#Chrome App | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mhaynoot · 1 year

Text

[ tw suicide , suicidal thoughts and intentions - orv spoilers - epilogue joongdok ]

yjh progressed so much and so far through 1863 regression turns not only to cut down the constellations and systems that made him suffer but also to find a way to either save the world or die permanently, whichever came first.

out of all the yjh and the regressions, the one who achieved that goal was the half slain by himself in the 1863rd round, the one who encapsulated all yjh's feelings of "i want to die".

the one that said "i want to live" was all that was left.

yjh remembers renouncing his regression status. his character trait.

"yoo joonghyuk, former regressor."

but he who hated his regression the most, who experienced suffering like no other because of it, chooses again to regress once more to save kdj. he tries not to think why but does anyway when the the scenario nights once again drag on long and agonising.

"are you sure?" people had asked right before the group regression. as if he would have ever brought it up as a suggestion if he hadn't been sure.

was he sure?

yjh closes his eyes.

he remembers renouncing his regressor status. he remembers delcaring not only that he will lived this round - this life - fully but that he will live solely for the ending in which kdj was an anomaly. he remembers kdj too. the little twist to his lips, the downcurved tilt, and his eyes, yjh was always reflected into his eyes. but they only saw him then. "I was twenty-eight, and I was an employee of a game company. my hobby was reading web novels…"

yjh remembers.

"yes, I'm sure."

but more than reliving the hellish nightmares of the scenarios once more, it only completely breaks him when regressing still fails-fails-fails-

(like kdj had told him over and over again)

two years passes by. time is supposed to ease grief. he should have moved on.

yjh breaks into the museum to grab the broken [final ark] with no real plan and fights hsy with his all so she could kill him because that's what he wanted. because yjh wants to fucking die and had tried everything from clutching a gaming mouse to training to talking endlessly with his teacher and sister but still- still he finds no purpose in life after the failed regression.

he imagines that guy yelling at him, calling him a sunfish.

even though he was free from the scenarios, free from the regression skill, can grow old normally with all his loved ones into a happily ever after. in a world surely and carefully forgetting the secnarios, erasing almost everything of that nightmare. today, the night sky is forever dark with only the glimmer of weakened constellations. yjh had saved the world and his companions and his sister and himself. it was everything he had ever wanted. everything that could have ever made him happy.

kim dokja, he grieves and grieves and grieves.

it is only the dumb blind faith and hope of a hacked brained plan that lets him live until he's shooting through space with a faint, infinitely burning wish.

and because of course nothing ever goes right, the ship breaks down and then everything else is breaking down and he's drifting through space in the vast loneliness and hollowness of his own dying stories.

1, 2, 10, 100, 333 days of drifting.

it is the kdj's story that revitalises him again and again as he reads and rereads and reads more and more

until, finally, he could understand kdj just a little more.

he wonders if this is what it means to have a soulmate. to have someone who completed him so much. who is his everything and to know he is everything to that guy too.

they are each other's beginning and end, salvation and damnation, life and death.

and then,

on death's door, he draws his sword. he regrets but he does not give up.

words echo between his ears in his final moments. that guy was right in the end. of course.

he dreams of fighting and that damn journey to the west remake and he dreams-

his eyes search around, always desperately searching. it's like chasing a ghost. like trying to bridge a bridgless gap between him and-

"where is kim dokja?"

"captain!"

everything in him knows it, knows what happened even if it remained a dream in his memories. the stories vibrantly holding him together was proof enough that he got saved by that bastard. he'll be damned if he ever reveals the truth to biyoo that though.

they crest and bob through the ebb and flow of the wordlines and the universe.

some worlds a peaceful. no scenarios.

yjh wonders if the stardust reincarnated in these worldlines is happy. selfishly, he hopes not and that they'll always wish to come back. to stay. he's already doomed countless worlds for this purpose. spreading this dream of destruction for a single man.

its with these selfish wishes, they drift through space and the brief stops along the way.

some, he leaves faster than others. it depends on how quickly he and biyoo can find a suitable webnovel author. but it doesnt always go all that quickly. authors. they're reclusive annoyances. yjh thinks of hsy and her first appearance and edits the latest update with particularly brutal comments on her prose. so some worlds, they linger on.

somehow, he finds himself on a high building in every world. sometimes they're in seoul but not always. all cities eventually start looking the same anyway. similar but foreign concrete city scapes. large, open skies.

that guy had said the view was beautiful.

"wake up, yoo joonghyuk."

centuries and world lines drift by.

he was not the 41st yjh and she was not the 41st shin yoosung. they had lived and grown to become the them they are now. had both been touched by that guy and his actions. her more so than him.

sometimes, he gets caught in her visage. on the way she smiled or her eyes gleamed. nebulae dwarfed in comparison. every bit of her father.

more than her eyes and her smiles, it was the way she talked. that slightly annoyed, flippant wit. she talks so much now, babbling, scheming, or just talking for the sake of talking. like she was making up for the years of being pretty much nonverbal. or the years of travelling alone. although, her father had always able been to understand her quite well. maybe it was a connection between parent and child.

yjh didnt try to remember his own child, they were always there. a small swaddled thing. it was a worn out grief. memories so bright it faded. a life too short.

biyoo's dad had said he understood. he had never lost child. had sacrificied himself over and over again to ensure not a single one of his went through that cut fate.

yjh knows that kdj had never experienced it. but yjh understands kdj too.

every world, she finds recent trends in webnovels and the world news and what strange "gimmick" the world operated on. some had game systems like the star stream. some had an old apocalypse lingering. some were in the middle of a breaking world. nothing quite bad enough to not find an author, of course.

he wonders if kdj was thriving in those less peaceful worlds like he thrived in the star stream. yjh selfishly hopes not. hopes that something is irreversibly missing in a life without his companions, without yjh.

even if they only stopped in the world for an hour, biyoo always finds the time to report her findings to him. she settles into the arc beside him and rambles on about how the different systems compared to each other or talks about a popular webnovel and the characters in them. the arcs they go through.

something in his chest loosens at the fimilarity. it wouldnt do to get lost in the memories of another person in someone else but he was a regressor.

maybe she understands that too because she always continues to talk even when he stops responding, stops looking quite at her.

he was glad she was there with him. in this long journey.

in the arc, through the worldlines, on the highest points of city buildings, he edits the story, he adds his own chapters. he finds their memories and their stories and writes it all down. he types with fingers tracing only a singular name.

he reads more.

he writes more.

protagonist, reader, author.

the star stream seems to be finally over. their epilogue was upon them.

that pivotal last chapter had not be written yet. the one where kdj comes home.

yjh settles his hands on the keyboard.

as he enters the stratosphere, as the cockpit burns and lights through earth's blue skies like a shooting star, and he finally breathes in the air his and kim dokja's world again, yjh thinks about his long journey. about his 0th turn. about 1865 regressions. about answers and questions and the future. about his happiness.

the [ark] slams into the ocean. he can already see lee jihye screaming at him in the distance. the rest of his little nebulae wait for him. his little sister looks ready to beat him up.

he looks at them and smiles.

as he's pulled towards his and kim dokja's companions, moved back into their embrace and circle as if he's never left, he thinks about his long journey. about his 0th turn. about 1865 regressions. about answers and questions and the future. about kim dokja.

yjh thinks about every stardust that scatters through the wordlines that he had visited. some of them had been peaceful. some of them less so.

yjh hopes each stardust reincarneted into these worldlines are doing well. that they are warm and eating well and are loved. and, yjh hopes that he could still find the ending where he can love that guy and show it to him too. tell him, eventually.

#orv #orv spoiler #joongdok #hawrites #sad yjh hours #sorry #someone said yjhs nickname for kdj was that guy #and now im abusing that #grief #tw suicidal thoughts #very rought first draft i wrote on the chrome app

75 notes · View notes