guess you can't handle having your own tactics turned on you, can you?" Sooyoung breaks in through the scene playing on the screen, looking at Dokja with a blank face. She's just staring at him.
[The Constellation 'Prisoner of the Golden Headband' declares you must be able to take what you dish out.]
'You really aren't helping.' Dokja avoids her gaze, mumbling something or other about how it's his job to know people and not the other way around.
Sooyoung rolls her eyes at him, but doesn't push any further. Everyone has been trying to get him to answer them less. It's starting to get suspicious.
Especially with the looks they've been sharing over his head like he's a child who can't recognize this stuff. Dokja was built on that kind of silent communication.
"I was looking at you, at your face when it happened. Why did you do that?" The screen returns to the time Gilyoung had been staring at Dokja when Myungoh and Sangah had been dragged into the rat tunnels for a mere moment. Then it was back on Gilyoung. He didn't really sound accusatory.
[The Constellations of absolute good frown at your evil deed.]
[The Constellation 'Secretive Plotter' looks at you and encourages you to explain yourself.]
'He was watching me while that was happening? In the middle of all that ruckus?' Dokja muses, one side of his mouth raising in amusement. Interesting. 'What a scary kid...'
'He was able to catch on so quickly, I probably shouldn't lie.' Pleased with the boy, Dokja smiles down at the back of his head. This is making him consider things more. 'He would probably catch on to that as well.'
"It was more useful to let them go." It's not too much of a hassle to explain now that there isn't much to do but walk. -A small part of him wails at the idea the kid may think different of him because of this- "The ground rats have a habit of keeping their prey where they keep their treasure. It's usually impossible to find their lair unless you directly follow the paths they have burrowed themselves."
[The Constellations of absolute good admonish you for your evil actions.]
"Did-" Sangah's voice cracks and she is forced to gather her composure. Dokja refuses to look back at her, already able to imagine the look she must have on her face. "Was it really necessary to do that?"
She sounds... heartbroken? If he had to put an emotion to it. It makes his chest hurt. Dokja can feel his ribs curling in, it's making it hard for him to breathe.
He- He's not a good person. They have to know this by now, right? There can't be any disappointment when he does things that prove it.
The pain in his chest doesn't go away as he keeps quiet.
Sangah sighs behind him, a sharp sound in the suddenly quiet theater. Where was everyone else's conversations? They were all whispering to each other only moments ago.
She doesn't sound as disappointed as the reader had expected her to sound when she talks next. "It's okay if it was, Dokja-ssi."
He still doesn't answer her.
He doesn't bother trying to explain away how he knows this. Any answer he would give the kid would be half truths at best. The truth is the least he could give to this child who he saved due to his own hypocrisy. That got him thinking about books again.
He would love a genuine monsterpedia if he could get his hands on one.
"Hyung really likes books." Gilyoung mutters with furrowed eyebrows, trying to think of a place he could get a book like that.
Yoosung nods along, eyeing him as she resolves to get Dokja a monster book first.
Lee Gilyoung stays quite for a little while as they keep moving, making small steps as the insects around them lead them through the rough tunnel. Eventually, he does speak up again. " Does that mean you did this on purpose? Planning for one of us to be taken as bait when we set out on the tracks?"
One of the fireflies that had joined their entourage flies closer to his face, lighting up one of Kim Dokja's eyes. They are blank and cold, but no longer as tired as they once were. It's so small. The kid is too. "I saw your face when they dragged Sangah-noona and that guy. You didn't look very surprised, more like you had even expected it."
Dokja wonders if there is something more wrong with him or Gilyoung. The boy hasn't let go of him at all throughout this conversation, no matter the heinous thing he confesses to. He keeps searching for Dokja like he'll add logic to the new world the apocalypse has put them in. Kim Dokja has sacrificed people's safety in the name of reaching the end of this fantastical story.
Maybe it's equal, but the reader is concerned that Gilyoung can hold his hand in a place like this as if he's safe. As if he's a safe person to be around. Like he hasn't killed people just to make things easier for himself. Like Dokja hadn't killed-
Dokja can spin many lies, any tale to uphold whatever story he wants the public to pass on. However, walking here with this child who believes in him even with all the things he's done, he finds himself incapable of lying in the face of such a direct question.
"I expected them to grab Myungoh, allowed him along for that exact reason." Kim Dokja answers honestly in a way that he hasn't in a very very long time. It's- It's a weirdly raw feeling.
"You should be honest more, ahjussi." Jihye calls him out on the feeling really quickly. She's just straight full of obstinance. "It doesn't have to be something new."
"Jihye-ah." Dokja regrets taking the lighter atmosphere of earlier for granted. This is still so uncomfortable. "It's... It doesn't work like that."
"It can." The teenager immediately rebukes him, her chin proudly in the air as she just keeps watching him. "It's good you were just planning on sacrificing that mean ahjussi. I would have been upset if you had left Sangah-unnie"
Sighing, Dokja nods along. "I didn't take into account the way the rest of the group would have reacted."
"Maybe you should think about that more, ahjussi." That skitters something weird down his spine that he can't really find the words for.
He stays silent as the screen starts to play again.
'The ground rats have an uncanny ability to sniff out the weakest person in a group. If Myungoh hadn't been with them, their next target would have been Jung Heewon. She is still recovering from the poison fog. It's the exact reason why he hadn't been against Cheon Inho tacking that guy onto their little group.'
Sangah giving her helping hand to the person who had harassed her the most during her time working was not in the plan though. Dokja bites the inside of his cheek, letting the kid tug him along and guide him in the dark as he thinks. 'That wasn't on my bingo card.'
"It's not like they're in immediate danger. Rats don't tend to kill the prey they kidnap, they have a habit of leaving their prey wherever they keep their treasure." The readers foot crunches on the next step, breaking something apart under his foot. It's too dark to see what he's stepped on, but Gilyoung seems fine so it can't be any of the bugs. "They took two humans, so the burrowed paths are a bit bigger than usual."
Gilyoung stops in his tracks as Dokja keeps talking, turning with his hand still clasping the reader's own. He doesn't loosen his grip, if anything he just squeezes harder. "Then your true purpose isn't to save them from the rats, but to get items?"
That kid is way too calm for this, there is no hesitation in those eyes. There really isn't a reason to save the kidnapped people of their group from the rats. The ground rats aren't actually that dangerous. People mostly starve to death in these tunnels anyway since they can't find their way out.
The demonic species that the rats intend to sacrifice their prey to is a whole other story altogether.
"Yes." Dokja didn't bring them into this tunnel to save anyone. Yoo Sangah wasn't supposed to be grabbed in the first place, but that was just an unfortunate coincidence. His goal is the treasure, no matter how much he wants to twist it to justify himself. "Are you disappointed in me?"
"Never, hyung." Gilyoung pushes past the girls to grab onto the sleeve of Dokja's robe. The grip is ironclad and Joonghyuk even leans back to let the kid do his thing. Gilyoung lowers his voice when he speaks next. "I will never be disappointed in you."
Dokja places his hand over the kids, giving his unlucky smile as he just looks at him. He doesn't have anything to say to him that hasn't already played out on the screen.
They are currently getting the deepest dive into Kim Dokja that they will ever get.
[The Constellation 'Demon-like Judge of Fire' looks on at you with sorrow.]
Uriel, please. Not now.
"No." The kid continues to surprise him, squeezing Dokja's cold hand even tighter as he looks the man in the eyes. It's uncomfortable to be seen like this. "You're bad at lying, hyung. If it was just the items you were after, you wouldn't have saved me in the subway."
"I believe in you." And Kim Dokja believes it. Can tell he's telling the truth by the way Gilyoung's grip doesn't falter, doesn't even soften a little.
[A few constellations are beginning to tear up.]
[You have been sponsored 200 coins.]
'Huh.'
Dokja looks into those eyes filled with trust and it's weird. There are things he doesn't say, things that are too tender to bring up here.
You, sweet thing, had to have been lied to your entire life.' The reader squeezes the kids hand back, his expression carefully crafted into a blank mask. Gilyoung shouldn't put his trust into someone for something as simple as that.
"This and that are two different things, hyung." Gilyoung insists, not letting Dokja say anything about it. The kid sounds sort of upset. "It's not just that. It's-"
The kid makes a strangled noise, the sound very animalistic in nature. He's frustrated from what the reader can tell, sounding like he's three steps away from screaming.
"Hyung is really really stupid." Gilyoung finally says, still holding onto his sleeve. The girls have been squished into the other side of the recliner, switching around how they had been previously sat. Yoo Mia is no longer the closest to Yoo Joonghyuk.
Gilyoung is leaning towards Dokja, probably one more melt down away from invading their chair again.
[The Constellation 'Secretive Plotter' encourages you to listen to incarnation 'Lee Gilyoung'.]
Joonghyuk covers Dokja's mouth when he goes to argue with the boy.
How dare he-
Kim Dokja didn't save anyone in that subway cabin that day. There was never a chance that he would be able to, it's not the kind of person he is. He merely extended the idea of survival to a kid stuck in a new world that forced people to kill to live another day.
He did not save anyone. He merely extended a liars version of mercy.
Dokja knows what this is, knows what this entire conversation will end with. He knows the connection that has been made here. He just doesn't want to think about it.
'I thought he was mature for his age, but he really is still just a kid. He can only say that because he's oblivious to the fact that this world is full of vile grown-ups who would take advantage of that "Maturity".'
"The end is close." Gilyoung tells him, a look in his eye that gleams with the light from a firefly that flies close to his face. The kid points in a direction, the bugs are in a vague line set in the direction Gilyoung points.
[A few constellations hold their breath in anticipation.]
The kid doesn't continue walking, holding eye contact with the reader as they just stand there. There isn't a time limit for now, but it's starting to make Dokja antsy just standing here.
"Hyung," Gilyoung speaks up again, ignoring the messages coming in from the constellations. "are you the god of this world?"
Sooyoung snorts, laughter bubbling up and out of her chest. She's cackling when Dokja turns to confront her. "What is so funny?"
"You're no god." She stops her laughing, reduced to just giggles, and looks at him with a smug smile. "You're just a scammer."
Dokja rolls his eyes at her, letting her laugh in his face for a minute. "Right, at least I don't start a fanatic cult."
The plagiarist splutters, no longer laughing at him, and turns her full body to look at him. "It's not a cult!"
[The Constellation 'Abyssal Black Flame Dragon' cheers you on to fight again.]
"Uh-huh, and I make fair contracts with people." The reader deadpans at her. She has got to know she ended up making a cult.
Sooyoung, still set on squabbling with him, sneers at Dokja as she tries to think of something to say back at him. She looks to the rest of the group to see if they have figured out who she is from that hint. She doesn't really get the chance.
"Do you two ever stop fighting?" Heewon grumbles, sighing in annoyance at the childish fighting between those two adults. "The kids are doing better than you two and they have still been at each others throats."
Flushed in embarrassment, Dokja resolutely turns away from that witch. He wasn't the one who starts them! It's not his fault.
He thinks, like the liar he is.
Dokja nearly snorts. There is no god here. Not in this kind of world. He just blinks at the kid with a blank face. He's honestly actually surprised that Gilyoung even believes there is a god. Let alone one that would lend people like them any kind of held. That sort of thinking is the first thing that goes with the kind of violence they have been subjected to.
It's the kind of thing beaten out of them early on. He really is just a child after all.
Heewon winces, grabbing onto Sangahs arm with a strong grip. She looks at the other woman with a question in her eyes.
Sangah looks at her, nodding at the question she sees there. She angles herself closer and whispers to her in a low voice. "He has confirmed it for us."
[The Constellation 'Demon-like Judge of Fire' worries for incarnation 'Kim Dokja'.]
Heewon wheezes out a low wounded sound, looking back to the reader sitting in the arms of Joonghyuk. The protagonist is watching them, listening in to their conversation.
The more he learns about his companion through this stupid invasive scenario, the more Joonghyuk understands about the person that has turned the current round on it's head.
"..." The reader doesn't deign to answer, just leaving room for Gilyoung to continue talking. They obviously won't move forward until all questions have an answer.
When he doesn't receive an answer, the kid tilts his head to the side and then back to just look up. It breaks the tense eye contact they have been holding. Another firefly floats by and illuminates his expression. He looks like he figured something out. Sounding slightly discouraged from silence being his only answer, Gilyoung mumbles out his next question. "Could you be the main character?"
'Oh wow.' Dokja looks closely at that new look on the boys face, marveling at him. That's quite the heart punch. Leaving his grip on Gilyoung's hand loose, the reader looks on in detached interest. 'Isn't that a thought.'
'I'm not the main character here, I'm not even supposed to be here in the first place. That's a title for a very special person. I'm just here to see the end of the story. My knowledge of the story will only go so far. Gilyoung-ah, don't you see I am only a means to an end?'
The image of Yoo Joonghyuk's back is displayed on the screen. He's on the bridge with the wind gently swaying through his black coat. When that guy goes to turn, the screen glitches and goes back to the tunnels. The scene is focused on Dokja once again.
"Kim Dokja." Joonghyuk speaks up, his eyes on the reader in a heavy gaze. Dokja shivers, really not liking being looked at like that.
"Later." Dokja mumbles, placing a hand on his cheek and forcefully trying to turn that guys face to look at the screen instead.
His pushing doesn't really do anything, the protagonist looking at him for a little bit before turning back on his own.
"Neither." Kim Dokja finally says, sticking his thorn in his belt loop. He steps forward and rests his hand on the kids head, running his fingers through the greasy trestles. "I am not a god. I am not the main character."
Shuffling an unlucky smile onto his face, he leans in closer to the kid and lowers his voice as if they had any privacy here to have in the first place. He puts his finger in front of his lips like he's telling a secret. "Don't tell anyone, but I've always been jealous of those protagonist's"
"Kim Dokja." This time, he's more stern when he says it. Joonghyuk is looking at him wtih furrowed eye brows and more intense eyes.
"Not right now, Joonghyuk-ah." The reader is the one who looks away this time, trying his best to zone out so he doesn't have to deal with this.
[The Constellation 'Secretive Plotter' wants you to talk about it.]
[The Constellation 'Demon-like Judge of Fire' tells constellation 'Secretive Plotter' to leave incarnation 'Kim Dokja' along.]
He can feel the protagonist huff right against him. Dokja is lucky that Joonghyuk lets it go.
The smile turns a little sour as he keeps thinking, leaning away again and straightening up. A protagonist, the main focus of a story. The beginning, middle, and end of the journey. The main character gives a story it's meaning, the journey it's set to take.
Kim Dokja doesn't even give his own life meaning, let alone a story. He is the single sentence of a character you never see again, the one that got cut from the final story all together because there wasn't a point in the first place.
"But you do know a lot about this world, isn't that right, hyung?" Gilyoung is looking at him in the eye again, lowering his head from looking at the ceiling. The kids eyes are scrutinizing him, or perhaps he's just looking for an answer on his face again.
There's no need, Dokja answers the kid easily enough. The sour smile he was holding onto turns blank instead. He's not trying to fool anyone right now. They're long past that. "That's... That's right."
"Then, when we reach the end of the scenarios, will we be able to make a wish?" He has turned to look in the direction they're supposed to be walking. Suddenly, the kid looks like his age. Young, sounding like the child he is with a crack in his voice. Dokja can see Gilyoung's shoulders shake in the flickering light from the insects.
"There's- they usually get a reward at the end of a story like this, don't they?"
[Exclusive skill 'The Fourth Wall' shakes violently.]
Nausea creeps up his throat, his stomach going queasy. Dokja has to forcefully abort yanking his hand out of that stronghold grip.
Listening to this sounds just like-
"Omma!" Dokja is careful to whisper-shout, not getting any louder than a low talking voice. His shirt has a trail of blood down the shite surface and his eyes are a little tired. He looks small. He's missing a tooth when he smiles wobblily, blood dripping down the corner of his mouth. His little bloody tooth is laid in the palm of his hand, turned up and shoved towards his mother. "Look, it came out!"
The figure in front of him is shadowed over, the light of the room backlighting her in an eerie red. Her cracking lips are the only thing actually visible of her face. She's on her knees as she cups both of her hands right below his own. His tiny hand is dwarfed easily.
'That's...' Jihye looks back to try and gauge how Sangah and Heewon are reacting to the weird thing on the screen.
Is that really how ahjussi sees his mother? Why does she look like that? The teenager thinks back to the memory from earlier, making connections to the figure looking for a hiding baby ahjussi and the one kneeling before him in the current memory on screen.
The ladies behind her have werid looks on their faces, the kind that adults do when they've seen something upsetting but don't want to show it.
Then Jihye is right that this is weird. She's not the only one unsettled.
"I see it." The voice is raspy and it sort of echoes in the memory. She speaks just as low as he does. One of her hands raises from beneath his own and wipes away the blood from his chin. "You're growing up well, Dokja-yah."
He giggles at the feeling, overturning the hand holding his tooth so it drops in her hand. He beams with a hole in his smile and blood still on his teeth. He bounces where he stands. "Does that mean I'm the knight now?"
The figure drops the smile she was barely holding onto, her mouth turns down and her lips purse. She only keeps it for a moment before it's smoothed blank. The figure continues to wipe away the blood best she can, but she speaks sternly next. "The dragon is still too powerful for you, little knight."
The screen turns back to the tiny Dokja, who is pouting at the figure-
There are many ways to survive the devastation of the apocalypse. Some people go mad...
Kim Namwoon stands crazed, his eyes blown wide and blood on his face. He's smiling viciously.
...some people turn into zealots...
An image of the people who had all banded together to kill the grandmother on the subway pops up into his head.
...and some people become irrationally optimistic.
Gilyoung is pouting, tugging at Dokja's sleeve. He's pulling down the collar of the robe. "It's not irrational, hyung."
Dokja just sighs, pats the kids head, and tugs his collar back into place. These children need to start remembering that he doesn't have anything on under this.
The boy just keeps pouting at him, complaining under his breath.
Dokja is back to looking at Gilyoung who has a hopeful look on his face. But it's not really Gilyoung. In front of him stands the same boy from earlier, beaming with a hole in his smile and blood on hsi teeth. The line of blood going down his shirt quickly turns into a splatter instead before Dokja is back to looking at brown hair and a full smile.
standing here, in these dark dark tunnels with the kid staring up at him with a smile and hopeful eyes, that Dokja realizes just how much he fucks up the things he touches. Even now that they've stood here, had a conversation about how he sacrificed people for a selfish cause and everything else he has done up until now, Gilyoung stands there and looks at him with a smile. Still looks at him with eyes glittering in hope.
Hope.
The kind of hope that comes from knowing there's more. An abused child looks at an adult who survived the same fate, the same conditions, and sees there is a future. Kim Dokja's own heinous survival has given this poor little kid some twisted semblance of hope.
Once again it's not Gilyoung that stands before him anymore. This new kid is thinner, more gaunt, with black hair and black eyes. The eyes are duller but the blood isn't gone. It's a familiar sight, one that leaves Dokja's eyes cold and dark with loathing. A seething feeling that crawls underneath his skin.
"Yeah, that pretty ahjussi seeing himself is not good." Yoo Mia speaks up, bringing akc the conversation from earlier. Gilyoung looks to the left to pay attention to her.
"I don't think ahjussi likes himself very much." Yoosung mumbles, her heart breaking even as she says it. She grabs and squeezes Mia's hand. The girl says nothing about it.
[The Constellation 'Demon-like Judge of Fire' is devestated.]
Jihye, who had been distracting while listening in, inserts her own opinion. "Doesn't it seem like he hates only the child him? We didn't see that same animosity to his teenage self..."
Jihye brings up a good point. Gilyoung scrunches his face up, his expression souring quickly. "And I remind hyung of child him?"
"It seems so." Jihye nods along as she talks, trying to understand her own observations.
Suddenly, he snaps his gaze away when the moment settles back into what it actually is. There is a boy standing in front of him that need reassurance. Reassurance that he doesn't exactly have. Lying to Gilyoung will probably be the nicest thing he's ever done in his life.
It still feels like ash on his tongue.
"Yes, you're right." He says the words he doesn't believe. He slips his hand out of the kids grip and lays it on his shoulder instead.
"There's so much wrong with this." Sooyoung pipes up, groaning when soem of the other adults try to hiss at her to be quiet. She waves them off easy, keeping on even as everyone tries to get her to not.
"You can't expect yourself to not lie. The situation you're in is delicate." The plagiarist makes a good point. A good point that Dokja doesn't want to listen to. "It's like telling a kid that santa is real."
Dokja scoffs at her, refusing to look her in the face as he averts his eyes. "It's still-"
"Don't even start with that bullshit." Sooyoung snarls at him, bonking him on the top of his head with one of her closed fist. "You're just trying to find ways to blame yourself."
The reader stays quiet at this.
'I'm lucky that we're in the dark. Gilyoung can't see m expression right now.' They start to walk forward again, getting closer and closer to the end of this ordeal that Dokja has put himself through. 'You can point fingers at me all you want. I am a despicable grown-up and this kid has decided to live on in this world.'
They reach a barrier like the one from earlier when they started the hunting sub scenario, the fireflies being unable to light up anything past it no matter how close they got. They walk forward and push through. A window pops up soon after.
[The Sub Scenario has been updated.]
Notes: