Inbox for Labyrinthum

[omnipotentwriter]

(to be made nicer, later)

Comments

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

[readsagain]

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⸥

[omnipotentwriter]

"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!"

[readsagain]

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.

[omnipotentwriter]

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!"

[readsagain]

"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.)

[omnipotentwriter]

"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?

[readsagain]

"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."

[omnipotentwriter]

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

[readsagain]

"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.

[omnipotentwriter]

"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.

[readsagain]

"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."

[omnipotentwriter]

"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.