[ The gift comes via the mailmice - mostly because Dokja doesn't know Junghyeok's actual address and doesn't want to do the disservice of finding out when he hasn't told him.
The packages are wrapped in colorful, slightly obnoxious white gift paper with shiny balloons and glittery confetti printed on it. It's obvious it's three books stacked on top of each other.
The first is a cookbook of varying recipes; popular dishes from several different Earth countries, and, interestingly, a few beyond that. The second is a book of poetry; a collection of Korean poets that Dokja has used to discuss with one of the other Dreamers.
The third is a blank notebook with an attached sturdy looking pen. On the first page, the package's sender is revealed: it's Dokja's chicken-scratch hangul that decorates the lines. ]
I thought you'd like to write about your story in your own words.
[ There's no happy birthday wish, but what else could the present be for? ]
[Unlike certain other people, Suyeong has stalked the hell out of her companions and knows where they live, so this one gets plopped down and left in person. Not that it really matters because it's still there waiting.]
[Through extreme luck rather than any conscious effort on her part, her gift isn't redundant, but complementary; in this box are a set of pots and pans, a couple of chef's knives and a few other utensils like a long fork and a ladle, and an apron that reads "I'LL KILL YOU COOK FOR MYSELF". ]
[In lieu of a note or signature, there's a little doodle of a stick figure in a long black coat bonking a large black dragon on the head with a sword. Look, she couldn't figure out what to write that wasn't either too insulting or too sincere, so this just sort of happened. JUST TAKE IT OKAY]
Edited (fingers, cooperate with brain more and don't take advantage of homophones) 2025-08-04 16:00 (UTC)
There's someone he needs to talk to that wasn't within immediate reach.
He's not surprised Junghyeok isn't here; learning of the novel's existence had hurt Junghyeok deeply, and Dokja of the 10th scenario truly thought that Junghyeok would get over his loss and wouldn't want to see him again.
So, gently, he broadens his senses. Though his incarnations are harder to find without their own powers, he knows Shin Yoosung easily; and he knows Yu Junghyeok, the tragedy of the stigma. He's not sure how much he'll be able to share but he can do this, as he finally finds him, closing his eyes to push a notification window into his view.
The Constellation "Oldest Dream" is looking at his incarnation sadly.
It doesn't matter what he was doing before the notification window pops up. He could have been eating, going for a run, it didn't matter, it was getting dropped. Junghyeok had always been aware of his silent sponsor watching him and it wasn't until his arrival here that he had learnt what it truly felt to be alone, but they had never really communicated. To have them reach out to him now in this place was a shift to the fundamental rules of the universe. In addition, every single person here had arrived powerless. His sponsor wasn't a recent arrival.
He isn't stupid, he can put all those details together. There was only two other people here who knew of the Star Stream. There may have been the possibility of a third person from their worldline biding their time, but a constellation would never look away from their incarnation. They would have made themselves known to him somehow.
"Kim Dokja."
choo choo (also spoilers for the rest of this thread probably)
The Oldest Dream is revealing one of their modifiers!
Demon King of Salvation, The Oldest Dream, confirms that is his name.
It's too easy, like this. He'd burned through most of his probability in the 0th turn. Even if he had any to spare, the truth that he had been the reason Junghyeok chose to regress had rendered him a silent watcher for the rest of Junghyeok's 1865 rounds.
There's no restriction on his ability to send messages now; even Story Control is available to him here, though he doubts he can change the story of the Labyrinth given his previous experiences.
He hasn't taken the time to test any of it. This is a conversation long, long overdue.
Edited 2025-09-12 10:27 (UTC)
i guess we should have started with don't read unless you've finished orv
The knowledge of that book had filled him with many emotions, this confirmation does the opposite. He feels hollowed out, a silent observer standing over his own shoulder. Everything Junghyeok has done has been to reach this point and it's beyond anything he could have ever imagined.
"Where are you?"
They had once looked at each other as equals. Companions. He needs to do that again without the indirect messages. As an incarnation he would never have access to them and while he's known Dokja the constellation for a while now, that was a gulf too big to bridge.
He's not surprised that Junghyeok asks to see him, and he has no notion of refusing him that, difficult though the upcoming conversation may be. In a weird way, Dokja looks forward to it.
Tell me, you fool. If I continue to regress, will I ever get to meet you again?
Dokja abandons the system messages for Midday Tryst instead, sending over the location of his apartment.
Suyeong is out, and I will send Yoosung away before you get here.
He hadn't considered the possibility of what would have happened if those two were there. It was quite likely he would have ignored their presence and left it to them to decide whether they wanted to be a witness or not. His life has been entertainment for others for so long that true privacy doesn't feel real. Maybe they would have tried to stop him if he got physical, maybe they would have looked on with pity in their eyes. It doesn't matter in the end, there would be no more maybes.
It's only when he stands in front of the door to the apartment that he hesitates. It's only for a moment and would have been unnoticeable unless someone was watching him outside. In the end Junghyeok doesn't knock and goes to open the door directly.
Dokja wasn't watching outside, but he knew he was out there. When Junghyeok steps in he's sitting on the couch - really the only place he can sit, unless he wanted to hit himself up onto the tiny counterspace in the kitchen.
He's looking at Junghyeok, and he doesn't look away. Compared to the Dokja from the tenth scenario, or even the one Junghyeok is familiar with, this one seems much less nervous. He does still fiddle with his fingers in an effort to keep calm, though.
"Hello," he offers instead, unable to stop from offering a half smile. He's not sure if Junghyeok will launch into questions, stay silent, or draw a blade to fight him.
He's still happy to see him regardless. He remembers watching an elderly Junghyeok fade away and hearing that all memories of him had been forgotten. Of before that, reading and watching all the wordlines that he'd struggled through.
[The door opens and Junghyeok steps out with a sword in his hand. It's nothing fancy, a simple and sturdy thing made by a decent smith in town. In the hands of a skilled fighter it had the potential to be extremely dangerous. Even with none of the stat boosts he should have had, there were few who knew how to wield a sword as well as him.
And yet against a constellation the gulf between them would be insurmountable. Junghyeok doesn't care. Even if it meant another death, he had to try.]
I have no intention of listening to you ever again.
[She isn't in any position to fight, sitting on the ground with her back to the wall. Not even looking his way, as it happens, just staring out into the distance.]
I did it all so he would be with us at the end.
[She'd been prepared, when it first started, for this eventuality. If the ending she'd managed to build everything to was one in which Junghyeok hated her but Dokja was with them, that would be worth it a thousand, a million times over. There is no amount of suffering she wouldn't put anyone or anything through to make that happen. Including Junghyeok. Including herself.]
[But so much of what she hadn't told him had been because he wouldn't understand. Couldn't understand without context, without living it. He isn't the Junghyeok she knows. He isn't her Junghyeok.]
[Funny. For both him and Dokja, she had to lie and manipulate, because straight out telling the truth wouldn't work. They're too much themselves to listen to it, to believe it, to accept it.]
[Those idiot boys.]
I have another way now. I'll tell you it even if you don't want to work with me, because it's for him. [And Junghyeok. She has no illusions over how tightly bound those two are.] You can be furious at me and hate me, I earned that. But I'll still tell you everything.
[The last time he confronted someone for answers it had been an exercise in frustration and doubt. Junghyeok hadn't reached the point of beating it out of him like the one she remembered, but it had been a close thing. Even now he still didn't have all the answers, there was still so much to cover. He couldn't ask what he had no knowledge of.
This time it's almost anticlimactic with her immediate acquiescence. The moment it unravelled she immediately folded. But then again it's never been about him, Junghyeok exists because Dokja needed him and Suyeong was all too happy to provide.]
You're too late. I've heard enough.
[Junghyeok holds the blade against Suyeong's neck. He doubts this would even leave a scratch.]
[She lifts a finger to put it against the blade, and lifts her head to shoot him a glare that's much more like her.]
I said 'furious and hate me'. I stand by that. But if you're gonna start threatening me then I need you to acknowledge your own role in this. If your reaction to anything you don't like or want to here wasn't either dramatic sulking or murder, people would tell you stuff a lot more, you know. You know one big reason why I was holding back on stuff? Because not long after where you're from, you actually tried to kill me just for trying to get you to listen!
[Sure, he'd claimed that he knew she would survive, but how much credit she gives that is up for debate. As is the question of whether he'd truly cared or not.]
I'm gonna talk, so you listen and stop menacing me. [And rather than give him a chance to debate that, she just starts, a little weight of status unconsciously behind her words.] Back at the start of this all I put half of myself into an Avatar, and that other me ended up in the 1863rd regression. Details if you want them but the point is, she reached the end and got sent back to the past so she could find out who tls123 was and stop TWSA from being written. And as you probably figured, she ended up writing it herself, because she saw Kim Dokja alone in a hospital after trying to kill himself and realized that if not for TWSA, he'd try again and probably succeed.
That's why TWSA was written. That's not why you exist. She could write it because she met you. I wrote it because I knew you. But it's also why all of this happened. To save him.
[He wouldn't understand. He wouldn't know. Even she doesn't entirely understand it; those memories of her other self have a distant quality, a sense that it isn't the her she knows herself to be remembering them. Even so, that scene of an hospital room, empty except for one girl who had no business being there, brings a deeper pain to her heart than almost anything else she could imagine.]
[Even with just that hint of her status it takes everything he has not to buckle under its weight. And yet despite how powerless it left him in comparison to the others he has no regrets about refusing to approach the crystal. With no guarantee he'd get only the abilities he wanted, it was better to play it safe. Of course with his sponsor here and aware of it all, Junghyeok may not have a choice in the matter, but he didn't think Dokja would be stupid enough to give him regression a second time.]
I don't care why you wrote it.
[At least it wasn't a factor in his current reaction. Junghyeok can understand her motivations and accept that there wasn't another way. But whatever bad tempered reaction she expected from him wasn't enough to withhold it from him. It was the similar with Dokja, she had fought with him, insisted she'd go to all lengths for him and in the end still treated him like a powerless character acting out the lines she wrote.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
( gift, 3/8/???? ) i can't believe im the first
The packages are wrapped in colorful, slightly obnoxious white gift paper with shiny balloons and glittery confetti printed on it. It's obvious it's three books stacked on top of each other.
The first is a cookbook of varying recipes; popular dishes from several different Earth countries, and, interestingly, a few beyond that. The second is a book of poetry; a collection of Korean poets that Dokja has used to discuss with one of the other Dreamers.
The third is a blank notebook with an attached sturdy looking pen. On the first page, the package's sender is revealed: it's Dokja's chicken-scratch hangul that decorates the lines. ]
I thought you'd like to write about your story in your own words.
[ There's no happy birthday wish, but what else could the present be for? ]
Gift, 8/3, lousy dokja being the first
[Through extreme luck rather than any conscious effort on her part, her gift isn't redundant, but complementary; in this box are a set of pots and pans, a couple of chef's knives and a few other utensils like a long fork and a ladle, and an apron that reads "I'LL
KILL YOUCOOK FOR MYSELF". ][In lieu of a note or signature, there's a little doodle of a stick figure in a long black coat bonking a large black dragon on the head with a sword. Look, she couldn't figure out what to write that wasn't either too insulting or too sincere, so this just sort of happened. JUST TAKE IT OKAY]
heehee hoohoo
He's not surprised Junghyeok isn't here; learning of the novel's existence had hurt Junghyeok deeply, and Dokja of the 10th scenario truly thought that Junghyeok would get over his loss and wouldn't want to see him again.
So, gently, he broadens his senses. Though his incarnations are harder to find without their own powers, he knows Shin Yoosung easily; and he knows Yu Junghyeok, the tragedy of the stigma. He's not sure how much he'll be able to share but he can do this, as he finally finds him, closing his eyes to push a notification window into his view.
The Constellation "Oldest Dream" is looking at his incarnation sadly.
all aboard the orv drama express train
He isn't stupid, he can put all those details together. There was only two other people here who knew of the Star Stream. There may have been the possibility of a third person from their worldline biding their time, but a constellation would never look away from their incarnation. They would have made themselves known to him somehow.
"Kim Dokja."
choo choo (also spoilers for the rest of this thread probably)
Demon King of Salvation, The Oldest Dream, confirms that is his name.
It's too easy, like this. He'd burned through most of his probability in the 0th turn. Even if he had any to spare, the truth that he had been the reason Junghyeok chose to regress had rendered him a silent watcher for the rest of Junghyeok's 1865 rounds.
There's no restriction on his ability to send messages now; even Story Control is available to him here, though he doubts he can change the story of the Labyrinth given his previous experiences.
He hasn't taken the time to test any of it. This is a conversation long, long overdue.
i guess we should have started with don't read unless you've finished orv
"Where are you?"
They had once looked at each other as equals. Companions. He needs to do that again without the indirect messages. As an incarnation he would never have access to them and while he's known Dokja the constellation for a while now, that was a gulf too big to bridge.
just don't read orv (wait no-)
Tell me, you fool. If I continue to regress, will I ever get to meet you again?
Dokja abandons the system messages for Midday Tryst instead, sending over the location of his apartment.
Suyeong is out, and I will send Yoosung away before you get here.
EVERYBODY READ ORV
It's only when he stands in front of the door to the apartment that he hesitates. It's only for a moment and would have been unnoticeable unless someone was watching him outside. In the end Junghyeok doesn't knock and goes to open the door directly.
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He's looking at Junghyeok, and he doesn't look away. Compared to the Dokja from the tenth scenario, or even the one Junghyeok is familiar with, this one seems much less nervous. He does still fiddle with his fingers in an effort to keep calm, though.
"Hello," he offers instead, unable to stop from offering a half smile. He's not sure if Junghyeok will launch into questions, stay silent, or draw a blade to fight him.
He's still happy to see him regardless. He remembers watching an elderly Junghyeok fade away and hearing that all memories of him had been forgotten. Of before that, reading and watching all the wordlines that he'd struggled through.
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UN: beastlord, prolly like ??? a couple days before Dokja wakes up??????
[ She asked Suyeong for his contact. Don't worry about it. ]
Where are you?
un: yu.junghyeok
Why?
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I wanted to talk to you.
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1/lemme cook
Captain!!
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I wanted to see you in person!
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Ok done
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You have 5 minutes.
[He really is going to leave if she's not there in exactly 5 minutes.]
1/2
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Backdated to a little earlier in September!
don't need to hide anything from dokja any more i'll tell you everything
idk what he told you but i know there's some things you need to hear from me even if he said them
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And yet against a constellation the gulf between them would be insurmountable. Junghyeok doesn't care. Even if it meant another death, he had to try.]
I have no intention of listening to you ever again.
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[She isn't in any position to fight, sitting on the ground with her back to the wall. Not even looking his way, as it happens, just staring out into the distance.]
I did it all so he would be with us at the end.
[She'd been prepared, when it first started, for this eventuality. If the ending she'd managed to build everything to was one in which Junghyeok hated her but Dokja was with them, that would be worth it a thousand, a million times over. There is no amount of suffering she wouldn't put anyone or anything through to make that happen. Including Junghyeok. Including herself.]
[But so much of what she hadn't told him had been because he wouldn't understand. Couldn't understand without context, without living it. He isn't the Junghyeok she knows. He isn't her Junghyeok.]
[Funny. For both him and Dokja, she had to lie and manipulate, because straight out telling the truth wouldn't work. They're too much themselves to listen to it, to believe it, to accept it.]
[Those idiot boys.]
I have another way now. I'll tell you it even if you don't want to work with me, because it's for him. [And Junghyeok. She has no illusions over how tightly bound those two are.] You can be furious at me and hate me, I earned that. But I'll still tell you everything.
no subject
This time it's almost anticlimactic with her immediate acquiescence. The moment it unravelled she immediately folded. But then again it's never been about him, Junghyeok exists because Dokja needed him and Suyeong was all too happy to provide.]
You're too late. I've heard enough.
[Junghyeok holds the blade against Suyeong's neck. He doubts this would even leave a scratch.]
tw: talk of suicide
[She lifts a finger to put it against the blade, and lifts her head to shoot him a glare that's much more like her.]
I said 'furious and hate me'. I stand by that. But if you're gonna start threatening me then I need you to acknowledge your own role in this. If your reaction to anything you don't like or want to here wasn't either dramatic sulking or murder, people would tell you stuff a lot more, you know. You know one big reason why I was holding back on stuff? Because not long after where you're from, you actually tried to kill me just for trying to get you to listen!
[Sure, he'd claimed that he knew she would survive, but how much credit she gives that is up for debate. As is the question of whether he'd truly cared or not.]
I'm gonna talk, so you listen and stop menacing me. [And rather than give him a chance to debate that, she just starts, a little weight of status unconsciously behind her words.] Back at the start of this all I put half of myself into an Avatar, and that other me ended up in the 1863rd regression. Details if you want them but the point is, she reached the end and got sent back to the past so she could find out who tls123 was and stop TWSA from being written. And as you probably figured, she ended up writing it herself, because she saw Kim Dokja alone in a hospital after trying to kill himself and realized that if not for TWSA, he'd try again and probably succeed.
That's why TWSA was written. That's not why you exist. She could write it because she met you. I wrote it because I knew you. But it's also why all of this happened. To save him.
[He wouldn't understand. He wouldn't know. Even she doesn't entirely understand it; those memories of her other self have a distant quality, a sense that it isn't the her she knows herself to be remembering them. Even so, that scene of an hospital room, empty except for one girl who had no business being there, brings a deeper pain to her heart than almost anything else she could imagine.]
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I don't care why you wrote it.
[At least it wasn't a factor in his current reaction. Junghyeok can understand her motivations and accept that there wasn't another way. But whatever bad tempered reaction she expected from him wasn't enough to withhold it from him. It was the similar with Dokja, she had fought with him, insisted she'd go to all lengths for him and in the end still treated him like a powerless character acting out the lines she wrote.]
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