understand him. Thus he lived the rest of that life burning with a thirst for vengeance as her slave, entering the third regression (or the 1864th). Upon incarnating into the subway during that regression, he’d decided he wouldn’t trust anyone: neither prophets nor anyone else who claimed to offer information was worth his time, and even his companions would be little more than phantoms. 

And then… Kim Dokja. 

It took a long time for him to realize, but all at once it felt like there was someone truly worth being called a companion: someone who had broken through his barriers, who was a bit like him in his solitude, but who had all the hope he didn’t have for a better future.

He’d lost him to Shin Yoosung and thought he’d lost the only other person in this world who would ever understand the pain that came with living, but Kim Dokja showed a stubborn resistance to the clutches of death. Maybe he’d resented him, for having the fighting spirit to come back to life where Yoo Joonghyuk would have simply let go. But it was difficult to hold onto that resentment, when Kim Dokja had been the one to shoulder the burden of leadership, to take responsibility for the companions that suddenly seemed a little more human to him. 

For once, Yoo Joonghyuk was the one staring at someone else’s back. For once, Yoo Joonghyuk let someone else take the lead. 

And maybe he should have fought back a little harder, maybe he should’ve convinced Kim Dokja to stand beside him rather than in front—because he learns too late that Kim Dokja, his companion in loneliness, has as much of a wall between himself and the others as he does between himself and Yoo Joonghyuk. It’s not quite betrayal, but it felt something like it. 

Again and again, he watched Kim Dokja sacrifice himself, entirely uncaring about the consequences for himself as long as everyone else survived. Again and again, he failed to keep him alive, all the way up to the bitter end. For the price of his own life, Kim Dokja brought them all to a future that he deserved to bear witness to most of all. 

A future that tastes ashy without all of Kim Dokja with them. A future where, yet again, Yoo Joonghyuk is alone. 

The author, Han Sooyoung, understands the protagonist in her own unique way… but no one will see him the way his reader did, the missing link between the three of them. 

There’s a black notebook in his hand, one that doesn’t hold nearly as much value without its writer present. Yoo Joonghyuk stares at it blankly, wondering if he should throw it away—but. They’re Kim Dokja’s words: at his weakest, at his softest, at his sincerest. 

And, more importantly, they’re addressed to him. 

He doesn’t touch the pages of the notebook. Even just at a glance, he’s aware that they’re written for the regressions of different worldlines: still ‘him’, but a version of himself he’s not. He only rips out the first page, the one he watched Kim Dokja write on that quiet day in the mountains, and puts it—gently, reverently—with the other loose pages, alongside the one he’s held onto for so long. 

In time, he’ll read them all again and again and again until he can quote them word-for-word, until those unguarded sentences haunt his waking hours. Maybe, this way, he’ll finally understand how that reader felt reading his own unending story. 

It’s the closest thing he has to closure: this Demon King’s final offering of bitter salvation. 

—

1. an eternity apart (once upon a time)

[ Dear Yoo Joonghyuk, 

My name is Kim Dokja. We live in different universes. To me, you’re a character. I bet you've never even heard of me.  

But I know you. The lives you’ve lived, the regressions you’ve gone through, I've read them.   

You’re so strong, Yoo Joonghyuk. How do you do it? Doesn’t it hurt, staring in the face of eternity, not knowing how many lives you’ll have to continue to go through until you reach the end?  

I’m so weak compared to you. Even just one life is too much for me. Reading about you makes me feel strong, though. Is that okay? Even though I’m weak, is it okay for me to want to be strong like you?  

Are you okay?  

I mean, there must be some things about you that tls123 didn’t mention. No matter how strong you are, it can’t be easy to keep fighting on day after day. Neither the author nor the reader really knows the entirety of how you feel. It’s just you, Yoo Joonghyuk…  

That must be so lonely. Won’t you let yourself make some friends?  

I could be your friend.  

If we were in the same world, I would protect you and make sure you would never have to regress again! No matter what happened to me, I would always be on your side. I could be your trusted companion, and we could see the end together.  

I think that would be nice.  

Even if we're in different worlds, I'll always believe in you. Thank you for never giving up, Yoo Joonghyuk. ]

—

Of all the letters, this is the one most visibly aged with time: it’s wrinkled to the point of near illegibility, and the handwriting looks much more like that of a child’s. It strikes Yoo Joonghyuk that, much like how the letters in the notebook were addressed to other versions of himself, perhaps this younger Kim Dokja was also a different person to who he’d become. 

It’s all too easy to picture the Oldest Dream even now, that cowering child who reigned as God of this universe, wearing Kim Dokja’s face. Was he really so young when he wrote these innocent words, tainted with a heavy exhaustion Yoo Joonghyuk knows so well?

He treats all the letters with a gentleness that some might call uncharacteristic, but he almost refuses to touch this one at all. It feels precious, a piece of Kim Dokja’s darker past and a reminder of the point where their lives intersected. It’s a beginning before the beginning, the prologue to Kim Dokja’s tragedy. 

There were surely countless lost children just like him, finding their own ways to cope with their difficult situations… but the uniqueness of his situation doesn’t matter. It’s never been called into question in the first place—it’s the fact that he’s Kim Dokja that matters, regardless of the circumstances that surrounded him. 

Kim Dokja, who has loved a story enough to live for it and die for it both.

What a fool.

But their relationship has always been one of reciprocation. Where Yoo Joonghyuk’s unending story kept Kim Dokja alive back then, now Kim Dokja returns the favour. There’s a thousand unresolved debts between them, and now Yoo Joonghyuk chooses this one to confront. 

…Ever so slowly, he picks up his own pen. 

Kim Dokja:

It strikes me that you were just as unwise as a child as you are now. You were naive to think me so strong, and even more so to think yourself so weak. 

Did you not understand the strength you carried when you lived to your next day in your singular life? I am the coward who would regress the moment a worldline overwhelmed me, who found meaning in neither life nor death. But you, Kim Dokja—do not insult me by calling yourself weak.

…How desperate a soul you must have been, to choose my story as the one to save you. In your own sorrows, did you seek escape through a tragedy greater than your own? Did you see me as the hero who faced my trials unflinchingly? Or is that what you wanted me to be, what you needed me to be? 

You’ve changed so little. Even then, you asked me that question: ‘are you okay’? You were a hurting child, and still you held no regard for yourself. All you did was ask about my own struggles, much like you do now. Your persistency would be admirable, were it not so grating. 

Think more of yourself.

You praised my own persistence. Understand this, Kim Dokja: I will find you again and I will take you back again as many times as I need to.

I have already waited 1863 lives to meet you. I can wait for you for as long as it takes.

I do not think highly of those who break their promises, and you have made me many in just this one letter. 

He presses his pen so hard into the paper that the ink begins bleeding through at that full stop, the product of all his rage and bitterness and resentment , both for himself and Kim Dokja suddenly coming through. 

Kim Dokja, liar extraordinaire—again and again, the imbecile promised, down to that last moment in the subway. He’d promised , and like an idiot, Yoo Joonghyuk’d believed him.

He’d turned back too late. He’d believed that, at the very end, Kim Dokja could be trusted. 

…But of course, it would be at the very end that Kim Dokja would make the greatest sacrifice of all. No story can end without the loss of something vital, and Kim Dokja had nominated himself as that loss again and again. 

It’s been so many years, but he still remembers the exact feeling of dread he’d felt right as the subway doors closed. A few years, after all, is not nearly enough time to erase the memory of an ex-regressor.

He wants to kill Kim Dokja with his own hands. Wants to bring him back to hit him again. Wants to start over again, to find Kim Dokja at the very start of the scenarios and tell him not to give his life up so easily, damn it —

…He wants to have Kim Dokja back, to ask him that question that’s burned in the back of his mind since the Star Stream was destroyed, or perhaps even before that, when that lone reader taught him how to hope. Wants to hold onto him tight so he can’t run away and leave them again. Never again. 

His hand shakes. The pen snaps, spilling ink over the desk but thankfully none onto the papers. It’s with empty eyes that he stares at those growing dark stains, his mind elsewhere entirely.

Never aloud, and not even on paper does he dare write these words. Even in the privacy of his own mind, the harrowing thought of someone with a skill like Kim Dokja’s listening in on him makes him hesitant, but Yoo Joonghyuk’s mental fortitude collapses easily when it comes to one foolish man. 

Simple and honest, two things he’s never been:

Come back to me. Please.

2. outside the scenarios

[ Dear Yoo Joonghyuk,  

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? So much has changed. I can’t pretend you know everything about me anymore, but you sure as hell are as insufferable in real life as you were in the story.  

I'm sorry I couldn’t save Shin Yoosung. I’m sorry I keep having to lie to you. I swore I’d protect you, didn’t I? But when I look at you now, I realize I was a fool. I’m still so weak.  

Isn't it pathetic, that I feel most at peace when half of my companions are characters and the world is collapsing around me?  

I know you’d probably tell me to shut up and stop rambling about useless things if you were here right now. I guess it’s good you’re not.

…

Hey, it’s me again.  

—I don’t really know how to say this. I’ve never really been good with words, you know? But I’ll ask you again. Are you okay?  

…I hope you are, because if both of us disappear I’m not sure who can lead the group.  

It’s a stupid question. Forget I asked. I know I promised to live to see the end with you but, well… only so much I can do about this. It’ll be temporary, I think—not that it matters, given that you’ll only read this if I end up coming back in the first place.  

So much for dying at the hands of the one I love the most. I think a little part of me knew it was going to be you all along. Who else could it have been, anyway? It’s you, you know—there’s no one else. There’s never been anyone else, not from the moment I first met you.

Oh, that sounds so cheesy. But you were my hero forever ago, and I love you to death here too. Your story kept me alive, you know? Just like you kept going on for your companions' sakes, I lived to see the end by your side.  

I’m sorry. It’s selfish of me to tell you these things, even if you’re never going to see this. I don’t expect anything from you, just so you know.  

It’s lonely without everyone, but it’s loneliest without you.  

…God, I really, really hope you never read this.  

I guess I’ve just grown used to you being a constant in my life. I read through more than 3000 chapters of your every regression, you know? You really get to know someone after reading their entire life story, huh. If your world hadn’t come to life after I finished reading, I probably would’ve reread again and again until I couldn’t tell the difference between your reality and my own anyway.  

Maybe me spilling out my thoughts to you is my way of apologizing for reading all of yours against your will. Would you be disgusted if you knew the truth? It’s not like you like me much in the first place—did you hate it, being the one to realize my fate? Do you hate me for loving you, loving your story the most?  

You always hated the Constellations who watched you and your Fables for amusement. I said I would befriend you, protect you, save you… but I’m the same as them, aren’t I?  

…Knowing you, actually, you’d probably throw a temper tantrum if you knew everything. It seems to be your default reaction when handling unexpected situations. We're both pretty bad at that, aren’t we?  

But I guess I’m glad, no matter how you feel, that I’m the one who has to suffer through this. You deserve some rest, you know? Step back from being the protagonist for a while. I know you hated it, when you first became a Demon King. Let me carry some of the burden, you damned masochistic sunfish.  

…Take care. You can do that much, can’t you? If I come back and you’re all depressed and beaten up, I won’t forgive you.  

Don’t give up. I’ll be back, whether you like it or not. ]

—

It’s endlessly infuriating, how flippant Kim Dokja always is about his own life. It was in the Dark Castle where Yoo Joonghyuk first considered the permanence of death, where his tentative grip on this worldline almost slipped. In killing Kim Dokja, he’d killed a part of himself—and yet it’s that very man who writes of that moment so casually, as though he hadn’t thrown all his companions into despair, as though he couldn’t understand that he’d even twisted Yoo Joonghyuk ’s heart, the regressor who’d forcibly forgotten how to care for others.

But as innately talented as Kim Dokja always has been at getting on Yoo Joonghyuk’s nerves, it’s difficult to remain enraged when the words written here are so pitiful. For all he avoided addressing what he’d done, the handful of apologies scattered throughout hold more meaning than their face value. In the case of that self-sacrificial man, incapable of even the thought of apologizing for all the deaths he’d faced for them all, Yoo Joonghyuk must read between the lines. 

He’s dishonest and irresponsible when he speaks, but there’s an air of worn acknowledgement woven into these written words—like Kim Dokja had known in his heart the way he’d hurt them all along, like it pained him just the same to do the things he’d done. 

Someone who guards his emotions more than he guards his own wellbeing doesn’t reveal secrets so easily. Thus, for Kim Dokja to have written so openly about his thoughts, it’s a sign of surrender, an attempt at making up for his wrongdoings.

It annoys Yoo Joonghyuk all the more for it. There are many things he needs to teach Kim Dokja: how to live for himself; how to stop dying , goddammit; how to understand himself to be deserving of his own desires… and first on that list is how to apologize. 

(They’re all things that Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t understand very well either. 

Once upon a time, stepping out of a subway’s doors, he’d thought maybe the two of them could learn together.) 

Because an apology at its core is simple: I’m sorry, I won’t do it again. But Kim Dokja’s endless spiels of overthinking and self-loathing suggest all of the former, none of the latter. It occurs to Yoo Joonghyuk that Kim Dokja, in all his flawed apologies, regrets the pain he inflicts on others… but he’d keep doing it anyway for the sake of his self-absolution, despite the fact that he’s only ever hurt them more by giving himself up.

Reading this letter, it seems that the best way Kim Dokja knows how to repent is through equal exchanges: for reading Yoo Joonghyuk’s thoughts, he gives up his own; for holding onto Yoo Joonghyuk’s life in order to hold onto his own, he dies again and again for his sake. Each death has been an unwanted, twisted apology; each death, perhaps, had brought Kim Dokja a little closer to being able to forgive himself.

Maybe that man is capable of selfishness after all. He dies to save them all so he can accept himself. Yoo Joonghyuk hates it, hates that so, so much.

And, well. 

[ Incarnation ‘Kim Dokja’ will die at the hands of the one he loves most .] 

At the time, it had only crushed him that much more to be the one to deal the final blow, plunge his sword into the fallen Demon King’s heart. To have Kim Dokja worry about him being disgusted ? It’s almost laughable. 

It might have been something of an honour to be adored so wholeheartedly, if only Kim Dokja could separate ‘love’ from ‘sacrifice’ in his heart. At any rate, those words don’t surprise him as much as the ones that follow them: 

It’s you, you know—there’s no one else. There’s never been anyone else, not from the moment I first met you.

The words could be construed as romantic, but there’s no doting kindness in them. If anything, they’re ruthlessly condemning—because Kim Dokja had said there’s never been anyone else , but he hadn’t meant himself beside Yoo Joonghyuk. There’s no one else , Kim Dokja wrote, and Yoo Joonghyuk thinks, only because you’re gone . 

…Yet from the very first time he faced the end of the world, his 0th regression and the beginning of it all, Yoo Joonghyuk has only ever wanted it to be both of them. 

(Han Sooyoung, on one of the scarce days the two of them can bear to look at each other, quietly mutters that he’s grown soft.

It might’ve been an insult during those solitary days, painful regressions that demanded only the strongest of mindsets in order for him to push through. Now, at the end after the end, it feels more like a simple observation. The narrative, the author, the little dreamer—they’d all made him unyielding, as unbreakable as diamond. 

Now he knows that he is just as brittle as well; now he is finally free to ache more rawly than he’s ever felt before. Because he has allowed himself to soften, he feels the full force of his longing pain.

Perhaps there is strength to be found in vulnerability, but that’s not something Yoo Joonghyuk is well acquainted with.) 

Kim Dokja:

Shut up and stop rambling about useless things. 

Who are you to decide my thoughts and feelings? I do not accept your apologies. I will not, until you say the words to my face, and until you understand what exactly it is that you should be apologizing for. 

You say you are a fool. At least that much is true. 

Tell me, why do you apologize for telling the truth, instead of apologizing for withholding it for so long? Why do you call yourself selfish when your only perceived crime was wanting to live? Apologize to yourself, Kim Dokja, for not allowing yourself to have that fate. 

For a few moments, he comes to a stop, heaving breaths filling the suddenly too-quiet room. It’s more difficult than he had realized, doing what Kim Dokja had done: it takes a special kind of strength to write these truthful words, to exchange his heart with Kim Dokja through his own letters. 

…The reader paved the way for the protagonist, so Yoo Joonghyuk continues writing the words he’d always known but never even dared to think. 

It has never been a burden to be loved by you, Kim Dokja. 

He is a drowning man pulled out of the water and taking his first breath; the words are freeing in a way he’s never known. His own words, not a part of the written story; his own thoughts, those that even Kim Dokja had never read. Words written by Yoo Joonghyuk , not the Supreme King nor the Secretive Plotter nor even the main character. 

…Words written from one broken-hearted saviour to another. 

How long will it take you to understand? I have been as much an integral part of you as you are an integral part of me. You are my companion in life and death as I am yours, and those are not words to be spoken lightly. 

You have told me what you think I deserve. You have spoken of matters of forgiveness. Not once have you told me what you deserve, whether you are to be forgiven. Then again, I suppose there’s no use in asking. You have only ever spoken nonsense in that regard. 

…In that case, to borrow your words, let me carry some of the burden. 

A few beats of hesitation—but if he doesn’t say these words now, he might never find the moment to write them again. 

You deserve to rest. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to live, with everyone else, to be a part of this family that loves you. 

You deserve forgiveness, Kim Dokja. You’re the only one left who hasn’t realized this yet. Don’t presume to tell me what I deserve until you understand what you deserve.

And I will forgive you for everything you’ve done so far, but if you think you can turn tail and run from this very ending that you orchestrated… 

Kim Dokja, if you dare tell me you deserve anything less than a peaceful epilogue, I will never forgive you.

Maybe he has grown a little too soft, allowed a little too much of himself to thaw away and melt into Kim Dokja’s ink-stained hands. 

…So until Kim Dokja returns home, part of Yoo Joonghyuk will always be missing too.

3. post-demon king selection

[ I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry— 

How can I hold onto you when I can barely hold onto myself? 

I can’t do it. I’ll fail. I’ll lose you, I’ll lose myself. 

You kept living—why—for me—I can’t— 

How can you ask me to do anything more than adore you? 

Please, please, please, throw me away, tell me you don’t need me, cast me aside. 

I can’t save you. I’m not enough. 

…

But I have to be. For you, I will be enough. ]

—

A short letter, just a scattered few sentences—yet they hold boundless emotion, anguish and despair and helplessness colouring a handful of desperate words. 

…They’re a painful echo of Yoo Joonghyuk’s own thoughts, back when he was all alone, clearing the scenarios to save a world that would forget him every time he died. Facing forces infinitely greater than himself, he’d looked for something, anything, that would give him the strength to keep trying for the sake of his companions. 

It’s a new feeling, being the one to be saved. But who is the one who will save Kim Dokja, then?

(If he intended it to be a tradeoff— my life for yours —Yoo Joonghyuk really will strangle him.) 

It doesn’t end here. His story saved Kim Dokja when he was a child. Kim Dokja saved him from the world of scenarios and brought him to the epilogue. 

So he’ll save Kim Dokja again, find every last piece of him and bring him to the happy ending where he belongs.

The letter is a short one, barely even worth calling a letter at all—but Kim Dokja had written the words for a reason, had kept the evidence of his plunge into the depths of hopelessness. 

For you, I will be enough . 

Those last six words grate on Yoo Joonghyuk. There’s no need to write a full response to this one; everything he needs to say, he writes in the space after that last sentence. 

Kim Dokja:

Be enough for yourself.

4. 1863

[ Dear Yoo Joonghyuk, 

Are you well? I’m asking the ‘you’ of the 3rd regression that I know, the ‘you’ of the 1863rd, the ‘you’ of the 1864th… and all the others too.

I hope you’re doing okay right now. To my 3rd Yoo Joonghyuk, I hope you’re getting along well with our party members. I’m sure you’re fine, of course—you’re so much more irritatingly stubborn than the Yoo Joonghyuk of this worldline. Ahh, what I wouldn’t give for you to be so docile. 

Forgive me for being a little sentimental, but I’d almost say I’ve missed you. In the end, the ‘you’ I know is the ‘you’ that I belong with. That worldline, our worldline, is my home. 

Hey. 

Since you won’t read this…

I can say this, right?

Will you tell me I did well? 

Tell me I made you happy? 

Tell me I did the right thing?

…This feels stupid. Never mind. It doesn’t really matter how I feel anyway, as long as you’re content.

I’ll be home soon. ]

—

What does it say, that the words Kim Dokja regrets saying the most are the words that Yoo Joonghyuk waits the longest to hear? 

Endless filler sentences sugarcoat his true thoughts. Broken promises and empty words, white lies and superficial statements—they’re Kim Dokja’s greatest weapons, those he wields with an easy grace. From the beginning, he’s always been good at conning people, but this is something more than that: even in these letters, he tries to lie to himself. 

Yoo Joonghyuk originated from the 1863rd worldline that this letter was written in, the one Kim Dokja touched for just a few days and set on an irreversible path. Facing the ending to the story he’d loved for so long, he’d rejected the way it was meant to go, even though it would have been the ending that would leave them all more at peace in the long run. 

All because it wasn’t Yoo Joonghyuk’s happy ending. All because a character had, for a moment, wanted to hope. 

A paradoxical man: so idealistic and realistic all at once, wanting to reach unattainable goals but understanding the sacrifices necessary to accomplish them. Kim Dokja had had no delusion of a story ending without terrible loss… and yet, despite volunteering himself as sacrifice so many times, he still believed himself to be the one owing an unending debt. 

(An unending debt demands, seemingly, an unending sacrifice. Yoo Joonghyuk despises the way Kim Dokja comes up with these answers all by himself.)

A single man lived 1864 times to save one life. One life decided to save 1864 others. They reflect each other in the worst ways, unable to come to an agreement about which of them deserves what fate. 

That Kim Dokja—horrifically stubborn, prideful in the strangest ways, able to live for anyone but himself—had finally allowed himself to open up, to ask for something for no reason but himself. 

(And how can Yoo Joonghyuk deny him that simple desire?)

He begins to understand the appeal of Kim Dokja’s letter-writing. Too many things have stopped them from being able to truly communicate before: Kim Dokja’s solitude, Yoo Joonghyuk’s pride, the chaos surrounding them. They were two shards of a shattered mirror, never quite able to meet eye-to-eye.

In the privacy of a sheet of paper, those obstacles cease to exist, and Yoo Joonghyuk has as long as he needs to say the words Kim Dokja once needed but now will never hear.  

If only he’d spoken when he still had Kim Dokja during the scenarios, or even during those last few moments in the subway—the moments Yoo Joonghyuk relives in his mind more times than he’s ever regressed, wondering how he could’ve changed things if only he had another chance. 

He’d thought of his regression Stigma, his second-third-fourth-thousandth chances, as a curse. These days, all he wants is one more chance, one more life with Kim Dokja to complete it until the end.

But what Fates have ever smiled upon either of them? He’s never gotten anything he’s wanted out of anything other than sheer determination and the monotony of only ever being able to try again, and now the one thing he wants most slips right out of his fingers. 

Regret is something Yoo Joonghyuk knows well in some regards. Every time he lost something, he promised himself he’d protect it in the next round, and it only broke him a little more to fail to honour that promise. Yet it’s the possibility of another chance in the first place, the sheer impossibility of the concept of a final round, that had kept him going then. 

Now all he has is fragments and the barest flicker of candlelight hope, swiftly dwindling out into swirling smoke… but it burns him to his core nonetheless, charred heart still beating for one reason or another. 

—He writes. 

Kim Dokja: 

Your companions are doing as well as they can. 

I imagine those are the words you want to hear. Would it satisfy you, believing that your companions could move on from you? Do you want me to tell you about how the world is healing back together without you?

Or would you rather know the truth—that your paradisiacal ending is ruined by your own absence? That Lee Gilyoung and Shin Yoosung still call out for you in their sleep? That your life was more than a brief spell of a dream to them all? 

I cannot be docile for you, Kim Dokja. Understand that you are the one who gave them hope, and you are the one who crushed it. Understand that, despite it all, they still tried so hard to bring you back. 

You made all your companions happy. You made me happy, in that 1863rd round. Do you know how many lives you have touched? Do you understand how much I—

Yoo Joonghyuk glares at the lines he’s written, eyebrows furrowed. If Kim Dokja were here, if Kim Dokja were reading this, surely he’d laugh it all off and avert his gaze. He’d tease Yoo Joonghyuk for his break in emotion, poke fun at him until they were both safely back behind their own respective walls. 

But Kim Dokja isn’t here, and there’s nothing stopping Yoo Joonghyuk from trying to break through anymore—nothing to lose, nothing to gain. 

He crosses out that unfinished sentence. Breathes in, breathes out. Fixes a steely gaze onto his barely-shaking hand, waiting for it to stabilize before he continues. 

You are important, Kim Dokja. More than you’ll ever know. 

It’s—not what he wants to say, not quite, but it’s a start. 

Your life is worth everything.

Not that, either, though it’s closer. 

You’re enough. 

(But really, all that those sentences are missing is two words: 

You’re important—to me. 

Your life is worth everything—to me. 

You’re enough—to me. )

They’re none of them the words that Kim Dokja had pleaded to hear, but it doesn’t matter because they all mean the same thing in the end. All the words he should’ve said, all the words he didn’t say—they all culminate into a single sentiment beyond words, a glimpse of a moment where a protagonist tries to wrap his arms around one reader long gone. 

The empty loneliness has never felt so profound, has never ached with such intensity. Alone—except for a handful of letters that carry Kim Dokja’s essence, except for a family that has mourned so hard and so long that the grief has greyed into a sombre tedium that colours just the edges of their lives. They’ve let go as best they can, perhaps because they’re tired of searching, perhaps because it’s near impossible for them to find all those fragments of a single man—perhaps because they want to honour what they believe to be Kim Dokja’s final wish, someone born and moulded by a life of sacrifice… but Yoo Joonghyuk knows better. 

Reader and protagonist walked hand-in-hand for years and years, lives and lives. Kim Dokja understood him best, except in the ways that mattered; Yoo Joonghyuk is determined not to make the same mistakes as a certain headstrong idiot. That glass goes two ways: it took a single phrase for Kim Dokja to change the course of the universe— I want to live —and so Yoo Joonghyuk will hear his whispered pleas to live as well. 

That too-close intimate understanding is just as much of a blessing as a curse. Maybe if he didn’t listen quite so closely to Kim Dokja, he’d be able to let go the way that the others have… but he’s the one who holds those heavy words never meant to be heard, a whispered tell me I made you happy . He’s the one who lived hundreds upon hundreds of regressions just to tell Kim Dokja, yes, yes, you did.  

In any case, Yoo Joonghyuk has never been very good at letting go of things. He is stoic, he is unbending, he is absolute—and if there’s one thing he’s set his mind to, it’s this. 

This world is your home, Kim Dokja. Let me find you, and let me bring you back.

5. the truth of ways of survival

[ Dear Yoo Joonghyuk, 

Shall we try this again? My name is Kim Dokja… though perhaps you know me by less flattering names. Bastard, don’t think I don’t notice you smirking every time Lee Jihye calls me a squid. 

You know, I’ve known you for a very, very long time, but sometimes it feels like I don’t know you at all. I thought I understood you best, but—well.

In past regressions, you hadn’t made it this far yet, had you? I thought I knew better, but it seems I’m almost as clueless as you now. That’s your fault, you know? Take responsibility. 

You’ve done a lot of strange things. Like during the Disaster of Floods… why did you call me your companion? That’s not like you. 

And the Dark Castle, too. I really thought you’d jump on any chance to deal the killing blow to me. Why did you hesitate? 

…

…You’ve saved my life a lot. More than you’ll ever know, probably. Like it or not, we’ve been through a lot together. 

So I’d like to think I know you. I don’t know what I’ll do if I don’t. 

And if I know you, does that mean you know me?

Would you understand the choices I’ve made if you lived my life?

Would I understand the choices you’ve made if I lived your life?

It’s something I’ve thought about a lot. If someone like me, who can only live a lonely reader’s life, was put in the place of the protagonist… what would change? Is it my role that defines me, or something else? 

I wish we had never met. I wish I had never read that damned novel. I wish it had been me, or I wish it had been you. 

I just wish we could talk. A quiet conversation. I’d like it if you would just look at me and listen. If we could take the time to put our weapons aside and ignore the scenarios and just… talk.

What a nice dream, huh? I guess these letters will have to be enough. Even if I don’t understand you, it’ll be enough if you understand me. Read me like I’ve read you, please. Read me until I’m a part of you, the ugliest little part that you just can’t get rid of. ]

—

In the pile of letters, this one is folded into a neat square: it stands out amongst the others that are haphazardly folded any which way, as though Kim Dokja hadn’t understood their value. As though he simply wrote and then put the paper aside, hoping to never see it again.

It’s the first Yoo Joonghyuk ever read, the one he’d held in his coat pocket ever since leaving that hospital room. Though the fold lines running through it are neatly symmetrical, they’ve been bent both ways to the point where the paper is precariously close to ripping: too many times, he’d folded and unfolded it, reading through Kim Dokja’s thoughts. Throughout all the scenarios, it was the closest he could get to honesty from one lying, lying man. 

When he’d woken up to the sight of Kim Dokja beside his hospital bed, he’d felt pure fury. He’d wondered if he’d be doing everyone a favour by offing him here, the one who’d treated him like a character of a story , as though his life were something to be belittled. To think he’d have the audacity to come by his hospital room like it was nothing—oh, Yoo Joonghyuk’d loathed him in all his sleeping serenity. 

What had stopped him from throttling him was the sight of a sheet of paper, carefully written on and loosely guarded under Kim Dokja’s arms. It took little effort to slip it out from underneath, though he very nearly dropped it again the moment he read the contents. 

On the first reading, it had only fueled his rage: of course Kim Dokja didn’t understand him, not when he only saw him as part of a novel. To recount their history, to remind him of their shared story— Life and Death Companions —was a grave insult to him, to what he’d thought existed between them. 

In all his lives, the only person that title had ever belonged to was a liar and a traitor. 

So he’d stormed out the room, gripping the letter so tightly in his hand that it had nearly ripped. He’d thought perhaps it should have; perhaps he should’ve burnt it so as to never lay eyes on that scrawled handwriting again.

…But he didn’t. 

He’d left the Kim Dokja Company, left all the people he’s known from past regressions and all those he’s met in this one. The companions he’d loved, the companions he’d lived alongside and fought for a life or two ago—they all feel so different now, tainted by Kim Dokja’s presence. 

(A little too present, a little too real for him to risk caring for.)

The few monsters Yoo Joonghyuk met in the wild who dared to oppose him met a quick and painful death, and the rest quickly left him alone after that. He’d easily made it through scenarios that he’d struggled through in the last regression, and finally when it came time to rest, he unfolded the letter again.

Despite himself, he’d forced himself to read it, to go through the words and imagine himself as Kim Dokja writing them. Perhaps it was just a brief spell of sentimentality possessing him, or perhaps he’d noticed even then the rare tinge of vulnerability to Kim Dokja’s words, hidden under layers of quips and light-heartedness.

(Yoo Joonghyuk has found, over time, that Kim Dokja is quick to devolve into romanticism. For all his secretiveness, having an impersonal outlet seems to be all he needs to vent all his unfiltered frustrations, all his idealistic notions.) 

With just a single piece of the whole puzzle that makes up Kim Dokja, Yoo Joonghyuk only had the one letter for the longest time to try to understand that terrible anomaly of a man. His first impression after reading had been unforgivable traitor ; his second, ignorant fool. 

Reread, reread, reread. 

Naive bastard. 

Self-sacrificing reader. 

…Who are you? 

The fiery anger had somehow softened into something closer to a curious wonder, over time. A regressor, a character, or Yoo Joonghyuk—he’d thought nothing could surprise him anymore, that he’d experienced everything all his regression turns could throw at him. 

And yet here was Kim Dokja, fallen into the throes of despair at the hands of someone who meant little more than words on a page to him. 

Reread, reread, reread—

Begrudgingly, Yoo Joonghyuk would begin to find more and more parts of Kim Dokja that resonated with him. Each rereading was a new story to be told, a thousand new questions emerging for every sentence read. Was this how Kim Dokja felt, hungrily devouring his own story? 

Protagonist becomes reader for a few timeless moments, and maybe that’s what Kim Dokja had meant. Read me like I’ve read you , a plea for absolution, for reprieve. Read me until I’m a part of you…

And before he knew it, Yoo Joonghyuk had found himself complying despite himself. He’d absorbed the words until he could only hear them in Kim Dokja’s voice, soft and tentative, gently ringing in his mind. 

Perhaps his life was a story, but Kim Dokja was the one who had died for that story so many times, and perhaps that made it all the holier. For that, for him, Yoo Joonghyuk would live if only to ask that one damning question: 

Why? 

—Too many years later, shorter than a single life but longer than an eternity, Yoo Joonghyuk finally puts that question into writing.

Kim Dokja:

I owe you the return of this one letter. 

Too many times, I had wondered whether it would be worth giving back if only so I could berate your idiocy in writing it. In the end, it is one of few belongings that has stayed with me all the way until now. 

Your ignorance baffles me, Kim Dokja. All along, it has been you with the most opportunity to understand me. It was you who willingly chose to turn a blind eye, to pretend that there was anything between us but your own hesitance to face reality. 

You are as human as I am. We are not made to fully understand one another. Is that too much for you to grasp? You have never needed to understand my actions. I have made my choices, and the consequences have been mine to bear. 

I will tell you this much: in this life we have shared, I do not regret saving you. 

A pause. It’s surprising how easily the words come out. Maybe it means something, the way Yoo Joonghyuk confesses this so effortlessly. 

…Even if you are insufferable. 

Tell me, why are you so fixated on the idea of definite roles? Is it not enough to be Kim Dokja, decider of your own fate? Can a lonely reader not be a protagonist as well? 

Perhaps I am also obstinate. Nonetheless, did you really believe that nothing would change after I read your letter? You wanted a conversation. You wanted me to listen. I waited for you to ask. If only you had asked, I would have given it to you—

This is the closest I can give for now: I have read you, Kim Dokja. I have read your words, your thoughts, your secrets, just as you read mine. 

What have I learned except for what I already know? Only you hold the truths I seek. You have found me to be more than a story, and I find you to be more than these words on a sheet of paper.   

You deserve to be known, and you deserve to know me. Ask me your questions and tell me your answers. 

I am Yoo Joonghyuk. You are Kim Dokja. This is how it begins. 

A letter where Kim Dokja lets go of the narrative, and a reply where Yoo Joonghyuk lets go of their roles. That’s what it means to write: to lay oneself bare, to scorn the world and write one’s own story. He is Yoo Joonghyuk, and he’ll scour every last inch of the never-ending universe to find all the pieces of Kim Dokja, rules of reality be damned.

6. n'gai's forest

[ Dear Yoo Joonghyuk, 

It sure has been a hell of an experience, meeting each of your regression turns. Your lives and ideals may have changed, but that awful personality and stupid face sure haven’t. Haah, you’ve clearly never been a people person. 

Some of your regressions have fallen half insane, you know? It makes me worried, watching them lose themselves in their memories and experiences. I know they’ve led different lives from the you that I know, but they’ve been you, or you could become them. I’m still not really sure what the difference is, but either way I never want to see you lose your grip. I’ve always found a way out before, so I’ll find a way out of here soon, okay? I promise everyone will make it to the end of the Star Stream together. You’ll never have to experience that eternity of misery as long as I’ve got something to say about it. 

At least the library here is nice. Usually no one disturbs me, since the kkomas don’t care much for reading and the Secretive Plotter is busy being king. If you ever get the opportunity, why don’t you try putting down your sword and picking up a book instead? 

I’m sorry for some of the things I said in the last letter. I won’t lie to you here and say I didn’t mean it. 

…It seems I tend to be more honest when you’re not at my side, listening to me speak. 

You’re an enigma to me, but that doesn’t mean my goals have changed. I don’t know you—I’ve never known you, really—but I’d like to, you know? Even if you’re not the character I read about, I’d like to think I’ve grown to understand some parts of the real you. I still want to take you to the end. I still want to save you, protect you, end the cycle of regressions. In any case, the truth is that I’ll never be able to make up for everything you’ve done for me. 

I’m in your debt, forever and always, Yoo Joonghyuk. In that case, will you let me stay by your side, forever and always?

Forget that. Being around so many people with the same face as you is causing me to say strange things. Who decided that someone with a personality as terrible as yours deserves a face so flawless? Honestly, the world’s not fair. 

I hope you’re all doing well. 

…I’m sorry I had to do it again. Sorry I hurt you all again. Lately I’ve been thinking. 

I’d like to stay with you all. I’d like to find a path to the epilogue where I don’t have to watch you all try to save me. A story isn’t complete without the loss of something important, but maybe we’ve already lost enough. 

I’m going to stop now. I can’t afford to think like that. 

Please, take care of yourself. ]

…He always comes so close, then retreats back again. 

It’s extraordinarily frustrating in a way Yoo Joonghyuk has learned to associate with Kim Dokja: he could afford to think like that, to believe in an ending where they would stay together, if only because everyone else—some mismatched adoring family of beast tamers and demon slayers and regressors—would have done all they could to make that a reality. But because he hadn’t let himself think that way, because he’d believed that the world he’d created could only be ended by him, Kim Dokja had given himself up.

He never even let himself try, and that’s what irritates Yoo Joonghyuk the most. Such a conniving person spent so much time planning out the most absurdly contrived solutions to every problem he faced, the only limits to his resourcefulness being the bounds of his own imagination. It means Kim Dokja had never once considered his happiness to be a plausible ending, that the merest notion thereof had never impressed itself upon his mind.

To think Kim Dokja had written this letter in the Secretive Plotter’s realm as well, surrounded by each permutation of Yoo Joonghyuk to have ever existed. Facing all of N’Gai’s Forest—home to Outer Gods of failed worldlines and Yoo Joonghyuks who made all the choices imaginable in their respective lifetimes—he’d still continued on with a singular inflexible mindset, that only his sacrifice could resolve things. 

Hell, Kim Dokja had seen the physical manifestation of possibility and alternative options in the Plotter and his forest, and still he— 

Aggravating.

The image of the Oldest Dream, curled up on the subway bench, crosses his mind. Years have passed, but the memory is still freshly imprinted in Yoo Joonghyuk’s mind. He doubts it’ll ever leave, the sight of that wretched god ever more disturbing than anything else he’d seen in his regressions.

Kim Dokja as a child had rejected reality, hiding within his own dream. Now as an adult, he even rejects himself. 

What words can one say to a man who refuses to do as much as imagine his own happiness?

—In Yoo Joonghyuk’s case, he starts with a Kim Dokja, you’re an idiot . 

(It’s almost a term of endearment at this point, given the number of times Yoo Joonghyuk’s offhandedly used the term to refer to Kim Dokja. 

…He is anything but endeared by the man in question, of course.)

Has it ever occurred to you that I can make my own decisions? I don’t need you to protect me, Kim Dokja. I have faced worse fates than an eternity of misery. I am no stranger to suffering. 

You owe me no debts. You never needed to lose yourself for me, Kim Dokja; you never needed to save me. It was enough that you were there. 

You were enough, my star.

(Now there’s a term of endearment.)

Yoo Joonghyuk stares at the two words he’d written almost instinctively, such a short phrase carrying such a heavy meaning. A Demon King and a Constellation coexisting in a single being—such a contradictory thing is barely even worth sparing a thought in the face of Kim Dokja’s entire essence, a life of contradiction and unpredictability. 

The barest hint of a forlorn smile crosses his face for a moment as he reflects on the events of his 0th regression. In the moment, he remembers the faint flavour of contentment he’d felt: the ideal regression by all means, standing alongside companions who he’d truly loved and one special star watching from above as the world rebuilt itself. 

His life has always been one of survival: making it to the next day, to the next scenario, was the most important thing. The concept of there being a life to live after the scenarios, of living happily all the way to old age, feels absurd—but Kim Dokja is the king of absurdity, bringing impossibilities to reality everywhere he goes. 

He’d been the Demon King of Salvation, that one constellation who acted as an enigma all the way to the end—a coinless guide, freely offering him all the information he’d needed to breeze through the scenarios.

Are you happy? he’d asked in both that life and this one, enough times that the three words begin to feel like a soft caress—a reassuring reminder of his existence. 

That damned Demon King must have faced so many Probability storms just to show him an ideal life… and in return that dying man, the first Yoo Joonghyuk to know happiness, gave up a soft ending for the sake of his star. 

(It wouldn’t have meant anything if the Demon King of Salvation wasn’t there with him, just as this epilogue crumbles into meaninglessness without Kim Dokja.)

He doesn’t regret it for a moment. They have lived and died for each other countless times, a cycle of sacrifice that began all the way from the 0th life. 

Bitterness colours his spell of fondness, the idea of regressing for Kim Dokja’s sake marred by the fact that their lives only really overlapped for a few years in this life. Even just a glimpse of salvation’s face would have sufficed for his 0th self, but this life has taught him greed, desire, hope. 

His star. His Constellation, his Kim Dokja who always asked for his happiness but never cared for his own—Yoo Joonghyuk wants to change that, wants to switch their roles and become the guide to bring Kim Dokja to blissful happiness for forever to come. 

Any lasting exasperation peters out into a gentle ruefulness, the sight of his nostalgic expression reserved only for one absent star. 

We have exchanged great sacrifices. I suppose it’s unfair to say you owe me no debts—rather, you have done as much for me as I have done for you. It should be enough to call it even.

You ask for my permission to stay, forever and always. You should know that you never needed to ask. Instead, I ask you this:

If I try to find you, will you stay? And if you stay, will you let me remain at your side?

Forever and always are dangerous words to speak, Kim Dokja, but forever and always I will search for you until you have returned home. 

You have made me happy from the very beginning: it was never in question. You’ve done enough. Allow me to repay you. 

Are you happy, Kim Dokja? 

What familiar words, and how right they feel coming from him. Yoo Joonghyuk is not used to so openly expressing his emotions, but for Kim Dokja—for Kim Dokja, it’s fine. 

Come back. Stay with us, and I’ll want nothing more than to make you happy—

Forever and always. 

7. last taste of peace

[ Dear Yoo Joonghyuk, 

You know, I really hate it when you get so smug. I hate it even more when you’re right about the things you’re smug about. ‘Use it properly’, really?

Maybe I should just fill these pages with insults towards you. Idiot. Bastard. Sunfish. Don’t be so full of yourself. 

I guess you did give this notebook, though. The least I can do is humour you, even if you are an overgrown brat. 

Where to begin? It’s not that I have nothing to say—more like I have too much to say, to the point where nothing comes out at all. 

The scenery here is nice. Whoever picked this mountainside for this trip deserves to be praised. The kids look like they’re having a lot of fun, you know? I think about that a lot. Is it the first time they’ve gotten to have fun like normal kids since the start of the scenarios? I wish it didn’t have to be that way—not for them, not for anyone. 

What about you, Yoo Joonghyuk? How much of ‘before the scenarios’ do you remember at all? Have you ever known a life of happiness beyond the scenarios? 

I’d like to show you that, if you’d let me. Before you get mad, I’m not saying this out of pity.

I just think, for me, any happy ending is one where you’re happy. 

We’re nearing the end soon, you know? The Last Scenario is almost here, and then you’ll be free at last. 

Is there anything you dream of having after the scenarios end? It seems that the others want their normal lives back, or at least the closest thing they can get. That sounds nice. A big house where everyone can live, schooling for the kids—and of course, you’re cooking for everyone. 

What do you want, then? Such a domestic lifestyle really doesn’t match your appearance, but you’ve made stranger decisions in the past. I wonder where the protagonist goes after the story ends…?

A happily ever after would be good, I think. If there’s anything you want that I can offer, I’ll give it to you.

Just live happily, okay? ]

—

A bitter taste fills Yoo Joonghyuk’s mouth as he drinks in every word of this letter. It’s written with such wistfulness, a grounded kind of resignation, as though Kim Dokja had known even then—during that quiet day, when Yoo Joonghyuk had thought they’d finally grown to understand one another a little—that he wouldn’t be there to see the scenarios’ end with them all. 

It’s the worst kind of insult. ‘If there’s anything you want that I can offer, I’ll give it to you’—just another empty promise from that foolish, foolish man. He’d known. He’d known , that insufferable bastard, and he’d spoken such tender words nonetheless: how dare he speak of the future he’d thrown himself away for? 

Yoo Joonghyuk clenches his fists, but finds that the tension in him dissolves all too quickly. Resignedly, he loosens his grip, ignoring the way his fingernails leave crescent-shaped marks on his palms. He’s tired of being angry, though Kim Dokja excels at provoking his vexation. 

In his experience, tragedy always begets fury—at himself, at the world, at the circumstances leading up to it—but now, Yoo Joonghyuk finds he’s just… weary. He can blame Kim Dokja for not caring enough for himself, or he can blame himself for not showing his own care well enough—one way or another, it doesn’t mean anything anymore. 

Too long he’s lived in the past, allowing his previous failures and mistakes to define him—he’s dwelled on them so long that sometimes he wakes up and can’t remember what regression he’s in, which scenario he just completed, whether his companions are still alive at his side or if he’d simply dreamt of calmer days.

It was Kim Dokja who taught him to live in the present, to cherish this life like it’s his last without trapping himself in his worst memories. It’s Kim Dokja who asks him about the future, one that he’d never even bothered to consider until that cheeky bastard showed up in his life. 

He’s done Kim Dokja wrong enough times to just want to do him right for once—and he’s angry and tired and miserable and yearning but really, what else is new? He’d given Kim Dokja the notebook this letter was torn out of in a brief spell of spontaneity, something calling for him: the quietest plea for him to act, to be the one to listen and learn the broken words of a weary reader.

He tried, and maybe he was too late, but there’s been the barest hint of a smile as Kim Dokja leaned on him, and maybe that’s all Yoo Joonghyuk needs to want more.

There were quieter days once, and he wants there to be quieter days to come.

One letter a day: a week has passed since the last sliver of hope was ruthlessly ripped out of all their hands. It feels like it’s been years. It feels like the blink of an eye. There’s but one more to address, and then… 

And then?

Yoo Joonghyuk desperately wants Kim Dokja to return, to drag him back home and make sure he never leaves again. His letters are riddled with that sentiment, the kind of emotion that he’s only ever known how to show for that one single person. Still, as much as he berates Kim Dokja for being unable to keep his promises, how can he keep his own?

I will find you again and I will take you back again as many times as I need to.

But he finds that with Kim Dokja gone, his ability to look forward to a hopeful future where the impossible becomes possible has also disappeared. There’s an emptiness in his chest where something soft once grew, stolen away alongside Kim Dokja’s soul. What more can he do? He can no longer regress. There are no more timelines for him to travel to. They’re all stuck, imprisoned in some Elysium that no one asked for. 

(It would figure that the man who always found the alternative solution would be the same man to make sure there would only be one answer to his own life.)

Regression is impossible. The scenarios have concluded. Everyone is hollowly readjusting, an empty look in their eyes as they catch a glimpse of something that was never there. 

Six days of reliving peace; one day of the cruel reality of the present. 

Just live happily . What does he owe this man, who took his broken self and put him back together tenderly, only to shatter him all over again?

(Everything—he owes him everything, but not this. Not this superficial happy ending.) 

Yoo Joonghyuk can’t regress anymore, but this means that maybe he’ll finally get to taste what death truly is. He’s tired, so goddamned tired of it all, and he can’t quite remember why he thought about happy endings in the first place. He’s not sure how long he stares at the letter for, just tracing those last few words over and over. Something needs to change, and if nothing changes, then he—

Han Sooyoung finds him emptier than he’s ever been, a vague look of annoyance on her face.

“Oi, what are you doing? Haven’t you eaten at all today?”

A cursory glance outside. The sun is setting, vibrant hues of orange and pink colouring the all-encompassing sky as the day falls into evening. Maybe it’s beautiful—he can’t tell. The world goes quiet around him. 

But Han Sooyoung shoves him roughly, a hand on his shoulder anchoring him to reality. There’s a strange seriousness to her expression, a shift that occurs as she glances at the paper on his desk. If she’s surprised, she shows no sign of it, only furrowing her eyebrows. 

“Don’t touch me,” he growls. 

A few beats pass, then she removes her hand. The silence between them is charged, a tension between them that’s lingered since they returned from the 1865th regression. Their companions have split off into their own groups, leaving the two of them to themselves in solitude. It’s not closeness that makes them similar, but rather a common absence: more than anyone else, Yoo Joonghyuk understands that it’s the two of them who have lost the most. 

She resents him, he’s aware. Maybe she hates herself, too, for writing this story that would steal Kim Dokja from them. In her eyes, he sees a painfully familiar brand of loneliness, but their mutual losses can never be shared. 

On one side of his desk, there’s a short pile of letters and their corresponding responses. On the other, a notebook he’ll never open; in the centre, the last letter and an unwritten reply. He sees bitterness cross her face as her gaze flickers to them, letters written to the protagonist but none for the author. 

(They were three, they were two, they were one.)

He could comfort her, tell her the things she needs to hear—that it was her words that saved Kim Dokja, that he never wrote to her because he never needed to. He doesn’t, because of the three of them, words have always been most difficult for him.

Besides, they’re Kim Dokja’s words to say, and he thinks that she already understands anyway.

Han Sooyoung stares at him appraisingly, eyes narrowed. He sits more loosely than perhaps he ever has—what use is there in being on guard anymore? What could hurt him, and why wouldn’t he want to be hurt? 

Finally, she clicks her tongue, whipping around and turning her back to him. 

“Come with me,” she says, and though it’s an order she’s given him no reason to follow, he finds he’s standing up to trail after her anyway. Maybe it’s the way they’re forcibly drawn together through the pieces of Kim Dokja that still linger in them. Maybe it’s the way he resents her a little bit too, for being the one to create him all for Kim Dokja’s sake; maybe it’s the way he understands her nonetheless, would do the exact same thing in her position. 

It’s the kind of people they are, terrible and ruthless and selfish and capable of all the love in the world only for a single person. 

So Yoo Joonghyuk follows behind Han Sooyoung, perhaps the only person in this world who knows how tired he is. As the one who brought him into being, perhaps she will be the one to take him out too. 

He stumbles, fades out of reality for what could be seconds or hours, but eventually he navigates his way out of the grey nothingness and finds himself at a dinner table. It’s clearly hastily put together, a single sandwich and a glass of water placed in front of him. Even at the best of times, it could barely be called a meal, and as he meets Han Sooyoung’s eye she glares as if to challenge him to criticize her work. 

Naturally he does, taking a bite and chewing deliberately. The bread is stale, the meat unevenly sliced; he says as much with a deadpan monotone and receives a stream of colourful profanities from Han Sooyoung. 

(If he’s being honest, it doesn’t have much of a flavour at all—just tastes like ashes in his mouth.)

As he finishes eating, the silence between them grows more prominent. There’s always been this distance between them—he hadn’t known her from previous regressions like he had his other companions, nor had he had any particular fondness for her distinctive personality after growing to know her. Still, there’s no denying their similarities. His weariness is reflected in her, something he should’ve seen sooner; her motions seem almost heavier as she takes a drink from her own glass of water. Who had it harder, the one who lived those thousand lifetimes or the one who created it all? 

It’s not a competition. They’re two dying flames, slowly extinguishing with time as that third candle melts into wax.

Finally, she speaks. 

“Do you really think we’ll ever get him back?”

Han Sooyoung is unsmiling, contemplative. Her words cut like a knife, an echo of that word impossibility running through him—nothing has ever been impossible until Kim Dokja came along. 

Yoo Joonghyuk reels slightly, not enough to be called a flinch but just enough for her to know her words have hit home. 

“I mean—could this be it? Isn’t this what he wanted? Isn’t this how the story should end?”

Her voice breaks as she finishes speaking, gaze flicking away from him. Yoo Joonghyuk’s face shutters and closes off, a cool blankness masking the flare of anger breaking through his previous monochrome dullness all at once. Perhaps he was wrong to believe she understood after all. It’s never been a matter of should : maybe he should give into an easy life where he can finally learn something outside of the scenarios, maybe he should listen to Kim Dokja and claim his fairytale happily ever after. 

Yoo Joonghyuk has never been one to follow what should be in the first place, though. 

He needs —it’s not a choice. If he lives and there’s no Kim Dokja, then there was never a point to it all. 

(If he lives and there’s no Kim Dokja, he’d be better off dead.)

Where does the protagonist go after the story ends? Does he waste away, spend the rest of his life thinking about all the opportunities he missed? Does he go insane in his memories, unable to enjoy peace without falling into paranoia? Does he endlessly seek further adventure for the sake of finding a purpose, if only because it’s all he’s ever known? 

He doesn’t know. All he knows is that the story isn’t over without Kim Dokja, the only one who can answer that question at all. 

“It doesn’t matter,” he replies, tone clipped and eyebrow twitching. “This ending isn’t one I will accept, regardless of what he claims to want.”

Han Sooyoung looks at him with wide eyes, and momentarily he’s reminded of the 1863rd regression, a familiar setting with familiar people: an avatar of Han Sooyoung, watching helplessly as Kim Dokja acted on the same words Yoo Joonghyuk’s just spoken, changing the course of everything irreversibly… and that same avatar who would spend all her years after the end wasting away to write a story she barely got to be a part of. 

After a beat too long, she laughs wetly: full-body shaking, doubling over until she’s gripping the table. There’s more than just a touch of hysteria to her laughter, and in that moment he knows that just like in that regression, something pivotal has been set on its course.

“You really get it, don’t you?” she asks after her breath has evened out, wiping furiously at her eyes. “How can you say that so easily?” And there’s despair there, a kind of unfathomable longing that envelops her words and makes Yoo Joonghyuk wonder if she’s really talking to him. 

(For a moment, he sees the evidence of Han Sooyoung’s burden weighing on her again: the author, the most crucial piece to the story’s birth, has never ended up on the same side as her reader. She has the responsibility of writing all the right words, knowing all of the narrative, but she’s always been all but the mouthpiece—seeing both sides but never able to touch with her own two hands.) 

In any case, it’s never been a matter of ease but rather necessity. It’s the only answer he could ever give to that question, regardless of what should be said—or perhaps what he wants to say. 

So long as he’s alive, he needs Kim Dokja to be as well. He’ll bend reality to his will if that’s what it takes. 

Slowly, Han Sooyoung unclenches her fists, looking him directly in the eye. He’s not sure what she’s looking for, what she sees, but whatever it is makes her huff forlornly. 

“Really, the two of you…” she grumbles, averting her gaze again. “How much work will it take to get both of you to just stay still?”

Something’s changed in her mannerisms, though, a sort of plaintive resignation. Yoo Joonghyuk knows as well as she does that she feels the same way: this woman, who wrote this reality into existence just for Kim Dokja’s sake, could never stop the story here. There is only meaning to any of their lives when they all intersect. 

The end of the scenarios does not mark the end of the story, so he’ll keep moving. 

Perhaps Han Sooyoung notices this, or perhaps she’s known all along. Elbows on the table, she rests her cheek on her palm. 

“You’re not going to stay here, are you.” It’s not a question. Yoo Joonghyuk doesn’t need to answer. How can he stay when there’s nothing to find here? How can he remain rooted to one place and expect things to change? Regression has taught him that only he can be the one to initiate change. 

 
Han Sooyoung presses her lips together, an unreadable expression on her face. He recognizes, at least, that leaving her here will leave both of them alone… but it’s not goodbye forever, and he suspects neither of them will be able to handle being together without Kim Dokja to balance them. 

The two of them, they hurt each other as much as they heal.

So he’ll leave, for as long as it takes, and somewhere in this vast world he’ll find a way to bring Kim Dokja back and answer an impossible question.

Only when he has Kim Dokja will he return—or only when he knows with all certainty that there’s nothing left at all. 

(Surely, surely, surely there has to be something.)

“Take care of Mia,” he says, not wanting to think about how his sister might react to him leaving again. 

Han Sooyoung snorts ungracefully. “Get out of my sight already,” she says, making no move to stand. 

“…You don’t have to worry about the others,” she adds softly, grumbling. “They can take care of themselves.” 

Yoo Joonghyuk makes a sound of acknowledgement, closing his eyes shut for a few seconds. When he opens them again, Han Sooyoung is watching him carefully. It’s a moment of resolution: the protagonist looks at the author, and the author looks back. The moment breaks, and then there’s nothing left of it—he’s simply Yoo Joonghyuk now. 

One lonely man turns his back and sets off on his last journey. 

8. a blank slate; to new beginnings

Kim Dokja:

I am Yoo Joonghyuk. Perhaps we are in different universes now, perhaps you no longer know me, but nonetheless I know you. The life you’ve lived, the sacrifices you’ve made, I have read them. 

For better or for worse, I have read your story again and again. I have lived alongside you, and I have suffered the consequences of that proximity. My companion, my star— 

Do you know how fervently I have begged for our places to be changed, every time we lost you? To all the higher deities, to any Constellation listening with the power to switch our fates or even to an Outer God, I would have paid any price to die in your place—for you to be the one to take our companions to the end of the Star Stream. 

Don’t you understand, Kim Dokja? I would have chosen you over the ending, a thousand times over. Damn your broken promises, damn your silver-tongued lies—I would choose you no matter what. 

I don’t think I’ve told you that enough. You will always be my first choice. I will always, always, always want you to be happy. Who cares what you think you deserve? Nothing is set in stone in this world, so why not let yourself have what you want? 

It is hard. I’ll do it for you first. I will tell you all the words you want to hear until you can believe them yourself. 

—Eternity may have stripped me of my ability to understand love, but if I have loved anyone in this life and all the others, it has surely been you. It is the least you deserve, after everything. Don’t delude yourself into thinking otherwise. 

I’ll tell you again, Kim Dokja: you are loved. You are treasured, cherished, adored by us all. 

…Reciprocation means it goes both ways. If a happy ending for you is one where I’m happy, then a happy ending for me is one where you are too.

In a life beyond meaningless death and endless scenario, what am I supposed to want? In a world of no scenarios, what should I do to keep living? What is a happy ending supposed to look like, Kim Dokja?

I have never known. I suspect you have not either. 

Happiness sounds like mundanity. Perhaps we should start there—languid, domestic relaxation. You liked the Secretive Plotter’s library. I would build you one. Tell me what you want. Tell me what makes you happy. 

Let’s write our own ending, Kim Dokja. Wherever you are out there, I’ll wait. Just—

Allow yourself to live, and allow yourself to be happy. 

—

Forever yours, 

Yoo Joonghyuk