Chapter Text
Kim Rok Soo remembered many things.
Some more significant than others. Some way less.
He remembered coming home to an empty house where he did all the chores by himself, cleaning what little belongings he had whenever they started to become disarrayed and out of place. He remembered preheating frozen packaged food that came in cheap carton boxes. He remembered setting a table with a lonely plate, with a single chair out of three being pulled out to use.
He remembered working several jobs, too: dealing with customers at the counter of the convenience store around the corner, restocking shelves at the local grocery store, helping out at the run-down gas station an hour away, or walking the feral doberman of his elderly neighbour even in the worst of weather. He also remembered washing dishes in a restaurant, the circular motion of his gloved hands, the constant scrubbing he did with a worn, thinning sponge.
Kim Rok Soo also remembered an explosion, the ceiling collapsing, customers and coworkers lying dead around him after the debris started flying. He remembered being stuck in the backroom, the bricks and stone forcing him to curl into himself in his corner, the screams and yells resonating from the outside.
He remembered three days of waiting.
Drinking the rainwater that fell.
A voice speaking to him from behind the wall.
A chocolate bar sliding through a hole and a hand reaching to pull him up.
He remembered entering a company a few years later, one that worked him to the bone when all he really wanted was the hefty retirement pension.
He remembered meeting two punks who were adamant in foiling his plans of leading a slacker's life, claiming that they’ll drag him straight to the countryside after they retired.
"—We'll become farmers together!" they cackled and said, telling him about how they planned on putting him to work even once released from the company.
"In your dreams," he remembered scoffing in response, shrugging himself out of their affectionately tight chokehold, yet never did he actually express firm opposition to spending the rest of his life with them by his side.
Kim Rok Soo remembered most of his life, and what led to it.
He remembered the events that flew by, the instances that lead to his now: picking up a flimsy metal board to serve as temporary defensive equipment, dashing from his spot in the rear to head towards the vanguard, passing the numerous dead bodies of the sunbaes he had grown close with over the years. He remembered ignoring the firm orders the team leader had given him with flaming eyes, authority laced in his voices to "STAY STILL!!! Rok Soo, don't you dare come near—!!" and all the little actions in between that accumulated to him jumping right in front of that damn punk, Choi Jung Soo.
What a bastard that guy was, blanking out while they were in the midst of danger.
What a foolish piece of shit, for making Kim Rok Soo leave his post just to go save his ass when it should really be the opposite.
“—OK SOO!!”
… Ah.
That's right.
Kim Rok Soo remembered.
He remembered slowly sighing through his nose, careful not to disturb any of his wounds. He remembered lying very still, so still, he might as well be akin to a person fast asleep. A thought in the passing had made itself known to him at that moment, and Kim Rok Soo laughed bitterly at the number of times he would’ve liked to just “remain still” in the past.
“Stop laughing, seriously—!” Choi Jung Soo’s usually energetic voice was shaking that day. From where he laid on the ground, Kim Rok Soo was unable to properly see his only friend’s face, and he couldn’t help but think that might've been for the better. “What are you even laughing for?!”
Kim Rok Soo also remembered being unable to even shrug. His limbs were in too much pain for that, too numb, too heavy.
“... This…” he managed to wheeze out through a punched breath, “This is different than what I… imagined sitting still would be like...”
His vision blurred for a second, his entire body suddenly feeling both hot and cold. He remembered disliking the sensation—would prefer rolling in dogshit than that, would prefer anything else, really.
“Kim Rok Soo, I swear— Stop talking!! Shut up for a second, honestly, you—!”
“Hah! No, I don’t.. I don't think.. I can.”
He remembered seeing his team leader run to where he and Jung Soo were, leaving his post when he should've known better—so driven by his emotions, their team leader was that day. It was unlike him to be so distracted by something so minor and insignificant when there was a huge issue to deal with right in front of him.
He wished the man continued fighting, yelling precise orders and confidently swinging his blade, a hurricane of power that none was able to reach the toes of. He wished such a person remained unaware of his fallen state so that Kim Rok Soo wouldn't have to see the look on his face when he did the very opposite.
The man’s dirty boots had appeared right in the corner of his eye, and Kim Rok Soo remembered how annoyed he felt at the sight of a person as strong as Lee Soo Hyuk displaying such a devastated look on his expression.
He remembered hating how he couldn't avoid looking the man in the eye, how natural it felt to be drawn to it. That stare known to be so strong, so confident— which in reality was so exhausted it would mean being blind to not notice how heavily responsibility weighed upon his shoulders, and how the man continued to bear it all with the most reliable back he's ever acknowledged and had the honour of following.
At some point, Kim Rok Soo's vision had started to swirl, rendering his sight almost useless. Feeling his time being pressed and squeezed, he opted to open his mouth, throat unfairly rough and coarse.
“... That... that damn monster’s fighting pattern—" he managed to cough out in a stuttering breath. "I’ll tell you everything now, so- so listen well—”
He might’ve heard them talk over him, clenched teeth and sharp whispers trying to cut him off. But he couldn’t quite recall what occurred during that—he had to relay all the analysis he had managed to procure, after all, he didn’t have the time or energy to focus on anything besides it.
But what was it that he told them again, once he was done?
He was sure he said something.
And what did they say, once he was done?
..... He didn't want to remember.
He’d rather not.
His breathing had become laboured at some point, lungs pressing to accept whatever it could to keep his words flowing. But what he felt the worst out of all the pain his body had been feeling at the time was an unusually heavy pang in his chest—an uncontrollable surge of emotion that racked through his entire body once he caught glimpse of the fading sight of a shaky grin, so brittle it was almost an insult to the charismatic and confident smiles its owner was known for.
“—leave it to us, Kim Rok Soo, I know, it’s okay, just… just leave it to us, okay? You can slack off, you can take a rest for now—"
Choi Jung Soo had gone off and started blabbering. The sight of tears and a forced grin so foolish and miserable was one his records refused to omit, no matter how hard he wanted to scratch at it to corrupt and lose the memory.
"Rok Soo, you don't have to worry about us," Lee Soo Hyuk's large, scarred hands hovered shakingly near his head as if intending to touch his hair. And when he finally did, the warmth that it held was unsurprising—blazing like the sun, comfortable enough for him to fall asleep to, a beacon of light he would follow like a moth to a flame. "We’ll- We'll be okay. So just take it easy now, save your strength, alright?"
"That's right," Jung Soo's voice failed to suppress a sob. He recovered as quickly as he could, however, forcing his lips up back into a smile, despite his brows knitting together so hard it rendered all his efforts useless. "You can tell us after when you're all better, yah? So shut up, seriously, or else I... or else, I'll—”
… Annoying.
So annoying.
Why were they telling him to take a rest now?
He hadn’t even finished his report.
He still had so much to say.
The one time he’s wanted to work this hard in his entire life… and he couldn’t even lift a finger or speak a single word.
"Fuck," a strangled sob left his best friend's throat. "Fuck, I take it back. Rok Soo. Rok Soo, don't shut up, you're not allowed to. Keep talking to me you punk, you stupid, stupid, fuckin'— "
Kim Rok Soo blinked, his eyes feeling oddly hot and wet. It was getting harder to see now, with numerous black and white speckles littering the corners of his vision.
"ROK SOO!!"
He snapped out of his daze.
Talk, huh.
His mind wired slowly, like a broken record running on the last grains of its battery.
He opened his mouth, muttering out a few words, his lungs feeling uncomfortably tight and small.
"..... th… data…"
He heard a wet laugh beside him, sharp and sudden, mixed in with a gasp that sounded almost exasperated—hysterical.
"Kim Rok Soo, really, you always—! Fuck, you always work so hard, you know…!"
A few more screams were heard ahead. He couldn't see them, but Kim Rok Soo was sure there were still a few of his sunbaes left out there fighting.
"Rok Soo—" the voice of his team leader came. "Rok Soo-ya we gotta go now, alright? Take it easy, rest for a bit, okay?"
Damn it.
Damn it all.
"—leave the rest to us, Rok Soo. We'll be back soon, just… leave it to us, don't worry."
It had been strangely lonely, to be laying there so still while the faces of those he grew to care for quite dearly were twisted in so much agony, it could've fooled anyone into thinking they were the ones in pain.
Everyone that remained seemed to be fighting against that damn monster with all they had left to spare, none of them rushing over to where Kim Rok Soo was like fools that didn’t know better. He knew they'd bring with them the most annoying of expressions and he had no desire in the slightest to want to see them.
Kim Rok Soo remembered managing to turn his head to the side, watching Lee Soo Hyuk’s sword slash deep into both earth and flesh, and Choi Jung Soo’s white yong dragon curling viciously in the air.
With a breathless sigh, he remembered recording the scene to the best he could with his blurring vision, immortalizing the vision of these two vessels of raw strength and despaired power, ignoring the blood dripping from his nose and the intense pain blaring through his head at each ticking second.
He remembered not wanting to close his eyes.
He remembered not wanting to forget.
There were many things he wanted to forget, actually, but this— they weren't one of them.
But then the lids of his eyes began feeling heavy beyond his control, his vision warping so drastically the universe as a whole seemed to be shifting around.
He had to remember. He couldn't forget this.
The two swords.
A white miru.
The glint of swords.
Darkness.
And…
...
… and then it was quiet.
Unusually so.
He couldn't remember anything regarding how much time had passed since he was last conscious. But it didn't take long after he regained it that Kim Rok Soo noticed a significant lack of yelling around him.
… Was it done? Did they manage to defeat the monster, even when he didn't finish explaining everything? Did they manage to figure it out on their own, even without the rest of what Kim Rok Soo had gathered on their unexpected opponent?
If so, he was glad.
That meant they could continue without him. It might be inconvenient, but not impossible. Others would rise in the position he left, the company would recover, and the guilds would continue running regardless. Society wasn't built upon the existence of one small man, after all, and his missing brick in the wall could so easily be filled with plaster.
… Briefly, as his mind wandered, he wondered if those two punks would get to retire one day and start farming together like they so often dreamt and joked about doing. They'd spend the rest of their lives pulling weeds and plowing land, figuring out how farms actually were like and realizing that it would be much more work than they had ever anticipated and drunkenly discussed on their day-offs.
The thought was enough for him to let out a small huff. Not a laugh, not exactly—it was hard to find his humour in the predicament he was in, after all—but something similar, perhaps.
Opening his eyes with more strain than he last remembered it required, he found himself staring up into a vast sky, grey and cloudy without a single hint of colour.
Suddenly all alone, Kim Rok Soo couldn't remember coming to a forest. The afterlife was something he never thought of any deeper than he needed to, but he was sure it didn't look like this.
… The silence was stifling.
It made him think he was going crazy. There was something similar to the flipping of pages sounding in his head, much similar to a ringing in his ear, and he had to take a pause to try and collect himself. But the shuffling of paper was soon replaced with the sound of naturally rustling leaves, however, and Kim Rok Soo soon became fully aware of the eyes that seemed to appraise him from a distance, circling him while staying hidden. His breathing had stopped for a while, subconsciously wanting to avoid making any more noise than he already was, with his senses on their highest alert.
And then a loud, inhuman shriek filled his ears and Kim Rok Soo didn’t even have time to freeze up before he had to force himself to his feet and run away.
The loud beating of his heart matched the rhythm of the turning pages in his ear, loud and overwhelming—but he was pressed for time with monsters licking at his heels and had no time to quite question it.
So he ran.
He ran like his life depended on it, just like it had for the past twenty years since his parents' passing in the car accident—since he left the orphanage, since he was pulled from the destroyed restaurant.
Running wasn’t something foreign to him. He had been running for most of his life.
And Kim Rok Soo ended up running for hours that day—or perhaps it was only a few minutes. He couldn’t quite tell.
But not once did he dare look back, not even to analyze whatever monster was following his tail in hopes of perceiving their patterns of attack, of familiarizing himself with them enough to know where to hit—because while Kim Rok Soo could easily do so if given time, he had no way of being able to safely observe anything from a distance in his current state.
There was no one here to distract that monster for him, no one to draw its attention away and allow Kim Rok Soo to scrutinize it to his heart’s desire.
There was no one here to help him out and have his back.
Even as he sat for hours in the hollow trunk of a tree whose roots had half been torn from the earth, found perchance when he stumbled and fell in, Kim Rok Soo was still alone.
… There probably won’t be anyone coming for him this time—the thought had fleetingly crossed his mind.
There was only one Lee Soo Hyuk in the world and he didn't seem to be anywhere in the vicinity. Where he felt warm from wherever that man was, Kim Rok Soo was now cold—and it dawned on him that there would be no more candy bar being slid towards him through the gap of a fallen building's debris, no more hand reaching to pull him from the uncertainty that came with hiding away from a situation he was clueless about, curled away underneath rubble.
There would be no more saviour basking him in light as they paved a way to set him free, with strength so admirable it inspired hope.
Calming his breath, body weary from the extreme stress it had gone through in such a packed amount of time, it was as his eyes dropped and fogged with sleep that Kim Rok Soo wondered if the world could be kind enough to allow for miracles to be repeated more than once, and send him a person even half of who Lee Soo Hyuk was.
flip.
flip.
…
Kim Rok Soo's ears faintly twitched, and he soon tiredly opened his eyes.
… No one was there.
Funny. He swore he heard something, right next to his ear, but upon raising his head just the slightest bit so that he could peer up from the hole he was currently hiding in, Kim Rok Soo saw no trace of life other than his own messy tracks.
He hadn't a clue where he was. A forest wasn't a notable, remarkable landmark with its dense vegetation and repetitive scenery, and the presence of monsters, even less. For the past few years he had been living in an apocalypse—so why should this be any different?
But Kim Rok Soo knew exactly just how large the difference was, and he felt it in the way the spaces beside him felt empty and cold, as well as in the way he was reluctant to crawl out from where he was hiding—a temporary haven of safety much like the central stations that had been present in the past before they had all gone to hell—fully aware that there was nothing kind that would greet him there upon exiting.
… just a little longer, he told himself, his hands trembling faintly as he gripped at the knees he pulled to his chest.
I'll wait a little longer.
The following days had gone by without any sign of such a person arriving any time soon.
Starving and still injured in many places, he couldn’t help but crave for a single chocolate bar like that one distant dream of a day, no matter how crappy and cheap it had tasted.
In a moment of curious desperation, he contented himself with eating the mangled looking fruit of the tree above him that had managed to fall into his hole. He retched most of it not too long after, however—soon learning that not all of nature was consumable, and the ones of this forest even less, especially if they were old and gnarly, rotting on the ground.
And so, as he had done many years ago, Kim Rok Soo survived off of the rainwater that fell perchance into the ditch he was curled up in, muddy more often than not from where it hit the ground, but Kim Rok Soo knew better than to complain.
One drop.
Two drops.
Three...
He counted the rainwater that slowly trinkled down to his feet.
… He'll wait just a little longer.
It was on another day that Kim Rok Soo discovered that the more powerful and sensitive monsters could easily sniff him out from wherever he hid. With his dried blood, sweat, vomit and putrid human smell, he could somewhat understand, actually. That was how the half-torn tree he was hiding under at the base was finally torn down, a large mutated beast having slammed it’s entire side onto the trunk to try and pull him out.
Kim Rok Soo took out his gun in a moment of desperation, pulling on the trigger he had been hooking his finger around without separation for the past few days, and finally fired the first of his remaining cartridges.
Exhaling in sharp relief when the monster dropped dead to the ground after only a single fire, Kim Rok Soo pounded his fist against his numb legs and pushed himself away from the unrooted tree, steadying his posture and collecting his nerves, mostly to no avail.
Looking down at the monster—an odd hybrid of… hybrid animal and hybrid monster—Kim Rok Soo evened out his breath and with as little hesitation as he could manage, he took out a knife from the strap around his waist and got to work, slicing whatever chunks of fat he deemed might be edible.
He didn't risk taking out his lighter for this task, however. There was a limit to its use, and the smoke of fire would attract unnecessary attention, and Kim Rok Soo didn't need any more of it than he already gathered—not when he was this weak, this easy to kill should he be targeted.
Raw monster meat was terrible, he soon found out. It was bloody and felt like eating a rubber ball of slime, but staying alive was best, and Kim Rok Soo would do anything to make sure he didn't die.
But he couldn't force himself to take more than that one tentative bite, however, before he gagged and retched so violently he swore his entire body convulsed and shrivelled up.
—wait. He'll wait just… a little…
.....
Kim Rok Soo gritted his teeth.
He felt sick with every step he took.
Everything he ate was disgusting and hunting—or at least, attempting to—was even worse. It crossed his mind that eating raw animal meat was highly advised against, and wondered why he ever thought the opposite could be applied to those of a monster. But starvation was a force to be reckoned with, however, and his mind was not exactly the best place to be carefully processing his thoughts and actions at the moment.
Not to mention, the pain in a large majority of his limbs was amongst many of the things that occupied the frontmost of his mind. His wounds from the fight in Korea still hadn't even properly healed yet, despite wondrously having woken up less mortally injured than he formerly was—but for the rest that remained, Kim Rok Soo remembered reading a bunch of useless survival stuff that were shoved into his arms by the Team Leader and Choi Jung Soo, claiming that since he was so lazy, he'd never be able to survive in a forest should he get thrown into one without warning.
"As if that would ever happen," a younger Kim Rok Soo had scoffed back then while looking down at the manuals in his hands, peeved at what they've given him and the implications behind them.
But it was as he dressed his wounds with shaking hands, memories of books on the basics of first aid and others detailing medicinal plants and how they were used did Kim Rok Soo finally agree with them.
It seemed to be a reoccurring thing, for Lee Soo Hyuk and Choi Jung Soo to be the reasons why he hadn't died off any earlier than he should've. And at the same time, it was protecting them that probably led him here in the first place.
The irony made Kim Rok Soo laugh. But that laughter didn't last long because the sun was about to set, and he was already beginning to hear the worst of the monsters rouse up for yet another round of sleepless nights.
flip.
flip.
flip.
(The flipping resumed in his ear at night. He wasn't unsure if he was dreaming or if he was awake, hallucinating sensations to feed his deprived brain.
It was eerie.
Strange.
Also somewhat... comforting.
It felt as if someone was trying to read him a story that he couldn't quite hear.)
Kim Rok Soo gradually learnt that hiding inside monster corpses allowed him the opportunity to somewhat peacefully pass some nights away.
It was mucky inside of those carcasses, half-decomposed instead of fresh, because the more recent ones were actively targeted for easy meals, and it stunk so badly he wanted to gag—but the words of his team leader sung like never-ending loops of mantras in his head, and Kim Rok Soo allowed himself to slide between rib cages and slot himself amongst rotting flesh, closing his eyes to not-quite-sleep the night away.
If this were a novel, Kim Rok Soo wondered if these types of absurd scenarios meant that he could be considered a protagonist. But the struggles of a protagonist were something Kim Rok Soo never envisioned or wanted to experience, never once thinking of himself as strong enough to survive such an arduous path. He never wanted to be one anyway, and had already acknowledged that concrete fact since long ago because a main character had to have the strength to fight against the world and Kim Rok Soo had given up so far back, knowing that he'd never have what it'd take to do the same.
He pitied those heroes who were fated to fall into worlds so different than their own, expected to become individuals who could cut skies and split oceans apart, who would suffer and suffer and suffer, achieve greatness, and win and lose and conquer and concede at the same time.
If this world were to have a hero, Kim Rok Soo wished such a person hadn't arrived yet. Although he believed in no god or deity, he prayed they were still sitting in class, or at their office desk, or at home having the most boring, mundane days of their lives.
And the pity he felt for the fictional characters that still managed to follow righteous, ethical paths despite the seed of initial despair after going through sorrow after sorrow by their gods and authors, only continued to grow the more time he spent in this forest.
Kim Rok Soo didn't think the suffering was worth it. Why did a hero have to go through so much, just to end up leaping towards grander journeys and be thrown into even more hardships? Living alone and peacefully was so much better—so much easier, so much more worth it. Why pursue greater fates, why seek out glory, love, recognition or acknowledgement when you could have peace? A bubble of your own, separated from the rest of the world, where no one would ever come to bother you with quests and trouble, no one to come and bring you harm or annoyances or minor cannon fodder villains.
Questions brewed in his head—the only voices and closest thing to conversations he could hold in this forest—and that was how Kim Rok Soo passed the time when he couldn't afford falling asleep.
And through the gap left through the most recent hole he dug himself to hide in, he soon noticed that the sun began to rise in the distance, and Kim Rok Soo had yet to catch a single wink of rest. The monster circling him had long gone silent, but Kim Rok Soo didn't dare step out to confirm if it had really left him alone or not.
Distantly, he wished he was back at his office desk, reading novels and being nagged at to get off his ass by two punks to do some work.
But as his ears tingled from nothing other than the faint breeze brushing past him, he heard nothing of those nagging voices he wished to hear so dearly.
Instead, there was only his own silence and the ambiance of the world around him—proof that it was real, when he wished it was not.