Chapter Text
The first time Yoo Joonghyuk met him, it was on a battlefield.
Crimson hair, emotionless, brown-red eyes that see right through you. Pale skin, stoic face. Intense stare, hands drenched in scarlet.
Needless to say, their first impressions weren’t exactly ideal.
Yoo Joonghyuk grips his sword and swung it towards the figure, hatred clouding his vision.
Perhaps the blood covering the young man’s hands should have clued him in.
Maybe he would have acted less recklessly.
But either way, it’s not like he really cared, in the end.
He’s lost all of his companions, after all.
His child and his wife were dead.
And he’s not even really in control of his own body.
All because of that wretched Anna Croft.
The last thing he saw was the young man kneeling over him, a solemn look in his eyes as red leaves spread behind him.
And so ends Yoo Joonghyuk’s second round of regression.
→@←
Many rounds had passed since the last time he’s seen that redhead.
It is not that surprising. After all, he never really got far on the rounds after the third regression. But what surprised him the most was the young man showing up in the Theatre Dungeon.
The youth with rust-brown(red?) eyes was not fighting or even attempting to get through the dungeon.
No, he was browsing the Rewards Room, with the look of someone on a reluctant shopping trip. Yoo Joonghyuk watched for a while, unsure as to whether he should bother the youth or not. Occasionally, he could see the young adult brushing his hands against certain items, landing on items like bottles of deadly poison, or books, a nostalgic look on his face. His hands paused against a black bracelet. He gives it a look of contemplation.
In the end, Yoo Joonghyuk walked away, continuing toward the top of the dungeon.
It was none of his business what the redhead did, after all.
His eighth round ends with the sound of footsteps echoing steadily toward him, the tip of black combat boots stopping at the edge of his vision.
→@←
In his eleventh round, he died yet again at the hands of the Theatre Master.
Though, he did not meet that redhead this time.
Instead, a teenager with white hair and purple eyes glanced at him as he passed by the rewards room, heading toward the dungeon exit, eyes full of innocent curiosity.
→@←
His fourteenth round taught him the first step toward reaching the end of the scenarios. As the Throne came crumbling down, Yoo Joonghyuk almost smiled.
He didn’t meet that redhead this round, but strange rumors were going around about a sage-like figure with crystal-blue eyes and snow-white hair.
Yoo Joonghyuk belatedly wondered how an elder, so old that their hair became white, had made it past even the first scenario as he bleed out.
Yeah, he’s not quite sure why he continued that line of thought, either.
→@←
He got killed by his ex-master in his eighteenth regression.
Enough said about that.
→@←
By the forty-first round, he had distanced himself from his companions, treating them as tools to reach the end.
It was easier that way.
He couldn’t help but indulge some of them at times, though, despite all his misgivings toward these so-called ‘companions.’
But sooner or later, he would distance himself again.
Otherwise, it will just hit him harder when they leave him, once again.
Sometimes, he couldn’t help but wonder if he could really call these people, who in the end, would likely leave him one by one, ‘companions.’
They aren’t accompanying him to wherever he’s going, after all.
As he sent Shin Yoosung away toward the past, slowly bleeding out, he happened to glance up.
There, on a dark oak tree, sat the redhead, watching him with those blank, blank, eyes of his.
As his vision grew hazy, Yoo Joonghyuk seems to see the boy putting his hands together, dark smoke spiraling around his clasped hands, as if praying towards someone.
Yoo Joonghyuk was pretty sure it was just a hallucination, though.
The youth had a look on his face as if he’d rather be cursing someone out and not praying to whatever god he believed in.
→@←
In round forty-two, Yoo Joonghyuk shut down almost completely.
I need to reach the final scenario. No matter the cost.
His companions had all died, despite his best efforts for them to live. And if that’s the case, perhaps, the answer was to just ignore them and do everything he can to reach the final scenario.
He saw the redhead yet again while exploring out on his own. Knowing how powerful the youth was, Yoo Joonghyuk attempted to kill this threat.
That didn’t really go well.
→@←
In his fifty-some-teenth regression, Yoo Joonghyuk set off on his own, again.
This time, he focused on getting as strong as he could, then went to seek out the redhead.
He found the redhead days before his death, looking at him with a rather cautious look.
Yoo Joonghyuk wondered if it was possible that the man remembered what had happened during the last round, as he certainly wasn’t this cautious when he met him in some of the other previous rounds.
It didn’t seem so, when the man just eyed him suspiciously, then disappeared off to somewhere.
Yoo Joonghyuk died in battle a couple days later.
→@←
During Regression Number Around-Seventy, Yoo Joonghyuk thought he saw a flash of red streaking across the floor in the third scenario.
He tried to find that color among the monsters again, but he had no such luck.
It was probably just an illusion.
→@←
On the eighty-some-teenth regression, Yoo Joonghyuk had enough of his own half-baked, horribly cooked food, deciding to work on his culinary skills instead.
This time, the redhead found him first.
He took one bite out of the food Yoo Joonghyuk gave him(not by choice), and sent him an extremely flat look.
“Your cooking is not bad, but it isn’t as good as Beacrox’s.”
During that round, Yoo Joonghyuk cooked, learned, and improved his culinary arts with the barely-leashed fury of a regressor scorned. Meanwhile, the redhead stuck by his side the entire time, sending him judging looks like a food critic from hell.
He only learned the boy’s name after they had been traveling together for a month, when he realized that he had been calling the youth ‘redhead’ inside his mind for the entirety of their journey.
The redhead gave him a look of exasperation and told Yoo Joonghyuk that his name is “Cale.”
“No last name?”
“... I have no last name that you would need to know of.”
Although it was ultimately his dulling swordsmanship that killed him, he swears that at least part of the reason he perished had to be because of the redhead sneering and mocking his cooking, which caused him to be caught off-guard when an attack actually came.
The rather horrified and terrified look that Cale had sent him made him feel guilty, but along with it, came a satisfaction that he managed to get the last word in their argument.
The redhead hadn’t been able to reply before he got distracted by the attack, but Yoo Joonghyuk would take the win for what it was.
→@←
Round… something. Probably in the nineties.
Yoo Joonghyuk swallowed back his nausea, thrown to the ground by a monster. Blood wells up from the cuts and his body ache from the bruises that he got from the monsters. His vision blurs(not again…) and he scrabbles at the ground, trying to simultaneously pick up his sword and stand up.
Then, there was a flash of rose-gold light.
Yoo Joonghyuk looks up, his vision covered in red. A pair of rusty-brown eyes gazed at him, red leaves swirling around them. The youth frowns, staring at Yoo Joonghyuk with unhappy eyes. His eyes flash with guilt, then became unreadable again.
“You’re hurt.”
Yoo Joonghyuk narrowed his eyes. Does he… remember? A small spark of hope alights in his chest.
The man gazes at Yoo Joonghyuk with eyes that see right through him. A ring that the redhead always wears glowed, and a bottle appeared in his hands. He glides forward and yanks Yoo Joonghyuk up by his hair, force-feeding him some kind of liquid.
Yoo Joonghyuk feels his mind going blank.
???
Wha–?!
The redhead glares at him. “Well? Are you going to get off the ground or not?”
The redhead releases his hand, dropping Yoo Joonghyuk back on the dirt. Yoo Joonghyuk stands up, now a lot steadier than before. The cuts and bruises(as well as the internal bleeding, probably, now that he’s thought of it) had healed.
It must have been one of those healing potions of his.
Yoo Joonghyuk stares at this fool who he hasn’t seen for the last ten-or-so rounds, annoyed.
“Cale.”
The redhead looks up at him, surprised. Then his eyes widened suddenly as if coming to a conclusion. He muttered something under his breath.
“What?” Yoo Joonghyuk frowns at him.
“Nothing.” Cale shakes his head and turns to look around him. “Come. You have to find your companions.”
When Yoo Joonghyuk spotted his team, he immediately walked toward them. Then, he paused and looks behind him.
Cale was no longer behind him.
He doesn’t show up again for the rest of that regression.
→@←
A few rounds after the previous, Yoo Joonghyuk once again ventures into the Theatre Dungeon. In a hurry to get to the Rewards Room, he blasts and massacres his way through the movie posters.
He reaches the room, scanning it for a flash of that familiar red. He catches the color in the corner of his vision, and he jerks his head in that direction. The youth was holding a black bracelet, fiddling with it in his hands.
Yoo Jonghyuk starts forward, and Cale turns towards him. His eyes are unreadable as always and he tilts his head as he stares at Yoo Joonghyuk.
“Cale…?”
The redhead flinches, rust-brown eyes quivering. Then, his eyes rapidly turned crimson, red leaves fading into existence and swaying behind him.
The two studies each other, and for the first time, Yoo Joonghyuk gets a proper look at what Cale looks like while using that strange power of his. Specifically, his eyes. An image of a warped, glowing white ring flickers within those reddish orbs. Yoo Joonghyuk could see himself reflected in those rust-brown eyes, the glowing circles seeming to wrap around him. Then Cale blinks, and the lights extinguish, eyes becoming dark and unfathomable once again.
“You.” The youth’s voice is soft, unlike the blunt, blank, tones that Yoo Joonghyuk was used to. For a moment, he almost sounded empathetic.
Yoo Joonghyuk stares at him, waiting for him to continue.
That tone disappeared when Cale continued, the tone becoming unreadable.
“You’re a regressor.”
Flinch.
Yoo Joonghyuk steps forward, gaze never leaving the threat in front of him. His hands slowly move to his sword.
Had he always known? This entire time?
The redhead( dangerous unknown threat-! ) continues to watch him, waiting for a reaction, for anything.
And Yoo Joongyuk finds himself unable to continue looking at this person in front of him.
So he flees, deciding to battle the Theatre Master to push back this conversation, these questions, anything.
They could talk after he’s passed this dungeon. It would give him time to figure out how to deal with Cale(Ally? Threat? Threat?)
When he comes back, the Cale was gone. A new person had wandered in, a white-haired teenager with purple eyes.
He looks familiar.
The teenager looks at him with bright, clear, eyes(he wonders how this child had managed to keep such a gaze in the middle of an apocalypse. Then again, he is just a teenager, after all). Yoo Joonghyuk looks away, walking down the stairs out of the dungeon.
That teenager is not a threat after all.
They did not have those terrifying, piercing, eyes.
At the end of that regression, Yoo Joonghyuk decides that the redhead should be sorted into the ‘potentially extremely dangerous, but would be better as an ally’ category.
After all, he did not attempt to fight or get rid of him, despite acknowledging him as a regressor.
( As he dies, yet again , the corpses of his family surrounding him, Yoo Joonghyuk wonders if it was just his fate to be abandoned and alone, over, and over, and over, again, for eternity. )
( Cale might not have tried to kill him, but he hasn’t sought him out, either. )
→@←
As Yoo Joonghyuk enters the Theatre Dungeon again, a bit later than usual( Perhaps he could catch the redhead as he walks out of the dungeon? He could probably take out that theatre master by himself ), and fought through the films and movies.
However, when he reaches the reward room this time, there was no redhead. Instead, that same white-haired boy looks up at him. The purple-eyed teen was fiddling with something on his wrist, though Yoo Joonghyuk was too busy scanning the room to see what it was properly.
The white-haired kid watches him with curious eyes, and then almost seems to melt into the darkness as he walks away.
Yoo Joonghyuk frowned, wondering if he had misjudged the kid’s threat level after all.
That round, Yoo Joonghyuk dies without meeting Cale even once.
→@←
Yoo Joonghyuk did not actively seek Cale out this round. Despite that, he finds the redhead on the outskirts of the 73rd Demon Realm, discarded story fragments scattered around the youth. The pale-skinned adult almost matches his scenery; an ethereal yet broken porcelain doll, abandoned in this wasteland of dreams and memories. His red hair was not tied up with that black ribbon he often wore; instead, the crimson locks flows over various mismatched items, slipping through the gaps and spaces, trailing down as a bloody waterfall.
In this desolate place, he glows. A brilliant spot of color among monotone hues.
And he looks so, incredibly, lonely.
Yoo Joonghyuk steps forward, hesitant as to what he should say.
The sleeping marionette opens his jeweled eyes, rust-brown orbs staring up at the regressor, a stoic expression on his face.
“Take a picture. It lasts longer.”
Yoo Joonghyuk marvels at how easily the redhead was able to destroy that very same atmosphere he created.
Later, Yoo Joonghyuk starts a mass revolution in that realm.
But when Yoo Joonghyuk tried to find Cale again, the redhead was nowhere to be found.
→@←
The next time that he meets Cale, the redhead was heavily injured, to the point of it being possibly fatal.
Yoo Joonghyuk widens his eyes in disbelief.
Perhaps it was because the redhead had never died before him in any of his previous rounds.
Perhaps it was because he’s gotten so used to seeing the man before him as invincible, mysterious, and powerful, yet almost neutral in the way he behaved.
But as the people around him shouted and aimed blades, ammo, skills, and other weapons at this seemingly-immortal individual, all Yoo Joonghyuk could do was tremble.
The redhead, bleeding from all the wounds he gained, crimson liquid dripping down from his mouth, snarls at the people around him, expression pained and wild.
Their eyes met, and Yoo Joonghyuk flinches back from the slitted pupils of the other.
Then there came a flash of rose-gold light, blood coating the ground as people died by the hundreds . Then the redhead disappears, cuts forming on his skin as he did so.
His teammates ran towards him, but Yoo Joonghyuk stays in place, staring at the place from which Cale had vanished.
The blue screen Yoo Joonghyuk was so familiar with appears overhead, and a dokaebi appears, talking about something-or-another that Yoo Joonghyuk does not care to hear about.
“...Why?” Yoo Joonghyuk hears himself ask hoarsely to the other people around them.
“What do you mean?” A woman next to him frowns, confusion clear in her features.
“Why were you fighting him?”
The brunette stares at him, her eyes blank. “Because it is a monster, of course.”
Behind him, his teammates send worried glances at each other.
→@←
Another round.
Yoo Joonghyuk ensembles his teammates yet again, in hopes that he could finally reach the final scenarioand perhaps find that red-headed fool as well.
Pained eyes, bloodied skin, despair etched deep within his gaze—
Lee Hyunsung gives an enthusiastic nod when Yoo Joonghyuk tells them to look out for a person with long red hair, rust-colored eyes, a fragile-looking constitution, and pale, glowing skin.
Is he alright? He’s not gone, right? No, he can’t be, this is a new round—
Lee Jihye, who was standing beside the regressor, turns her head towards Yoo Joonghyuk to give him a strange smile.
Kim Namwoon just yawns.
Once the conversation was over, the group continues to travel. After encountering many different people, finding Yoo Mia, and picking up Shin Yoosung along the way, the group still has not gotten even an inkling of where the hell this person was.
“Why are you even searching for this “Red-haired, pale-skinned” noonim, ahjussi?” Kim Namwoon asked Yoo Joonghyuk, sounding rather aggressive. “Actually, how do you even know if she’s still alive?”
Yoo Joonghyuk froze for a while, processing those words.
Once his brain finally caught up with what he heard, he choked.
I suppose I never did mention Cale’s gender.
He felt rather amused at the thought of the redhead being annoyed about getting misgendered, though.
Or maybe he would just ignore it like he does all ‘troublesome things.’
“HE is a male. And definitely still alive,” Yoo Joonghyuk said calmly. He ignored the shocked screeching from behind him and continued on toward the goal of the current scenario.
He has to be. This is a new round, and Cale won’t die that easily— he can’t, he can’t, he CAN’T—
From beside him, his precious younger sister looks up at him curiously.
“So elder brother is gay?”
Yoo Joonghyuk chokes, coughs, and gazes at Yoo Mia with a dead-inside expression, which wasn’t much different from his usual expressions.
Convinced that she’s right, Yoo Mia cheerfully skips ahead and tells Yoo Joonghyuk to “make sure to introduce him to me! I wanna make sure he is worthy!”
At the end of that regression, Yoo Joonghyuk realizes rather grumpily that in the end, that horrid misunderstanding never really did get resolved.
→@←
As Yoo Joonghyuk once again barges through the Theatre Dungeon, in a race toward the reward room, he wondered why he was so idiotic as to not even think about finding a tracking item to search for Cale with.
Racing up the stairs, Yoo Joonghyuk bursts onto the Reward floor and slams straight into a person. The two fall down, tumbling into a messy pile.
“Get off.” A cool voice comes from under him, and Yoo Joonghyuk finds the very person he was thinking about tracking down, under him. The redhead glared, looking like he was about to hit him in anger. “You’re heavy.”
Yoo Joonghyuk immediately stands up and pulls the redhead up with him. Then, he dragged Cale with him toward the top of the dungeon.
By the time they finally fought their way to the top, the redhead’s glare could set something on fire. Cale hadn’t really done anything, only avoiding attacks, dodging the way out of monsters, and sometimes, speaking a couple of words that somehow resolves the movie without a single death.
Yoo Joonghyuk dragged Cale towards a corner and looks at him sternly.
“Stay,” he said firmly as if Cale was a particularly misbehaving cat.
Ignoring the redhead’s dumbfounded gaze, Yoo Joonghyuk walks away, and battles against the Theatre Master.
In the end, Cale still ends up slipping away from him.
Yoo Joonghyuk grumpily realizes that he had forgotten about searching for the tracking item.
→@←
Rounds passed. Yoo Joonghyuk had stopped remembering how many regressions that he had lived for, exactly. Dead eyes stare out of a haunted face as Yoo Joonghyuk sees his allies die, one by one, in front of him, yet again.
This time, he hears soft footsteps behind him, and he whirls around. Rust-brown eyes gaze back at him, gleaming something strange. Almost like understanding.
Perhaps it is, Yoo Joonghyuk thought, remembering that scene he had seen, many, many, rounds ago.
He had bumped into the redhead in previous rounds, all short moments too brief to clearly remember. Once again, he sees those eyes turning crimson, eyes shining faintly with that strange, brilliant, light. And once again, they fade, those eyes watching him with seemingly more understanding than before.
“Why do you keep trying?”
The redhead observes this tired man, and asks softly, so unlike how he usually was.
Yoo Joonghyuk pauses. Then, he replies.
“I want to see what happens in the final scenario.”
“Oh.”
The two gaze out at this ruined world, silent. Cale once again opens his mouth.
“Will you regress now?”
Yoo Joonghyuk turns to look at the solemn redhead beside him. Then, he slowly nods.
“I see.” The redhead closes his eyes. Then he sighs. “Where do you appear?”
“What?”
“Where do you appear, in those worlds?”
Yoo Joonghyuk was quiet. Finally, after a long moment of silence, he answered.
“Geumho Station.”
The redhead slowly nodded his head, and his eyes closed again. Then he leaves, fading into the shadows.
And Yoo Joonghyuk regresses.
→@←
One round passes.
Then another.
And another.
Yoo Joonghyuk couldn’t help but wonder if telling Cale about the station his second scenario is in was a mistake. One round after another, and he never did appear.
Even as he took down constellations, gods, Cale just wasn’t there. It was as if he no longer existed.
Perhaps, the redhead had abandoned him too.
→@←
This round ended with a bunch of strange, fanatic, believers killing him because he had glared at their ‘sage.’
Yoo Joonghyuk wasn’t even aware he had done that.
All he thought was that the white-haired, blue-eyed man was surprisingly very young, and looks really familiar.
Does Cale have a brother?
The sage’s blue eyes had widened as they watched him fall.
→@←
Yoo Joonghyuk watched as Seoul slowly collapsed, battles taking their toll on the city. His companions had all perished, yet again.
So he decided to revisit where everywhere started. It wouldn’t hurt.
As he walked back from the train where the first scenario had happened, he wondered if things may have been different if he simply went a different way starting from the very first scenario. Perhaps, he should have tried wandering instead.
As he walked towards where the second scenario was, he spotted a familiar crimson.
Rust-brown eyes stared at him from inside the ruined station, monsters sitting at the redhead’s feet.
“You!” Yoo Joonghyuk shouted, staring at this bastard who disappeared from multiple of his rounds. Probably somewhere in the tens. Perhaps even hitting the hundreds, or close to it, anyways.
The redhead stares at him, face slightly puzzled.
“Are you the one I was supposed to meet?”
Yoo Joonghyuk slowed, eyes widening. “What do you mean?”
The redhead frowned. “You ditched me at our meeting place, didn’t you?”
“...” Yoo Joonghyuk wondered if the redhead meant that time when they previously met and Cale asked for his location in the first scenarios.
The redhead just glares at him.
“...” Yoo Joonghyuk has learned his lesson. Next time, if Cale asks for a location, he’s asking to meet.
He regresses anyways.
→@←
This time, he had waited at the station for the third scenario to be over.
There were a couple of annoying people, barely threats, who he had to get rid of.
The redhead appeared a few days later when pretty much everyone had left.
Yoo Joonghyuk had told his allies to go on ahead of him.
Cale practically materializes out of thin air the very night they were gone, looking nervously around at the leftover people.
Yoo Joonghyuk frowns, realizing something.
“I suppose you wouldn’t be very comfortable around humans, huh? What kind of creature are you, anyway?”
The redhead gives him a startled look.
“I’m not stupid, you know.” Yoo Joonghyuk’s frown deepens. “It was implied in one of the previous rounds.”
The way Cale had bled and disappeared still appeared some nights, along with the corpses of his sister, of his allies.
Of course, he usually ignored them.
He couldn’t.
Watching as the redhead continued to tense up, Yoo Joonghyuk thought the situation was a bit funny.
He still hasn’t gotten over that shock the redhead gave him when he spoke up about the regressing thing without warning. But now they’re even.
[Some constellations are frustrated about the filters!]
→@←
After all things were said and done, Yoo Joonghyuk still died.
After losing one too many people again(Cale only seems to be particularly concerned about Yoo Joonghyuk and the ones in his party that the redhead judged as ‘children,’ though he does sometimes help the others out. Yoo Joonghyuk wasn’t sure if that was because of his monster instincts or something ), Yoo Joonghyuk forcibly ended his life to restart a new round.
He left a note, so hopefully, the redhead, if he’s still there, would not get too angry.
→@←
Cale avoided him for quite a couple of rounds. Yoo Joonghyuk wasn’t sure how the redhead(who, in fact, confirmed that he DID NOT get his previous memories, just inherited a lot of rather vague feelings and instincts) manage to calculate the exact number of rounds to finally end that grudge, but he’s not complaining about the redhead finally willing to meet him again.
He did seem to be getting more reckless lately, though. Yoo Joonghyuk was slightly concerned.
→@←
The redhead died in front of him.
Yoo Joonghyuk decided to be a petty jerk about it and avoided Cale for a couple of rounds.
Well, some of it isn’t on purpose due to his early deaths, but he still took a page out of Cale’s book.
It serves the redhead right, though.
Blood flowed out of a still body, red like the creature’s hair. Pale body, never moving again.
Yoo Joonghyuk does not admit that sometimes when he looks at Cale in a few later stages, all he saw were the redhead’s death.
→@←
The redhead, in later stages, seems to be growing increasingly exhausted. Yoo Joonghyuk wasn’t sure why, but it almost seems that the regressor’s own feelings of exhaustion have projected out onto the redhead.
Perhaps it was the way Yoo Joonghyuk sacrificed blood and limbs to keep his allies alive, but it was worth it. He could regress but his family could not.
Cale kind of could, but it was only his emotions and instincts, not his memories.
Yoo Joonghyuk has to do this.
Being bound to an outer god may be unpleasant, but if it keeps his family alive, then it’s worth it.
The final trade had ripped at his tattered soul, but what hurt the most was the way his familyallies had cried, whole, but terribly sad.
The redhead gave him a deeply betrayed and sorrowful look as Yoo Joonghyuk’s body gives out, and his accusing gaze burns itself into his mind. The potion in the redhead’s hand had no effect, and even as his injuries healed, the scars on his soul did not.
The potions may have kept him from permanently losing his limbs and eyes, but there was no potion in this known world that could heal a shattered soul.
→@←
When Yoo Joonghyuk once again woke in yet another round, he felt the resentment that had been building up finally bloom.
He hates this.
Hate how his family dies, over and over again.
Hates how their torment, deaths, seemed to burn into his brain.
Hates how this path goes on for what looks to be eternity, and there’s no end in sight.
Hates how he never seems to progress toward his goal, despite him giving everything.
Hate how these constellations viewed them as mere entertainment.
Hates the way that he was alive.
→@←
Even the prophet herself gave up on remembering, in the end.
Yoo Joonghyuk is now truly the only one with these memories, right?
How lonely. How horrid .
He eyes his blade, only to be stopped by a sharp gaze that seems to pierce through him.
Cale gives him a warning look and slowly moves Yoo Joonghyuk’s hand towards a bowl of soup that the redhead had made.
Apparently, Cale could cook. He only discovered that the previous round, when the lazy youth had decided that since Yoo Joonghyuk was indisposed, Cale would cook, since “that bastard needs to eat, or he would collapse again, and who knows how just many times I’ll have to prepare meals for the entire group in the future if that happens?!”
Despite saying that, Cale monopolized the kitchen whenever Yoo Joonghyuk DID fall.
“No, you won’t be cooking, you’re a child and even though we ARE in an apocalypse, kids should go have fun during their childhood.”
“The shield needs to stay strong if it is to defend us. And despite you being a soldier, quite frankly, I would prefer not to eat those miserable excuses for a meal that the army teaches you to make, thank you very much.”
“No. Just no.”
To be honest, Cale probably had made a good call with that last one.
Yoo Joonghyuk regressed again, but this time, the sting was particularly painful.
Cale had finally integrated with his familyallies well, and no longer seemed as lonely.
His family’s painful cries were still heart-wrenching to hear, though, and the way the redhead’s expression turned blanker and blanker over time, hurt.
The regressor shattered the day Yoo Mia died.
→@←
What hurts the most in the world?
Is it getting hurt, injured, and broken, over, and over again, without getting even the tiniest bit of reprieve?
Or is it getting everything precious to someone, and ripping them away from all of them, again and again?
Yoo Joonghyuk had asked that question to Cale before, many, many times, in multiple rounds.
The redhead would usually give him a long lecture about psychology instead.
There may have been an answer hidden somewhere in there, but Yoo Joonghyuk isn’t a psychologist, or someone very interested in psychology, so most of the references and terms went over his head.
He got the general gist of it, at least.
As he lay there on the ground, bleeding out for the nth time in this round, the redhead seemed to almost teleport to where the regressor was lying, glaring at Yoo Joonghyuk while pouring a bottle of healing potion into his mouth, then dumping the rest of it all over his clothes, wounds, and his entire body, basically.
Yoo Joonghyuk raised an eyebrow. He’s pretty sure that healing potions couldn’t really do anything for clothing.
One look at the expression on Cale’s face told Yoo Joonghyuk all he had to know.
The redhead is just being a petty bastard.
When all’s said and done, even Cale could not be everywhere at once.
And Yoo Joonghyuk enters the next cycle, for better or worse.
→@←
A head with short, military hair, rolled across the ground, face frozen in surprise and fury.
A precious sister who he would do anything for, body on the ground, pale and still.
An apprentice, so loyal, so strong, pinned to a tree by a blade.
A white-haired boy, who acts like a demon, but softens for members of his family, slumps by the feet of the girl pinned to the tree.
A white-haired girl, with a broken neck, crumpled like a marionette with their strings cut.
A snarl of fury, of anger, and a flash of red. Trails of blood down a pale, white, face. Rusty eyes glared at the person who killed them, their light slowly fading, eyelids slowly closing, even as their hands ripped out the heart of the one who killed his only family in this world.
Yoo Joonghyuk screamed.
He kneels, the only one alive in a sea of corpses.
The enemy that had taken his family down was shredded on the floor, but all Yoo Joonghyuk could do was stare in disbelief, the one person he knew who managed to survive every round, fading.
This round has taken everything, his sister, his family, his friends. The ones who stuck by him in many, many, rounds, despite not having all their memories.
Yoo Joonghyuk stares at the destruction around him, and everything seems to fade towards black.
Until…
*Ping!*
[A Giant Story is forming!]
“No…” Yoo Joonghyuk gasped. His hands scrabbled to the blade he had dropped.
[The Giant Story, ‘Pilgrim of the Lonely Apocalypse,’ is telling its tale!]
He didn’t want to hear.
He didn’t want to know.
Yoo Joonghyuk was the only survivor of that round.
It didn’t matter.
Yoo Joonghyuk closed his eyes and raised his blade.
→@←
He was exhausted.
So many rounds, so many deaths.
He keeps all his family close, to make sure they would not leave him.
If someone were to leave, it would only be him.
Cale somehow sent him an unimpressed look and an understanding look at the same time.
→@←
He’s bleeding out again.
Cale stands over him, hands pressed against Yoo Joonghyuk’s wound to put pressure on it, while simultaneously pulling the cork out of a bottle to splash the healing potion on Yoo Joonghyuk. Lee Jihye stands worriedly by his side, watching Yoo Joonghyuk while pulling out clean clothes(blood may not be the most visible thing on black clothes, but it does feel unpleasant– his family had, sadly, gotten somewhat used to this routine).
As soon as Yoo Joonghyuk wasn’t in danger of dying again, Cale glared at him with one of his most chilling gazes.
“Don’t do that again.”
His tone left no room for argument. The redhead dragged Yoo Joonghyuk over to a tent and shoved Yoo Joonghyuk in front of the flap. He turns toward Yoo Joonghyuk again and hisses.
“Your little sister is silently crying, and I’m pretending not to know. Go comfort her or something.”
He then turned around towards the rest of the group who were watching by the fire. Lee Jihye sent him another concerned glance, then walked over to Kim Namwoon. The white-haired teen scowled at Yoo Joonghyuk, red eyes filled with visible worry, while Lee Hyunsung scans him up and down anxiously– He looked ready to start rushing toward Yoo Joonghyuk, only stopped by Cale latching onto the back of his collar. The sight of the slender youth pulling a buff mountain of a man back like a disobedient puppy was rather amusing.
Yoo Joonghyuk pushes back the flap and got ready to somehow appease his worried sister.
→@←
During the 46th scenario of this round, Cale eyed the Star with contemplation, causing Yoo Joonghyuk to look at him warily. The redhead stares at the star, seemingly struggling with something.
Yoo Joonghyuk stepped toward Cale cautiously, hoping to attract the redhead’s attention to him rather than the other, more dangerous option that the redhead seems to be considering.
Rust-brown eyes glance up at him, back at the star, then hesitantly look away, sitting in a corner instead and choosing to intensify his glaring at Yoo Joonghyuk.
Really, the redhead was overreacting.
He only got stabbed a couple of times this round. And not all of them were fatal, even!
→@←
Cale didn’t immediately show up this round.
Yoo Joonghyuk may not have gone down easily, but the way he did make him realize that he may have taken the redhead’s strategies and healing potions for granted.
The redhead did help in the end, but he also disappeared suddenly.
And Yoo Joonghyuk did what he always did.
Survive.
And die.
→@←
It’s been many, many rounds since Yoo Joonghyuk’s last seen the redhead.
He stood there, at the final wall, and realizes that he could not break through.
Not like this.
Not yet.
So he throws away his hum4n1tY 4nD-
Meeting the writer had, in a way, both saved him and destroyed him.
Meeting a man named Kim Dokja gave him hope for a better future.
So he split himself into one that survives, and one that dies.
And r3grE5sessss-t4q53h, aok?’
→@←
Yoo Joonghyuk opens his eyes and sees that he is on the train where it had all started. He shivers, remembering the way he had dieddidhe? to that strange redhead the previous round.
A threat.
Is he?