Suyeong Han (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
omnipotentwriter) wrote2025-05-06 10:35 pm
omnipotentwriter) wrote2025-05-06 10:35 pmInbox for Labyrinthum
(to be made nicer, later)
omnipotentwriter) wrote2025-05-06 10:35 pm
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"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?"
Email tag if formatting is weird
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.
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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."
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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."
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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."
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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.
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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?"
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"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.
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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."
since dokja seems to not know when he talks to the fourth wall before the knock
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⸥
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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!"
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"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.
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"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!"
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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.)
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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?
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It didn't explain if he'd witnessed the conversation with the Fourth Wall, though.
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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.
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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."
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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.