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To start at the beginning is the nature of stories.
The 'beginning' is a subjective term in and of itself—how far back should you go? When does a human's story begin? When they were born, or perhaps conception. When the cortisol reaction occurred and locked your particular arrangement of genes into your mother's egg. Further, when evolution snapped bones and stretched skin until we separated into Homo sapiens, not so different to our cousins who sunk into land we dug sharp rocks out of. Eve, cracked from a man's ribs and given full, swollen life. A man alone in Heaven, God's favorite mound of clay. Before everything, the star that exploded to leave behind the dust that makes up everything around us. Touch your skin. Does it glimmer? Do you feel like the legacy of a dying star? The 'beginning' is difficult to pin down.
For a story, though, it's quite simple. The beginning would be the very first line. Objective truth. It begins where it literally begins on the first page. That's why authors spend days agonizing over their perfect start, wanting to draw readers in and hint towards the purpose of their writing.
This isn't a book, but it is a story. All stories have beginnings. Before Sun Wukong was sealed under a mountain, he was first borne out of a rock on Mount Huaguo. Kim Dokja was borne from a woman, but that's still not where his tale starts. His can begin with one, simple line:
A person that was born unlucky, lived pitifully, and should have died long ago.
But that's not the story he wants to tell either. That one begins differently:
Before Yoo Joonghyuk, Kim Dokja did not know the touch of desire.
Afterall, Kim Dokja had to be broken from the rib of this man, God's new favorite, to become a real person. No surprise that this begins with Yoo Joonghyuk too. A rephrase: Yoo Joonghyuk didn't teach him desire, Kim Dokja was born with that treacherous parasite. Yoo Joonghyuk's story taught him how to taste satisfaction and stay waiting for more, constantly chasing after the edge of a longing that only grows with each day.
Everything is made from the detonation of the universe. The dust of nebulae, long gone but so far away that you still see them in the night sky, the light hurtling towards you like a delayed messenger to warn you of its death from millennia ago. This left elements, that made physical beings, which made humans, which made you. All emotions are just electrical signals and reactions between these chemicals.
Conclusion: Kim Dokja loving Yoo Joonghyuk was never a choice. It's the legacy of the universe's oldest story—a hunger to be.
Before Yoo Joonghyuk, Kim Dokja was not. Some days, he did not think of important things, and therefore was not important. He did not think much of good things, and therefore was not good. Then he read TWSA and spent all day thinking about that ruined world, those determined fighters. He thought about Yoo Joonghyuk, who was a somewhat good thing, and therefore became... somewhat good.
Yoo Joonghyuk remade Kim Dokja into a person. Gave him a reason to live, to at least try to make it through each day, even if it was something so pathetic that he wouldn't dare to say it out loud. He wasn’t about to tell his classmates and coworkers that he was only alive because he really, really wanted to see how Yoo Joonghyuk dealt with Gong Pildu for sneaking around behind his back.
Author-nim, I love your story! I had a bad day today, but seeing Joonghyuk-ie doing well always comforts me. If you don't update tomorrow, I'll kill myself.
...okay, obviously he didn't actually say that last part, but it was implied in a few of his comments. There were days, right at the beginning, that Kim Dokja thought like that. His biggest fear, besides the bullies and the reporters, was of TWSA ending.
Then it happened. On the subway when he was going home, thirteen years of becoming ended and turned into a PDF on his phone.
Everything does that. End. Whilst the beginning might be contested, the end of all things is simple. It's death.
For stars, their end means the beginning of something else. For stories, the end means the end. Or, well. ■■ is ■■. Kim Dokja knows that, knew that. TWSA ended, and then the story of Kim Dokja and his Company started. Fair enough. Newton's Whichever Law, equivalent exchange. Was that him? Kim Dokja wouldn't know, he flunked high school.
If Kim Dokja began with Yoo Joonghyuk, where does he end?
The Secretive Plotter's ■■ was: [ The Most Ancient Dream ]. Those extreme versions of them, their essences pushed right to the very edge until they were so purely Reader and Protagonist that they both fucked off to their happily ever after into the sunset with their big family and a million tons of probability to fund their journey to a perfect worldline. Whatever. How about you go ahead and ■■ yourself, huh? Seriously...
It was a good story, wasn't it? Kim Dokja had once croaked out, fully aware that he wasn't about to die, but that this was still a very grave moment, and that the sword through his chest also burned like literal fucking hell.
He was wrong. This story isn't good if it isn't all of them together. Even Kim Dokja wants to die surrounded by friends and family at an old age, he just never thought it was possible.
He hadn't known Jung Heewon existed, but still brought her into the fold of his company too. At first she was helpful, then reliable, and then simply a friend he wanted to see the end with. She was meant to die there, suffocating in the poisonous air with her ripped skirt and adrenaline. In her, Kim Dokja has proof that this world is different to TWSA. Will it end differently too? Or will it be yet another PDF, on yet another person's phone, that they will upload to reading forums and insist people should give a chance to, You don't understand, this novel is so good, it changed my life, I'm obsessed. Kim Dokja did his part by living as best he could. He hopes that, at the very least, someone might like his story too.
Yoo Sangah read it. Mostly, she had just seemed to pity him, to want more than ever to help him succeed. Doesn't mean she liked it. He doesn't even like his own story. Who would? He's not a good or interesting person. It's not a happy tale. He imagines that people who would read it would probably be more interested in the others, who definitely have the characteristics of protagonists. Jung Heewon, Han Sooyoung, Yoo Sangah, Jang Hayoung. Yoo Joonghyuk. His importance would be in his relationship with these people, secondary even in his own novel.
Han Sooyoung...
He criticizes her a lot, but she's a good writer. Kim Dokja doesn't know that for sure, exactly, since he had only briefly skimmed through SSS-Regressor, but she's good with her words, articulate and succinct. To be that irritating, you have to be perceptive. Perceptive people make good writers. She's intelligent too, able to remember and scheme over a few lines of text she hate-read at thirteen years old. Arrogant enough to be forceful in her writing, making sure the reader knows what she wants them to, but cruel enough to dangle it in between the lines. If someone had to write his story, Kim Dokja would want it to be her, even over his beloved tls123.
That's something he never thought he'd say. Good thing he's not.
Saying it, that is. Good thing he isn't saying it.
He hasn't said a lot in a while, really.
...it's tiring to speak.
Especially when he's got so much to think about in general. If he opens his mouth for real, who knows what might come out? Not him.
There's not a lot of people around who would listen to the kind of nonsense he'd want to say, not even his dearly beloved companions.
Well, there is one, but it barely counts as a 'person'. It's a skill that has stayed with him through every moment of the scenarios, nagging him but also protecting him from the world around him. A concept. The Fourth Wall, a reader's best friend. Not to this reader though. Pain in his ass.
...ha.
Haha. It's funny.
Well, it isn't really.
Alright, not funny, but dry humor. Enough for a chuckle.
Haha.
Ah...
[ Ki m Dok ja ]
Kim Dokja's let himself get sidetracked. He was talking about ■■ first, right? Ah, how did he end up talking about all that nonsense, 'love' and SSS-Regressor...
Anyway, back onto the topic.
Right, the ■■ of a person that was born unlucky, lived pitifully, and should have died long ago. ■■ itself isn't something that can be determined by language. How was it that Lee Hyunsung described it... The whole region? Lee Jihye's Graduation'? Those two things aren't similar at all. The Star Stream—no, let's quote it properly. That damn Star Stream, Yoo Joonghyuk had said. What the hell could be the common denominator of all these things?
What matters most to a person? Their fate, what they will work towards their whole lives, maybe? Loyal army man Lee Hyunsung, striving to defend the nation until his dying breath. Salute, and don't ever lose another cartridge again. Lee Jihye, unstudious but fast approaching the end of her education. Work hard... harder, and enjoy yourself. Yoo Joonghyuk, the Star Stream's favorite lab rat, left to test the difficulty of <Planetary System 8612>'s sanctioned Scenarios. You'll get to the end, and then past it.
Kim Dokja's name has two meanings. Together, they make the world's loneliest reader.
Naturally, a reader's ■■ is the [ Epilogue ]. When a person reaches the end of the story, they stop being a reader. Such is the natural conclusion of things. Thank heavens you can scrape your way back to life by moving onto the next novel.
[ Eternity ] for the lonely person. There's... no getting back from that, anyway. Well, there is. If reality turned into a circle, or a donut, or whatever shape scientists say the universe is. The lonely person can run ahead constantly, and then at some point, end up back where they were before. But then you don't ever stop running—away from where you started, or back to?
[ Ki m Dok ja ]
All the world's a circle. Is the beginning really the same as the end? A supernova from millions of years ago, starting new life inside the womb. The rear end of the book cover being the same piece of cardboard as the front.
Hm... stories aren't like that, though. They end with finality.
'.' Period. Full stop. And then nothing after, not even a single space. Objective truth. It ends where it literally ends on the last page. That's why authors spend days agonizing over their perfect ending, wanting to be honest to the readers and reveal the truth of their writing.
This isn't a book, but is a story. One that Kim Dokja wants to tell. Not Jung Heewon's recollection of the scenarios, or Lee Gilyoung fighting with Han Sooyoung over the keyboard, or any other person writing about their memories of him. His own words.
It will end, one day, as all things do: with death. He'll die. Eternity? Sure. He can be a corpse forever. Turn into detritus and be broken down to become nutrients for grass, for livestock, for slaughter, for humans. He's been eating dead bodies his whole life without thinking about it. One day, it'll be his turn. Even eternity ends—with a 'y'.
What was he meant to be talking about?
[ K i m D ok j a ]
...yes?
[ I t's ti m e t o s lee p ]
Haha. You didn't even call me stupid, this time. Are you going soft?
[ ...K im Dok ja is st u p id. ]
So obedient. Is something wrong?
Ah, don't tell me.
Are you feeling bad for me now?
[ Kim D ok j a i s cr y in g ]
Not really.
[ K i m Dok ja is a l i ar ]
Kim Dokja is also getting really tired of you.
[ S l ee p ]
I've already been sleeping too much these days.
The universe is still hungry. Kim Dokja doesn't need to eat these days, but he feels it too. The need to be.
Am I dying?
[ Thi s is a s an c tu ary f o r the Mos t An cie nt D re am. T he re is no co n cep t of 'd ea th' her e. ]
What about when I leave?
[ L ea ve ? ]
Yes.
Oh, right.
[ Eternity. ]
Hm, it's not as cool as it first sounded. It was very poetic and meaningful at first, but now it just seems like a real chore. Someone as immature and selfish as him isn't fit for all of that.
[ K im D ok j a ]
Kim Dokja stares out of the window, at the lights of distant worldlines that aren't so distant after all. The endless abyss of the universes, formless shapes that expand every moment. How do they grow bigger than they already are, if they're supposed to contain all of existence? What new space are they filling? Intrinsic expansion. It takes up more of... itself? Damnit, Kim Dokja really should have tried harder in school.
A person that was born unlucky, lived pitifully, and should have died long ago. All stories end.
[ Ki m Dok ja ]
Yes, even this one.
At some point.
Hopefully, it was a good story. Again, he's not a really creative person. Imaginative, maybe, but untalented all the same. The same mind that gave birth to everything he can see, is unable to put it into words. He doesn't have Han Sooyoung's ability, Yoo Joonghyuk's charm.
He's tried.
It's cold here.
Cold and lonely.
[ K i m D ok ja ]
...he's scared.
He wishes he could end with something better, more profound.
But the truth is, I am really, really scared.
[ K im Dok ja ]
Alright, alright. I suppose I've dragged it out as far as I can.
[ You are now the ‘Most Ancient Dream.’ ]