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He remembers throwing up the moment he woke again in the 80th regression with a guilt that carried over to the 81st, and the first he did was hold his little sister in his arms.
He remembers feeling anguish in the 41st regression, having to live with the knowledge that all his companions died due to his own hubris. Knowledge that Shin Yoosung, who should’ve had a chance to survive, was pushed into the eternal suffering with own hands and he had to live with it.
He remembers the overwhelming sense of failure in the 999th round, with him hale and whole in front of the Final Wall, all of his companions by his side except for one.
Thousands of regressions, each one different from the next and yet, somehow, he cleared them all. Found himself standing as he was in front of the same Final Wall in every single one, alone or with varying collections of faces by his side.
He remembers growing old afterwards. Living life in the crumbled remains of the earth after the end of the scenarios.
Sometimes he’d watch as civilization built itself back up. Sometimes he retreated to the quieter areas where he is alone.
Sometimes, embarrassingly enough, he ends up dying early anyway, of common causes like a mild sickness he never bothered to get checked, or minor wounds he ended up letting fester without knowing; his body having lost the majority of its usual tenacity over the years by the triggering of an attribute he never realized he had.
But more often remembers himself weathered physically with age, a head full of grey hair, crow's feet on the corners of his eyes and frown-lines along his mouth-- frown-lines, because no matter how calm and peaceful his life became after the end of the scenarios, sometimes leading what was left of Seoul into the best future he could think of, sometimes with a wife by his side and children to care for whether they were his own or not, or in his own little world with a small farm house away from civilization, tending to only his own, he is never truly content.
[Life Lived to it’s Fullest] and [Sacrifice’s Will]
A blessing and a curse.
Don't you dare let his sacrifice be in vain.
Because in the end, with a life give at the cost of another he had no choice but to live.
Live this round as if it's your last. Kim Dokja always said.
Live on without me. was what he always seemed to mean.
In the end, no matter the situation and no matter what he chose and what he managed to achieve, he had to live, and he had to live with the same simple regret.
If I’d tried harder back then... He’d thought more often than not, when the overwhelming sense of loss grew too much to bear. If I kept a closer eye on him, kept him even closer by my side, protected him better…
I shouldn’t have let him die...I should’ve protected him more… He grieved in those regressions where he knew nothing.
I shouldn’t have let myself die. He despaired in the regressions where knew everything.
For 1,860 regressions, he’d tried and failed to reach the end of the scenarios, to save the world. And yet for the same 1,860 regressions some incomplete plagiarized version of himself was able to do so in his stead.
And all with the cost of only one person.
“And I killed him.” He chokes out in the only regression he managed to reach the end himself. As himself, all by himself.
And lived, all by himself.
I should’ve saved him. Every single memory, every single part of him cries out. Over and over and over again. I should’ve saved him.
“It seems my story was always meant to end like this, Yoo Joonghyuk.”
“No.” he decides, tears freely flowing from his eyes as the tragedy reel of his 1,863 lifetimes come to an end in his mind's eye. “No.” is all he says.
And so, he closes his eyes and regresses once more.
This time... this time.
~_~_~
Attribute: The Regressor <1864 th round> [Mythical]
Kim Dokja stared disbelieving at the status window in front of him, his mouth agape. “You… w-hy are you-” his throat croaks out and he stops, swallows, and finally brings himself to look up past that blue screen into the regressor’s eyes. His breath hitches at the sight.
[The Fourth Wall is Trembling]
Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes bore straight into his own, dark in their intensity but so unbelievably soft--
What? No that can’t be right why is he looking at me like--
The regressor’s hand lifted up to cup his cheek as opposed to his exposed neck, and Kim Dokja felt himself flinch at the warmth, his eyes darting towards it and then up again when it settled calmly against his skin.
<Character Summary>
Name: Yoo Joonghyuk
Attribute: The Regressor <1864 th round> [Mythical]
If it weren’t for the glaring attribute window, he would’ve thought he’d gotten the wrong person --despite how impossible he thought it was for someone other that Yoo Joonghyuk to be this breathtakingly handsome.
But.
1864th round. This was a Yoo Joonghyuk he didn’t know. A Yoo Joonghyuk who shouldn’t exist in a story that should’ve already come to an end. Why? How?
“Kim Dokja.” spoke the man who couldn’t be anyone other than the Protagonist. and Kim Dokja flinched again.
“How to do you know my name?” he trembled, the fourth wall shaking alongside him due to his inability to calmly process the situation he was in. Do you know me? How do you know me?
Am I the reason you're still here in this tragedy?
And then something more impossible happened and his mind blanked out.
Yoo Joonghyuk smiled.
[Story: ‘Life and Death Companions’ is continuing.]
“You are my companion, Kim Dokja.” Yoo Joonghyuk stated, his expression gentle despite the underlying storm of emotionsin his eyes Kim Dokja can never hope to completely untangle despite the millions of words he’d read about this man. Somehow… somehow Kim Dokja thinks the man is even about to cry and that’s…
That can’t- "Y-Yoo Joonghyuk you-"
“This time,” Yoo Joonghyuk continued, voice barely above a whisper but deafeningly loud in the stillness of a ruined world, and suddenly an arm is snaking its way around Kim Dokja’s waist, pulling him away from the edge of the broke bridge they both stood on because, because this was the apocalypse and there were constellations watching and his companions were waiting for him and-
And then he was being cradled onto a firm chest, warmth seeping through the thick fabric of a shirt, a low musky scent filling his nose even through the underlying smell of dust and blood and-
“This time, in this regression. Let’s reach the end of the scenarios together.” Yoo Joonghyuk murmured in his ear, his warm breath tickling Kim Dokja’s sensitive neck as the taller man let his head drop, drawing him even closer to the long line of the protagonist’s body in a promise to never let go.
And Kim Dokja--
Despite his overwhelming sense of inadequacy, his doubts and his crippling sense of self-worth, and the fact that he had absolutely no clue what on earth is going on, simply let himself wrap his own arms around his most beloved protagonists’ body and say “Yes.”
“Yes. This time. Together.”
"Let's reach the end together."
[Story: ‘Life and Death Companions’ is continuing.]