Work Text:
Sometimes, grief isn't just a feeling that gnaws at your bleeding heart.
Sometimes, it's when you close your eyes, and you grope around in the dark, trying to hold a certain hand and its a small hand comparable to a child. And then, when you open your eyes, you see its a young boy sleeping in a hospital room.
20 years had already passed by when they got back. Twenty years.
In a world where neither they or 'him' don't exist, they all managed to carry on. All those cheerful, loud laughs coming from the children playing on the distant playground, the city as complete as the world-line they just left moments ago. They managed to survived.
However, as much as Han Sooyoung and the rest of Kim Dokja's Company would love to hear that, the untold stories that built up to what they saw that day when they just got off at the ark, that the world they left behind in search for another world hadn't collapsed. Such news didn't immediately registered into them but instead, the realization that they have failed in their plan.
Han Sooyoung failed. She had to admit that. But was afraid to voice it out fearing it was really the final conclusion, like the mark of the final epilogue of a Story.
And so, just like that, 2 years had already passed since Han Sooyoung and the rest came back.
2 years of unknown experiences that wasn't detailed as the life of a particular reader being extended day by day as the notification of a new chapter popping on a certain PC bang, nor a certain protagonist featured in a lengthy, extensive novel; reaching an exact 3149 chapters. But it still existed, like the vast blank spaces between pitch-black words. Whether someone read or witnessed it, It indeed existed.
⸢Kim Dokja survived through a story called 'Ways of Survival'. In that case, which story allowed us to survive?⸥ Han Sooyoung thought. A thought that lived on her mind for the past two years spent trying to live her life to the fullest.
And just as she was about to form the answer to that question...
Han Sooyoung's thoughts was suddenly interrupted by a sudden beep beside her. A particular, weak sound that came from a monitor beside a bed.
And laying on that bed was an asleep young boy with a small IV needle stuck in his small, pale arm; sit closely next to him and you would hear his weak yet continuous breathing. Han Sooyoung stared at such Kim Dokja sleeping away with bits of stories of what's currently left behind inside him.
⸢A man who existed only as texts for a long, long time ever since that day she last saw him in the hospital's emergency ward. The man who came to her 1863rd regression turn. The man who she wanted to see again. The detestable man with his own brand of ass-kissing. The man who lied really easily. The man who she enjoyed being around, since they could lie about something together and snicker among themselves.⸥
Han Sooyoung deeply sighed at the sight in front of her: The Kim Dokja who had become a Young Child due to losing stories that made up Kim Dokja the 'Kim Dokja' he was. As if the world was returning his lost childhood to him, albeit in the cruelest form; to which when he just attained his happiness that he desperately paid with his life.
"Oh God." Han Sooyoung unconsciously whispered. Before touching his pale cheeks, thinking and praying that the Kim Dokja Scattered out there on the countless world-lines to be happy and never be miserable.
'Wait, I am God.' She unconsciously thought before letting out a wry chuckle.
'The God of this cruel world. A God who couldn't even save a single reader. A powerless God.' She thought, prompting a forced smile onto her face, before taking out a lemon lollipop and gazing out onto the window.
Snows could be seen falling outside the complex.
It was also snowing on that day. February 15. Had not Lee Sookyoung told her, she wouldn't have known it was that idiot's birthday. He cried that day, for reasons unknown. He never told her anyways. All she could do back then was to give him was a lemon candy, hoping it could soothe him while he cries. And now she suddenly have this inkling to go back into that moment. Maybe it was regret or grief that made her want to go back there but, she wished she just didn't gave him a lemon candy, maybe say some cliché greetings like ' You did well, idiot.', 'Happy birthday, I'm proud of you now give me some coins-'.
She smiled at the thought of it and behind such smile was the desperation of wanting him back. Maybe if she had said that on that day, maybe Kim Dokja would be here now, awake as they banter about a certain novel she had once written in the past that left her hands now. Maybe Kim Dokja's lack of self esteem would improve and then, he would have changed his plans and not do such a thing like splitting himself into two. Maybe, just maybe.
"Oh, it's already finished." she said as she bite down for the last time of her lemon lollipop. Which reminded her of a certain time when she's doing her lectures on a university.
She remembered all her attendees having almost the same expression that came from confusion and intrigue when she was explaining her lectures with a title of "Reading Modern Philosophies through Webnovels".
And one day, a student asked her that goes like this:
⸢"…By the way, Professor? Are you going to write a new novel?"
"Mm?"
"You said this before, didn't you? You're an author because you write. If you don't write, then you're not an author."⸥
Then she remembered the past 13 years spent away writing a certain protagonist's story just so that her sole, single reader would live for another day.
She remembered enduring 50 years in the Kaizenix Archipelago just for him and that Stinking protagonist, and his 'Sword and Shield' to come. She had lived a lifetime that was far too long for a normal human but was too short if you compare her life to an Outer God. All of that was in the past now, like chapters that had already been written and completed and she couldn't do anything about it other than read. Just like the 'Kim Dokja' she knew.
She also remembered all the comments left behind by her sole reader during those 13 years that she found difficult to reply on real-time due to circumstances, of just how the sole reader's words helped her survive and how she endured those shitty, stuffy years just for the sake of writing for him.
⸢– Because of the story you wrote, author-nim, I was able to survive until now.
Han Sooyoung was also able to survive while reading the sole reader's words.
She managed to write the next part of Yoo Joonghyuk's life through them.
She was able to endure her boring and stuffy teen years, the days she never wanted to go back to, thanks to those words.⸥
She remembered the wish she made on the Dokkaebi King when she just concluded the 1863rd world-line, of how she wanted to meet him once again just to resolve her frustrations in her heart and in the end, destroyed countless world-lines just for him to survive another day: but her wish didn't came true at that time. And when it did, she's already standing in this hospital room, holding his frail hand gently, afraid it might break, as she stare at Kim Dokja laying down on the bed peacefully just like in the past.
She remembered her joy of writing for him, in a world where only the two of them existed above the tragedies being created. Even if it was a painful 13 years.
⸢She then disinterestedly muttered out. "Right. I'm not an author anymore."
"Excuse me?"
"I don't have a reader who'll read my work."⸥
And so, she knew why she answered in that manner.
It was because the reader that promised to read her next novel was long gone. The reader that would go to extent measures just to defend his favorite novel. The reader that managed to read a novel with an exact number of 3149 chapters.
'What meaning is there being an author when she couldn't even save her sole reader.' was she thought. Yet obviously, that was a lie. As it can be seen with Han Sooyoung opening her notebook PC on the hospital desk while a certain text file popping out as she sits down. It was a novel. She was indeed a very good liar, that's why she survived until now, survived those painfully two years without him.
⸢It was then she sensed a presence from behind her.⸥
Han Sooyoung' reminiscing was suddenly interrupted when she heard a sound of a door being quietly closed as she saw a familiar face.
"Aha, I knew you would be here." Yoo Sangah quietly said and smiled as usual when she entered the hospital room and placed down a chair and sat on it near Han Sooyoung and Kim Dokja.
However, Han Sooyoung knew that smile wasn't purely genuine when she noticed her staring at Kim Dokja with a longing gaze, as if maybe, looking at him deeply would jolt him to wake up. And then, she imagine the kids, Lee Sookyoung, Lee Seolhwa and the rest of Kim Dokja's Company members, and then, alas The Protagonist himself, Yoo Joonghyuk rushing to come here because Kim dokja finally woke up from his slumber.
"So, what made you come here? Oh right, by the way, I read one of your recommendations." Han Sooyoung asked, trying to break the ice, or maybe, to distract the both of them from the source of these emotions that couldn't be put to words.
"Oh which one?
"Haruki Murakami's Novels. Specifically, 1Q84."
"Oh yeah, that one is really good." Yoo Sangah enthusiastically replied.
"And then, I read this excerpt or quote what you call it..." Han Sooyoung said before gazing out onto the window. Snows still falling down from the sky. And when night comes, if it isn't cloudy, you would see a starry sky. And there it was, a certain star they tenderly cherished and bicker with.
"And then?..." Yoo Sangah spoke that broke Han Sooyoung's out of her musings.
A silence ensued. For a time that was neither long nor short, but it seemed eternity for the both of them. As they both gaze at Kim dokja as they talk.
"And yeah, as I was saying, I read a quote that somehow reminded me of something..." Han Sooyoung looked at Kim Dokja.
"Uhuh." And Yoo Sangah Nodded as if telling me to continue and she'd listen.
"It goes like this, the quote: 'In a sense. I'm the one who ruined me: I did it myself.' Don't you think it somehow fits me? How maybe if I tried harder, find more 'Stories' related to writing. Maybe if we weren't greedy just like that stinking wall said. Maybe if... I convinced him on that train two years ago... Maybe, he would be still here. With us." Han Sooyoung bitterly smiled as she said that and gaze away at the window, avoiding meeting Yoo Sangah's eyes just so she can't see her almost cry. Well she's about to cry anyways.
Yoo Sangah couldn't find any words to comfort her, because she agreed too. It fits Han Sooyoung too much. And her as well. It was their love for that certain reader that brought them to 1865th turn and then, here, at this hospital room. And brought them many things as well. And Grief came along in that 'things'. Them Longing for Kim Dokja to wake up. Them wanting too much.
So all Yoo Sangah could do was hold her hand gently, as she gaze at Kim Dokja as courtesy to letting Han Sooyoung have that space to cry on.
⸢Kim Dokja's salvation was cruel. Like rescuing a drowning person with a blade, those saved by him were inflicted an unhealable wound.⸥
Sometimes, grief isn't just a feeling that gnaws at your bleeding heart.
Sometimes, it's when you close your eyes, and you grope around in the dark, trying to hold a certain hand and it's a small hand comparable to a child And when you open your eyes, you see its a young boy sleeping on a bed in a hospital.