omnipotentwriter | Inbox for Labyrinthum

There's no Fourth Wall to block Sage's Eye, but he's not worried about being read. It's just like her; there's a reason she called his Avatar out, after all. She may not have been first to figure it out, but she was the first to refuse to accept it.

"Somehow," he concedes with a thin smile, looking both too old and too young in his body. He raises a hand, seeing no cracks but knowing he should be littered with them.

"I was fading away but I read your story one more time. When I heard you I.... wanted to knock back. I wanted to see your ending."

To give them a happy ending.

He doesn't lower his hand. Instead, he reaches out to gently touch her shoulder.

The Oldest Dream is looking at The Architect of the False Last Act warmly.

"There wasn't an ending, you idiot."

Her voice holds no vitriol. She's not sure she has the capacity to be angry right now. Not when it feels like something inside her has untwisted, something she'd never quite realized felt wrong until it didn't any more. The feeling drains her, oddly enough, leaving her with a deep exhaustion gently warmed from something deep below it.

"The story doesn't end, ever. It keeps going. And none of us want a story that keeps going without you in. You absolute..."

Drained as she is, she can't even keep her head up any more. It drops back down, her face mostly lost in the curl of her arm and her voice muffled by blankets and skin.

"You did it to me again. I've been waiting, you know? Ever since that knock. Waiting and trying my best to write that story with a sulky Junghyeok and the you from the wrong time. And now, finally..."

Predictive Plagiarism can't find anything wrong with this. Guide of the Line Spacing reads nothing hidden within it. Other stories within her, ones they shared and that seemingly ages ago saw him off on his journey, simply make pleased noises and settle as they recognize him. And most reassuringly of all, Ultimate Lie remains silent. That's the greatest danger, after all -- that she is only deceiving herself. But it seems like she's not.

Her visible eye squeezes shut.

"You're my Kim Dokja."

He smiles sadly when she says they didn't want their eternity without him in it. She was right to what she told his younger self; though he made the decision, it wasn't because he thought they didn't care about him. He knows, very well, that he was - is - loved.

Dokja moves his hand from her shoulder to her hair. It's an uncommonly gentle move but she'll have to forgive him for being sentimental. It's been no time at all and yet it's been thousands of years since he's seen her.

"My favorite author," is what he ends up saying to her, fondly. She wrote that story to keep him alive, and used every last bit of her energy to do so. In a way she died for it, unable to remember until she had to experience the memory again. She truly is the one person he'd read stories from until the end of time.

What is an author without their dedicated reader?

Lonely. Obviously. Dumbass.

She doesn't even object to the touch. Not verbally, not with a violent response, not at all. Despite just waking up, she feels absolutely exhausted. The unclenching of her heart and mind and the violence of this turn of events both have her feeling like she could sleep for a week.

Which she's not gonna do, because look what happens when you do that.

His favorite author. Heh. Does it count, when he loves only half of the things she's written? After all, he --

--remembers what he promised now. Doesn't he?

An author without a reader isn't an author. Some authors, maybe most of them, will say they don't write for other people. They write for themselves. For her, that notion is an obvious joke. Of the two things she's written, one was for someone else alone, and the other because she was good at it, and the praise and renown fed her will to keep going. Which is why despite all her talk, and all the notes she takes, and all the things she files away for inspiration... despite all the revisions she's made to other stories, or even her own... she hasn't truly written a single word since the last scenario.

The feeling isn't like a dam bursting or a floodgate opening. That's too mild, too linear, too simple. No, if she were to put fingers to keyboard and craft the best metaphor she could, she'd start by describing a cosmic field of dust and hydrogen at last condensing to the point where its clumped-up heart finally ignites, bursting into celestial brilliance and flooding everything around it with warmth and light. She has it all back now. Her words, her passion, her energy, her voice.

The fact that a cosmic field of dust and hydrogen is a nebula only makes the star blaze brighter with appreciative delight. And when she opens her eyes again, the light in them has nothing to do with the Eye of Truth.

She can't describe herself as 'whole again'. There's a piece still missing, one with all the jagged rough edges that a bad personality brings. But in this moment, at least, she feels more herself than she has...

Ever.

"Hey, I'd demand an apology, but the universe won't last long enough for you to give me a proper one!" Kim Dokja, meet Han Suyeong. You've caught glimpses of her for some time now, maybe even a pretty good one here and there. But now here she is at last, her grin and her eyes and her voice the whole package as she picks her head up. "So let's talk repayment instead! How're you gonna make things up to the poor girl you've put through so much?"

Not apparent in her eyes, smile, or voice, because it barely registers in the deepest and darkest corners of her mind, is her quiet terror.

Nothing in all her life could have prepared her to accept just how much this one man means to her.

Kim Dokja grins.

It's not a subtle smile that he hides away; it's not his notorious sly smirk that the Star Stream grew to both love and be apprehensive over. It's a real smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling in delight and his lips stretching wide, dimples forming for how hard he's grinning.

"You said it yourself, I won't be able to make it up, so maybe I should just not bother, hm?"

He doesn't mean it, of course. We're he sincere in his words he'd beg forgiveness. He'd tell her how lonely he had been and how her story kept her company one more time. How her new sections of TWSA surpassed the original and enraptured him.

How, when he heard her knocking, he desperately wished he'd been able to keep his promises to all of them. How he'd be happy to be her reader until the universe turns its last page on their story.

He feels Junghyeok's absence as sharply as she does. He can't make him the Junghyeok they know. The only thing he can do, because he deserves it: to tell him the truth of who his sponsor is.

He ruffles her hair a little before he speaks again, choosing not to dodge any of her retaliation.

"Did Junghyeok really think I was Secretive Plotter? What kind of a guy does he take me for?!"

Mrr! Suyeong scoots one hip onto the bed and stretches out to grab his hair and ruffle it... or maybe scrub it, considering the force she's putting into it.

"I wonder! Why would he think a secretive guy who knows a lot more than he lets on, has a weird and distinct investment in the story, and manipulates people without telling them everything is you? Wow! What a mystery! Who can fathom it?! It sure is a weird thing to think, isn't it, secretive guy who plots!"

Not hiding anything, not lying, not concealing, even not admitting honestly that she can't answer because her answers would explain nothing. She could almost cry from relief. She isn't, though, and that's not something she's just telling herself. Scrub, scrub!

He makes a disgruntled noise when she scrubs his head hard. He's already let go of her hair so he shoves at her, slapping her shoulder eventually to get her to stop.

"Plotter was the wrong kind of secretive compared to me! He never gave hints, you know I'd try to be helpful!"

Plotter had been... complicated, resentful, seeming to hate Junghyeok as much as Dokja. Only Junghyeok could hate himself that much, Dokja thinks privately.

Edited 2025-09-15 05:40 (UTC)

She does stop as he slaps at her, though she can't be bothered to slide back onto the chair. Bed is nice. She hasn't slept in one for a while now, after all. Leaving it seems like just too much effort.

"How about you and Secretive Plotter both being the new unique elements in the turn, huh? Nothing suspicious about that?"

Laughing, she drops her head down, half onto her arm and half leaning against his side.

"Did you see any of it? The 1865th?"

He rolls his eyes and grumbles about her (valid) point - but when she lays down, he shifts his arm to curl around her back automatically, making sure she has enough space.

The question dissolves his mock-ire, and he's silent for a moment, eyes a distant galaxy as he thinks.

"I did. I..." He licks his lips nervously before he speaks. "I knew I didn't have much time left as myself, so I sat down to read your story one last time. But when I finished, there was a new update - my story. Our story, continuing on. I was able to hold on to keep reading it - and then I read beyond that, to the 1865th."

That story had helped Kim Dokja hold on from completely fading away. In time to hear them knock on the door - and to knock back, once.

If she weren't so worn-down, she'd have twitched when he put his arm around her. And after a moment's consideration, she's glad she didn't. This is nice, and it's okay to like it, she tells herself, in defiance of the hissy snappy part of her that had pride and wanted to keep any sort of genuine emotion covered by a light and easy-to-handle layer of sass and snark. That part has its place, but not when dealing with someone who needs to be told the truth over and over again, in small words no less.

It's okay to care. It's okay to admit you care. She hadn't done that for most of her life, so accepting that had never been easy. Close to no one, caring for herself only, getting by on her writing and finding nothing in common with anyone. The False King seems like another person entirely, looking at it through the window of passed time.

When, she wonders, did it start really happening?

...that question is literally impossible to answer, isn't it? Because a part of her had cared deeply about him before she even met him, a part of her that hadn't met him until after she did but who might have known already because she was the same part that had cared before she became a different her in a different worldline -- it's all so tangled she can't separate anything into logical order, cause-and-effect, any sort of comprehension at all. All she can say is that the person she thought herself to be ended up becoming the person she is now. And that person cares very deeply. Not just about Dokja, but especially about Dokja.

"We nailed it, didn't we?" The hand that had been scrubbing his hair pats his chest, before dropping back down to lie on it. "I mean you too, you know. You saw how much we followed your blueprint. Want you to think about that. Junghyeok alone's an idiot, it took him so many tries to get it right. Me alone, I got it as perfect as anyone could without the cheats you two have, but couldn't get it to the real end till you showed up. And you did everything great except for one big big mistake. That last time? It was almost all three of us. It was almost perfect. Would've been if you'd been there with us in person."

Not that she's putting everyone down. Everyone else helped out too. Even the constellations. They were part of this all now too, weren't they? But none of them had taken the lead on a worldline, so that's something shared by just three people.

"I'd do it all again. If we all got to do it together. I'd really like that."

He listens to her chiding as she gets comfortable. Wisely, he doesn't comment on the way that she has to hit and nudge him a few times before she accepts it, listening to her story.

She's right that he had the best plan. People still died - people she saved that he couldn't - but that had been when he was scrambling, not sure of the outcome. She, Junghyeok, and the others all had the assurance of knowing he'd done it before. Despite himself, it makes him smile.

He's not looking at her though, when she says she'd do it again together. He's silent just a little too long, before he speaks.

"It'd be nice, if we could. But .... even though I heard you knock, Suyeong.... I think it's too late."

"Yeah, well. Here we are, right?"

Like. Not literally here in this moment. Please don't call any particular attention to how she's being affectionate. Much like a cat, openly noticing it makes her sulk away to keep her dignity intact.

No, she means this whole world, where the Star Stream isn't, and he's here. Impossible things, but decidedly real ones.

"Don't know. Who knows what's going to happen? None of this makes any sense. It doesn't matter either. We have bigger problems, and now that you're here, we've got work to do. So you can come home." To punctuate the last word, she slaps his chest again. "You damn Demon King, you've got an industrial complex you're supposed to be running."

He lets out a small laugh - a little bitter - but he doesn't fight her on the fact that yes, he is impossibly here right now, and if they want to change that, they have work to do.

He's never been the type to give up. If he can change one thing, give himself one more chance to see them again - it'll be worth it.

"Why do I have to run it? I've never been a manager type. Junghyeok and you are the bossy ones," he says, tilting his head back towards her with a smirk.

"So we're gonna boss you into doing it."

She is supremely satisfied with her logic.

Beneath her, her other arm is really starting to register its complaints about how she flopped down on it. She shifts enough to pull it out, and then for absolutely no reason other than lack of other space to put it, drops her hand down on the arm he has beneath her.

"Hey. You're probably hungry, right?"

He rolls his eyes again, but trust Suyeong to make him feel more like himself - to pull him out of the guilt and hopelessness that being the Oldest Dream had caused him. He doesn't comment on the hand.

"I am," he says. "I don't think I've eaten in .... well."

It's not like there was food on that train. Technically he didn't need to eat as a constellation, but it wasn't like he didn't enjoy it, or the stories that went into making the food.

Suyeong pushes herself up to her feet and heads out of the bedroom. Well, a Suyeong does; the actual woman doesn't so much as twitch while her Avatar gets to work.

Avatar really is the best ability, isn't it? If you don't count the scam stuff like Dokja and Junghyeok have.

"You're not allowed to leave again, you know."

That's... empty. They both know it. What happens when they need to go home? They can't stay here forever, can they? The world doesn't work like that, inhaling and expelling people like a round-robin story where each new author wants to introduce an entirely new cast. Will it grow tired of them? Will the damn Labyrinth discard their story someday?

Their story.

Suyeong goes deadly still. Not even breathing, as those two words catch up a million more, like the final snowflakes that trigger an avalanche. The recent excursion into the Labyrinth and what she's seen there, what she concluded about it.

"Dokja."

Both her hands tighten into fists, one balling up the fabric of his shirt and one clamping down hard on his arm as she lifts her head to look at him. An expression of cold determination and raw joy, somehow mixing despite their complete incompatibility.

"Our stories. The Labyrinth is invested in them. If we engrave them into it, if we make it care about them... It can do what you were doing. The story will have a reader. You can come back."

Dokja smiles, lopsided and sad, when she tells him he's not allowed to leave. He knows exactly what's going though her head, how this place is different from the stream.

Then she goes still, fingers bruising on his wrist, and he watches something pass over her face, a thousand storylines flipping though her head. What she says is... possible, isn't it? Pass the buck onto someone - or in this case something - else.

Then the hopeful expression he's wearing gives way to something crestfallen, and he shakes his head.

"Suyeong... I had already lost most of my stories when you knocked. They're already gone, to become other readers."

A failsafe, though he's not sure whose. The Dokkaebi King that became the Fourth Wall? The king before, in the 1864th round who wanted him to become King, or an immutable law of the universe they were now a part of?

⸢You shouldn't have been greedy. No, y o u sh oul d've be en con te nt wi th 49% Kim Dok ja⸥

"But here you are." She thumps his chest with his own shirt to punctuate each word. "This isn't the Star Stream. Rules are different here. If they weren't you -- wouldn't be here."

She has to force out those last words, connected as they are to the memory of their final moments on the train, their return to the 1864th, and the seeming end that followed.

"I --" Be honest, Suyeong. Don't hide things, no matter how embarrassing. Tell them straight and tell them true. It's the only way. "I wished to get you back, you know. If this place... if this place plays by its own rules, if it sets a contract it has to obey, it has to grant that wish. Somehow."

Small though she might be, something seems to hover over her as she glares up at him. Some things, making themselves known.

[Story, "Revision Specialist" is choosing its pen.]
[Story, "Guide of the Line Spacing" is donning lensless glasses.]

"I'll make it. I'll force it if I have to. I'll do it without you if I have to, but I don't want to."

[Story, "Ultimate Lie" is ready to write the False Last Act.]

"You are coming back with us, Kim Dokja."

The Oldest Dream he might be, but this reality is not his, not theirs. She'll put her strength against his if she has to. In this moment, how could any will, any force, any reality compete with her own determination to keep him?

"So stop telling me why you can't and start making it so you can!"

There's a reason he's always adored her story - that sense of refusing to give up permeates it because it's a part of her. It's what gave him the will to hold on for ten years. She's asking him to trust her, in a way - the same way he'd asked her to trust him. (The same trust he'd betrayed, from time to time.)

"I never said I wouldn't help," he protests, glancing at the screens making themselves known. "I wished to see everyone again, after all."

Maybe those two wishes would be strong enough. Hadn't he wished to read about Junghyeok forever, as a child? That might be why these cursed worldlines exist.

Still, he adds, "I just don't want you to get your hopes up if it doesn't work again." I don't want to lie and hurt you again.

She scoffs dramatically. Their emotional vulnerability might not have completely faded, but it did just take a hit with that noise... though the more usual dynamic it leads to is no less comfortable and welcome for that.

"Idiot, the worst that happens is I go back to how I was feeling before. Every chance I get here is one I gotta grab because I didn't have it before."

He still doesn't get it. Maybe he never will. But it won't be for lack of her trying.

"And you have kids to get back to, so you've got no excuse!"

"Ah, my poor kids... how old are they now?"

He's joking - mostly! - when he asks her that, successfully wiping away the vulnerability both of them aren't good with. His smile is cheeky, more like himself than the somber one he'd been sporting before.

Still, he curls himself close to her, careful not to cage her in, but enjoying her presence all the same.

(One person is missing, but - two of three isn't bad, either.)

Edited 2025-10-05 03:36 (UTC)

"We spent a few months training for that. Did you see it? Or was it not counted as part of the story?"

She's actually curious here, touching as this does on her own ■■. Did the story continue past that ending for him, or did he only see it once it started at the beginning one more time?

"I 'saw' it," Dokja acknowledges, a small smile on his face. "I know they're much older. It was ... good to see how they've grown up."

"Wait." A thought occurs to her, one that could have some serious potential repercussions. "When did you stop seeing it?"

"When you reached the subway door. I heard you calling me as I read the sentence. I knocked on the door to let you know I heard it."

It didn't explain if he'd witnessed the conversation with the Fourth Wall, though.

Edited 2025-10-11 18:58 (UTC)

"Okay. So you basically... know everything that happened. Especially the really relevant stuff about me."

The breadth and scope of her status, in other words. The stories she'd picked up. What she'd done the same as he had, and what she'd done differently. That saves her a lot of explanation.

"Yes."

He doesn't say: You saved me twice. If he points it out it'll make her close up more. Instead, he closes his eyes and laughs a little.

"The Star Stream does like making you wait the longest, doesn't it."

"How dare you blame the Star Stream for you!"

Don't get her wrong. She's glad beyond words to have him back. She feels happier and more alive and safer than she has in a very long time. But she isn't going to let him forget the consequences of his choices, either.

Inbox for Labyrinthum

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Email tag if formatting is weird

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since dokja seems to not know when he talks to the fourth wall before the knock

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