Twilight Dreams

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/26663893.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: M/M
Fandom: 전지적 독자 시점 - 싱숑 | Omniscient Reader - Sing-Shong
Relationship: Kim Dokja/Yoo Jonghyuk
Character: Kim Dokja, Yoo Jonghyuk
Additional Tags: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting,
they meet in dreams when YJH dies, Angst and Humor, strangers to
lovers to strangers
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2020-09-26 Words: 4687

Twilight Dreams
by Gotcocomilk

Summary

It was after the 500th death that Yoo Jonghyuk realized he didn’t mind dying anymore. In
the haze of a world that forgot him, and friends and lovers that faded away every time he
regressed, there was one constant. There was one companion who always remembered him,
no matter how many times he died.

Kim Dokja never forgot him.

Notes

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY LOVE I ADORE YOU AND I HOPE YOU ENJOY THIS!!

Concrete spoilers for 420+, implied spoilers for the whole book tbh tho most of them are
pretty inconspicuous. Also warnings for the canon mental health issues.

See the end of the work for more notes

The first time he dreamed of the stranger, Yoo Jonghyuk was dying.

But this wasn’t cause for concern, not for him. Yoo Jonghyuk was often dying. It was easy to
categorize the weak twitch in his fingers, to feel trembling in his legs and force them to stand
anyway, to note the pain streaming in like a flood. This time he wouldn’t make it, his body said.
This time he’d die.

It wasn’t a surprise. Yoo Jonghyuk knew what it was like to die. Death was nothing unusual— it
was just the mark of a regression failed.

It was the dreaming afterwards that took him by surprise.

He died, and dreamed of a world that hadn’t existed in so many years, of the bright lights of Seoul
and the bustle of a massive city. He dreamed of buildings without blood splatter, of clothes without
purpose, of hands without weapons.

Yoo Jonghyuk dreamed, and in the dream was a dream.

He was on a train. It was the same one the regressions took him too, one compartment over from
where he blinked awake after death. It was close to where the bomb went off, but he’d only seen
this compartment torn and dyed in blood.

It didn’t look like that now. Now, it looked peaceful. Quiet, even. It was filled with people, but
their faces were empty and their eyes hauntingly blank. The windows outside were full of the sights
of Seoul, painted across the glass in vivid detail. The metal under his feet felt hard, and the wind
whistling at the windows was strong and real.

But the faces were empty.

“I am Yoo Jonghyuk.”

The words broke him out of fog and dragged him into the present. The train was still moving,
traveling through time if not space. He didn’t know when he’d gotten lost in the smell of Seoul, in
the sights, in the colors though the window.

He didn’t know, but he wasn’t alone.

There was a young man sitting in front of him. His face wasn’t censored, and Yoo Jonghyuk
caught a hint of pale skin and cheap clothes before the man looked up.
Then all he could see were eyes. They were dark, cutting harsh shadows into the glinting metal.
They were old too, in a way that Yoo Jonghyuk knew and understood. They gleamed slightly in the
light of a phone, but even then they didn’t look bright.

A more romantic soul might have said they were beautiful. Yoo Jonghyuk thought they looked
tired.

“No, you aren’t,” he said, and watched the man blink up at him. There were bags under his eyes,
bruised in and brutal. Of all the things in this dream, they were the most realistic.

Yoo Jonghyuk wished it had been the lights of Seoul instead.

The stranger on a train looked amused for a moment, detached like he was watching Yoo
Jonghyuk’s words flash by on a screen and not hearing them. Then he looked away, quiet and
uncaring. The wind whistled as he spoke, rough and hungry.

“This is a dream. In a dream I can be anyone I want to be, and I’d like to be Yoo Jonghyuk.”

Yoo Jonghyuk clenched his jaw, and didn’t understand.

Why would anyone want to suffer the hell of eternity? He was on his third regression, and he could
see more stretching into the future, could see as many as it would take to change the future. He
could see the first hints that this wouldn’t be the end of his struggle, that he’d do this again and
again and again, until he was as broken as the world.

Why would anyone want to be Yoo Jonghyuk?

“Why?” He asked, and watched the man watch the faceless people on the train. This was only a
dream.

It couldn’t be more than a dream.

“It’s easier to be someone else, sometimes.”

Easier, the man said. It’s easier to sit down and die too, easier to let the warm memories suffocate
him until he never wanted to walk forward.

Being weak was always easier than living.

“You’re a fool,” Yoo Jonghyuk said, and his voice felt cold enough to freeze the train in its tracks.
But the wind kept blowing, and the city lights kept gleaming. What a dream this was.

The man smiled.

“You know, you’re acting like him. Is it because this is a dream?”

Yoo Jonghyuk, caught on the edge of dreaming, didn’t know. He didn’t have time to respond, the
world fading away with the man’s tired eyes.

He took cold breaths in reality a heartbeat later, and felt fury. There was the smell of explosives
lingering nearby, and the frantic heartbeats of fifty people who were about to die around him.

He looked up at the person across from him. The face that met his was real, and the eyes weren’t
dark or tired. They were scared, and they should be.

Yoo Jonghyuk had regressed again, and this stranger was about to die.

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

The next death brought him to a quiet bench in Seoul, the lights of the city bright and steady
behind him. The next death brought him to another dream. Wind moved over his coat, tugging at
the threads in a way that should have been calming.

Yoo Jonghyuk would not be calmed.

“I didn’t think you were a reoccurring character,” the same man said, and his eyes were just as
tired. Yoo Jonghyuk didn’t feel tired— he felt angry, a cold and boiling fury that refused to leave
him.

He had died. He would die again, but each one he chronicled and remembered. Someday, he’d be
strong enough to kill the stars that had watched while his companions died. Someday he might not
have companions at all.

Someday, this would all be over. Maybe then he wouldn’t return to this dream.

In a smooth motion, he pressed the man back against the bench, fingers tight around a pale neck.
The man didn’t even flinch.

“This is a dream. It’s a little pointless to kill me.”

Yoo Jonghyuk snarled. It felt wrong, too harsh for the clean lights of Seoul. This was a place
without the scenarios, without rage and fury and everything that made up his daily life. Yoo
Jonghyuk, regressor, didn’t belong here.

He wanted to stay.

“Your name,” he snapped, and tried not to snap the man’s neck.

The man’s face twitched, caught between amusement and an awkward exhaustion. “You’re being
rude. Still acting like him, I see.”

Yoo Jonghyuk tightened his fingers, but not too much. The eyes that stared at him were tired, and
he wasn’t sure he wanted them to go cold.

The lights of Seoul were so bright.

“Tell me your name or I snap your neck.”

“It’s Kim Dokja,” the man said, and it was quiet enough it didn’t feel like an introduction. But
there was no hesitation in the words, even when they sent vibrations running through Yoo
Jonghyuk’s hand.

A reader. A solitary child. Sentimental things Yoo Jonghyuk didn’t care for. It was the truth, and
that’s what mattered.

“Why am I here?”

The man flashed a wry smile, tapping a finger against the hand on his neck. “If I knew that, do you
think you still would be?”

It was a fair point, but Yoo Jonghyuk didn’t have to say that.

“Are there scenarios here?”

The man’s eyes went wide, and the terrible exhaustion that Yoo Jonghyuk had seen flashed away.
What glinted in it’s place was quieter, subtle, a thing Yoo Jonghyuk couldn’t name and wasn’t sure
he wanted to.

The man named Kim Dokja smiled, and it was brutally amused.

“Of course. If I’m going to dream, it’s going to be about you.”

Yoo Jonghyuk’s fingers tightened, but not enough to bruise. Somehow, even in the depths of a cold
anger, he knew he didn’t want to bruise the skin under his palm. “What does that mean?”

“It means, Yoo Jonghyuk, that I read a lot.”

That explained nothing and no one. Yoo Jonghyuk was standing in the dream of a man who knew
him, who knew his name, who recognized the scenarios. He was angry. His death was too fresh to
be happy about the bright lights of Seoul. Death was always too near to enjoy life.
Yoo Jonghyuk almost never read anymore.

“How do you know my name?”

“I read it,” the man said, and then kept speaking. But the world faded as he did, and for all Yoo
Jonghyuk’s anger, so did the man.

Yoo Jonghyuk woke up on the subway, and wasn’t part of the dream. He’d regressed again.

But tired eyes stayed with him, through it all.

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

The next twenty regressions passed quickly. Yoo Jonghyuk died, and spoke to Kim Dokja, and
lived again. His rage faded to a simmer, because Kim Dokja was an enigma with tired eyes.

Kim Dokja hadn’t done this.

The man answered nothing, but could read the quietest twitch of Yoo Jonghyuk’s behavior. The
man asked him nothing, but knew everything. The man said little, and yet—

And yet nothing. Yoo Jonghyuk wished he had snapped that pretty neck years ago, on the second
dream. He wished he hadn’t let this continue, because now the sweet melody of an unchanged
Seoul called to him. Sometimes, Yoo Jonghyuk wanted to die, just to see peaceful lights. That was
the most dangerous dream of all.

At least Kim Dokja was there to deter him.

“Yoo Jonghyuk, did you fight an ichthyosaur this time?”

“Yoo Jonghyuk, did you catch the Poison Queen? You don’t need to kill her, you know.”

“Yoo Jonghyuk, have you—“

On and on the questions went, some helpful and some unimportant. All were far too knowing, and
all came from the man named Kim Dokja.

Sometimes, when the questions were firm enough, and slender shoulders stood close enough, Kim
Dokja didn’t even look tired.

Yoo Jonghyuk didn’t mind those deaths. He thought he should.

“How?” He asked on the 39th death, when it was clear the man knew his world as well as he did.
Kim Dokja looked up at him with tired eyes, and didn’t smile. “How do you know?”

Why do you care, he didn’t ask. It wasn’t an important thing to ask— Yoo Jonghyuk didn’t need to
know this man’s motivations. This world, trapped in the sweet moments of a dream, didn’t matter.
The fake lights of Seoul, glinting and bright, didn’t matter.

Kim Dokja didn’t matter.

“Your story is important to me,” Kim Dokja said, like it was an answer that made sense. The Hell
of Eternity fluttered under Yoo Jonghyuk’s fingers, howling with loneliness. It was louder than
anything else, but Kim Dokja couldn’t see it shake.

Yoo Jonghyuk wished he had a sword. He wished he wasn’t staring at Seoul. He wished he wasn’t
hungry for this to be real. His story wasn’t a thing to be watched and treasured. It was a life, more
painful than any other.

Kim Dokja didn’t understand.

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰
“I miss this, when I wake up.”

Yoo Jonghyuk shifted, flexed his shoulders. They brushed Kim Dokja’s new suit jacket, wrinkling
the starched cloth of the corner. The man didn’t seem to care. Yoo Jonghyuk didn’t care either. He
wouldn’t care even if this wasn’t a dream, even if they weren’t standing on a quiet sidewalk among
empty faces. Clothing mattered so little, in the scheme of things.

But it was the first time Yoo Jonghyuk had seen the suit.

“This is just a dream. It’s all fake, Kim Dokja, and the world you wake up in isn’t broken.”

Kim Dokja hummed, fingers tapping across the back of his phone. It was a habit Yoo Jonghyuk
had noticed a few deaths ago, when his eyes traced pale fingers.

He noticed too much about Kim Dokja.

“I suppose it’s not broken, but— it’s big. The world is an easy place to get lost in.”

Yoo Jonghyuk watched the lights glint overhead, and wished he had a world to be lost in. He didn’t
know what he’d do in it, didn’t know how he’d live with peace. Could he walk the streets without a
sword? Could he relax without danger breathing down his neck?

Yoo Jonghyuk didn’t know. He’d spent so long fighting as a regressor that he wasn’t sure he knew
how to live as a man anymore. Kim Dokja had that, and yet he wanted the dream.

Yoo Jonghyuk couldn’t understand.

“Find people to get lost with, Kim Dokja,” he said, and thought of how much Yoo Mia would love
this version of Seoul. His companions would have loved so much of this place. Even if Yoo
Jonghyuk didn’t know how to be happy here, the others did.

The others could be happy.

Yoo Jonghyuk waited for a long moment, but there was no response. Kim Dokja was quiet, in a
new suit and cheap shoes.

Kim Dokja wasn’t looking at him.

“You don’t have people?” Yoo Jonghyuk asked, and wondered if this world was worth it without
people.

Kim Dokja laughed, low and tired. “That’s a personal question.”

Yoo Jonghyuk grabbed him, turned him around. The shoulders under his hands were slender, and
the suit fabric was cheap, and Kim Dokja’s eyes looked tired. Yoo Jonghyuk had never seen his
face without dark circles and quiet exhaustion.

He hated that he wanted to.

“You know everything about me, Kim Dokja. I have the right to ask personal questions.”

Kim Dokja, with a tired smile and small shoulders, didn’t respond. He looked at Yoo Jonghyuk,
with eyes that seemed to gleam and shine but never brighten, eyes that reflected a thousand stories
but never lived them. Yoo Jonghyuk flexed his fingers, felt warmth seep into his hands.

He was angry.

“Answer me,” he said, and it didn’t sound like a command. It felt softer, less imposing. Yoo
Jonghyuk didn’t have true fury to use on this man, not even when he wanted it.

Being understood was a brutal curse.

Kim Dokja closed his eyes and didn’t respond, eyelashes catching the glinting lights of Seoul. The
light scattered down and away, even as the world faded away and Yoo Jonghyuk’s peace with it.

Yoo Jonghyuk woke up in a cracking subway without an answer. The train rattled on, loud and
unstoppable, for all the bombs and scenarios and screams. The train never stopped.

That life, he lived for longer than he ever had before. Centuries passed as he learned new skills,
tested new paths, honed old talents.

Yoo Jonghyuk lived a long life, but it wasn’t full. It was empty, without the hope of companions or
the comfort of death.

He lived long enough that he could have forgotten Kim Dokja, but he never did. The next death
came, and Kim Dokja came with it. His eyes were tired, and the suit was worn now, but it didn’t
matter. Yoo Jonghyuk wasn’t going to ask the same question again.

He didn’t want the chance to forget again.

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

On the 101 st death, Yoo Jonghyuk woke up to a small apartment instead of a city. It was a shabby
place, with bare walls and plain furniture. There were scuffs marks across the floor, a hollow echo
to each step he took, a quiet breeze drifting in through the edge of the window.

It was cold. He didn’t care. He kept walking instead, felt the echo follow him through dream after
dream. Yoo Jonghyuk had always lived in bare spaces, but this felt empty. Someone lived here, but
the kitchen was bare and the stove cold.

The bed, when he found it, was not empty.

Kim Dokja looked peaceful in sleep as he never did awake, hair fluttering down across pale skin
and marking it with dark shadows. He was curled into a ball, and for all that he was a man fully
grown he looked small.

Yoo Jonghyuk should leave.

But Kim Dokja’s eyelashes were really, abnormally long. Yoo Jonghyuk reached forward without
thinking, letting his finger rest on the curve of Kim Dokja’s cheek. Yoo Jonghyuk’s hands looked
scarred and worn compared to the pale canvas of Kim Dokja’s skin.

He felt worn too.

The room was cold, but Yoo Jonghyuk hadn’t minded. How could he, when he’d felt worse? And
Kim Dokja felt warm, like he was alive and Yoo Jonghyuk wasn’t alone.

Kim Dokja felt real.

Yoo Jonghyuk traced a line up to long eyelashes and press against them, gentle. They felt soft, even
across his callouses.

He wanted to kiss them. He wanted to kiss Kim Dokja too, he realized, if only to know the man
was real.

Dreams were dangerous things.

The body beneath his hand froze, still and frightened as a rabbit for a quiet breath. Then it
smoothed out, heartbeat moving at a tempo too quick for sleep. But those eyes didn’t flutter open,
and Kim Dokja didn’t move.

Well. Then this was Kim Dokja’s own fault.

Yoo Jonghyuk settled down on the bed in efficient motions, gear stripped off and coat thrown
across a chair. He moved behind Kim Dokja, and pulled a slender body close, until smooth skin
was pressed against his hands and they were pressed together.

Kim Dokja felt warm.

It was after a long pause, when the body in his arms relaxed and the dream around them had
gentled, that Kim Dokja spoke.

“I’m surprised that you are willing to do this.”

Yoo Jonghyuk ignored it, leaning forward enough to press his lips against Kim Dokja’s hair. It was
soft against his skin, gentle and warm even as the hair was cold.

Kim Dokja wasn’t gentle, but this world was. This world was so much kinder than the scenarios.

“Next time, open your eyes,” he said, and didn’t let go. He’d wake up to the subway again soon,
raise his sword and break the constellations to pieces.

But for now, he thought he’d sleep.

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

The scenario after that was short. Yoo Jonghyuk too many risks, fought too hard. He died quickly,
and didn’t take companions.

He didn’t mind.

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

He woke up in Kim Dokja’s apartment more often after that, every ten or so lives ending in quiet
peace. Those nights seemed to last longer, stretched out by whatever drew him to Kim Dokja’s
dreams.

He wanted to know what it was. He wanted to know what chains tied him here, and what chains
tied him to the world of the scenarios. But thought he already knew, in the quietest moments of
twilight.

It was his damned sponsor, he was sure. He just didn’t know how.
The Most Ancient Dream took him to the dreams of Kim Dokja. The Most Ancient Dream cursed
him to endless life, to the Hell of Eternity.

Was Kim Dokja a balm for that? Was this place a kindness? Or was Yoo Jonghyuk mad and
broken, this fantasy his only escape.

He didn’t know, but he wondered how long that would last. Yoo Jonghyuk looked down at Kim
Dokja, not asleep but quiet, and wondered how long it would take for this to become a dream too.

He didn’t want to know.

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

It was after the 500 th death that Yoo Jonghyuk realized he didn’t mind dying anymore. In the haze
of a world that forgot him, and friends and lovers that faded away every time he regressed, there
was one constant. There was one companion who always remembered him, no matter how many
times he died.

Kim Dokja never forgot him. Kim Dokja knew his life better than anyone else, and was learning to
know him too. Yoo Jonghyuk had almost stopped trying to kill him, had almost stopped trying
forget how Kim Dokja smiled, and the way his eyes lit up like stars in the night when they spoke.

He had almost given up on not living for Kim Dokja.

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

“Come on, Jonghyuk-ah.”

“No.”

“I’m older than you, you know. This is just manners.”

“…”

The man was smiling. It was a careful thing, small enough that most people wouldn’t notice it at
first glance, small enough to be overlooked. Yoo Jonghyuk never overlooked anything, let alone
Kim Dokja.

The bastard looked smug, like a cat that had dipped its tongue into the cream. Yoo Jonghyuk
wanted to wipe that expression clean, wanted to brush it away with his fingers. He wanted to keep
it forever, in this place that wasn’t touched by Yoo Jonghyuk’s life.

Kim Dokja’s eyes couldn’t look tired when they looked smug. Yoo Jonghyuk stared them down
without moving.

They were so bright.

“Fine.”

There was a pause, shifting through the subway air and across the sights of Seoul. Kim Dokja
seemed content to wait him out, but that was fine.

Yoo Jonghyuk wasn’t going to make this easy.

“An agreement means very little if you don’t follow through, Yoo Jonghyuk.”

“Kim Dok—“

The smile grew wider. Yoo Jonghyuk bit off the name, like he’d like to nip into Kim Dokja’s skin.
He glared harder, letting every year of torture sear into his expression.

Kim Dokja didn’t look scared.

“Hyung,” Yoo Jonghyuk said at last, and it tasted strange and cold on his tongue. He wasn’t sure
he’d called anyone hyung in his life, and certainly not in the last thousand years.

But he couldn’t mind.

Yoo Jonghyuk had died 601 times, and each time had taken him through a lonely path. Kim Dokja
had been there, at the end of each road, with quiet competence and too much knowledge. Kim
Dokja was always there, eyes tired and smile forced.

Yoo Jonghyuk had started living for him long ago, and really, ‘hyung’ was a small price to pay for
a brighter expression. Yoo Jonghyuk had killed gods for less, but for Kim Dokja, he’d allow it.

If it meant Kim Dokja would smile like that again, Yoo Jonghyuk would destroy the world.

“One more time, Jonghyuk-ah, if you would—“

“I’m going to kill you.”

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

“What would you do if you found out your world wasn’t real?”

Yoo Jonghyuk paused, rubbed his fingers along the seat beneath him. They were in the subway
again, caught in the web of Kim Dokja’s dreaming.

But that question had sounded far too casual to mean nothing.

“I’d make it real,” he answered at last, and the metal under his fingers bent for a heartbeat. Kim
Dokja was watching his hands shift, but Yoo Jonghyuk was watching his face.
“What do you have to tell me, Kim Dokja?” He asked, and reached up to grab the man’s chin. Kim
Dokja smiled. Yoo Jonghyuk had walked beside him for long enough to know it was a mask.

There was no response. Yoo Jonghyuk knew he needed one. He knew that there was one, from the
weight of Kim Dokja’s silence.

Of their two worlds, which could be fake?

Yoo Jonghyuk tensed, and thought he knew.

“Am I from your dreams, Kim Dokja? Or is this world fake?”

Kim Dokja looked down at his hands, and didn’t answer.

Was this quiet peace a thing Yoo Jonghyuk had made to stay sane? That would be pointless— he’d
left sanity behind a long time ago. If this world was a dream, it was something someone else had
forced on him. He’d thought about who it was, if it was only a dream.

He didn’t want that.

Despite everything, Yoo Jonghyuk still had an angry hope. It had kept him living for thousands of
years. It had kept him moving on, even when the world cracked his spine and the fog of depression
ate at his throat.

Was Kim Dokja that hope? Was Kim Dokja real? If he wasn’t, Yoo Jonghyuk wasn’t sure if the
world was worth saving at all. If he wasn’t, Yoo Jonghyuk wasn’t sure he’d ever die again. He
wasn’t sure he’d live again either, or breathe, or care.

He’d lived for 998 lives, and at the end of each one, he’d seen Kim Dokja.

Was he mad too?

“Kim Dokja, answer me,” he asked, and he couldn’t help the desperation leaking into his voice. It
bled into his body too, into the way his fingers had lifted to touch Kim Dokja, into the way he
reached for another person.

This was true insanity.

Kim Dokja looked down at his hands. So did Yoo Jonghyuk. “I’m just a reader, Yoo Jonghyuk. I
don’t know.”

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

The next life, Yoo Jonghyuk lived for everyone but himself. He lived for everyone but Kim Dokja,
for once, and it was a bitter flavor.

The next life, Yoo Jonghyuk almost made it to the end. When he opened two eyes to Kim Dokja,
sitting across from him on a train, they didn’t talk about it.

They didn’t talk about anything, on that death.

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

“You asked me if I had people,” Kim Dokja said on the 1203rd death. Yoo Jonghyuk shifted
towards him, closer than he moved to anyone else. The world was cold, and the space outside this
city was fleeting and empty, filled with lives that didn’t matter and a future that never changed.
Yoo Jonghyuk wanted to burn everything but Kim Dokja.

He didn’t respond.

“I’ve only ever had one, and he was never really a person,” the man said, and suddenly Yoo
Jonghyuk thought he might understand. He lifted his hands up, pulled Kim Dokja into his lap. The
city lights blinked around them, but for once Yoo Jonghyuk wasn’t watching them. He buried his
face in the croook of Kim Dokja’s neck, breathed deep across warm skin. Kim Dokja smelled like
books and quiet dreams, like the metal of a train car and the disinfectant of a subway, like all the
things Yoo Jonghyuk lived for.
He smelled good, and Yoo Jonghyuk didn’t shift away, not even when the heartbeat picked up, and
the skin went from warm to hot.

He only had Kim Dokja too.

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

“I want to die, Kim Dokja,” he said, on the 1862nd death. The man looked back at him, and didn’t
speak for a long moment.

He looked like he understood.

“What death was this one?”

He hadn’t asked that in three hundred deaths, and Yoo Jonghyuk hadn’t offered it up. They had
stopped speaking about his life, about the scenarios and the ways of survival.

“The last one,” he said, leaned in for a quiet heartbeat.

Kim Dokja’s lips were warm, as they had been a hundred times before. Yoo Jonghyuk thought that
if he broke the scenarios, he might be able to feel them outside of a dream.

He thought that maybe, this was the oldest dream of all.

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

Yoo Jonghyuk didn’t die again. He wandered the universe without the final key, and wanted to cut
everything to pieces. He’d been right. It was the final death. It was the final meeting in old Seoul
too, the final time he’d felt warm skin under his hands. He wished it hadn’t been.
Yoo Jonghyuk wandered the universe until he’d grown the power of an outer god, and a story that
would never fade or die. He never saw Kim Dokja again, because he hadn’t died again, because
one of them had just been a dream.

He wished Kim Dokja hadn’t just been a dream. He wondered if at the end, when he found his
sponsor, he’d find the memories of a thousand happy dreams too. He wondered who he’d have to
kill for that.

Yoo Jonghyuk wondered many things, as he became the god called Secretive Plotter.

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

Yoo Jonghyuk stepped off the subway, and felt the air shift with growls and screams. There was
explosive ash on his collar from a bomb he hadn’t stopped, blood splattered across his boots from
lives he hadn’t saved.

It was only the third round, but he felt like he was forgetting something.

But it was no matter, he thought, cracking the steel to the next compartment. He’d pick up
companions and move on.

The world didn’t have time for the things he couldn’t remember.

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

A compartment away, with the memories of strong hands running across his skin, Kim Dokja stood
up.

He remembered.
End Notes

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